Yesterday, I chaired a meeting of my spiritual support group on a very challenging subject that I have been listening to and experiencing for several months: Choice and Free Will vs Acceptance.
Where Did Choice Begin
I grew up in a very fundamentalist, Pentecostal religious church community, where we considered ourselves the “only real Christians”. As the oldest child, I believed I was responsible for my family emotional welfare, and for following the “rules” of our religion very rigidly and judgmentally.
My church had a very strong belief in “free will” and the personal responsibility for all of our actions, feelings, and thoughts – everything was considered a “choice”. There were really no mistakes or accidents. Even simple errors were where one did not “choose” to be careful or cautious enough. Everything that we said, did, thought, or felt that was not in line with the church was “sin” – and without “salvation”, we were on our way to the final and eternal abandonment and abuse of a literal burning hell.
As a child, I remember being terrified at night before I went to sleep that I might have a negative thought or feeling about someone just before I went to sleep – before I could repent – and I would die or the Rapture would take place and I would be damned to hell or to the “Tribulation” – a period of major abandonment by God, and abuse by Satan and the anti-Christ. Certainly not “visions of sugar plums dancing in our heads”.
The concepts of free will and choice were and are very critical to beliefs that are focused on controlling people’s behavior. Shame – the hemorrhaging pain of perceived abandonment and rejection by God and others -- is by far the most effective motivator sick humanity has ever created. Without “free will” and choices, you cannot legitimately threaten and damn people to a literal burning hell – total and final separation from God and others. The imaginary “God” of religion would be unjust, and cruel – like the humans who created him.
I Wanted to Be a “Good Boy”: Choice FailedFrom this abusive and neglectful background, I went out into the world, to earn “God’s” affection and attention by trying to be a “good boy” – trying to follow the rules, and trying to “give my life totally to Christ” -- operating from the insane delusion that I had within me the ability to chose and execute my predetermined decisions.
Fortunately for me, my life began to fall apart in 1985. Humpty Will fell of his wall of free will and choice and into the abyss of “hell” – the seemingly eternal torment of perceived separation and excruciating loneliness away from my God, from my self, and from others. All the intellectual horses, and all of religions men could not put me back together again. And I am grateful today that they couldn’t. But it hurt like “hell” – literally – for several years – for an infinity of eternities. I felt so incredibly and utterly alone, worthless, and bad.
Choiceless HopeIn 1987, I was severely depressed, terrified, drinking heavily, and so lost and seemingly forgotten and abandoned that I wanted to die. Someone sensed that I was struggling and suggested that I attend a Twelve Step spiritual support group. What I remember was they talked about their feelings and pain and sadness – it sounded just like mine – and they were seemingly not hurting now like I was. They laughed, they cried, they smiled, they were friendly – and seemed accepting in a strangely non judgmental way. And I experienced for the first time -- a sense of hope – a sense of unconditional acceptance – a sense of loving Presence.
After a couple of months of attending these meetings, I got a spiritual advisor, and he began to teach me the spiritual principles of the program. Before this, it had just been so comforting to be with people who did not seem to judge or criticize me – and who understood because they had experienced the same “things” that I had.
The Primary Spiritual Principle: Powerlessness
The first spiritual principle my spiritual advisor taught me was Step One: We admitted we were powerless – that our lives had become unmanageable.
I really struggled with this principle. From my religious background, we were not powerless – God gave us a free will and we made choices for which we would be held responsible. In the depths of my “sickness” I had actually used that fantasy and lie to create fragments of hope that someday I would feel different. If I had no choice – if I were truly powerless – I was hopelessly and helplessly lost. Powerlessness really made no sense within the virus laden programming of my brain.
But with his patience and support, I began to experience consciously what he was saying. I became consciously aware of how I would “decide” to do or say something healthy and positive, and I could not will my self to actually do or say it. My conscious intentions and my actual perceptions, reactions, and actions did not match. I was humanly powerless to control and direct my life – powerless to be happy or unhappy – powerless to control the outcomes and results of my words, actions, and behaviors.
Replacing Choice With Spiritual Intimacy: Acceptance
My spiritual advisor later added to the First Step, a second spiritual principle: We came to believe that a Power Greater Than Ourselves could restore us to sanity.
