Full of Glory

“Heaven and earth are full of Your glory.”

Portion of a prayer in the Catholic Mass

In many Christian traditions, we are in Holy Week. This is the week leading up to the Easter celebration of the resurrection of Jesus, the Christ.

In the world of sobriety, every day is a holy week. Sobriety literally lifts the addictive veil, which separated us from the freedom of life filled with glory.

This is truly a feeling of amazing grace. Totally!

What leads you to the celebration of holiness? Is it this Holy Week in the Christian tradition? Is it your individual experience of Spirituality? Is it your ongoing observations of the evidence of a Higher Power in your life? It is these experiences of our individual expressions of Higher Power that call us together as family, community, and universe. We are the fullness of glory.

How does such a thought stir your Spirit?

Personally, I vacillate between total humility and total intimidation.

I am intimidated and easily overwhelmed to think that I have any part in the fullness of God’s glory. However, I AM SOBER. My sobriety, our sobriety, calls us to share our journey with any and all who struggle to find their source of life outside of addiction. The simple fact is that each of us, in the glory of our sobriety, is in fact a testimony to God’s glory. How could we be sober otherwise? How can we sustain our sobriety otherwise?

We each have a role and responsibility in our individual and collective communities. I cannot take your part in my sobriety for granted. I find myself taking you for granted far too often. Fortunately, we are a forgiving community and for this I am humbly grateful. I cannot express my gratitude deeply and often enough.

I find another twist to the statement of prayer noted above: both heaven and earth are full of Your glory. This leads me to believe that the experiences of glory that we share with each other are a bit of evidence that heaven is for real, and that in our limited human form, we have an opportunity to experience a heavenly glimpse. (deep and heavy breath) Whoa!

Our sobriety offers us as a community the opportunity to glimpse, share, and offer a simple heavenly presence to our world. Yes, this is a powerful reality, a huge responsibility, and humble gift.

To those of you who may not be recovering from addiction, you are no less a part of this community. Your glory is of another source and no less significant to us in recovery. We pray that you fully embrace your gifts.

At this moment, my being is resting in this amazing realization. I rest in humility, gratitude and responsibility. You are here with me.

Namaste’