For me, the single most wonderful and amazing benefit of sobriety in A.A. is this experience of growth, change, and
movement - of
a way of life that is truly dynamic. (That word, of course, shares a root with "dynamite"!)
The title of this post comes from the opening section of Step 12 - "Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs." - in the book
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. My bolding.
The joy of living is the theme of A.A.'s Twelfth Step, and action is its key word. Here we turn outward toward our fellow alcoholics who are still in distress. Here we experience the kind of giving that asks no rewards. Here we begin to practice all Twelve Steps of the program in our daily lives so that we and those about us may find emotional sobriety. When the Twelfth Step is seen in its full implication, it is really talking about the kind of love that has no price tag on it.
Our Twelfth Step also says that as a result of practicing all the Steps, we have each found something called a spiritual awakening. To new A.A.'s, this often seems like a very dubious and improbable state of affairs. "What do you mean when you talk about a `spiritual awakening'?" they ask.
Maybe there are as many definitions of spiritual awakening as there are people who have had them. But certainly each genuine one has something in common with all the others. And these things which they have in common are not too hard to understand. When a man or a woman has a spiritual awakening, the most important meaning of it is that he has now become able to do, feel, and believe that which he could not do before on his unaided strength and resources alone. He has been granted a gift which amounts to a new state of consciousness and being. He has been set on a path which tells him he is really going somewhere, that life is not a dead end, not something to be endured or mastered. In a very real sense he has been transformed, because he has laid hold of a source of strength which, in one way or another, he had hitherto denied himself. He finds himself in possession of a degree of honesty, tolerance, unselfishness, peace of mind, and love of which he had thought himself quite incapable. What he has received is a free gift, and yet usually, at least in some small part, he has made himself ready to receive it.
A.A.'s manner of making ready to receive this gift lies in the practice of the Twelve Steps in our program. So let's consider briefly what we have been trying to do up to this point:
Step One showed us an amazing paradox: We found that we were totally unable to be rid of the alcohol obsession until we first admitted that we were powerless over it. In Step Two we saw that since we could not restore ourselves to sanity, some Higher Power must necessarily do so if we were to survive. Consequently, in Step Three we turned our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. For the time being, we who were atheist or agnostic discovered that our own group, or A.A. as a whole, would suffice as a higher power. Beginning with Step Four, we commenced to search out the things in ourselves which had brought us to physical, moral, and spiritual bankruptcy. We made a searching and fearless moral inventory. Looking at Step Five, we decided that an inventory, taken alone, wouldn't be enough. We knew we would have to quit the deadly business of living alone with our conflicts, and in honesty confide these to God and another human being. At Step Six, many of us balked--for the practical reason that we did not wish to have all our defects of character removed, because we still loved some of them too much. Yet we knew we had to make a settlement with the fundamental principle of Step Six. So we decided that while we still had some flaws of character that we could not yet relinquish, we ought nevertheless to quit our stubborn, rebellious hanging on to them. We said to ourselves, "This I cannot do today, perhaps, but I can stop crying out `No, never!' " Then, in Step Seven, we humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings such as He could or would under the conditions of the day we asked. In Step Eight, we continued our housecleaning, for we saw that we were not only in conflict with ourselves, but also with people and situations in the world in which we lived. We had to begin to make our peace, and so we listed the people we had harmed and became willing to set things right. We followed this up in Step Nine by making direct amends to those concerned, except when it would injure them or other people. By this time, at Step Ten, we had begun to get a basis for daily living, and we keenly realized that we would need to continue taking personal inventory, and that when we were in the wrong we ought to admit it promptly. In Step Eleven we saw that if a Higher Power had restored us to sanity and had enabled us to live with some peace of mind in a sorely troubled world, then such a Higher Power was worth knowing better, by as direct contact as possible. The persistent use of meditation and prayer, we found, did open the channel so that where there had been a trickle, there now was a river which led to sure power and safe guidance from God as we were increasingly better able to understand Him.
So, practicing these Steps, we had a spiritual awakening about which finally there was no question. Looking at those who were only beginning and still doubted themselves, the rest of us were able to see the change setting in. From great numbers of such experiences, we could predict that the doubter who still claimed that he hadn't got the "spiritual angle," and who still considered his well-loved A.A. group the higher power, would presently love God and call Him by name.
As far as I can see, the reason for that feeling of
really going somewhere is the
continued effort at acceptance of reality, self-examination, and repentance - all resting on a foundation of prayer and the seeking of "constant contact with God." These things combined assure that a person can never become dead to life, or psychologically or emotionally stuck forever at a single stage of development. They compel us to perpetually move on. (This is why, in my opinion, it's so important for the church to reclaim them!)
