Monday Prompt

The Presence of Spirit Came when I Needed Her the Most

And continues to bless me, especially when I pray.

I could say I’ve felt most connected to my spiritual side when I’ve gone off to a spiritual retreat. After all, I’ve been on plenty.

When I was a Unitarian, we’d go to the Santa Cruz mountains every Memorial Day weekend and worship among the giant redwoods.

We had quilting bees where we traced around our hands and embroidered encouragement between the fingers. These helping hands quilts would be given to sick parishioners to wrap them in our love.

My first experience with improv was there, as well as raucous intergenerational games of spoons.

Surely Spirit was there, too, in a palpable way.

Yes, I felt Her presence and regaled in the close connections, the good vibes, and the laughter. Lila and Rinda had just had a premie baby who got passed from hand to hand to hand. We were family in multiple ways.

But my closest connections did not happen when these good times rolled.

They happened in some of my most desperate moments.

I’ve already shared the story of making amends to my former husband for lying and cheating on him. How my hands were shaking, and I expected to be interrogated or berated — and rightfully so.

When instead, he showed me a picture of himself as a child, describing his healing work in a men’s group, I felt kissed by the grace of God. The blessing unearned, undeserved, is all the more cherished.

My experience made it clear — this stuff works. It’s real. There’s a Higher Power alive and well, at work and at play in our lives.

But that wasn’t the first or only time.

When I first landed in recovery, I didn’t have a connection to God, Spirit, or Whatever-You-Want-to-Call-It/Her/Him. Or even a name for This. I latched onto the term Higher Power because it was neutral and didn’t try to shove God, Jesus, or Krishna down my throat.

In fact, in my twelve-step program, Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, steps two and three are invitations to explore. Yes, it says we came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. But it’s not a requirement. If it was, many of us would have quit before our miracles.

Instead, it simply states a truth.

As we hung out with recovering people, tested these ideas for ourselves, and got results, the spiritual stuff grew on and in us. In spite of the fact that many of us were abused in the churches of our childhoods.

When a prayer was answered, my faith grew stronger.

One way I weaned myself off of going out to salsa clubs where I rendez-vous’d with guys was to say home and fantasize about them. It felt like an improvement. At least I wasn’t having impersonal, unprotected sex. Or treating men like my personal play toys.

But, like switching from booze to beer, it was still an addictive sexual behavior for me. If I was to fully recover, I would have to add it to my list of personal bottom-line behaviors.

Damn it!

I didn’t want to do that. Wasn’t it enough to stay home when I so wanted to dance and flirt with Ramiro? Besides, I wasn’t having sex with him. Wasn’t staying home alone and enjoying his visage in my reveries a reward for good behavior?

Sounds reasonable, right?

That’s not how my sponsor saw it. And she had the recovery I wanted. For me to get it, I had to strip away that next layer of the onion of my addiction and go cold turkey on the fantasy.

Ouch!

I could not do it alone. I certainly could call my sponsor when the pain of abstaining got to be too much. But given my late nights with this, that wasn’t always practical.

Using Prayer and Ritual to Stay Abstinent

While my sponsors needed to sleep, HIgher Power was on duty for me 24/7/365. I made myself a God Box — like a God Can — so named because while we can’t always stay sober on our own, God can (help us).

I made a deal with myself. When I caught myself starting to fantasize, I would grab a pad of stationery decorated with rainbows, a spiritual saying in the lower-left corner.

I wrote my prayers out on this pretty paper. I would write as long as I took to feel something shift in me.

Sooner or later, my attention shifted from the “candy” I wanted to finding the right words to capture the pain of withdrawal. Sooner or later, the wordsmithing and the concepts I wrote about took over, and the compulsion lightened.

Then I’d carefully fold the letter and put it in my God box. Sometimes I’d light a candle and read something inspirational.

Inspirational reading was part of my connection.

Starting with the “Twelve and Twelve” books about working the steps. Each program has its own, modeled on AA’s Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. They explain how to work the steps and traditions replete with examples and stories. It’s like being at a meeting. They’re that powerful.

Eventually, I broadened out to direct spiritual sources like A Course in Miracles and daily devotionals with a Twelve Step focus. I kept them by my bed for close comfort.

I’m holding them as I write this. Dogeared, high-lighted like crazy, and written in like mini journals, they have names like Each Day a New Beginning, Courage to Change (Al-Anon), and Food for Thought (for compulsive overeaters).

These books remind me how fragile my faith was back in the day. And how vital comforting words and rituals still are in helping me connect to an invisible source of strength.

The more we rely on it, the stronger it gets.

Not God, our faith. God didn’t change and was there all along. But I needed to find Her for the connection to be complete.

Powerful feelings of connection flood me as I write these words.

This also happens every time I pray. Especially when I pray out loud. And most especially when I pray with and for another person.

Now that we’re holding church services on Zoom, I miss that. As a Prayer Chaplain, I’m available for one-on-one prayer after service. There’s a special corner set aside for this.

The world floats away, and a sense of being held in luminous light fills me. The person whose hands are clasped in mind feels it, too. Tears well up in our eyes. Tears of surrender and gratitude. Tears of acceptance of the good we’re creating with our words and hearts.

Let the day come soon when we can once again connect with God through hands and hearts, live and in person. Namaste!

As always, thank you, 𝘋𝘪𝘢𝘯𝘢 𝘊.., for these incredible prompts!

Marilyn Flower writes political humor and satire to delight socially and spiritually conscious folks. She’s a regular columnist for the prison newsletter, Freedom Anywhere, where she writes about faith and prayer. Five of her short plays have been produced in San Francisco. Clowning and improvisation strengthen her resolve during these crazy times. Stay in touch!