Sparse Dove

Do doves suffer inferiority complexes?

The mourning dove, named for grief...

common ground dove, surely not uncommon...

the white-winged dove as opposed

to the white-tipped dove... the inca dove

named for a people who lost the fight

five hundred years ago. 

Yet how beautiful, how graceful

and long accepted as the very symbol

of grace, of God's presence,

of love.

Do you suffer an inferiority complex?

Does it seem everyone gets this program,

everybody progresses, all have found peace

and you remain confused, conflicted, ill-at-ease?

Are you comparing their outside to your inside?

Are you really so sparse, so like a common dove

as you sometimes feel? Have faith.

You are promised great things,

recovery beyond your wildest dreams.

Hear the history.

In the face of the total failure 

of their human resources, 

they found that a new power, 

peace, happiness, 

and sense of direction 

flowed into them.*

That leaves you the dove of love, of peace,

not some fictive sparse dove in need. 

Page 50, Alcoholics Anonymous