I am at the very end of my 4th step now. I have 14 primary events that I submit to the Big Book analysis. All of this is supposed to help me define the ideals of my sexuality that I will live by in the future. And it is to those ideals that I seek the help of my Higher Power to remain true. I like this particular process. And I am seeing an interesting pattern imerge. I have done a lot of withdrawing from relationships and situations in my life.
Last night, as I was working away in solitude, I sensed the presence of someone in the room with me. I assumed it was my father. But I got up and checked and he had gone to bed. On three separate occasions I saw movement in the reflection of the mirror, with my peripheral vision. But my direct gaze could not catch it. I asked if it was Mom. There was no response, nothing. I don’t think it was her. The being appeared taller. As I continued to work, there was something on the bed with me, its movements looked like a dark ripple across the blanket. So I stopped working. I had been running review over the marital relationship and it was a bit painful. I welcomed the break. and the visitor.
I laid back and asked this being to communicate with me, if it desired. Nothing happened. I sought the intuitive guidance of my Higher Power, and got that I needed to lie down and meditate myself to sleep. I did so. I awoke with a missing marble in the bed with me. This is the story of the marble.
At the Hut, they have started the practice of handing out marbles. If you have a resentment that you know you need to deal with, you pick up a marble. Resentments are the number one killer of alcoholics and addicts. Once you have dealt with it, return the marble. This is done at the end of the meeting after the sobriety / clean chips are handed out. I generally do not participate. It all seems too frivolous to me.
But one evening, a particular individual had been on a judgmental – moralistic tirade that really tests my devotion to the program, for it causes me to fear a religious hijack of this magical journey. A female was bringing back her marble and when she tossed it in, she missed the edge and it bounced out onto the floor. It slowly rolled up to me, and stopped at my feet. I picked it up, and looked at everyone, and they looked at me…”I think I’ll keep it.” Everyone laughed because they knew it was so appropriate.
I thought that I would be able to bring back this large marble after the 4th step is complete. But it had disappeared the last week or so. I know, I could have laid in the bed with my pants on and it rolled out of my pocket and into some corner of the bed, until some gyration of dreamtime gymnastics caused it to roll out to me last night. But the timing of the event is as important to me as the event itself. Not an accident.
I am speculating that the large visitor was angelic, the one I called Ichabod, from a particular dream a few months back.
I don’t really know what all this means, I just know that something happened. I have some speculations, but that is all they are. This morning after getting up, I retraced the positions that it would have been in, to see what it saw. I can see that it would entered the room and moved until it could get a full vision of me on the bed. But it did not stay still. It was moving enough to catch my attention. And finally, the place where it would have come to the bed, would put it directly across from my face. And I felt as if I was to pay attention.
I can only believe that whatever I was supposed to hear was planted in my subconscious. I get that from a place in an old testament psalm that I memorized for comfort many, many years ago:
Psalm 127 – Unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain who build it. Unless the Lord keep the city, the watchman wakes in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, to take rest late, to eat the bread of anxious toil, for the Lord gives blessings to his beloved in sleep.
Here comes another verse. “Unless a grain of wheat fall into the ground and dies, it remains by itself, alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit.”
Come unto me all who labor and are weary, my yoke, my collar is easy to wear – because it amplifies who you were created to be. It does not squash it. It is not a yoke, it is not a collar that requires you to quit being you. In fact it demands that you be the truest version of yourself possible.
I apologize. I don’t know where all that came from. I will take my marble and return to work.
I am working on item 12 of 14.
Daily Reprieve 
You must be logged in to post a comment.