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Source: Tom L – Top-o-Tex 10-1959 – Reel 0805-60B – Date Unknown.mp3 File: tom-l-top-o-tex-10-1959-reel-0805-60b-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 01:07:33
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Introducing Tommy Loughran, speaking at the Top of Texas Roundup at Amarillo, Texas, October 1959. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I'm happy to be here this evening and to be a part of this company. I am as eager to hear your very fine speaker of this evening as you are to hear him. He came into my study this morning, I never met him until this morning, but he's the kind of person who impresses you right off as being a man interested in his fellow man.
I don't know of any higher compliment that could be paid to any of us than to say that he is a person who is deeply concerned about the welfare of his fellow man. He is a Methodist minister, the pastor of the St. Andrew's Methodist Church in Portsmouth, Virginia. He has been a pastor of the Methodist Church, not this same one, but within the Methodist ministry for a period of ten years. This last year his annual conference granted him a sabbatical leave to give him the opportunity to do some very fine writing.
He wrote a book which will be off the press and for sale within the next few months, a book the title of which is God as I Understand Him. And in talking this morning with Bob Bacon and me about this book, he said that he had incorporated the twelve steps of A.A.'s within the thesis and the body of this book. I'm looking forward to it, and I imagine many of you will also look forward to this very fine book.
This gentleman comes from Virginia, as I told you a moment ago. He's not a native of Virginia, but I think I'll tell a story. It's the only story that I know on Virginians, so if you will indulge me I'll tell that story. This story happened some time ago. An old grandfather was quite deaf and almost blind, in fact a very old gentleman, and he said to his little grandson one afternoon, I'd like for you to read me a story from the Bible.
So this little fellow could not read too well, but he was always wanting to please his grandfather, and he took the Bible and turned to that story in the New Testament that tells about the five wise virgins and the five foolish virgins. You recall the story, I'm sure. So as the little fellow who couldn't read too well got into the body of the story, he read, there were five wise Virginians and five foolish Virginians.
So the old man was a little hard of hearing, but he heard that, and he said, son, read that again, and the son repeated, there were five wise Virginians and five foolish Virginians. The old man said, well, I'll declare, I never knew there were as many as five foolish Virginians, but if the good book says so, it must be so. It's a joy to me to present to you my fellow minister in the Methodist Church, the Reverend Thomas Y.
Lovren, Jr., of Portsmouth, Virginia. This is water. You know, there was one thing not said in the introduction that ought to be said right quick. I guess I got so carried away with the privilege of doing a snow job on the man who was to introduce me that I forgot to say I am an AA. I am not a visiting farmer. In fact, I was AA before I got into the ministry. I'm very grateful for this phase of my life.
I am an AA because I need to be here with you. I have had 14 years association, not 14 successful years, as I will tell you in a bit, and I've had 10 years in the ministry all because of AA. And I certainly would thank you, who are a part of this blessed fellowship that is ours, for making this privilege possible for me in life, and I do so now, for I would not forget to do this. I know that some of you are thinking, well, now, Tom's our AA preacher, why isn't he dressed like a minister ought to be tonight?
You're real lucky I'm dressed. I haven't gotten my luggage yet.
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It was left in Birmingham, and I have foolishly in these 10 years or more in AA begun trusting people, and I flew off the ground in Birmingham and watched my bags sit there. And in organized society, they've only had 24 hours, and they haven't been able to get it here yet. I could have gotten any one of you to handle this, and it would have been here yesterday. Now, I must bring you greetings from Virginia, but they're not very warm greetings, I'm afraid.
You see, we're all shook up in Virginia. We've discovered recently a rather terrible thing. You, of course, know of our great pride in our formation of the democracy in which we live, but we have recently found out that George Washington wasn't born in Virginia, he was born in Texas. It's true, I guess. The story says that the stories were all twisted to make it sound better than Virginia. There wasn't any cherry tree at all.
