Tag Archives: Twelve Steps
Divine Therapy
Twelve-Step Spirituality: Part Two Divine Therapy Sunday, December 15, 2019 Step Six: Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. Step Seven: Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings. [1] Thomas Keating (1923–2018), one of the founders of Contemplative Outreach which promotes the practice of Centering Prayer, explained how meditation is… Continue Reading Divine Therapy
Twelve-Step Spirituality: Part One: Weekly Summary
Twelve-Step Spirituality: Part One Summary: Sunday, December 8—Friday, December 13, 2019 Twelve-Step spirituality rediscovered the real transformative power that is the core of the Gospel. (Sunday) I believe that Jesus and the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous are saying the same thing but with different vocabulary: We suffer to get well. We surrender to win.… Continue Reading Twelve-Step Spirituality: Part One: Weekly Summary
Accountability Is Sustainability
Twelve-Step Spirituality: Part One Accountability Is Sustainability Friday, December 13, 2019 Step Five: Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. [1] So confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, and this will cure you. —James 5:16 Both Christianity and the Twelve Steps… Continue Reading Accountability Is Sustainability
The Twelve Steps as Shadow Work
Twelve-Step Spirituality: Part One The Twelve Steps as Shadow Work Thursday, December 12, 2019 Step Four: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. [1] Jesus said, “The truth will set you free,” (John 8:32) and I always feel compelled to add, “But first it will make you miserable.” There is no other way… Continue Reading The Twelve Steps as Shadow Work
A Radical Surrendering
Twelve-Step Spirituality: Part One A Radical Surrendering Wednesday, December 11, 2019 Step Three: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God. [1] We each have our inner program for happiness, our plans by which we can be secure, esteemed, and in control, and… Continue Reading A Radical Surrendering
Help from a Higher Power
Twelve-Step Spirituality: Part One Help from a Higher Power Tuesday, December 10, 2019 Step Two: Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. [1] Yes, we are carrying our own death warrant with us, but it is teaching us not to rely on ourselves, but on a God whose… Continue Reading Help from a Higher Power
The Spirituality of Powerlessness
Twelve-Step Spirituality: Part One The Spirituality of Powerlessness Monday, December 9, 2019 I believe that Jesus and the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous are saying the same thing but with different vocabulary: We suffer to get well. We surrender to win. We die to live. We give it away to keep it. This counterintuitive wisdom… Continue Reading The Spirituality of Powerlessness
A Universal Addiction
Twelve-Step Spirituality: Part One A Universal Addiction Sunday, December 8, 2019 The addiction and overdose crisis . . . does not so much reflect moral failings of individuals as it does reveal a sickness that has infected the country and our collective consciousness. —Timothy McMahan King [1] Living School alumnus Tim King fairly attributes the… Continue Reading A Universal Addiction
Healing Addiction
Western Christianity Healing Addiction Thursday, September 20, 2018 I’ve shared some of Western Christianity’s weaknesses—for example, how we have over-emphasized separateness, sin, and external religious exercises. But Western Christianity has unique gifts and strengths to offer. The dynamism of Western civilization has led to what I might call the “secularization” of the Gospel message into… Continue Reading Healing Addiction
Electric Circuits
Contemplation in Action: Week 2 Electric Circuits Wednesday, July 5, 2017 Moses’ experience of the burning bush (Exodus 3:1-6) links action and contemplation as the very starting place of the Judeo-Christian tradition. His encounter is surely an inner one, but it immediately drives him outwardly, as deep inner experience tends to do. It is a… Continue Reading Electric Circuits