(see below for photo credit)
The following reads like poetry for me and is becoming a reassuring reflection during
morning and other quiet times throughout my day. So, I wanted to share this piece with my blog-friends:
| From Survival to Recovery (p269) |
If we willingly surrender ourselves to the spiritual discipline of the Twelve Steps, our lives will be transformed. We will become mature, responsible individuals with a great capacity for joy, fulfillment, and wonder.
Though we may never be perfect, continued spiritual progress will reveal to us our enormous potential. We will discover that we are both worthy of love and loving. We will love others without losing ourselves, and will learn to accept love in return. Our sight, once clouded and confused, will clear and we will be able to perceive reality and recognize truth. Courage and fellowship will replace fear. We will be able to risk failure to develop new, hidden talents. Our lives, no matter how battered and degraded, will yield hope to share with others. We will begin to feel and will come to know the vastness of our emotions, but we will not be slaves to them. Our secrets will no longer bind us in shame. As we gain the ability to forgive ourselves, our families, and the world, our choices will expand. With dignity we will stand for ourselves, but not against our fellows. Serenity and peace will have meaning for us as we allow our lives and the lives of those we love to flow day by day with God’s ease, balance, and grace. No longer terrified, we will discover we are free to delight in life’s paradox, mystery, and awe. We will laugh more. Fear will be replaced by faith, and gratitude will come naturally as we realize that our Higher Power is doing for us what we cannot do for ourselves. |
An excerpt from Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature (CAL),
From a book entitled: Survival to Recovery, Growing Up in a Alcoholic
Home, pages 269-270, copyright Al-Anon Family Groups Headquarters, Inc., 1994.
Al-Anon is for family members and friends of those who have an addiction (often to alcohol)...The Twelve Steps (originally discovered by alcoholics in prayerful recovery) are
now being used for many other kinds of addictions. As one very dear to me said tonight
in a moving meeting: "Everyone would benefit from living by these steps -- this program -- there is so much wisdom here."
Some folk have even applied The Twelve Steps to the prevelant addiction humanity has
to war.
==============
photo credit:
MORNING BY Franz Schumacher
Found at web design ledger dot com/inspiration/ 33 beautiful examples of sunrise photography
http://1x.com/photos/member/11929/30222/ MORNING BY Franz Schumacher
Al-Anon is for family members and friends of those who have an addiction (often to alcohol)...The Twelve Steps (originally discovered by alcoholics in prayerful recovery) are
now being used for many other kinds of addictions. As one very dear to me said tonight
in a moving meeting: "Everyone would benefit from living by these steps -- this program -- there is so much wisdom here."
Some folk have even applied The Twelve Steps to the prevelant addiction humanity has
to war.
==============
photo credit:
MORNING BY Franz Schumacher
Found at web design ledger dot com/inspiration/ 33 beautiful examples of sunrise photography
http://1x.com/photos/member/11929/30222/ MORNING BY Franz Schumacher
Greetings,
ReplyDeleteThank you for this.
I think the 12 Step philosophy is another indicator that there is no place the Divine is not.
All good wishes,
robert
What a beautiful point you make, Robert. I'd love to see anything
ReplyDeleteyou yourself write with such philosophy about the Divine!
Hope with some real hope to rejoin the wonderfully enlightening course on Joseph at long last this week. So glad it's still going on.