Twelve Steps to Change Your World

Below is a brief excerpt from my new book Twelve Steps to Change Your World. The book is about taking the 12 steps out of the rooms of just the addicted, and to the world. The eleventh step specifically suggests we seek through prayer and meditation for the knowledge of God’s will and the power to carry that out. I use the example of Palestine for the 11th step as it would be hard to find a place where the glory of God’s will is so hopelessly buried under the banners of greed, prejudice, and injustice.

The Sabeel conference presented an amazing amount of information. British politicians and theologians as far back as the mid-19th century were paving the way for the Jews to return some day to their biblical homeland; unfortunately, a lot of people were already living there. Since 1948, millions of those people have been dispersed to refugee camps in or outside Palestine. Countless more have died in wars and Infatahs and retaliatory strikes for terrorist killings. Judging by the numbers thrown around, for every innocent Israeli citizen killed in terrorist attacks, fifty to a hundred innocent Palestinians go down. The disparity is even greater for the wounded.

At one conference workshop, where Jews working for equality for the Palestinians were presenting, we were told of little Jewish Defense Fund tin cans that were a fixture in most American Jewish households from the ‘50s through the ‘70s. The pitch was “to build trees for the homeland.” A 1938 Palestinian village that, except for one building, was now a fores,t gave a stunning visual of how American dollars have served to enslave or snuff out a people. Our government obviously has given out a lot more.

Having read On the Tale of a Comet, the biography of Frank Buchman, again the founder of the Oxford Group that became Moral Re-armament (and out of which Alcoholics Anonymous and the 12 steps were born), it occurred to me that throughout the late ‘40s and ‘50s, he traveled to places exactly like Israel and Palestine, trying to export the ideals of absolute love, honesty, purity, and unselfishness for peoples and heads of state to utilize in their dealings with each other.

I thought of the Pat Robertsons and the George Bushs and the Israeli and Muslim leaders who claim to be religious and moral people. I wondered how much more open the talks would be if they tried to abide by those standards and promoted and acknowledged that, although the God of their own understanding might be different from that of their supposed adversaries, it did not necessarily mean that He was more right or righteous. If they were to rigorously examine their own behaviors and shortcomings—the planks in their own eyes—and ask God to remove the objectionable things, they might be more inclined to be flexible and understanding. If they were to make use of daily quiet time and guidance as a directing force in their endeavors, they’d be more likely to realize that the lines they draw in the sand are actually standing in the way of progress for both themselves and their neighbors. There was a lot of talk at the conference about freedom for the oppressed and the oppress-ors.

This would be 12-Step spirituality used as a means to guide our actions and to promote peace. More information about the book, including how to order it, can be found at 12stepsforall.com. I’ll be doing a reading somewhere soon. There is also information there about step classes that will be coming out of the book

The Twelve Steps

Step 1 Admitted we were powerless, that our lives had become unmanageable

Step 2 Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity

Step 3 Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God

Step 4 Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves

Step 5 Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs

Step 6 Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character

Step 7 Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings

Step 8 Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all

Step 9 Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others

Step 10 Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it

Step 11 Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry that out

Step 12 Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs

JimMcGovern
Jim is a member of CPF and author of Twelve Steps to Change Your World.

return to 12/09 CPF Newsletter