From Cherry Haisten, Contemplative Ministries Coordinator, The Center at St. Andrew, Seattle:
As it sounds to many people, surrender is a dirty word. Drop your gun and put your hands up? Raise a white flag? Throw in the towel? Admit defeat? Never! The American myth dictates: Don’t give up. Don’t give in.
Rabbi Rami Shapiro teaches an alternative understanding of surrender. His teaching may bring the freedom that comes from letting go of this cultural conditioning, “a freedom that comes with a radical acceptance of and being surrendered to what is.”
Widely and affectionately known simply as “Rami,” Shapiro will return to St. Andrew, Seattle, March 10 through 12 to offer us his alternative view. The three-day event, titled “Living a Surrendered Life,” will begin with a Tuesday evening lecture and book-signing. On Wednesday and Thursday, a workshop will give participants an opportunity to delve more deeply into the role of surrender in our lives of faith and into the “Twelve Steps of Surrendered Living.” Attendees are welcome to come to all or part of the retreat, which is co-sponsored by The Center at St. Andrew, Seattle and Contemplative Outreach Northwest.
In his book Surrendered: The Sacred Art, Rami explores “shattering the illusion of control and falling into grace with twelve-step spirituality.” Rami is a longtime twelve-stepper as well as a student of many faiths. The wisdom he has absorbed from these traditions has been woven together in the well of his imagination into the whole cloth of his particular perspective.
Surrendered: The Sacred Art focuses on Steps One, Two, and Three of the Twelve Steps from The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous:
- We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
- Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
- Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand God.
A copy of Surrendered is included in the price of each ticket. An earlier work called Recovery-the Sacred Art: The Twelve Steps as Spiritual Practice addresses each of the AA steps. Copies of Recovery will be available for purchase.
In the workshop at St. Andrew, Rami will address all twelve steps. Rami believes that their concern “widens… beyond alcoholism or any named addiction: you aren’t merely powerless over this or that substance or behavior but over life itself.” Thus, he has adapted the twelve steps for all human beings, not just those in twelve-step recovery.
Though Gerald May wrote his book Addiction and Grace long before Rami’s work, his insights into addiction anticipate Rami’s and corroborate them:
I am not being flippant when I say that all of us suffer from addiction. Nor am I reducing the meaning of addiction. I mean in all truth that the psychological, neurological, and spiritual dynamics of full-fledged addiction are actively at work within every human being. The same processes that are responsible for addiction to alcohol and narcotics are also responsible for addiction to ideas, work, relationships, power, moods, fantasies, and an endless variety of other things. We are all addicts in every sense of the word.
“You don’t have to be a Twelve-Stepper to benefit from Rabbi Rami’s wisdom,” wrote Barbara Brown Taylor, Episcopal priest, award-winning preacher, and New York Times best-selling author. “We are all in recovery, and he is the perfect guide on our way to the freedom that has been ours all along.”
“Rami’s approach is unique,” said Cris Blair about Rami’s workshop at St. Andrew last spring. “I was able to tap into deeper levels of consciousness than I ever had before.” Cris found the way Rami brings other religions together fascinating. “His teaching brings a universality of spirit,” she said.
Suzann Daley, a lifelong Episcopalian who attended Rami’s lecture last year, found Rami’s teaching “absolutely thought-provoking” and “the perspective of many faiths inspiring. I had no idea what to expect,” she said, but the teaching stuck with her, especially the song he taught, “I am alive.” She has used it through the year as an active prayer. Rami will likely lead us in the same song this time around.
“Rami Shapiro is brilliant, heartful and full of reverence (and irreverence!) A great pluralistic soul with a fabulous sense of humor,” Rabbi Tirzah Firestone has commented. “You will love him!” A little of his wit is captured in his own description of Surrendered: the Sacred Art. “This isn’t a self-help book,” he writes, “but a self-helpless book.”
Registration Information
Note: all fees include a copy of Rabbi Rami’s book Surrendered—the Sacred Art.
Tuesday Night Only – Lecture, Reception, and Book Signing (7:00-9:00pm) in the Nave
General admission $40.00; Students, seniors, veterans $30.00
Workshop Wednesday (8:30am-4:30pm with lunch) and Thursday (8:30am-noon)
General admission $150.00; Students, seniors, veterans $130.00
All three days with all of the above
General admission $165.00; Students, seniors, veterans $140.00
