06/04/2016
Richard Rohr on AA's Step 2:
Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. [1]
A Cherokee or Ojibwa chief is said to have asked his young braves, “Why do you spend your time in brooding? Don’t you know you are being driven by great winds across the sky?” Don’t you know you’re part of a much bigger pattern? But you’re not in control of it, any more than you would be of great winds. You and I are a small part of a much bigger mystery.
The only people who grow in truth are those who are both humble and honest. This is traditional Christian doctrine and is the maxim of Alcoholics Anonymous. Without those two qualities, we don’t grow. If we try to use religion to aggrandize the self, we’re on the wrong path. Humility and honesty are really the same thing. A humble person is simply a person who is brutally honest about the whole truth. You and I came along a few years ago; we’re going to be gone in a few years. The only honest response to life is a humble one. As one dying person told Kathleen Dowling Singh, “I realized about halfway through this [terminal illness] that I’m not in control, and my body sure isn’t. It’s in the hands of something far greater than me. And that’s what I’m staying connected with.” [2] What a good way to say it.
