Spiritual Survival Guide
6: Keeping It Going: Moving Beyond Survival Mode
the hurts we can still ease, the fences we can still mend, the debts we can still repay, the relationships we can still restore. Have the courage to take the next step. Think about how you can make amends to that crowd of faces you’ve damaged. What do you owe them that you are currently in a position to give? Well, for one thing you owe them the truth , an honest admission of what you’ve done. No excuses. No rationalizations. Just the truth. You also owe them an apology . A simple, heart-felt “I’m sorry.” Personal remorse for the damage done. No faking it. No groveling. Just an apology. You owe them an offer of restitution. Some sort of repayment. Appro- priate payback . If you’ve been “a taker” in the past, then start a pattern of giving away. If you’ve been missing in action, then be interested. If you’ve been domineering, then listen. If you’ve been harsh, then be gentle. Of course it’s not always easy to figure out what to do in any particular situation. You’ll have to use judgment and sensitivity. But payback is a key to rebuilding trust. You also owe the people you damaged the evidence of a changed life . And that’s why it’s better to “make amends” at steps 8 and 9 instead of steps 2 or 3. People need to see that the change in us is real for them to take our offers of restitution seriously. And finally, you owe those you’ve damaged their right to respond . This is probably the scariest part of all, because the people you’ve damaged might keep on grumbling. They might let you have it with both barrels. They might express their ongoing disappointment or disgust—tell you that they hate you and don’t want to have anything to do with you. They may very well reject your apology, make unreasonable demands, want revenge and refuse forgiveness. It’s possible that the damage may have been too great, too deep. It’s possible that other person may be too
unforgiving. The painful truth is, we don’t get to take the step of full reconciliation. But it’s only by taking this step of restitution that the door to reconciliation can ever truly open. Sometimes we can’t make amends with the people we’ve damaged with- out creating a whole new round of pain for them. It may be too painful for people we’ve victimized (or their families) to deal with our desire to make restitution. Instead of repairing the damage, we may be opening up a wound prematurely. We may intend it for good, and desire it for our own growth, but the wound may be too deep, or the time too soon, for someone to offer it. A good rule of thumb in this instance would be to pray carefully, write out what we wish to say, and share it with people we trust for their input and advice. Steps Ten and Eleven: Persistence and Rededication We discipline ourselves daily. We buddy up. We keep going. We put one foot in front of the other. We grow one day at a time. We leave nothing out. We’re now at the stage where the dramatic and radical intervention of the earlier steps (big surrender to God, initial moral inventory, grudge lists, the drama of making amends) gives way to the perseverance and daily discipline of doing these things again and again—working the steps, working the manual, exercising what we’ve learned, drilling in the fundamentals, grooving it into our daily routine. Think of this as the open-ended stage where we’re “rehabbing” spiritually. We’re at that stage, that phase, where it’s all about perseverance and daily discipline. Steps ten and eleven are about going deeper and deeper into the day-by- day discipline of a changed life, into understanding spiritual change as a life-long exercise, to be worked out and worked on one day at a time. It’s now about the daily disciplining of heart and mind—daily work, daily routines, daily check-ups, daily disciplines—so that these things become less and less what we’re told to do and more and more simply
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