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We are a center for experiential education, rooted in the Gospels, encouraging the transformation of human consciousness through contemplation, and equipping people to be instruments of peaceful change in the world.
Featured Resource | August 2011
Breathing Under Water
By Richard Rohr, OFM
The 12-Step Program of Bill Wilson will go down in the history of spirituality as its most American contribution: practical, down to earth, not based in theory but in practice, insisting on an actual transformation of persons. ~ Fr. Richard Rohr
In the mid-1980's I gave a set of talks in Cincinnati, Ohio that were advertised as "Breathing Under Water.” The title, taken from a poem by the same name, seemed to summarize and name the theme of addiction very well. "How do we keep living when we seem to be drowning?" That is the question of every person dealing with their own addictions.
The talks, which have been popular for over 25 years, became the source of two conferences and a set of recordings titled, "How Do We Breathe Under Water?” In the mean time, St. Anthony Messenger Press kept encouraging me to transcribe some of this information into book form. Finally, my Lenten hermitage in 2011 allowed me the time, the space, and hopefully the heart to write the book. My hope is that it is a fresh take on the theme, yet based on the last ten years of new experience and conversation.
For me, what added to the continual impact and clarity of the well-tested 12-Step Program was the recognition—through contemplative work—that we are all addicts, and alcoholism is only one of its more obvious and highly visible forms of addiction. The primary addiction in all of us—discovered by serious spiritual seekers and the world’s religions, at the more mature levels—is to our own way of thinking! All teaching of meditation and contemplation, and all true prayer, is designed to help us recognize, compartmentalize, and overcome our universal addiction to our dualistic, judgmental, repetitive, and fear-based minds.
I cannot help but think that alcohol, drugs, consumerism, and sexual addiction are almost predictable, given this primary unhappiness that is found in our non-stop "thinking" minds. It is really not thinking at all, but merely reacting from patterned responses. This “stinking thinking,” as it is called in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), can drive anyone to drink or drugs, it seems to me—some way of stopping the pain, the anxiety, and the self enclosed prison of the egocentric mind. This often quoted aphorism from an unknown author sums up the theme of both addiction and contemplation (the final line is mine):
Watch your thoughts, they become words.
Watch your words, they become actions.
Watch your actions, they become habits.
Watch your habits, they become your character.
Watch your character; it is now your destiny.
Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and Twelve Steps will be released and shipped in early September, 2011.
Pre-Order your copy today!
