Thoughts from IAD

Early in John's Gospel, we read John the Baptist saying, "I must decrease that He might increase."  Once again, John makes it plain that he is so dedicated to living out his vocation that he is willing to disappear in the process.  In sobriety, many try to follow a path that is similar in intent, if not degree.  Sobriety becomes their vocation.

I don't intend to argue about their objective.  I think that a vocation, be it making clear a way for the Lord or pursuing sobriety for its own sake, demands the same process: "I must decrease..."

One of the most striking things I ever heard in an AA meeting was one speaker's self-description: an egomaniac with an inferiority complex.  Amen.  John the Baptist's plan clearly addresses the first, but it also addresses the second in unanticipated ways.  Reducing the sway of my ego increased my capacity to receive help, to grow up a little, to receive love.  Even if these gifts are truly underserved--and they are--the quaking fear that I would be discovered as an impostor began to fade.

This isn't a path I would have chosen for myself, but it seems to be working.  It's a simple way, small.  An earlier post pointed to the path I try to take:

Here's your life. Do the work. Let it take you where it takes you. Just remain in my love.

Beyond that, experience tells me that the old way just allowed me to make a mess of me.