Fellowship

This morning at my home group we had a discussion about the Fellowship.  It was good to be reminded of what a special thing an AA group is.  People who have never felt a part of anything feel accepted.  People who are afraid of just about everything in life feel safe.  People feel comfortable talking about things they would virtually never discuss elsewhere.  People know they have somewhere to go for help, that every person in that room wants what is best for them.  It's amazing how you can bump into a fellow AA, someone you've maybe had a few chats with, sit down for a cup of coffee and very quickly begin talking about what is really happening in your lives, what you are happy about, what you are afraid of, and all at a level of reality you almost never reach with non-alcoholics.

It is just plain nice.

Why all this 'practical polytheism', gods/Higher Powers vs idols/Lower Powers stuff?

If you have read any of my recent postings, you've seen that I have been making a lot of use of the idea that people are 'practical polytheists', worshiping multiple gods or Higher Powers and idols or Lower Powers. Among the Higher Powers people worship are God, community, justice, love... and among the Lower Powers/idols one could find money, power, praise, possessions.... Why do I find this approach useful, rather than just sticking with virtues and vices or character assets and character defects?

Our lives become prayer

I have mentioned in some of my comments on the Second and Third Steps that I think that it is useful to view people as 'practical polytheists', that is to say, in our practical, daily lives we in fact worship many Higher Powers, what I refer to as Gods and Idols, but many might prefer to call Higher and Lower Powers. In other words, we value, follow, even worship and pray to many things that we are powerless over, both positive and negative. Some examples would be the economy, others' opinions of us, our jobs, money, justice, peace, love, security....the list goes on and on and differs from person to person.

Love and the Fourth Step

There is a fascinating article, The Rigor of Love, by Simon Critchley in the August 9 New York Times. The essay is about the question of whether non-believers in a transcendent God can have faith. I will probably deal with his central concern in a later post but for today I'd like to think about one of the stepping stones he uses to get to his conclusion: Soren Kierkegaard's (Danish philosopher, 1813 - 1855) concept of Christian Love.

Approaching the Fourth Step

The Fourth Step is one of the two that really scare newcomers looking at the Steps. The other is, of course, the Ninth. In both cases it strikes me that the fear stems from pride, from a failure to see my place in things. Probably the best way to test whether we have done Steps 1, 2 and 3 well is to check whether we are still afraid of 4.
I am reading William A Barry's Finding God in All Things, a Companion to the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. He points out that saints consistently say that they feel more and more sinful the closer they come to God, but that far from finding that depressing, they find joy in it. What gives?