I remember a monk at the Capuchin Monastary in North East Washington, DC, giving a sermon one day. He was talking about road maps. He said that no matter how hard they tried to give people a road map to spiritual growth, there wasn’t one. He said you could read the Bible and you wouldn’t find one in it. You could study all the religions in the world and you wouldn’t find such a map in any of them. But, he said that there was such a road map and the only place you could find it was in the twelve steps of AA.
I can remember that talk he gave from so long ago, as clearly as if I was listening to it today.
And he wasn’t an alcoholic, but he knew about AA and what it offers it’s members. A road map to growth. A road map out of the prison of alcohol and into the freedom of sobriety.
Not only freedom from alcohol, but into a new way of living. A life that shows us how to cope with life and teaches us how to live.
The unique advantage of the twelve steps is that it is a straight line to accomplishing what so many in the world are really seeking. They may not know that’s what they’re looking for, but in the end, we who are members of this great fellowship know what that is. All of us are seeking a way to live a life, where we are finally able to have peace of mind and an inner serenity. A way to be comfortable in our own skins. All this is possible if we seek to live a life which allows us to do the will of a God of our own understanding and do the next right thing. Right living is the answer. And it’s so simple. All I have to do is practice the twelve steps on a daily basis.
Just think of that. All I have to do is stop living in the future or in the past. I only have to live in this day. I only have to do what I can today. No further. That’s it. How simple is that?
The result is that I can have a sober life. Sober physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. What a gift simplicity is for one so complicated as myself.
Luggage? GPS? Comic books?