Applying The Serenity Prayer by Mel B

[Fluttering]

How One Member Applies it to His Daily Living


Volume 29 Issue 7
December 1972

WHEN I WAS growing up in Nebraska, I often heard older people say, "You can do anything you put your mind to."

This old saw was apparently one of those things that were easier to say than to prove. Even as a child, I often wondered how it could be true when so many things were going unchanged. We didn't seem to be able to do anything about the drought and the dust storms. The depression had almost everybody in a kind of economic paralysis. When my grandfather became ill with a heart ailment, nothing could be done for it, and he passed away at fifty-six. The conditions of our lives made it clear that either there were some things we could not do, or we were not "putting our minds to" things that should have been done.

Well, despite its shortcomings, there was probably a lot of comfort in our old saying; it may have helped many of us survive some difficult times. But it certainly did me little good in the final stages of my drinking. If anything, it only added to my sense of shame. I could not control alcohol, no matter how much I "put my mind to it." Worse yet, I could not even stop drinking after realizing how harmful it was to me.

My answer, as for hundreds of thousands of other AA members, came through acceptance--not only the acceptance of my alcoholic condition, but also the acceptance of other conditions that seem to be part of my life. I am not a wholehearted advocate of acceptance, and there may have been times when I've thought that the idea was being used as a cover for sloth and avoidance of responsibility. But I know from personal experience that many things must be accepted, at least for the time being. There are other things, of course, that can be changed when we "put our minds to it." The hard part is in knowing the difference. What must we accept, and what can we change?

It's all there for us in the famous Serenity Prayer, which now seems to be popular with people who have never even heard of AA: "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference." This is the most balanced approach I've ever found to my life situation, and I'd like to offer an interpretation of its component parts.

To Accept: The primary condition I had to accept at the very outset was my alcoholism, the fact that I would be an alcoholic to my dying day. I brooded over this for a while, and occasionally felt a trace of self-pity that nature had made me different from others. But this rebellion did not last long, and I was soon able to accept my alcoholism as easily as I accept the rising and setting of the sun. There is serenity in this acceptance; the issue has been completely settled in my own mind.

Surprisingly, there was a time several years ago when a well-meaning individual wanted to reopen this issue for me. He went to some effort to explain that AA's method of recovery was inadequate. A true recovery, he explained, would permit the alcoholic to resume drinking in a moderate, controlled manner.

I could see that this argument was logical from his point of view. I'll applaud any alcoholic who is able to prove this gentleman's theory in practice. But I am entirely happy with what I have found in AA, and I have no interest in possible ways of becoming a controlled drinker. I am also able to accept the fact that this man considers AA to be an inferior method of recovery. I was even able to accept, with some amusement, the realization that my own prideful zeal in boasting about my recovery may have prompted him to offer his criticism!

But what about other things I cannot change? Here the path becomes difficult. I am particularly susceptible to fears that I may not be measuring up in all things. At times, I make excessive demands on myself and have trouble accepting any kind of defeat or rejection.

To Know: A possible answer to this trouble, I think, lies in the third part of the Serenity Prayer, requesting the wisdom to know the difference between what cannot be changed and what can be changed. I find that most of us tend to be disturbed about things that are beyond our control, if we would only admit it.

We all have to place the past in the category of things that cannot be changed. I spent a number of years in misery and depression, but there is no way of reliving those years. I said and did things for which there can be no real amends. I failed to recognize opportunities which could have been profitable.

I also have to place my physical and mental self in the category of things that cannot be greatly changed. I have a certain kind of body and mind, and each has its limitations. I am only kidding myself if I get into some activity that overextends my physical and mental capabilities.

On the other hand, there are countless ways of turning liabilities into assets. When I want to face it, I have to admit to myself that finding AA and its principles was the greatest happening of my life. It wouldn't have happened without a lot of misery and trouble. This is what people mean when they say that they're glad to be alcoholics. We are not really happy about the past, but we are glad that things turned out so well for us. If alcoholism had bypassed me, it is unlikely that I could have done as much with my life and found as much happiness as the AA program has brought me.

As for my physical and mental limitations, these are problems only when my ego gets out of hand. There was a time when I daydreamed of performing great athletic feats or tried to dazzle people with my knowledge. My worst shortcoming in these areas today is overworking or attempting things beyond my capability. On the other hand, AA has also helped me to use my physical energy and mind in the best possible ways.

