The Sobriety Prayer and a Prayer for Inner Peace
"The Sobriety Prayer"
...From the 12 step prayer book.
If I speak in the tongues of men and even of angels,
but have not sobriety, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries
and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to move mountains
but have not sobriety, I am nothing. If I give away all that I have,
and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not sobriety, I gain nothing.
When I am sober, I am patient and kind. When I am sober, I am not jealous
nor boastful, nor arrogant or rude. When I am sober, I do not insist on my own
way. When I am sober, I am not irritable or resentful.
I do not rejoice at wrongs as I used to do but rejoice in what is right.
When I am sober, I can bear all things, believe in all things,
hope all things, and endure all things.
Sobriety never ends and never fails.
When I was using, I spoke like an arrogant child, thought like
a stubborn child, and reasoned like a rebellious child.
When I chose sobriety for my life, I gave up my childish ways.
So faith, hope, love and sobriety abide, but for me,
the most important has to be sobriety, for without it,
I cannot have the other three, nor can I ever have the serenity I yearn to possess.
A Prayer for Peace
May all beings everywhere plagued with sufferings of body and mind quickly be freed from their illnesses.
May those frightened cease to be afraid
and may those bound be free.
May the powerless find power,
and may people think of befriending one another.
May those who find themselves in trackless,
fearful wildernesses - the children, the aged, the unprotected - be guarded by beneficent celestials,
