Fearless Inventory

Step 4: "Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves."

"Now I take a fearless inventory of my sin, all while remaining held in God's compassionate love. When I find myself spiraling into shame, I run to the Father who will embrace me, and uphold me in great love.”^[i]

~ Ignatian Spiritual Exercises

Alright, slow down a second. Even reading the above title and quotes, perhaps has your mind churning, your heart racing.

I invite you to PAUSE.

Take a deep breath.

Notice what is coming up in you:

What do you feel?

anxious?

stressed?

fearful?

What sensations do you feel in your body?

heart racing?
gut tense?
jaw clenched?

What are you telling yourself? 

The goal is freedom. Not shame or burden. It is to know ourselves more deeply, have compassion on ourselves, and receive love, as we are.

Lectio Divina Practice

As we start, I invite you to engage in a practice of lectio divina, meditatively reading a passage written by Irish poet, theologian and philosopher, John Philip Newell. I’ve adjusted the typeset into more of a poetic style, to encourage you to read it slowly, meditating on the words. Read it a few times, noticing what words or phrases stand out. Then sit with that word and invite God to speak with you and talk about it. Invite God to guide this time of reflection. 

“…We are made in the image of God.

Woven into the fabric of our souls is a capacity for true strength.

This is not to pretend that failure is not a major mark of the ways in which we try to exercise power or

of the ways in which we try to love one another.

We get it terribly wrong again and again.

Deeper than the failures of our lives, however, is the strength of our inner being.

The gift of grace is given to reawaken us to that strength.

To be unaware of our strength is not to say that the strength of God's image is not within us.

To be unaware is simply to say that we are either underusing our strength or misdirecting it.

The capacity for strength planted in the ground of our being has not been uprooted by our failures.

We may not be using it for creativity and for justice,

 or it may have become twisted into a power for wrong and for selfishness,

but it is within us waiting to be set free and renewed.

The problem is not with power.

All power does not corrupt.

The problem is what we do,

or choose not to do,

with the immense resources of strength that reside within us.”[ii]

“Part of true strength, of course, is a love for oneself.

As the Scriptures say, 'love your neighbour as yourself.’

We are called to die to the falseness of what we have become in our lives,

to hate what is untrue in ourselves.

But unless we love our true selves,

formed by God in our mother's womb,

the love that we try to offer others will be infected by the same doubts and lack of reverence

that we have for ourselves.”[iii]

~ John Philip Newell

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We are created in the image of God, created with strength and power. We fail at living fully into who we are created to be. We misuse our power. As we navigate this reflection and courageously name our failures, remember that our failures don’t define us.

Step 4 of Twelve Step programs invites us to name the thoughts, emotions, and actions that have contributed to the spiraling of our addictions, as well as an invitation to "direct your attention from blaming others to seeing your part in problems created.”^[iv] It is infamously 'scary' and the one people most resist doing.

As Amanda Stevens from Infinite Recovery writes, "This step requires humility and rigorous honesty, as being truthful with oneself will be the blueprint for success with sobriety^[v]...taking a "fearless" moral inventory does not imply that there has to be no "fear" when taking this step. It simply means that although one may feel fear, they are willing to search their innermost thoughts and feelings through the process, regardless of the fear.”^[vi]

The Twelve Step moral inventory includes all of ourselves, our positive traits and tendencies as well. For some that might be harder to examine. For others, our faults loom large and tuning into our strengths, our beauty is obscured from our vision. In this time of reflection, pay attention to which feels more challenging for you.

We are also going to look at the misguided responses and broken patterns in our lives and create an inventory of sin, as invited to in the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises. Many of us have a hard time with the sin language. Moral sin, original sin, cardinal sin. Websters defines it as  ‘an offense against religious or moral law’.  It’s loaded and has been used in a heavy-handed, traumatic, even abusive and demoralizing way for many people and in many communities. Yet we know we have faults, we aren’t perfect, we miss the mark.

If fault, hindrance, or shortcoming, are easier words for you, I invite you to find what works.

After describing more of what we are talking about with ‘sin’, there are some journal prompts to choose from and some resources to continue your reflection.