The really big challenge, however, lies in accepting other people's attitudes and actions without becoming a fatalist or a pessimist. I've worked out some generally effective ways of doing this. The Serenity Prayer is, after all, a spiritual exercise, and we can accept other people if we do it in a spiritual way.

The way I do it is to remind myself (a hundred times a day, if necessary) that other people are God's business. They have a right to be here, just as I think that I have a right to be here. They have a right to hold ideas that are at variance with mine. I have no right to force my ideas on them or to make them behave as I think they should.

Even if I disapprove of their behavior, it's something that I have to accept. I may think that another person is destroying himself, but there's almost no right way of helping him if he refuses such help. I may think that certain people are a threat to me and to my family, but I must turn this over to my Higher Power. Other people are God's business. He obviously did not assign me responsibility for directing the affairs of others, or He would have given me more love and intelligence than I now possess!

To Change: The second phase of the Serenity Prayer has the most appeal to me, for an obvious reason. It gets back to what my elders used to tell me: "You can do anything you put your mind to." Well, not anything. But it does hint that a lot of changes can be made if only we have courage.

"Courage" is one of those beautiful words that is easily misunderstood. It has often been confused with bravery in war or fortitude in adversity. But it comes from the Latin word cor, for heart. When my elders talked of putting your mind to something, they really meant setting your heart on something.

A dictionary definition, of courage is that it stresses firmness of mind or purpose and the casting aside of fear. In other words, if a person really holds something firmly and deeply in his heart, he is able to rise above fear and reach his goal. Since the heart is also the symbol of love, this relates to another saying, "Perfect love casts out fear."

How does one go about getting the kind of courage he requires to make needed changes in his life? The Serenity Prayer makes that obvious. It is given to him by a Higher Power. If a person does not have the courage he needs, it can come after sufficient prayer and meditation. On the other hand, his prayer and meditation may reveal to him that he is trying to change something that cannot or ought not be changed, for the time being. Then the likely result of prayer and meditation will be acceptance.

This is something the older people in Nebraska didn't tell me when I was growing up. They told me that you could do anything you put your mind to, but they didn't show me how I could make sure that this was always going to work for good. I did set my mind to a lot of things, such as drinking, and it produced no end of trouble. The Serenity Prayer apparently takes this same principle and causes it to work for me instead of against me.

Here are some of the things that I've been able to change or to accept through the AA program.

General disposition. I always had a quick temper and periods of depression. These have been almost completely eliminated after years of work.
Jealousy. I frequently receive a few prods from the green demon, just enough to know that he's still around if I want to let him in. But it's been a long time since I felt the paralyzing kind of jealousy that once almost destroyed my life.
Resentment. I've often been told that we have to accept some resentments. Well, all right, I'll accept a few. But if I have to accept too much resentment, I'm going to be in real trouble, because I just can't handle it. Fortunately, I've learned that most resentments can be swept away if I work on them.
Sex problems. Perhaps I'm judging everybody by myself when I say that this is the biggest problem of alcoholism. I haven't joined St. Augustine in celibacy, but I can truthfully say that honesty and good judgment have helped me keep sex problems in perspective.
Education. One of the things that grieved me the most was the formal education I missed because of my early emotional problems and drinking. I was finally able to do something about this. I earned my high-school diploma in 1967 (at age forty-one) and last year received my associate's degree from our local community college.
Family, community, friends. Persistence in AA has also given me a fine family of my own and, apparently, the respect of the community and many friends. I had managed to become an outcast in my hometown in Nebraska, and for a time I was even blacklisted in some of the taverns. I cannot go back and relive those years of failure and rejection. But it isn't necessary. It is far, far more important that there are order and decency in the life I am living here and now.
I still go back to Nebraska every year or so to visit my mother and stepfather. On one visit, a fellow who had known me "back then" became interested in the new life that, for me, began in 1950 when I was a patient in the state hospital. He listened with interest as I explained how I had gone for years without taking a drink and had remained active in AA during that time.

"Well, I'm sure glad to hear all that," he said, as I stood up to leave. "And your story proves just what I've always said. A man can do anything he puts his mind to."



M. D. B.

[Rusty Zipper]

the wisdom to know the difference

Without the wisdom to know the difference between the things we cannot change and the things we can change, the prayer really has little application. The way that we learn to have wisdom is by learning to practice discernment.