The Twelve Steps graciously offer a tried-and-tested way to do something we'd never do on our own: examine ourselves and our own motives on a continuous basis - and work on changing the things that imprison us (and others). That, I think, is the entire key - and why A.A. produces a dynamic interior worldview, and continual interior change and movement. And
that is the reason the feelings described the last few paragraphs of this Step (again, my bold) are a source of such profound joy (and render utterly irrelevant the problem of "
significance"):
Still more wonderful is the feeling that we do not have to be specially distinguished among our fellows in order to be useful and profoundly happy. Not many of us can be leaders of prominence, nor do we wish to be. Service, gladly rendered, obligations squarely met, troubles well accepted or solved with God's help, the knowledge that at home or in the world outside we are partners in a common effort, the well-understood fact that in God's sight all human beings are important, the proof that love freely given surely brings a full return, the certainty that we are no longer isolated and alone in self-constructed prisons, the surety that we need no longer be square pegs in round holes but can fit and belong in God's scheme of things--these are the permanent and legitimate satisfactions of right living for which no amount of pomp and circumstance, no heap of material possessions, could possibly be substitutes. True ambition is not what we thought it was. True ambition is the deep desire to live usefully and walk humbly under the grace of God.
These little studies of A.A. Twelve Steps now come to a close. We have been considering so many problems that it may appear that A.A. consists mainly of racking dilemmas and troubleshooting. To a certain extent, that is true. We have been talking about problems because we are problem people who have found a way up and out, and who wish to share our knowledge of that way with all who can use it. For it is only by accepting and solving our problems that we can begin to get right with ourselves and with the world about us, and with Him who presides over us all. Understanding is the key to right principles and attitudes, and right action is the key to good living; therefore the joy of good living is the theme of A.A. Twelfth Step.
With each passing day of our lives, may every one of us sense more deeply the inner meaning of A.A. simple prayer:
God grant us the serenity
to accept the things we cannot change,
Courage to change the things we can,
And wisdom to know the difference.
I think this is why I've always so resonated so strongly with the
1979 BCP's All Saints' Day reading from Sirach (and why I was so disappointed that the RCL doesn't include it):
1 Let us now sing the praises of famous men,
our ancestors in their generations.
2 The Lord apportioned to them* great glory,
his majesty from the beginning.
3 There were those who ruled in their kingdoms,
and made a name for themselves by their valour;
those who gave counsel because they were intelligent;
those who spoke in prophetic oracles;
4 those who led the people by their counsels
and by their knowledge of the people’s lore;
they were wise in their words of instruction;
5 those who composed musical tunes,
or put verses in writing;
6 rich men endowed with resources,
living peacefully in their homes—
7 all these were honoured in their generations,
and were the pride of their times.
8 Some of them have left behind a name,
so that others declare their praise.
9 But of others there is no memory;
they have perished as though they had never existed;
they have become as though they had never been born,
they and their children after them.
10 But these also were godly men,
whose righteous deeds have not been forgotten;
13 Their offspring will continue for ever,
and their glory will never be blotted out.
14 Their bodies are buried in peace,
but their name lives on generation after generation.
Do you see? Once again, we are looking at
everybody in the world - and saying: the church has a place for - and values -
all people. And the reading says something extremely important starting at verse 9:
9 But of others there is no memory;
they have perished as though they had never existed;
they have become as though they had never been born,
they and their children after them.
10 But these also were godly men,
whose righteous deeds have not been forgotten;
13 Their offspring will continue for ever,
and their glory will never be blotted out.
14 Their bodies are buried in peace,
but their name lives on generation after generation.
This, to me, says much about faith itself, and
How It Works. Faith itself - and what it accomplishes in human beings - apparently has a hidden but powerful effect on history itself. I mean, since "they have perished as though they had never existed" - what else can it mean to then say "But these also were Godly men, whose righteous deeds have not been forgotten."?
If
people perish - yet their
deeds have not been forgotten: what can this be saying? Well, that these unknown people have literally
changed the world by means of ordinary righteous deeds. And I believe this is exactly what those last paragraphs of Step 12 also mean to point out.
A.A., then, is pointing out something incredibly important: that
faith itself is the indispensable quality.
Faith has changed the world - and its results "are the permanent and legitimate satisfactions of right living for
which no amount of pomp and circumstance, no heap of material
possessions, could possibly be substitutes." The human response to God is the One True Thing - the one indispensable thing - that makes all the difference in and to the world. (This of course includes that "courage to change the things I can" clause in the Serenity Prayer.)
So here we have a way of life that "tells us that we are really
going somewhere"; could there be anything more exciting than that? In addition, it apparently offers us a really interesting collective kind of immortality, one composed of "
service, gladly rendered, obligations squarely met, troubles well
accepted or solved with God's help, the knowledge that at home or in the
world outside we are partners in a common effort, the well-understood
fact that in God's sight all human beings are important, the proof that
love freely given surely brings a full return, the certainty that we are
no longer isolated and alone in self-constructed prisons, the surety
that we need no longer be square pegs in round holes but can fit and
belong in God's scheme of things."
And, as far as I can tell: that's just for starters....
