Table
Of Contents
On
the spiritual path
From
the editor
Through
prayer and meditation
Recovery
without God
Terima
kasih banyak banyak Bahasa Melayu for “Thank you very, very
much”
Am
I a human being having a spiritual experience or a
spiritual
being having a
human
experience?
Seeking
understanding
Finding
the spirit in spirituality
Creative
action
A
brief history of
“God”
in Narcotics Anonymous
Toward
a more spiritual service
Editorial
reply
It’s
a matter of life and death Serious about service
Our
readers write
World
Unity Day Telephone Link |
Just as I have developed
a relationship with a God of my understanding in NA, I have also developed
a spirituality of my understanding. I will share some of it with
you, hoping that it may inspire you to nurture your own spirituality in
new ways.
My mother’s sudden death
in April 1998 has forced me to pay greater attention than ever before to
my spiritual condition. I have experienced unprecedented loneliness
and uncertainty. I’ve had to rely more on the love of my family and
friends; my ongoing recovery is due in no small part to their prayerful
support.
However, some of the grief
and loss I have to walk through alone. When support from outside
can’t help, I have to nurture what is valuable inside me. To help
build that inside support, I have found a new spiritual tool: creative
personal ritual—simple, spontaneous actions that symbolize larger realities.
For example, on one of my
beach trips I wrote a letter to my mother while burning a candle I had
retrieved from her home. I told her how much I missed her and how
she’d love this particular beach. I expressed my fear of facing the
future without her. After prayer and reflection, I extinguished the
candle, placed it in a clear plastic bag and buried it by the sea, along
with a note suggesting that whoever found the candle should re-light it
in memory of a lost loved one.
I have no idea if anyone
found my candle and followed my lead. All that matters is that the
ritual somehow connected me to a universal experience of loss. My
solitary act helped me feel less alone.
I’m not advocating that all
NA members pack candles and paper and head for the beach. Nor do
I wish to imply that I’ve found a better way to live than the NA way.
My personal rituals are simply tools I use to cope with loss.
A phrase from the Basic Text
came to mind as I wrote this article: “a creative action of the spirit,”
which refers to sharing with others in hard times. Even though my
rituals are uniquely fitted to my personality, my spirituality can only
survive in an atmosphere of recovery. My sponsor and my NA friends
give me the strength to be alone with my grief, just as the NA slogans
give me strength to stay clean outside of meetings.
Earlier I said that I had
developed a relationship with God. Surely I wrote it backwards: God
has developed a relationship with me. That realization demonstrates
a principle that unites the spirituality of all who seek recovery: humility.
May that be one of the many gifts our Higher Power bestows on our restless
spirits.
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