ARE YOU ADDICTED TO BUSYNESS ARE YOU A SOCIAL MEDIA ADDICT

<div class="article-header" style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; display: table; text-align: center; width: 750px; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><h1 class="title entry-title" style="margin: 0px; position: relative; font-size: 20px; font-weight: normal; padding: 0px 40px 0px 0px; color: #696f00; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; width: 670px; display: table-cell; vertical-align: middle;"><a href="http://galatictours.blogspot.com/2012/12/are-you-addicted-to-busyness-are-you.html" rel="bookmark" style="color: #696f00; outline-style: none; text-decoration: initial;">ARE YOU ADDICTED TO BUSYNESS ARE YOU A SOCIAL MEDIA ADDICT</a></h1></div><div class="article-content entry-content" style="margin: 10px auto 5px; outline: none; padding: 0px; clear: both; color: #333333; line-height: 1.4; text-align: justify; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><h3 style="margin: 0.83em 0px; position: relative; font-weight: bolder; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">You may be lost in the addiction to busyness if…</span></h3><ul style="margin: 0.5em 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px 0px 0px 2em; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial;"><li style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Your usual response to “how are you?” is “so busy”, “crazy busy” or “busy but good”</span></li><li style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">You spend time worrying about how busy you are going to be tomorrow</span></li><li style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">You get angry when your spouse or friends aren’t as busy as you</span></li><li style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Your busy life keeps you up at night thinking about everything you didn’t get done</span></li><li style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">You make a point of letting people know that you stay at the office after hours</span></li><li style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">You check email several times a day</span></li><li style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">You zone out during conversations thinking about everything you have to do</span></li><li style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">You volunteer for things you don’t care about</span></li><li style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">You spend time complaining about how busy you are</span></li><li style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">You make list after list to make sure you don’t forget anything during your busy day</span></li><li style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">You allocate time each day to clean your desk or organize your stuff</span></li><li style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">You regularly eat in your car</span></li><li style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">You use a phone in the car because “it’s the only time you have to talk”</span></li></ul></div>

ARE YOU ADDICTED TO BUSYNESS ARE YOU A SOCIAL MEDIA ADDICT

ARE YOU ADDICTED TO BUSYNESS ARE YOU A SOCIAL MEDIA ADDICT You may be lost in the addiction to busyness if… Your usual response to “how are ...

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The joy of life for my Spanish Rainbow

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <span style="font-size: medium;">The joy of life is living it and doing things of worth,</span><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">In making bright and fruitful the entire desert spots of earth.</span><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">In facing odds and mastering them and rising from defeat,</span><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">And making true what once was false, and what was bitter, make sweet.</span><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">For only you know perfect joy whose little bit of soil</span><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">Is richer ground than what it was when you began to toil.</span></div>

The joy of life for my Spanish Rainbow

The joy of life is living it and doing things of worth, In making bright and fruitful the entire desert spots of earth. In facing odds and ...

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: People don't really want to grow up, people don't really want to change, people don't really want to be happy

<p><span style="font-size: medium;">Do you think I am going to help anybody? No! Oh, no, no, no, no, no! Don't expect me to be of help to anyone. Nor do I expect to damage anyone. If you are damaged, you did it; and if you are helped, you did it. You really did! You think people help you? They don't. You think people support you? They don't. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">There was a woman in a therapy group I was conducting once. She was a religious sister. She said to me, "I don't feel supported by my superior." So I said, "What do you mean by that?" And she said, "Well, my superior, the provincial superior, never shows up at the novitiate where I am in charge, never. She never says a word of appreciation." I said to her, "All right let's do a little role playing. Pretend I know your provincial superior. In fact, pretend I know exactly what she thinks about you. So I say to you (acting the part of the provincial superior), 'You know, Mary, the reason I don't come to that place you're in is because it is the one place in the province that is trouble-free, no problems. I know you're in charge, so all is well.' How do you feel now?" She said, "I feel great." Then I said to her, "All right, would you mind leaving the room for a minute or two? This is part of the exercise." So she did. While she was away, I said to the others in the therapy group, "I am still the provincial superior, O.K.? Mary out there is the worst novice director I have ever had in the whole history of the province. In fact, the reason I don't go to the novitiate is because I can't bear to see what she is up to. It's simply awful. But if I tell her the truth, it's only going to make those novices suffer all the more. We are getting somebody to take her place in a year or two; we are training someone. In the meantime I thought I would say those nice things to her to keep her going. What do you think of that?" They answered, "Well, it was really the only thing you could do under the circumstances." Then I brought Mary back into the group and asked her if she still felt great. "Oh yes," she said. Poor Mary! She thought she was being supported when she wasn't. The point is that most of what we feel and think we conjure up for ourselves in our heads, including this business of being helped by people. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">Do you think you help people because you are in love with them? Well, I've got news for you. You are never in love with anyone. You're only in love with your prejudiced and hopeful idea of that person. Take a minute to think about that: You are never in love with anyone, you're in love with your prejudiced idea of that person. Isn't that how you fall out of love? Your idea changes, doesn't it? "How could you let me down when I trusted you so much?" you say to someone. Did you really trust them? You never trusted anyone. Come off it! That's part of society's brainwashing. You never trust anyone. You only trust your judgment about that person. So what are you complaining about? The fact is that you don't like to say, "My judgment was lousy." That's not very flattering to you, is it? So you prefer to say, "How could you have let me down?" </span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">So there it is: People don't really want to grow up, people don't really want to change, people don't really want to be happy. As someone so wisely said to me, "Don't try to make them happy, you'll only get in trouble. Don't try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it irritates the pig." Like the businessman who goes into a bar, sits down, and sees this fellow with a banana in his ear - a banana in his ear! And he thinks, "I wonder if I should mention that to him. No, it's none of my business." But the thought nags at him. So after having a drink or two, he says to the fellow, "Excuse me, ah, you've got a banana in your ear." The fellow says, "What?" The businessman repeats, "You've got a banana in your ear. " Again the fellow says, "What was that?" "You've got a banana in your ear!" the businessman shouts. "Talk louder," the fellow says, "I've got a banana in my ear!" </span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">So it's useless. "Give up, give up, give up," I say to myself. Say your thing and get out of here. And if they profit, that's fine, and if they don't, too bad! </span><br style="font-family: Times; font-size: medium; background-color: #f9fcd8;" /></p>

: People don't really want to grow up, people don't really want to change, people don't really want to be happy

Do you think I am going to help anybody? No! Oh, no, no, no, no, no! Don't expect me to be of help to anyone. Nor do I expect to damage ...

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The Four Steps To Spiritual Wisdom

