I have climbed the highest mountains
I have run through the fields
Only to be with you
Only to be with you
I have run, I have crawled
I have scaled these city walls
These city walls
Only to be with you
But I still haven't found.
What I'm looking for
U2
According to the web, Julius Pollux, a second-century writer, first mentioned apodidraskinda, the game we call Hide and Seek today. We have been playing this game since our earliest memory and still play it today, figuratively.
We believe seeking to be embedded in the deepest depth of our inner core. We climb, we run, we crawl, we scale. We look for the hidden; the message, the truth, the answer. We hunt the mountains, the fields, and within city walls. We have spent most of our lifetime looking for what we could not list.
It took what it took for us to connect to the obscure. You see, we didn’t even know what we were looking for for years. We were searching, aimlessly. We couldn't find what was not hiding. The game was rigged, so we thought.
Fulfillment, found in something or someone seemed to be the answer. Peace, obtained through any person or place, appeared to be a somewhat logical path. Comfort, gained with the accumulation of the material felt like the right direction. Though we sought, we never found.
It wasn't until we read the rules and plugged into reality that we began to sense the true meaning of the quest. The joy of the game was in knowing WHAT we were looking for and understanding that it existed. We would catch glimpses of what was once elusive. We banked finds and lived to play the game again.
Today, we find victory when we uncover the definition of our purpose; Fulfillment is found in step-walking that purpose. Peace comes through our position and moments of comfort mix within the ebon flow of our emotions.
This all works because we continue to play the game. We continue to hone our skills. We are smarter about the search. And, for us, it's all about the search.
The U2 song referenced above is a spiritual song. Bono himself referred to it as "a gospel song with a restless spirit.” He goes on to say that it is "an anthem of doubt more than faith."
We get the doubt part as the spiritual element of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous conflicted with our center upon arrival. We had our reasons for our reluctance. Religion had soured us to the search. Hypercriticism had hampered our openness, exhaustion our willingness. We had no desire to seek further the version of a higher power we had concocted.
To participate, we had to re-position. We had to unlearn and come to terms with a higher power we accepted as truth. We had to work through doubt toward faith. Once we came to believe that a power greater than us existed, it was time for the seeking to start.
Rolling back to the memories of our youth, it seemed the game never ended. We would seek until we found and then seek again and again. Peace was found in the moment of connection. However, it was the quest that brought pure excitement and joy.
As we leave this writing, we will climb the highest mountain, run through the fields, crawl, and scale city walls. We will seek, and we will find.
May comfort find us all as we seek it.
Thoughts and ideas for this blog post were taken and built upon from a sober.coffee podcast # 146 titled " From Pain to Pickleball - with special guest Elizabeth PART 1” The session dropped on 1/10/2023….Click here to hear the podcast.
Photo by Khashayar Kouchpeydeh on Unsplash
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Alcoholics Anonymous and AA are registered trademarks of Alcoholics World Service. Inc. References to AA, the 12 steps, and 12 traditions does not mean that AA has reviewed or approved the contents of this publication nor that AA agrees with the views expressed herein. This publication is intended to support personal growth and should not be considered a substitute for healthcare professionals' advice. The author’s advice and viewpoints are their own.
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