A friend shared something with me on 9/11 about Misogi. Misogi is an ancient Japanese practice of purification — stepping into a river, plunging beneath a waterfall, or immersing in cold water while praying. It isn’t about hygiene; it’s about spirit. The shock of the cold strips you down, rattles your bones, and reminds you that cleansing doesn’t come easy.
That image hit me harder because of the day itself. 9/11 is more than a date in history. It’s an open wound. Towers falling, smoke filling the sky, chaos everywhere. But what still humbles me are the images of grit — firefighters climbing stairs they knew they wouldn’t descend, office workers carrying strangers through smoke, men and women staying when everything in them screamed to run. That was Misogi in real time. Not a ritual, but a lived purification — a willingness to suffer for the sake of love, duty, and survival.
Recovery calls for the same kind of grit. It isn’t comfortable. Grit is weighing and measuring food when the binge voice whispers, just this once won’t matter. Grit is picking up the phone when pride says, I can handle this alone. Grit is writing down a defect you’d rather keep hidden. It’s standing under the waterfall of truth and refusing to move away.
I don’t like it. I don’t ask for it. Sometimes it feels humiliating. But the cold sting is where purification begins. Not in pretending I’m strong, but in letting the discomfort wash me clean.
But Misogi isn’t just about grit. The other half is grace. Because the water doesn’t ask you to deserve it. It just flows.
When I remember 9/11, I hold grief and anger. But I also remember the stories that still move me — strangers helping strangers, neighbors carrying neighbors, firefighters whose sacrifice became symbols of love greater than fear. Grace didn’t erase the tragedy, but it flowed through it. It showed up in the kindness that followed, in the rebuilding, in the choice to remember together instead of forget.
Recovery works the same way. I can’t scrub myself clean. I’ve tried — through diets, through willpower, through excuses. None of it worked. But when I surrender — when I pray, confess, and take abstinent action again — it’s like stepping into a stream that was already waiting. The cleansing doesn’t come from me. It comes from grace that keeps flowing whether I show up or not.
That’s the miracle: I return dirty, and grace still flows. I return beaten down, and grace still flows. I return again and again, and the water never runs dry.
So here’s the truth Misogi reminds me of: recovery takes grit, but it also runs on grace. I step into the sting of the cold water, and I let it wash me clean. Not because I’ve earned it — but because God keeps the stream flowing.
Closing prayer:
God, wash us again. Not because we are worthy, but because You are merciful. Thank You for the water that still flows.
Outro:
That’s today’s drop. Grit and grace — the two sides of every return. One doesn’t work without the other. As we remember 9/11, as we keep showing up in recovery, may we carry both: the courage to stand in the cold water, and the humility to let it wash us clean.
With deep gratitude,
DeeBo