Jim... You talk of people who have not taken, are not willing to take or don't even understand the existence of,.... the journey. For them, those unfortunates... It's all about the end result, which of course is meaningless without the process, the journey. You don't have it just because someone tells you a story or tells you it so, you must know it to be so.... as Patrick so often says (and so appropriately)... "what's your experience with this?"
So yea, I see how your comments tie into this thread.
The experiences I have had involved some type of work/effort/loss... grief, as with the un-timely death of my father, and the subsequent sense of the presence of his spirit while praying and climbing a steep hill.... physical labor as when I cleared a pond of a foot of snow in the blowing storm only to awaken to a still winter morning in time to watch my daughter secretly from a window... skating round and round in the sunrise.
Now, in recovery from addiction to alcohol, I am on the toughest journey of my life... Thank God there are so many that have taken it before me and that there are specific instructions in the Big Book. I couldn't do it myself. I don't have to. And the most important experience I have had is the realization that my higher power is a loving God, to whom I, and everyone else, is precious in His sight. He will give me what I need, but only if I seek Him and align my will with His...
Mark