Perhaps America needs to do the 12 steps
I have worked with people who have addictions
I have struggled with my own
And what I see now, more clearly than ever
Although I have long known it to be true,
Is that Americans are addicted to power
More specifically they are addicted to the idea that those
how have power are more
Valuable
Righteous
Good
Impressive
(Pick your own word)
Than those that don’t
And that if you have power it is a virtue to use that power
To get what you want
And if you have power you are free to use it
Even abusively
No matter what the cost might be to others
It doesn’t matter what happens to other people
Other nations
Even the earth itself
As long as we feel safe, and get richer.
This addiction is powerful
Destructive
And creates fear and chaos
It generates its own “wind”
We need, I think, to do the 12 steps.
We need to admit
that we are powerless over our fear, and our lust for power and wealth, and
admit that our “life” as a nation has become unmanageable.
We need to believe
that a Power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity. We need to reconnect with the Sacred and
re-find our souls. That will not happen
through the right wing church which is an enabler, if not a co-addict.
We must make a
decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we
understood God, and commit to following the principles laid out in teaching
such as the Sermon on the Mount
We need to make a
searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. We need to admit when we are wrong. Hold ourselves accountable for the damage we
have created within our nation, and across the globe. Admit we have ignored the poor, and oppressed
those who are not “like” us.
We have to admit
to God, to ourselves and to another human beings the exact nature of our
wrongs.
We have to ask God
to remove all these defects of character.
We can’t do this (again) if we are willing to accept defects of
character (in our leaders and in ourselves) due to our fear, lust for power,
and greed.
We must find
humility. We cannot stand and say to the
world, “We are the best, the smartest.
We have the best plans…” Because
we don’t (which is why our health outcomes place us at 37th) and we
have to let God not only humble us but change us.
We have to see
whom we have harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
We need to make
direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would
injure them or others. We need to make
Amends to blacks, Muslims, Native Americans, members of LGBTQI community, the
elderly, the poor, the Palestinians (ah the list is long).
Continued to take
personal inventory and when we are wrong promptly admitted it.
Seek through
prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we
understand God, praying only that we might know God, and God’s way. And that we might have the wisdom and
spiritual fortitude to live according to that way.
Having had a
spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we must seek to carry this
message to the world and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
