I am very uncomfortable relating this to all of you. It is my nature as a recovering person to feel that way. Secrets are a way of life for any active addict (I even am uncomfortable using this noun because there will be some who make judgements about that 'type' of person).
I sat listening to Paul Hawken today and was struck by the similarities in the 'way' he talked about spirituality with the way I have heard and learned about spirituality in my 20+ years in recovery. I don't give you that information to sound better than or be something special, it is just a fact. One of the differences with a person like Paul Hawken and myself (of course I am making an assumption about Mr. Hawken that I have no way to check out) is that as a recovering person I have a very real, personal experience with a behavior that still could kill me. Most people might not understand how this can be. It is not like cancer or any other disease of the body or mind. That is because it is a disease of the spirit (IMHO). Recovering people have no more wisedom to offer than the people who have spoken t the conference. What they do have is the experience of being the victim, the victimizer and in many cases both. So when Mr. Hawken talks about change, I can identify initmately with what he means because I (and millions of other people like me) have gone through that spiritual change. That experience of knowing my our hearts that the only way we can become human again is to commit with all our hearts, bodies and spirit to do whatever it takes. To follow instructions that don't necessarily come from a person but ultimately come from our higher power. Mr. Hawken talked about a teenager in Oakland and a logger in Oregon as being examples of people who had nothing in common but needed to understand what the other person has gone through to get to where they are at this or that moment. I experience that connection almost every day. Those people come together for about an hour in millions of meetings all across our planet each and every day. They do not talk about how bad it is in thier life (most of the time), what they talk about is how grateful they are to have a place to come and share, to be alive, to have a higher power, to have a place to feel welcome and to learn how to behave in a way that is appropriate and acceptable to the general public. These people know in their core what it means to be powerless. This is something that I don't believe most people really understand. Most people will find it unbelievable that from powerlessness can come the wonders of life and community that is beyond that person's wildest dreams. There is an organization of these people. They do not ask for money but have a worldwide self-supporting organization of counless millions of people. Most people will think I am not telling the truth. It i s true though. They have helped each other to recover from this awful disease only by example. There are no rules and everyone has a vote. It is one of the paradoxes of modern society that this organization even exists. This organization has franchised itself and didn't charge anyone anything except for the commitment to keep the suggestions of the organization unchanged. I have been asking for the past couple of years for this part of the movement to be represented at your conference. I believe you made an effort this year to include it in some way. I am thankful for that. I still believe though that the bridge that needs to be completed can be done by having the truth be told by a recovering person. Thier personal experience is necessary I feel for the connection to be made between what we think we are doing and what the reality is. I believe this is why Mr. Hawken said the connection has not been made yet. Everyone is afraid to talk about the pink elephant that is in the living room. Each of us, have had to talk about our own pink elephant in the living room. We are not afraid of it anymore. No one that is recovering will speak from an organizational viewpoint. That would be breaking tradition and we hold those traditions sacred. But they can and do speak from thier own personal experience all of the time. There are many, many of us that could make this spiritual connection within this movement of the human spirit. I hope this can effect a new and fuller dialog/discussion. People within the recovering movement are ready to add to this spiritual exchange that we all are engaged in. We not only want to participate but I believe we need to. We need to tell our story, because it is your story also. That is the pink elephant.
in service,
barry