Saturday, June 21, 2003
Here's today's thought for the day that came in the e-mail:
Novel Idea
My friend suggested what then seemed a novel idea.
He said,
"Why don't you choose your own conception of God?"
That statement hit me hard.
It melted the icy intellectual mountain
in whose shadow I had lived and shivered many years.
I stood in the sunlight at last.
It was only a matter of being willing to believe
in a Power greater than myself.
Nothing more was required of me to make my beginning.
I saw that growth could start from that point.
Upon a foundation of complete willingness I might build
what I saw in my friend.
Would I have it? Of course I would!
Thus was I convinced that God
is concerned with us humans when we want Him enough.
At long last I saw, I felt, I believed.
Scales of pride and prejudice fell from my eyes.
A new world came into view.
Bill W.
c. 2001 AAWS, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p. 12
With permission, Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
This was such a tremendous spiritual awakening for Bill W. How many millions of lives have been saved from not just illness and death, but from years of living in a zombie stupor and just going through the motions? What if he hadn't made this leap of faith? What if there were no AA? Would people still be going to psychiatrists to find out just why exactly they drink? And playing games with their Antabuse pills? And talking about drinking in group therapy until they could hook up with someone of the opposite sex and do a lot more than talk, for days at a time?
In a very brief appendix to his book Alcoholics Anonymous (called the Big Book) under the page and one-half that is titled "Spiritual Experience" Bill W. closes with a quote from Herbert Spencer that is often quoted around AA tables:
"There is a principal which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance--that principle is contempt prior to investigation." (p. 570)
People actually die with the disease because they can't open their minds to a new way of thinking. You see them come and go in AA. The bottle wins again. They can't even say "what if." But I am thinking today of a friend of mine who doesn't drink when I read these two quotes. He is widely read, intellectual, knows way too much about everything. Still (or maybe that's why) he has contempt prior to investigation. There is nothing I can do or say. I certainly am not going to proselytize. How do you proselytize for open-mindedness? And he desperately needs help as far as I'm concerned. He needs it as much as every shaking alcoholic who walks in the door hoping for help while believing it's impossible to be helped. It's just a different type of succor he lacks and doesn't know it.
The great part about addiction is that if you don't get it, as in give it a shot, open your mind, try it on for size, generally your problems are over because you die or go crazy pretty soon. Or maybe you just get locked up, in which case you may be straight and then that problem is sort of solved anyway. So if you hang around the AA tables you get to witness lots and lots of miracles.
People come in and have nothing nice to say about religion, God, AA, mothers, you, America and everything else you want to bring up. They hurt and they need a drink/drug. Everything sucks big time. It stays that way sometimes for a year, sometimes less. The determined ones do what they're told: Don't drink/drug; go to meetings; get a sponsor; get some kind of power greater than yourself regardless of what it is.
Then gradually you see the miracle begin. The formerly miserable wretch begins to smile. You catch him making a joke one night in his comment, and it's at his expense about what a sourpuss he is. He stops talking about how much he hates coming to these "f***ing meetings, and mentions times that he was upset that he had to miss. He goes out after meetings with his new friends. He socializes on weekends with people from AA. And then one night, in a discussion about the third step which is "made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him," admits to the group that he has come to think of them as his higher power. When tempted to drink he thinks of what advice they would give him. Sometimes he even picks up the phone and lets them say it. He replays their comments from meetings in his head when he's having a rough day he tells them. He gets courage and strength and comfort from them: they must be his higher power. Everyone is smiling broadly now. There are hugs all around. Another miracle being born. Some day he will change his concept of a higher power to a more personal one. The important thing is that he has one that works for him. That's all.
Novel Idea
My friend suggested what then seemed a novel idea.
He said,
"Why don't you choose your own conception of God?"
That statement hit me hard.
It melted the icy intellectual mountain
in whose shadow I had lived and shivered many years.
I stood in the sunlight at last.
It was only a matter of being willing to believe
in a Power greater than myself.
Nothing more was required of me to make my beginning.
I saw that growth could start from that point.
Upon a foundation of complete willingness I might build
what I saw in my friend.
Would I have it? Of course I would!
Thus was I convinced that God
is concerned with us humans when we want Him enough.
At long last I saw, I felt, I believed.
Scales of pride and prejudice fell from my eyes.
A new world came into view.
Bill W.
c. 2001 AAWS, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p. 12
With permission, Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
This was such a tremendous spiritual awakening for Bill W. How many millions of lives have been saved from not just illness and death, but from years of living in a zombie stupor and just going through the motions? What if he hadn't made this leap of faith? What if there were no AA? Would people still be going to psychiatrists to find out just why exactly they drink? And playing games with their Antabuse pills? And talking about drinking in group therapy until they could hook up with someone of the opposite sex and do a lot more than talk, for days at a time?
In a very brief appendix to his book Alcoholics Anonymous (called the Big Book) under the page and one-half that is titled "Spiritual Experience" Bill W. closes with a quote from Herbert Spencer that is often quoted around AA tables:
"There is a principal which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance--that principle is contempt prior to investigation." (p. 570)
People actually die with the disease because they can't open their minds to a new way of thinking. You see them come and go in AA. The bottle wins again. They can't even say "what if." But I am thinking today of a friend of mine who doesn't drink when I read these two quotes. He is widely read, intellectual, knows way too much about everything. Still (or maybe that's why) he has contempt prior to investigation. There is nothing I can do or say. I certainly am not going to proselytize. How do you proselytize for open-mindedness? And he desperately needs help as far as I'm concerned. He needs it as much as every shaking alcoholic who walks in the door hoping for help while believing it's impossible to be helped. It's just a different type of succor he lacks and doesn't know it.
The great part about addiction is that if you don't get it, as in give it a shot, open your mind, try it on for size, generally your problems are over because you die or go crazy pretty soon. Or maybe you just get locked up, in which case you may be straight and then that problem is sort of solved anyway. So if you hang around the AA tables you get to witness lots and lots of miracles.
People come in and have nothing nice to say about religion, God, AA, mothers, you, America and everything else you want to bring up. They hurt and they need a drink/drug. Everything sucks big time. It stays that way sometimes for a year, sometimes less. The determined ones do what they're told: Don't drink/drug; go to meetings; get a sponsor; get some kind of power greater than yourself regardless of what it is.
Then gradually you see the miracle begin. The formerly miserable wretch begins to smile. You catch him making a joke one night in his comment, and it's at his expense about what a sourpuss he is. He stops talking about how much he hates coming to these "f***ing meetings, and mentions times that he was upset that he had to miss. He goes out after meetings with his new friends. He socializes on weekends with people from AA. And then one night, in a discussion about the third step which is "made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him," admits to the group that he has come to think of them as his higher power. When tempted to drink he thinks of what advice they would give him. Sometimes he even picks up the phone and lets them say it. He replays their comments from meetings in his head when he's having a rough day he tells them. He gets courage and strength and comfort from them: they must be his higher power. Everyone is smiling broadly now. There are hugs all around. Another miracle being born. Some day he will change his concept of a higher power to a more personal one. The important thing is that he has one that works for him. That's all.
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