"Discernment is having the eyes to see, and the ears to hear - and the ability to feel the emotional energy that is Truth."

[Fluttering]

Why God Says No



Volume 14 Issue 9
February 1958

THE FIRST REAL AWARENESS, for most of us, of the tremendous potential continuing assistance from a Higher Power came when we realized that something beyond ourselves was removing the baffling compulsion to drink. As practical results developed, we began to respect the practical side of a spiritual life. Later we learned that God's help is not limited to our drinking problem alone, but extends into all phases of our lives.

And right there a lot of us begin to get into a certain kind of trouble.

Somehow, since we got an immediate answer for our drinking, we conclude that similar answers should come immediately--for anything else that might be disturbing us at the moment. We learn that with God all things are possible, and therefore why should we have to be disturbed or disappointed at all?

So we offer up prayers for assistance, and our requirements may be as lengthy as a child's list to Santa Claus. But God doesn't meet our demands, so we become a little miffed. And our agitation is likely to increase when we see others getting many of the advantages we'd like to have. Worse yet, we see people who aren't on a "spiritual basis" at all enjoying an outpouring of luck in all directions. . .a state of affairs that can lead us into blind alleys of self-pity and envy, feeling that God has cheated us.

After all, we say to ourselves (and to the Higher Power who seems to be denying us), aren't we trying to lead good lives? We're doing our best to be moral, kind, courteous, helpful, and honest. Shouldn't good things come our way, even material things? (We conveniently avoid the admission that we are trying to lead good lives only because alcohol had us trapped, backed into a corner, with no alternative except to reach out desperately for AA.) We may also have been misled by some of the current books on positive thinking, many of which contain glowing accounts of how countless perplexing problems were solved simply through spending a few minutes each day in prayer and meditation.

But first, shouldn't we consider the real meaning of Steps Three and Eleven in the AA program? In these Steps, we commit ourselves to God's will--whatever it is and regardless of the consequences. Our own plans may seem worthy, and our own immediate desires may be modest, but even these may somehow conflict with the plans God has for us. It may be that in His strategy, the ultimate victory hinges on losing, not winning, some of the battles along the way. Today's disappointment, viewed six months hence, may turn out to be one of the best breaks we ever got. And at the proper time, our own grateful hindsight will let us see the workings of God's unerring foresight.

AA's early history carries some good object lessons revealing how this principle works. At one time Bill W. and several other AA pioneers decided to solicit wealthy people for contributions to the struggling movement. When they weren't able to raise a single dime, they must have wondered if God hadn't forgotten the desperate needs of the embryo society. Yet, as it later turned out, this experience helped teach AA to be self-supporting. It certainly must have been one of His mysterious ways of performing wonders.

Or, take the example of Bill's business reverses in Akron, just before he met Dr. Bob. Why should God let a man sustain a defeat like that, especially a man who had known many successive defeats and was doing his level best to live a new kind of a life? No considerate person in his right mind would permit a man to get in a situation like that. But God permitted it, and in groping for a way out of the mess, Bill fell back on his spiritual resources and the soul-restoring technique of helping others. Today we beneficiaries of AA's redemptive power can see that this supposed adversity was really God's heavy hand molding a magnificent movement into being.

But let's suppose, just for illustration, that God did give us immediate answers completely in accordance with our wishes, a blank check to do and have anything we want. How well would any of us come out on a deal like that? Since selfishness is a primary defect of alcoholics, and most of us are experts in using people and circumstances to feather our own nests, wouldn't we do the same thing to Him? We would bombard Him with unlimited demands, ranging from material gains to dictatorial control over the lives of others.

Since we're an impatient breed, we'd use His help to run everyone else off the road, although we'd smugly rationalize it by saying we were merely receiving what was due us. We would gloat over business successes, romantic conquests, prestige, and other "breaks"--giving little thought to the unpleasant suggestion that our gains might be defeats for somebody else. Yes, we would manipulate God as spoiled children make demands on foolish and indulgent parents.

But God is neither foolish nor indulgent, and has the wisdom to say NO. And his answers are always for our own highest good. None of this is to say that God's answers must always be "no". . .for all of us have known numerous times when the answer was an immediate "yes." But these requests were gratified because they were right, and were undoubtedly made in a spirit of humility and unselfishness.

