I was sitting in a meeting tonight at my home group and we were reading, \”Doctor Bob\’s Nightmare.\” It was an amazing meeting and as members were sharing their identification with Dr. Bob, one of our members shared something that their sponsor had shared with them I don\’t think I\’d ever heard around the topic of the spiritual experience.

I love how Bill did such a great job of helping us to understand exactly what a spiritual experience is and how it can manifest differently in each of our lives. I particularly loved how he offered what I look at as a definition of a spiritual experience in the very first paragraph found on page 567 in the 4th Edition:

“The terms “spiritual experience” and “spiritual awakening” are used many times in this book which, upon careful reading, shows that the personality change sufficient to bring about recovery from alcoholism has manifested itself among us in many different forms.\”

What I take from that excerpt (which has become very special to me) is that a spiritual experience is really nothing more than a \’personality change\’ that will occur in my life IF I am willing to take the Steps and allows a Higher Power to run my life. I remember hearing when I first came in to A.A. that \’the same man will drink again.\’ Those words are not found in our literature anywhere, but for whatever reason it resonated with me and supported the idea that if nothing changes – nothing changes. If I always do what I always did, I\’ll always get what I always got.

One of our members in the meeting tonight shared something their sponsor had shared with them on this topic. But before I share what they shared, I want to offer these additional excerpts from page 567 in the Big Book…

\”In the first few chapters a number of sudden revolutionary changes are described. Among our rapidly growing membership of thousands of alcoholics such transformations, though frequent, are by no means the rule. Most of our experiences are what the psychologist William James calls the “educational variety” because they develop slowly over a period of time.”

I love that over the years I\’ve been sober I\’ve heard many ways in which a spiritual experience has manifested in members\’ lives but in the meeting tonight, that member shared this quote that they got from their sponsor…

\”I’ve never had a burning bush experience, but when I look behind me, I can see the ashes everywhere.\”

I had never heard that before and it really hit me hard. While I believe that my experience of a spiritual awakening was somewhere between a burning bush and the educational variety, from the visual that statement gave me, I could totally identify with it. So often is the case that I may not always see God working in my life in the moment but when I look back behind me – it\’s undeniably clear.

Regardless of how I may have experienced my awakening, the goal is simply that – to awaken. Awaken to the knowledge that God can run my life better than I can and then follow the dotted line all the way back to Step Three and remember that I made a decision to turn my will and my life over to that Power (Greater Than I).

May I never, ever stop seeing the ashes behind me.

In love and service,