The first time occurred while I was standing at the edge of that alcoholic abbess. There I came to believe I was an alcoholic and knew I had to stop drinking. I was scared. But I saw changes in the lives of others and worked the Program to bring those changes into my own life. My AA meetings hammered on the step-by-step process of dealing with the harm we’d caused. My sponsor warned me of the importance of continuing to attend meetings and continuing to work the Steps. At that point I knew I had indeed been born again.

As I worked the Steps, I came to understand that Step Two told me much about myself, the depths of which I didn’t comprehend immediately, and to some extent, not for years. It is this Step which tells me to “get outside myself,” to forget that I alone can understand life and function within it. Step Two tells me to “let go and let God,” to always seek the will of my Higher Power, to seek the next right thing to do in any circumstance. For me, accepting that was my second moment of being born again.

You’d be mistaken if you thought that at this point I’d leave talking about this born again business. But I want to point out that I’d missed an understanding of the depth of my “life” I was turning over. More recently than I’ll admit, I see that “turning over” includes not only the big stuff but the junky stuff we run into every day—car keys your son (or you) lost, your printer jams, the snarky letters from people. I need to remember to turn over these mundane sudden difficulties. These daily little things can push me into temper tantrums and anger causing me to fire off a “way-out-of-line” response.

It’s the daily ordinary trivial stuff that grabs me and turns me into a person I don’t like. It forces me to ask myself if I have really done what Step Two says. My failure to do so means I failed to take advantage of His love for me and His assistance in working my way through all of life’s activity.

It’s not always easy to “stop, be quiet and wait.” I fail a great deal. But the fact is that with a few seconds of reflection, I can muster a solution, I can find a way to look again to find those keys, even find a way to clear that jammed printer.

I have found that this “halting time” usually gives me that solution. Our Higher Power responds in many ways...sometimes quickly (calm down and look again for those keys under the chair). He has suggested to me a manner of response as I slept. Sometimes it comes later, sometimes not at all. It’s not always easy to wait and listen, but the fact is that when I am able to overcome my “know-it-all arrogance,” my life is smoother, more productive, and kinder and within Christ’s teachings and the Steps.

And when I am able to do this, I feel in those moments that I’ve been reborn.

Jim A, St X Noon/ Springboro/Frankin, Wed. Noon