June 21, 2015 - Readings in Recovery: Step by Step

The Serenity Prayer

Step by Step
Sunday, June 21, 2015
 
"The wars which had been fought, the burnings and chicanery that religious dispute had facilitated, made me sick. I honestly doubted whether, on balance, the religions of mankind had done any good. Judging from what I had seen in Europe and since, the power of God in human affairs was negligible, the Brotherhood of Man a grim jest. If there was a Devil, he seemed the Boss Universal, and he certainly had me." - Alcoholics Anonymous, 3rd Edition, 1976, Ch 1 ("Bill's Story"), p 11.

Today, let us not reject the possibility that a higher power of good can exist despite all the bad - even evil - that we see every day. Cynicism may block willingness to believe the possibility that something stronger and better than ourselves can exist to set us on the journey toward sobriety and recovery. Perhaps a beginning is to understand the distinction between religion and spirituality and that the two are parallel and don't always intersect. We are not required to adhere to any religious code, but we must come to believe in a higher power or God of our understanding. How do we reconcile the bad that surrounds us, including wars and all other affairs? If we can accept that one of our most precious collective gifts is the freedom of choice, is it not plausible that the state of man is a direct consequence of our choices individually and collectively? If so, cannot what is bad around us be the consequence of our self-will run riot and not because of a punitive god? Today, I set out to find my higher power of my understanding, not of man's religious concept. And our common journey continues. Step by step. - Chris M., 2015