The Arrogance of the Man Who Thought He Was His Own Master – 1962 – Tom P.

I'm a little bit put out with this retreat because last year when we had it, I got to celebrate my 14th birthday down here. And this time they jumped it up on me a little bit and I'm going to have to spend my 15th birthday in Lubbock. And I don't think they should have done that to me this year, but they did. Before I forget it, getting off in a storm up here, the mother of George West, who is a member of the 710 group in Midland, passed away and the services will be at 4 o'clock this afternoon in the First Presbyterian Church in Merkle. You people from Midland going back might want to know that. Well, we've certainly got our buckets full down here this time. There's been a few complaints. I have one that brought coffee over to me and brought in those paper cups instead of china cups. And some of the women are complaining because their husbands couldn't stay with them and weight on them in the morning, coffee juice and stuff. Sadler complained about this humidity down here messed up his Marcel he got before he came down here. But outside of that, everything's been lovely. In Austin at our state convention, we had the people at their first convention to stand. And we saw something like 150 or 200 couples stand up that were very, very young people. Looked like they were in their early 20s. Dressed well, looked well, still had everything. And, we realized that people are coming to this fellowship before they lose everything. And while they are still young enough to do a lot of good, that makes me feel very, very good. I see some of them here at this retreat, and they have a lot of advantage over the boys that came in early. Back when I came in, I think the average age was about 55 to 57, and now it has dropped considerably. And it is retreats like this and speakers like you're going to hear this morning that's making it possible for these young people to find out about this and to find it early. I'm fortunate in having a speaker to introduce this morning that needs no introduction. In fact, I didn't ask him for any of the vital statistics about himself because I don't think that as well-known as he is, we don't need it. I will say this about him. The first time I heard him speak, it was the first time in my life that anyone ever made me feel the presence of a higher power in a room so much that I could almost reach out and touch him. And as many preachers that I've heard and as many churches I've been to, that's the first time in my life in Amarillo that I ever felt the presence so strongly. I felt it again this morning down at the little service we had. and I remembered him so well when we were in New Orleans last summer and I visited Jackson Square where he, I think, reached his bottom. We were staying in Roosevelt Hotel at the same place he got checked out of and all the time that we were there, we were going to New Orleans, I thought about Tommy and it brought back how much that he really meant to me and it is a great pleasure that I bring to you our Tommy who is a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and has come from a long ways way up in Salem, Virginia to give us our last speech for this retreat and I think that you'll go away with your buckets full like one said the other day the only measurement that you have of how much you can get is just what size container you brought. That would be all. And I'm going to turn it over to Tommy. Thank you, Cotton. Now, I'm not going to be as much with the finesse as Tom Powell's. I wore my coat for one reason, that I want you who are in UNA to realize it doesn't take long to get coats and britches that match. Now I can start where he did With the rise of humidity I undo my necktie I'm a grateful alcoholic and I know you are. And of course it's more than just courtesy that we observe when we thank those who had such authority for bringing us to a place like this. I was in the room last night and you just don't go to sleep and I want to tell you that there are the shortest nights in Texas of any place I've ever been. and I was there with Clarence and Bish you know you do this over a number of years and I think all of us who have this privilege agree that the responsibility grows a little more heavy and I say time and time again I'm going to stop this and somebody else can do it now. And you stop it for a couple of months and then you begin to walk around and watch for the mailman and wonder if all the retreats and conventions have forgotten you. But I think you'd be interested in this. It was the unanimous opinion of those of us who have the privilege of attending so many of these, certainly not as professionals, and it bothers me a little bit telling this this way, for we are a part of the fellowship, and we may owe more than you do because you allow us this. But we three agreed last night this has been one of the greatest weekends we have ever experienced, and we thank you for it. Now, before saying anything profound, AAs ought to get rid of their resentments, and I've got a few. I warned some of you jokers you'd better have your innings last night, but today was my day. I just want to rid myself quickly with this brief inventory. I have been insulted two or three times. I'm a mountaineer, and I don't like stories about mountaineers. We have ways of handling this at home, but here it's flatland. Remember the little story of the revenue agent who was new in his territory and they assigned him to the alcoholic tax bureau and he was a still hunter up our way and they said now there's one family that's in the third generation of making apple jack nobody has ever caught them and we want to stop this and they sent him out he was unknown he got his way wormed into the mountains and finally found the cabin of the family it's tucked way back in a hollow and he went into the yard and found the little boy throwing a ball against the house and he thought, this is where they live. Now my men before me said they never even found this. So he talked to the kid a bit. He said, son, where's your pa? He says, he's over the ridge at the still. And the guy was elated. He says you know I'm going to find him. Where's your ma? She's helping him. They're running today. You got any brothers and sisters? He said they are