He lived on a ranch, and his father had a favorite cottonwood tree in the front yard, and he came home one day and found the cottonwood tree cut down right across the front steps. He called George, and he said, George, you know anything about my cottonwood tree? George says, yes, Papa. He says, I can't lie, I cut it down. The father says, my God, boy, if you can't lie, we can't live in Texas, and they moved to Virginia.
Now, I'm going to ask you to bear with me a little bit, too. If I get nervous up here, I can't help it. It's not the crowd or speaking that makes me nervous, but I can assure you that both these fine ministers here would bear me out in this. When I get a crowd this big together, closed up in a room, there's two things I want to do. I want to preach and pass a plate. I never get to preach to crowds this big, and I don't think I've ever had the opportunity to try passing a plate in this size crowd, and it's just twisting my soul.
To those of us who are privileged to spend a part of life trying to share experiences with you, and with our AA brothers and sisters all over this great land of ours, I suppose all of us are at times faced with the question, well, what new thing can I bring? And tonight, I wonder what new thing I could say to you. I don't know of any new thing, I'm just left wondering about it. I think about our youngest son at home.
At our house, we're privileged to have the joy and the task of trying to rear four sons. Our oldest boy is 19, and he's right at that age in his life when he thinks his mother and father are going through their most stupid age, and he's going to be amazed how much we learn in the next few years. We have twin boys 12 years old, and I don't know whether you've ever had the experience with twin boys, and particularly at this age.
You think you were a carnivore in your career. You are the eavesdrop on two little heads planning how they're going to get around mama and daddy. But they keep us young. But then in the house we have a little fella six, this is Mike. Now we have long since capitulated, Mike rules our household, and we know it. We try not to let him know that we know it, but I'm afraid he does. All of our boys have tasks to perform.
My wife's the only girl in the house, and she says, boys, I know boys, they're going to do some housework. And as some of you might know, maybe perhaps some of you came out of a parsonage home. On Sunday morning, when you live next door to the church, the parsonage is a hectic place. Everybody's trying to get ready to be at the church doors before the arrival of the first parishioner. If you live on the church grounds, it just won't do to have the parishioners there ahead
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of you. And this Sunday morning was no exception. The boys were about their morning tasks, making up their own rooms. The twin boys are at the age when neatness is beginning to mean a little something to them. Mike has no idea of what neat means. If you can't see it, it's clean, so Mike kicks everything under the bed. He had finished kicking away everything you could see in his room and had walked in and stood leaning against the doorjamb watching his twin brothers.
And they were having an awful struggle getting the spreads to hang just right on the beds. I can't do this now, and I know it's hard for them. And finally, after a good deal of labor, they had the beds made to their satisfaction, and Mike couldn't stand this orderliness. He walked between the twin beds and with one swoop pulled the spreads off both beds and stood there glaring at his brothers. Of course they had things to say to him.
And whereupon he kicked one on the shin, hollered at the other one, turned around and threw the old pet cat out of the chair in the room and came angelically down the steps singing, Yes, Jesus Loves Me. I looked at my wife and I said, You know, I wonder. And I wonder tonight what new thing I could tell you. I think you agree with me that we who are a part of AA have but one story. I have long since quit trying to go back over the bloody details of my drinking career.
For the most part, they're all too distasteful. There's a great part of it that I don't want to remember. There's still those incidents after these many years that bring the cold sweats and chills at night, and I don't like these memories. I would like to keep this cross that my drinking has given me, for there's one that I need always to bear. I think the memory of the hurt and the lack of understanding in the eyes of my wife and the shyness and the fear and the activities and the actions of my oldest son, who remembers much of this, is a cross I ought always to carry.
And this is a burden I don't want to forget. But the little day-by-day affairs that became almost insurmountable problems in life, I'd just like to forget them, for I found that that I won't. Now I can't tell you any new thing about alcoholism because I don't think today they've discovered any new thing. I don't know why I'm an alcoholic. I'm not like my friend Julian over in Silver Springs, Maryland.