<p><span style="font-size: medium;">The first thing you need to do is get in touch with negative feelings that you're not even aware of. Lots of people have negative feelings they're not aware of. Lots of people are depressed and they're not aware they are depressed. It's only when they make contact with joy that they understand how depressed they were. You can't deal with a cancer that you haven't detected. You can't get rid of boll weevils on your farm if you're not aware of their existence. The first thing you need is awareness of your negative feelings. What negative feelings? Gloominess, for instance. You're feeling gloomy and moody. You feel self-hatred or guilt. You feel that life is pointless, that it makes no sense; you've got hurt feelings, you're feeling nervous and tense. Get in touch with those feelings first. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">The second step (this is a four-step program) is to understand that the feeling is in you, not in reality. That's such a self-evident thing, but do you think people know it? They don't, believe me. They've got Ph.D.s and are presidents of universities, but they haven't understood this. They didn't teach me how to live at school. They taught me everything else. As one man said, "I got a pretty good education. It took me years to get over it." That's what spirituality is all about, you know: unlearning. Unlearning all the rubbish they taught you. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">Negative feelings are in you, not in reality. So stop trying to change reality. That's crazy! Stop trying to change the other person. We spend all our time and energy trying to change external circumstances, trying to change our spouses, our bosses, our friends, our enemies, and everybody else. We don't have to change anything. Negative feelings are in you. No person on earth has the power to make you unhappy. There is no event on earth that has the power to disturb you or hurt you. No event, condition, situation, or person. Nobody told you this; they told you the opposite. That's why you're in the mess that you're in right now. That is why you're asleep. They never told you this. But it's self-evident. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">Let's suppose that rain washes out a picnic. Who is feeling negative? The rain? Or YOU? What's causing the negative feeling? The rain or your reaction? When you bump your knee against a table, the table's fine. It's busy being what it was made to Be -- a table. The pain is in your knee, not in the table. The mystics keep trying to tell us that reality is all right. Reality is not problematic. Problems exist only in the human mind. We might add: in the stupid, sleeping human mind. Reality is not problematic. Take away human beings from this planet and life would go on, nature would go on in all its loveliness and violence. Where would the problem be? No problem. You created the problem. You are the problem. You identified with "me" and that is the problem. The feeling is in you, not in reality. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">The third step: Never identify with that feeling. It has nothing to do with the "I." Don't define your essential self in terms of that feeling. Don't say, "I am depressed." If you want to say, "It is depressed," that's all right. If you want to say depression is there, that's fine; if you want to say gloominess is there, that's fine. But not: I am gloomy. You're defining yourself in terms of the feeling. That's your illusion; that's your mistake. There is a depression there right now, there are hurt feelings there right now, but let it be, leave it alone. It will pass. Everything passes, everything. Your depressions and your thrills have nothing to do with happiness. Those are the swings of the pendulum. If you seek kicks or thrills, get ready for depression. Do you want your drug? Get ready for the hangover. One end of the pendulum swings to the other. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">This has nothing to do with "I"; it has nothing to do with happiness. It is the "me." If you remember this, if you say it to yourself a thousand times, if you try these three steps a thousand times, you will get it. You might not need to do it even three times. I don't know; there's no rule for it. But do it a thousand times and you'll make the biggest discovery in your life. To hell with those gold mines in Alaska. What are you going to do with that gold? If you're not happy, you can't live. So you found gold. What does that matter? You're a king; you're a princess. You're free; you don't care anymore about being accepted or rejected, that makes no difference. Psychologists tell us how important it is to get a sense of belonging. Baloney! Why do you want to belong to anybody? It doesn't matter anymore. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">A friend of mine told me that there's an African tribe where capital punishment consists of being ostracized. If you were kicked out of New York, or wherever you're residing, you wouldn't die. How is it that the African tribesman died? Because he partakes of the common stupidity of humanity. He thinks he will not be able to live if he does not belong. It's very different from most people, or is it? He's convinced he needs to belong. But you don't need to belong to anybody or anything or any group. You don't even need to be in love. Who told you you do? What you need is to be free. What you need is to love. That's it; that's your nature. But what you're really telling me is that you want to be desired. You want to be applauded, to be attractive, to have all the little monkeys running after you. You're wasting your life. WAKE UP! You don't need this. You can be blissfully happy without it. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">Your society is not going to be happy to hear this, because you become terrifying when you open your eyes and understand this. How do you control a person like this? He doesn't need you; he's not threatened by your criticism; he doesn't care what you think of him or what you say about him. He's cut all those strings; he's not a puppet any longer. It's terrifying. "So we've got to get rid of him. He tells the truth; he has become fearless; he has stopped being human.'' HUMAN! Behold! A human being at last! He broke out of his slavery, broke out of their prison. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">No event justifies a negative feeling. There is no situation in the world that justifies a negative feeling. That's what all our mystics have been crying themselves hoarse to tell us. But nobody listens. The negative feeling is in you. In the Bhagavad-Gita, the sacred book of the Hindus, Lord Krishna says to Arjuna, "Plunge into the heat of battle and keep your heart at the lotus feet of the Lord." A marvelous sentence. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">You don't have to do anything to acquire happiness. The great Meister Eckhart said very beautifully, "God is not attained by a process of addition to anything in the soul, but by a process of subtraction." You don't do anything to be free, you drop something. Then you're free. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">It reminds me of the Irish prisoner who dug a tunnel under the prison wall and managed to escape. He comes out right in the middle of a school playground where little children are playing. Of course, when he emerges from the tunnel he can't restrain himself anymore and begins to jump up and down, crying, "I'm free, I'm free, I'm free! A little girl there looks at him scornfully and says, "That's nothing. I'm four." </span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">The fourth step: How do you change things? How do you change yourselves? There are many things you must understand here, or rather, just one thing that can be expressed in many ways. Imagine a patient who goes to a doctor and tells him what he is suffering from. The doctor says, "Very well, I've understood your symptoms. Do you know what I will do? I will prescribe a medicine for your neighbor!" The patient replies, "Thank you very much, Doctor, that makes me feel much better." Isn't that absurd? But that's what we all do. The person who is asleep always thinks he'll feel better if somebody else changes. You're suffering because you are asleep, but you're thinking, "How wonderful life would be if somebody else would change; how wonderful life would be if my neighbor changed, my wife changed, my boss changed." </span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">We always want someone else to change so that we will feel good. But has it ever struck you that even if your wife changes or your husband changes, what does that do to you? You're just as vulnerable as before; you're just as idiotic as before; you're just as asleep as before. You are the one who needs to change, who needs to take medicine. You keep insisting, "I feel good because the world is right." Wrong! The world is right because I feel good. That's what all the mystics are saying. </span><br style="font-family: Times; font-size: medium; background-color: #f9fcd8;" /><br style="font-family: Times; font-size: medium; background-color: #f9fcd8;" /></p>

The Four Steps To Spiritual Wisdom

The first thing you need to do is get in touch with negative feelings that you're not even aware of. Lots of people have negative feelin...

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And where is this heaven

<p>To a disciple who was obsessed with the thought of life after death, the Master said, "Why waste a single moment thinking of the hereafter?" "But is it possible not to?" "Yes." "How?" "By living in heaven here and now." "And where is this heaven?" "In the here and now."</p>

And where is this heaven

To a disciple who was obsessed with the thought of life after death, the Master said, "Why waste a single moment thinking of the hereaf...

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more important than "asking for" things and "getting for" things and "getting" things.

<p> </p><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tbody><tr><td class="td1" valign="middle"><p class="p1">Celebration and praise, loving attention to the presence of God, become more important than "asking for" things and "getting for" things and "getting" things.</p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1"><em>Contemplation in a World of Action:</em> 159</p></td></tr></tbody></table>

more important than "asking for" things and "getting for" things and "getting" things.

  Celebration and praise, loving attention to the presence of God, become more important than "asking for" things and "gettin...

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the long, slow, boring and often painful route

<p><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 21px; background-color: #ffffff;">When it comes to our development, when it comes to real change, the long, slow, boring and often painful route is quite reliably,</span><em style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 21px; background-color: #ffffff;"> the most direct.</em></p>

the long, slow, boring and often painful route

When it comes to our development, when it comes to real change, the long, slow, boring and often painful route is quite reliably,  the most ...

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Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world.

<p><p style="color: #0b175f; font-family: arial; font-size: 12px; background-color: #ffffff; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #000000; font-family: georgia; font-size: small;"><em>"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." <br /></em></span></p><p style="color: #0b175f; font-family: arial; font-size: 12px; background-color: #ffffff; margin: 0in;"><br /><span style="color: #000000; font-family: georgia; font-size: small;"><em> </em></span></p><p style="color: #0b175f; font-family: arial; font-size: 12px; background-color: #ffffff; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #000000; font-family: georgia; font-size: small;"> </span></p><p style="color: #0b175f; font-family: arial; font-size: 12px; background-color: #ffffff; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #000000; font-family: georgia; font-size: small;"><strong>- Margaret Meade</strong>, was an American cultural anthropologist.</span></p></p>

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world.

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."...

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Rule of Life is an intentional pattern of spiritual disciplines that provides structure and direction for growth

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container zemanta-img" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jesusicon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: clear:left;"><img alt="English: Icon of Jesus Christ" border="0" class="zemanta-img-inserted" height="381" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0f/Jesusicon.jpg/300px-Jesusicon.jpg" style="border: none; font-size: 0.8em;" width="300" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption zemanta-img-attribution" style="text-align: center; width: 300px;">English: Icon of Jesus Christ (Photo credit: <a href="http://commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jesusicon.jpg" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>)</td></tr> </tbody></table> <div> Rule of Life is an intentional pattern of spiritual disciplines that provides structure and </div> <div> direction for growth in holiness.  A Rule establishes a rhythm for life in which is helpful for </div> <div> being formed by the Spirit, a rhythm that reflects a love for God and respect for how he has made </div> <div> us.  The disciplines which we build into our rhythm of life help us to shed the “old self” and </div> <div> allow our “new self” in Christ to be formed.  Spiritual disciplines are means of grace by which </div> <div> God can nourish us.  Ultimately a Rule should help you to love God more, so if it becomes a </div> <div> legalistic way of earning points with God or impressing others, it should be scrapped.  If the </div> <div> traditional, ancient term “rule” concerns you because it sounds legalistic, think of “rule” as a </div> <div> “rhythm of life” or as a “Curriculum in Christlikeness” (Dallas Willard), or as a “Game Plan for </div> <div> Morphing” (John Ortberg). </div> <div> In order to be life-giving, a Rule must be realistic!   It is not an ideal toward which you are </div> <div> striving to soar.  Instead, your initial Rule should be a minimum standard for your life that you </div> <div> do not want to drop below.  It’s a realistic level of engaging in the spiritual disciplines for which </div> <div> you can honestly and truly be held accountable.</div> <div class="zemanta-related" style="margin-top: 20px; overflow: hidden;"> <h4 class="zemanta-related-title"> Related articles</h4> <ul class="zemanta-article-ul zemanta-article-ul-image" style="margin: 0; overflow: hidden; padding: 0;"> <li class="zemanta-article-ul-li-image zemanta-article-ul-li" style="background: none; display: block; float: left; font-size: 11px; list-style: none; margin: 2px 10px 10px 2px; padding: 0; text-align: left; vertical-align: top; width: 84px;"><a href="http://recoverysolutions.blogspot.com/2012/11/rule-of-life-is-intentional-pattern-of.html" style="border-radius: 2px; box-shadow: 0px 0px 4px #999; display: block; padding: 2px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><img src="http://i.zemanta.com/noimg_0_80_80.jpg" style="border: 0; display: block; margin: 0; max-width: 100%; padding: 0; width: 80px;" /></a><a href="http://recoverysolutions.blogspot.com/2012/11/rule-of-life-is-intentional-pattern-of.html" style="display: block; height: 80px; line-height: 12pt; overflow: hidden; padding: 5px 2px 0 2px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Rule of Life is an intentional pattern of spiritual disciplines that provides structure and direction for growth</a></li> </ul> </div> <div class="zemanta-pixie" style="height: 15px; margin-top: 10px;"> <a class="zemanta-pixie-a" href="http://www.zemanta.com/?px" title="Enhanced by Zemanta"><img alt="Enhanced by Zemanta" class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/zemified_h.png?x-id=0f52a000-ca30-45e4-b895-6927352c1482" style="border: none; float: right;" /></a></div> </div>

Rule of Life is an intentional pattern of spiritual disciplines that provides structure and direction for growth

English: Icon of Jesus Christ (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Rule of Life is an intentional pattern of spiritual disciplines that provides...

