Higher Power – Big Book Comes Alive Step Study Workshop – Part 1 of 6 – 2023 – Howard E.

My name is Howard Eber, and I am an alcoholic. I'd like to welcome everybody here to week, what is it, 25 of this cycle. We're in WE Agnostics. If anyone is here for the first time, welcome. please come back uh please hang around after the meeting we have a uh we end it about an hour from now at 6 15 eastern and then we uh go dark for about 15 minutes and then we open up with a discussion at 6 30 p.m since as you see the meeting is a little too large to have a discussion in this setting uh we take that break and then we come back at 630 and we have that discussion so if you think of anything during the meeting a question, a thought. Write it down and bring it up at that discussion meeting. And please join us tomorrow night at the second meeting where we go a little bit slower, one paragraph at a time. And if you are new and you have not contacted us, please send your email address to thebigbookstudyataol.com. Same just like it says here. And we'll get you on our list to get the material we send out each week. We have a lot of handouts. Any of the material you see up on the screen during this meeting will be sent out in an email. So if you're new and would like to be part of the group, send us your email address and we'll get you all the information. Okay, we are talking about We Agnostics, my favorite chapter in the book because I just feel it was written for me. Bill knew of the conflict and confusion that many of us face when it comes to the concept of God because he did. He's done a great job in the previous three chapters of convincing me that I'm not going to recover without a spiritual solution, and what that did is it kicked up all kinds of prejudices and misconceptions that I came in here with, all of the baggage that I carried with me from my childhood and young, and as I was growing up. And every time someone mentioned God, I thought religion. And that's the exact way that Bill felt with it also. Remember when Ebby talked to him about a God personal to himself? He said his mind slammed shut at such a notion. And I certainly identify with that. So Bill knew the way some of us felt, and he also knew that we're not going to be able to advance in this process, go to make the decision we're going to have to make in the next chapter and implement the program of action if we don't resolve this one issue. So he wrote this chapter. And I think the genius of we agnostics is he does not try to convince me of anything. He's not trying to say, this is what God is and this is when it isn't. That's religion's job. That is what religion does. Religion is a set of practices that if you want to be part of that club, this is what you have to do. We're talking about spirituality, which is a set of disciplines. You have to have a concept, a discipline for God, for prayer, for meditation, and it's all up to you. So the whole point, as I started to say, the real genius, I think, behind we agnostics is that all Bill tries to do is to get me to open my mind just a little bit, just so I might consider, so I might ponder, so I might consider the fact that there could just be this power greater than myself. And that's all I have to do. Because if I am open to the possibility that there is this God, then that God will prove to me that there was a God. The chapter that we're about to continue in now ends with Bill saying, when we drew near to him, he revealed himself to us. And we implement the plan of action starting in the next chapter, and by the time we get to page 83 for the so-called promises, which to me are more observations of what life is like on page 83 after we've done the work between page 52 and 82. And on page 83, we're told we suddenly realize that God has done for us what we could not do for ourselves. So all we have to do is be willing. And we've collectively taken the first step at the beginning of We Agnostics by acknowledging that conceding to our innermost self that we were powerless, and we collectively, I believe last week, took the second step, which was just acknowledging that we are willing to believe. Do I now believe or am I willing to belief that there is a power greater than myself that's all too many i go to meetings where the topic is the second step and everyone's talking about god and you have to believe and you hafta have faith and it's that's not what this is about we need to be open to the possibility that there is this power and then if we do that power will prove to us that there was a god so where we are today is we have finished, we're on page 51. And Bill has already given us a couple of examples of some of the things that block our spiritual growth. Let's not lose your place on 51, but turn back to 48. On the top of the page, Bill begins by giving us three things that lock us from spiritual growth. The first two lines mention obstinacy, that's number one, sensitiveness is number two, and unreasoning prejudice is number three. Obstinacy is just stubbornness, unreasonable stubbornness. Sensitiveness, we all know, as we're all very tender, sensitive little flowers in AA, we're very easily offended. And prejudice is just a irrational decisions without any facts. We base our decisions on nothing, no facts, we are prejudiced. And then on page 51, where we find ourselves today in the middle of the page, the paragraph that begins with this world of ours has made more material progress. Bill gives us a few more examples and I'm going to read that whole paragraph and I'll mention it when we come to it. I know this is where we stopped last week, but this is such a great paragraph. This world of ours has made more material progress in the last