Julian's from my part of the country, and he was raised as a boy over in the mountains around Luray, Virginia, and Julian says he knows why he's an alcoholic. I'm not so fortunate. Julian said he used to lay on the porch of the shanty in which they lived in the mountains and trying to sober up, and he said he could hear way across the ridge and down in the other hollow the railroad trains going back and forth on a north-south main line.
And he said, you know, they ran three trains south every day and two north, and I became a drunk worrying about that third train down south. I suppose, if we're honest, I became an alcoholic because I drank. And I don't really know why I drank. I have another very close friend, and a friend of many of you, perhaps, from up in Chappaqua and New York. Tom says that he never understood why he drank either.
He began when he went away to college, and it seemed the thing to do, he said, every Friday and Saturday night in the fraternity house where he lived, they'd all get drunk. But he said he was terribly poor at this. While other men seemed to be enjoying themselves, he was out back on the yard deathless sick. And so one day he stopped a fraternity brother, and he said, look, he said, I know this thing we're doing every Friday and Saturday night is a splendid thing, but why are we doing it?
And he said his fraternity brother said to him, well, I've noticed you, and you're not very good at this. He said, you're going to have to learn to take it easy. Do they sound like familiar words to you? He said, between the time you take the first drink and the time you run out back in a deathless sick.
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And if you learn to capture this interval of pleasure, you'll like what we're doing. And I never captured this interval of pleasure. I don't even know why I drank. I would like to tell you for a few moments, if you will let me, not about my drinking experiences prior to AA, but about my drinking experiences in AA. Now, to some of our visitors, we'll just have to admit we're not all successful the night we walk in.
In fact, if we are truthful about it, I'm afraid a few more are unsuccessful the night they walk in than there are those who are successful the first night. And yet, I'm quite sure that these training periods that many of us go through are pretty important to us in life. I'm sure my story parallels that of many of you. I came to AA not because I wanted to. You didn't have anything that interested me. I didn't like anything you stood for. I did not invite myself to your place.
Well, really, you didn't invite me either. I was traveling at the time as a field engineer for a major insurance company, and we were living these days over in Chattanooga, Tennessee. I remember so well it was about Wednesday of one week, and I was out on the road, and I went through that little period of remorse that all of us have experienced. For some unknown reason, I had left home on Sunday afternoon and worked Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and hadn't drank.
And I suppose I got too sober, and I began to think about home, and I thought, well, I haven't treated them right there. So I called to my home in Chattanooga from Nashville, and I said to my wife, Honey, I have been thinking about you, and I realize that things have not been too pleasant. And you may not think I would remember these dates, but I know that Saturday is our anniversary. Now, if you'll get the boy ready and pack a few things, I'll come home early Friday, and we'll go away to the mountains or someplace for a long weekend together and celebrate the anniversary.
And my poor wife was overjoyed, and I know she hung up a very happy woman because it had been a long time since I called in the middle of the week unless I was too drunk to know it. Well, I hung up, and I got to thinking, Now, Loverin, you're beginning to treat your family fine. In fact, you're an awfully good fellow. Have a drink or two. And I had a drink or two, and I got home on Friday of the next week.
Now, I remember I had found out that I had been to Mobile and up to Louisville and back to Nashville, and for some reason I got to Nashville on Thursday fairly clearheaded. Because a week longer had passed than I had intended passing. And I drove home that Friday trying to think for probably 80 miles of the 120 or so miles of a new lie to tell. Have you ever reached the stage that you couldn't even think of another lie to tell? You'd used them all up.
And I realized there just weren't any more lies or excuses, and then I got this old arrogance back. Well, after all, I am the breadwinner in the house. It's my house they live in. And if they don't like me being ten days late coming home, I'll tell them what they can do. So I went home completely steeled and composed, and I'd let her have her say, and then I would straighten her out. And I knew she was going to have her say.
This day I opened the apartment door and walked in, and absolute silence greeted me. Well, she was sitting there. She looked. Did you ever have this happen to you when you were expecting to get hit in the face with something? It's a lot worse than being attacked. And finally she said, your boss said, and I knew then I was having it, if and when you came home, for you to call him in New York immediately.
