Steps Six and Seven in the 12 Steps

A meditation on Steps 6 and 7

"All the freedom in the world lies between stimulus and response”.  Elie Wiesel

I have been really concentrating for the past few months on steps 6 and 7 of the 12 Steps.  We have been promised a transformation, if we follow these steps.    

6.  “Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.”

7.  “Humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings.” 

I understand that these shortcomings and defects of character probably are not eliminated, but simply removed over to another place for awhile, from which they often creep back to us again.  But the hope is to have them removed, and continue to ask the Higher Power to please keep on the alert for these defects of character, and please keep removing them.  

  

So I have two big defects of character which are common to many of us who follow the 12 Steps: resentment and self-pity.

I think it is good to  try to change self-pity to self-acceptance and then move toward compassion.

I think it is good to try to change resentment into consciousness of abundance, and then move toward gratitude.  

I read a line recently which I loved, which says “How can God correct my steps, if I am not taking any?”

Recently there was a book about the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Tutu, talking about JOY.  They both said that  two main pillars of joy are gratitude and compassion.  I want to move myself toward gratitude, and compassion, and toward JOY.  I want to move away from self-pity and resentment, because they block my ability to feel JOY.   

So how does that look?  Changing one’s self-pity means first recognizing that our suffering exists in a sea of other people also suffering, and trying to link our suffering to them in a spirit of solidarity.  In my  childhood, we would say that we were offering up some suffering for the help of people in Purgatory.  We were trying to lighten their burden.  These small sacrifices were a way to strengthen our souls, by trying to be of use to others.   Since then we have had many wise people talking about how good it is to be engaged in a good cause, in helping someone else every day when it comes up as a possibility,  even if it is a small act of kindness.  The Dalai Lama talks about how he sees himself as just a fellow human-being, in a sea of 7 billion of us human beings.  He does not see himself as special, but as connected to the common lot of all of us.  He also sees that it is good to accept what is, not to wish for something else, but to deal with what is in front of us.  

For us, we need to realize that the way to have a nice day is not to be unrealistic about what we can do in our day;  and to appreciate all the little good things, which is being conscious of abundance and grace.  

I have friends who write a Gratitude list every day.  I usually don’t write mine down, but I wake up thinking of all the things I am thankful for, including being able to wake up slowly and appreciate the light coming into my room. I love to be able to look at the sky and the trees, and in the night, the last few nights, the milky moonlight washing everything.  I am grateful I did not have to get up in the night and go do something hard.  I used to have to do that, and now I am able to stay in my bed.  I am grateful I don’t live in a war zone, and I don’t hear bombs falling.  Also, I don’t hear heavy traffic.  I feel peaceful and safe.   And I can breathe clean air here.  Then I am glad for my morning coffee, and the quiet house, and I notice the colors of things;  the light on the deck, the trees, the flowers.  We had a red rose bloom today.  The sunset colored rose that was a bud  yesterday is a bit overblown today, but still a wonderful apricot color.   I love the blue deck, the full green leaves on the plum tree.  I love the birds singing.  

Then I think of the people in my house and my life, and I am glad everyone is relatively healthy,  and that my troubled son is alive.  I am glad for my other son that he is a happy guy,  and is functional and strong in his life.  My husband is alive and his health is stable, and he can still go up and down stairs, and he does a lot to keep our home functioning.  He has been a little better lately, in his way of dealing with me, and I am grateful.   I keep going like that, in my prayers, being grateful for whatever I can remember from yesterday that I can be grateful for.    

I have known people who have little ways to keep a list of the things and people they pray for, like the 5 fingers on your hand:  the first is to pray for myself.  The second is for the members of the family.  The third is for friends and co-workers. The fourth is for the people who have a big impact on our lives-- our teachers and policemen and firemen and doctors and nurses.  And the fifth is for the people who have the power to protect our country and our world.  I try to pray for them because I think if the Dalai Lama can still pray for the Chinese, and Desmond Tutu could pray for the hardened hearts of the white racists in South Africa, I can pray for these important people who are misusing power, that they become enlightened human beings, and that they become good stewards of creation.