century than in all the millenniums which went before. Almost everyone knows the reason. Students of ancient history tell us that the intellect of men of these days was equal to the best of today. And intellect does not mean smart. It does not means intelligence. Intellect means knowledge. the capacity to learn, the capacity to learn. So if centuries ago man had the same capacity to learning that we have today, why did it take hundreds of years for man to develop fire, the wheel, the printing press, gunpowder? That's about as far as they came in several hundred years well do you know that it's taken only about nine years for this thing to become an everyday object that people have in their hands this iphone took about nine years to develop before before any of us even knew what was going on just a little history of the iphone in 1998 there was a company called the rim called rim industries who put out a phone that basically just communicated emails. It was not a phone. You could send and receive emails. In 1999, a year later, that company changed its name to BlackBerry, and they added the capacity to make phone calls out of that unit. So you could send emails and make phone goals out of that. And in June of 2007, Steve Jobs introduced the first Apple phone, the iPhone. So between 98 and 2007. That's how long it took to develop this. So Bill is pointing out that if it took so long then, and we had the same intellect, the same capacity to learn, why didn't we develop faster? Well, we just experienced three of those obstacles that get in the way. We just numbered three of those items. We said obstinacy, sensitiveness, and unreasoning prejudice, but there's more. Let's continue. He said in ancient times, material progress was painfully slow. The spirit of modern science, scientific inquiry, research, and invention was almost unknown. In the realm of the material, men's minds were fettered by, and please highlight the rest of this sentence, and number these words. Number four is superstition. Number five is tradition. Number six is fixed ideas. And tradition is just a set of practices, the way we do things. When I started to work for a new job some years ago before I retired, and I had come from another company where we did things a certain way when it came to a certain matter. And the other manager in the store was used to doing it his way that they've been doing it at that store. So, when I suggested to him that we try this other way that I am used to because I've been using it for years and I think it makes more sense than the way you're doing it here he said no we're going to continue doing it this way because this is the way we do it here now we were on an equal basis I could just as easily have said okay you take half the department and you do it your way and I'll take the other half and do it my way but I didn't I was picking my battles but the point was he was closed-minded he was unreasonable in his prejudice he had fixed ideas, and he had a tradition in mind, a practice. This is the way we do it. This is theway we're always going to do it, we don't want to hear about anything else. Some of the contemporaries of Chris Columbus thought around Earth preposterous. Others came near putting Galileo to death for his astronomical heresies. And we covered all that last week, talked about how Chris Columbus was very likely an alcoholic. He believed that he can go east by sailing west. He believe that the world was round when everybody thought it was flat. And when he left on his mission, he didn't know where he was going. When he got there, he did not know where he was. And he managed to convince the queen to give him more money to go back again because he didn't bring the china and the silk and the gold that he promised he would be bringing from the new world so he convinced her to give him money to go back again and we talked about the difference between belief and faith that chris columbus had a belief that the world was round that he can get to the other side he can sail west he can go east by sailing west And I mentioned that when he took his first trip, even though he believed the world was round. I agree with Joe and Charlie who said that on that first trip out, he probably took a sailor aside and pointed him on the bow of the first ship and gave him one of these, a little lantern. And he said, I want you to hold it up all night long. And if you see the edge of this thing coming up on us, you start waving it like crazy so I could turn this thing around and we don't fall off the edge. Well, on the way back, I'm sure he didn't need that sailor with the light because he knew he had faith. We believe, then we have faith. And Chris Columbus is a great example of a recipe for change. We've been talking about this a lot, a formula for change。 We've been talking about a lot of examples of it. I think we should start talking about it a little bit more specifically. Let's write down the formula for change. If you've got the study version of the book, you can write it in the blank area opposite 51 or anywhere else you like. Andy, if you'll give me 410, please. the formula for change is a five-part formula the first element is one must be willing you have to be willing to change if you want to make a difference if you want something to be different you have to be willing to do that and what circumstance circumstances makes us willing and the circumstance that made chris columbus willing is he wanted to find a shortcut to the east. He wanted to avoid having to go around over the land and around Africa because he believed he could sail around the other way. So the circumstance made him willing to try. Andy, give me the second page if you would, because the second