His Emotional Higher Power Was a Detached Bureaucrat in a Gray Suit – Terry R.

This is the ancient prayer, from the cowardness that shrinks from new truths, from the laziness that is content with half-truths, from the arrogance that thinks it knows all truth, O God of truth, deliver us. Amen. One more time? Okay, I'll just do this one more time. From the cowardness that shrinks from new truths, from the laziness that is content with half-truths, fromthe arrogance that thinks it knows all truth, O God of truth, deliver us. I've been asked, I was asked what I'd like to reflect on by Steve here a couple months ago. I said, well, the higher power of recovery, and I'd like to, and I'll get session B on Friday, I think. So starting out, I'd like to start out with talking about a higher power from the vantage point of my experience is the way it's a tradition in the program. Start out with experience. And I got a very mixed education. I got the my family was Catholic as you might guess very church going but we made fun of people who were too churchy it's funny that we we had an aunt who was over at the top and she would send us birthday cards with medals and special things and yet we wouldn't think of missing mass on Sunday and die first and so I was sold God as love I was told that people go to hell if they commit mortal sins I spent most of my life since then trying to reconcile those two things but there was a lot of a lot of good education to say nothing of alcoholism And in my father, who died of the disease when I was six, who died in withdrawal in a sanitarium, who had been an AA for a couple of years in and out. And he was an AA when there was about four or five meetings in Los Angeles in 1943 and 44. So I was told about the disease. It's a don't think badly of your father. My mother had two brothers who were alcoholic and would show up at unannounced, irregular intervals to shake it out in the garage in the boys' room. And I thought everybody had an uncle or two on Skid Row who we'd entertain. And so I had all those influences going. I took the high road. Those of us who are ACA, which is probably 80% of this room, usually turn out to be rebellious you got to get some attention some love somewhere and when there's no quality love or love that's healthy either go for negative attention get in trouble or go for positive attention and get all A's and achieve and create order well I set out to create order and I went to the seminary young and we had our prayers, get up at 5.30 every morning, chapel at 6 and I kept the pledge I did not drink until I was 21 I wrote a paper called Alcoholism when I was in college, the longest paper I wrote I read the big book and several other books on alcoholism two years before I drank that's weird enough to mention even in a very short version of your story and i um i was struggling with this god of love god is love but you got to work real hard at this and be good or you're in big trouble uh i didn't connect it the way we can start to connect it in our recovery and when I began to drink when I was 21 I crossed the invisible line sometime in the early afternoon the first day and went on to you know hide my drinking try to control it until I was ordained a priest and I continue to try to control it after that. This is not a time for me to tell my story. I just want to say that by the time I was less than three years ordained, I lost my assignment. That's a euphemism we have for getting fired. And if you get fired from a job, even if you can get a job real easy, nobody likes to get fired. You know, it's close to the bone, the job. but when you live where you work and drive a company car it's a big change I was on hold a while and I went for treatment and I went to treatment in one particular hospital an aversion treatment hospital five times I've had 24 aversion treatments and I was asked never to call them up again because I was demoralizing the staff and other people and during this time I was saying my prayers I was asking God's help I was getting of course as an alcoholic I was praying more and being more cynical at the same time I was trapped in an alcoholic mentality I could have the words about God is love and that the main thing to do is have reciprocal give and take and love and mutual respect. But I could not see the willfulness, I could not see that my agenda was fear driven ego stuff. I was striving to become excellent as a way of avoiding rejection and then if they got that accomplished I'd be nice to you as well. And so I went along in that struggle and I wound up, let's say after five hospitalizations being detoxed on a psych unit and sent off to a recovery house in New Jersey. I got my start in New...I see many people from New Jersey here. My first meetings for me were Morris Town, Morris Plains, Summit, East Orange, Basking Ridge. I don't know if I got around to Basking Bridge. That was a rich place. And we were in a little place called Sterling. And as I was going to meetings, I was so... By this time, I'm in my seventh institution and I'm cynical about recovery. I'm just, I had discovered in my last detox that I had the spiritual, first part of the first step. And I got the message, you'll drink again and you won't die dramatically right away. You will just go down the tubes the way your father and uncle did or doing. Uh-huh. What do you want to do? Is this going in this one? Keep