Some AAs seem to achieve beautiful harmony almost immediately when they expose themselves to God's will. They develop such profound spiritual insight that they receive answers to almost all their prayers. The rest of us admire their serenity and wisdom, but continue trying to inveigle God into doing things our way. Then we start getting the true realization, perhaps, when we too examine the course of our lives and discover God's unerring wisdom in times past, when He has had to listen and shake His head.



Anon.

[Fluttering]

The Broken Pulley



Volume 49 Issue 1
June 1992

Some years ago, I realized that much of the great staying power of the AA program is wrapped up in Step Ten: "Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it." In my opinion, this Step suggests the daily practice of Steps Four through Nine and is designed to keep us from lapsing into complacency and self-righteousness.

Step Ten has saved me from more mistakes than I can count. But time and again, I've delayed taking this Step--because of pride and fear. One of my sneakiest evasions has simply been in posing as morally superior to the person I have wronged.

Since I'm more comfortable discussing past sins than those I'm committing today, I've talked recently about the time I broke the cast-iron pulley in the Detroit engine plant where I worked in 1952. I can find no better example of using the other person's faults to gloss over my own mistakes--even when there's no logical connection.

At the time of the broken-pulley incident, I was well into my second year of AA sobriety. For the first time in my life--and as a result of AA--I was doing the right things, such as getting to work on time and paying my way in life. AA sobriety had enabled me to graduate from alternating periods of homelessness and dependency to a steady life. I was grateful for my job in a clean factory with good benefits, and I even had a new car to drive to meetings.

Though I was getting along well with fellow workers, I was secretly critical of our foreman, Chris. His sin? Well, in my view he was a terrible bigot, particularly toward blacks who wanted to move into his all-white residential neighborhood. By contrast, I considered myself an exemplar of true racial tolerance. After all, I attended interracial AA meetings in Detroit and sometimes lunched with blacks in the company cafeteria. This, I imagined, demonstrated that I was far ahead of Chris and the older members of my family in social responsibility.

Aside from his racial views, Chris was an excellent boss. He understood production and had worked in the Detroit factories for thirty years or more. Surprisingly, he worked well with the blacks in the company. He was also fair and forgiving of mistakes, as he was the day I broke the pulley.

It went this way: In assembling special diesel engine units for our customers, our job was to install accessories on the basic engines received from the assembly line. This included installing drive pulleys onto the engine shafts. Performing such an installation one day, I was too impatient to find the wooden block that was usually used to tap the pulley into place, so I tapped directly with my hammer instead.

I had been able to get away with this several times before, but this time the worst happened--I broke the thin wall of the pulley groove. Since all expensive breakages like this had to be accounted for by the foreman, I reluctantly reported it to Chris.

I can still remember my embarrassment as Chris looked over the pulley and slowly shook his head. "How did it happen?" he asked. "Didn't you use a wooden block to drive it on?"

My first thought was to lie about it--to say that I used the block but the hammer slipped and struck the thin part of the pulley anyway. The AA program, however, had given me enough honesty to sidestep such a lie, so I frankly admitted that I had been careless.

Chris sighed, wrote up the damaged part on the necessary scrap form, and then said curtly, "Under the contract, I could suspend you three days for this. But I'll let it go this time. Just see that you do things the right way after this."

I should have been relieved and grateful. There were other foremen in the plant who issued suspensions for such violations, so Chris was well within his rights. Even the union contract conceded the necessity for suspensions for negligent work. I was being let off gently.

But instead of being grateful, I felt furious and humiliated for the rest of the afternoon. And whenever the thought of the incident came back again, I also felt a resentment toward Chris. Sure I was guilty of breaking the pulley. But what right did he have to pass judgment on me in such a brusque manner when he was guilty of the far greater shortcoming of racial bigotry?

If this sounds like twisted reasoning, it certainly was. Chris's racial bigotry or other personal faults had nothing to do with the issue of my work performance. In the matter of the broken pulley, Chris was 100 percent right and I was 100 percent wrong. When I broke the pulley, I had shortchanged the company and reduced the output in Chris's section. He had every right to be upset. It was as simple as that, and I should have admitted it promptly.

That was nearly forty years ago. I worked for Chris only a few more months before joining the company where I was to work for thirty-three years, mostly in public relations. The broken-pulley incident became very minor in comparison with other work responsibilities that came later, and it may seem to have little to do with the business of living sober in AA. But as I view the matter now, it's a great example of how the Tenth Step should have been employed, then and at all times when I was clearly wrong. My sobriety would have been far richer without this devious practice of mentally switching to the other person's faults when I made serious mistakes.

