HIGHER POWERS OF THE HOUSTON-GALVESTON REGION Environmental attorney Jim Blackburn gets religion: “At AA, they told me that that I had to admit that I was powerless over alcohol. They also told me that I needed to acknowledge a ‘higher power’ which was described as a power greater than myself that would provide me with spiritual strength sufficient to give me the ability to change. Well – I fought both concepts, particularly that of a higher power. It seemed like capitulation, that I had to return to the religion within which I was raised and from which I had fled. And then at a meeting one day, a young man said that his higher power was a METRO bus. The METRO bus as a higher power made me smile and it allowed me to loosen up and think more creatively. At this time, I was doing work on Galveston Bay and had a good feeling about the bay, so I chose Galveston Bay as my higher power, a truly life-changing event.” [Blackburn & Carter, via OffCite]