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And the terms and the way she said it made me know he meant it. So I went to the phone and first thought, what lie will I tell him? There were no lies left. Well, I thought, I'm already fired. She's been talking with him, and she's lost the job, and I don't have to take anything from this joker. There are dozens of insurance companies waiting for me to leave this jerk-water outfit. And I got him on the phone, and I had this stroke of genius.
He said, Tom, where in the world have you been? We have been looking all over creation for you. We've been frantic. We've called hospitals, police, hotels, our customers. I said, Lee, you know, in all the years I've worked for you, I have never lied to you. I have been drunk for a week. And this man was speechless. I know now that he was prepared for every lie I could tell him, but he hadn't prepared himself for the truth.
And in a few silent moments, he said, Tom, I think you have been working too hard. Now, if you will not say anything about this anywhere and tell your wife to keep it quiet, I won't say a thing about it, and we'll take the week off your vacation. And I had the greatest feeling of joy. I had found the way to handle my employee. If I just keep him knocked off his feet, he'll never know what to say. But he ended this.
Before I could hang up, he said, Tom, by the way, did you ever hear of Alcoholics Anonymous? And I had to admit that I had, for my poor wife had for months been putting the Jack Alexander reprinted article from Rita's Digest all over the house, the bedroom, the living room, the bathroom, the kitchen. And I had finally read it in self-defense while she was bated breath, waited, and I finished it and laid it down.
She said, what did you think of it? I said, I think it's a pretty good thing for anybody that might need that sort of thing. And I had to admit I had heard of Alcoholics Anonymous. Well, he said, it's good. He said, do you know they have meetings in Chattanooga? No. He said, they have one on Friday night. And your wife and I have been talking about this on the occasions we have discussed you this week.
And we think you need it. And if you want to go back to work for me Monday morning, you'll be in that meeting tonight. And I thanked him, I'm sure in a still small voice, and I hung up. And my wife said, big boy, if you want me here to send you to work Monday morning, you'll be in the meeting tonight. And I went to Alcoholics Anonymous that Friday night. I don't remember a thing you said, but I was impressed with one thing.
We met upstairs in Chattanooga in the little room, and when we got ready to come out, the building had been locked up, and we went down to Fire Escape. There were 14 members of that group. And when we came off the Fire Escape, we were in a parking lot, and there were five or six either Cadillacs or Lincolns that drove away. And I had just been listening to these jokers talk about being broke and in jail and the places they'd been, and I was quite sure I had stumbled on one of the finest rackets that had ever been devised.
And I think as time passed, I liked the six girls who were members, that fellows were pretty nice fellows, and I began to try to visualize what it would be like to be on a good long party with the crowd. And then I sold myself on the idea that this thing couldn't hold together. This crowd's going to pitch one of the greatest drunks Chattanooga's ever seen. I'm going to stick around until they do it.
But they didn't. Now, I attended AA on the Friday nights that I could find no excuse for staying out of town. I wanted nothing you had. You did give me a wonderful excuse for drinking. I could come home two or three days late and still be loaded. My wife could meet me at the door, and she'd say, Where have you been? And I'd say, Now you hush. Don't you remember anything they told you down at AA? I'm a sick man. I can't help this.
Don't get me upset. That's the worst thing that could happen.
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For some reason, I fooled my employer. And about eight months later, and I don't count these six or eight months as AA time, for I was not a part of you. We got a promotion. And I was made resident engineer of the Gulf Coast area and moved to New Orleans. I strongly suspect today that I did not have my employer fooled, that he decided it would be easier to let me drink myself to death than to fire me.
We went into New Orleans on Mardi Gras Day. This was early in February. And I remember sitting on the curb on Canal Street and joining in the revelry and the great joy. I was too drunk to stand up. And thinking I had the whole world in the palm of my hand. I had 31 men older than me working for me. You know what this does to an alcoholic's ego. I had my own office. I had a good salary. And I knew it would be five or six months before they could move me out of the Roosevelt Hotel and I had the whole family there living on their expense account.
