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Source: DICOBE-00277 – Lynn C – STEP 3-RESTORATION OF FAITH.mp3 File: dicobe-00277-lynn-c-step-3-restoration-of-faith.mp3 Duration: 00:42:35
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This is tape number six in Mr. C.'s series, Alcoholism and Drug Dependence. A part of his proven approach to recovery, this presentation deals with step number three of AA and is called Restoration of Faith. Mr. C.. The third step of our program is made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to care of the care of God as we understood him. First, of course, you have to acknowledge, as we do in step one, that you have a problem with alcohol or drugs and your life has become unmanageable and many things can make your life unmanageable.
The second step is we're keen to believe that a power greater than ourself could restore us to sanity. And that is so true if you examine yourself closely, evidently we needed something outside of ourself to give us the satisfactions of life that every person is seeking. When we come to step three, where God is directly mentioned for the first time, he's mentioned in five of the steps, there's a resistance on the part of a lot of people who just don't like the term, that's all.
And the book explains that very fully. On page 47 it says, when therefore we speak to you of God, we mean your own conception of God. This applies to the other spiritual expressions which you find in this book. Do not let any prejudice you may have against the spiritual terms deter you from honestly asking yourself what they mean to you. At the start, this was all we needed to commence spiritual growth, to affect our first conscious relationship with God as we understood him.
Afterwards, we found ourself accepting many things which then seemed entirely out of reach. That was growth, but if we wished to grow, we had to begin somewhere. So we used our own conception, however limited it was. So don't be put off by this term that we use so freely in AA. I know that there are many people who are agnostic or atheistic to come to AA, and they have difficulty at first. So we ask those people to keep an open mind and wait until their thinking clears up and see the results of this program, because I think where men become deeply spiritual is when they realize that it's only by the grace of God that any of us have survived this serious and baffling illness of alcoholism.
We have only three prayers in AA, actually. Two are mentioned in the steps, the third-step prayer, the seven-step prayer, and the serenity prayer. Of course, the Our Father is used at the close of every meeting. But that third-step prayer is very, very important. God, I offer myself to thee to build with me and do with me as thou wilt, relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do thy will, take away my difficulties, that victory over them may be evident, that those that I would help with thy love, thy power, thy way of life, let me do thy will always.
If you will say that prayer four times a day, I don't care what your belief is at the present time. That's a personal thing with every one of us, and we'll respect it. But say it four times a day for the next six months and see what happens in your life and the profound change that will take place in your thinking. This decision that we make in the third step is perhaps the most important decision we will ever make in our life.
And one of the definitions that I have of the alcoholic is that the alcoholic or addict, I use that term for brevity, is a person whose drinking pattern or pill pattern indicates a need for a power greater than themselves. That to me is self-evident. Evidently, I needed something outside myself to continue on in this life and give me the satisfaction that I was trying to find. I erroneously thought that I would find them in alcohol, and of course, alcohol is negation of almost everything in life.
This decision should be made with full realization of the magnitude of it, and I don't think
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any of us did it willingly. We were forced to it. Most of us avoided it as long as possible, and as you continue to drink, you have a choice of either accepting the spiritual concepts that most of us were raised with or rejecting them, and continuing on drinking, and of course, drinking became the all-important thing in our life, and certainly I have learned from experience that man's greatest desire is ultimately going to control his life, or that, in my case, was the greatest desire to drink that controlled and dominated and enslaved me.
And when the desire for sobriety was foremost in my mind, then I accepted fully the limitations of my illness, the same thing that I would have to do if I was a diabetic, a heart patient, or a tubercular. The one thing that is overlooked so many times, and that's why I stress reading this book before you understand it, because I think I read the book several times before the import of this decision came to me, said they, in the book, on page 63, it said, it is suggested that we make this step with another person, this spiritual step, such as our pastor, our wife, or a good friend, but it's better to meet God alone than with one who might misunderstand.
Now, I can see the value of that. If you would go to your pastor, your wife, or a good friend and tell them, from now on I've made a decision to turn my will and my life over to God, then in a year or five years you have some problem that's hanging you up, if you would go to that person and tell them about the problem, they would probably say to you, here, I thought three or four years ago that you made a decision to turn your will and your life over to God, now are you reneging on that decision that you made?
And I think it would bring you back to the original decision that most of us made in a very half-hearted way, but the book says that halfway measures will not do. If you read the 12 steps of AA carefully, you'll notice that they're all written in the past tense, and the reason for that is explained at the start of the fifth chapter in AA, where the 12 steps are laid out, said, these are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery.
