Pilgrim...

My sponsor has a way occasionally of slipping a new word into conversation - yesterday it was "I was thinking about our spirit led life in AA as if I were a pilgrim".

Dictionary.com has pilgrim defined as:

1. a person who journeys, esp. a long distance, to some sacred place as an act of religious devotion: pilgrims to the Holy Land.
2. a traveler or wanderer, esp. in a foreign place.
3. an original settler in a region.
4. (initial capital letter) one of the band of Puritans who founded the colony of Plymouth, Mass., in 1620.
5. a newcomer to a region or place, esp. to the western U.S.

A part of the context of the conversation yesterday was a broad-ranging discussion of the US economy, the disparity between the wealthy and poor, and recent political and cultural changes we've observed that give us some hope.

We talked about our experience of the "spirit led life" in this context and then he said "...I was thinking about our spirit led life in AA as if I were a pilgrim..."

So many of the aha moments I've experienced in sobriety have happened just like that. Suddenly, I see the same components that comprise the drama of my ordinary life in a new and radically different light and it sort of makes sense.

I am a wanderer in this place. A friend of ours used to say (often!) about his AA walk that "...I'm not a human being trying to achieve a spiritual experience, I'm a spiritual being trying to live in a human experience..." The prospect that I'm on a different road, even from some of my fellow travelers in AA, is a good thing. It's a blessing. I get to be the stranger in a strange land.

What a privilege...

Thank you...