Agnostications, part four (?) in a series

"As you think about the nature of your Higher Power, you might also want to ask whether it's higher at all. Where does the power exist for you? Outside or inside? Neither or both? Perhaps you believe in a Power inside you that is greater than your 'ego' self, the self that represents your outer identity but is really only one part of you. Your deep, inner Self is the self that is greater than who you seem to be on the surface."

--Stephanie Covington, A Woman's Way through the Twelve Steps


This quotation encapsulates my progress thus far on Step Two ("Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity"). A couple of folks posited a concept similar to the above in correspondence during the past couple weeks, and when I read this passage last week I felt a sense of recognition. I think I can embrace the idea that some part of every person's being is that person's Higher Self, so to speak. You could call it a reflection of the divine--or not; either way, it's the quiet voice inside that tells the truth. The part that feels the most real, the part that addiction obscures and recovery can bring back into light. We can connect with it and be guided by it.

AA's literature is replete with references to an external god who is the one and only force able to grant us relief from the urge to drink, remove our character defects, and save us from relapse--a god without whom we're almost certainly destined to slip. To me such references clearly contradict the oft-repeated mantra of "God as we understood Him [sic]" (as does the mantra itself, hee). But I'm in a very small minority. Most people--at least, most of those who talk about it--view these traits as endemic to a Higher Power. And most AA members refer to their Higher Power as a masculine entity as well.

While I respect everybody's right to make up their own mind about these matters, I abhor sheeplike behavior. And there's a fair amount of bleating in AA at times. As beloved and vital as the program is to my recovery, this didacticism about the nature of god, particularly disguised as it is as a seeming openness about that nature, pisses me off to no end. In several places the literature encourages the skeptic to "resign from the debating society" and surrender to the inevitable truth of what is essentially the Judeo-Christian model of the divine. Gotta love that: God gave me a brain with which to reason, so I should therefore quit reasoning and get my ass the barn along with everyone else, huh?

I'm sorry, but I just don't think god has a penis. I just don't. Nothing against the penis; I'm talking about simple common sense here. I wouldn't buy into divine tits either, see? What an egocentric species we humans are, imagining god looks like we do. And that's the least of it. God does not determine the outcome of football games or even presidential elections. My sobriety is not part of "God's plan for me." Ain't no such plan, friends. What I do with my life is on me.

My grousing (as opposed to bleating) notwithstanding, the program clearly does leave the door cracked open for the stubborn among us. Maybe I've found a way to squeeze through with this idea of the inner self. I'm trying to incorporate it into my morning meditation time and to ponder the various theological questions it inspires. I expect I'll be back to agnosticate further very soon.