Breathing Under Water : Spirituality and the Twelve Steps

authentic spirituality is invariably a matter of emptying the mind and filling the heart at the same time.

Neither side needs to accuse or defend, but just state the facts as we remember them, and be open to hear what the other needed, heard, or felt.

God’s much better role—which is to help you know what you really desire (Luke 11:13; Matthew 7:11).

God will show you the best way, the best place, the best time, and the best words. Wait and pray for them all.

For some reason, to ask “for your daily bread” is to know that it is being given.

The New Testament called it salvation or enlightenment, the Twelve Step Program called it recovery.

am convinced that some people are driven to addictions to quiet their constant inner critic;

It is such divine synergy, people’s willingness to creatively work with the hand that life and sin and circumstance and God have dealt them that is our deepest life of prayer and devotion. This is “doing the will of God”!

James always insists on orthopraxy instead of mere verbal orthodoxy: “To listen to the word and not obey it is like looking at your own features in a mirror, and then, after a quick look, going off and immediately forgetting what you look like” (1:23–24). For James, to “actively put it into practice is to be happy in all that one does” (1:25), and,