Gradual or lightning-bolt awakening?

I was discussing progressive versus immediate spiritual awakening with a friend in recovery the other day. Apparently it's also an issue of enlightenment in Buddhism.

Can a person evolve into a different way of being and living? Or does everything happen all at once?

Bill W. is the classic lightning-bolt recipient. He had a light-in-the-sky experience and from that point on was in communion with his Higher Power and was able to build his life around God's will without reservation.

"Without reservation." Actually, I don't know if that is true of Bill W. That's probably my projection of what I would be like if I were to have an inexplicably strong feeling of the presence of God.

I have not had that experience. I feel I am progressing gradually in my relationship with my Higher Power. There's still the need for a lot of faith.

The question is, am I am really building, or am I just spinning my wheels? Is there some cosmic scale being tipped slowly by each spiritual action, so that eventually I will be in communion with God? Should I be waiting? Or should I be working?

Of course, Bill himself -- despite having been a lightning-bolt recipient -- believed in gradual spiritual awakening. The 12 Steps as a metaphor is an inclined plane. It assumes that one step takes you higher than the next and so on. Having worked all twelve steps, however, I can say that my spiritual awakening is still pretty groggy. There is a lot about my day-to-day actions that are not in concert with a Higher Power who is outside of me.

I am on a spiritual quest. I act when I believe I should act. I let go when I believe I should let go. Why am I not feeling better?

The terrible spiritual truth I'm dealing with today is that my expectation of feeling better may be the primary obstacle to my further spiritual growth. "It's a selfish program", I have heard. We get in this to get better. And I have gotten a lot better. But I haven't found peace or serenity or whatever it is I hope to get out of the program, out of a spiritual life.

Perhaps my expectations of serenity are premature. I think there may be a lot more pain I need to pains-take before I feel consistent serenity. Perhaps I will not reach a spiritual serenity until I discard the hope that I will attain serenity. Wouldn't that be just like me?

But back to the subject, I think the difference between progressive or immediate awakening is merely one of perspective. Bill W. didn't know he was close to a dramatic spiritual awakening the day before it happened. It just happened. He did his spiritual work and then it happened.

Think of a bowl on a kitchen table. A child pushes it inch by inch towards the edge. Eventually there is one push that sends it over. I am a blind bowl. I don't know if I'm a millimeter from the edge or a foot. But I can still push. And when enough of me is over the edge, the rest of me will fall off the table.

Unfortunately, I don't know if my pushes are pushing me towards the edge, or away from the edge. Yikes! That's the conundrum of effort. I also don't know if the table is slanted away from the edge. My one-inch push may be immediately followed by a two-inch backslide.

Perhaps I should just wait for the Child.