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Practicing a Rule of Life with others moves us against the grain of our individualistic culture.

<p><p>Practicing a Rule of Life with others moves us against the grain of our individualistic culture. However, I believe that a Rule should grow from the positive aspects of our life, not what we perceive to be our failings.  We should discern it in conversation with God and others in our community, and we must make God the focus of our Rule (don't focus on  negative images of ourselves) and then we move in the directions in which we feel God's calling. A Rule of Life should be a response to being loved by God in the first place, and feeling moved to become what God calls us to be in this world.</p><p>Ever since St. Benedict's time, Christians have used a Rule of Life to provide an ancient yet powerfully consistent way to live into our present and future faith.</p></p>

Practicing a Rule of Life with others moves us against the grain of our individualistic culture.

Practicing a Rule of Life with others moves us against the grain of our individualistic culture. However, I believe that a Rule should grow ...

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an apocalypse on Earth on December 21, 2012

<p><span style="color: #323232; font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px; background-color: #ffffff;">an apocalypse on Earth on December 21, 2012</span></p>

an apocalypse on Earth on December 21, 2012

an apocalypse on Earth on December 21, 2012

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To live in communion, in genuine dialogue with others is absolutely necessary if man is to remain human.

<p>To live in communion, in genuine dialogue with others is absolutely necessary if man is to remain human.</p>

To live in communion, in genuine dialogue with others is absolutely necessary if man is to remain human.

To live in communion, in genuine dialogue with others is absolutely necessary if man is to remain human.

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Come, dervishes: here is the water of life. Dance in it.

<p><p> Come, dervishes: here is the water of life. Dance in it.</p><p> </p></p>

Come, dervishes: here is the water of life. Dance in it.

 Come, dervishes: here is the water of life. Dance in it.  

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Benedict (like Bill W) realized we must understand our dependence on God before being restored to sanity.

<div>Benedict (like Bill W) realized we must understand our dependence on God before being </div><div>restored to sanity.  “We are like a child on its mother’s lap,” Benedict writes, “cut off from </div><div>nourishment, helpless, left without the resources we need to grow in the spirit of God.” </div>

Benedict (like Bill W) realized we must understand our dependence on God before being restored to sanity.

Benedict (like Bill W) realized we must understand our dependence on God before being  restored to sanity.  “We are like a child on its moth...

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The early success of Alcoholics Anonymous can be summed up in four words: The Power of God.

