god is everything or god is nothing
A petite, dough-eyed, feisty young woman who has done every drug under the sun started the meeting with a remembrance of being nineteen. With her fake ID in hand, the slight breeze from the swing of the door welcomed “Alex” into liquor store. As Alex waited behind the counter, the spirits of the bottom shelf vodka pulsed through her veins before she popped off the cap for consumption.
We get high off the anticipation of getting high. The comedown starts with the first sip.
“Just holding the bottle behind the register instilled a peace of calm. And today, I find myself opening up the wrong door for a showing because I’m cramming real estate with being a full-time student with the gym with dating with working this program.” Alex shared to a room of fifty recovering alcoholics.
Funny how big and busy life gets when we’re no longer bound by the spell of substances.
“If I could just slow down, stay present and let god in, I wouldn’t react so impulsively to everything. There’s a word in Russian, just one word, that means the absence of god. Not in like, an demoralizing way, but in an unsettling way. And that’s how my week has been. I’ve been ignoring god. But that’s why I show up today. To see god everywhere and in everything I do.” concluded Alex.
We start the round robin and the first woman speaks of a memorial service she attended for a fellow who jumped out a window over the holidays. The church was packed with people who were sober, California sober, and still imbibing. She mentioned how much god was in that room and how much the deceased will be remembered as a kind, compassionate man and that when she dies, she can leave behind her kindness, too. Because that’s all that really matters in this moment. Kindness. To provide a sense of softness to others because we’re all so damn hard on ourselves.
The mic got passed a dozen times before it made it’s way to me, and most people mentioned god and the first few steps where we must put our lives in the care of god and ask god to restore us from our craziness and our selfishness and our unruliness.
Then someone shared about opening phrasing of the eleventh step being paramount for his recovery. “We sought.” We seek god, because so often our woes cloud the appearance or understanding of god. And because of the subtleties of the higher power often go unnoticed, we must actively acknowledge the divine orchestra of god in everyday existence.
The mic got passed a dozen times before I held it in my hands.
“Hey... I’m Jennifer.” I nodded and the room reciprocated.
“I’m an alcoholic and thank you Alex for this topic. I’m hearing a lot of shares about god, and I love thinking about that expression in Russian about the absence of god.
I like what was shared earlier: god is everything or god is nothing. I like how we define god in metaphors because it’s the only way we can conceptualize such an elusive, grand idea; through story.
I’m reading a book right now that spells out god with a capital G, dash, d (G-d). Which made me think of a time I wrote a post spelling G*d with an asterisk for the “o” and someone commented to ask why I did so. I didn’t have an answer, I spelled it in that way because I had seen someone do it before me. There was no intention, only imitation.
But I just wrote a book where I mention god a lot, and I spell it with lowercase letters. Because god is so much more than a proper noun. God is everything or god is nothing and god is everywhere so I spelled it in the way we present most everything, like every article and adjective; in lowercase. God can - and maybe once in a lifetime will - but doesn’t always smack you in the face like seeing a capitalized letter of a proper noun, or like noticing a dash or an asterisk in the middle of a word. God is often very subtle. God just is.
I also liked how you described yourself at nineteen, feeling the buzz in the liquor store before you opened up the bottle. That’s exactly how everyone of my highs began. Before that first sip. Before the joint hit my lips. Anticipating the feeling felt better than the dread of knowing I’ve done it again, gone and gotten high, finding myself under the influence when I was so desperate to change.
These days, I’ve been visualizing like a mad man. Every morning, before bed and during my free time, I’ve been doing quantum leap meditations in which I generate the feeling of walking into a publishing house, shaking someone’s hand and signing a big fat check for my book deal. I imagine being behind stage for Good Morning America, excited to go on national television to promote my memoir. All the gurus say that we must tap into the feeling before the manifestation happens, so that when it happens, it won’t be this big shock because your subconscious has been experiencing the moments and the feelings so many times before in our minds…
Today is Friday, and I’m already giddy knowing I’ll pick up my paycheck. It won’t be a big paycheck, but it’s a feeling similar to anticipating buying a joint. And even when I have the paycheck, it will take a few days for the money to hit my account and that feeling of seeing the money in my account isn’t as thrilling as seeing the number on the check. It’s all in the anticipation.
But when we die, we don’t take our money with us. We don’t die with the bottle or the weed or the clothes or the homes. But like someone mentioned before, we can die leaving behind our kindness. And I know I can die with dignity if today’s my last day because I died sober. For today, I am sober and I pray that I’ll go to bed sober and that tomorrow I’ll be a sober, content, peaceful person.
Anyways. This has been such a good topic and I hope everyone has a great Friday.”
A unanimous “Thank you Jennifer,” filled the room and I passed the mic to a twenty-year-old girl who’s been feeling like she’s been having mini spiritual awakenings.
And that’s the thing about god or G-d or G*d or the universe or awakenings. Is that it’s all so much more subtle than a bolt of lightning striking us in the head. Because god is everything or god is nothing. God is everywhere or nowhere at all.
And as someone shared, there’s a lot less to lose if we believe that something greater than ourselves exists, so we might as well give in to the idea that a higher power is running the show. Most importantly, it’s a relief to remind ourselves that we aren’t running the show. So for today, I’m deciding to simply sit back and watch.
- Jennifer Marie Martin