step is belief. In order to change, you've got to believe you can do so. Chris Columbus believed he could go east by sailing west, and that the world was not flat. That was his belief. So he had a willingness. He came up with his belief, and then he, Andy number three, made a decision. In order to change something, you have to decide to do something. So for us, our willingness is step one. Step two is our belief. And step three is making a decision. If you want to change, you have to decide to do so. And that's all step three years is a decision and we'll get to that soon. And then the next thing we need to do is Andy is number four. We take action. In order to change. You have to act on the decision that you just made. so chris columbus stood on the edge of the ocean edge of a beach and he said i know i can sail to the other side by going straight across here so he went to the queen and he got financing for that and he took action he bought the ships and typical alcoholic he didn't buy one ship he bought three ships you know who knows if he could have just done it with one ship but typical alcoholic he wants if one is good three is better so he got three ships to make this trip so he took the action and here's what happens number five he gets results results he doesn't have to believe anymore he knows he didn't sail off the edge he found the other side of the world so he got results we start with a willingness we believe we could change we make a decision to do something about it we take action and then we get results when we translate that into our steps step one is part one two is two making a decision is three taking action is steps 4 through 11 and results the first part of the 12th step we've had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps now bear in mind this formula because we brought we've mentioned it in the past few pages we're going to come upon it again as we go through the book so we are now on page 51 paragraph 2 which begins with we asked ourselves this we asked ourselves this and please highlight this next sentence are not some of us just as biased and unreasonable about the realm of the spirit as were the ancients about the realm of material even in the present century american newspapers were afraid to print an account of the Wright brothers' first successful flight at Kitty Hawk. Had not all efforts at flight failed? Did not Professor Langley's flying machine go to the bottom of the Potomac River? Professor Langney was a scientist, a mathematician who wasn't trying to learn to fly. He was trying to discover the laws of flight so he could understand how birds were able to fly, will fly. So he built these machines and they went down into the Potomac River in Washington, which is where he lived. But the next sentence is a little bit more important. He says, was it not true? And please underline this, that the best mathematical minds proved man could never fly. Mathematicians, scientists all said man couldn't fly. They proved it. Not only said it, they proved it they had mathematical and scientific formulas that proved man could never fly you know what the wright brothers did for a living they were bicycle mechanics their minds weren't fettered by scientific formulas mathematical formulas beliefs they just worked on bicycles and these simple guys said we believe we could make this thing fly forget about what mathematicians say we believe We Could Make It Fly they were not fettered by superstition tradition and fixed fixed ideas so he says wasn't that mathematical minds proved that man could never fly well the wright brothers didn't have any mathematical formulas they didn't have any scientists they just worked on bikes and he says had not people said god had reserved the privilege to birds only 30 years later the conquest of air was almost an old story and airplane travel was in full swing but in most fields our generation has witnessed and highlight this if you will complete liberation of our thinking these days we are very much freed from old ideas emotions and attitudes those traditions fixed ideas you come up with some idea that some people may think is pretty harebrained and far out chances are you'll find somebody who say you know what that's possible let's let's get some money together and let's put that thing let's make that happen because that's the world in which we live today that this is there's not any information that's going to stand in our way we're going to try and make whatever it is we think we could make we're gonna make it he continues show any longshoremen a sunday supplement describing a proposal to explore the moon by means of a rocket and he'll say i bet they do it maybe not so long either longshoreman are guys who work on the docks they are physical labors they don't work with their brain. They don't work with anything but their brawn. Their tool is this big hook that they hook into things that they're going to carry and they load it onto ships and they carry it off of ships. So Bill is saying these simple men who make their living by the sweat of their brow could take a look at the newspaper and say, you know what? I bet pretty soon, they're going to be flying to the moon. You know when the book was written? In 1939. You know, when we made it to the Moon? 1969, July 20th, 1969. 