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> DISCLAIMER:Text may be subject to copyright.This blog does not claim copyright to any such text. Copyright remains with the original copyright holder.<br /> <br /> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> The early success of Alcoholics Anonymous can be summed up in four words: The Power of God. This is not opinion; this is fact.</div> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> It is estimated that an amazing 75-93% of the early A.A. members fully recovered from alcoholism. There were no relapses, no returning to the old life. They never drank again, and they moved on with healthy, happy, productive lives. That was in the 1940’s and 1950’s, before the program of Alcoholics Anonymous began to change. Ever so slowly, over time a watered down version of the original program began to emerge. A.A.’s success rate is not nearly as great today.</div> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> One of our members, a special man named Dick B., has made it his passion to bring out the truth about the nature of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous as it was originally designed.</div> <div align="center" style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> <img alt="alcoholics anonymous" src="http://www.new-life-in-recovery.com/images/aa-logo.jpg" style="max-width: none;" title="alcoholics anonymous" width="134" /></div> <br clear="all" style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;" /> <br clear="all" style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;" /> <br clear="all" style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;" /> <hr size="4px" style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px; width: 300px;" /> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px; text-align: center;"> <span style="color: orange;">I was thrilled to receive a note from Dick B. about New-Life-in-Recovery.com! It read:</span></div> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px; text-align: center;"> <span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-family: geneva;">"A beautiful and valuable resource site. God Bless you."</span></span></div> <hr size="4px" style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px; width: 300px;" /> <span style="background-color: white; color: orange; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"><br clear="all" /></span><br /> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> <span style="color: orange;"></span>Not only that, he has graciously allowed me to re-print his story here. It’s a great read. Enjoy!</div> <h1 style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 26px; margin: 8px 0px 14px;"> <span style="color: #336699;">Dick B.'s Story</span></h1> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> I was born in Stockton, California in 1925. I was the only child of two loving parents. My dad was a successful securities salesman. My mother was a concert pianist and a daily student of the Bible. My dad had quit smoking before I was born, and neither parent gave evidence of any problem with alcohol. I saw no reason to smoke, and I didn’t. I saw no reason to drink, and I did not drink until I returned from the Army at age 21.</div> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> In school, I excelled. Top of my class in high school and valedictorian at my graduation. At the University of California in Berkeley, I was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in my Junior Year and was president of the Inter Fraternity Scholastic Honor Society. At Stanford University, I was elected to the board of Stanford Law Review, on the basis of grades, and became Case Editor of the Stanford Law Review in my second year on the board.</div> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> I married a Stanford girl, and we had two sons. Neither she nor the sons were or became alcoholics. And, after a successful ten-year career as an attorney in a San Francisco law firm, I opened my own law office in Corte Madera, California. I had suffered from sleeping problems in law school and ever since. A psychiatrist had been the first of many physicians who enabled me, step by step, to become dependent upon and to abuse high powered sedatives and such mind-altering palliatives as valium, thorazine, and quide. Worse, I began mixing them with drinks during the night; and soon I was passing out on the kitchen floor each morning with an almost unbearable body discomfort I called the “heeby jeebies”, not a shaking without, but certainly an unbelievable trembling within. None of this had the slightest impact in deterring my continued excessive drinking.</div> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> As success in my law practice progressed, the time spent practicing law regressed. The money poured in. The drinking accelerated to an almost daily drunken state by day’s end.. I drank at service club meetings, at chamber of commerce functions, at church meetings, at social events, at the business quarters of a regular drinking buddy next door to my office, and finally alone at home in the evenings. My wife wouldn’t even leave the kitchen to join me despite appeals for her company. If someone had told me I had a problem with alcohol and prescription drugs, and they did, my response was that the problem was my wife, my sleep disorders, and occasionally the number of “minor” auto accidents which occurred when I drank “just a little too much.” Friends, colleagues, physicians, my minister, and other erring commentators, including even some bartenders, began to tell me and others that I was drinking too much. But that did not deter me at all. I had reached the point where I didn’t care what they thought.</div> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> I quit drinking for almost two years, however, when my doctor suggested I go on the Pritikin Diet to lose an inordinate amount of weight and also to eliminate liquor “for a while.” In this endeavor, I also excelled, losing some 80 pounds, swimming daily, drinking soda water, and following the Pritikin formula. Then I left my wife—cold turkey. The kids had graduated from college and made new lives, and the joy had long since left. Or so I thought.</div> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> Armed with this new-found fighting trim, I seemed of the belief that I deserved to renew drinking. But alcohol and drugs had taken a toll I did not recognize. They had unleashed inhibitions and restraints that had previously been solid moral standards in my life. I began engaging in unethical and irresponsible behavior with a “let them eat cake” attitude. And then I got caught. A resentful relative of a client called the newspapers and the State Bar. My name appeared repeatedly in the news, along with my picture. I became severely depressed; my clients vanished; and I drank with a vengeance I hadn’t imagined possible. Nothing changed. In fact, everything seemed to get increasingly worse and unbearable—the depression, the drinking, the sleeping pills, the troubles, and the terror. Finally, I consulted a psychiatrist who recommended different sleeping pills and anti-depressants. But I couldn’t wait. I went home, poured a four ounce glass of cheap gin, and went into an entire week’s blackout—a period I can’t recall or describe even these 22 years later. And that incident, plus a return to the psychiatrist, and the suggestion of my ex-wife, brought me to the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous two days sober and ready to conquer the world without booze. But nobody in A.A. had told me about detoxing, seizures, brain damaged thinking, and bodily withdrawal misery.</div> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> What did happen was a series of events that has left me with a continuing appreciation of the unique value of Alcoholics Anonymous to new and still suffering alcoholics. At early meetings, I had feared the opinions of those who had seen my picture in the newspapers, who might discover some of the things I had done, and who were not as crazy as I was becoming. But those items were definitely unimportant to the mass of drunks I met. At every meeting I attended, I was hugged, welcomed, given phone numbers to call, invited to join other alcoholics after the meetings, given meeting schedules for later meetings, told to “stick with the winners,” and “keep coming back” because “it works.” I used the phone numbers repeatedly, followed other recovered alcoholics around, and went to meetings without ceasing. I began to participate in A.A. service where given the opportunity. What these things did for me inspired me to go and do likewise. And I still do. I never see a newcomer at a meeting or a conference or even in a personal encounter without a focus on that person’s story and needs and a possible opportunity to help.</div> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> Within the first nine days of sobriety, however, things changed. I had three grand-mal seizures, the first at an A.A. meeting, the second in the ambulance on the way, and the third in the Emergency Room. And these, in turn, took me to a 28 day treatment program—in all cases, with no significant mention of the importance of turning to God for help. Hence I didn’t. I put abstinence and A.A. first—just as they seemed to be urging.</div> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> In no time at all, I faced the wreckage of the past—sober, but stuck as well with a relentless District Attorney, State Bar investigations, a series of ponderous tax audits and levies, divorce outcroppings, loss of my Law License, lack of means of support other than that remaining from my own earlier investments, and a terror and depression and despair that far exceeded that in my drinking period. Without booze or sleeping pills, I went sleepless for months and months. I felt like a zombie. I shook for five years. They called me “Shaky Dick.” And my mind was seemingly only a shadow of its former self—producing mostly forgetfulness, confusion, bewilderment, incessant and irrelevant chatter, and tangential talk patterns. Add to that the unpleasant fact that I was wetting my pants regularly in A.A. meetings.</div> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> I couldn’t handle any of this in the second month of my sobriety—the period just after I was discharged from the treatment program; so I checked into a VA psychiatric ward in San Francisco and there remained for two months. I wasn’t as looney as some, but twice as jittery, anxious, and talkative than most. I was diagnosed as having some form of “hypomania.” I now believe it was “fear” mania!</div> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> But I had definitely caught the A.A. bug. I didn’t drink. I didn’t take sleeping pills. I suffered miserably from fear and insomnia. I went to A.A. meetings devotedly, called my sponsor regularly, and followed the crowd. Very important—I was made to feel wanted. I sought A.A. companionship in meetings and retreats and conferences and studies. I chased newcomers and tried to help them—even dragging alcoholics from the VA psych ward to A.A. meetings with me all over the San Francisco Area. But terror and despair still plagued me at every turn.</div> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> I faced prison, financial ruin, a lost reputation, unbearable physical consequences of delayed withdrawal, incredible mental incapacity, insomnia, depression, uncontrolled anxiety, loneliness, and a seemingly hopeless state of fear. I briefly wanted to take my life—in sobriety! Neither abstinence nor A.A. nor the psych ward were cutting it for me.</div> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> But two factors dramatically changed both the circumstances and my entire life at about eight months of sobriety. These came into play while I was in the psychiatric ward in San Francisco. One of my sons kept insisting that I needed to study the Bible and get back into what I had learned about the availability of my Heavenly Father and the accomplishments of His son Jesus Christ. He sent me tapes to which I began listening. And then, almost every day, an elderly friend from our Bible fellowship kept calling me long distance and listening to me wail. Finally, he asked why I didn’t stop trying to program my life and let God guide it. He cited the story of Peter’s walking on the water. When Peter believed, said this man, he walked. When he became afraid, he sank. And it took Jesus to pull him out of the water. I quickly saw that I had a choice—to learn and believe what God had to offer, or to yield my thinking to the seeming disasters the world was offering. I chose the former. I believed. Peace came. And without a doubt, I can say that my almost instantaneous response to these events was to believe that, no matter what might lie ahead, God had the answers to life; and that I had better seek Him first.</div> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> On weekend passes from the psych ward, I began attending my elderly friend’s Bible fellowship. I stuck with A.A., and I stuck with the Bible fellowship also. And I got well. Quickly! Nurses noticed it. Family noticed it. And even my attorney announced that I was ready to bite the bullet—facing whatever the courts, the State Bar, and the newspapers had to throw at me.</div> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> The result? I was buttressed with solid sobriety, the A.A. program, and the Word of God. I had a Big Book and a Bible. And my sponsor jokingly observed: Dick is armed, but not dangerous. The fear vanished. I faced and dealt with court hearings, imprisonment, financial problems, divorce problems, tax problems, and reputation problems. I was released from the VA and began A.A. life in earnest. I studied and learned A.A.’s Big Book. I studied, practiced, “took,” and learned how to take others through, the Twelve Steps. I sponsored newcomers. I served the fellowship as a speaker, chairperson, secretary, treasurer, General Service Representative, greeter, chair carrier, and floor sweeper. I went to A.A. meetings, gatherings, retreats, conferences, birthday parties, dances, and campouts. It was then time to grow in my relationship, understanding, and fellowship with my Heavenly Father and change my emphasis to serving and glorifying Him. But I hadn’t fully grasped the fact.</div> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> Nonetheless, I began bringing newcomers to Christ, and into our Bible fellowship. Not in any way diminishing their participation in and service to Alcoholics Anonymous. Today some of these newcomers are more than eighteen years sober, married, with family and job, and blessed with strong believing. I thanked God daily for what He had done for me. I asked God daily for His directions as to how to serve Him. I studied the Bible daily and read Bible-based literature daily. I prayed to God daily for myself and others. I affirmed the clear evidence that God could and would and did rescue me.