We think of little babies as being innocent. Even the great St. Augustine, convinced of the reality of original sin, could not bring himself to believe that babies were condemned to eternal damnation if they died unbaptized.

Part of what we see as innocence in the very young child may arise from its unselfconscious spontaneity. When it's hungry, it cries. When it's wet, it cries. When it's tired, it falls asleep.

What's happening is that the child is living completely in the moment. Fortunately for it, it cannot yet speak; it is not possessed of the crazy notion that it can control its world; it is incapable of guile, in that it has no notion of believing one thing and yet acting as though the opposite were the case; above all, it does not reflect. Yet it responds immediately and attentively to its environment. When it sees a familiar face, it smiles. When it is startled, it flings out its arms and legs in the familiar "startle reflex."

All too soon, it will learn to speak, to attempt to manipulate its environment, to dissemble and pretend, to develop goals and ambitions. Perhaps, despite its best efforts, it will find itself one day in a 12-Step program. And when it's been in recovery for a while, it will hopefully begin working the last three Steps, and discover that it can recapture much of that innocence by learning to live in the moment all over again.