30 years from when this book was written. Not much different, huh? It's amazing how fast things develop. Okay, is not our age characterized by the age with which we discard old ideas for new, by the, and please highlight the rest of this sentence, the complete readiness with which мы throw away the theory or gadget which doesn't work for something new which does. I don't know about anyone else, but when the iPhone first came out, I had to have the first iPhone. So I got that. And then they said there was a second coming out. My God, I had to have that. I didn't know what was going to be in it, but I had to have that. And I did that all the way up to the iPhone 11 before I realized I'm buying the same phone over and over and over again, so I stopped doing it. But the point was, I wasn't the only one who was discarding something just to get the new one of whatever it is. How many people buy a car every two or three years because they are used to buying a new car every two of three years. I spent 50, 45 years in the car business. I could tell you that that's the way people buy cars just to get the new thing. They got to have it. Okay, continuing. Before we get any further, I want to draw your attention to let's turn back to page 51. The top of the page three lines down, Bill says something here. He says, leaving aside the drink question. So he's saying at this point in our lives on page 51, we've taken the first two steps. We're not drinking anymore. We have put aside the Drink Question. But he's sayings life was still unsatisfactory. Now I don't know about anyone else, but I thought all I had to do was stop drinking and drugging, and my life would just somehow automatically get better. But Bill is making a statement here. He says we're putting aside the alcohol. Life still is unsatisfactory. And so on page 52, we go back to that thought as a basis for what he's about to say in the middle paragraph. And you may want to highlight the whole paragraph, beginning with we had to ask, maybe just to save yourself some time. Let's highlight the full paragraph. And one of the things we do here is we highlight all of the musts in the book. Folks say there are no musts and I think we're up to about 125 in our list. We highlight the must in green. and here's an example of that we had to is a way of saying must so he begins the paragraph with a must we hadと ask ourselves why we shouldn't apply to our human problems the same readiness to change our point of view now i'm going to ask that you number the statements from here on Number one, we were having trouble with personal relationships. Number one we were having trouble with personal relationships. We're not drinking. We're still not getting along with anybody. Number two, we couldn't control our emotional natures. We're not drinking but we're still depressed. We're happy and sad. We feel like there's something missing. We're plagued by bouts of anxiety and panic. Number three, we were a prey to misery and depression. How come? I stopped drinking. I shouldn't have that anymore. We were a pray to misery and depression, number three. Number four, we couldn't make a living. It doesn't mean we couldnít hold a job. It meant we couldn'T be responsible with our money. that's making a living paying your bills being responsible number five we had a feeling of uselessness anyone identify with that it's number six we were full of fear number seven we were unhappy and number eight we couldn't seem to be a real help to other people. Now in the margin next to that on the left, I'm going to suggest that you write the bedevilments because that's what this is. These are the bedivulments and we're going to contrast this in 30 pages when we get to those so-called promises, those observations after the ninth step and we can see how they match up. For every bedevilement here is a promise that's met and kept on page 83. And you'll have to just hang around to see that. But here's something that very often gets overlooked. People look at the bedevilments and we've got these eight bedevils. And like I said, on the left side, I suggest you write bedevillments. And on the right side, there are a couple of other ideas for what you can call this. How about calling it symptoms of untreated alcoholism? Because that's what this is. Alcohol is out of our system. We don't have alcohol to deal with anymore. Our problem is sobriety. So these are symptoms of untreated alcoholism. They're indications of unmanageability, someone once called it. the symptoms of a spiritual malady period these in in the doctor's opinion the doctor dr silkworth said that we are restless we were irritable and we are discontented unless we can get that ease and comfort that comes from that first drink these are how those things manifest themselves we're restless or irritable and discontented, but what does that look like? Well, here are eight descriptions for what that looks like. It's funny, I got an email earlier today from someone in the group here today who asked me that exact question, that Dr. Silkworth mentioned restless, irritable, and discondent as a description of our spiritual malady. What does it mean? How does it show up in our lives? here's how it shows up here are eight ways it shows up in our life this is how we're restless and irritable and discontented but then I saw it say before that we sometimes leave off this last part where Bill says was not a solution basic solution of these bedevilments more important than and after the than just put dot dot dot and fill it in with the distraction of your choice bill wrote a book the distraction of his choice was newsreels of lunar flight what do you do to take your mind off of doing the things that you should be doing you got that fourth step work to list to work on tonight how come you're watching the walking dead for three hours you've got that eight step list you've gotta start working on to make your amends Why are you spending four hours on Facebook at night? What about trying to get a better job? What about try to get in a new relationship? What about all these other external things? Exactly. There you go. I hadn't thought