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Another crowd of A.A.'s says: "We were plumb disgusted with religion and all its works. The Bible, we said, was full of nonsense; we could cite it chapter and verse, and we couldn't see the Beatitudes for the `begets.' In spots its morality was impossibly good; in others it seemed impossibly bad. But it was the morality of the religionists themselves that really got us down. We gloated over the hypocrisy, bigotry, and crushing self-righteousness that clung to so many `believers' even in their Sunday best.
How we loved to shout the damaging fact that millions of the `good men of religion' were still killing one another off in the name of God. This all meant, of course, that we had substituted negative for positive thinking. After we came to A.A,, we had to recognize that this trait had been an ego feeding proposition. In belabouring the sins of some religious people, we could feel superior to all of them. Moreover, we could avoid looking at some of our own shortcomings. Self-righteousness, the very thing that we had contemptuously condemned in others, was our own besetting evil. This phony form of respectability was our undoing, so far as faith was concerned. But finally, driven to A.A,, we learned better.
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Like everything else in my life, I compared instead of identifying. I was brought up in a very strict religion and yet it teachings were simple. There were no pews, just wooden chairs. No stain glassed windows, just opaque glass, a pot bellied stove that stood near the back of the church, wainscoting around the bottom of the walls, very simple and very plain and there was no minister, just lay ministers, people who felt the spirit of God who got up and shared. I don't know how the person was chosen to share on Sunday. It was seldom that it was the same man twice in a row unless he was doing what I called a mini series. There was a group of elders who made decisions for the church and the whole structure was a lot like the rooms of recovery.
The main difference with that church was filled with thou shall not and this is what you should believe and do. In AA things were suggested but there were some darn well betters or you would go back out and drink again.
When I went to other churches, I had a problems with the rituals, the decor, the 'read' prayers and as much as some of them were very nice and quite touching, they didn't come from the heart of the person sharing them. It was like a meeting I went to once and a woman and written out her story and shared more from the paper than from the spirit of the moment.
So many things are repetitive and we get annoyed and think, I have heard this before and often tend to shut it off and yet, how easily we forget. It amazes me when I go to a meeting and people have to look at the page to quote the 12 Steps. Yet the words mean nothing if you don't know them and apply them to your life. The spiritual principles are there for application not for my education. It is easy to talk the walk, but much easier said than done.
I had trouble with the robes and the fancy churches feeling that they were trimmings and money ill spent that could be given helping the people and the glory of God not the glory of the Church. It didn't attract me and didn't promote religion to me. Especially when I saw people going on Sunday to church and then leaving their principles at the door on the way out. Doing penance for something you did only to go out and do it again didn't sit well with me and yet how many times did I do the same thing over and over again expecting different results. This time it will be different. Yeah! Sure! I would have remorse and guilt but seldom did I ask for forgiveness, certainly not for myself.
I am not sure that resented the people so much as the teachings of the church. Who died and made them God. A sponsee would phone me and say she was going to mass. She would ask, "Would you like to say a prayer for you." I would respond, "You don't need to bother, I have a direct line." There came a time, I would ask for prayers and figured I need all the help I could get. I figured an extra word now and then could only help the cause instead of hinder it. I heard a speaker who became a priest in recovery say, "It is a wonder God doesn't lean over the edge of heaven and shout, "Will you all just shut up!" We tend to keep asking for help and not having the faith that the first one will work and we send up a deluge of words and many forms asking for the same thing over and over again instead of being quiet and listening for the answers.
It is amazing how we can surround ourselves with that self-righteous cloak and think that we are so much better than others. I will never forget hearing many people say, "But that is a street meeting, I can't relate to them...." I did it one night at a group called "The Thunderbird Group." Then I looked around the room and said, "Oh good to see he has come back. I wonder how she is doing, good to see her here. That person is new I wonder if it is his first meeting. Then I heard myself and realized the insanity of my thinking. We are all alcoholics, what makes me different. Do I forget where I come from. A woman, who had 16 years in recover wouldn't come to share for a one year anniversary because she had come to my group to hear me share my story for a three year anniversary and had made the comment about it being a street meeting. We may have not gone all the way to the bottom like some people and yet if we had continued on our path, there is a good chance we might have ended up there. I know I was only one step away. It may not be a physical thing but a mental, emotional and spiritual thing.
Just because I go to church doesn't make me spiritual. Being brought up in the church for 22 years didn't stop me from becoming an alcoholic and an addict. For me, spirituality is a personal thing. Church can't give it to me. It is a God given gift.
To be continued...