Hornbacher - Waiting : a nonbelievers higher power

Chapter Six: The Moral Self / Early Summer
(June and July)

Chapter Seven: Healing / Harvest
(August and September)

I would like to thank the many people who have helped me find my way toward clarity as Ive written this bookthose who have questioned, challenged, agreed, disagreed, given me insight and opinion, spoken up, listened well, and given support in so many ways. For a lifetime of conversation, argument, and laughter on the matter of spirituality, thanks especially to my father. For walking her own path and showing me I could walk mine, thanks to my mother. For his wise words one winter evening when The God Issue was making me particularly crazed, thanks to Steve L.this book would not exist without you. For years of teaching me what spirituality could mean, in all its manifestations, thanks to the Polaris Group, and special thanks to my sponsor. Many thanks to my editor, Sid Farrar, for guiding me so carefully as I wrote. Thanks to family and friends for once again putting up with me during the process. And thanks, above all, to the women I sponsorfor showing me that spirituality lies in action, in connection, and in love.

Using the cycle of a years passage, we will explore ten spiritual concepts in the context of the seasons of a life and in the practice of the Twelve Steps, looking at how they can be understood by someone who does not believe in a God. Rather than arguments for any theory or philosophy of spirituality, these are explorations of the experience of waiting itself as a spiritual practice.

I walked through the door of the convent. It was a silent Catholic order; no one would speak to me during the time I was going to spend there. I paused in the foyer to listen for somethingnuns, God, micebut there was no sound. The nuns, surely, were somewhere in the building; perhaps God was as well. At least, that was my hope.

The rooms were simple. In the kitchen, I found a long, rough-hewn wooden table with wooden chairs. On the table was a bowl of soup and some bread. This meal was meant for me. I sat down and ate it, after glancing around to see if there might be directions as to what one did prior to eating in a conventpresumably one might pray?but there were no directions. So I simply ate. When I was done, I washed my bowl and spoon and set them in the rack to dry, and then went to explore the rest of the rooms.

I found a small chapel. The fading light of late day came through the stained-glass windows and cast the pews and stone floor with a bright motley of color. Beyond the chapel, I found a library: the walls were lined floor to ceiling with books, except for one long wall of windows that looked out on an orderly garden, vegetables and flowers in neat boxes and rows. Beyond the garden, there was a labyrinth, the long shadows of trees falling across it.

I scanned the books. I pulled one out, I dont remember which one. I sat down in a chair with the book unopened on my lap. I looked out the window as the light faded and dusk fell.

I had lost, more or less, everything.

I say that in a very qualified sense: I had a place to live, food to eat. I had clothes and the usual things one needs to survive. But I had lost what was most familiar, what was safest, what I knew best: I had lost an addiction. That addiction had been the center of my existence since I was a child. It had been my guiding principle, my closest companion, the thing I turned to for comfort, for answers, for assurance that I would be all right. It had been my god.

It had nearly killed me.

I fought like hell to keep it. I kicked and screamed and swore and sobbed. I begged to be allowed to hold it just a little while longer. But in the end, I had to let it go.

And without it, I was quite lost.

I didnt know why I had come to the convent. It was an impulse; someone had told me there was a convent in a nearby city, an order of nuns who had taken a vow of silence and who allowed guests to stay. In that moment, the idea of going somewhere to be entirely silent appealed to some part of me I couldnt explain. Maybe I thought that if things got quiet enough, I would hear God.

Night fell over the convent. I sat there in the dark, watching the moon scatter light over the orderly garden. There was no sound except that of my own breath.

I set the book on a table, picked up my small bag, and found the stairs up to the room where I was to sleep. In this room, there was a narrow bed, a simple desk, and a prayer bench, the velvet kneeling rail well worn. I set my bag on the floor and studied the prayer bench awhile. Then I lay down on my back on the bed and stared at the ceiling.

I was at the lowest point in my life. I had lost all I thought I needed. I did not know how to go on.

It was an enormous, sudden peace.

I knew, very quietly, that I would not find God in this place. I knew it was possible I would not find God at all. And so I could not explain the overwhelming peace I felt. I could not explain how I knew, absolutely, that it would be all right.