Pantheon of Higher Powers

I flipped open an Al-Anon book this morning and the first sentence I read was “When we say higher power, initially people believe that we are speaking of a religious entity. We are not. We are speaking of a loving, caring, nurturing Power that provides us with guidance…” As I began thinking about this, I realized that, while I have always identified “Higher Power” with “God”, in truth a higher power is anything that I set over myself, a power that guides and directs me, and that while ideally this higher power is a nurturing, loving power, more often what I make my higher power is job, relationship, or love. I am easily distracted by these powers, and while I think my intentions are good, the “guidance” that I receive by chasing after them, often leaves me angry, lonely, and unfulfilled. Essentially I make all the petty, material, even mundane problems of my life that power that seizes my every thought, and I bow down to these idols with an all too frequent and familiar regularity.

Later I had the opportunity to talk about this thought with a friend. I pointed out that, the statement “Came to believe” held three solutions for overcoming my obsessions with these insignificant powers that hold so much sway over me. Recognizing them or “Came” was the first part. Recognizing that there is a force over which I am powerless is perhaps the most important part of making change.

The second, “came to” is the understanding that I have a significant role in choosing these powers and the way that they affect me. It is no accident that this or that power is able to possess my thoughts and emotions so powerfully. I am an active and willing participant in choosing what I call my higher power.

Finally, “came to believe” is the realization that while I sometimes think that I have given up hope believing that I will ever be able to do things differently, the truth is that I harbor faith that even if I am not able to do things differently, I believe that these things can and will change. I am not always able to name the source of this faith, or the object in which this faith is placed, but the fact that my desire for change exists, means that hope is not dead, and that I am willing to do whatever it takes to live my life differently.

In rereading this, so much of my thoughts seem nothing more than jargon pulled directly from countless Al-Anon meetings. I don’t know that I have made the fateful step of turning my will and my life over to some higher power that truly loves me and wants to nurture and guide me towards serenity. Instead what I am choosing to focus on is the idea that I don’t have one higher power, I have many, and that the dizzying array of higher powers are a pantheon of petty grievances, fears and insecurities that I am ready to name and turn over, because they no longer serve me, and I no longer wish to serve them.