Friday, May 3, 2013
Literature: Excerpt from "Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps"
"What the ego hates more than anything else in the world is to change - even when the present situation is not working or is horrible. Instead, we do more and more of what doesn't work, as many other have rightly said about addicts, and I would say about all of us. The reason we do anything one more time is because the last time did not really satisfy us deeply. As English poet WH. Auden put it in "Apropos of Many Things": "We would rather be ruined than changed. We would rather die in our dread than climb the cross of the present and let our illusions die."
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To change is to admit that we have been doing something incorrectly and that is incredibly hard for the ego and also very frightening. If we only realized that willingness to change, not only helps us to overcome the fear, but brings with it incredible freedom.
ReplyDeleteI think about the people who are strong personalities in the local church. They don't want change because nothing has been changed in many years. In their case, it is not that they are doing something wrong, but that their minds are not open to the wonderful possibilitis that could await them if they only said "yes."
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