I’m writing this on Shrove Tuesday.  Tomorrow we will pray Psalm 51 and pray the litany of penitence.  I will spend the day turning again to God, doing my best to show up, to own my faults and sins, and to open myself to God’s healing grace.  Sounds like a typical day in recovery!

This past weekend I heard a sponsee’s Fifth Step.  She shared all the things she didn’t want another to know, didn’t really want to know herself.  As she did, we noticed the patterns, the particular potholes into which she has fallen over the years.  As we moved through the list of resentments, she’d say, “Yuck. I really don’t want to talk about this one.”  But she did.  It was a moment for me of watching God’s power and love, as she walked into the places she didn’t want to go. 

When she was done, we talked a bit about Step Six.  I sent her to our literature to ponder her readiness.  Later that day she reported that she was walking on air, so filled with freedom and joy.  She had indeed found the “Broad Highway,” and she was “walking hand in hand with the Spirit of the Universe.”

Of course, life keeps coming.  The next day she began to allow herself to notice real questions and doubts about her life, things she had avoided through substances.  She’s not on a cloud anymore - but she’s not where she used to be.

This is the spiritual journey.  We begin by admitting that we need God, we can’t conquer our addictions alone.  We turn to God as best we can.  We admit our faults, and ask God to remove them.  We turn toward others, facing everything that stands in the way of our honest communion.  As we go forward, each step feels like death to the ego.  “God forbid!” Peter cries to Jesus.  “Surely I don’t have to go that far!” I cry to my sponsor.  But the answer has been given.  This is the path of life.

Lent seems like the season when the rest of Church joins those of us in the basements and parish halls (and Zoom lines and phone lines) in seeking God, cleaning our messes, and turning toward God-knows-what possibility awaits us. 

May you, may we, trudge the road of happy destiny, trusting in the promise of new life.  God bless us all.

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