Rule #62

Tonight while attending my 52/90th meeting at the clubhouse my sponsor has lovingly suggested I commit to, a wondrous thing happened. I  heard a guy thump the Book so hard he scared ME - and that's saying something.  Though I am sure his intentions were good, he was very agitated and quite frankly very disturbing...he managed to assure us how close to death we were if he didn't get his brand of spirituality right away.  Immediately thereafter, a guy who usually takes the other side of that coin railed to the left, longer and harder, equally oblivious to the fact that he was just as unconscious as the knucklehead who ripped the cover off the Book immediately thereafter.

Love is in the middle - it is so clear to me know.  I am certain I sound equally crazy to the other sick and suffering alcoholics in the room who haven't been lovingly offered the solution that God has lovingly seen fit to me available to me. Love is in the middle.

Therefore, like an archer who always occasionally 'misses the mark', I must always seek to carry this message with patience, tolerance, kindliness and love.  But most of all, love. This does not mean that I shall carry down a water downed message, but I must try to tell the story of my salvation though the Book and the 12 steps without attachment, aversion and indifference to suffering.

Or, as Bill W. more aptly discusses this topic in our 4th tradition, "... Middletown Group Rule #62: Don't take yourself too damn seriously." Thus it was that under Tradition Four (that) an A.A. group had exercised its right to be wrong. Moreover, it had performed a great service for Alcoholics Anonymous, because it had been humbly willing to apply the lessons it learned. It had picked itself up with a laugh and gone on to better things. Even the chief architect, standing in the ruins of his dream, could laugh at himself - and that is the very acme of humility...".

Who am I to judge this sober clubhouse that has given my an undeserved reprieve from a certain alcoholic death?  LOVE IS IN THE MIDDLE.

And so it goes.  God has shown me mercy and has saved me from my own worst enemy - myself - again. That is, until my arrows fall short of the mark tomorrow...which is why I choose a merciful God.

Hallelujah.

COG, 1st Cl.|