Every one of the 100 original alcoholics whose composite thinking compiled this book took every one of those steps, because they found it was vital and necessary for their recovery. And this can't be a form of divine apple polishing, making a deal with Almighty God. You don't deal with Almighty God. You accept his will for you, and it can't be a rabbit's foot belief. You know, this may pay off at a later date, and I'll make an attempt at it, because I have pointed out before that faith is not just the acceptance of a certain set of stated propositions.
That's rote. It's a total commitment of love, obedience, and unreserved trust in Almighty God, which very few of us have been able to attain. They say that true faith is a gift from Almighty God. The nearest that we can come to it is to strive to have faith. Like one man said, even though I struggle to have faith itself, I have faith in faith. This decision, I don't care how superficial it is, at first, if you will, with diligent effort and the help and guidance of the principles of AA, together with prayer, make an honest attempt at it in time, I think you'll find the value of this step.
Consistency, they say, is a jewel. To consistently do these things every day is very, very difficult, because I think perseverance is a rarest quality in human endeavor. To be good at some time, or for a short period of time, is comparatively easy. But to always live up to these principles, I think very few of us do. And you have to watch that all the time, the erosion that takes place out in the world, and when you find yourself falling away from it, make an inventory and bring yourself back to the original decision.
You can't start the day with any humility or sincerity without asking God for guidance
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and help. Whatever power you believe, the power greater than yourself, and certainly the book points that out very clearly, that we must have outside help. Now, when I start to think, and I think of the various dodges and means by which I try to solve this problem of alcohol, when I look back on it, alcohol was always in the picture. I did so many things to avoid the consequence of drinking, and no man can avoid the consequence of his acts.
We're all responsible for them. I limited myself in hours and places and time, and all of them worked for a period of time, but ultimately I went back to drinking. Why? God only knows. I don't know. Where the illness begins and where the moral culpability lays off, I think only Almighty God alone knows, because there is the compulsive nature of alcoholism, which all of us tried to avoid, making pledges and promises.
I tried everything in the book. I used to take the pledge. I got to be like the old Irishman who went to his pastor and wanted to take the pledge. He said, how long for? He says, oh, for life as usual. See, it doesn't mean a thing. And this third step has to have deep meaning in our life, which I think is a long, slow process of understanding yourself, your needs, hopes, aspirations in life, and the right means of reaching them.
We all had goals in life at one time. We've fallen away from it a long, long way, because we like to do what we like to do. That's part of our immaturity. The idea of restricting yourself or living according to certain principles is rather repulsive to the average alcoholic, just like this decision is so difficult to make. You know, many years ago, I was down in Milwaukee, and I had heard quite a number of stories about the founder of that group.
He was a dentist. And I was anxious to meet him. He'd been dry about the same period as I had. And I called him up, and he agreed to have dinner with me. And I expected to find a man like our sponsor, who was very much outgoing and happy and contented, and is living in this program. Instead of that, I found one of the most bitter men that I ever met. It was quite a disappointment to me. He said that he wouldn't go to the meeting with me that night.
He was taking up the study of Spanish at the University of Marquette. And he even made this statement. He said, Len, sometimes I think I was better off when I was drinking. He said, I was quite a long-time periodical. I'd go out in the weeks drunk, and look at the time that I've wasted with these AAs. And they didn't agree with him. And they got into that controversy of whether they should or shouldn't have a clubhouse.
And all these things that come up with the growing pain of the establishment of any group. Very, very unhappy. And I saw him about two years later, the Bradley Memorial. Well, I saw him, and Madison Hearn was attending the Bradley Memorial Clinic. He had burned his fingers with x-rays. You know, the dentists used to put their fingers behind your mouth, the roof of your mouth, with an x-ray plate and shoot the x-ray through it.
They had then amputated his fingers across the hand, the upper part of the fingers. And they thought that they would correct it. It turned out to be cancer, some kind of bone cancer. They later took off his hand at the wrist, his arm at the elbow, and finally this massive operation. Well, when I saw him in Madison, he seemed to be in a little better frame of mind, but still, I'm happy. And one of my deep regrets is that I didn't fly down to see him at the Veterans Hospital at Woods, Wisconsin.
