Participation:

Xvxn though my typxwritxr is an old modxl, it works quitx wxll xxcxpt for onx of thx kxys. . .
It is trux that thxrx arx forty-six kxys that function wxll enough, but just onx kxy not working makxs thx diffxrxnce.
Somxtimxs it sxxms to mx that our AA program is somxwhat likx my typxwritxr . . . not all thx kxy pxoplx arx working propxrly.
You may say to yoursxlf, "Wxll, I am only onx pxrson.
What if I miss a mxxting or two?"
But it doxs makx a diffxrxncx bxcausx thx AA program, to bx xffxctivx, nxxds thx activx participation of xvxry mxmbxr.

Meetings: a check-up from the neck up.

Choice

If I had no choice about the age in which I was to live, I nevertheless have a choice about the attitude I take and about the way and the extent of my participation in its living ongoing events.
To choose the world is not then merely a pious admission that the world is acceptable because it comes from the hand of God.
It is first of all an acceptance of a task and a vocation in the world, in history and in time. In my time, which is the present.
To choose the world is to choose to do the work I am capable of doing, in collaboration with my brother and sister, to make the world better, more free, more just, more livable, more human.
And it has now become transparently obvious that mere automatic "rejection of the world" and "contempt for the world" is in fact not a choice but an evasion of choice.
The person, who pretends that he can turn his back on Auschwitz or Viet Nam and acts as if they were not there, is simply bluffing.
Thomas Merton