It's Sunday morning, you people. Lets keep sober this 24. And don't drink nothin either.
When I first read the following, fresh sober, I was floored. The first few paragraphs alone took months to digest, and I realized that this was something I would do well to come back to, and read, if a paragraph at a time occasionally. Early A.A. went to great lengths seeking council from all fields in the formation of the program, science, medicine, religion. It was in this time, formulating the twelve steps, that Father Edward Dowling, a non-alcoholic Jesuit, noticed great similarity between them and the 'Exercises of St. Ignacious ' of his own religious order.
This led to his seeking out Bill W. and the beginning of his involvement in our then mostly protestant movement. His assistance and service exemplifies to me, "That which brings us together is stronger than that which would pull us apart."
I googled this speech, did not find it in it's entirety, and am very glad I didn't, as it was a blessing spending the time to type it all out for this entry.
The speach, and a couple equally important ones , can be found in 'A.A. Comes of Age'
Religion Looks at Alcoholics Anonymous, Father Ed Dowling's address to A.A.'s 20th anniversary, St. Louis 1955 (I left out the introductions for brevity.)
"May I suggest a few thoughts on the three words of our assignment: "God," "we," "understand." And, if you will listen with your hearts, as I know you have during this whole meeting, rather than with just your ears, I think God will bless us.
My trying to understand God somehow reminds me of a definition of psychiatry which I heard just a day or two ago. It is "the id being examined by the odd.", and I think that could be our breakdown of topics: The id is the primary resevoir of power, or God. Examined could mean understood. And the odd is us.
First of all, to look at us: We are three things, I think- alcoholics, Alcoholics Anonymous, and agnostic. Alcoholic means to me that we have the tremendous drive of fear, which is the beginning of wisdom. We have the tremendous drive of shame, which is the nearest thing to innocence. One of the early members of the Irish group likes to quote some author whose name I forget but who said, "Alcohol doth more than Milton can to make straight the ways of God to man."
Alcoholics Anonymous- not merely alcoholics, but Alcoholics Anonymous. Bill spoke last night of the outside antagonist in A.A., John Barleycorn. But I have always felt there is an inside antagonist who is crueler, and that is the corporate sneer for a phony, and who of us is not a phony? I think that in all groups you have the problem of people of lynx-eyed virtue.
A third qualification is that I think we are all agnostic. I believe there are several groups qualitatively, in A.A.. There are the devout who did not seem to be able to apply their old-line religious truths. They were agnostic as to application. They are people like the priest who passed the man in the ditch before the good Samaritan helped him. A very good priest friend of mine says, "I really think that the first thing we will say when we get to Heaven is, 'My God, it's all true!'" I think all of us are rusty in some phases of our application of beliefs. Then there are the sincere eighteen-carat agnostics who really have difficulty with the spiritual hurdle.
The next word is understand. As we move from an obscure and confused idea of God to a more clear and distinct idea, I think we should realize that our idea of God will always be lacking, always to a degree be unsatisfying. Because to understand and comprehend God is to be equal to God. But our understanding will grow. I am sure that Bill, sitting in that chair, and Dr. Bob, whose angel is probably sitting on that oddly misplaced empty chair, are growing in the knowledge of God. There is an old German saying that applies here: "Very few of us know how much we have to know in order to know how little we know." I'm sure Dr. Bob and Bill would certify to that.
There is a negative approach from agnosticism. This was the approach of Peter the Apostle. "Lord, to whom shall we go?" I doubt if there is anybody in this hall who ever really sought sobriety. I think we were trying to get away from drunkenness. I don't think we should despise the negative. I have a feeling that if I ever find myself in Heaven, it will be from backing away from Hell. At this point, Heaven seems as boring as sobriety does to an alcoholic ten minutes before he quits.
However, there are positive approaches, and the Twelfth Step mentions one: experience. (I still weep that the elders of the movement have dropped the word "experience" for "awakening.") Experience is one of the ways. It is mentioned in the Twelfth Step, and in the Second Step in another way. Now experience can be of two kinds. One kind is a sudden, passive insight like Bill's experience and like the Grapevine story of that Christmas Eve in Chicago. Those are all in the valid pattern of Saul's sudden passive insight as he was struck from his horse on the road to Damascus. There are other types, probably dearer to God since they are commoner, and those are our routine active observations. "I am sober today."
