Knowledge may or may not be power, but is sure can be an attempt at control

The doubt and fear that often overtake me come from a desire to know more than I can know.  To control more than it is my purview to control and to control it by know it, intellectually mastering it, neatly delineating it into questions I ask and answers I have.  I take on the universe, and try to make it human-sized, one person-sized, self-sized.  I persist in the notion that I can hold it all in my two hands, grip it tightly, make it mine.
Marya Hornbacher, Waiting: A Nonbeliever's Higher Power  (highly recommended!)

I've written before in this blog about how I've come to see worry as a form of control.  Hornbacher's comment prompts me to think about how much I have used knowledge as a form of control.  My academic background is in Philosophy, so it's no surprise that I have sought answers to the 'big questions' all my life.  There was a valid spiritual quest buried in there but there was also a hiding from reality behind pride.  If you really think you can answer the question "Why is there something rather than nothing" you are assuming a pretty high -- let's face it, godlike -- status.  (Note for believers: the question includes within it the question "Why is there a god?").

The 'big questions', at least as I posed them, always set me apart from the reality I was trying to understand.  I was a separate being trying to understand reality rather than a simple part of reality trying to live it.  Living it, treating life as a mystery to be lived rather than a problem to be solved, is humility.

So, I am working on a spirituality that is lived rather than merely thought.  I see what I'm aiming at as somehow related to Taoism, the spirituality of the Cloud of Unknowing ( a 14th century Christian text, one of the inspirations for Centering Prayer), and Dudeism, the path inspired by the movie "The Big Lebowski".  (That last is a good application of Rule 62*.  After all, if you can't laugh, you're not in recovery.)

The goal is wisdom, living a fuller, more loving life, not knowledge

*"Don't take yourself too damn seriously."  see Twelve and Twelve, page 149

The Dark Night of the 12 Year Itch

I have written before about the '12 Year Itch', that dry spot people tend to hit when they reach double digit sobriety, often leading to a relapse.  I firmly believe that this is a sign that we are reaching a new stage in our spiritual growth, in facing ourselves and seeing what and who we are.  


My observation (admittedly of the limited sample of AAs I know)  is that this itch can take two forms, depending on the AA's program. (I'm generalizing here.  There are, of course, exceptions to this pattern.)  For those who have spent 10 or so years 'just going to meetings and not drinking' it is a spiritual depression that almost always leads to a relapse, usually lasting years.  For those who have been seriously working the steps it leads to a deeply felt spiritual crisis that often includes a short but nonetheless extremely painful relapse, sometimes lasting as little as a few days.  This crisis is characterized by a feeling of confusion and loss and the experience that the program just isn't working. The AA is resolved to renew their spiritual journey but is usually at a loss as to how.  (Hint: You're REALLY ready for very hard, temporarily unsatisfying Step 11 work and a Step 12 that organically grows out of 11.)


As I have said before, this type of crisis is a known stage in the spiritual path, one that has been written about in popular literature (for example, Willam Styron's Darkness Visible) as well as in all of the great spiritual traditions.  In the Christian mystical traditions is often referred to as the Dark Night of the Sense and of the Soul.