all working, mister. he said would you like this new shiny silver dollar the kid said I sure would he said show me where the still is and I'll give it to you the kid says alright and this guy could hardly contain himself he said come on let's go the kid say give me the dollar no he said I'll gave it to when you come back he said no sir now you ain't coming back I hope you'll let us come back. Bob has walked around with this Strauss Stetson on since Thursday. I've been watching him. The other day over in the dining room, why he didn't take his hat off, he said, every time I start to, there's a bunch of preachers hanging around and I'm afraid to put it down. I'm just a little bit resentful at the other preachers too I want you all to notice that they've all chickened out and gone oh but my friend Herb here and we're part of AA, and we've got too much sense to leave. No, I understand why they've gone, and I have felt such a spirit of encouragement this weekend that you have the fine men of the church who have made themselves as much as possible a part of what you do. And as some speakers so well said here, we need our friends. and I am grateful for them now the greatest of all resentments and I'm through with the inventory I'm a little mad at myself I don't believe I've been completely restored to sanity if I was sane I would have found out who was on this pro-guest and I wouldn't have been last one of the few times that I've ever been caught in a weekend where every speaker that I have taken some from to make my talk has appeared before me. I sat in this chair all weekend and watched myself slowly destroyed. What is there to do now? I told some of them last night I thought and thought what was left and about the only thing I could think of was to dive off this pool pit. Maybe that was it. And Harold insulted me. He said, set yourself on fire to look better. I feel strongly the need of Mike, our youngest son this morning Many of you who know me know about our boys is gay, and I have a little kingdom all of our own. Our four sons, Mike's the youngest. About three weeks ago, I was in Luray, Virginia with Julian, whom some of you remember fondly. And Julian, knowing we were coming down, asked me to bring words of greeting to you. He said the folks in Texas were his friends as they were everywhere and he wanted to be remembered in Dutch Whitley and I spent the day Monday together over in Lynchburg and he asked that his love be brought to you. But we went on this night with Julian over to the town of Luray and he told me to speak on his program at the little group and I went and Mike was with us and we didn't have any place to leave Mike. Now Mike knows a great deal about AA and we have no hesitancy in taking him. but he was a little perturbed about having his evening interrupted this night. He doesn't feel yet the need of AA, but I do. And I said, well now look Mike, if I talk too long, just shake your head. So I was introduced and I got up and I said my name is Tom Lovern and I looked back and Mike was gone just like that. There is an area that I think we might well consider this morning. It's not any intent not to let you know who I am. I've been here since Thursday letting everybody know. I am Tom Lovern, and incidentally, I want you to notice one thing. One of two things has happened here. either I have been expelled from the fellowship or my anonymity has been broken because my name is the only one on the program that's printed in full. I'm just teasing Louise. She's already accepted the response. I don't mind at all. And I am blessed in that I am a member of this blessed fellowship called AA. and I think this is the greatest honor of my life, not being an alcoholic, but being an AA. I also have the privilege of being a minister of the Methodist Church, and I am there because AA made it possible. I was not a minister prior to AA. I've been in the ministry about 13 years, not quite that yet. I've been around AA almost 16 years and between 13 and 14 years as an AA. And the area that I think maybe we ought to explore a little bit this morning is to put into focus what we've been about. Of many things that we might say, I even thought a while of just repeating 15 minutes of each of the speaker's talks. and this would make a great talk. I will never forget the sight of Tom Shipp standing here and I've seen him in other places. I saw him once standing before several thousand people addressing a church conference and I thought the man was magnificent. Something very kingly about him there But here the other night I saw something else. I knew him now. And I saw a man whom I loved very much because he loved me and you. And then to our programs yesterday, what a thrill it is. And it's been going on for years now. But again and again I feel the same goose pimples coming up when I have the privilege of sitting and watching and listening to Clarence Snot. You know, my wife and I were blessed with a year in Florida some three or four years ago and we spent many nights together picking from the great lore of knowledge of this man that's so well and so beautifully and with such grace and dignity of the early day AA. And I owe them so much. And I'm always emotionally filled when I watch Bish Mathis sincerely here. I said to him last night as we walked across in the beauty of the moonlight, I said, Bish, you know, you could stand up and never say a word and I'd get a message because it shines out. and you know last night I know you felt like I did I thought Gertrude was beautiful what a wonderful thing and I remember the days when women AAs were not thought of so highly I remember the days when it was a terrible thing for the community to know that one of you gals was a member of AA and I thought about the courage you have displayed. And Tom Powers, the great mind of AA. This guy just picked me out like a rag. I watched all of you when you went out of here last night. I don't know whether you noticed it, but people left this building solemn and in thought. It was a quiet trek all the way down the hill because we had listened to some great truths expounded again. And I guess these are the things we ought to be thinking about as we leave this retreat. It's been a real sanctuary for all of us. But you think about what you ought to say and it comes back