I am sometimes uncertain what my advisor actually said, and what I heard God say through him. He was definitely a “sacred messenger” of a “power greater than me. At one point in his own struggle, I told him what I had heard him tell me. He said he had never said that – but that it was true and very helpful with what he was dealing.
Over the last nearly 23 years, I have come to hear and experience that I do not have choices of any sort. I seem to be able to decide to do certain things – like get a drink of water – and do it. But I have to be cautious not to accept the implications and temptations of such experiences regarding my willpower.
Let me give you a metaphor of my intimate experience with my God and choice or free will:
Imagine that you have an electrical appliance that has been built properly with all the right wiring and circuits and components to do what the appliance is supposed to do. So you go to the appliance, and you start pushing buttons, turning knobs, etc… trying to get it to work. And it will not work. So you go to the instruction manual to try to find a “solution”, and you start by reading the troubleshooter section of the instructions. Very likely, the first question it will ask you is, “is the appliance plugged into a working electrical outlet?” Is it connected to a power greater than itself, and greater than yourself.
And when you check, you realize that it is not plugged into the active presence of the electricity. When you plug it in, the appliance works perfectly. You had to first accept yours and the appliance’s “powerlessness” to operate without an operating connection to a higher power source.
Choice Creates No ChoiceMy “will”, in my experience, is this way, too. Everything is there to make decisions and choices – except the Power or caring loving Presence to make it work. And to the extent that I believe and try to practice choice and will power as being mine, I unplug my self from my God’s loving energy – and my life does not work.
I can only be as connected to my God as I am consciously aware of and consciously experiencing that I have no power – at all.
Spiritual Intimacy Empowers Living
In the story of Jesus, some people were one day complimenting his work, and he responded, “It is not me who is doing this – but my Dad is doing the work through me.” Even Jesus had to admit that in his human form His power came from His Father – He was actually powerless without His Father. Taking any credit for Himself for what he did – His choice -- would have separated Him from His spiritual source – his loving, caring, and very Present Father.
Free Will is Not Free
I find it interesting to re-experience the story of the Garden of Eden. Humanity was tempted with the concept of “becoming like God” – which I experience as being able to operate and function with “free will” -- free of the necessity for an intimate connection with God. The fall of humans was one of separation from God created by the attempt to “be” without being in intimate conscious contact with God. Everything that has been and is mankind came from this illness of the soul. We are only as reconnected with our God as we are accepting and experiencing of our own personal powerlessness.
My experience of my God in spiritual recovery has been one of realizing, in the intimacy of Their loving Presence, that they have no judgments or criticisms of me. I do not need Their forgiveness because they are not offended by me or anything I have done. I have unlimited access to their Presence and Power – limited only by my attempt to choose my own life.
Someday, We Will All Give An AccountingIn closing, I would like to share an experience I had some months ago: I was meditating, as I do every morning, and I found my self in my “mind” at the Great White Throne judgment, in front of my God. For those who have not been religious, religion teaches that one day -- probably when we “die”-- we will stand before God and give an accounting of every sin we have committed. Kind of like, “he is making a list, checking it twice. Gonna find out who has been naughty or nice.” (Santa Claus)
So, in my vision, I am standing before God to give an accounting of all my sins. God has this huge book in front of Him, and he turns to my page in the book. He turns the book around so I can read what’s on the page. As I look, I can see that the page is blank – there is nothing written on the page. God then said, “This is not the problem. You have never done anything ‘wrong’.” And then He reached over and picked up a smaller book, which had on the outside of book the following words printed, “The Book of Will by Will”. And God said, “This is the problem. You have to forgive yourself before you will let yourself in.”
AcceptanceIf I have choices, on my own, I am a “sinner” and I will damn my self to my own personal and eternal hell. When I have no choices – no free will – no will or power separate from my God, I become reconnected to Their Presence – and I am and I do what is sane, loving, and healthy for me to do – naturally and intuitively – as the beloved and cherished child of my Mom and Dad, the “God” of my experience, strength and hope. I can live freely in Their free and loving acceptance – Their intimate Presence – without choices and without “free will” to harm me.
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