(We) Agnostics

I’m just home from a meeting where the topic was “God’s will.”  It is the third step of AA that we turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand God.  It is the eleventh step of AA that we pray for the knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry that out.

These are not easy concepts to grasp.  I know my understanding has changed through the years drastically.  I came to AA pretty much atheist, and it wasn’t good news to me that only a higher power was going to save me from my fatal condition.

But that was a long time ago.  Thankfully, immediately, I was able to understand the concept that the people and the program of AA were a power greater than I was, and I could go along.  Sort of.  But that’s another story.

Now to me, mostly, “God’s will” can be found by following the steps, still.  I think they contain the wisdom of the ages, and since I’ve been practicing them with varied success, but enough to stay sober for quite some time, they are the form I will stick with.  I still don’t think God is in the details.  I don’t think God cares what shoes I wear or what job I do.  I don’t think God chooses, moment by moment, who lives, who suffers, who dies, or who gets sober.  That’s not my understanding.

I’m pretty much comfortable with not knowing.  Every day we can easily see people who spout all kinds of hate and even physical harm in the name of God’s will.  If they are right, and I am wrong . . . I don’t know.  I guess the last laugh will be on me when I’m thrust down into eternal fire for being gay.

The not knowing, the agnostic aspect of it, is still with me.  I say it isn’t known and isn’t knowable.  I sit comfortably in AA by working the steps, having a guiding principle of kindness at least on a superficial level, and by sitting around church basements talking and listening about such things and trying to get deeper and better at it.

Pretty much, it is a wonderful life.