always to the one thing, well how did it affect you? and it affected me like it has for almost 14 years and I thank God for this. Somehow you can't bring any sort of message in AA without telling something of yourself because to you this is the most important thing what happened to you and to me the most important thing what's happened to me? What is happening to me What growth do I know? What do I see? I dare not be stagnant. If I do, I die. I didn't come to Alcoholics Anonymous because I wanted to be a part of this. It was a means to an end. I came in simply because in one of my periodic blackouts and being a week late coming home from a road trip and those days I traveled as an engineer. My wife and my employer had spent hours on the phone together, she in Chattanooga and he in New York discussing my future. While she was hunting me desperately because of concern and he because I was supposed to be working for him, they got together. And I came home this day, I've told it many times, but it's auctioned to AA. It has to be retold. And it's so different from coming here. I came home and I confessed readily that I spent the trip of elucidation coming in of some 200 miles attempting to think of some more lies to tell, but they had all been used up. There just weren't any more. And even a drunk gets to this place. You've told them until they don't even ring true to you. You know, you go through this period, you know it's a lie, then it becomes truth, and then you come through some point of clarity when your own lie has failed you. But we get these smart attitudes. We're brains, all of us. We just don't realize when we're being real smart. And on this day, I finally came to this conclusion as I drove along, miserable of course, Well, while I'm my own master I'll go in and just tell them the truth If they give me a hard time I'll get another suitcase of clothes and leave This is arrogance And I got to the house And I was ready for her But it wasn't the same She didn't meet me at the door With where have you been I could kill you And she sat quietly and looked me up and down. She says, your boss said when and if you got home, call him. Well, I thought, that's strange. They've been together. I bet she's fixed it good for me. She's probably gotten me fired. But the arrogance was still staying. And I thought, well, there's no lie to tell him either. So if he don't like it, he knows what he can do with his job. I got on the telephone and he said, where in the world have you been, Tom? We have been frantically searching for you. I said, Lee, you know, in all the years I've worked for you, I've never lied to you. I've been off drunk for a week and I left him speechless. I know now that he was ready to parry all the lies I could tell him and when I hit him with the truth, he didn't know what to do with it. He sputtered and stuttered. He said, does anybody else know this? I guess he thought I'd get him in trouble if it accompanied you that he was counting and this sort of thing. He said look, you've been working too hard. Now you just keep quiet about this down there and I will up here and we're going to knock this week out of your vacation. Get on back to your work. I had the greatest feeling of elation there's been only one other time in my life that I was so elated and that's when I found the realism of AA. I was still elated because the thought came to me wonder why men lie if you just keep the country bowled over with the truth they'll never know what to do with it. And before I could hang up he killed this great wonderful elation he said did you ever hear of Alcoholics Anonymous? And I admitted I had my wife had plastered our house with Jack Alexander's articles for months. Every room, bathroom, kitchen, bedroom, I don't care where you sat down, there it was. And I finally read it in self-defense. And like so many of you, I thought it was a wonderful thing for the Bowery bums. I said, yes, I've heard of it. Well, your wife and I have been talking. we've made some plans for you it is now Friday and it happens that tonight in Chattanooga there's a group of these people meeting and there's an newspaper publisher and his wife going to pick you up as soon as your wife calls them and if you want to go to work for me Monday morning big boy you'd better be there tonight and I hung up and now my wife was ready she said if you want me here to send you to work Monday morning you'll be there tonight and I went to AA I went because I loved my wife as much as I was capable of loving anybody and I still held rather dear the dignity and the self-respect my employment gave me. It was a good job. I had no immediate superior. I liked the freedom of it. And these things had meaning for me, and I went because I wanted to save them. And I got nothing out of AA because I didn't go expecting it. I'll tell you what I did expect. I was like Tom with the sawdust pit. I was sure it was a branch of the Salvation Army. and I was real sure that I wasn't going to be seen in Chattanooga hooked up with this crowd. And I wasnít for a long time. They had a back way into this building and I used to walk through a parking lot in an alley and go up the fire escape to go in. I do remember one thing. The first night we were there, the building had been locked up and we went down this fire escape and out of 12 or 14 people, if I remember right there were three or four Cadillacs drove away and I went home with this thought if these people have done what they said they did if they've been in all the jails they said that they'd been in and all the state nuthouses they said They've Been In and if they're as crummy and crooked as they said there were I have stumbled on a brand new con game where'd they get these cars? I went on to AA when I had to. Now, I fooled my employer because every time I talked with him or saw any of them, which was not often, I told him what a wonderful thing this was and what it was doing for my house. My wife was real happy with it. She found some hope where there had been no hope. And I was real unhappy with it I found an excuse for drinking. You told me I was sick. This is all I needed. I could come home and I could stop my wife right in the tracks. If she were ready to jump because I was a little drunk and a couple of days late, I could say, look, won't