I think I told you I was someday going to have a calling card made over the top, and an arch is going to be the road to hell. It's paved with good intentions, and underneath, Lynn C., the world's biggest paving contractor. I think that's true of all of us. But a friend of mine went to see Gil, and here he was sitting in the bathroom. This arm had been taken off, and he was trying to type with his left hand and answer the many letters that he had received, letters of sympathy and hope for his recovery.
There's a sympathy and the hope for his recovery.
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But the thing that struck George was his face was just illuminated. And he said, Doc, you've changed, haven't you? He said, I have, George. He said, at long last I accepted step two and three. Two is we came to believe that a power greater than ourself could restore us to standing. Three, which I'm talking about now, made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to God. He said, I at last accepted step two and three.
And he said, George, I'm sincere when I tell you that I wouldn't trade this cancerous body of mine and what I have now, and I haven't long to go because I'm cancerous all the way through, for the finest physique in the world if I had to take with it the old alcoholic thinking. That took seven years. So it comes slowly to some men. And we have a reluctance to do it. We'd like our way in certain things.
And I know that I can feel good when, you know, God's in this high heaven and everything is going right with me. But that is no test of my character or anybody else's character. What do you do when the chips are down, when the going is heavy, and it seems as though everything has abandoned you? Are you still going to have the same faith and trust? I know Father McCarthy said the greatest words in the English language, come an old Negro spiritual.
All God's children have troubles. Hallelujah. But we're not grateful for our troubles. We'd like to avoid them. And we have to apply his laws, which are inexorable and inviolate, to all living, not just at certain times. And I think this decision, even though we make it, is very, very superficial at first. And people are inclined to say, how do I know what God's will for me is? Our will and our lives over to God, the care of God, as we understand it.
Well, every person in this room, I think, knows what's the best within them. And insofar as you turn away from what you know is the best within you with the expectation of reward, as I did so many times in the euphoria of alcohol, or the fear of punishment, you're in trouble with yourself and bad trouble. And you're also badly stained by this world. And that's one thing that I think every one of us have to watch, no matter how long we're in AA, the erosion that takes place out in the world today.
That's why I'm selective in my reading. I love that statement of Soren Kierkegaard that the devil, being quite busy at the moment, has turned his job over to the intellectuals, and they, in their academic way, are doing quite nicely at his work. When you read some of the trite that's written today, you'll agree with it. I have no complaint about it, but I don't follow that. I've used this term so many times, and I hope you all remember it, that it's easy enough in this world to live after the world's opinion.
It's easy in solitude to live after your own. But the great man, as he who in the midst of a crowd, can keep the convictions gained in solitude. There is your key to AA, that here in the solitude and seclusion of this place, you formulate in your mind the pattern by which you're going to live, then have that element of greatness that you can carry it out in the confusion and the babble of a materialistic age of mediocrity.
And I don't think any sensible person will look at what is happening today without realizing that mediocrity is the standard where excellence should be. Mediocrity will never satisfy the average alcoholic, not with his deep desire and his terrific drives. What's God's will for me, I can ask myself, is it the right, the just, the honest, honorable thing to do, and will it help my sobriety? That is this way of life.
Or is the wrong, low, cheap, contentable, and will it harm my sobriety? That doesn't mean that I always live up to that. I don't claim to. I never have claimed to be any indication of what AA should be, but I'm striving to be better than I am, and I suppose as long as I live, I'll have to repeat that prayer of Tennyson's, oh, that the man would rise in me, and the man I am would cease to be, because we can be better than we are.
Another thing that you can put to test, and I couldn't live up to this, no matter how greatly I tried, but it's something to strive for in every thought and every act. Ask yourself, does this have God's approval? It makes you uncomfortable sometimes, but it's a good question to ask yourself. Or, as I do sometimes in my inventory at night, say,
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have I lived today as a man living well should live, or as a man in AA should live? Unfortunately, I get the wrong answer a lot of times. But learn the habit, and if it does become a habit, of meditation and prayer. The book points that out, the importance of meditation, the moments and sometimes hours that we spend in reflection over our past performance or the planning of a good way of life, make each day better for us.
And I think you're going to find that in time, if you will accept God's will for you, that there's no comparison between the present day of life and the old one. Look at what we are asking for. Release me from the bondage of self. I think that's the curse of human nature, and it certainly was one of the curses of me. And you have to correct that by prayer. Pray that some way will be shown how to help yourself.
Pray for all alcoholics, living and dead and all who need help at the moment. It's a painful process to evaluate yourself and see that you're not the person that you thought you were. But pain is the touchstone of all spiritual progress. I was reading an article about the number of people who live a fine life, never had the trouble that we did, and that was touched on in the meditation today. We're fortunate people, because we had the opportunity of picking ourselves up and rebuilding our lives when many people never had to do that.