of that, but that's true. All of these other things we occupy ourselves with. So we think that if we get those things, everything will be okay. I don't have to do that work. But they're distractions. They keep us away from doing the work. So Bill is saying, if your life looks like this, when you're not drinking, it's a guarantee that that window is going to slam shut pretty soon. And the obsession to use will return because you haven't done anything to change the root of the problem. It's like somebody who has a malignant tumor on their brain, and the doctor says to treat it with vitamin supplements. It's just not going to attack the root of the problem. The cancer is not going go away with vitamin supplements. Well, our alcoholism is not going to go away by spending time looking for the right partner, spending time on Facebook, spending time in Zoom. How about that? Going to three or four meetings at night telling your sponsor i did great last night i made three meetings how's that anger list coming when am i going to see that that's what we need to talk about nothing on the external is going to solve the internal condition the sickness within that's it okay so he says was not a basic solution these bedevilments more important than whether we should see newsreels of lunar flight Andy, if you could give me number 4.6. This was in the mailer, your email. I took all those bedevilments and we numbered them. And I also broke them down into which dimension of life they apply to. We have three basic dimensions. I know there are some people going around saying there are two, there are three. They are mentioned very clearly in the book repeatedly, the physical dimension, the mental and the spiritual. Bill says when the spiritual dimension is cleared up, the mental And the physical do as well. But the point here is that we're having trouble with personal relationships is the problem in the physical Dimension. What we have, we have difficulty with other people. once you get through the steps and you're living say in 10 11 and 12 the very first thing that shows its head in terms of your recovery starting to unravel your recovery is starting to unwind is you start to have trouble with personal relationships if you think about it that's the first warning sign you're starting to have trouble with the family with the neighbors with the boss all of a sudden everybody's on your case you're trying to have struggle with personal relationships you're winding out physically and then you'll wind out mentally and then spiritually and by the time you get to the spiritual unwinding you'll think of the relief the ease and comfort that comes from that first drink sands of ease and comfort it's not even real not even real okay so hang on to this we're going to be using this again when we get to page 83 but it just shows you how all three dimensions are affected by our spiritual malady Andy you can take that down okay we're on page 52 second paragraph from the bottom when we saw others solve their problems by a simple reliance upon the spirit of the universe one more example of bill's giving us a euphemism another way of saying god this chapter is filled with it so is the next one is what in any case different if you hung up on the g word try this one now for size spirit of the universe check that out he says we had to stop and we had two is in green because it's a must it'sa must we hadto stop playing doubting the power of god please highlight the next two sentences our ideas did not work and the last sentence is not only highlighted but it's highlighted in pink we use pink for promises and prayers and here's a promise but the god idea did so basically what he's saying here is seeing it work for others should give us a willingness to try. Remember, the whole point of this chapter is to make us willing to open our blockheads to the possibility of something else other than what we think we know. Put reason and logic aside, and we'll talk about that in a minute, and open our mind to the probability of something else and he's saying seeing it work in others people at meetings who seem to be serene and peaceful and living productive happy lives normal lives seeing that shouldn't that make you want i want what that guy has right isn't that what it says on page 58 if you want what we have and you're ready to make certain you're willing to go to any lengths to get it well it starts with wanting what we have so shouldn't that be enough for us to open our mind to the possibility that things could be different and where he says our ideas did not work you got to ask yourself how are my ideas working how's my i how's My Way working if you're up to page 52 in the Alcoholics anonymous big book i'm going to take a look uh a guess that your life isn't working out too well that you're in need of improvement so let's continue the wright brothers almost childish faith that they could build the net machine which could fly was the main spring of their accomplishment childish faith please underlying childish faith and i give you an example of childish face. My son, who's now 36, when he was about five years old, we were out playing in front of the house and he was running around like crazy, like five-year-olds do, and he tripped and he wasn't going to play. And he was in the street and he skid along the pavement, tearing up his elbows, his forearms, his knees. He had the fortitude to pick his face up so his face wasn't all torn up but his arms and his legs and his chest were tore up something fierce and he was screaming like a stuck pig I ran over to him picked him up and the second he put his head on my shoulder that crying stopped you see he wasn't it wasn't pain that was making him cry. It was