What is the connection between the peace that starts to come with daily practice of Step 11 meditation, and the peace that we would like to see in the world in which we live?

What we might call the left-wing of the political spectrum places a strong emphasis on social justice. It justifies intervening in the lives of other people, other communities, even other nations in the name of peace. And on the face of it it seems hard to criticize such a disinterested approach.

But - for those of us that are members of 12-Step programs - there is a snag. Until we sincerely practice those last three Steps, we can never be sure that bringing "peace" to others is not simply a substitute for getting to know ourselves. There is often a hint that we may be looking for peace for others at the expense of discovering it for ourselves, particularly if we feel outrage or anger when we look at the world around us. That's a clue that the problem lies, not in the perceived injustice, but deep within ourselves.

The AA Big Book says, "When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation ... unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that ... situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment .... Nothing ... happens in God's world by mistake."

If we are not at peace, but seek to bring peace to others, we are like someone with a plank in her eye who is trying to remove a speck from someone else's eye. Until we remove the plank, we can't see to remove the speck. When we do remove the plank, perhaps we discover there is no speck in the other person's eye.

The AA Big Book says, "[O]bviously you cannot transmit something you haven't got." We can join any number of organizations to struggle for peace elsewhere. But we cannot transmit it until we have it ourselves. And unless we have it ourselves, how can we really see what is happening elsewhere?