Higher Power

At the request of a friend of mine I will elaborate here on a line of thought which I have been pursuing for the last few weeks. It all started with a contemplation of the third step (never investigated the twelve steps? Congratulations, you're still in the gilded era of your addiction or you were born healthy), which says, "Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the power of God as we understand it."

I've always had a problem with this step. I could never take it seriously. Oh, I would say the prayers but I didn't like them much, and no matter how long I "acted as if" my experience with my higher power just didn't seem to improve. I was still going it alone. After eight years I began to hear those recovery-blues whispers: "Is this all there is?"

A few years go I was in a meeting when a strange-looking fellow walked in. He had a red fleshy face, an unkempt mustache, and unruly hair which he slicked across his head. Dandruff lay across his shoulders like fresh snow and the buttons of his shirt strained against his expanding belly. He was always tugging at something: his nose, ears, shirt tail, mustache, blue jeans. He was one of those rare birds who appear unexpectedly in your meetings and who leave without warning: a mad scientist of recovery. When he spoke I experienced a sense of freedom and exhilaration which I'd come to associate with great works of art or spiritual truth. He told me to read Joe Klass's "Twelve Steps to Happiness." I did. Then he disappeared.

So now as I considered my situation I remembered Joe Klass's advice to always look closely at steps which are not working as designed. I thought about the second half of the third step: "as we understand..." and I remembered the conversation between Bill W. and Ebby in the kitchen. This is one of the canonical episodes of recovery literature. Ebby tells Bill to choose his own conception of God.

I really thought about this. I really considered it from all angles and decided maybe, just maybe, this was worth investigating. I was tired of serving an agenda-driven higher power. I didn't want to pray any more to a god who had some master plan into which I must fit. I am selfish. I want to be happy and get what I want. And the Gods to which I have prayed aren't very helpful. The more I thought about it the more I realized that my conception of God encompassed (and elicited) emotions like fear, loss, loneliness and despair.

I became convinced that I was not praying to God at all. As matter of fact, when considered dispassionately, I was praying to the devil, Satan, whatever you want to call it. I was praying to an unintelligent, disdainful, agenda-driven, penurious, punitive deity and asking it (soul a-tremble with fear and foreboding) to have its way in my life.

So I decided to create my own God. It was fairly easy. I just listed 10 characteristics of this deity in no particular order. I review these characteristics before I say my third step prayer. Things are much easier now. As a matter of fact the higher power defined below is in direct opposition to the one I used to have (and the one which unfortunately is hardwired into my brain, necessitating a review of these characteristics each time I pray). So with out further rambling, here are 10 characteristics of my higher power (whom I choose not to call anything).


1. Intelligent -- the smartest guy on the block. Reads the New Yorker, the New England Journal of Medicine, and Science Magazine cover-to-cover on Sunday afternoons while the neighboring gods grind away on their heavenly lawns. He can read Proust in the original and has read and understood all Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake. You get the idea.

2. Wants me to live authentically, to be my true self and would rather I err on the side of directness and authenticity.

3. Provides me with talents for my enjoyment and thinks I am already pretty special. Wants me to use my talents fearlessly and joyfully.

4. Doesn't want me to think too hard about solutions. Is at work on solutions and will reveal them in his time for me to admire, like a chess master.

5. Loves me dearly, which really means that everything I do delights him and amuses him to some degree. When he goes to hang out with the other deities he takes a picture of me in his wallet and bores them all with it. And after the picture has made the rounds, he props it against the water carafe and glances at it while he's eating.

6. He will solve any problem that I bring him. No questions asked.

7. He loves my writing.

8. Doesn't mind a bit of a mess, and when he feels hemmed in by his books and papers he bids them alight and fly back to their perches on his shelves.

9. Has never hurt anyone, not even people who deserve it.

10. Rewards me richly just for being me.