Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions, ever reminding us to place principles above personalities.

Ego has been said to mean Edging God Out. How desperately I want to sign this piece so that I’ll be admired and praised — so that I’ll feel less small and gray. But this means I am mistakenly allowing, indeed inviting, others to validate me — thinking that they can fill me up and make me whole.

The principles of the Fellowship teach me that God, and love of God and gratitude for God’s grace comes first, myself and love of myself and gratitude for my God-given grace come second, and that others and love of others and gratitude for their God-given graces comes next — not last, but definitely third on the order of things. In my topsy-turvy world, I came to dream that a human power could heal me. I was looking for healing in all the wrong places and have spiritual scar tissue all over. So when I puff myself up, I am inviting spiritual disaster. How do I feel on my ego journey? Anxious and shrieky. After the journey? Hung over, unsatisfied and alone. So, praises be to God, my name is Anonymous and just for today I’ll so remain. And tomorrow, if my lifetime disease of the ego asserts itself once more, and it well may, it does so often, please, human power that you are, pull me up and say:

Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions, ever reminding us to place principles above personalities.