A beautiful passage about what it means to have a spiritual “awakening,” taken from Alcoholics Anonymous’ Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions:
“Still more wonderful is the feeling that we do not have to be specially distinguished among our fellows in order to be useful and profoundly happy. Not many of us can be leaders of prominence, nor do we wish to be. Service, gladly rendered, obligations squarely met, troubles well accepted or solved with God’s help, the knowledge that at home or in the world outside we are partners in a common effort, the well-understood fact that in God’s sight all human beings are important, the proof that love freely given surely brings a full return, the certainty that we are no longer isolated and alone in self-constructed prisons, the surety that we need no longer be square pegs in round holes but can fit and belong in God’s scheme of things – these are the permanent and legitimate satisfactions of right living for which no amount of pomp and circumstance, no heap of material possessions, could possibly be substitutes. True ambition is not what we thought it was. True ambition is the deep desire to live usefully and humbly under the grace of God.” (12 & 12, p. 125)
Along these lines, here’s some more quality cosmic-gospel-funk from the late 1970s –>
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzrj4hcIgrE&w=600]
(Thanks Matthew Burgess for sending me this gem!)
COMMENTS
3 responses to “The Twelve and Twelve on True Ambition, AKA Won’t You Serve Him (Cheesus)?”
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Ow! That “art work” is making my eyes melt.
inspiring
One of my favorite passages of Bill W’s writings including the 164. It concludes the writings on Step 12 and as with most of his writings is “spot on”. Truly blessed to be living in His Grace today.