</div> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> I began fellowshipping with like-minded believers—many of whom had been completely cured of alcoholism and addiction without even hearing of Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous though they had previously been crippled with addiction and alcoholism. But I stuck to them, to A.A., and to helping others in A.A. I still do.</div> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> I had done all this without any information about, or knowledge of, the fact that my behavior much resembled what early AAs and many recovery movements before them had done. And what was that?</div> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> Here is how I found out. I had been sober and very active in A.A. for about four years. One night, a young man named John—now dead of alcoholism—walked up to me in a Step Study meeting in San Rafael, California and asked if I knew that A.A. had come from the Bible. John was in our Bible fellowship and knew of my interest in Scripture. I responded that I had been to hundreds and hundreds of meetings and conferences and never heard such a thing. John suggested that I read the A.A. General Service Conference-approved book—<i>DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers</i>. It had been published in 1980 by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., in New York. John said it would provide details about our Bible roots. He pointed out that the Book of James had been so popular in early A.A. that members had wanted to call their Society the James Club. I jumped at the suggestion and began reading as much A.A. historical material as I could find. There was actually relatively little. Yet, sure enough, the Bible was mentioned frequently. Also the James Club account. Also Dr. Bob’s statements that the basic ideas of A.A. had come from their study of the Bible; that the oldtimers believed the answers to their problems were in the Good Book (the name they gave to the Bible); and that the Book of James, Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, and 1 Corinthians 13 were considered absolutely essential to the program’s success. (See <i>The Co-Founders of Alcoholics Anonymous: Biographical Sketches Their Last Major Talks </i>(NY: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1972, 1975, pages 11-14, 18-20). I was later to find that most of the material in Dr. Bob’s talk was incorporated into the <i>DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers</i> book I had previously read.</div> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> And success there had been for sure. The A.A. basic text stated that, of those alcoholics who really tried, 50% got sober and remained that way; and 25% sobered up after some relapses. (See <i>Alcoholics Anonymous</i>, 4th ed. (NY:Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 2001), p xx.) It said their personal stories in the book described in their own language and from their own point of view the way each individual had established his relationship with God (<i>Alcoholics Anonymous</i>, p. 29). And the <i>DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers</i> book pointed out that records in the early Cleveland A.A. fellowship showed a 93% success rate using the same principles, as well as the Big Book, the Twelve Steps, and the Oxford Group Four Absolutes (honesty, purity, unselfishness, and love) as moral standards for testing behavior.</div> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> Wow!</div> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> Then came a further turning point—an event which was to change my life pursuits, my interests, and my service to the Creator and His son Jesus Christ. I had never heard anything significant about God, or Christ, or the Bible in the A.A. fellowship meetings. Yet A.A.’s own General Service Conference-approved literature contained much to suggest there was more to the picture than most knew. I had read that early AAs in Akron had called themselves a <b>Christian</b> fellowship (See, for example, <i>DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers</i>, p. 118.) I had read that they stressed Bible study and old fashioned prayer meetings. I had read that Christian literature was distributed to them by Dr. Bob for reading and study. And I had read that Dr. Bob always insisted that newcomers in the hospital profess a belief in God and surrender their lives to Christ. (See Dick B.,<i>The Akron Genesis of Alcoholics Anonymous</i>, 2d ed. Kihei, HI: (Paradise Research Publications, Inc. 1998—pp. 177-78, 181-86, 187, 188-215); and<i>DR. BOB</i>, page 144, for the specifics of what I later found.)</div> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> But I still knew very very little about what they actually did, where they got their ideas, and why their program produced such a high percentage rate of successes.</div> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> In almost every meeting I attended there was incessant chatter about some “higher power.” One man insisted his “higher power” was Ralph. Another that “it” was a rock. Another that “it” was a chair. Another that “it” was the Big Dipper. These remarks were made regularly in meetings I attended in Marin County, California. There was also bizarre talk about “spirituality” that was foreign to my ears. Where, I thought, did such nonsense come from? To make matters worse, my own friend and sponsor began telling me that people who read the Bible got drunk His sponsor convened a meeting where he and my own sponsor “warned” me that I was getting ready to drink because I had brought my sponsees to a Bible fellowship. But there was still more to be experienced and endured.</div> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> I myself have never been the slightest bit concerned about the fact that many of my A.A. friends are Roman Catholics and Jews and that they talk about their faith in meetings. But I began picking up at A.A. meetings some A.A. General Service Conference-approved literature which seemed to endorse, and even encourage, unbelief—the idea that you didn’t need to believe in anything at all to get well. The following are but a few of many examples:</div> <blockquote style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.4; margin: 1em 2em;"> “A.A. is not a religious society, since it requires no definite religious belief as a condition of membership. . . .Included in its membership are Catholics, Protestants, Jews, members of other religious bodies, agnostics, and atheists. . . . A.A. suggests that to achieve and maintain sobriety, alcoholics need to accept and depend upon another Power recognized as greater than themselves. Some alcoholics choose to consider the A.A. group itself as the power greater than themselves; for many others, this power is God—as they individually understand Him; still others rely upon entirely different concepts of a Higher Power” (<i>44 Questions</i>, page 19).“The majority of A.A. members believe that we have found the solution to our drinking problem not through individual willpower, but through a power greater than ourselves. However, everyone defines this power as he or she wishes. Many people call it God, others think it is the A.A. group, still others don’t believe in it at all. There is room in A.A. for people of all shades of belief and nonbelief” (<i>A Newcomer Asks</i>)<br /> “While some members prefer to call this Power “God,” we were told that this was purely a matter of personal interpretation; we could conceive of the Power in any terms we thought fit” (<i>This is AA: An Introduction to the A.A. Recovery Program</i>, page 15).<br /> “Many people in A.A. talk about “God” or a “Higher Power,” but A.A. is not connected with any religion. A.A. is a spiritual program, not a religious one. Faith is a personal thing and it is not necessary to believe in God or in any form of religion to be a member of A.A. . . . Atheists, agnostics, and believers of all religions have a place in A.A.—provided they wish to stay away from the first drink.” (<i>AA and the Gay/Lesbian Alcoholic</i>, page 16).</blockquote> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> The foregoing statements were not consistent with A.A.’s Big Book text as I read it. A.A.’s steps said it was about “coming to believe.” See Step Two. Nor were the statements consistent with Bill Wilson’s message that the Lord had cured him of his terrible disease (Big Book, page 191). Nor with Dr. Bob’s statement that he felt sorry for the atheist or agnostic because “Your Heavenly Father will never let you down” (Big Book, page 181). Nor with Dr. Bob’s insistence that a newcomer profess a belief in God before they were released from Akron City Hospital (<i>DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers</i>, page 144). Granted, such statements are not today considered mandatory, any more than opening the parachute is when you jump out of an airplane. But they represented to me the wisdom of the winners—our founders.</div> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> I didn’t have a problem with the diversity and varieties of believers and unbelievers I met in the rooms of A.A. But I had a big problem with the ever-increasing vocalizing by a few “bleeding deacons” (as some call them) who said that you could not mention the Bible or God in a meeting; that the Bible and other religious literature were not “Conference-approved” and therefore could not be brought to a meeting; or that it was a violation of the Twelve Traditions of A.A. to share your own experience about how you established your relationship with God. And, the “official” General Service Conference-approved literature quoted above, plus the vociferous and irrepressible outbursts of some at meetings, seemed to me to be at great variance with the program I entered, the program I had learned from the Big Book, and the encouragement I had received from A.A. members and meetings when I needed it most—even when I talked much about looking to God for help in my life.</div> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> I wondered how one could reject God in a program which spoke so much about God. Thus an A.A. author Stewart C. published an analysis stating the word “God,” with synonyms and pronouns referring to Him, can be found more than 400 times in A.A.’s Big Book. So I resolved to go to the Seattle International Convention of Alcoholics Anonymous in 1990 and try to find out what role, if any, the Bible had really played in the founding, development, program, and successes of Alcoholics Anonymous. There I met Frank Mauser, the General Service Archivist from New York. But I was able to discover little, if anything about Bible specifics. And upon my return, my older son and I had a discussion that preceded a real effort to discover the role and impact on A.A., if any there was, of God, Jesus Christ, and the Bible.</div> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> With encouragement from Frank Mauser, Dr. Bob’s children—Sue Smith Windows and Robert R. Smith—as well as Ray G. (archivist at Dr. Bob’s Home in Akron) and later, Bonnie and Ozzie, the managers of the Wilson House at Bill Wilson’s birthplace in Vermont—I devoted the next nineteen years to learning details about A.A.’s use of the Bible. I investigated what its early program really did, where the reliance of members on God really fit in. what proof there was of the early success rates, and what institutions, principles, practices, and Bible studies had impacted on early A.A., the Big Book and Twelve Steps, and the literature of today. I’ll let those who are interested in the answers learn the details from my thirty-three published titles on the subject. See<a href="http://www.dickb.com/titles.shtml">http://www.dickb.com/titles.shtml.</a> But it goes without saying that there is far more to A.A., its roots, its successes, and its early reliance on the Creator for healing and help than virtually any in present-day treatment, therapy, professional groups, 12-Step and even religious fellowships know or, in some cases, are even have a significant desire to seek.</div> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> Today I believe there is <b>A New Way Out</b> of a wilderness. <b>A New Way Out</b> for children of the living Creator who are awash and adrift in the sea of change that has occurred in the recovery scene. What wilderness? It is a wilderness of self-made religion, absurd names for a deity, outright idolatrous thinking, and amateur psychological introspection. Let me personalize my reply with my own experiences as here related.</div> <h3 style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 8px 0px 14px;"> The Alcoholic:</h3> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> The wilderness concerns the alcoholic’s own plight—not about the nature or shortcomings of A.A., N.A., or some other anonymous fellowship. As I have told above, I had become a full-fledged drunk and sleeping pill addict by the time of my entry into A.A., smitten by a seemingly uncontrollable intention to drink too much regardless of the consequences and driven by a desire to return to the mire again and again despite the known and predictable self-destructive disasters. Bill Wilson wrote: “Many do not comprehend that the alcoholic is a very sick person” (<i>Alcoholics Anonymous</i>, 4th ed., xiii). I was! The Bible called the sickness a sin. It clearly commanded “And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess” (Ephesians 5:18). But I did just that! Later, in sobriety, I came to see what I had actually been doing. I drank. I got drunk. I produced disaster. Yet I returned to that same pattern over and over—always seeing the disasters get worse. Many have called this “lunacy.” Perhaps the Apostle Peter best described the behavior when he spoke of the proverb, “The dog is returned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.” (2 Peter 2:21). But I got tired of hearing in A.A. that I was “powerless” over alcohol, even over “people, places, and things.” Such doleful “acceptance” didn’t set right with what I knew was my own need for responsibility, control, and accountability. In fact, however, the writings of Dr. Bob’s wife’s writings made plain in her journal (Anne Smith’s Journal, 1933-1939—<a href="http://dickb.com/annesm.shtml">http://dickb.com/annesm.shtml),</a> that a stronger power than mine was needed to achieve victory. And when, as a child of the one true living God, I utilized that power and did what the Bible commanded, I neither drank again, nor wanted to. There remained, however, a very real and destructive condition and illness still to be dealt with—brain damage, withdrawal, fear, anxiety, guilt, shame, despair, legal troubles, imprisonment, hospitalization, confusion, forgetfulness, sleeplessness, bewilderment. I didn’t want to drink. I just wanted it all to go away—immediately! I just wanted out. But I found for myself that God provided the power, the strength, the healing, the forgiveness, the guidance, and the rescue. I could and did face the multiple problems believing the truths in Biblical promises like these:</div> <blockquote style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.4; margin: 1em 2em;"> “I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go; I will guide thee with mine eye.” <b>Psalm 32:8</b>“I sought the LORD, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.” <b>Psalm 34:4</b><br /> “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”<br /> <b>Psalm 46:1</b><br /> “In God have I put my trust; I will not be afraid what man can do unto me.” <b>Psalm 56:11</b><br /> “In thee, O LORD, do I put my trust; let me never be put to confusion.” <b>Psalm 71:2</b><br /> “Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits; Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies.”