you ever learn anything that they're trying to teach you down there? I can't help this. I'm sick. Don't get me upset, that's the worst thing you can do. I have wondered since whether my employer decided to find out once and for all whether I was conning him or whether I had him convinced, but we got a promotion within a very few months. We moved to New Orleans and I went in as the youngest supervising engineer in the National Bureau of Insurance underwriters and this was what every man dreamed of in my business. We had everything in the future that man could want. No, we didn't start out with money and prestige, but things were building. We had a home out at Lake Pontchartrain bought. We never moved in it because seven months later I was living at Seaman's Rest just off the Decatur Street wharves and the job and wife and child and home were gone. Seven months. Cotton's talking about Jackson Square. You know, that's my first AA room. It's a bench right by the statue. and I attended my first real meeting there without a pair of shoes. I swapped them for a drink of Dago Red that morning and two guys from AA came walking over. You see, I wouldn't have anything to do with AA but they had not forgotten Tom Lovern. I made the approach. We don't do this anymore but I will be eternally grateful to God and to those men of AA for the fact that once you came, they thought you meant it. And they waited patiently and quietly and watched for the moment and when they thought she was set up like a certain duck, boy, they hit you. And this was the 4th of July and these men didn't have to spend their holiday looking for me. But they walked over and sat down one on either side and asked old Tom if he'd had enough and as God is my judge, I'd had Enough. I wanted sobriety as much as any man who's ever lived. I was sick of me, but not quite sick enough. I got straightened out. I went back to Virginia and through AAs got a better job than I had lost. Everywhere my life has turned there's been some AAs that sort of paved the cobbles and pushed them down for me. I have been one of the most blessed AAs in all of its history. I went into AA and Richmond immediately and I sat down with newfound friends and I said to these who would be the sponsors now and I picked a whole line of sponsors over the next three years if they didn't think like I did I fired them as sponsor and got another one I wanted sobriety but I wanted it on my terms and here was the reservation And there's been a lot said about this. If I'm listening to somebody talk to a new man or woman and I hear them say what was said to me, I just go in orbit. I said, look, I want to be a part of this. I want sobriety, but there's some stuff in these steps I can't handle. And they said this insipid, stupid thing. They said, well, Tom, if there's steps you can't have, throw them out the window. Just take what you want. I've been throwing stuff out the window a long time and for about 13 years I've be crawling around in the dark looking for it. What is it they said you can't handle? This God business. Now, I never reached a point that I didn't believe in God with all my heart but I believed wrongly that I had forfeited my right to God. I didn't like the situation. It was one of those sick, tragic things that you're never rid of. You sweat about it at night. You wish you could be inside and feel like you belong. But I knew that I'd lost this through my own stupidity and my activities in life and I didn' t want to be reminded of it. well they said if this is all that's bugging you forget the God business just start with the steps and when you get to God just forget it you start and step one I was admitting to anybody that would listen that I couldn't drink liquor step two I ran into God get rid of this three four you never get away from him and I had a one step program and I got drunk. Very normal. I came back to AA after a period of time. Let me make one thing clear. I never had a slip in AA, but I was intentionally drunk five times. Five real drunks. No slips. I knew I was going to get drunk when I took the drink. I took to drink like Tom to anesthetize myself. I came back to AA and I said, this is not working out so well. Give me a couple of new sponsors. So I got two more. And we got together in the corner and I says, this is just not working. I can't work on a one-step program. I admit I can drink, but I'm drunk. Well, they said you're not taking enough part in the activity. now you just start going around with us well I made a mistake I picked out the crowd that had taken over the missionary enterprises of AA they quit work they were just going from town to town starting new groups and I went to every night well you know what happened I got drunk I wasn't carrying a message this was Tom Lovering on display you know they take you in and here's an old Cajun A and here is another one and they get up and they say, he's a college professor. I'm a bum. You talk boy. And I'd talk. I don't know about what but it didn't work and I came back and did a little reasoning on my own after the second time out and I'm going to tell you something. Every time it gets desperately harder that I'd come back up the steps to AA. But there was no place else to go. I knew here was where I ought to be. I knew you had answers, but you weren't phrasing them right for me. I was unusual, you know. My case wasn't like anybody else's. I came back and a bit of reasoning said, well, there's got to be some gold. This is like taking the pledge. we had property in Richmond then and we had a board of trustees that controlled the ownership of the property. You had to be sober a year to get on the board. And I set this as a goal and stayed sober a years, and got elected to the Board of Trustees because I button-holed everybody that went to AA and politiqued for it. And we had the first board meeting on my anniversary. And I sat in and was elected secretary of the trustees and I went on the way home and got drunk. I had accomplished a purpose. It had been a successful way for one year. I came back to AA I've always been grateful too in my case that I didn't run into people all of my line of sponsors who came rushing out with a big book and a pint and some pills and some boraldehyde to help old Tom get sober I went through this stage