The Nature of Surrendering

Is powerlessness the only path to spirituality?

The Delaware Water Gap

I know that time is elastic

And I know when I go

All my particles disband and disperse

And I'll be back in the pulse

— Fiona Apple, “I Want You To Love Me”

In an article in Vulture, Fiona Apple explained the above lyrics from the first song on her 2020 album, Fetch The Bolt Cutters as being about an intense spiritual experience she had after silently meditating for six days.

“I knew then what life and death was,” she said. “It’s this pulse. And we all share it, and it sounds so cheesy. But it wasn’t in my head; it was out of it. It was among us all. It was something we were all in together. It was like this place of home, this pulse we would all be in. I felt like I had found it and everything felt so beautiful.”

………

I had a brief moment sort of like that once when Charlie and I were hiking in the rain up Mount Minsi in the Delaware Water Gap. Thanks to extensive practice meditating I’d learned to lean into the moment and when we reached the peak of the climb and the view opened up, we were suddenly fully eye-level with the top of the brightest rainbow I’ve ever seen.

For a glorious three minutes, Charlie and I stood there holding each other, alone in wonder, before other hikers came up and joined us. There was a powerful sense of rightness as we held hands and took it in with our mouths half agape, and I felt the pulse in that moment.

This is what I want to be able to feel again: connection.

………

Some of the tools I learned during my spiritual journey in the 12 Step recovery rooms really helped in profound ways. But as I’ve stopped being a believer in Christianity, many of those tools I no longer feel comfortable using.

I’m going to re-explore the 12 Steps and the tools of recovery, but through a deconstructed lens.

Starting with the nature of powerlessness.

………

In recovery, the first step is: We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable. The basic concept is rooted in the idea that alcoholics are “allergic” to booze, and once they start drinking they cannot stop until “jails, institutions, or death.”

In the rooms, the only solution is surrender.

In church, I was taught to surrender to my lord and savior and give up my own will, desires, and control to the Lord and the rules of the bible.

In recovery, I was told to “Make a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God as I understood Him” and follow the 12 step “rules.”

It’s about hierarchy and control.

My spirituality doesn’t align with hierarchy.

It aligns with harmony.

……….

I want to be in flow.

I want to have purpose.

I want to help and be of service.

I want to love and be loved.

I want to be a drop of rain falling into the river of life.

Is that surrender? I don’t know.

But I know is hell isn’t involved.