I employed the same trick later on. One of my bosses in public relations and advertising was a heavy drinker; I let myself think of that whenever he criticized something I had done. Another boss was carrying on a secret liaison with his secretary, and I used this as an excuse for feeling secretly superior to him and even believing that he had no right to criticize my work. Later on, I worked directly for the company president on some projects. Despite the fact that he was one of the finest persons I ever knew, I found some faults in him that I remembered on the very few occasions when he pointed out a mistake I had made!

So it's a good thing, today, to remind myself that all attempts to indict those who criticize me are simply the broken-pulley incident in new forms. The Tenth Step--like all of AA's inventory steps--says nothing about the other person's wrongs. The only issue I ever have to deal with is any wrong I have committed in thought or deed. And I am responsible for admitting and facing such wrongs, even though the others involved may have wrongs of their own which they are not admitting or facing.

This may seem to be a humiliating, one-sided arrangement. Why should I be the one who must always admit his wrong? But it is only foolish pride and fear that would make me ask such a question. In truth, I can only gain in being able to come to a quick understanding of my mistakes when they occur. Extending this principle to all my affairs, it sometimes helps me correct a bad practice or a proposal before it has time to result in further damage. In one case, it even helped me avoid a job change that would have been very costly.

If Chris were still with us today, I think I'd look him up and discuss that broken-pulley incident with him. I don't know if his racial views would have changed over the years, but I'd stay off that subject. My aim would be only to tell him I appreciated working for him. He was a very competent foreman, and maybe he should have issued the three-day suspension.

But he did get his point across. I never broke another pulley.


Mel B.

[Rusty Zipper]

thy will be done!

not mine!

[Fluttering]

RZ

Indeed..it really is "Thy Will"

The disease took another one home last night. She had 7 years of sobriety and clean time. She hit the other kind of Bottom mentioned in our BB.. The emotional one. She will be missed. She had a burning passion for recovery but something happened...one of those dark nights of the soul that extended to many nights. I am saddened by the loss, but stronger in my resolve to keep on keeping on...continueing to learn and grow and to reach and seek and live in the solution.

[Fluttering]

The Anxieties that Accompany Many Problems Besides Drinking Often Respond to Handling the AA Way


Volume 21 Issue 6
November 1964

"I've turned the problem of alcohol over to the Higher Power, but I have trouble in many other things. How do we go about turning our whole lives over? This subject has come up at our beginners' meeting, but we can't seem to clarify our understanding that the suggested Third Step does not pertain solely to the problem of alcohol or just the first drink."

Thus writes an AA member who is perplexed by a problem that baffles countless other AAs: Just what is meant by turning our will and lives over to God and how do we do it? Should His help be sought only in solving the drinking problem? Or does it involve everything we do? And are we being both selfish and naive if we expect Him to hand down guidance and help in dealing with our social, business and health problems?

Many AAs dispose of these questions with a good-natured but revealing comment: "Pray for potatoes, but grab a hoe. "Clearly, this saying suggests that God's action in human affairs--if it exists at all--is slight and is certainly no substitute for human effort. "Go ahead and seek spiritual guidance," the newcomer might be told, "but don't expect to hear bells or see bolts of lightning."

Yet these remarks hardly answer the needs of many earnest and troubled AAs who have met complete frustration and defeat from problems that are fully as baffling and terrifying as alcohol proved to be. They might wonder, with a great deal of justification, if they've escaped from the fleshpots of Egypt only to perish in the desert. Freedom from John Barleycorn's house of bondage--however priceless a gift--is difficult to appreciate fully when one feels overwhelmed by numerous other problems. Can we turn these over and expect results?

We can and we should; indeed, this is the true meaning of the Third Step. It does not directly concern itself with the first drink or the drinking problem; rather it calls for turning our will and our lives over to the Higher Power. A nonalcoholic can take this Step in exactly the same way that an AA member might follow it. Many do. Our goal should be to seek and develop a God-consciousness within ourselves which will govern our lives. The experience of many AAs is that this God-consciousness can be found and that it works. Prayer does change things, and always for the better.

It should be understood that taking the Third Step--letting go and letting God--is not an abdication of personal responsibility or duty; it will not do away with the need for hoeing the potato patch. But it is a way--perhaps the only way--of facing our responsibilities in the proper spirit and performing our duties more perfectly. For the sad story of man without God is that he does far too much hoeing for too few potatoes.