you know in our Jefferson Street Club we had a medicine chest in the kitchen you get a 12 step call you pack the bag when you go that's a wonder we didn't kill somebody I see this going on now hang, hang here my doctor gave me these little pills now they're harmless they'll make you sleep and relax till you're ready to get back on the program you just pushed them out the back door Dr. Will Miller says you turn liquor loose and grab pills and you've turned a pussycat loose and got a tiger by the tail my sponsors never came around with the compassion bit I remember calling the man who literally became my sponsor in AA about 14 years ago Jack White God bless him I don't break any anonymity He's now passed on, and so are Steve Griswold and George Collimore, the two men in New Orleans. But I know they're here this morning. I called Jack once from out at Three Acres Sanatorium over in Virginia, and I was about four sheets in the wind with a crying jag on, and I said, Jack, this is Tom, and I'm out at three acres drunk. I thought the least he'd do is rush out and see me. And he said, have fun, and hung up. Now, like Tom, the tragedies of the moment become the comedies of time. And these are comedies now, but there was a serious process going on through all of this. And I believe it because I have experienced it and know it. The most important thing in the world for the boy or girl who we say is not getting the program is keep them there. Because something works. It happens and it works on you. And after five of these episodes, I finally stopped and took a look at Tom Lovering like Tom Powers said last night and the other speakers. There comes the morning of awakening. And I had reached the place that I wish Clarence had told you about yesterday. You know, I sit over here with these jokers and I'm making their speech. I want them to say something so bad and they don't say it always. But when you get sick enough and frightened enough and filled with enough self-disgust, you're ready. And I wake on one morning sick of myself. There wasn't another lie to tell. There wasn'T another way to dodge the issue and there had to be a way out. I went over to Jack White's office and I sat down, I think, for the first time honestly in my life. I didn't know much about honesty. I didn' t know how to think. I didn''t know how pray. But yearningly, and I said, Jack, what''s wrong with me? He said, right now I don''t think anything. and he began to teach and to guide and to bring me to the place where an acceptance could be real. He told me, first of all, this day, he said, tell me, what do you know about God? Oh, I know all about God. No, he said. I don't think you know that much about him. If you do, it hasn't been very apparent. what do you know about God I know he's there he said yes and he wants to do something about you me but I gave up all of this I forfeited this right he said you can't forfeit your right to God and as the days pass now this beautiful God-given man just guided my thinking as muddled and as slow as it was into some sort of an awareness that I was just looking for God in the wrong places. I asked the questions you asked. Well, God, yes, but where and how and what is He? Oh, I'd listen. The pulpits had been painting pictures of God for me all of my life. He was some ethereal thing that just defied description that was way out here in a heavenly body and unattainable by man. My sponsor taught me the first glimmers that God was everywhere and in the simple places of life. Do you know something? He only began, God teaches me this every day. I stood down here this morning and looked over the water for a moment. I stood in the midst of you and I felt God's presence Just before we started the service, I felt something just pour over me like somebody had just wrapped me up in something real soft and good. I knew immediately what it was. You see, because I have learned to find God in other people, Jack Bolin is here from my home. Jack and I have a way of communicating. We're just finding this. And when I felt this, I just had to find where he was sitting. I knew he was praying for me and his head was bowed and his eyes were closed. I've told so many times it was later that I found an experience comparable to this sudden awareness that God is all around you and that God's for me. And I just didn't come in the twinkling of an eye. I was guided long and patiently to this and I'm still being guided, but I left a duck hunt. I lived at one time in an area over in Tidewater, Virginia, boarding the Great Chickahominy Swamps. And I had in my church a member who was a state forester and I hunted with him while I was there. And my first experience in an early morning duck hunt in those swamps was quite an experience. I learned about how God likes the world for men. I was already a minister. But I had yet this to learn. We went before daylight, of course, and we rode in his truck as far as we could. Then we seemed to have walked miles back into the swamps over footpaths and logs. Finally, we came to an open body of water and got in the boat. We took off there and rode perhaps 30 or 40 minutes, winding our way back and forth through the swamp. It was a fearsome place. It was pitch black. There were shadows darker than others around you. I thought I heard snakes, alligators, everything in the world. But you know, this fellow I was with grew up in these swamps and he knew them like the palm of his hand. He went surely winding through the swamp. We came to a beautiful open lake. The beauty now is not apparent. It was too dark. Finally got the boat and the duck blind and we got in and we stood and whispered a little bit to one another for a while but it was one of those mornings where there's just absolute silence. And the surroundings stilled your voice, and we just became silent and stood there. And then a little while way over here I heard a bird chirp. It seemed so loud. This is the first sound I heard. It was a timid chirp, but then I heard another timid chirping, and then they found each other. And I began to hear these sounds of awakening all around me. And this little lake was surrounded by great tall, gnarled cypress trees and suddenly the sun came through the clouds and over those trees and I never saw such a place of beauty in my life. There was