But I don't think it's much credit to a person who has never committed any wrongdoing to praise himself for it. I think the good person is the person who has gone down perhaps many times, but still has the courage to pull himself up by his bootstraps and go on to make a success of life. I suppose in this thing we are always considering the unfortunate things that come to our lives. Why did this happen to me?
Well, of course, we're told in the book that God knows better what we need. And yet we're inclined to complain all the time. I remember a story of a man who complained to God all the time about the cross he had to carry, and everyone has to carry a cross in this life, whether it's illness or losses or tragedies. One night an angel appeared to him and took him up to a field where there were thousands and thousands of crosses, and he said, You have complained to God all the time about the cross that you carried.
Everyone has to carry a cross. Now you can select your own. So he tried hundreds of them, and some were too heavy, some cut into his shoulder, some weren't balanced. Way over in the corner of the field, after trying a thousand of these crosses, he found a cross that he knew was just the right weight, that it felt comfortable on his shoulder, and he said, I'll take this one. The angel said, That, my boy, is the cross that you have carried all through these years.
And I think that's true. We all have problems, frustrations, anxieties in life, but it's never what happens to you, it's how you accept it. And I think on that word acceptance lies the success or failure of any person's life. These things will pass. And yet, when we get in some depressed frame of mind, we think it's always going to be this way. And I suppose some of you people are sitting here and thinking and worrying about the future and think, Well, I'll always think this way.
You won't, if you will accept this third step and make a decision to turn your will over to God as you understand Him. And that varies perhaps with all of us. I think that perhaps some people think of God as an old gentleman on a golden throne counting sparrows as they fall. Others have no direct concept of a spiritual being, but have a belief in an infinite power that is certainly directing the many, many universes that are in space.
All of these things will pass. I remember one man I brought in, or helped get him in, years ago, and he told of the many problems he had. He was an attorney like myself. I was always in good standing with the Bar Association. He wasn't. And he told how this little expression, This will pass, helped him so much. I had one, it comes from the 23rd Psalm, The Lord is my shepherd and I shall not want him.
And if anything ever worked in a man's life, that worked.
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Because I never needed anything that I didn't get, if it was the right desire. Thy will be done is easy for me today. There's too much of me in the picture, and I think it's true with all of us. It's part of our lack of development. I want what I want when I want it. No one should question me about it. And with that frame of mind, you're going to continue to dig the ditch deeper and deeper, into which you're going to fall.
None of us made progress until we made at least a half-hearted attempt at living up to the principles of AA. We say in AA, Plan your survival and live strictly according to the plan. And the idea that I can start today and act as I see fit, and disregard the rules of the game, is not going to work. And I've paid heavily for all the mistakes that I've made, and I suppose I will the rest of my life. I think it's important, too, that a person go to church.
I know that that is a sore spot for a lot of people. And where I find people reluctant to go to church is because of some childish concept that they have developed years before, and they carry it with them into an adult life. And you can't carry childish things into an adult life. The Apostle Paul said, When I was a child, I thought as a child. Now that I'm a man, I think as a man. And that is very true in AA.
We still keep these juvenile concepts in our mind, and don't grow up either mentally or physically. We do. But not emotionally. And that's what we speak about principally when we talk about maturity, the emotional maturity, where judgment, reasoning, and intelligence direct your life. If you don't understand any reason for going to church, go for the discipline involved. And we are the people that despise discipline.
And I know that you're not going to be around for the sprinkling perfume without someday getting some on you. I think it's important, too, because it gives you self-respect in a respected group which is vital to us. Many of our colleagues belong to groups, social service and other groups, but they are not respected members. And we need both of those things. We need self-respect in respected groups, any group.
Family group is highly respected, but we're not the respected members of it. But whatever you're in, try to be an interested, vital, and participating member of any group that you belong in. You can only do it with God's help. The alcoholic with his tremendous skill and ability, which is above the average, should be the most respected member of any group. For heaven's sake, if you're going to do any kind of a job here, if you're going to be a member of a family, be a good one.
If you're going to be a member of a church, be a good one, or a service group or anything else. We have that ability. Let's use it. Most of us didn't use our ability very well. But persistence and patience, I think in time, will bring spiritual concepts to your life. Whether they're in formal terms, or within a feeling within you, I don't think is important. Because always keep in mind, all these things are for your own benefit.
