The Power of Powerlessness

I think the rest of the steps will be a cakewalk for me compared to the first. Note to self re powerlessness from Richard Rohr (emphasis his):

The way of the Twelve Steps is remarkably similar to Jesus’ Way of the Cross, St. Francis’ Way of Poverty, and St. Thérèse of Lisieux’s Little Way. These and many other saints and mystics teach the power of powerlessness either directly or indirectly. ... Many did recognize that it is the imperial ego that has to go, and only powerlessness can do the job correctly. If we try to change our ego with the help of our ego, we only have a better-disguised ego.

And this:

It is just as Jesus, St. Francis, John of the Cross, and Thérèse of Lisieux teach us: there is incredible power in powerlessness! The quickest ticket to heaven, enlightenment, or salvation is a willingness to face our own smallness and incapacity. Our conscious need for mercy is our only real boarding pass. The ego does not like that very much, but the soul fully understands.

Links to much more on the Twelve Steps from Fr Rohr after the break.

Twelve-Step Spirituality: Week 1

Summary: Sunday, November 15-Friday, November 20, 2015

• The Twelve Steps make the Gospel believable, practical, and even programmatic for many people. (Sunday)
• The only way to give everyone equal and universal access to God is to base salvation/enlightenment on woundedness instead of self-created trophies. (Monday)
• Spiritual traditions at their higher levels discovered that the primary addiction for all humans is addiction to our own way of thinking. (Tuesday)
• The Twelve Step program understands you can’t change people by mere knowledge or willpower. (Wednesday)
• Full sobriety is not just to stop drinking, but to become a spiritually awakened person who has found some degree of detachment from your own narcissistic emotional responses. (Thursday)
• The Twelve Step program has learned over time that addiction emerges out of a lack of inner experience of intimacy with oneself, with God, with life, and with the moment. (Friday)

Twelve-Step Spirituality: Week 2

Summary: Sunday, November 22-Saturday, November 28, 2015

• We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable. —Step 1 (Sunday)
• We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. —Step 2 (Monday)
• We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God. —Step 3 (Tuesday)
• We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. —Step 4 of the Twelve Steps (Wednesday)
• We admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. —Step 5 (Thursday)
• We were entirely ready to have God remove all of these defects of character. —Step 6 (Friday)

Twelve-Step Spirituality: Week 3

Summary: Sunday, November 29-December 5, 2015

• We humbly asked [God] to remove our shortcomings. —Step 7 (Sunday)
• We made a list of all the persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. —Step 8 (Monday)
• We made direct amends to such people whenever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. —Step 9 (Tuesday)
• We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. —Step 10 (Wednesday)
• We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood [God], praying only for the knowledge of [God’s] will for us and the power to carry that out. —Step 11 (Thursday)
• Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs. —Step 12 (Friday)