Many
dictionaries define humility as the quality of being humble. That is a hopelessly circular definition providing
little insight. According to Scott at
the New Hope AA Meeting held each Thursday night at a local prison, “Humility
is the opposite of selfishness or egotism.”
I went to
two 7th step, “humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings”, meetings today that focused on an excerpt from
page 75 of the 12x12. The following is
from pages 74 & 75 of the 12x12 on humility.
But when we
have taken a square look at some of these defects, have discussed them with
another, and have become willing to have them removed, our thinking about
humility commences to have wider meaning. By this time in all probability we
have gained some measure of release from our more devastating handicaps. We
enjoy moments in which there is something like real peace of mind. To those of
us who have hitherto known only excitement, depression, or anxiety -in other
words, to all of us- this newfound peace is a priceless gift. Something new
indeed has been added. Where humility had formerly stood for a forced feeding
on humble pie, it now begins to mean the nourishing ingredient which can give
us serenity.
This
improved perception of humility starts another revolutionary change in our
outlook. Our eyes begin to open to the immense values which have come straight
out of painful ego-puncturing. Until now, our lives have been largely devoted
to running from pain and problems. We fled from them as from a plague. We never
wanted to deal with the fact of suffering. Escape via the bottle was always our
solution. Character-building through suffering might be all right for saints,
but it certainly didn't appeal to us.
Then, in
A.A., we looked and listened. Everywhere we saw failure and misery transformed
by humility into priceless assets. We heard story after story of how humility
had brought strength out of weakness. In every case, pain had been the price of
admission into a new life. But this admission price had purchased more than we
expected. It brought a measure of humility, which we soon discovered to be a
healer of pain. We began to fear pain less, and desire humility more than ever.
During this
process of learning more about humility, the most profound result of all was
the change in our attitude toward God. And this was true whether we had been
believers or unbelievers. We began to get over the idea that the Higher Power
was a sort of bush-league pinch hitter, to be called upon only in an emergency.
The notion that we would still live our own lives, God helping a little now and
then, began to evaporate. Many of us who had thought ourselves religious awoke
to the limitations of this attitude. Refusing to place God first, we had
deprived ourselves of His help. But now the words "Of myself I am nothing,
the Father doeth the works" began to carry bright promise and meaning.
We saw we
needn't always be bludgeoned and beaten into humility. It could come quite as
much from our voluntary reaching for it as it could from unremitting suffering.
A great turning point in our lives came when we sought for humility as
something we really wanted, rather than as something we must have. It marked
the time when we could commence to see the full implication of Step Seven: "Humbly
asked Him to remove our shortcomings."
As we
approach the actual taking of Step Seven, it might be well if we A.A.'s inquire
once more just what our deeper objectives are. Each of us would like to live at
peace with himself and with his fellows. We would like to be assured that the
grace of God can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. We have seen that
character defects based upon shortsighted or unworthy desires are the obstacles
that block our path toward these objectives. We now clearly see that we have
been making unreasonable demands upon our selves, upon others, and upon God.
The chief
activator of our defects has been self-centered fear--primarily fear that we
would lose something we already possessed or would fail to get something we
demanded. Living upon a basis of unsatisfied demands, we were in a state of
continual disturbance and frustration. Therefore, no peace was to be had unless
we could find a means of reducing these demands. The difference between a demand
and a simple request is plain to anyone.
The Seventh
Step is where we make the change in our attitude which permits us, with
humility as our guide, to move out from ourselves toward others and toward God.
The whole emphasis of Step Seven is on humility. It is really saying to us that
we now ought to be willing to try humility in seeking the removal of our other
shortcomings just as we did when we admitted that we were powerless over alcohol,
and came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to
sanity. If that degree of humility could enable us to find the grace by which
such a deadly obsession could be banished, then there must be hope of the same
result respecting any other problem we could possibly have.
I am
grateful for being more humble, less selfish and less egotistical today than I
used to be. Instead of needing to have
what I want to be happy, I am happy with what I have.
