This is a story about the Triumph of Grace and the Triumph of the Cross and how they combined to bring to Light the Mystery of iniquity– within me,within those I love and within those who love me. In the Spring of 1995, in my relentless pursuit for the Truth, I had a personal enocunter with the Holy Spirit which I did not recognize as such at the time. It occurred in the most natural of ways in the words of the song from the musical, My Fair Lady, “on the street where I live.” I had often walked down this sreet before but the pavement never seemed to move before my feet before. All at once was I several stories high! (The setting for this encounter was a faculty room in the catholic high school where I was Chairperson of the Mathematics Department and had begun my teaching career in 1972. which “coincidentally” happened to host one of the many weekly Al-anon meetings, I faithfully attended.) This was the moment of Transfiguration in my life, even though it wad going to take a good ten years for me to be able to identify it as such. It was going to take some time for the Sunlight of the Blessed Trinity to penetrate the spiritual cloud cover and emotional fog which enveloped my seeing, thinking and hearing and move me from darkness into the Light.
As my darkened intellect experienced the Light of Truth, the denial that had been the cornerstone of my life began to be melted down. As I look back, I now see that from that moment on I would be dealing with the unseen spiritual kingdom that had taken me, my life and my family hostage and set up a spiritual gulag in the place we called Home. For the first time in my life, I began to “sense” the kingdom of darkness. This called me to embrace a radical paradigm shift which my heart had been seeking all my life. The biggest obstacle to moving from darkness to Light would be the very relationship system into which I was conceived and into which I had poured my life’s energy to grow and keep alive. I would be called to die to all that lived within me. This “dying” experience would command all of my time, talent and treasureas well as my whole heart, mind and strength. Freedom comes with a very high price; my own would be no exception. Everything that I held sacred would be tried and tested in the purifying fire of Truth. Only what remained would be trustworthy. This is the test of True Love. If it cannot pass the test of Truth, then it is not Love at all.
Through the revelation of the kingdom of darkness, I began to see more and more clearly the Story of Sin in my life and the structures that kept Sin in place. This is a story about God reclaiming me as His child and removing me from the “forced march” of an imposed drum-beat that kept my mind attuned to its deadly cadence, competing with my very heart-beat, creating an interior cacophany rather than one of fruitful Peace. It is a story of my search for the “Promised Land,” and finding the Way to enter in to the Dance of the Trinity through the power of the Holy Spirit.
It wasn’t too long ago that I lived completely enclosed in an interior dungeon enslaved to a mindset that could listen but could not hear, could look but could not see, a universe of spiritual insanity that insisted that “it” knew the way, truth and the life. Nothing could have been farther from the Truth. Like Pontius Pilate, the universe into which I was born could well have posed the same question, “What is Truth?”
The foundation of my spiritual system fragmented the face of God within the heart of its children. Division was the order of the day. The father of lies had a field day with the formation of my conscience. As he did with Adam and Eve, his plan for God’s children is get the mind of mankind to “buy into” his lie as if it is the Truth. The sins of the parents are manifest to the third and fourth generation. And the whole process continues until someone stops the sinning and washes the slate clean.
My spiritual inheritance due to sin, passed from generation to generation included denial (of truth), codependence (with mortal sin), perfectionism, clouded reality, and self-centered willfulness. In our family tree, home-life was dramtically impacted by the presence of powerful spirits of addiction, anorexia, anger and rage, emotional, physical and spiritual abuse, resulting in a huge crack in the ability to live covenant life with God. What made it particularly tricky is that these spirits were very carefully couched, dressed up and presented as “the good life.” I learned very early that my survival depended on living life through the distorted lens of the Myth that was being presented as Life. I did not know this at the time. I just thought there was something terribly “wrong” with me. No matter how hard I tried, I could never please those I loved. TodayI know the only Person I am to please is God. I am here to please Him and Him alone.
Through a personal encounter with the Holy Spirit in spring of 1995, the scales began to fall from my eyes and I began to see the Truth of what I had been lliving for the first time Over the past ten years, the Light of Truth has revealed the “living lie” for what it is.
This is a story about Recovery: recovery from addiction and recovery to living life as a sacred mystery. It’s a story about the restoration of divine childhood through the action of sanctifying grace pouring from God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit through the theological virtues of Faith, Hope and Love.
It’s a story about Freedom from the bondage of sin. It’s a story about being washed clean, “white as wool” by the blood and water flowing from the side of our Crucified Lord and recovering the state of union with the heart of God the Father that mankind had before Original Sin severed this connection.
It’s a story about my learning to live my life in concert with “God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven.”
© Curran & Associates