nothing fearful about it now. The things that were awesome as shadows had now become things of beauty. And I thought as I stood there, why this is the way God alights men's lives. I don't care what your fears are if you just give him a half chance he can so light inside that he can chase every shatter out you know we never fired a gun we saw ducks I thought how God blesses when the need is there this man must have realized what an experience we were having he just left me alone this is the way God came finally into my life there are shadows even today but I forget the light and as life has progressed and time has moved on I have learned other ways to find God I remember a few years ago we were in Florida for the year of sabbatical leave and I tried to do some writing and I found that I'm not disciplined enough to be an author. But I sat one night at the desk trying to write a page about taking God with you. And it just wouldn't come out. I tore out one page after another and finally I did as I so often did. We lived right on a beautiful beach and it was deserted at this hour of the night. I went out and walked the beach with this thought mulling it sort of like a dog gnawing a bone. and as I looked at the ocean and the skies above me the thought suddenly hit me why you fool nobody takes God anywhere no wonder you couldn't write this you can't take God he's already there the only privilege we have is the rather dubious privilege of ignoring or accepting his presence and I have since looked for God wherever I am like here on this hillside this morning in people. I can share some experiences with you. Maybe you'll look for God there. Maybe you will quit looking for him in the maze of philosophy and theology. This maze is endless. You'll never walk out of it. But if you stay out ofit now and get back here to earth and in the midst of realism and truth, You can find God before you walk 50 feet from this door. You might find him sitting next to you if you look into the eyes and soul of that one that sits by you. I found God more in people than anywhere else. I began by finding him in days. Somehow everything first in my life starts here. I watched my sponsor die but somehow I watched him live forever Jack was the first member of AA in Virginia he would have been 25 years old this January he was in his 70s I came to AA first at 29 the only thing we could share in common was the greatest thing any man can share, love for each other I went with him once to Philadelphia to a clinic and I sat and listened to a doctor tell Jack that he'd die within a few months that there was nothing that could be done for him, that within weeks his voice would go. Do you know something? This worried old Jack more than died because he had been talking AA then for 20 years. We rode home silently because I knew he had many things to think about and somehow I couldn't find the things that I ought to say. And as I drove him, he suddenly looked over at me and he said, you know, Tom, I just had a wonderful thought. In a little while I'm not going to be able to talk. But I suddenly realized this doesn't matter. I got you to talk for me. And I sat with him day after day for a while each day for a hospital bed I watched him sit in a chair four nights and days because he knew that if he lay down, he'd die. And one morning he called earlier than usual and he said, had them call and asked me to go and get his car and bring it to the hospital when I came and I hurried, I live 25 miles from the hospital and I heard and got his car and I went there and he had his robe on over pajamas and the nurse, and she said he insists on going for a ride this morning. This is after four days and nights of sitting in a chair to keep from dying because he wanted to go to Blackstone one more time. And we got in the car and we rode around the city. You know where we went? We went out on the edge of town to a shack where lived an old Negro man who kept his garden and yard. and he sat in the car, and he shook hands with the old man and thanked him for being his friend and told him goodbye. And we went one place after another in Richmond like this till his strength was expended. I took him back to the hospital, and he lay down and was dead in 20 minutes. And I know I walked in the presence of God this day. for a man's last thought was to express his love. I see God in people everywhere I go. My sons make me aware of God. They make me proud by the things children do. The other afternoon, the other evening we were sitting at the dinner table and the older boy is now married and has his own home But the twins and Mike were sitting here, and our twin boys, 15, were talking about what they're going to do when they get out of school. They've decided they're going in partnership together and they're gonna be commercial farmers. This may change. I don't know. And Mike sits here, and Mike's like me. He's got every stinking trait I ever had in my life. I worry about this boy. he said you know what I'm going to be when I grow up I'm gonna be an alcoholic like my daddy this is a great compliment what Mike meant was he's gonna be in AA like his daddy he doesn't know anything about my alcoholism just my AA about three years ago we were told that Mike may never walk again we put him in a wheelchair and we got braces for his back and legs and we cut him crutches and over in my church on Sunday evening we do something a little old fashioned we turn out the lights in the church and light the altar lamps and invite people to use the altar for personal prayer there is no benediction they have their own and get up and go home I went down to the altar as I always do after inviting people to meet my wife to pray Mike was sitting with her in the pew his crutches were laying on the floor beside him and he had not gotten up and gotten on those crutches alone since he had them and when we knelt holding hands to pray we heard Mike's crutches and he came to pray too Six years old. Mike was playing football in 14 months. You see, I know God. I find him everywhere. I stood one early morning in a room with my oldest son who remembers all about me. And we were leaving him for the first time up in Ohio at school and I had this great urge to put my arms about him and tell him how proud I was of him and somehow try to apologize