[Pagekeeper]

Lately I try not to get too caught up in labels or definitions. Of course, my mind wants to instantly categorize myself and other people in order to separate myself, stereotype, condemn and judge.

For most of my life I've drawn lines between myself and others. If you were a Baptist, there was a line between us--we were different. If you were a Rastafarian, there was a line between us. I had so many lines of division etched into my psyche that my brain must've looked like a maze. And not only theological lines--there were gender lines, ethnic lines, political lines, cultural lines, socioeconomic lines, educational, national, occupational, and on and on. Lines and more lines.

Slowly, over time, through meditation and reflection, I've become aware of how that separation and division is an illusion, and a very convincing one.

Before we are Christians or Hindus or atheists, we are human beings. Before we are republicans or liberals or socialists, we are human beings. Before we are black or white or Hispanic, we are human beings. Before we are male or female, we are human beings. Before we are Americans or Russians or Chinese, we are human beings. Before we are alcoholics or addicts or marathon runners, we are human beings. Before we are poets, accountants, or tellers, we are human beings.

But there's another level--the separation of myself from all things--both living and inanimate. Because before I'm a human being, I'm atoms and molecules, like everything else in the universe. Those lines, for me, are the most difficult.

I don't know that the lines ever disappear for good. But they do disappear in rare moments. And in those moments I experience what I can only describe as timelessness. I see the world without the past or the future. It simply is. The erasing of those lines is not a word, it's an experience--utterly undefinable, mysterious, and new. For lack of a better word, I call it God.

In my limited understanding of our 3rd step, we turn our will (EGOS) and our lives (IDENTITIES) over to the care God as we understand Him.

The "We" is very essential for me in this step, because when I truly turn over my ego and identities, there is no self, there is only infinite WE.

When I do this step completely, without reservation, I experience those rare moments of timelessness. But most of the time, I don't. I'm holding too tightly to ego, which reinforces those identities and tells me that I'm different, tells me to draw those lines.