Surrender and the Glad Gesthemane

We all know that the first three Steps are about surrender, culminating in our decisions to turn our wills and our lives over to our Higher Powers.  I, for one, frequently forget the progression in surrender represented by those first three Steps.  Initially we let go of our faith in alcohol.  For a long time we've known that our dear friend alcohol was turning our lives into pain filled shells but we saw no other way of living so we stuck by the booze.  In the First Step we jump off into the unknown.  In a terrifying leap we abandon alcohol and see what else, if anything, there is out there.  In the Second Step we go further.  We acknowledge that there is something greater than ourselves that can save us.  We give up our self reliance and in our culture that is one huge surrender.  Then, in the Third Step we go beyond just asking for help in restoring us to sanity; we actually resolve to surrender our wills and our lives to a Higher Power (in other words, acknowledge that we aren't in control of our entire lives, not just alcohol).  Now we are the ones helping in the effort.  The heavy lifting is being done by the Higher Power we are surrendering to.

For me it has taken years to begin to see just how huge a leap this surrender has to be.  This is not the 'surrender' of beginning a weight-loss regimen or giving up chocolate for Lent.  This is a dying to myself in order to be reborn as something new, something that is a descendant of what I was but is fundamentally different.  This is not the 'surrender' of moving to a new city or a new job; this is the surrender of a caterpillar becoming a butterfly.

It is in making this surrender that I see my alcoholism as a tremendous gift.  'Normies', 'earthlings', or whatever else you want to call non-alcoholics have to break through the illusion that the ego and its satisfactions can bring happiness.  They can live in that grey area between outright misery and true fulfillment, resigning themselves to the 'fact' that this is as good as it gets.  As an active alcoholic my life was already shattered and many of my illusions about schemes for happiness were shattered with it.  Being spiritually and physically near death, the prospect of letting go and being reborn was much less frightening than it otherwise would have been.  I could at least entertain the notion of surrendering my small self and seeing the greater whole of which it is a component.

Surrendering the 'joys' of the ego and seeing myself in context makes the Glad Gethsemane possible.  This is humility, seeing myself as I really am, a part of a whole and not the freestanding 'rugged' individual of my ego's dreams.  And this allows me to embrace what sufferings I endure because in doing so I can contribute some beauty to those around me and to humanity and the spiritual as a whole.

Cynthia Bourgeualt cites the following prayer, which was left by the body of a dead child at the Ravensbriick concentration camp. Personally, I find it at once beautiful, heartbreaking, and immensely challenging.

O Lord,  Remember not only the men and women
Of good will, but also those of ill will.
But do not remember all the suffering they inflicted on us;
Remember the fruits we have bought, thanks to
This suffering - our comradeship,
Our loyalty, our humility, our courage,
Our generosity, the greatness of heart
Which has grown out of all this, and when
They come to judgment let all the fruits
Which we have borne be their forgiveness.