When we awaken against the practice of the last three Steps, how do we know what to do? If the world is just the way it's supposed to be, is there ever the impulse to action?

The answer, of course, is yes -- except that it comes through insight and intution, not out of personal will.

In the second century B.C., the crazed emperor Antiochus Epiphanes IV set up his own image in the Holiest of Holies, in the Temple in Jerusalem. This abomination prompted Judah Maccabee and his brothers to arms. They succeeded in defeating the Seleucid armies and the Temple was purified and re-dedicated in a ceremony that is remembered today as Hanukkah.

The action of the Maccabees was prompted by the fact that Judah, his father, and his brothers simply knew that worshiping Greek gods was something they could not do. But an odd footnote accompanied their actions. So many Jews died in the battle for their faith that a nascent concept in Judaism -- that of the physical resurrection -- grew much stronger. Surely these men could not have given up their lives for nothing, merely to dwell eternally as shades in Sheol, the underworld? As a result of the Maccabean conflict, the resurrection became a Jewish idea, embraced by the Pharisaic party ... and ultimately absorbed into what became Christianity. Thus the origin of the resurrection is as a reward for a job well done -- not as a gift of grace. And throughout the centuries of Christian practice, it has always been difficult for believers to shake off the idea of the next life as a reward for this one well lived, rather than as a gift freely given.

It is so hard for us to accept that the actions we take daily as we practice Step 11 are done simply because they are to be done, not because of some spiritual payoff that is supposed to result. It is not that we do what we do into order to awaken into the world of the Spirit. It is because we -- like Judah Maccabee -- have awakened into the world of the Spirit that we do what we do.