It didn't take that long. On July 4th, I was sitting on a bench in Jackson Square, down in the heart of the French Quarter. And things had changed a little bit. I didn't have a wife and son. They'd gone. And I didn't have a job. They hadn't just gently fired me. They sent a big bruiser over from Dallas to run me out of the office. And I wasn't living at the Roosevelt. I was living at a mission for destitute seamen called Seaman's Rest.
And this didn't cost $16 a day. This cost a quarter if you had it. And I didn't have any shoes on. And I don't know what hour of the day it was. And I only knew weeks later that it was the 4th of July. And two men walked into the park and one sat down on either side. And this was not unusual anymore. I'd been on the docks for more than 15 days now. And you got picked up every couple of days. They just came down and picked up all the bums and went down for a line-up.
And you got a bath and a cup of coffee and they let you go, if somebody didn't mistake you for the joker that robbed them. I thought these were cops, but they weren't. One said to me, Tom, have you had enough? You see, I had denied to myself. But you had not denied me the privileges of this blessed fellowship. For though we moved out of Chattanooga, there was a one little man, Bob Ivins, God bless him, who's now dead, who never gave up.
And he wrote endless letters and he made innumerable phone calls and said to people in AA and New Orleans, please keep your eye on Tom. One day he's going to need us. And though my good wife had gone, for she could stand no more, she had called and written and begged of some of you to please watch out for Tom. And on the 4th of July this day, two of you, not having to work, decided to take a walk and look for Tom Lovren.
Now believe me when I say this, I had had enough. It's not hard for a man to look about him and realize he hadn't bathed in days and God knows when he had eaten last and was too sick to eat anyhow and had rather be dead than living but had not the courage to bring to himself death. It's not hard for such a man to say I've had enough. And I had had enough. And I wanted sobriety as much as any single one of you ever wanted it.
But there was one little kink in my makeup. I wanted it on my terms. And I began three years of experimentation in Alcoholics Anonymous. I never had a slip from this 4th of July on in AA but I was drunk five times. I don't know anything about this so-called slip business. For 14 years I've been hearing jokers try to explain slipping. I never slipped. I never slipped. I deliberately got drunk five times.
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I heard a guy once say I was at a Christmas party and a waiter went by and I was talking, and before I knew it I drank three cocktails and I slipped. I don't see how he slipped. He never had anything to lose. I came back to Virginia because of AAs and I restored my home. My wife and son were happy to have Daddy back. And I stayed sober for a period of months. But I stayed not sober, I think, but dry.
I wanted AA now and I sat down with my new friends in AA up in Richmond and I said to them, I want this program and I want it badly and I'll take all of the program you'll give me except this God business. Now let's leave this out. I never disbelieved in God. I always believed in this power that was greater than man. But I also believed that I had forfeited my right to this God. And I was not going to cry and beg him to put me back in the place I had once owned.
I believed that I had of my own volition walked out of the orbit of any love of the Divine. And I could support my argument for I could look at me and so many of you and I could think of the poor devils that, and there were three in less than nine days that died on the floor sleeping by me in semen's rest. And I thought to myself, what sort of God is this that would let this happen to a man? Don't tell me about God and I'll take all the program but the God business.
You know how far I got? Well, we started out with the twelve steps and I got the first one and I admitted I was an alcoholic and I ran smack into God in step two. And I got no further. Now I admitted to everybody that would listen to me I was an alcoholic. I took great pride in telling people. But I got drunk. And I came back to AA. And I sought out some new people in AA. Maybe I could find a new idea or two about this.
And I said, look, I admitted to everybody I was an alcoholic but I got drunk and I don't want to be drunk. Well, this new joker says, Tom, you are taking this too seriously. He says, take it easy. Get with the group and let's get in group therapy. And I got with the group and I was covered with group therapy. But the group I was with got drunk and I got drunk with them. I was hand-picking my AA. And I came back to AA the third time.