going, he said. Keep going. Hey, Steve, welcome. you got here just in time for the sound to get just right it's not just right yet I'm a little too close they said I was a little too far away okay he doesn't care okay this can you hear me what I'm saying now okay I'm glad I'm just talking about this stuff instead of what's important I'm gonna I'm waiting until this is straightened out and then I'm going to give you the message anyways I began to go to meetings I liked them, and we went to meetings every day the way you do in a good recovery house. And I kind of liked it almost right away. I didn't think I would because it was classroom-type, you know, sitting in chairs, and I've been doing that for a long time. And I thought, gee, I kind OF like this. Too bad it won't work. And then as I was going week after week and month after month, I was in the recovery house five months in one week and two days. and you're supposed to it said you stay there three months they thought I should stay longer at about, I think it was about the three month mark that I was being drawn into our recovery and you know Sandy's share yesterday he talked about recovery spiritual maintenance and recovery and he didn't talk specifically about a higher power, but the approach he took is the approach we all take to get acquainted with a higher power. And that's really the best way. So I'm indulging myself by having another kind of reflection. But I was coming up to that point where I started to be drawn into the kind of experience we get to be drawn into. I was three months or so going to meetings on a daily basis and liking it and getting positive and cooperating with stuff. And I noticed when I identified with people, it just was, you know, I'd have this zap. And actually I was falling in love with different people who shared if you told the truth for a couple of minutes you'd just knock me out because you were self-revealing in a way that was very risky and you were sober and you Were full of life and gratitude that you're sober and what else do you want and as that kind of thing was happening I had the first First thing that I can remember was a crossing of a line in my being drawn towards some sanity in my faith, some sanity and the in my notion of a higher power. I was in a meeting and thinking about trying to get my mind off myself occasionally. and I was back on me I don't know who was sharing but I had this awareness that oh higher power I think I know what you're up to now you have shown no interest whatever in my agenda up until this point my agenda is for me to become excellent Me to become well-balanced, virtuous, disciplined, relaxed, strong but vulnerable, competent, highly competent in my work, widely recognized as being highly competent in my work. Close to God, very virtuous, disciplined, and very rich. I figured then I'd be in a position. Well, I wasn't getting rich, and instead of getting excellent, I was identifying with you more and more as being just pathetically self-centered and afraid of everything. I'm afraid of disapproval from any sentient being. I want approval from plants. I rely on approval. So I was getting more aware of just how much work God had to do instead of having him do the work and get it out of the way. And as I, with that, I realized, oh, what you're up to, all you seem to be interested in is how I treat your other children. All you want me to do, and it didn't come so much that you should love your neighbor as yourself. I heard that, love your neighborhood as yourself, right. And my mother said, you don't have to like them, but you've got to love them. and love them means be fair and square, wish for their well-being but liking is an emotion and you can't control that so don't worry too much about liking people just love them okay I'm for your well-beings, satisfied? I love you I mean I I fulfill the requirement I am for you hope you make it I'm not going to get in your way unless I have to there was no life in that and there is life you know I think we're human beings and we're made God's the creator he created us to have Eros to have this desire this liking this enjoyment of other people and I don't think it's possible really to love unless you're enjoying under battlefield conditions there are certain extreme circumstances you could put your money down and love somebody whether they like it or not but you ordinarily when we're alive to another person's presence, we'll like them too, besides loving them and I found myself getting a kick out of you I found oneself just treasuring, and when someone would tell the truth for a minute, I knew that I was a very privileged person to be in your presence. I felt blessed by you and I had connected that to my faith. This is what the higher power is up to. And I, you know, I take, I have within me images of God that are rather are unhelpful. I don't know how many people there are here, maybe 100 people. There's probably about 1,350 images of God in the room. Nobody has just one or two. You should have one image for each phase of your life and each phase. And I know I had all kinds of things, but the one that embarrassed me most after therapy when it popped up was that you just wouldn't say God. What's the first thing? God! The first thing that pops in your mind if someone just catches you on the street. What popped up in my mind was a high school principal in a gray suit who forgot my name. and like my emotional god was a detached bureaucrat he wasn't angry he was very detached and uh fair and he looked through my tests and so forth my papers what's your name again uh oh not good well it's it's too bad you're out of here next please and um Now, I didn't elaborate on that, but that's a take. And you'll have a punishing God or whatever. Whatever higher powers you have in your head, don't try to push them out. Just make friends. Get used to them because you've got them forever. I think any higher power image is there. And we don't have to get rid of those anymore than we have to getting rid of alcoholism. We just move ahead. we get better stuff and we get truer stuff and as I cheered up and began to well as I cheared up that's a good expression and what was cheering me up was not finally getting what I wanted was cheering up was not finally God loosening up, the big fellow finally hearing and then delivering the goods that I've been wanting what cheered me up was that I was drawn into recovery and began to act like a human being more I began to appreciate you guys, I began to appreciate people, I begin to know have just a deeper respect and oh yes an enjoyment of other people and enjoyment of my life as a responsible person, that kind of thing. And the image of a higher power that began to emerge for me was a face. I'm convinced that our God, our spiritual action is way ahead of our spiritual thinking. our idea of God is usually pretty primitive our experience of God is usually very deep and not easy to describe not easy because it is just too rich and too deep we're ahead in our action that's opposite of the way it is in many other areas of life it occurred to me that I'm actually assuming from what I when we take literally some things about punishment and so forth by the way a helpful phrase I heard some time ago was we're not punished for our sins we're punished by our sins they do a good job nothing else is needed to add that we think of a higher power kind of reluctantly, kind of a nice guy but well I'm sorry, too bad and we actually think of a higher power as less spiritually mature than we are we get used to having you know, see the whole picture, patience and even when somebody's crazy and trying to kill us, we try to restrain them give them a little give them a shot put them under restraint and we think our higher power would not be that kind you know hello and I begin to just contemplating the face of a mature person got to be my idea of God's face and I I have three points under a mature persons face one is just the basic look you have kind of a pleasant affirming look from people in many situations, but you see a person a number of times and you can pick up this person is actually steady and affirming and friendly and fair and square and they seem to be in alliance with you you get that thing about their affirmation they're on your side acceptance. And you sort of develop a relationship and you say, yeah, this person's been around and they're steady. Then you notice that the person likes you. That the person actually listens to you. That's a little scary. You ever have someone to listen you start bitching and moaning and they say uh-huh And they pick it up, what you're saying, and nobody ever picks it up. And you're already embarrassed that you're complaining. But they like you. And they likeyou in a way that is deeply reassuring. You like the way they likeyou. They're not workingyou. They enjoy your existence, not what you can do for them. That's a big deal. and then you notice after a time that the person with this face and by the way I think the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and the fellowship of Al-Anon corporately the program has this face when you meet up with the program it's a face that looks back at you affirming and steady glad you're here and then when you're in there they see they like you they like a newcomer with new embarrassing humiliating things to share that are going to help other newcomers and then you find out that they have the same attitude towards your they have an attitude towards your assets and your deficits that's very different than your attitude towards your assets and your deposits my assets I try to flash them as early as I can humbly time to not let you know I'm flashing them but I hope you do find out what my SAT score was maybe it will leak out and on and on but I figure that whatever my accomplishments in life food whatever anything positive about me i hope you find out early and my chances of being liked and accepted are increased i figure and by and likewise for deficits try to hide those as best i can and uh and you get a mature person they don't have that attitude and this is where it's really easy to see how the program is spiritual the program is not impressed with us for our accomplishments is that bothering you as much as me yeah okay okay well now it's turned off what solo yeah okay was that a battery you think oh the battery we had a dying battery I'm doing it myself don't worry Steve I want to get a little credit for this after this is over hey not bad huh Hey, here we are. Now see, that's the kind of mockery I like because it's making the point that when you share at a meeting and you modestly let other people know that you won the National Book Award that month the leader of the meeting will say you know, we're very happy