I’ve been doing some research on the early years of the Alcoholics Anonymous fellowship and how its pioneers discovered a spiritual program of recovery that has shown itself applicable to all sorts of addictions and various besetments of humanity. Before AA existed as an entity of its own, its founders and their first proteges were a few alcoholics, staying sober a day at a time, using principles from the Oxford Group, a Christian movement that advised following a moral code condensed into “Four Absolutes”: Absolute honesty, absolute purity, absolute unselfishness, and absolute love.

Just reading that list can be life-changing. Ever since I read it, I can’t help but have it in my head as a guideline for living. Some people that I’ve shared this with have pooh-poohed it. “Nobody can be that perfect,” they say, or, “Wow, that sounds rigid.” I don’t see it that way. Of course I’m never going to be “absolute” on any of these. But having them as guiding principles gives me something to strive for. It’s like that quotation from Louisa May Alcott: “Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.”

Here’s how I see these Four Absolutes for my life today:

• Absolute honesty — being clear, not fudging the truth to make myself look better or feel better, and keeping quiet when something that’s honest but would be hurtful doesn’t have to be said
• Absolute purity — pure heart, pure motives, purity in how I treat my body with food, drink, sex, all of it
• Absolute unselfishness — I was hung up on this one, thinking “If you’re absolutely unselfish, you’ll be a doormat.” Then I read this definition from a group called All Addicts Anonymous: “seeking what is right and true in every situation, above what I want.” That works. And anyone who can do that is the opposite of a doormat.
• Absolute love — loving God rapturously and loving everybody else (self included) the very best I can.

These four guidelines may not enable any of us to sprout wings, but just knowing they’re there makes me feel, every once in awhile, as if I could fly just the same.