<b>Psalm 103:2-4</b><br /> “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” <b>Proverbs 3:5-6</b><br /> “The fear of man bringeth a snare; but whoso putteth his trust in the LORD shall be safe.” <b>Proverbs 29:25</b></blockquote> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> To me, these were not simply quaint or catchy sayings. They were promises of God. And, true to His promises, God produced the results when I put the words in my mind and consistently repeated and believed them. That, I believe, is what the Bible assures us.</div> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> There were more pertinent verses. They were specifically addressed to the born again believer, and based on what Jesus Christ had come to do and make available. I learned, believed, and saw that his work and sacrifice had made me free. I had to claim that freedom. The following proclaimed:</div> <blockquote style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.4; margin: 1em 2em;"> “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God <b>Romans 3:23-25</b>”There is therefore no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” <b>Romans 8:1</b><br /> “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? . . . Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.”<b>Romans 8:35, 37</b><br /> “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” <b>Romans 10:9</b><br /> “And be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.”<b>Romans 12:2</b><br /> “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold all things are become new.”<b>2 Corinthians 5:17</b><br /> ”And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work.”<br /> <b>2 Corinthians 9:8</b><br /> “Casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” <b>2 Corinthians 10:5</b><br /> “Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of Christ in them that are saved, and in them that perish.” <b>2 Corinthians 2:14</b><br /> “Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us.” <b>Ephesians 3:20</b><br /> “Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son.”<b> Colossians 1:3</b><br /> “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” <b>2 Timothy 1:7</b></blockquote> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> My experience, then, was that—by reading these and many other verses over and over and over; by putting them in my mind as frequently as possible and whenever negative claims were made over me; and by believing them—my release, my deliverance, and the peace of God came into my life. The accomplishments of God’s own son had delivered me from the wilderness, not merely of being an alcoholic (sick and sinful with excess), but from the status of a beaten-down child filled with guilt, shame, anxiety, despair, fear, bodily maladies, and a sense of hopelessness. And I know that, as one of God’s kids, I still am and can be rescued.</div> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> When sober and instructed, the choice is mine. And I try to tell others that, through becoming a child of God and learning the truth about Him and His will and walking in fellowship, they too can be delivered from much much more than a drinking problem, and from their drinking problem too. That is my testimony.</div> <h3 style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 8px 0px 14px;"> The Message:</h3> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> There is a simple message that I carry today to those willing to listen and who want my help. It is this: God wants all men to be saved and to come unto the knowledge of the truth (<b>1 Timothy 2:4</b>). We can be saved—born again of the Spirit of God—by confessing Jesus as Lord and believing God raised Jesus from the dead (<b>Romans 10:9; John 3:1-16</b>). When God’s kids then seek Him out by studying His Word and communicating with Him, they can walk from darkness to light as and when they walk in fellowship with Him and His son, and keep His word (<b>John 1:1-10; 2:1-6</b>).</div> <h3 style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 8px 0px 14px;"> Still A New Way Out Today:</h3> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> For centuries, believers have pointed to the way out and rescue for those who wanted help. These laboring believers have included workers in the YMCA, Christian Endeavor Society, Salvation Army, Gospel Rescue Missions, and revivals. Even the Oxford Group with which Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob were briefly associated. Whatever their particular technique, their message was salvation and a new life in Christ. There was the additional stipulation that the message be carried to others. YMCA’s founder took young men off the streets of London, into his basement, brought them to Christ, and held Bible studies—rescuing them from destruction. Evangelists in and out of the YMCA followed suit. Christian Endeavor Societies formed young people’s groups in the churches themselves and taught them confession of Christ, Bible study, prayer, Quiet Hour, obedience, and the principles of love and service. Salvation Army workers dived into the slums of London and brought the wretched to Christ and into God’s Army to help others. Gospel Rescue Missions furnished food, shelter, and brotherhood, but their unswerving objective was to bring men to the altar, a decision for Christ, and a changed Christian life. So too the old-time revivals and tent meetings. And so too the Oxford Group people who were focused on changing lives through surrender to God. This was the way alcoholics were helped in the early days of A.A. as well.</div> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> Once informed of God’s way, suffering souls flocked to the rescue, confessed belief in God, accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, fellowshipped together, and grew through Bible study, prayer meetings, and Quiet Times. Love and service to others was the only demand made of them.</div> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> Today, when someone in an A.A. meeting tells a person, as they did me, that people get drunk if they read the Bible, I feel disappointed that they know so little about the real Way out. When someone tells a person in A.A. or some recovery fellowship that they can’t mention or study the Bible in A.A., I feel equally disappointed that hurting souls may soon be deprived of what the early solution was. When someone says that the Bible and religious literature cannot be read because they are not “Conference-approved,” I wonder how many newcomers are being driven away from a relationship with and reliance upon God. When someone talks of some nonsense god that can be a tree, a radiator, a light bulb, or a group, I think of the clear-cut descriptive language in Psalm 115 about the impotence of false gods. And I regret that a newcomer is hearing that he can pray to a light bulb and get well. I’ve yet to see that happen.</div> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> For me, it is about telling my story, reporting the facts about the role our Creator has played in the YMCA, Christian Endeavor, Salvation Army, Rescue Missions, the Oxford Group, and in the early Akron A.A.’s Christian Fellowship. There are other ways, of course. But the one with unquestioned success is the Way (<b>John 14:6</b>). With increasing fervor, I try to tell people how God’s liberation, power, and guidance worked in my life, how it worked in the lives of others, and what an appealing alternative it is to the way of idolatry, apathy, acceptance, and institutionalized meeting attendance. I point out that the abundant life and eternal life do not lie in meeting attendance. (See <b>John 3:16, 10:10</b>). They spring from a relationship with God and His son.</div> <h3 style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 8px 0px 14px;"> An Answer Today:</h3> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> I believe there is a new way out—a way out of the wretchedness of alcoholism and addiction, out of the bondage of worldly wisdom and opinion and condemnation, out of the prisons of the mind that come from depression, fear, physical illness, anxiety, guilt, shame, anger, and resentment. There is a new way out for people—not just for people attending Alcoholics Anonymous and 12-Step fellowships—but for those who are homeless, imprisoned, physically disabled, mentally impaired, at risk, cowering in fear and self-loathing, drinking and drugging to excess, and encountering seemingly hopeless barriers and defeat at every turn. Those people need not be herded into centers for self-centeredness where they keep confessing how sick and hurting they are. The new way out is not a way out of A.A., or 12 Step fellowships, or therapy, or meetings, or groups, or churches, or psychiatric wards. It starts with a decision to stop.</div> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> The path starts with a determination to stay stopped, to change, to abstain. It starts with a discipline that guarantees change for those who go to any length to bring it about. For those in deep holes, as I was, it may take time. But the way out starts by looking up from the hole – not out or down. The way out begins by believing that “with God nothing shall be impossible” when God gives the revelation. (See <b>Luke 1:37</b>). The way out begins by recognizing that God wants children and enables people to become His children by acknowledging what Jesus Christ did to make that new birth possible. (See <b>1 Peter 1:23</b>). The way out—the path to deliverance and freedom—continues when a child of God sets his or her mind, thoughts, and outpouring words on what God reveals—not on what the world says. (See <b>1 Corinthians 2:1-16</b>). The way out—the path assuring deliverance and freedom—is followed by walking in the light of God’s Word and the revelation He chooses to give His family members. The way out is assured by obeying God, talking with Him, and staying in fellowship with Him, His son, and other believers. And that way out is just as available today as it was when Peter urged, after the miracle at Pentecost: “. . . . Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.” (<b>Acts 2:38-39</b>)</div> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> This, and the messages from other messengers in the Book of Acts, changed the lives of millions and millions of those who believed throughout the following centuries.</div> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> I continue to find it a joy and a privilege to introduce myself to a newcomer, wherever he or she may be. Then to ask if that person would like to become a child of God. I invite the new person to invoke the simple process of confessing with his mouth that Jesus is Lord and believing in his heart that God raised Jesus from the dead. (See <b>Romans 10:9</b>). And I’m seldom turned down. Then, with them, as it did with me, the healing and growth can begin. Freedom is certain to follow for those who walk in fellowship with our Heavenly Father. It did for me. That’s my story.</div> <div style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;"> Gloria Deo</div> <br /> <div class="zemanta-related" style="margin-top: 20px; overflow: hidden;"> <h4 class="zemanta-related-title"> Related articles</h4> <ul class="zemanta-article-ul zemanta-article-ul-image" style="margin: 0; overflow: hidden; padding: 0;"> <li class="zemanta-article-ul-li-image zemanta-article-ul-li" style="background: none; display: block; float: left; font-size: 11px; list-style: none; margin: 2px 10px 10px 2px; padding: 0; text-align: left; vertical-align: top; width: 84px;"><a href="http://galatictours.blogspot.com/2012/10/without-expectation.html" style="border-radius: 2px; box-shadow: 0px 0px 4px #999; display: block; padding: 2px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><img src="http://i.zemanta.com/115890052_80_80.jpg" style="border: 0; display: block; margin: 0; max-width: 100%; padding: 0; width: 80px;" /></a><a href="http://galatictours.blogspot.com/2012/10/without-expectation.html" style="display: block; height: 80px; line-height: 12pt; overflow: hidden; padding: 5px 2px 0 2px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Without Expectation</a></li> <li class="zemanta-article-ul-li-image zemanta-article-ul-li" style="background: none; display: block; float: left; font-size: 11px; list-style: none; margin: 2px 10px 10px 2px; padding: 0; text-align: left; vertical-align: top; width: 84px;"><a href="http://galatictours.blogspot.com/2012/10/revolutionized-our-whole-attitude.html" style="border-radius: 2px; box-shadow: 0px 0px 4px #999; display: block; padding: 2px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><img src="http://i.zemanta.com/115890051_80_80.jpg" style="border: 0; display: block; margin: 0; max-width: 100%; padding: 0; width: 80px;" /></a><a href="http://galatictours.blogspot.com/2012/10/revolutionized-our-whole-attitude.html" style="display: block; height: 80px; line-height: 12pt; overflow: hidden; padding: 5px 2px 0 2px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">revolutionized our whole attitude toward life, toward our fellows and toward God's universe.</a></li> <li class="zemanta-article-ul-li-image zemanta-article-ul-li" style="background: none; display: block; float: left; font-size: 11px; list-style: none; margin: 2px 10px 10px 2px; padding: 0; text-align: left; vertical-align: top; width: 84px;"><a href="http://galatictours.blogspot.com/2012/09/it-takes-only-four-hours-to-learn-how.html" style="border-radius: 2px; box-shadow: 0px 0px 4px #999; display: block; padding: 2px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><img src="http://i.zemanta.com/112775339_80_80.jpg" style="border: 0; display: block; margin: 0; max-width: 100%; padding: 0; width: 80px;" /></a><a href="http://galatictours.blogspot.com/2012/09/it-takes-only-four-hours-to-learn-how.html" style="display: block; height: 80px; line-height: 12pt; overflow: hidden; padding: 5px 2px 0 2px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">It takes only four hours to learn how to work a 12 Step Program and a lifetime to practice it.</a></li> </ul> </div> <div class="zemanta-pixie" style="height: 15px; margin-top: 10px;"> <a class="zemanta-pixie-a" href="http://www.zemanta.com/?px" title="Enhanced by Zemanta"><img alt="Enhanced by Zemanta" class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/zemified_h.png?x-id=d9960d31-ce46-4da7-950a-d9f3d42cb5da" style="border: none; float: right;" /></a></div> </div>