fear that was making him try. And now he was in the hands of his father and he knew it was going to be OK. He didn't ask me, dad, you got insurance? You got any pain meds? You get any bandages? You got anything to ease this pain? Nothing. He knew that he's in the hands of his father, and everything was going to be okay. That's childish faith. That's not letting anything we know in the way. Childish faith. I felt that way with my dad, and I love the fact that my son felt thatway about me. And I'm sure a lot of people here say the same things. Okay, continuing. Without that, nothing could have happened. we agnostics and atheists were sticking to the idea that self-sufficiency would solve our problems when others showed us that god's sufficiency worked with them we began to feel like those who insisted the rights would never fly we beganto feel like idiots began to feel stupid us saying these things aren't going to work and seeing it work in other people How do you explain that one? Logic is great stuff. Logic is the agnostic's higher power, our ability to reason. Logic defined as the power to reason, to examine and to draw conclusions. That's our higher power. Our ability to figure things out. we liked it we still like it it's not by chance we were given the power to reason to examine the evidence of our senses to draw conclusions that's one of man's magnificent attributes we agnostically inclined would not feel satisfied with a proposal which does not lend itself to reasonable approach and would not feel satisfied with a proposal which does not lend itselfto reasonable approach in interpretation. Proposal is just an idea and he's saying that we're still going to use our logic and if we apply our logic to what is being proposed it should still hold up. Hence we are at pains to tell why we think our present faith is reasonable why we think it more sane and logical to believe than not to believe why we say our former thinking was soft and mushy when we threw up our hands in doubt and said we don't know we don'T know why is it that now we feel so comfortable with our faith because we've seen it in our life. We've seen it in others, we are willing to try it and we see it in our life Please highlight the whole next paragraph This paragraph incidentally is you can look at as the step two instructions These are the instructions for step two You know step one we were on a quest on page 44 we answered those questions but here's the proposal the proposition the idea of the second step caviar caviar when we became alcoholics crushed by a self-imposed crisis please underline self-imposed crisis and maybe in the blank spot opposite that or next to it self-imposed crisis is the failure of our current way of life that's the self-imposed crisis nobody did it to us we brought this on ourselves our problems our troubles we think are basically of our own making i shouldn't have said that because that's in the next chapter you're not supposed to know that yet. But be that as it may, our problems are of our own making, our troubles of our own making. So we are living in a self-imposed crisis. For what it's worth, I know some people like me are interested in this kind of nonsense, but the word crisis appears once in this book right there that's the one and only time the word crisis appears i i'm fascinated with that kind of stuff i know some people just bored to shit but i'm interested in that stuff in any case he says self-imposed crisis which is the failure of our current way of life and underlying we could not postpone or evade just simply means if we continue we're doomed we can't postpone or evave the question that this is a self-imposed crisis the second time on 45 it was evaded or entirely ignored what's that evaded are entirely ignored in 45 and now in 53 they're saying we cannot reminding us the same thing um we could not postpone or evade we had to and we had to should be in green because it's a must fearlessly face the proposition and underline please fearlessly faced the proposition that either god is everything or else he's nothing god either is or he isn't and please double underline this last sentence what was our choice to be now let me go back through that in a couple of places we had to fearlessly face the proposition that god is everything or he's nothing fearlessly faced the proposition In the 12 and 12, Bill says that under the lash of alcoholism, we turn to Alcoholics Anonymous. We turn to the 12 steps of AlcoholicsAnonymous. On page 24, Burke, of the 12 in 12, Bill says, under the rash of alcoholismo, we turned to God. He's saying the same thing here. We have to fearlessly face the proposal that God is or isn't. And what makes us face that is under the lash of alcoholism. We don't want to go back to active drinking. God either is or he isn't, what was our choice to be? The answer to that question, that last question, is the foundation upon which we will be basing every future decision we ever make. And that means if we are basing Every Decision on it, that means that every one of our actions are going to be based on it because all action is born in thought. so if our thoughts are that god is at the center of everything not us and we make decisions based on god-centered not self-centered where the first questions i ask are not what's in it for me what do i get what do i have to do it why should i do it if those are the first question that are asked i'm still self-centred but it has to be changed to god at the center of it. What would God have me do? What part would he have me play in this? Should I be a source of harmony or confusion? Shouldn't I want to be pure, honest, unselfish, and loving, compassionate, tolerant, forgiving, humble, with goodwill