I never had an AA to come out and pat me on the head after that day in New Orleans and say, poor old Tom, you come on back, we'll look after you. And I've always thanked God I didn't. Because I don't know whether I'd ever gotten back or not if I could have found somebody that agreed with me. I remember the man who became my sponsor in AA and up until now I had never allowed anybody to sponsor me. I remember calling Jack once.
It was the third drunk. And I called him from a sanatorium and I put a quiver in the voice. I wanted to get his sympathy. And I said, Jack, this is Tom and I'm out at Three Acres and I'm drunk. And I thought surely he'd run out and slip me a half pint. He knew you didn't get much in these places. Bring the big book or a carton of cigarettes or some chocolates or something. He said, have fun, and hung up.
Well, I came back. I even stayed sober a year, dry a year. Over in our group we owned property, unfortunately, under the setup we had. It was under the direction of a board of managers. And I decided if I could get interested in the management of AA, I could make this. And you had to be sober a year to get elected to the board of managers. And I stayed dry 12 long months and politicked to get elected.
And I got elected and got drunk the next morning. I had achieved my purpose. And the last time I really decided, well, AA can't help me because I'm a psycho. And my wife said one day, please go over and see Dr. Jones, a wonderful family physician and a good friend. She says at night you breathe with a wheeze and you jump and you jerk. And I think he ought to examine you. And I got to thinking as I rode downtown that, uh-huh, she and my mother and father have gotten together
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and they're going to get me over there and they're going to hold a sanity commission and I'm gone. And I wouldn't go near Dr. Jones. But I went up and turned myself in to a Navy psychiatric hospital. And being a Navy dischargee, they took me. They knocked me out. I got well fortified before I got there. And I remember waking up and a man coming down the ward and I said, what, uh, how long have I been here? And he said about 36 hours.
Well, I said, I feel pretty good. I think I'll get out today. Well, he says, I hope you have better luck than I had. I said, how long you been here? He said 32 days. I said, when are you going to get out? He said, I don't know. I never have met my doctor yet. And I stayed a few days and for some unknown reason, even too drunk to remember I had a $5 bill wadding in my sock. They took your shoes and your clothes and you wore these pajamas around.
And this guy was taking me over to a laboratory one day and I had this $5 in the sock and I said, look, if you just let me use the telephone a minute, I'll give you this. And he let me use the phone and I called home and begged him to come and get me out. And they came and before they'd let me go, though my parents signed me out, my father and to my wife, I had to have my interview with a psychiatrist who had been observing me through peepholes.
And he called me in and he said, I don't think you ought to leave, but your folks seem to think you ought to go. I believe if you stayed with me a few weeks, I could solve all these problems for you. And here he says, what you have got wrong with you is a very simple thing. And I had the first hope in three years that maybe I could learn how to drink. You see, the drinking had kept changing the thinking away from desire to one, well, maybe I can get out of this.
I was excited and interested. I said, well, I'm happy to hear this. Maybe I'll stay. I said, what's wrong with me? Well, he said, son, you drink too much. If you'll quit drinking, you'll be all right. I never have felt kindly about my tax money going for this sort of thing. As little as it is. These three years were needed years for me and they were not wasted years. For though I had done everything wrong, though I had misused you in this blessed fellowship, God in his own infinite wisdom was creating some sort of soul-depth reaction.
For I was getting thoroughly disgusted with myself. And three years after my advent into AA, I took my first personal inventory. And I didn't like what I found. It was dirty and it was horrible. And I couldn't find anything to add to the credit side of the ledger. I could say I was an AA, but you and I knew I was not. And even this was taken away. And I began to look at people who had something here I wanted.
I've heard it called the look in their eyes. I've heard it called the light of their countenance. I've heard it called the serenity on their being. I've heard it called the peace of their souls. But for the first time into my AA life, I looked around and I began to pick out these people. And I began to watch them and listen to them and see what they said and did. And I decided now maybe they've learned something others don't know about this.