for you. Very good, isn't that wonderful? Next please. you say you're just out of prison good, come to this meeting regular because we'll be able to talk to your probation officer and let them know yeah, you've been here every week, good, next please you know and we're a little disconcerted on the other hand it's more deeply reassuring and I think that's a spiritual face and I think the face of God and the face of the program and a mature person's face share those characteristics a few corollaries to that in my experience as I'm drawn into relating in the way the program just by giving me the grace to settle down and get acquainted with my powerlessness over alcohol and that it's not going to get better it doesn't have to get better part of getting better is like not wanting that to change just yes I'm powerless forever and it's not a disgrace at all not even a little bit and that's news and then finding out that I'm starting to go sane I think we're never asked to take the second step until we actually are going sane have you noticed you're going sane gradually not in a regular straight line but you're and do you think it's because you got smart and strong you have a feeling that you got in on something good that you didn't make up the program and the energy is not depleting you not tiring you out but rather the more energy you put into your recovery the more enery you have when we encounter that kind of face we encounter the program with an invitation to take these actions that are just so fundamentally in harmony with respect and love respect and love of us that gives us a chance to behave in a way that shows respect and love for other people it's just, it's like you know you're an alcoholic you're a dope fiend you'll die without help the help is rigorous you have to give your whole self to it and the first thing you're going to have to do is whether you like it or not take your foot off your oxygen hose then everything else is similar it's stop hurting yourself stop starving yourself, stop isolating yourself, stopped depriving yourself of an honest relationship that kind of stuff and but something very important happens here that has everything to do with I think a living faith and that is when we see that face and when we interact, when we have a give and take there's a transformation within us we The deepest part of ourselves comes alive. We come alive as someone who is welcomed in the universe. We come live as someone who's a center of responsibility and freedom. We come life as a grown-up human being. And we come alive, we get in touch with that deep aspect of ourselves And we like it. I wrote a note here, the face came into view only when my focus got off me and onto us. Somehow there's no real faith, me and God, what have you done for me lately? It's being drawn into a sane relationship with other people. And so it's a discovery. it's a discovery of our own dignity as human beings that's what goes on as we discover that and that comes alive within us our standards go up and we get in business as human being and we're in a space that I tried to sketch just now already that is a space where life is not a control project it's relationship we're at a space where it makes sense to have gratitude. It makes sense to have gratitude, to have a joy, a song of joy in your heart because you didn't invent this and it's not tiring you out. And it is just so healthy. I mean, it's so deeply healthy. Remember that being stopped one day. This is very healthy. You go all the way with this stuff. You don't get, you don't lose your sense of humor and get perspiration on your upper lip. after a while, I like this my experience the way the program treats me the way a mature person treats me is the way you should treat me and it's not because I'm special in the sense that I'm better or more important than anybody else, no, no comparisons here when you treat me well it's not a sign that I am something special more than anybody else it's a sign that you are healthy it's the sign that you are up and running and awake as a human being your spirit's alive people anybody up and running and in tune with the deep with the way we're made with who we are will treat us like that We'll treat us with an absolute, unconditional spirit of welcome, alliance, and love. And we'll get a kick out of you. And we're going to treat you like a family member. We'll have the attitude towards your accomplishments and failures that you have towards your six-year-old. You don't say, got a gold star? Okay, you can get in the family now. You can come all the way in. You don'T like him anymore. That's done. That's taken care of already, you know. You're happy for them. And that's, and so it's, you know, people treat us like that. Good for them! That means they're healthy. You don't have to feel guilty they went way out of their way. They can't help it. Once you get healthy, you just do that with people. And of course, then we're, the third corollary, of course that's the way we're charged to treat other people. and usually we're already treating people that way before we wake up even to the resolution to do it we've tried it out and it's great in recovery because you do meet some people who are in tune to the same thing and then it just comes very naturally notice how there's a healthy Al-Anon love in AA meetings and in Al-Alan meetings like we get trained in this almost an