I do my morning prayers starting with the “Our Father” prayer, but I expand it to the Creator of the whole star-spangled universe, and all the swirling galaxies.   I consider  how “Thy will be done” has to do with energy, and mass, and light, and gravity and the tides, and the rainfall and how earth orbits the sun, and 13 billion years of creation.  As much as I am able to consider the weather, to beg for stability, no fire, no floods, and enough rainfall, and clean oceans;  and the need for all of us for air and water and food.  I think about what it means to be asking to be forgiven for trespasses, and for getting our daily needs met.  I try to ask again for more patience and forbearance, and also to help me not eat too much today, which is a chronic personal failing, a defect of character;  and for help  to get enough exercise. I specifically ask for help to be kinder and more patient to everyone who irritated me yesterday!   I ask for help to stay away from temptation which is going to mess me up.  I also ask for deliverance from evil.  Jesus did not promise anything about whether we would be delivered from evil, but he told us to specifically pray for that.  Sometimes I go on about some “evil” that I am worried about.  But also sometimes I realize I am probably ignoring the most worrisome thing, because it is right in front of my nose, and too familiar for me to recognize the danger.  And so I ask for help to recognize what I should be afraid of, and stay away from, and the power to do it.  

After the morning prayers, I start thinking about how to be more compassionate and less judgmental.  I know I am very opinionated and judgmental, which leads to RESENTMENT, and I keep asking for help to be easier on the people around me. Sometimes I think about my husband, who says “I let you live”;  and then laughs a mischievous laugh.  It is true, he lets me live;  and much of my resentment is that he doesn’t do more to help me, but at least he is not trying to make it HARDER for me.  I see this now.   This was a big part of the resentment problem, because I thought he was TRYING to make me angry and resentful, but it is just his normal obliviousness.  This is NOT a personal thing.  And sometimes he does something very nice, really kind, unexpectedly, and I have to really thank him for it.  Like yesterday,  he brought me a prescription I really needed, and he did it to help me feel less sick.  I am trying not to ignore all the positive things he does, and focus on finding fault with what he doesn’t do.  Focusing on the positives and the things for which I am truly grateful brings me to the JOY I want to be really living and breathing.  

Next is the focusing on compassion;  the way I feel about everyone else’s suffering, how hard it is to bear, how I wish I could take it away from them, too.  I pray for all the people on my prayer list;  all the people who are fragile and sick, and vulnerable, and whose problems only God can cure.  As I have gotten older, this list has gotten longer.  I know that I myself am too little to be able to do anything for so many people, but I ask that all people be free of suffering.  I give to God what I cannot solve.  I admit my powerlessness.  This gives me serenity.  I am only doing what is mine to do.  
To live in the deep recognition of Abundance is to be really aware of the grace that is poured out on my life;  all these blessings, and good things that happen, tucked into moments of the day— like a flower, or a person who smiled at me at the market, or a perfect avocado, or the way the dog wagged her tail when she saw me open the door;   and the kindness of strangers, the little miracles all day long.  The cleaning lady, for instance, at the hospital;  what a holy saint she is, as she comforts us with the daily hard things, how good her smile is, how kind she is, in the face of all the suffering all around her.  If I have pretty much gotten myself to forgive or get over the things I was negative toward, and tried to remember all the good things I was forgetting, I move toward that sense of abundance and gratitude, and I find it more easy to have compassion, and to feel joy.  I am trying to turn from resentment toward compassion, and from self-pity toward gratitude.  I am trying to ask that my short-comings and defects of character be replaced by acceptance, courage, serenity, wisdom and joy.  

And then if a bad thing happens, I can stand it better.  I try to focus on the compassion and the acceptance and the grace, and stay in the joy.  

And if all hell is breaking loose, I still try to stay inside the prayers for help and grace and acceptance and forgiveness.  And I pray for a sense of humor, which often is the last thing for which I remember to pray.