The early success of Alcoholics Anonymous can be summed up in four words: The Power of God.

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If you declare with your mouth

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> DISCLAIMER:Text may be subject to copyright.This blog does not claim copyright to any such text. Copyright remains with the original copyright holder.<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <div class="heading passage-class-0" style="background-color: white; color: #5c1101; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 10px;"> <h3 style="font-size: 16px; margin: 0px;"> Romans 10:9</h3> <div class="txt-sm" style="font-size: 12px;"> New International Version (NIV)</div> </div> <div class="passage version-NIV result-text-style-normal text-html " style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Charis SIL', charis, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> <span class="text Rom-10-9" id="en-NIV-28198"><sup class="versenum" style="font-size: 0.75em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;">9 </sup>If you declare<sup class="crossreference" style="font-size: 0.65em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-28198A" title="See cross-reference A">A</a>)"></sup> with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,”<sup class="crossreference" style="font-size: 0.65em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-28198B" title="See cross-reference B">B</a>)"></sup> and believe<sup class="crossreference" style="font-size: 0.65em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-28198C" title="See cross-reference C">C</a>)"></sup> in your heart that God raised him from the dead,<sup class="crossreference" style="font-size: 0.65em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;" value="(<a href="#cen-NIV-28198D" title="See cross-reference D">D</a>)"></sup> you will be saved.</span></div> <br /> <div class="zemanta-related" style="margin-top: 20px; overflow: hidden;"> <h4 class="zemanta-related-title"> Related articles</h4> <ul class="zemanta-article-ul zemanta-article-ul-image" style="margin: 0; overflow: hidden; padding: 0;"> <li class="zemanta-article-ul-li-image zemanta-article-ul-li" style="background: none; display: block; float: left; font-size: 11px; list-style: none; margin: 2px 10px 10px 2px; padding: 0; text-align: left; vertical-align: top; width: 84px;"><a href="http://galatictours.blogspot.com/2012/10/without-expectation.html" style="border-radius: 2px; box-shadow: 0px 0px 4px #999; display: block; padding: 2px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><img src="http://i.zemanta.com/115890052_80_80.jpg" style="border: 0; display: block; margin: 0; max-width: 100%; padding: 0; width: 80px;" /></a><a href="http://galatictours.blogspot.com/2012/10/without-expectation.html" style="display: block; height: 80px; line-height: 12pt; overflow: hidden; padding: 5px 2px 0 2px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Without Expectation</a></li> <li class="zemanta-article-ul-li-image zemanta-article-ul-li" style="background: none; display: block; float: left; font-size: 11px; list-style: none; margin: 2px 10px 10px 2px; padding: 0; text-align: left; vertical-align: top; width: 84px;"><a href="http://galatictours.blogspot.com/2012/10/revolutionized-our-whole-attitude.html" style="border-radius: 2px; box-shadow: 0px 0px 4px #999; display: block; padding: 2px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><img src="http://i.zemanta.com/115890051_80_80.jpg" style="border: 0; display: block; margin: 0; max-width: 100%; padding: 0; width: 80px;" /></a><a href="http://galatictours.blogspot.com/2012/10/revolutionized-our-whole-attitude.html" style="display: block; height: 80px; line-height: 12pt; overflow: hidden; padding: 5px 2px 0 2px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">revolutionized our whole attitude toward life, toward our fellows and toward God's universe.</a></li> <li class="zemanta-article-ul-li-image zemanta-article-ul-li" style="background: none; display: block; float: left; font-size: 11px; list-style: none; margin: 2px 10px 10px 2px; padding: 0; text-align: left; vertical-align: top; width: 84px;"><a href="http://galatictours.blogspot.com/2012/09/it-takes-only-four-hours-to-learn-how.html" style="border-radius: 2px; box-shadow: 0px 0px 4px #999; display: block; padding: 2px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><img src="http://i.zemanta.com/112775339_80_80.jpg" style="border: 0; display: block; margin: 0; max-width: 100%; padding: 0; width: 80px;" /></a><a href="http://galatictours.blogspot.com/2012/09/it-takes-only-four-hours-to-learn-how.html" style="display: block; height: 80px; line-height: 12pt; overflow: hidden; padding: 5px 2px 0 2px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">It takes only four hours to learn how to work a 12 Step Program and a lifetime to practice it.</a></li> </ul> </div> <div class="zemanta-pixie" style="height: 15px; margin-top: 10px;"> <a class="zemanta-pixie-a" href="http://www.zemanta.com/?px" title="Enhanced by Zemanta"><img alt="Enhanced by Zemanta" class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/zemified_h.png?x-id=88763e03-bebb-41df-bccc-47670f9d63d2" style="border: none; float: right;" /></a></div> </div>

If you declare with your mouth

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To find God I don't leave this world to search Somewhere Beyond the Blue.

<blockquote>I don't find God in my heart (individualism) or in heaven (metaphysics). Although religion, on a daily basis, tempts me in these directions. Rather, I look for the "neighbor who is within reach." And in "being there for others" I encounter Christ. This is a true, this-worldly, Old Testament, Incarnational, John 1.14 transcendence. A nonreligious Christianity. The Word is flesh and blood and lives in my neighborhood.</blockquote>

To find God I don't leave this world to search Somewhere Beyond the Blue.

I don't find God in my heart (individualism) or in heaven (metaphysics). Although religion, on a daily basis, tempts me in these directi...

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I discovered later, and I'm still discovering right up to this moment, that it is only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith.

<p> </p><blockquote>Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1944 I discovered later, and I'm still discovering right up to this moment, that it is only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. One must completely abandon any attempt to make something of oneself, whether it be a saint, or a converted sinner, or a churchman (a so-called priestly type!), a righteous man or an unrighteous one, a sick man or a healthy one. By this-worldliness I mean living unreservedly in life's duties, problems, successes and failures, experiences and perplexities. In doing so we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God, taking seriously, not our own sufferings, but those of God in the world--watching with Christ in Gethsemane. That, I think, is faith; that is metanoia [translation: conversion, repentance]; that is how one becomes a man and a Christian...</blockquote>

I discovered later, and I'm still discovering right up to this moment, that it is only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith.

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1944 I discovered later, and I'm still discovering right up to this moment, that it is only by living completely ...

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Religionless Christianity

<p> </p><blockquote>The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.</blockquote>

Religionless Christianity

  The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.

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The "World come of Age"

