by John The-Hebrew on Wednesday, January 5, 2011 at 9:20am ·
There just may be a few, that will try to take issue with this understanding, but since its my story, and I am the one who lived it, then what others think about it, really is none of my business. My business is to simply be honest, and do my best to carry the message of recovery. Recovery as I have lived it. There is but one ultimate authority, a Loving God, as He may express Himself in our group consciousness.
Some people don’t know me and they don’t like me, some people get to know me, and then they don’t like me. It’s none of my business what you think of me because you think so little of me anyway, if not in stature, surely in time. Gzepe
I was raised Baptist, and I remember when I was 12 years old, I asked my mom, while she was putting make up on to get ready to go somewhere, I asked her this question.
“Mom, I’m reading this book about the Nazi’s and it says that they killed 6 million Jews during the 2nd world war. Is that true”?
She replied, “Yes”.
“Are they going to heaven, or hell”, I asked in return.
After she thought about it for a couple of moments, she finally said, “If they didn’t accept Christ as their savior, then they are all going to hell”.
I was severely disappointed. I told her, “I don’t think that I can believe in a God that would allow 6 million of His people to die in His name, to go to hell, I don’t think I can believe in a God like that”.
She told me that I had to believe in something.
I responded with, “Who says? God?”
I walked away.
I still attended church on occasion, as my folks were periodical in their church going. They weren’t an ever weekend kind of thing for them. I believe that I attended more often than they, and had even been baptized, but I can’t remember when it was. I was baptized again 9 years ago, with my wife at the time. It didn’t mean anything to me then except that I wanted it to. All that really happened….we got wet. There was all this emotional fervor, people praising God and all that goes along with it, if it works for you, and then there you go. It didn’t work for me.
There was simply too many questions, and nobody had the right answers.
I am about to go under water, both in body and mind, just before I went under, I wanted to thank God for accepting me. What went thru my mind, while I was down under the water?
The lives of 6 million Jews weren’t good enough. That was the thought that passed thru my mind. I came up, and I was mad.
Who am I to have deserved such an honor, with all that I had done in my life? I’d never been faced with death in my question of faith? I’d never been brought before a chamber of horrors to quell my belief. Who was I that God could find me acceptable when 6 million people who were technically my brothers and sisters, if I was to believe that we all came from Adam?
It messed with my head, and I felt worse than bad, angry and sad
So back in Sept. of 97, I finally reached the point that I could work the 2nd step.
It took 8 years for me to surrender, and now I had to give God credit for something? Damn it, doesn’t this thing get any easier? Was this a hell of my own making?
The most important step is Step One. Without it, and a good deep understanding of it, the rest of the steps are useless they become stumbling blocks instead of stepping stones our house that we are trying to repair, the house of our own lives. Our own bodies are changing; our minds are changing, our emotions, our mentality, our spirit. All of these changes as we walk thru the program of recovery, regardless of which one you’re affiliated with. Mine is NA. I speak from this perspective, but the truth applies to all Twelve Step recovery..
If I just rush thru the First Step, then I build my life on sand. If I spend too much time in it, it’s like building on clay, that will still be washed away when the rains came. If I do what I have to do, to get to the point that I can move forward, with a sense of humility, then I’m ready to move forward, and my house, my life, will be built on top of a solid foundation.
What is Humility? Well….for me, and that’s what I thought the word meant, was still way in the future. I didn’t know and understand it meant being teachable. I thought it meant having to bow down to everyone who called my name, and walked around in white robes and a shinny shaven head.
Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it was thinking of yourself less
Humility was when every man, woman, and child becomes your teacher, so few the wise man, how great the fool that has a tale of tolerance to tell Gzepe
I was to give God credit in all things? Give….God…credit. (God was either everything or he was nothing what was our choice to be?) . I just didn’t see how this was going to work. Where was He in all of my life? I thought that I knew who He was supposed to be. I didn’t know why I had to be a Baptist, and you had to be a Methodist, or a catholic, a Jew, a Muslim, Jehovah’s witness, hare Krishna, a Jim Jones want to be….it was just way too confusing for me to try and figure it all out.
Religion was for people who didn’t want to go to hell, spirituality was for people who had already been there
And what was this sanity thing? I’d heard over and over again, that “Insanity is doing the same things over and over again, expecting different results”. It was Albert Einstein who coined that and he was a genius.