This meeting this morning, this convention this week, as experience distills and condenses, have been born of suffering. The other night, Bernard Smith, Chairman of A.A.'s Trustees, said something which to me was so good that I took it down. He said,
"The tragedy of our life is how deep must our suffering be before we learn the simple truths by which we can live."
Some time before Whittaker Chambers became a well-known character, in his sister publication- he was on TIME then- he wrote in life an article called "The Devil." Quoting Satan, Whittaker Chambers says this:
"And yet it is at this very point that man, that monstrous midget, still has the edge on the Devil. He suffers. Not one man, however base, quite lacks the capacity for the specific suffering which is the seal of his divine commision."
The second approach to understanding is mentioned in the Second Step, "Came to believe..." I've known some of my Catholic friends who at that Step, said, "Well, I believe already, so I dont have to do anything." And in a great burst of kindness they kept on drinking to let the Protestants catch up with them!
Beleif is capitalizing on the experience of others. Blessed are the lazy, for they shall find their shortcuts. The world can now capitalize on the A.A. experience of two decades. Newman says that the essence of belief is to look outside ourselves. Dr. Tiebout seems to think that, psychiatrically, the great problem is the turning of our affection away from self, outward. Faith is hard, as hard and as easy as sobriety, and has been called the greatest of our undeveloped resources.
What experience should we seek? What beliefs should we accept in our quest for God? The third word then would be God. Bill early wrote in a letter- I have it - in which he said, "How far an alcoholic shall work out his dependance on God is none of A.A.'s business." In fact, he implied, "I dont think it's any of the members' business. It's God's business."
And the A.A.'s business is chartered in the Eleventh Step. Seek through meditation and prayer to find God's will and the power to follow it out.
I would like to share with you what I have found to be God's will. I believe the problem which half the people in this room have had in obtaining sobriety I have had in attaining belief and faith. Where do you start? Well, I believe there's something to be said about starting at the nearest manifistation of God. Where is God nearest to me?
Francis Thompson answers in this poem, "In No Strange Land":
Does the fish soar to find the ocean, The eagle plunge to find the air- That we ask the stars in motion If they have rumor of thee there?
Not where the wheeling systems darken, And our benumbed concieving soars!- The drift of pinions, would we harken, Beats at our own clay-shuttered doors.
We know A.A.'s twelve steps of man towards God. May I suggest God's Twelve Steps towards man as Christianity has taught me.
The first step is described by St. John. The Incarnation. The word was God and the word became flesh and dwelt amongst us. He turned His life and His will over to the care of man as He understood him. The second step, nine months later, closer to us in the circumstances of it, is the birth, the Nativity. The third step, the next thirty years, the anonymous hidden life. Closer, because it is so much like our own. The fourth step, three years of public life. The fifth step, His teaching, His example, our Lord's Prayer. The sixth step, bodily suffering, including thirst, on Calvary.
The next step, soul suffering in Gethsemane; that's coming close. How well the alcoholic knows, and how well He knew, humiliation and fear and loneliness and discouragement and futility. Finally death, another step closer to us, and I think the passage wherea dying God rests in the lap of a human mother is as far down as divinity can come, and probably the greatest height that humanity can reach.
Down the ages He comes closer to us as head of a sort of Christians Anonymous, a mystical body laced together by His teachings. "Whatsoever you do to the least of these my bretheren so do you unto me." "I can fill up what is wanting in the sufferings of Christ." "I was in prison and you visited me." "I was was sick and I was hungry and you gave me to eat."
The next step is the Christian Church, which I believe is Christ here today. A great many sincere people say, "I like Christianity, but I don't like Churchianity." I can understand that. I understand it better than you do because I'm involved in churchianity and it bothers me too!. But actually, I think that sounds a bit like saying,"II do love good drinking water but I hate plumbing." Now, who does like plumbing? You have people who like sobriety, but they wont take AA.
And then, the Eleventh step is several big pipelines or sacraments of God's help. And the twelfth step, to me, is the great pipeline or sacrament of Communion. The word that was God became flesh and becomes our food, as close to us as the fruit juice and the toast and the coffee we had an hour ago.
