God Is Ohhh So CloseGod Is Ohhh So Close
Father Bill W.
Father Bill W. and Father James R. talk about mysticism, radical theology and Jesus through the lens of 12‑Step recovery, stressing connection and radical acceptance. Their discussion links everyday spirituality, deep step work and story to how people experience God and stay sober.
45:32•20 Apr 2026
God Is So Close: Mysticism, Radical Theology and Real Sobriety
Episode Overview
- Mysticism is presented as an everyday orientation of the heart, where ordinary actions become moments of union with a Higher Power.
- Deep Fourth and Fifth Step work can bring a powerful sense of radical acceptance that softens shame and isolation.
- Addiction is framed as a feeling of inner separation that people often try to soothe with alcohol or other behaviours.
- Meetings are described as important, but long-term sobriety is linked more closely to ongoing inner transformation, prayer and meditation.
- Stories—from AA and from Christian scripture—are highlighted as living shapes that people can pour their lives into and be changed by over time.
“God is so much closer to us than we think.”
How do people find strength in their journey to sobriety? This conversation between Father Bill W. and Father James R. circles right around that question by tackling what they call “the God problem” head-on. Aimed at people in 12‑Step recovery who wrestle with spiritual language, the episode looks at two chapters from John Caputo’s *What to Believe?* and links radical theology with day‑to‑day sobriety.
You’ll hear them unpack Caputo’s idea that “God is so much closer to us than we think,” and that mysticism isn’t robes, incense, or levitation, but “an orientation of the heart” that can turn taking out the rubbish, going to work, or chatting with a friend into a living connection with a Higher Power.
Father Bill shares how a Fifth Step moment of “radical acceptance” melted his defences and let him finally speak things he planned to take to the grave. Father James echoes this with his own experience of believing he was “unlovable and broken,” and how Step work and a mystical sense of life helped loosen that old story. The episode keeps circling back to addiction as separation: from self, from others, and from God.
Using images from science and theology—like E = mc² and the idea that “we’re not pool balls on the table of the universe”—they argue that connection, not perfection, is what actually heals. They also challenge the slogan “meeting makers make it,” stressing that deep inner step work, prayer, and meditation matter as much as fellowship.
There’s plenty here for anyone in recovery who feels allergic to religious clichés but still longs for meaning, whether that’s through Jesus, radical theology, or simply a more honest Higher Power. If God is “humming in the background of ordinary experience,” what might change if you started listening for that in your own sobriety?
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