People can change

David Brooks, in a recent New York Times Op-Ed column (“Bill Wilson’s Gospel,” June 28, 2010) analyzed principles important to the success of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), including:

• Allowing each AA member and group to tailor the program to personal satisfy individual and local preference and needs;

• Emphasizing community, i.e., group fellowship;

• Disempowering the central organization, resulting in less control but also more innovation and dynamism;

• Seeking to change a person’s entire identity, not simply the problematic behavior, i.e., drinking too much;

Brooks’ presented his analysis as an argument in favor of attempting to change individuals and societies. He states that humans generally lack the knowledge necessary to achieve desired results consistently with respect to both of those goals. However, he points to AA as an example of a successful effort.

AA, Brooks observes, does not work for everyone, perhaps not even for a significant majority of the people who join AA. Yet AA has effectively helped millions of people transform their lives. Without the vision of Bill Wilson, articulated in AA’s 12 steps and implemented using the principles enumerated above, and without Wilson’s belief that people can change those people would not have transformed their lives.

What is your vision for life? In what way or ways might you live more abundantly into that vision?

Do you believe that you can change, transform yourself into a person who more fully embodies your vision of life abundant?

What is your plan, your path for change?

My answers to those questions, in broad generalities, are:

• Life abundant means loving God more (being more fully and constantly aware of the pervasive presence and power of the ultimate reality that undergirds all life), loving other people more fully, and exercising good stewardship of the earth.

• People, groups, and institutions can change. I’ve seen transformation in numerous other people (and groups and institutions) as well as experienced it in my own life. One of the greatest privileges and joys of my life has been serving as a catalyst for change in the life of others.

• My plan for change involves my walking the Jesus path. Others may choose different paths. I discover the Jesus path through the Anglican tradition, the Christian scriptures, and the exercise of my own reason and reflection on my experience. Many of the postings in this blog describe aspects of the Jesus path more specifically.

My answers to those three questions define my life’s purpose and direction. My answers also shape my understanding of evangelism, a topic that I addressed more broadly in the previous posting.