Oh, we know the story of an alcoholic's flight from God, and his movement towards Him. "Lord, give me sobreity, but not yet!""Lord, I believe, help Thou mine unbelief!" I dont think there is an A.A. in this room who isn't worrying about one of those steps. "Lord, let me make this step, but not yet!" The picture of the A.A.'s quest for God, but especially God's loving chase for the A.A,, was never put more beautifully than in what I think is one of the greatest lyrics and odes in the English language. It was written by a narcotic addict, and alcohol is a narcotic. It's a poem by Francis Thompson called "The Hound of Heaven." Let me just give you a few lines and I'll sit down.
I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; I fled Him, down the arches of the years; I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped; And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears, From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
And here's his description of God:
But with unhurrying chase, And unperturbed pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat -- and a voice beat More instant than the Feet --
"All things betray thee, who betrayest Me."
And I'll skip to:
"Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me."
And: "Lo ! naught contents thee, who content'st not Me." In the rash lustihead of my young powers,
I shook the pillaring hours
And pulled my life upon me ; grimed with smears, I stand amid the dust o' the mounded years -- My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap. My days have crackled and gone up in smoke, Have puffed and burst as sun-starts on a stream.
Now the long chase comes to an end:
The voice is round me like a bursting sea:
And the voice says, in conclusion:
"And is thy earth so marred, Shattered in shard on shard ?
Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest me ! "Strange, piteous, futile thing !
Wherefore should any set thee love apart ? Seeing none but I makes much of naught" (He said), "And human love needs human meriting :
How hast thou merited -- Of all man's clotted clay the dingiest clot ? Alack, thou knowest not How little worthy of any love thou art ! Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee,
Save Me, save only Me ?
And I find this consoling:
All which I took from thee I did but take, Not for thy harms, But just that thou might'st seek it in My arms. All which thy child's mistake Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home : Rise, clasp My hand, and come !"
And the alcoholic or nonalcoholic answers:
Halts by me that footfall : Is my gloom, after all, Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly ?
And God's answer:
"Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest, I am He Whom thou seekest ! Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest me."
Suppose it is my Catholism.....that has always seen that the steps of AA are intertwined with God, His commandments ect. This post certainly brings it all togethor and as Phil said.....Lotta food for thought. Not just for the alcoholics or those battling with addictions. The beauty of the twelve steps can be applied in just about every human weakness, problem, ect. Good post.
Thank you so much for taking the time to copy that out for us. That poem, "Hound of Heaven" is one of my favorites. I didn't know the author was in recovery, and now, reading it again with that knowledge sheds new light on it. I know various people have various perspectives, but this was a speech given at an official AA function.
love in recovery,
amanda
__________________
do your best and God does the rest, a step at a time
The Hound of HeavenbyFrancis Thompson (1859-1907) I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; I fled Him, down the arches of the years; I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears I hid from Him, and under running laughter. Up vistaed hopes I sped; And shot, precipitated, Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears, From those strong Feet that followed, followed after. But with unhurrying chase, And unperturbèd pace, Deliberate speed, majestic instancy, They beat--and a Voice beat More instant than the Feet-- "All things betray thee, who betrayest Me."
I pleaded, outlaw-wise, By many a hearted casement, curtained red, Trellised with intertwining charities (For, though I knew His love Who followed, Yet was I sore adread Lest having Him, I must have naught beside); But if one little casement parted wide, The gust of His approach would clash it to. Fear wist not to evade, as Love wist to pursue. Across the margent of the world I fled, And troubled the gold gateways of the stars, Smiting for shelter on their clanged bars; Fretted to dulcet jars And silvern chatter the pale ports o' the moon. I said to dawn, Be sudden; to eve, Be soon; With thy young skyey blossoms heap me over From this tremendous Lover! Float thy vague veil about me, lest He see! I tempted all His servitors, but to find My own betrayal in their constancy, In faith to Him their fickleness to me, Their traitorous trueness, and their loyal deceit. To all swift things for swiftness did I sue; Clung to the whistling mane of every wind. But whether they swept, smoothly fleet, The long savannahs of the blue; Or whether, Thunder-driven, They clanged his chariot 'thwart a heaven Plashy with flying lightnings round the spurn o' their feet-- Still with unhurrying chase, And unperturbèd pace, Deliberate speed, majestic instancy, Came on the following Feet, And a Voice above their beat-- "Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me."
