Early on when RumRadio was taking shape I would inquire of my Sponsor Bob B and old and venerable member in good standing, alas with checkered past, both in and out of the rooms of recovery, Alas just like me. Bob had in time 34 yrs of continuous sobriety, Bob sobered up on the waterfront, on a diet of chronic relapse and pitiful demoralization. He was finally taken in tow by an illiterate house painter named Joe, who knew the Big Book by sense of smell, a hard core old timer who would give you what fer. There was no patty cake philosophy, just hard core recovery right out of the Big Book with a thump to the thickest noggin.
Bob I would implore please take a look at my work to date on the website and see if I am coloring within the lines of program principles and Big Book boundaries of understanding, he would agree, but not today for he was too busy as life is about priorities. The inquires continued on as to his consent to peruse, on the fifth attempt in as many months Bob was exasperated more than a bunch and exclaimed with a hollow tone, because you keep bugging me now I will never look!
Envy comes from people’s ignorance of, or lack of belief in, their own gifts.
Jean Vanier
Envy (also called invidiousness) is best defined as a resentful emotion that “occurs when a person lacks another’s (perceived) superior quality, achievement, or possession and either desires it or wishes that the other lacked it.” Envy can also derive from a sense of low self-esteem
Proverbs 27:4 Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous; but who is able to stand before envy?
Envy aims very high. Ovid
There is none so blind as those who insist on poking themselves in the eye with the sharp stick of disdain.
Miles a large fellow as I am small, a professional man with a steal plate in his head from the Vietnam War, he was also a bully with a cutting vocabulary that loved to confront the not so very tall. Miles would follow me reaping the seeds I had just sown. While passing out the RumRadio recovery cards he would take them back and rip them up and gingerly deposit them in the trash. Miles’s sponsor was also mine in the form of Bob B. I rang Bob up to complain of Miles’s antics. I was quickly told that Miles had problems but there were some people who were upset with me, pray tell I replied, Its’ your ideas, Bob confided. I thought the free exchange of ideas was what “IT” was all about; I chided, it makes people nervous and uncomfortable Bob Replied. I mussed, the “thought police” Tokkō were still alive and well, George Orwell would be proud as hell.
There are two essential qualities necessary for life, first an open mind and second an open parachute
“Mind must be likeparachute…must be open to function”–
We have found that God does not make too hard terms with those who seek Him. To us, the realm of spirit is broad, roomy, all inclusive, never exclusive or forbidding to those who earnestly seek. It is open, we believe, to all men. AS BILL SEES IT, p. 7
Coincidentally Bob’s current sponsor Dan O. my grand sponsor and president of the board of directors for the friend’s of Bill W. Inc. was instrumental in my banishment from my home group, the P.O.C for handing out RumRadio recovery cards as “self promotion” and was consistent with Bob’s previous disapprobation, “I will never! Look at that website.”
“There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance—that principle is contempt prior to investigation.” Paley or Spencer.
I had sponsee at the time named Merlin M (picked him up fresh and took him through the Steps). Merlin loved the meetings and his new sober life and quickly got into the middle of the herd. My effort to accomplish the RumRadio website was now viewed as a rouge adventure, we don’t need no stinking website and who are you to tell us what we already know was the chant from the flat earth society in the form of the status quo.
I inquired of Merlin as to his lilt on the progress to date. A sponsee in gratitude would be gracious and affirming, one would think, alas not, his response was a bit of a surprise with “Joseph it has too much personality, too much of “Joseph personality” I responded with that “I was not smart enough to be someone else” Merlin later said, I don’t agree with what you do, but I support your right to do it. In Merlin’s defense he has been a man of his word and has helped on a occasion both in person and on the telephone with much needed assistance with computer malfunctions and technical upgrades to help keep the RumRadio ball on the roll. Merlin frequents an after Nine meeting (steps 10,11, and 12 ad infinitum) I was visiting one evening and sponsorship was the topic, Merlin shared that I was his sponsor, but anyone could have sponsored him and would have met with same end result. I was under whelmed with his apparent lack of gratitude and his apparent need to distance himself.
“Principles before Personalities”
Merlin now has a coveted and prestigious seat on the current board of malefactors and was involved with yet another banishment. How easy to wield the sword of injustice once a lion has been put to flight, the lambs are ripe for the slaughter. A brilliant old timer who lived in his lips named Jerry A. had the uncanny ability to speak without ever stopping long enough to take a breath. Jerry had acquired a rancid odor problem that would not go away. Merlin counseled with me and I told him that in no uncertain terms were Jerry should be asked to leave, that this was a blatant violation of the Traditions. Merlin ever dutiful to the status quo had opted to go along with the “Party line” and guaranty his position of getting along and give old Jerry the bad news of banishment, when he noticed Jerry’s foot was oozing putrefaction, Jerry had a gangrenous foot. Merlin whom at first was assigned to the duty of henchman had now became Jerry’s savior, and hurried him off to the local hospital’s emergency room . Merlin called me soon there after and gave me my walking papers as it was time for a change. I asked what took him so long? I knew the association was wearing thin on him as guilt by association, birds of feather, rouge and a renegade was now at an end. I was now relieved as his original sponsor and Merlin was now relieved from having to mention my name.
There have been countless other situations too numerous to mention. I have been at times overwhelmed with ridicule and violent opposition. I have been under whelmed at times from the lack of support and derision. A current supporter named James, (for when he had first spied me it was with a jaundiced eye), inquired why do you continue on with all that resistance, give yourself a break, your audience is not here anyway. I counter if a man has a candle should he put it under a bushel or put in on a candle stick so all in the room may see. The nay Sayers and the flat earth society will always be the most vocal. If you’re wondering how to make sense out of non sense, I would tell you this, this is spiritual warfare.
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. KJV.
The good news , RumRadio is in 130 + countries including Mississippi, 2049 towns and cities, to date 5/23/2012 there has been hits to website and now it has legs and grows with out any compulsory means. I have made more friends than enemies with 1200 notes and thank you letters from around the world. I continue to sponsor, because if you want to change the world it’s one man at a time, all else is grandiose romanticism or politics.
See you on the radio
RumRadio.org
Joseph
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