<p><h1 class="entry-title" style="margin: 0px; position: relative; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 36px; font-style: inherit; outline: 0px; padding: 15px 0px 0.3em; vertical-align: baseline; clear: both; color: #000000; line-height: 48px;"> The "World come of Age"</h1><div class="entry-meta" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #666666; clear: both; line-height: 18px; position: absolute; top: 0px; left: 0px;"><span class="sep" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Posted on </span><a href="http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/letters-from-cell-92-part-3-world-come.html" rel="bookmark" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #1982d1; text-decoration: none;" title="2010-12-08T02:16:00-06:00">12.08.2010</a></div><div id="post-body-469622228059826634" class="post-body entry-content" style="border: 0px; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px auto; outline: 0px; padding: 1.625em 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 584.2666625976563px; color: #373737; line-height: 21px; background-color: #ffffff;"><p style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.625em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi66sLZc06DPt40cFA12XzexsJ0eDs8uv1Kad3TUWSEtuYelf173HVa5P9nNQH23XE_mSDMrJr3QBjakOWrmanDeC7AZSvdE-eg1MwhhGYd5XtsMASJct2eHS0timUE2uL27bHRW_Yiksg/s1600/dietrich-bonhoeffer.jpg" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #1982d1; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5548059862045850578" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi66sLZc06DPt40cFA12XzexsJ0eDs8uv1Kad3TUWSEtuYelf173HVa5P9nNQH23XE_mSDMrJr3QBjakOWrmanDeC7AZSvdE-eg1MwhhGYd5XtsMASJct2eHS0timUE2uL27bHRW_Yiksg/s320/dietrich-bonhoeffer.jpg" style="border: 0px; position: relative; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; max-width: 97.5%; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 319px;" /></a>To understand Bonhoeffer's "religionless Christianity" we need to come to grips with Bonhoeffer's understanding of a "world come of age." Specifically, if a "nonreligious interpretation" is a part of the "solution" we need to understand what the "problem" or "diagnosis" might be.<br /><br />In his theological letters, which began on April 30, 1944, Bohoeffer's first mention of the "world come of age" appears in a letter dated June 8 (LPP pp. 324-329):</p><blockquote style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 1.625em 3em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; quotes: '';">June 8, 1944<br /><br />To Eberhard Bethge:<br /><br />...I'll try to define my position from the historical angle.<br /><br />The movement that began about the thirteenth century (I'm not going to get involved in any argument about the exact date) towards the autonomy of man (in which I should include the discovery of laws by which the world lives and deals with itself in science, social and political matters, art, ethics, and religion) has in our time reached an undoubted completion. Man has learnt to deal with himself in all questions of importance without recourse to the "working hypothesis" called "God." In questions of science, art, and ethics this has become an understood thing at which one now hardly dares to tilt. But for the last hundred years or so it has also become increasingly true of religious questions; it is becoming evident that everything gets along without "God"--and, in fact, just as well as before. As in the scientific field, so in human affairs generally, "God" is being pushed more and more out of life, losing more and more ground.<a name="more" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #1982d1;"></a><br /><br />...Christian apologetics has taken the most varied forms of opposition to this self-assurance. Efforts are made to prove to a world thus come of age that it cannot live without the tutelage of "God." Even though there has been surrender of all secular problems, there still remain the so-called "ultimate questions"--death, guilt--to which only "God" can give an answer, and because of which we need God and the church and the pastor. So we live, in some degree, on these so-called ultimate question of humanity. But what if one day they no longer exist as such, if they too can be answered "without God"?...The attack by Christian apologetic on the adulthood of the world I consider to be in the first place pointless, in the second place ignoble, and in the third place unchristian. Pointless, because it seems to me like an attempt to put a grown-up man back into adolescence, i.e. to make him dependent on things on which he is, in fact, on longer dependent, and thrusting him into problems that are, in fact, no longer problems for him. Ignoble, because it amounts to an attempt to exploit man's weakness for purposes that are alien to him and to which he has not freely assented. Unchristian, because it confuses Christ with one particular stage in man's religiousness, i.e. with a human law. More about this later.<br /><br />But first, a little more about the historical position. The question is: Christ and the world that has come of age...<br /></blockquote>So here, in the June 8 letter, we find the first wrestling with the "world come of age." According to Bonhoeffer the world come of age has achieved "autonomy" from God because, on a day to day basis, the "working hypothesis of God" is no longer needed. Man is, pragmatically speaking, on her own. God is "pushed more and more out of life." Bonhoeffer also describes this as leaving the "tutelage" or "guardianship" of God<h1 class="entry-title" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; position: relative; border: 0px; font-size: 36px; outline: 0px; padding: 15px 0px 0.3em; vertical-align: baseline; clear: both; color: #000000; line-height: 48px;">The "World come of Age"</h1>Having left our Cosmic Nanny behind we enter the "adulthood of the world."<br /><br />Now, we all know what this looks like. The would is becoming more and more secular and atheistic. And, generally speaking, Christians tend to see this as a bad thing. God is being chased out of the world. <a href="http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2010/12/war-on-christmas.html" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #1982d1; text-decoration: none;">There is a War on Christmas!<br /></a><br />Now Bonhoeffer makes a really surprising move at this point. For Bonhoeffer, the "world come of age" is actually a really good thing. More, Christianity, to be Christian, <span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">needs</span> the world to come of age. For only in the world come of age can Christians fully understand both God and the gospel.<br /><br />We get a hint of this move in the June 8 letter. Bethge has us note how Bonhoeffer keeps placing "God" in parentheses. That is, what is being "pushed out of the world" is a false view of God. A religious (i.e., human) view of God. This is why Bonhoeffer is so frustrated in the June 8 letter (and elsewhere) with Christian apologetics. Such an apologetics is trying to protect and prop up a misconception about who God really is in the world today. Resisting the adulthood of the world Christianity has clung to a heretical notion of God. Thus, it is only in embracing the world come of age where Christianity can fully discover the true nature God. In all this, the world come of age becomes a sort of <span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">midwife</span> to the gospel.<br /><br />So how are we to embrace the world come of age? Bonhoeffer describes what this looks like in one of his most famous (and controversial) letters:<br /><blockquote style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 1.625em 3em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; quotes: '';">July 16, 1944<br /><br />To Eberhard Bethge:<br /><br />...And we cannot be honest unless we recognize that we have to live in the world <span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">etsi deus non daretur</span> [translation: "as if there were no God"]. And this is just what we do recognize--before God! God himself compels us to recognize it. So our coming of age leads us to a true recognition of our situation before God. God would have us know that we must live as men who manage our lives without him. The God who is with us is the God who forsakes us (Mark 15:34). The God who lets us live in the world without the working hypothesis of God is the God before whom we stand continually. Before God and with God we live without God. God lets himself be pushed out of the world on to the cross. He is weak and powerless in the world, and that is precisely the way, the only way, in which he is with us and helps us. Matt. 8:17 makes it quite clear that Christ helps us, not by virtue of his omnipotence, but by virtue of his weakness and suffering.</blockquote>The phrase <span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">etsi deus non daretur,</span> living as if there were no God, is startling. More, Bonhoeffer asks for something rather strange: Before God and with God we live without God. What could this possibly mean?<br /><br />What we are encountering here is the <span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">theologia crucis</span> of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. <span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Theologia crucis</span> is a term coined by Martin Luther to suggest that the true nature of God can only be ascertained in the crucifixion of Jesus. That is, if you ask the questions "Who is God?" or "Where is God?" or "What is God like?" the <span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">theologia crucis</span> answers in every case: Look at Jesus on the cross. The cross is who God <span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">is</span>, where God is <span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">found</span>, and what God <span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">like</span>. Recall the main question of the theological letters: Who is Christ for us today? Bonhoeffer answers with the <span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">theologia crucis</span>. We see this very clearly in the July 16th letter. Right after the shocking "Before God and with God we live without God" the very next sentence picks up the theme of <span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">theologia crucis</span>:<br /><blockquote style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 1.625em 3em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; quotes: '';">God lets himself be pushed out of the world on to the cross. He is weak and powerless in the world, and that is precisely the way, the only way, in which he is with us and helps us. Matt. 8:17 makes it quite clear that Christ helps us, not by virtue of his omnipotence, but by virtue of his weakness and suffering.</blockquote>God is "weak" and "powerless." God "lets himself be pushed out of the world" and "on to the cross." God helps us in the world not through power ("omnipotence") but by "his weakness and suffering." In this we see how the world come of age is functioning as a midwife to the gospel. By pushing the false "Powerful God" out of the world the way becomes clear for the God revealed in the cross of Jesus. Thus, the July 16 letter continues:<br /><blockquote style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 1.625em 3em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; quotes: '';">...Man's religiosity makes him look in his distress to the power of God in the world: God is the <span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">deus ex machina</span>. The Bible directs man to God's powerlessness and suffering; only the suffering God can help. To that extent we may say that the development towards the world's coming of age outlined above, which has done away with a false conception of God, opens up a way to seeing the God of the Bible, who wins power and space in the world by his weakness.<br /></blockquote>The world come of age kills off a "false conception of God" and this allows us to see the "God of the Bible, who wins power and space in the world by his weakness." This is how the world come of age acts as a midwife to the gospel. The "adulthood" of humanity has allowed us to dispose of a false conception of God, the Big Guy in the Sky, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_ex_machina" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #1982d1; text-decoration: none;"><span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">deus ex machina</span></a>, who swoops down to solve our problems or answer all mystery. This God has been kicked to the margins in the world come of age. And, for Bonhoeffer, this is a very good thing. For it allows us to see the God of the cross, the weak and powerless God here in the midst of us.<br /><br />Let me try to summarize all this in a few pictures. Because you know how I love schematic, visual summaries!<br /><br />First, we have the situation before the world come of age, when humanity was under the "guardianship" of the Big Guy in the Sky:<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiaeFUR6ZPLvs7IISd3-OM-qKX_LhqMb8YlF9vtSN9zhqowQynfvY3gFqUusmV4dzeWp2mWX1Rl3vHgGqLsB3ad79Y44yS4eAoUs6mmXPLjQ-OKy6bXsW2jsU-JcEEifn81PExkBYHb1U/s1600/Slide1.jpg" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #1982d1; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5548056048719128162" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiaeFUR6ZPLvs7IISd3-OM-qKX_LhqMb8YlF9vtSN9zhqowQynfvY3gFqUusmV4dzeWp2mWX1Rl3vHgGqLsB3ad79Y44yS4eAoUs6mmXPLjQ-OKy6bXsW2jsU-JcEEifn81PExkBYHb1U/s400/Slide1.jpg" style="border: 0px; position: relative; max-width: 97.5%; margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" /></a>What happens in this situation, as I try to represent in the diagram, is that religion becomes other-worldly. God is found "outside of" or "beyond" this world. It's this other-worldliness that Bonhoeffer is trying to combat.<br /><br />So what happens when the world comes of age? Well, we have the negation of "God." We, as Christians, live, before God (!), <span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">etsi deus non daretur</span>. No longer looking for a God "out there" we are forced back into the world. We replace other-worldliness with the "secular" "this-worldliness" that Bonhoeffer speaks of over and over again in his letters. We find Christ in the "midst of life":<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidkTRbClmV_gTW0xaQFJe01c8NIZr7GkAL_50C44w1ltg7JVBkPGCpQXXvBdCeNUWS8hZBxYH0mABsX3S-OFOfDSHbhLuhk7xrigVUhlw6Fm8p22kxARHASC_l12fK2W22xsmarE_PsdA/s1600/Slide2.jpg" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #1982d1; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5548056829151051490" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidkTRbClmV_gTW0xaQFJe01c8NIZr7GkAL_50C44w1ltg7JVBkPGCpQXXvBdCeNUWS8hZBxYH0mABsX3S-OFOfDSHbhLuhk7xrigVUhlw6Fm8p22kxARHASC_l12fK2W22xsmarE_PsdA/s400/Slide2.jpg" style="border: 0px; position: relative; max-width: 97.5%; margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" /></a>So Christians follow God into the world where, as Bonhoeffer writes on July 18, we are "summoned to share in God's sufferings at the hands of the world." As God become radically available to the world (and suffers for it), so the church becomes radically available to the world (and suffers for it). As William Stringfellow describes it:<br /><blockquote style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 1.625em 3em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; quotes: '';">The Church exists for the sake of the world into which God enters and in which He acts and for which He expends His own life.</blockquote>And that's the crucial point. The dynamic we see in the world come of age is the same movement of the <span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">theologia crucis</span>:<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh8GOEJF4AS27oQRZo_xhwGp2BjHtElu4GlO8KOQmZ3-Xf1X9IOv1B1h4E6E76EKT-oMJDjACI23Hlgg3POieHIU8iJWT_Q5Jgvwwgq20G97iW9jbWGyOBcuTEah4M8_gwarV-2SAy3GI/s1600/Slide3.jpg" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #1982d1; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5548058747735871682" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh8GOEJF4AS27oQRZo_xhwGp2BjHtElu4GlO8KOQmZ3-Xf1X9IOv1B1h4E6E76EKT-oMJDjACI23Hlgg3POieHIU8iJWT_Q5Jgvwwgq20G97iW9jbWGyOBcuTEah4M8_gwarV-2SAy3GI/s400/Slide3.jpg" style="border: 0px; position: relative; max-width: 97.5%; margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" /></a>The point in all this is that, yes, there is a "death of God" being spoken of in Bonhoeffer's theological letters. And there is a sense in which the secular world has marginalized God and made God irrelevant. But all this is, Bonhoeffer contends, some very good news. Because it clears the ground and positions us to envision the true shape of the answer to the question: "Who is Christ for us today?"</div></p>

The "World come of Age"

 The "World come of Age" Posted on  12.08.2010 To understand Bonhoeffer's "religionless Christianity" we need to com...

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