Step 11 and the Stinking Suspicion That We Aren’t Ready – Ralph P.

Now all of the AA program deals with the philosophy of living. We learn in AA how practically to adjust to the realities of life. However, the more we analyze these adjustments and this philosophy the more we look into the techniques that are suggested to us we suddenly realize that we can only fully understand how to live if we know how to die the lesson of life is only really learned at the point of death and that's the reason we were told centuries ago in all thy works o man remember thy last end and thou will never sin now there's no controversy about death no one denies that this that or the other person will die and the reason is because everybody who has lived died everyone who has lived in this world has died go back to the scriptures what do they tell us they tell Us that Adam lived 930 years and then he died Seth lived 912 years and then He died Enos lived 905 years and once more those two little words wraps up a lifetime by saying he died methuselah who supposedly is the oldest living human being who lived more years than any other person in this world lived 969 years but there again we find those two little words he died and so with david and solomon and abraham and isaac and joseph and the apostles and paul even christ himself all telling us over and over again it is appointed unto man once to die if we ask nature nature will tell us that we die all nature tells us someday we're going to die if we asked the sun that rises in the morning and slowly ascends to its zenith at midday and then sinks imperceptibly in the west at eventide and disappears it will tell us that such is our life we enter this world at birth then we grow into manhood into womanhood only to sink and disappear from this world in death if we ask the seasons that follow one another they will tell us that we are like the seasons as summer follows spring and spring winter and winter fall and around this cycle it goes so in life we follow our forefathers others follow ourselves and again others come after them and on and on each one closing his own chapter of life in death if we ask the streams that flow through the meadows the streams will tell us that we must die they will tell us that life is like a stream the first years are spent in obscurity and then it hastens over rugged rocks gloomy forest yawning precipices blooming landscapes on and on and on until at last the stream sinks into the silent ocean never to return and it will tell us such as our life a life of joy and sorrow a life pleasure and pain a life innocence and sin we hurry on into that silent ocean of eternity never more to return if we ask history history will tell us we're going to die where are the nations of old their glory where is the power that was rome's where is this splendor of egypt the talent of greece where are their leaders the napoleons the caesars the washingtons the hitlers they're all dead right now their glory and their splendor and their power is buried with them where are the companions of our youth remember the ones we went to the dance with many are dead the ones we went through the parties with many or dead remember the one's we went the bars with many are dead the ones we went to school with every moment statisticians tell us someone somewhere is dying right now somewhere someone is dying passing on into eternity and someday sooner or later and soon at the latest you and i shall travel that same path and yet we don't like to talk about death we shun the thought of death why you you hear it what do we say he passed away or we go to awake and we say oh he looks like if he was asleep how do we know how he looked like when he was a sleep everything but he died you know why we shouldn't be afraid to die we should have no fear of death after all death is merely knocking off work for all eternity then why do we fear death because we got a stinking suspicion that maybe we're not quite ready that if death came today we wouldn't be quite ready to die and that's the reason the scriptures told us and tells us in all thy works so man remember thy last then and thou will never sin because it is appointed unto man once to die at the same time as i mentioned in the beginning it is only by facing the fact of death that we learn the fact of life we only learn reality in all its nakedness when we learn death because as we look at death so will we look like and the convictions we have about death are going to be the actions we have in life it is the supreme equalizer as the poet tells us i'll sing you a song of the world and its ways and the many strange people we meet from the rich man who rolls in his wealth to the struggling poor wretch on the street but man though he's poor and in tatters and rags we should never affect to despise but think of the adage remember my friends six feet of earth makes us all one size so let's take a look at death just for a moment what is death that's the end of life beyond that you make your own decisions who's gonna die me that big shot who i think so much of now you know who i always seek to be first whom i always want to be at the head of everything whom i didn't never want to be hurt that guy someday sooner or later soon at the latest is going to die me i'm going to die when i don't know 10 years maybe ten months could happen ten days could happen ten minutes it has happened I was giving a very short dissertation