towards my fellow man? I think those are things that God wants me to be. So if I make my decisions based on those spiritual principles, then my life's going to be okay. My actions are going to Be okay. If I base my decisions on something else, self, it's going to reveal itself in my actions and my life is not going to BE too okay. i'm going to be living on page 52 or worse or worse so that last line is really important what was our choice to be just remember that the answer to that question is the foundation upon which you will make every decision for the rest of your life arrived at this point we squarely confronted we are we are Thus, we were squarely confronted with the issue of faith. We couldn't duck the issue. Some of us had already walked far over the bridge of reason towards the desired shore of faith, please highlight that phrase, the bridge Of Reason toward the desired sure of faith which of reason is uppercase yep rigid reason is upper case because we're talking about god but it starts if you remember back on page 47 at the bottom of 47 let's go back to it for just a moment the third line up from the bottom on 47 bill tells us we don't start with faith When I came in here, everyone said, you got to have faith. You got to make it because I don't have faith because Bill says three lines up from the bottom and it was comforting to learn we could commence at a simpler level and that simpler level is belief because belief is hope. faith is confidence i can't start with confidence i don't have any experience to base it on but i came in here with nothing but hope i was brimming over with hope that's all i had because i was desperate nothing else worked i was i so hopeful that this was it because i didn't know else to go and that hope translates into belief and based on that belief we go through those five stages that we talked about before we make a decision we implement the plan of action produces results then we no longer believe we have faith we know um what's my place here where are we on page 53 yeah 53 yep the outlines uh you know what i'd like to do uh no we don't have the time for it today let's continue um uh the outlines and the promise of the new land we're back on page 63 the bottom paragraph right in the middle after he said over the bridge of reason towards the desired shore of faith the outlines and the promise of the new land new land is capitalized and above that please write faith faith we start with belief we cross the bridge of reason and land on the solid shore of faith that new land had brought luster to tired eyes and fresh courage to flagging spirits. Friendly hands reached out in welcome. Underline that, please. We are grateful that reason, notice it's an uppercase, and above reason at that point write the word self. We were grateful that region, self, had brought us so far, but somehow we couldn't quite step ashore perhaps we've been leaning too heavily on reason and above reason right self once again that last mile and we did not like to lose our support that we lean too heavily upon that self our a reason our logic we were direct we're afraid to let go of that like like a baby's binky they don't want to let go of the pacifier so we hold on to it maybe a little longer than we should one of the books that i suggested people buy is called the annotated aa handbook and what it basically is It's a big book workshop in print, where they print part of the page. And at the bottom of each page, the author has comments, has critiques of what's on the page, very much the way we do here. And on the page in this book that I just read, on that sentence where he says that we've been leaning too heavily on reason, this is what his comment is. He said, we claim to rely upon reason as our only resource to solve our problems. We based our decisions and actions upon our ability to reason out the correct course in each situation. We still do that. but now we have a guiding principle upon which to base our reasoning the principle of the existence of a higher power so we're still using our reasoning and logic but the basis for it is god not self not self-sufficiency right not self sufficiency god's efficiency uh bottom of page 53 that was natural but let us think a little more closely without looking at it had we not been brought forth to where we stood by a certain kind of faith for did we not believe in our own reasoning did wenot have confidence in our ability to think what was that but a sort of faith yes we had been faithful abjectly faithful abjectly just means totally, totally faithful to the and underlying God of reason and right self. Yet we've been faithful to ourselves, to our ability to figure things out. So in one way or another, we discovered that faith had been involved all the time and please highlight the whole next paragraph because this is a bit of an eye-opener too sometimes when it's a whole paragraph it's easier to just circle it but be that as it may we found too that we had been worshipers what a state of mental goose flesh that used to bring on had we not variously worship people sentiment things money in ourselves think about that and we not worship people's sentiment sentiment how about people who just go through relationships like i go through my socks every other minute they're in a new relationship because they're in love with being in love that's their grasp on life is based on that sentiment, that if they have that right relationship and this one's the right one, I know this one is the right way, everything's going to be okay until the next one comes along all kinds of sentiments, let's continue and then we'll talk more about that and then with a better motive have we not worshipfully beheld the sunset