I sought no more that after which I strayed In face of man or maid; But still within the little children's eyes Seems something, something that replies; They at least are for me, surely for me! I turned me to them very wistfully; But, just as their young eyes grew sudden fair With dawning answers there, Their angel plucked them from me by the hair. "Come then, ye other children, Nature's--share With me," said I, "your delicate fellowship; Let me greet you lip to lip, Let me twine with you caresses, Wantoning With our Lady-Mother's vagrant tresses' Banqueting With her in her wind-walled palace, Underneath her azured daïs, Quaffing, as your taintless way is, From a chalice Lucent-weeping out of the dayspring." So it was done; I in their delicate fellowship was one-- Drew the bolt of Nature's secrecies. I knew all the swift importings On the wilful face of skies; I knew how the clouds arise Spumèd of the wild sea-snortings; All that's born or dies Rose and drooped with--made them shapers Of mine own moods, or wailful or divine-- With them joyed and was bereaven. I was heavy with the even, When she lit her glimmering tapers Round the day's dead sanctities. I laughed in the morning's eyes. I triumphed and I saddened with all weather, Heaven and I wept together, And its sweet tears were salt with mortal mine; Against the red throb of its sunset-heart I laid my own to beat, And share commingling heat; But not by that, by that, was eased my human smart. In vain my tears were wet on Heaven's gray cheek. For ah! we know not what each other says, These things and I; in sound I speak-- Their sound is but their stir, they speak by silences. Nature, poor stepdame, cannot slake my drouth; Let her, if she would owe me, Drop yon blue bosom-veil of sky, and show me The breasts of her tenderness; Never did any milk of hers once bless My thirsting mouth. Nigh and nigh draws the chase, With unperturbèd pace, Deliberate speed, majestic instancy; And past those noisèd Feet A voice comes yet more fleet-- "Lo naught contents thee, who content'st not Me."
Naked I wait Thy love's uplifted stroke! My harness piece by piece Thou hast hewn from me, And smitten me to my knee; I am defenseless utterly. I slept, methinks, and woke, And, slowly gazing, find me stripped in sleep. In the rash lustihead of my young powers, I shook the pillaring hours And pulled my life upon me; grimed with smears, I stand amid the dust o' the mounded years-- My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap. My days have crackled and gone up in smoke, Have puffed and burst as sun-starts on a stream. Yea, faileth now even dream The dreamer, and the lute the lutanist; Even the linked fantasies, in whose blossomy twist I swung the earth a trinket at my wrist, Are yielding; cords of all too weak account For earth with heavy griefs so overplussed. Ah! is Thy love indeed A weed, albeit amaranthine weed, Suffering no flowers except its own to mount? Ah! must-- Designer infinite!-- Ah! must Thou char the wood ere Thou canst limn with it? My freshness spent its wavering shower i' the dust; And now my heart is a broken fount, Wherein tear-drippings stagnate, spilt down ever From the dank thoughts that shiver Upon the sighful branches of my mind. Such is; what is to be? The pulp so bitter, how shall taste the rind? I dimly guess what Time in mist confounds; Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds From the hid battlements of Eternity; Those shaken mists a space unsettle, then But not ere him who summoneth I first have seen, enwound With blooming robes, purpureal, cypress-crowned; His name I know, and what his trumpet saith. Whether man's heart or life it be which yields Thee harvest, must Thy harvest fields Be dunged with rotten death?
Now of that long pursuit Comes on at hand the bruit; That Voice is round me like a bursting sea: "And is thy earth so marred, Shattered in shard on shard? Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest Me! Strange, piteous, futile thing, Wherefore should any set thee love apart? Seeing none but I makes much of naught," He said, "And human love needs human meriting, How hast thou merited-- Of all man's clotted clay rhe dingiest clot? Alack, thou knowest not How little worthy of any love thou art! Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee Save Me, save only Me? All which I took from thee I did but take, Not for thy harms. But just that thou might'st seek it in my arms. All which thy child's mistake Fancies as lost, I have stored for the at home; Rise, clasp My hand, and come!"
Halts by me that footfall; Is my gloom, after all, Shade of His hand, outstreched caressingly? "Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest, I am He Whom thou seekest! Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me."
"Is Aslan quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion."
"That you will dearie, and no mistake," said Mrs. Beaver. "If there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're either braver than most or just plain silly."
"Then he isn't safe?" said Lucy.
"Safe?" said Mr. Beaver; "don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you?
Who said anything about safe? Of course he isn't safe.
