A New World

A New World August 8, 2014 Jim McGovern Pulling up out in front, I saw a couple of little black kids and a white one playing on the steps at a recreation center in Port Richmond. By their interaction, you could tell they were buddies. There was a time in the not-that-distant past where such a thing would have been unheard of. Growth, diversity, change, tolerance. Attitudes that can change a neighborhood…and a world. On yet another beautiful non-humid August night, having heard on the radio driving up about the massacres going on in Northern Iraq that were fueled by religious fanatics, la grande difference, struck me. Then there was the news that the bombings back’n’forth in Gaza, started up again moments after the 72-hour cease fire. About 45 minutes later, our 12-step meeting began. The topic and chapter was about the spiritual solution to our deadly disease. Eventually the literature makes it very clear that the Higher Power that will tear us away from the hell of our addicted lives is one of our own understanding. The practical step-by-step method to become aware of and then do - the will of our Creator, is what the steps and program is all about. Never is it far from my consciousness how world-changing it would be for a Shite, a Sunni, an Israeli, a Palestinian, a Christian and a Kurd to sit in a meeting together and to practice the 12 steps. The will of God, the will of Allah, the grasp of our Destiny that the sanctity of open-mindedness can lead us to, IS A MEANS to change our world. 14 years ago this very night was the first of the rest of my life without a drink or a drug. 8/8/00. Eights are huge in my life. My mom was 88 when she died. 1988 was when my dad died. On 8/3/98 a spiritual experience had near a minutes worth of pins and needles cascade my body as the thought ‘you will be insulated and protected because you believed that I love you’ stammered through my brain. 8’s – lay them flat and you have the Infinity sign. My wonder of how to pay back for that love, evolved into the taking of those steps to the world. Unfortunately I have not gotten very far. My book “12 Steps to Change the World” has not made much of a splash…my sloth and despair and lack of marketing focus or know how, get in my way. May my Higher Power guide me to and my world to overcome.