for what I had not been. He's a great big joker. You know, my boys are so big that when I walk in home now and say, Gay, come here. She says, Come here, boys. Daddy wants to talk to us. That ends the conversation. the two youngest can whip me now he was a big hook and I I was embarrassed I wanted to do this so bad but he's a man now he's leaving home and while I hesitated he walked over and put his arms around me and told me how proud he was you see God was right there this is where God's found the greatness of it all is to just accept you let go these things Clarence and Bish and Gertrude and Tom was trying to tell us you bet the whole business on the one sure thing and you just turn loose sure you get a free ride for a while you formed a partnership with God and you don't know anything about the business you're an apprentice but after a while the apprenticeship is over and the training period is done and you're expected to pick up your share of the partnership here's where more AAs make mistakes than those who refuse to accept their partnership they don't pick up their share they try to take it all back you've got to let God now do his part he's got a responsibility he gave you this he's not an Indian giver he's never going to take it back he gave this to you and to me with a promise you'll have a spiritual awakening if you just do what I tell you no, you're not going to have it if you do what you do what you think is right don't rewrite the program and that's what we do when we go out some of our manners and fashions of telling others about it it seems to me that there ought to be one other thing done here I think that we ought to take a long look at AA before we leave the sanctuary of this but we're going back into the world now. It's going to be a little different. The business houses in Dallas and Midland and other places in Texas haven't been over here this weekend. They're not going to feel what you feel. It's going to me a little bit a little different. And I think maybe we ought to think for a minute or two, what are we going to do with AA? Now, we've been here this great weekend. We've been just wrapped up and lifted up and flooded about and we all feel full and good. Well, what are you going to do about it when you leave here? Are you going to leave it here? It won't do you any good. You'll be miserable if you do. You're going to take it with you? You're gonna hide away at home with it? It won't work. What will you do with AA? Now, when we talk about AA, we're talking about a lot of things. We're not just talking about clubs and fellowships and the hoods of laughter that have rocked us here this weekend, the fun we've had. We are talking about far more serious things than this. When we say, what will you do with AA? For you and me, it means what will you do with God? So you don't think God's the whole of the program? You haven't somehow found what's here? Are you maybe like I have been so many times and was for too long? Men used to get up in AA meetings and they say, my name's Joe Doe and I've been sober two years, three months and four days and I hated it good. Because I hadn't been sober at all. I understand this now. He's talking about living. God's here. What are you going to do with God? One of the things that has intrigued me and interested me more than you'll know this weekend is the number of you that I've had the privilege of talking with about this putting the practice of God out front. So many of you are concerned about your church life. Now, I know the program doesn't say anything about church, but it says an awful lot about God. How are you going to let others know you believe in God? How are you going to show God you believe? We were thinking this morning and with somebody last night for a little bit, you know what I owe the church? This is God's house. Now, I'm not talking about the organization with a name tacked on it. In just a moment, I'll share with you something that I want you to help me with regarding this. I'm talking about how God's church is a place where you can be a part of the church. I'm speaking about the church as the preserver of truth. And this is the truth that Tom talked about with a capital P. The big truth. They say the church has failed us. We don't have anything in common with the church. There's nothing there. Yes, there is. What are we, 26 or 27 years old? We've got the oldest truth known to man. We didn't find anything new. We haven't gone out and mined and refined some new truth. The minimum age of the truth we use is 2,000 years old. And do you know where it's been until 26 or so years ago, waiting for you and for me, waiting for alcoholics, waiting for people in other walks of life where it has always been? The church has preserved it and nurtured it and fed it and kept it and held it dear so you and I could have it when we needed it. I don't need any other reason for being a part of the church. I owe it something. What are you going to do with God? Something could happen to AA for a while. Let's pray God nothing does. It could. this is an extreme thing almost a fanatical thought perhaps but it could anytime you've got human beings dealing with anything something can happen to it when you've Got 350,000 drunks dealing with a thing something's liable to happen to if you don't believe this I know towns that were once flourishing AA centers and there's not a meeting in the place now what's going to happen to the truth if this happens for a while to us well the church will keep it for us they always have we can have it back this is reason for me to belong somewhere I need to worship God in public places because I depend on him seven days a week I need to pay honor to God. Lest you and I not be so smug, millions of people have found the same fellowship in God's house you and i find here for other problems. We talk about a what will you do with a what would you do with truth? This precious commodity of which the world know so little today. It dwindled in amount, it's like sand slipping through fingers is going through the fingers of the world. There are not many areas of truth left in the world and this is a must for you and I. We cannot live with less than the truth. You know, I've learn so much about truth from Alcoholics Anonymous, it frightens you. I shared this experience