There were ideas that he threw away because he couldn’t prove them, it was like the black hole theory. He put formulas together to prove them, but forgot where he had left off the previous day, and then discarded them Sometimes even geniuses make mistakes, was his definition of insanity a mistake?
Because I did what I did, over and over again, because I LIKED the results I obtained. I didn’t’ want it any other way, that’s why I did it. 🙂 HA. So there you go! Ya’ll are the ones that are insane, and I’m the only sane one, I’m the person with all the beans, and you have none. 🙂
We ain’t navy beans, we ain’t lima beans, we is human be’ ins, serch’n for a spiritual row to hoe
Well….we know how that works for us too, am I right? Am I right? Or am I crazy?
I had to redefine sanity so that I could be included in the club. Not your club, but the one that was in me own head. I needed the meetings. I had to stay clean. It wasn’t an option, that I was willing to field test. So if in my own head, I was going to make this work, I had to figure out how all this jargon applied to me.
In other words, I was still struggling with the language.
My faith and my understanding of sanity were both screwed up pretty bad. Nothing made sense, but it was sure that, I was going to have to figure something out so I could move forward. My sponsor was patient. He cared enough to try to help me as much as he could, but I still had to do it.
I had power over the tree, I had power over my car, I had power, but over my life, I was out of control. Even 8 years later. Only now….I knew and understood I was out of control.
The first sign of wisdom was knowing when to let up on the gas when speeding down hill
Whatever could control me, would be God to me. Since I had lost my God suit, I was now…God less.
My Mom said I had to believe in something. I questioned God, and His motives, and His way of doing things. I questioned people’s motives in the various churches that I might attend. I questioned the preachers and what they had to say, I questioned everything, I was going sane trying to figure this out on my own.
Finally, before the end of the year in 97, I worked the 2nd step, and accepted a Loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscious. God as I understood Him wouldn’t send 6 million people who loved Him to hell, regardless of their affiliation with His Son. Hell as I understood the fairy tales then. Not as I understand today.
Hell was a lively sense of my own conscious that burned with the unquenchable fires of regret
The God of the churches was just going to have to sit down and shut up. He was just going to have to wait his turn for my committee still had to too much to say.
As I’d mentioned, 8 years ago, I did give him another chance,( my magnanimity knew no bounds) and that was when the 6 million came back to visit me.
God as I understand Him today is also different than the God as I understood Him when I did the 2nd step for the first time. He is still the same God…but I understand the differences today. That is another story for another time.
What is important in the purpose of this note is that when all other gods fail, there is still one ultimate authority. He is over everything. The meetings, the steps, sponsorship, the phone calls, and the traditions, He is over all aspects of our lives. We don’t have to know and understand Him when we first get here. He will reveal Himself….in His own way.
Trying to describe God was like asking a fish to describe the water it swims in
He used, the lives, of 6 million Jews, to teach me something.
I DON”T HAVE TO KNOW EVERYTHING.
Its not what you know that gets you into trouble, it’s what you know that ain’t so. Zig Ziegler
He tells me, that He is a loving and caring God. If He allowed 6 million Jews to die today, His plans for them simply do not include me. He will take care of them, because He loves them. I don’t have to be afraid. I don’t need to be worried about who He is, because He shows Himself in so many miraculous ways in everyone’s eyes in everyone’s words, and everyone’s deeds.
Not all of us are well. None of us are ever completely healed from our diseases. We simply get better. He is the healer, but it takes time for some of us, to out grow out of our old scars.
We are all a little insane with God’s grace not all on the same day.
Spiritual progress was spiritual perfection.
I didn’t know and understand that my insanity, wanted the insanity. I didn’t know that my life could bear so much happiness in knowing and understanding things to a level I’d never thought was possible. I’m not a rocket scientist, and there’s plenty out there a lot smarter than I am. But I am smarter than I was. I’m not yet as smart as I am going to be.
You know…after the scientist built the rocket….any idiot can push the button. The path has already been laid. I just have to step out on it. As long as I follow that way, I have nothing to fear. Just for today. Me and God, be mates.
Where there is no danger there is no fear, and where there is no fear there is no danger. Tao
I love everybody, because God said I could.
John
Thanks John!
See you on the radio
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Joseph
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