Let it never be said that the spiritual way is a cowardly or escapist approach to life. On the contrary, it requires maximum diligence and persistence to seek divine guidance when all the evidence of our eyes and ears tries to tell us that life is largely physical, intellectual and emotional. It means constant work to exclude from our own minds the doubts and fears that interfere with this God-consciousness. It means putting the spiritual life ahead of all else whenever possible, to seek the long-term gains of spiritual well-being over short-term pleasures that get in the way of spiritual progress. But those who seek the spiritual approach will, in the end, not only come to terms with all their problems, their strength of character and calmness of mind will be admired by the same people who scoff at this 'God business.'

If all this is accepted as being true, how then do we go about making our contact with God--turning things over? How does one know if it's working--if our prayers are being answered? What can we do to improve the success of our prayers?

Since God doesn't usually reveal Himself by ringing bells or sending bolts of lightning, we can go only by our own feelings about specific matters. If we feel a sense of God's presence in our affairs, however slight and fleeting it sometimes seems to be, then it's likely that we're making our approach in a suitable manner. We should also remember that God's power is ready to come into our lives whenever we are ready; we are seeking Somebody whose presence is all around us but goes unnoticed because of our own doubts, fears and lack of faith. The job is essentially one of getting ourselves out of the way of our own good.

The AA member who knows all this but still feels he's being held back--that some things are just too difficult to turn over--might consider approaching God by three distinct means: prayer and meditation, love, and service. For it may be that God wants us to seek Him while bending to help somebody as well as while bending the knee in prayer. If our own prayers seem to go unheeded, it may partly be due to our own selfish lack of concern about others who need our help. If our faith seems dead, we might try bringing it to life with good works, particularly those that require some effort and sacrifice on our part.

The good life of an AA member who is seeking these three approaches to God is like a fruit tree. Prayer and meditation are the water and fertilizer, love is the golden sunlight, and service is the pruning and picking. Such a tree must always bear fruit.

All are perhaps equally important, but in AA the emphasis has often been on service, or action. That's understandable, for without service AA would die. The AA message does not carry itself; somebody must carry it. It's interesting; also, that AA began with an act of service--when another alcoholic thought of paying a visit to his old friend, Bill W., and telling him about a simple program that had helped to keep him sober. This action set the pattern for all the AA service that was to come; without it, AA couldn't have been born.

Some form of service may be the only immediate solution for the AA member who is facing complete defeat or frustration from other problems. This may seem escapist, but it's not. What is more practical than to get one's own spiritual house in order before attempting to straighten out some of the confusion in one's environment? For unless a person is able to approach his problems with an uplifted state of mind, the chances are high that he'll never solve them; he'll only cause more confusion.

Service is God in action; when we seek to help others, we automatically serve God. If we cannot approach service spontaneously and lovingly, we should do the next best thing: we should serve because we need to serve for our own good.

Any AA member can begin to change his life by finding better ways to serve others. There are, of course, many opportunities to serve by working with newcomers and attending meetings, but there are also other forms of service that include everybody who enters our lives in any way. We can serve others by thinking well of them; our changed attitude toward them is bound to have an uplifting effect on their lives. We can put an end to gossip, jealousy, criticism, or any other disharmony among members of our family and friends. If there's any good that we can do for anybody, we can take the time to do it. And if there's something in us that balks at these suggestions, then we ought to find out what it is, for that's part of the barrier that lies between us and our ultimate realization of God's presence.

It never can be emphasized too strongly that, in the end, our thoughts and actions toward others color our own spiritual life. We become what we do. Acts of kindness, generosity, thoughtfulness and forgiveness must inevitably strengthen those qualities within us that heighten our consciousness of God's love.

This great love is the sunlight of AA's tree of life, and any member who seeks to learn more about God should ask himself how much he really loves his fellow men, all of them. If we don't feel the need for some feeling of goodwill toward everybody--call it love--we should reflect that in approaching God we seek to contact the very source of love. In asking God to guide and direct our lives, we are asking love to take over and lead us where it will. If we are unwilling to have this happen--if, instead, we wish to retain our right to be critical and indifferent toward many of our fellows--then we're not really ready to turn our whole lives over. We only get out of AA what we put into it, and if we wish to climb great spiritual heights, we ought to remember that only fears and reservations within ourselves hold us back.

