So. It's nearly 1am and here I sit, all packed up and ready to leave the country for three months tomorrow (this!) morning. Praise God for the frequent flyer points that are taking me direct from Melbourne to LA. Praise God for the strong Australian dollar that has bought me a tidy wad of American Travellers cheques for my battered old wallet. Praise God for the pure serendipity of scheduling my flight the same day as a dear Baha'i sister who hails from the City of Angels and whom I've not seen for months, so that we can hang out at the airport together. Praise God for the new friend in recovery who has never laid eyes on me yet is picking me up from LA International Airport, taking me home to her place and doing everything (I mean everything - she is emailing me the weather so I can pack the right clothes and asking me what kinds of food I like so she can stock the fridge, can you believe it?) she can to make a total stranger feel loved and welcome. Praise God for the sunrise that I can already see illuminating the sky in my mind's eye as a girlfriend and I drive from LA to San Diego at daybreak this Friday morning, Thelma and Louise style. Praise God for all the wild adventures that I can't begin to imagine. I love travel. I love the stretched consciousness that comes with encountering a different culture. I love making friends with random people at bus stops and in cafes. But most of all, I love being thrust into the arms of my Higher Power. Once that plane takes off, I'm forced to confront the reality that I have absolutely no power over whether my luggage ends up in Paris or Paraguay, or whether the planes lands safely or slams into the side of a mountain and strangely I find that so comforting. All I can do is trust. There's not much choice but to surrender my will and my life to the All-Loving, the All-Merciful. And for a control freak like me, that is one huge relief.
As I embark on this journey, I'm aware that this trip is the culmination of many heartfelt prayers. Ever since becoming a Baha'i, I've been longing to find a way to integrate my Baha'i identity with the fact that active service within a community of recovering addicts ensures I remain alive. And so I'm off to the nation where the 12 Step movement begun back in 1939; the country Abdu'l Baha promised would set the benchmark of justice and spiritual wealth for the whole planet to follow, the place
with the pulse whose rythym fits my own so snugly, so comfortably. In essence, I go to see what I can learn about how to marry the two most precious things in my life: my recovery and my religion.
I believe God is about to reveal a little more about what She has planned for my life's work; how I can contribute to the unfolding of the future Baha'u'llah envisioned. For me, a integral part of that is sharing the priceless gift I've been given - the option of turning to the Holy Spirit for courage and connection rather the cheap, life-destroying bottled substitute in all its various guises:
"O Divine Providence! Bestow Thou in all things purity and cleanliness upon the people of Baha. Grant that they be freed from all defilement, and released from all addictions. Save them from committing any repugnant act, unbind them from the chains of every evil habit, that they may live pure and free, wholesome and cleanly, worthy to serve at Thy Sacred Threshold and fit to be related to their Lord. Deliver them from intoxicating drinks and tobacco, save them, rescue them, from this opium that bringeth on madness, suffer them to enjoy the sweet savours of holiness, that they may drink deep of the mystic cup of heavenly love and 150 know the rapture of being drawn ever closer unto the Realm of the All-Glorious. For it is even as Thou hast said: 'All that thou hast in thy cellar will not appease the thirst of my love -- bring me, O cup-bearer, of the wine of the spirit a cup full as the sea!'"-Abdu'l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha, p. 149
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