incubator where you don't want to take people home with you as a rule you know you want to trust them to take care of themselves but you're very interested that they do it and you're very supportive and it's sometimes appropriate to lend money or give money most of the time it's not sometimes it is not as a role though if someone asks right up front works you for money you know okay recovery is not going on the main thing um but that's the way we're called to treat each person and as we get into the groove of doing that uh and we get a little bit used to it um we're aware that uh the only chance i'm going to read my little note here the only chance we have of living sanely and being free of the tyranny of the others negativity the only way to go through the day and not be at the mercy of other people's negative treatment of us is to accept that person the way the program accepts you accept thatperson the way your sponsor accepts you. Accept that person the way God accepts you and we I think as we go along we're given hints and training and grace as we go to meetings and we see people do their little spiritual workouts we say oh when they ignore you and insult you let's see the idea is to use your program so you don't imitate that behavior and turn over control of your life and your day and your feelings to just pick out the most negative person in your day imitate them to make sure you're as miserable as they are doesn't sound right and then we're given a way to do the opposite and knowing that you're not a sucker when you do that you're no lacking self-respect now this face is always reassuring when we can stand looking at it and I think you know I'm in trouble whenever I when I get in spiritual trouble at all I tell a lie I evade I get into a little ego routine. Well, I don't want to look at that face. I'm after a certain, another kind of satisfaction. I am after the satisfaction of comparing and winning. Winning in comparison. And that's poison. That's the flesh. Now my Irish sponsor said when Paul was writing about the spirit versus the flesh he says the flesh is not sex he said to father the flesh is self-centeredness the flesh is self in that sense of abandoning abandoning the spiritual life as a relationship win this one for you and then we'll try to get the shape up later and the minute I'm into winning for me I don't see the face I don' t see that stuff I'm not reassured sometimes I'll see a frown sometimes I thought well if I beat myself up and say I'm bad maybe that will help and it doesn't help because when someone in your meeting who's having trouble beats themselves up when their turn comes everybody goes oh you don't beat yourself up here if you beat yourself up, you're telling us that you're making a preemptive strike. You're going to beat yourself up before we beat you up We don't want to beat you up. We'd like to sit with you while you go through your agony and get honest and we love you while you're in your process now my life is and my time is really up now a few minutes before three that image of a higher power has been helpful to me what's important to me is when I pray when I read spiritual things, when I do any program work I have to have a friendly I have to have a higher power that I not only am not afraid of or as a big difficulty I have to have a higher power that I exult in I have to have a higher power that I want to sing songs about I want to have a higher I want to know that my higher power is the spirit that gives us life that's energizing this whole process and that is not afraid of people who are all screwed up and who does not have a flesh thing but the spirit not have the comparison self-centered I need a higher power that even as I know insofar as I am dishonest and I am, insovar as I need the program, I need it a lot and so that impairs my capacity to live in continuous joy in the presence of my higher power I'm not a saint I hope I'm growing along spiritual lines but to have a higher power that we turn to in the 11th step with an enthusiasm and a certain comfort well higher power you're a little fuzzy today but I know I've got a clear look at you I've had a few clear looks at you and I see what you're doing to my brothers and sisters when they respond and I say I see what you do with me will you please keep dragging me into your presence will you Please just so much our higher power wants for us he wants for US what we want for other people Our higher power wants the behavior in us, not so much the behavior we want for ourselves, but what we want from ourselves is perfection. That is, unless we have an absolutely pure motive, the perfection would be at the service of others and just be in harmony with God totally. Usually, if we're not perfect yet, what I'd like for myself is a level of perfection that will impress the hell out of you. But we don't want that for other people. For your own kids, for your best friends, what you want for them is to have a program where they get to be honest all day, get to take care of their responsibilities and have that joy that comes from integrity and maturity. That's what I want for you. God says, I said I want it for you too. And it seems someone wanting that is a person that we can go into the 11th step with, if not enthusiasm, certainly with an attitude that higher power, hello. Glad to be with you today. Let's spend a little time. Thank you very much.