God, as We Understand God

So, practicing these steps, we had a spiritual awakening about which finally there was no question. Looking at those who were only beginning and still doubted themselves, the rest of us were able to see the change setting in. From great numbers of such experiences, we could predict that the doubter who still claimed that he hadn’t got the “spiritual angle,” who still considered his well-loved A.A. group the higher power, would presently love God and call Him by name.

TWELVE STEPS

AND

TWELVE TRADITIONS:

STEP TWELVE

(p. 109)

*****

I was taken aback when I first read phrases in AA literature such as: “he… would presently love God and call Him by name”. I had no problem with loving God but I wasn’t all that ready to cede to giving God any name at all. My suspicion was “Ah-hah! See, AA is a recruiting organization to make good churchy-Christians out of us!” Truthfully, any association by name or gender of God carries with it too much religious baggage for my tastes.

My reticence to put a tag on God doesn’t mean that I can’t accept another person’s religious perceptions of God, but rather, it opens me up to the beliefs of others if I simply call my God, The Heart of Compassion (whether they call their Higher Power, God, Jehovah, Allah, Krishna or Jesus… even the non-deist spiritual experience of Buddhists or the atheistic, existential, purity of the physical sciences pose no threat to my own beliefs). The Heart of Compassion is a description more than it is a name and it was the Heart of Compassion that lifted me out of the darkness of my disease and gently guides me through the trials of today. The grace of this acknowledgement that infuses my spirit is testimony enough to enthuse and empower the steps I take on the path to “happy destiny”. It is also important for me to affirm that I am secure enough in my own experience that I am entirely able to respect the experience of others as long as their God is a loving God. If so, they can call God by any name they choose…. i.e., love and tolerance.

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