on death as a example of meditation in one of the groups in La Porte Indiana 16 years ago and I made this statement right after the meeting one of them in dropped dead I was given a retreat at Gethsemane, Kentucky to AA's four years ago and right after supper as we were walking up the stairs one of the men dropped dead boy the rest of them got on the program that night I remember one of the fellows who made our first retreat in Indianapolis 18 years ago we had a trial balloon as it were a little one day affair and this guy's name was Bill he was the one from whom I got the big AA book on a sick call and actually the one that really introduced me to AA the day after the retreat he died dropped dead Bill had not made his first retreat only, Bill had made also his last retreat but I look back And after thinking, I can see Bill there many hours during that day in the chapel alone. Maybe he had a premonition. I don't know. But I feel sure that Bill was ready to die. Then I remember another case in the southern part of the country. A fellow had been sober for 14 years. He had a slip. They took him to the hospital, sobered him up. He called the nurse. He said, Nurse, I'm going to die, but I'm ready. And he dropped over dead. he was ready another fella had a reservation for one of our retreats in Kentucky and the fellows who were going to pick him up drove up to his house he started to walk out to the car he dropped dead he had made his last retreat I was in Texas one time about to be introduced to the audience and the fellow who was introducing me dropped dead now I wonder what all these people all alcoholics all members of aa would tell us if they could come here tonight i know what they would tell you know what we don't know when we're going to die we're liable to die at any moment therefore it behooves everyone now to find out how am i going to die and that's the 64 000 question can i know how i'm going to die yes we can am i going to die a friend of god or his enemy prepared or unprepared sober or god forbid drunk but people have died drunk haven't they ever seen one die drunk it's not a pretty picture there's only one thought we should have when we see a person die drunk and that is there but for the grace of god go i and that gives us the conclusion to this premise that there's only one thing that will guarantee me a happy death prepared at death and that is the grace of god plus my good will money nor talents nor accomplishments nor relations nor material things in all the world none of these things can guarantee me a good death but the grace that god can you know what the grace of god is well i could talk for hours on the grace of god they have written books for centuries on on the grace of God but a little girl in class one day was asked by her teacher and she gave an answer which I think has more wisdom than all the books that were ever written and her answer to the teacher when she asked her what is the grace of God the little girl said the grace of God is the temptation to do good and therefore the conclusion from this premise is that the only thing will guarantee me a good death the death that i'd like to have is persistent and consistent dependence on god and his grace day in and day out and then no matter what day i die god will see to it that i die well material things mean nothing do you remember the story of the eight men who met in a hotel in chicago in 1923 they were eight of the most materially successful men in the world the first one was the president of the largest independent steel company a millionaire the second one was a president of the largest public utilities company a millionaire the third was the president of the largest gas company in this country a millionaire the fourth was the greatest wheat speculator a millionaire fifth the president of the new york stock exchange also a millionaire sixth the member of the president's cabinet a millionaire seventh the greatest bear on wall street a millionaire eighth the president of the bank of international settlements he too a millionaire however in 1952 just 29 short years later these so-called ape great men gave to us this amazing picture the first one the president of the largest independent steel company charles swab had died bankrupt the second one the president of the largest public utilities company samuel insel had died penniless in a foreign land the third the president of the largest gas company howard hobson died insane the fourth the greatest wheat speculator of the age arthur cotton died abroad bankrupt the fifth the president of the new york stock exchange richard whitney was prior to his death sentenced to sing sing prison where he died the sixth the member of the president's cabinet albert fall was pardoned prior to his death from prison in order to die outside the seventh the greatest bearer of wall street jesse livermore committed suicide the eighth the president of the bank of international settlements leon frazier died a suicide sick transient gloria mundi thus passes the glory of all things material and so we might ask the poet once again speak history who are life's victors unroll thy long annals and say are these who the world call victors who won the success of a day was it the martyrs or was it nero the spartans who fell at thermopolis christ or the persians or was at xerxes was it his judges or was it socrates speak history who was lys victor was it pilate or was of Christ.