Everything I do in AA is for my benefit. That's why we say it's a selfish unselfishness. Because you have to put the first thing in your life. I also think that for years we've followed a course that has taken us away from any spiritual concepts. Sure, we had them, but they had no meaning. And anything that you do in life has to have purpose and meaning. I find so many times that people have been in AA for a long time, and yet they haven't had any definite set goal in life.
And I don't think it's to be big and famous, just to be an acceptable human being. And we hear that the alcoholic is a very acceptable person when he's not drinking. I think in… …for a long time, and yet they haven't had any definite set goal in life. And I don't think it's to be big and famous, just to be an acceptable human being. And we hear that the alcoholic is a very acceptable person when he's not drinking.
I think in time this teaches love, and it's in the reverse English of what I was taught as a child, that you love God and love your family. I was taught as a child that you love God and then love your fellow man. I think it's the other way around. You learn to love your fellow man, and as you learn to love him, then you love God, because you were taught that every person is made in the image and likeness of our Creator.
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I could never accept that very well. But this teaches love, the love of your fellow man, the love of God, which is the classical definition of humility. The classical definition of humility is man's acceptance of his responsibility to Almighty God and to his fellow man. There is much of that in us. We like some people. We like most people. But that isn't enough. You have to love people. You don't have to love what they do.
A lot of people that I don't particularly want sitting around me, but I have to love them and wish the best for them. But that is the decision that I made when I made a half-hearted attempt at following the principles that I had been taught, and that was the belief of the existence of God. Learn from other people. I think where men become deeply spiritual is where they see this thing working in their lives.
And perhaps you'll reach a point where you can look back, as I did, and find somehow something that changed. And I tried to find the reason for it, and I tried to find the human reason. Well, Jack or Harry or Bill at one time said something that tied me over a difficult period of time. But ultimately, I think you're forced to the conclusion that it's only by the grace of God any of us are dry, where you find yourself happily and contentedly dry.
Or away from pills. When I say sobriety, I mean the complete absence of pills or booze or any form of escape. It's also this decision will correct our inability to enter into rewarding and obligating relationships with other human beings. We've restrained ourselves. We've built a wall of isolationism around ourselves. We think that others have pulled away from us. That isn't true. We've pulled away from them.
And the thing is so evident to me that we were all searching for something outside of ourselves. Otherwise, we would have been contented and happy people when we were not drinking. And a return to drinking indicated that some phase of our life was unsatisfactory to us. And in AA, you turn around and find the great satisfaction in ordinary living. And learn to be grateful. Practice gratitude to God.
That isn't a thing that you just automatically acquire. I remember a Canadian friend of mine, and he's one of these types of individuals. He's very much outgoing. He seems to love to do nice things for other people. His sense of gratitude is very deep. He came up to Hazelden seven straight years after his recovery on his anniversary. Always with a big armful of flowers. And I commented one time on his outgoingness and his generosity.
He said, Len, I am not a grateful or generous person by nature. I have to earn it. Driving home, I thought what an odd expression that was, and yet it's true. We all have to earn the things that we know in life. You have to earn this relationship with God. You don't get it automatically. A few do. But usually we have to earn it by practice. There's an old Portuguese expression which I certainly know applies to my life.
That God writes straight with crooked lines. Sometimes we're inclined to rail against fate or fortune. Why does it have to happen to me? And yet when I look back and all the things that happened to me and what happened to me shouldn't have happened to anybody. But it did. But it taught me something. And all the time apparently God was writing straight with crooked lines because How did I arrive here? How did I arrive at Rosary Hall or Hazel Inn or any other place?
I'm an attorney by profession. I had a fairly good practice. I had to rebuild crooked lines. And they're fantastic. But apparently they were leading me straight because I'm where I belong, where God wants me. Many persons have been brought to an adult level in every aspect of their life except in the spiritual development. And that takes time. It takes practice. And the adult mind can't be sustained on juvenile concepts.
And that's why I know so many men who formed opinions when they were a child.
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Like one man I had was a physician. And his father was a Methodist minister. And he kept him in church long hours when the other kids were playing. And I know what he did. He just made up his mind that when he got on his own that he would have nothing to do with it. He claimed to be agnostic or atheistic. I don't know which. He wasn't any more atheist than I was. And he finally accepted the third step of AA which is made a decision to turn our will and our life over to God as we understand him.