Fortunately, any of us can make a beginning, no matter how love-starved our previous lives have been. Some think that alcoholism itself grows out of love starvation and that alcoholics are actually persons born with a great capacity for love. Whatever the truth may be, it's plain that many AA members have felt a keen love for the suffering alcoholics they tried to help, though they would have snorted at the suggestion that there was something Christ like in this devotion. The origin and growth of AA itself can be described only as another expression of the great potential for love which God has placed in man.

It's also possible that if a large number of us could truly glimpse the potential of love, we could carry the AA fellowship to even greater heights of service. For we live in a love-starved world surrounded by fearful people who don't know where to turn for strength; who don't know that faith and the love of God are the only perfect answers to fear.

Another quality of love is that it brings on an automatic adjustment in personal shortcomings that might otherwise cause all sorts of trouble. When we look upon the difficulties that people have with troublesome character traits, we can't help but reflect that many of these traits are perversions of the love instinct, or exist because love is absent. The truly loving person cannot lie, cheat, steal, withhold his assistance, or do any of the despicable acts that promote so much evil in the world. It certainly must have been for this reason that Jesus stated that the only commandments really necessary were to love God and to love one's neighbor no less than oneself.

But for its highest growth the tree of life in AA needs to be watered and fertilized with prayer and meditation. If a member is already giving himself over to AA's love and service, he can bring these to mature fruition through a deliberate, sustained effort to seek God in his own thoughts.

The need for this is sometimes viewed rather lightly in AA, but even a casual reading of the book "Alcoholics Anonymous" should convince one that AA's pioneers not only relied heavily on prayer and meditation but also reported some profound results. Prayer changed their thinking and brought some marvelous blessings into their lives.

Evidently the winning qualities in prayer, as in acts of love and service, are single-mindedness and sincerity.

In any case, the purpose of prayer and meditation should be to align ourselves with God and to invite Him to lead us and inspire us according to His will ("Not my will, Father, but Thine be done.") Steps Three and Eleven in the AA program both contain this idea, the latter being only the idea applied on a daily basis. The phrase "improve our conscious contact with God" in the Eleventh Step is very meaningful, for it suggests that our prayer and meditation should be bringing about the happy result of increasing our awareness of God's presence.

No sane person would attempt to carry on a discussion with another human being who was not known to be within his hearing by one means or another. In a like manner, any talking things over with God is less effective if one doesn't really believe he's in contact with a Higher Power. So it's helpful to begin such a session by tuning in; by clearing the mind of worldly clamors and other intrusions. Otherwise there's a good chance that self-will and selfish desires will insinuate themselves into one's guidance and keep him from his highest good.

It must be clear that we shouldn't try to give orders to God, to tell him the exact direction His guidance should take. Our Father knows our needs before we ask Him, and it's actually self-defeating as well as presumptuous to tell Him how something ought to be solved. We lack the ability to see around corners, we have no periscope into tomorrow. The lucky break we crave today may turn out to be next week's liability, or the advantage we seek for ourselves may be better suited for another person.

It's also clear that we cannot with any justification ask God to help us vanquish others in competition or to hand us an advantage that works to somebody else's detriment. Being on a spiritual basis does not mean that God now favors us over other men; if anything, it means only that one should try even harder to acknowledge the rights of those who have not yet brought this blessing into their own lives.

If we're truly letting go and letting God, the probable result is that we've lost most of the fear and anxiety concerning any problem that might be troubling us at the moment. Obviously we're hopeful that the solution, whatever it may be, won't involve too much temporary pain or loss. Still, we should also be careful not to assume that God delights in causing us pain or loss, for these usually occur only as a result of our partial or total separation from Him. Surely God's will for us is that we live fully and abundantly on all levels--the physical, emotional and intellectual, as well as the spiritual.

Therefore He knows of our economic and social needs. But all too often our real need is to let go of certain things in order to make our conscious contact with God. We may be putting these things first in our own minds, looking to them for security and power that rightly ought to come from God. For this reason it's sometimes a distinct blessing when circumstances wrest them from us and force us to turn elsewhere for help. This, in fact, is what happened with our drinking problems.

Our great need, however we approach God, is to know that God loves us and needs us too, and that with Him all things are possible. If we seek Him, we find that He comes to meet us as the father in the Biblical parable rushed to meet his prodigal son. Who can ask for more than that?

M. D. B.