Finding My Seat At The Table

The most brutal moments of early sobriety were the unyielding voids where life seemed to slip in and out of.

I often sat in complete silence gazing up at a group of strangers who's stories sounded similar to mine yet so different

in those churches that I had so willingly found myself hating my higher power now I craved even a sliver of His presence of something greater than myself.

Because the silence became overwhelming, I had a voice that refused to speak the words I desired to hear

I longed for a life outside those church walls across that long table in which I admitted to my sins and asked these strangers for help

I only wanted to understand to find a

glimpse of meaning at the table I no longer chose to sit, but it eluded me just like my higher power

As the years dragged on I attempted to breathe purpose into my life only to discover a secret hidden to me all my life.

Meaning is a privilege that few ever come to find. To be able to search for that meaning is a privilege in itself.

Most of us can never see past the act of surviving to even think what purpose does this life hold for me.

No, we dream of it, we can taste it on our lips but never devour it whole. We can grasp it in our fragile hands yet never obtain it.

We cry like newborns asking why because we need a reason, we need our grief to be placed into a box in order to understand it.

Because if there is a reason we can endure it rather than suffer blindly in the dark.

I think this is the true meaning of the phrase ignorance is bliss. Wisdom is the suffering of knowledge of asking why, of knowing that there are times when no answer will ever be given. Sometimes there is no greater meaning or purpose other than to endure.

We look up at the stars on a clear night sky and listen in complete silence and utter vain never to to hear even a whisper of truth

Now I look back on those cherished

memories around that meeting table that I imagined as King Arthurs round table.

A table where all were equal and came together to find good, hope and sobriety. I always asked myself what was the point of it all until I understood this was the point.

To be sober, to be able to ask the universe why even if I was never given an answer. In order to find meaning I had to suffer the indignity of silence with a voice that could not speak.

To be okay with myself in that silence, in those heated moments where my higher power felt my anger but chose not to speak.

That is the spirituality I have come to know and understand. That is the only wisdom I have begun to comprehend all these years.