Keep an open mind until you're in a better frame of mind to evaluate what you want to believe. And belief will come as this program unfolds. Why? Because of willingness to desire and the necessity of direction. We're forced to it. There was no alternative for me. I had to accept this way of life or I was lost. I knew that because I tried everything in the world to get away from it. How? By reading prayer in an open mind and the search that is so prevalent in this field.
Searching for something we haven't got. And the proof of that is why weren't we happy and contented people when we were not drinking? Because we missed this power greater than ourselves. And the results ultimately are going to be the belief which is marked by reality. The acceptance of the realities of life and the fact that there is a divine intelligence that directs the destiny of men. You'll recover and maintain your sobriety as you learn to love.
And the first commitment that love always makes upon you is the outgoingness to other people. A jealous possessive love isn't love at all. It's self-love. Love has to be outgoing. And AA is the best exercise in love, self-discipline, and creative effort that this world of ours has ever found. You know, fame and fortune come to many, and greatness comes to a few. But Almighty God reserves for those who in simplicity and humility follow his law the greatest of all gifts, and that is peace of mind.
We have to look at things differently. I know that I was taught as a child that you have to love everyone. I was taught that everyone is created in the image of the likeness of God. I often think of a story of McNulty. McNulty was a writer's writer, and I say that because he had the genius that comes to few men of taking the little trivial things that come to all our lives and making great stories out of them.
Many of his stories were written about a lower district in New York and about a saloon that was patronized by some of the habituates of Skid Row, and the occasional good customer would come in there. And at 3 o'clock on Sunday afternoon, they had what they call a prayer hour, the alcoholic prayer hour, or Angelus. And it was simply when the men who had been out on a terrific drunk the night before slept off part of it and came in on Sunday afternoon for the pickup, which would start another one.
Grogan was a bartender, and at the time of this particular story, Grogan was on the wagon, and he, as McNulty pointed out, he wasn't the type of a fellow that went on the wagon very gracefully. He was very ill-tempered. At 3 o'clock on this particular Sunday, there were a few men in the bar. This long bar, and each man was an island. They were standing 10 or 12 feet apart. They hadn't reached that stage of drinking where intimacy takes place in the ranch clothes.
And the door opened, and in came two scratch bums. And in the language of Skid Row, a scratch bum is a man that doesn't bathe very often and becomes crawling and scratchy. One man had a cigar box under his arm. No one ever knew what was in it. I assume it was shaving equipment. The other man had nothing in his hands, but he had on a saw hat that he picked up at a rubbish heap. And they walked from the door to the bar with a heel-to-toe rocking chair motion, their feet indicative of a chronic alcoholic.
They laid a dime and five pennies in the bar and asked for a glass of wine. Grogan flipped the money back at them and said, There's no wine here, less than a quarter. The men picked up the money and started to go, and Grogan was staring at them. He said, Wait a minute. And he went down to the end of the bar to a glass case that had some good goblets that they used for an occasional wealthy customer.
Seth carefully wiped out each one, set one in front of each man. Then he went down to the locked case underneath the bar
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and took out a bottle of wine, not the domestic, but imported Spanish sherry. And he went up and he poured a drink for each man. And he said, Drink up, boys. The drinks are on me. They drank and bowed to him, turned around, told him they wouldn't bother him again, and walked out the door with a heel-to-toe motion. And Grogan locked up the wine and was drying or washing these goblets. One of the older customers, who knew how ill-tempered he'd been, said, What in hell did you do that for?
He said, Never mind what I did it for. And after he put away the glasses, he went to the end of the bar where his own coat and hat were hanging, got his hat and went in front of the mirror and tugged and pulled at it. He said, I wish to God I could wear my hat like that fellow did. He said, Did you notice the jaunty way he had on his hat? Well, the moral of that story for you and I is look for the good in people.
Maybe it's the way she wears her clothes or combs her hair or has her hair fixed or smiles or talks or walks. Maybe it's the way that a man wears his hat or ties his tie, smiles or talks and walks. But look for the good in people and you'll find it. I was taught from the time that I was knee-high that every person is made in the image and likeness of Christ, and I could never believe it as a child or as an adult until I came to AA.
And I see many Christ-like qualities in many people. I see blunt and ugly people sometimes doing the work of angels, and that number is increasing every year. But if the time ever comes that I can see the image of Christ in every person, regardless of their station in life, their color of creed, that'll be the time that I can come back to you and say in truth and honesty, I'm really living AA. Fortunately, that time is yet to come.
We'll close with the Lord's Prayer. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.