Maybe there's an inner sanctum of AA and I've just never been sober long enough to be allowed in there. And as I watched and listened to these blessed people, I began to have one realization. They all had something in common. Oh, the happiness and the joy of living was that that they held in common, but there was a reason for the joy and the happiness. They all had a God of their personal understanding.
And I decided maybe this God would care for me. I'm sure I was quite timid in testing him a little bit.
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And I say this in dull humility and humbleness, I did test my God. I didn't pray the prayer of an atheist nor an agnostic. For I tried to let him know, I suppose I tried to sell him on the fact that I believed he was there. And would you maybe just a little bit let me know it? Well, I began to find out new things about these new sponsors in AA and I adopted my sponsor. And I went to his office one day and I said to him, Jack, I've been kicking around here more than three years now and I've got two or three months behind me and I'm all confused.
I don't know what to do about this. I don't have a sponsor. I've never had one. I just wouldn't let him know. I don't have a sponsor. I've never had one. I just wouldn't let anybody. Would it be asking too much to ask you? And I know maybe I'm not a good risk, but would you sponsor me? And I'll never forget that man. He was then just exactly twice my age. He got up and he put his arm around my shoulder and he said, You know, I've been praying almost three years you'd let me do this.
And I began to understand what they meant about God. Now I had all sorts of questions about this. And as the time passed there seemed to be this inner voice that kept saying, This is not going to be enough for you. You're going to have to make a bigger move than this. You're not going to make it if you stick with this alone. I was playing golf one day with a minister for an hour. I decided maybe I'd better try a little church with this.
I don't know why I played golf with him. I never did like preachers. I love them now. But we were playing golf and I was giving him a little argument about the church. I said, Carl, why doesn't the church do this? Why don't they do that? Why don't you believe like we believe? Why don't you try to help people like we do? And he was teeing up his bowels. And I don't believe this good man ever used a wrong word in his life until this moment.
And if he hadn't used it I wouldn't have understood him. He looked at me and he says, Why in the hell don't you come in the ministry and start doing it? I figured this man had flipped his lid. Me? The ministry? Man, I hadn't even gotten myself inside the door with God yet and he's talking about the ministry. And from that night on I could never have a day's peace. I remember being asked by one of the great old bishops of our church, Bishop Peel one day, he said, Tom, tell me about your call to the ministry.
And I said, Bishop, I never had a call to the ministry. And I could see the wheels going around in this good old man's head. I knew he was thinking, well, boy, I knew we needed preachers, but this bad? I said, I don't know much about a call, but I'll tell you this, I was beat into this thing. And it seemed to satisfy me. And if I'm very honest about this, I became a part of the ministry for purely selfish reasons.
Because you had given me a glimmer of something so wonderful and I knew so powerful that it could change my life. And I needed everything that was attached to it. And I suppose that's why I'm here now. Well, I had to find out about God and I had to always ask about, well, where is God now? I want a God of my own understanding. I want to feel a personal and a close relationship to God. And so many of you had tried to tell me about God.
I had gone to my ministers and friends in the ministry and the priest and the rabbi, anybody who I thought could help me with this. And these good people all tried to help me. But somehow they put God in a sort of a maze out here and I couldn't thread my way through this maze to God. My sponsor began teaching me about God, and I think it was his teaching that led me to
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the realization that all of you, I'm sure, have, that if I'd quit looking for God, I'd find Him there. I couldn't find Him because He never was lost. He'd been everywhere I'd been. And I need not look in some ethereal empire out here in the heavens and think I was going to have a revelation that had with it the beating of the wings of angels and the sounds of heavenly trumpets because it wasn't coming that way.
And I still find God because of AA teaching me to look in simple places. And to share just one or two of these moments with you about where I found God, I know today that that morning in Jackson Square, I sat in the very presence of God, but that day I didn't recognize Him. Because why would two men take of their holiday time to come and look for a bum off the docks? Even but God could have led them there.
And I know that day God came down from heaven and He probably put a cloak on His arm thinking some of His might be cold, and He offered to me His cloak of grace that day, and I didn't accept it. But there came a night when I had to solve this problem that was beating me to death inside, and why I didn't get drunk I'll never know. It could have been but for one reason, because the God of my understanding had decided that I'd had enough, and maybe a prayer had been sincere in its reaching for help.