with one or two of you. Truth and the attempt to violate truth, AA-wise or in my thinking gets me in trouble real often. A couple of years ago, I got this offer that comes sometimes, you know, you get puffed up. One of the states wanted me to come and take over the whole state program. I'm going to direct it. I'm gonna have an office in the capitol building. I was talking on the telephone every two or three days with the governor's secretary. I can assure you I left there about the second conversation with him I didn't mean to I got a tape in the mail wasn't sent to me it was sent by Tom Powers to Dutch Whitley Dutch listened to the first half and he said Tom Lover needs this worse than I do and he shot it over to me you know what Tom Powers said to me because he later said I meant this for you both he said I think it's time now because you represent us in so many places to make a decision and a declaration as to whether or not you're going to be a minister for the sake of truth or for the stake of organized religion I called the governor's secretary and told him to forget it I couldn't go there this wasn't truth I'm about to become a professional this thing eats with me because I know it is a staff that supports life this business of truth I don't ask for sympathy in any way in the world. I just want your prayers. I just wanna know that you pray for me. I can share with you a little secret. Duchess and my ministry hangs right in the balance today because of this. I'm not in any trouble with the church I serve. I'm in trouble with The Powers That Be because I have refused to be an agent for organized religion. I must live truth as you have taught it to me is what I'm talking about what are you going to do with truth what are we going to what are they going to do with life now we're talking about the only thing you and I've got left life if it ends we lose a lot of things we lose the joy and pleasure and I'm afraid if you and I lose our lives outside of AA fellowship it's lost eternally I'm not talking about just losing the physical life I'm talking about losing the spiritual life I'm taking care of my family I'm thinking about the spiritual lives that yet come begging for answers that come like you and i did yes behind a cloak of arrogance You know, don't know whether I've got a problem or not. Some folks say I have. Thought I'd come over and see what you all were doing. Want to talk to you about my brother? Kind of feel like my wife's got a problems, you know. What they mean is, my God help me. I'm lost. Help me live. Well, you see the Lord's taken care of all these things. Down at the end of the steps, there's one. It's a step of promise. It's the step of challenge. It's step of faith. It's to work step. it promises above all else that life shall be ours if we'll just do these things. Just do these... It doesn't say maybe you'll have a spiritual experience. Now, you probably read this spiritual awakening, but I'm like Clarence. It used to say experience. It doesn'T say some of us will have a spirit. It doesn' t say part of us have a experience. It doesn't say part of us will have it. It doesn' t say the Texas AA will have it. It says you will have it if you do these others. There's no doubt. It happens. It says you'll find a message you can. This is the message of life, of truth. It's the message of God. This is what I'm talking about. What will you do with AA? it says you practice these principles in all of your affairs. In our relationship one with another and our relationship with ourselves. I feel, I don't know how you feel, I feel sort of wrung out I feel cleansed. I have begun feeling this way since the beginning of this weekend and somehow now I feel real complete. But I know the danger of complacency. I know that there's work to face me. I knowthat I must go out and seek new reminders of God. You know my wife keeps the store when I'm away. No, she doesn't preach, talk about seeing God. I've seen God in this lovely woman almost every day of my life since there came the awareness. Gay has set up nights with death. She sat with people who had tragedy come. She's tried to console others till the minister came back so I could do this. Maybe this has happened this weekend, I don't know. But I know that there are tasks of life that have to be faced for all of us when we leave here, and I want to take this cleansed feeling to whatever task faces me. For I know I'll handle it cleanly if I do. And I thank you for what you've given me. And it's why still in my life I never begin a day of my life that I don't stop for a moment. I don't go in a closet or a comet, maybe walking across this yard, usually shaving. And I take this moment to thank God for AA and for all of you. You see, you're AA. And I thank God forever and ask for another day of great and special blessings for you because you have given me this new day of life. and I never end a day of life that I don't thank God for AA and for all of you not all of these days are good days some of them are not good days but if it were not for you I would not have had that day I never go into the pulpit of my church and if it means anything to you I'd like to share the moment with you at 11 o'clock on every Sabbath morning that I'm there. I never go to that pulpit that I don't go up and stop by the altar and get on my knees and thank God for AA. It's not a part of the ritual or the worship service, it's my moment. For I know if it had not been for you I wouldn't have this privilege. And I never do that. I never ever go in my home. And every day you're away the anticipation of going back increases. I just never go there and see my lovely wife and my son that I don't get a little choking around the heart and thank God fervently for AA and for all of you for without you I would have lost them. And I feel so full of thanksgiving this day for you because I know that as long as this sort of thing stays alive, AA is going to live. Nothing can hurt it. And if you as AA live, Tommy Lovren's gonna live. And I like living. Thank you and God bless you. Again, we say thank you, Tom, for being with us. Would you rise and let's close with the Lord's Prayer in our usual manner. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil For thy is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.