the sea or a flower please underline this who of us had not loved something or somebody does not the ability to love require faith think about that without question it does to me how much did these feelings these loves, these worships have to do with pure reason? Little or nothing we saw at last. Were not these things the tissue out of which our lives were constructed? Did not these feelings after all determine the course of our existence? It was impossible to say we had no capacity for faith or love or worship and please underline this in one form or another we had been living by faith and little else. Faith, if only I had the right money, if only I hadn't fill in the blank, the right job, the right car, the relationship, whatever it is that we tell ourselves we pursued those things as solutions to our being discontented with life and when we got those things at time to time we may have gotten a taste of some of those things and they failed failed to satisfy failed to solve our spiritual crisis our spiritual malady when they failed to solve those things they only added to our feelings of futility in life and when i didn't get those things i blamed you there's always a reason why i didn'T get those thingYOU got in my way but we had always been going on faith and that's what he's trying to say has anybody here ever called ahead to the liquor store to find out if they have alcohol no why because we have faith that they do it we have very selective faith but we do we know we don't have to call ahead they're gonna have it when we get there um let's see how much further i can get here imagine life without faith and the next five lines should be in pink please were nothing left but pure reason it wouldn't be life but we believed in life of course we did we could not prove life in the sense that you could prove a straight line is the shortest distance between two points yet there it was could we still say the whole thing was nothing but a mass of electrons created out of nothing meaning nothing whirling on to a destiny of nothingness of course we couldn't the electrons themselves seem more intelligent than that at least so the chemist said. Hence, we saw that reason isn't everything. Neither is reason as most of us use it entirely dependable. Yet it emanate. Emanate means it comes from. It emanate from our best minds. What about the people who proved, underline that word proved, man could never fly? they had remember the mathematicians and scientists had proven man can't fly well the wright brothers weren't burdened by that knowledge and that information so basically i think we're going to stop here i don't want to i don'y want to begin what comes after this next because this is just so important you know work. We've already been told in this chapter how to find God. If you remember, we were given three pieces of information. We were to lay aside prejudice, we would be willing, and we were to take action. That's how we find God, we seek, that's what I mean by take action, we lay aside to prejudice we are willing express a willingness to believe and then seek honestly seek that's how we find god bill is going to add a few things he's going to say search diligently and then he's gonna tell us where to search and if you'd like to know where you're gonna have to come back next week because that's what we're going to get into in the next page this is like a buck rogers uh serial at the movies where you got to come back Next Week to see what happens well come back Nxt Week and you'll see where Bill says God has been hiding all of this time it's kind of a where's Waldo is this a final sequel yeah yeah this I think this will be the second last everyone i'm sure knows where's waldo and in great britain it's where's wally it's like the little figure in this massive picture you know this this enormous picture i don't know if you can even see that stuff but there's this picture of wally waldo in the midst of a million other things and then the job of reading the book is to find the little figure on the page well we agnostics is like where's waldo right not that easy to find waldo remember the day we tried it's not that easily to find waldo that's right took me 50 years to find wall though okay um i thank you all uh we're gonna wrap it up at this point please come back please hang around a few months a few minutes someone asked me the title of the book It is the annotated AA handbook by Frank D. You can get it on Amazon from time to time. It does go out of print. Just keep trying to get it. The last time I got one, I had to pay 45 bucks to get het from England. It's printed here, but I had a buyer used. So just keep trying. It's a really, really good book. This is, I found this book before I found Joe and Charlie. this is the book that made me understand joe and charlie uh so let's wrap it up we've asked uh amanda to please take us out and andy if you'll give us the page 164 right we are amanda yeah yeah amanda can you see that yes i can thank you um a vision for you our book is meant to be suggestive only. We realise we know only a little. God will constantly disclose more to you and to us. Ask him in your morning meditation what you can do each day for the man who is still sick. The answers will come if your own house is in order but obviously you cannot transmit something you haven't got. See to it that your relationship with him is right and great events will come to past for you and countless others this is the great fact for us and please all mute and join us in the rest of this abandon yourself in the lord's prayer amanda and our mother and our father and our brother and our Father and our Mother and our Heavenly Father Amen Please hang around the storage of ice