The God of My Understanding

Another issue that came up for me during the retreat was God/Higher Power. OA is a diversity group. It’s very important that people respect the way other people choose to believe. Well, since people are people with character defects, this is not always the case. It became very important to me remind myself to practice principles over personalities this weekend. I had to do my best to create boundaries and remember to practice the spiritual principles of the program. There were some incidents that occurred that made me very uncomfortable. In some cases I removed myself; in others I remembered to take what I needed and leave the rest there. I find it so hard not to judge people who feel they need to push their belief system on me. I have my own beliefs. I have a relationship with my Higher Power, Jesus, G-d, Father/Mother, Buddha, Creative Intelligence, Spirit, Allah, take your pick. Funny, as I write this, I think about a piece I heard on the radio about the anniversary of the Rodney King beating. I think of Mr. King’s words: Can’t we all get along? In the rooms, we’re all in different stages of recovery and spiritual growth. However, the religious/spiritual stuff did trigger certain issues for me. I had to remind myself that I am almost 50 years old. I am free to choose to have conscious contact with the God of MY understanding – not my parents’ God, not my sponsor’s or sponsees’ God, not the retreat organizers’ God – MY God. Most important, I don’t need to flaunt my beliefs or defend them. As I shared over the weekend, for so long food was my Higher Power. It feels so good to have a Power greater than myself that is restoring me to sanity. My food god caused me a lot of pain. Today, the God of my understanding brings peace into my life. I pray for this sense of awareness for all OA fellows. I can only do my part to honor and respect others and their understanding of Higher Power/God.