The Big Book-Alcoholics Anonymous has many ideas that can be chained in it. Bill was a brilliant writer. Here's one for you:
Page 20; Doubtless you are curious to discover how and why, in the face of expert opinion to the contrary, we have recovered from a hopeless condition of mind and body. If you are an alcoholic who wants to get over it, you may already be asking- "what do I have to do?"
Page 62: This is the how and why of it. First of all, we had to quit playing God. It didn't work.
When you chain these two ideas together, it becomes very clear what Bill was telling us to do. Our power got us NOWHERE! Time to turn it over to a power that will get us somewhere!
Page 45: Lack of power, that was our dilemma.... Well, that's exactly what this book is about. It's main objective is to enable you to find a power greater than yourself which will solve your problem. That means we have written a book which we believe to be spiritual as well as moral. And it means, of course, that we are going to talk about God.
A little AA history and Bill's story will tell you that he was a Baptist as a boy. His Father was a Minister and when he left Bill's Mother, Bill gave up on Religion. That put him into being an Atheist, as Bill saw it. When Ebbie got Bill to go to the Oxford Group, Bill slowly became Agnostic. When Bill was writing the Big Book he was slowly turning from Agnostic back to a Christian. In the late '30's into the Early '40's Bill was studying under Bishop Fulton Sheen, and considering becoming a Catholic. That never happened. Father Ed Dowling was Bill's self-proclaimed "Spiritual Advisor". Father Ed would travel from St. Louis to New York several times a year to meet with Bill. The chapter: We Agnostics, you see, takes on more meaning as we study Bill's life.
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Having just read Bill's story int he Big Book, I have to correct you on one point here. Bill wrote that he was not an atheist. He wrote that he was a man of science, but he believed that God created a natural order to the universe, what we call intelligent design today. Were he had a problem was with was the idea of a personal God and with organized religion in general. He considered himself more on the Agnostic side from the beginning.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes he was very close to becoming Catholic, but never did. As a recent convert to Catholicism I get the appeal for an AA to Catholicism. For myself it was the prayer life that the Catholics are prone, much more involved than many other groups I have experienced. The whole idea of Saints in an ancestor worship type of role also comforts me, knowing that I have a personal saint in the heavens who is pulling for me. But there it is! That is my understanding of God. My personal God that keeps me sober and that is the goal. That is what Bill's journey shows us, his personal understanding of God, as it should be with everyone. Because in the end that is what it comes down to. It's between you and God in the end.