All I really needed was a workable concept of a Higher Power, one that works for me. The other debates in my head boil down to semantics.
I found the Sandy B. audio series “Contemplative A.A.” to be helpful in my thinking about a HP, even though I am in another program. He says “God is in the silence.” He notes that his diagram of spirituality has changed. He used to draw himself, God, The Rest of the Universe as three separate entities. He found healing by “smashing” his “own little world”, and realizing that we are all part of a larger whole.
The mention of “God” and “Him” in my first in-person recovery groups some years ago was shocking to me. My childhood contained negative experiences of religion. The references to a deity that I heard in meetings back then were very religion-specific. Sometimes, those very specific references come up in present-day meetings. If a meeting contains The Lord’s Prayer, I hold hands and feel the unity and power, but I do not say the words.
This time around, I heard much more open definitions of a HP in meetings.
I used to get hung up on debates over theology. Recently, a fellow in the program told me that a Theologian is someone [i]talking about[/i] a spiritual experience, whereas a mystic is someone [i]having[/i] a spiritual experience. 🙂
My current personal concept is like a “oneness” of all universes. Everything, everyone, and every place are parts of this HP. Elements including gravity, time, energy, matter, particles, and space are all powered by this oneness. I try to let go of my ideas of the difference between meditation and prayer, intuition and answered prayer. Maybe synchronicity is one way for me to connect with the purpose of the oneness? I find the “need to know” far less urgent than the need to connect and recover.
But, those are my personal concepts — you can develop your own. It may take awhile, or evolve over time. That’s okay.
If you like physics or psychology, you might find some meaning in these books:
Jean Shinoda Bolen’s The Tao of Psychology: Synchronicity and the Self
Fritjof Capra’s The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism