Today’s Blog
Lynn Murphy Mark
Step Eleven
It is November, the 11th month, and I gave a talk today about Step 11, one of the 12 Steps: “Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry that out.”
That’s more than a mouthful of a commitment to practices that reinforce the idea that there is a power greater than myself. I think life had to beat me down before I could truly believe in a Higher Power. I’m not trying to be dramatic here, but there was a period in my life when I felt completely alone and on my own as far as problem solving was concerned, as far as making my way through this time. Then it felt to me that if there was a God, God was beyond my reach. A wise minister pointed out to me how God was at work in my life through the people that were standing by me at that difficult time.
My story might be familiar to some. My childhood home was an alcoholic one. My dad was the designated alcoholic and my mom started joining him as his disease progressed. As far as any spiritual foundation was concerned, there simply wasn’t one. As a kid, I thought God’s last name was DAMMIT. Jesus was always Jesus H Christ.
My mom’s background was growing up with a strict Christian Scientist mother who dragged the children to services twice a week. All my mom got out of that was a phrase, “God is love, there is no pain”. That must have confused her because there was plenty of pain in her childhood home. When she got away from home she never looked back into a church. My dad was a wild child, raised by a long suffering woman who was regularly abused by my alcoholic grandfather. Somehow a message got to the other 7 siblings, because as adults they were regular church goers. But my dad wanted no part of anything organized.
So I grew up “unchurched” as the saying goes. Growing up, I was busy with my own addiction to food. It is still with me today, although I have the grace of knowing that God is at work in my life. Not until I got to college did I have what I would call spiritual experiences. Those happened in the choir loft of the campus chapel. It was a beautiful little space and I went in once out of curiousity and was immediately hooked by the music coming from the choir. I didn’t know if I could sing, but I was determined to try. I auditioned and made it in as an Alto. That began possibly the most spiritual experiences of my life. I learned about God through the words of the songs, and the music seemed like the perfect way to communicate with this sacred presence. I have spent many happy hours singing in church choirs, praying through music.
It’s the people in my adult life who have taught me the most about being a spiritual being having a human experience. I have been a part of small groups of women studying the written word and feeling the essence of God behind the words. I have observed friends fashioning little altars to turn a space from a living room to a living, breathing tribute to God. I have been in Native American sweat lodges, praying to the four directions and speaking my truth about a power greater than myself at work in my life.
Learning all this has made all the difference in my life. My 10 years as a Unity congregant has reinforced the importance of prayer in my daily life. I understand the power of prayer to be a force in the world that is essential to the quality of human spiritual existence. I am grateful for the lessons learned thus far. More will be revealed!