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Source: Unidentified Historical Recording – Bill W Candidate Identity Review BW0216 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: bill-w-god-as-we-understand-him-aa-1960-archive-19124.mp3 Duration: 00:09:53
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My name is Alan and I'm an alcoholic. Hi, everybody. May we open this meeting with a moment of silence in grateful meditation on the meaning of our great gift of sobriety. And now if you will join me in reciting the Serenity Prayer. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. There may be some here who are not familiar with our tradition of personal anonymity at the public level.
If so, we respectfully ask that no A.A. speaker, or indeed any A.A. member, be identified by full name in published or broadcast reports of our meeting. The assurance of anonymity is essential in our effort to help other problem drinkers who may wish to share our recovery program with us. And our tradition of anonymity reminds us that A.A. principles come before personality. This meeting concludes the formal part of our great 25th anniversary meeting.
Bill's talk last night concluded with a message rededicating A.A.s everywhere to the basic principles of our fellowship, and the delivery of copies of that message to the representatives of foreign countries who came up on the platform and were given copies to take back to their countries. And symbolizing our own country, copies of the message were delivered to the chairman of the host committee on the platform.
This was a message of rededication, and in a very special sense. This morning's meeting is devoted to our rededication to the spiritual principles upon which this fellowship is based. And who, more fittingly, could serve as chairman of such a meeting than our co-founder? And so I give you the chairman of this meeting, Bill. As we all know, God our creator is from everlasting to everlasting, and he is timeless.
But we who gather here are very sensitive to the passage of time in this brief transit of ours, and to events that mark great turning points in our lives and in the life of this movement. So we have been gathered here in these three wondrous days in gratitude and in self-survey. And I might add the light touch by saying, as the conductor of that self-survey, I caused you to deep freeze the traditions for about two hours on cakes of ice.
[00:05:03]
It was necessary, I thought, since a day like this may never come again to any of us, that we set certain things upon the record. And then we came to the rededication of our lives and fortunes to the service of the Father of Light in the pursuit of freedom for ourselves and for all those to come. So it is altogether fitting that we are gathered here this morning in the spirit of our twelfth step, which suggests, yes, it enjoins us to try to perfect our conscious contact with God.
Everybody knows that the principles by which we live, the grace on which we daily subsist, was and still is transmitted to us through the gentlemen of the cloth, through their predecessors, going back to Moses and the cross. So it is a wonderful thing to feel that we can be led in this effort to reach a more conscious and loving contact with our Creator by such two dear friends as we have sitting here.
One, a very old one. One who is utterly vital to our beginning. Another, a more recent one, but following on in this tradition of loving help to and association with us. We've talked about the language of the heart, and this is often best transmitted in silence. And certainly after what transpired last night, I think silence is my best way of completing my transmission. But before presenting each of our dear friends, I bid you not farewell, but au revoir.
And may Providence so design it that I may still meet many of you as we trudge the pathway to whatever destiny God has in store for us today. So no farewells, but au revoir. And I think Lois would like to just do that too. Thank you very much, and thank you for all your love. Bill and I, our hearts are full. We can't say any more than thank you, and au revoir also.