Spirituality and Recovery: A Classic Introduction to the Difference Between Spirituality and Religion in the Process of Healing - Softcover

Booth MS, Leo

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0757317022 ISBN 13: 9780757317026

Publisher: Health Communications Inc, 2012

Synopsis

Spirituality is recognizing that we have the power to change the things in our lives that bring us pain. Whether it's simply a life in need of greater positivity or a life ravaged by addiction, each of us holds the key to initiating the healing process. Spirituality is recovery.

This is the essence of the message in Spirituality & Recovery: A Guide to Positive Living by noted author and speaker Reverend Leo Booth, who has years of sobriety. In this third edition of a powerful and timeless classic, readers will learn that spirituality connects with creativity, bringing insights into how to live a authentic life. The drug addict who desperately wants to break from his dependency, the emotionally needy person who wants to stop craving the attention of others, the widow whose life feels empty and discontent, the young adult who feels guilty because of a detachment from religion—these are some of the countless people who will benefit from the journey taken in Spirituality & Recovery.

With a broad spectrum of references from music, dance, theater, sexuality, relationships, nature, personal experiences—and yes, the Bible—Rev. Leo shows readers that while a person is often born into a religion, spirituality is an expression of self. He takes an unconventional approach to explaining religion in a more inclusive manner and talks about what it truly means to "walk on water." Spirituality & Recovery affirms that you don't need to get spirituality; instead, you discover it, because spirituality has already been given to us—all of us—at birth.

Spirituality & Recovery will show readers how to:
* Identify the difference between existing and living
* See the spiritual through the pain
* Recognize "moments" in your life when you can see and understand who you really are, turning a moment of suffering into an opportunity for growth and even joy
* Embrace the poetic concept that "walking on water" is something anyone can do
* Understand and live with something we all have— two heads—a sick head and a healthy head
* Identify your "IC" —that certain something that turns someone who uses alcohol into a destructive "alcoholic"
* Surrender to live and find your miracle...a way to live with your pain, whether physical or psychological

Spirituality & Recovery serves as a much-needed guidebook to the topic of spirituality. Simple to read yet profound in its insights, Spirituality & Recovery speaks to the many people throughout the world who do not practice a religion yet are spiritual in the way they live their lives and conduct their relationships.

About this title

From the Author

Leo Booth is an internationally acclaimed author, lecturer, and trainer on all aspects of spirituality and recovery from depression, addictions, compulsive behaviors, and low self-esteem. He is a Unity minister and holds a master's degree in theology from King's College, London, England, and is a Certified Addictions Counselor and a Spiritual Consultant to several treatment centers.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Walking on Water

To walk on water is to experience joy in living, to know the laugh and human embrace as well as the tear. Walking on water is seeing and feeling the given miracle of life in every moment. It is the shouted 'yes' to all that life will bring.

Life is but a series of patterned moments, and with every moment comes decision. Which way shall I go? What shall I do? Shall I say yes or no? Our comfortableness with these decisions affect whether we live life or simply endure it.

Participate or spectate. Shape or wait. God gives us the gift of life and then invites us to create through it, with it, and in it.

In this sense, we are divine. In this sense, we are part of the divine drama. Every religion, creed, and culture gives this message, but few people listen. We miss the most important message in life: you are terrific.

We walk on water when we hear and accept this -message.

The idea for this chapter comes from an incident that is recorded about Jesus and his disciples. In St. Matthew's gospel we read:

After sending the people away, he went up a hill by himself to pray. When evening came, Jesus was there alone; and by this time the boat was far out in the lake, tossed about by the waves, because the wind was blowing against it.

Between three and six o'clock in the morning, Jesus came to the disciples, walking on the water. When they saw him walking on the water, they were terrified. 'It's a ghost!' they said, and screamed with fear.

Jesus spoke to them at once. 'Courage!' he said. 'It is I. Don't be afraid!'

Then Peter spoke up. 'Lord, if it is really you, order me to come out on the water to you.'

'Come!' answered Jesus. So Peter got out of the boat and started walking on the water to Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind, he was afraid and started to sink down in the water. 'Save me, Lord!' he cried. (Matt. 14:23–31)

This incident tells more than Jesus doing supernatural feats on a stormy sea, with Peter trying to imitate. The miracle is in the words 'take courage.' Relative to the physical and emotional needs of humankind, walking on water means nothing. The incident only astounds and amazes people. But the creative insight comes when we:

--absorb the revealed courage into our own lives

--take the courage that Peter reveals and relate it to our personal needs

--live away from those who have tried to rescue us from life

--face our challenges honestly

--realize an apparent failure as an opportunity for -success

The miracle is discovered when we adapt the 'take courage' into our own lives. We are the miracle. We are terrific.

Every area of life can reveal this truth: in personal relationships, music, religion, theater, politics, humor, craftsmanship, suffering, and poetry.

It is all out there, if only we have the eyes to see.

I recognized this when I was reading about the defection to the West of the famous ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev.

On May 11, 1961, Rudolf Nureyev flew from Leningrad with the Kirov Ballet Company to dance in Paris. To the Russian authorities, Nureyev had already proven himself to be an individualist and a rebel. Not surprisingly, they had concerns about him even being in the West. They sent a telegram to Paris, demanding that he return to Moscow, supposedly to perform before the Kremlin. Instead, Nureyev placed himself into the hands of the French police and asked for protection. Seizing the opportunity of the moment, he chose to defect. In the defection was courage: He chose to leave his family and country. He chose to leave the Kirov Ballet Company for . . . ? At the time, he did not know what.

The police took Nureyev and placed him in a solitary room. In Clive Barnes's book Nureyev, he quotes the dancer: 'Then there was silence. I was alone. Four white walls and two doors. Two exits to two different lives.'1

On that seemingly ordinary day in Le Bourget Airport in Paris, Rudolf Nureyev took courage and decided to shape his destiny. In the moment of defection, his remembered yesterdays generated a choice.

 

©2012. Leo Booth. All rights reserved. Reprinted from Spirituality and Recovery. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the written permission of the publisher. Publisher: Health Communications, Inc., 3201 SW 15th Street, Deerfield Beach, FL 33442

 

About this edition

• Publisher: Health Communications Inc
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0757317022
• ISBN 13: 9780757317026
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 4
• Number of pages: 192