And I went up to my bedroom one night, and I got on my knees, and I hadn't prayed on my knees before. I'd been making my prayers privately, you know, pretend you're asleep so the family won't know you're praying, or hiding away somewhere while you're fishing, or getting lost in the woods looking for your golf ball and saying a quickie so they won't see you. And I said, I must stay here this night until I solve whatever is eating me up.
And I came downstairs the next morning and announced to my family that I was going into the ministry. I was on my way to the office to quit my job. We were living with my parents because during these three years and five drunks, jobs had not been plentiful. And I remember my wife and my mother sitting there, and it was as though I had come down and said, the whole back of the house is burned away. My mother rushed across the yard to my sister's home and brought her to the house, and she says, come and talk to your brother.
He says he's going into ministry. And my sister looked at me and she said, Tommy, you have fouled up everything you ever did. You messed up your wife's life. You've broken mother and daddy's heart. You've fouled up every job you've ever had. You've fouled up every friendship you've ever been privileged to have. And now, what are you going to do, foul up the whole church? My wife says today, with that moment, when I said nothing, and usually they could have all gotten a good cussing out right there, but went on about what I said I was going to do, she said she knew that I meant this, and I knew that night as I knelt in my bedroom and felt the peace that I had seen in the faces of others that I knelt in the presence of God.
And I still look for God in these places, for it makes my life a better thing to live. Two years ago I sat many hours in the hospital room with my sponsor, and he died of throat cancer. And he and I had the privilege of getting, or helping to get started, a little Blackstone AA retreat. And it was to be held the first weekend in October, and this was in September, talking with one of the girls today.
She was in Richmond at that time. And Jack wanted so bad to go back to Blackstone one more time, and I watched this man sit in a chair for nine days and nights, and he refused to get in his bed because he knew that if he lay down he would die. And one day Carl met my home and he said, as you come up this morning would you go by
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my house and get my car and come and get me, I want to ride about the city a little bit. And I heard, I thought Jack's better and he's stronger, and I got to the hospital, and I knew that he wasn't, he'd just given out. And that morning I rode him about the city so he could shake hands with people and thank them for being his friend and tell them goodbye. And it was a heart-breaking thing to do, but I knew that I went about in the presence of God that day.
For I watched this gentle man, wasted away to nothing now, grasp the hand of his colored yard man and thank him for his friendship. And over by the golf club and thank a caddy and the pro and the girls in the dining room and by his office, and over by the AA club last of all, to just look around and very thank God for being his friend. And I'll never forget the experience of spending a whole half day in the very presence of God.
Last fall we took our oldest son away to school, and this is not a pleasant experience when the firstborn leaves home. I get all the dirty work at my house. I had to take him and leave him up there in strange surroundings. This boy remembered much of the unhappy life. And I got up early in the morning to start my drive back from over in Ohio, and we were living in Florida last year, and I wanted to say something to this fellow.
I knew that there was a certain amount of respect and parental love, but we'd never gotten close. I really wanted to put my arms around him and perhaps kiss him, but he's a great big fellow, bigger than me, and you don't do this. And I stood there awkwardly trying to figure out how to say goodbye, and I didn't trust my own voice. When he sobbed it all, I had on the lips, on the tip of my tongue to say, well, son, remember we're proud of you, when he walked across the room and put his arms around me.
And he said, before you go, I want you to know I'm proud of you. And I stood in the presence of God. I found God in so many places because of you. And I keep seeking him because I want to be made constantly aware of my obligation and responsibility. I don't know if you want to cut this off. And just very briefly before we close, that don't do it, there's two buttons. Normal people would have one button, but A.A.'s got two.
I have learned, too, from you what our secret is here, and I want to remain constantly conscious of my responsibility to the preservation of this secret truth. Oh, I know we went through years in A.A. and we'd say, you come on in, A.A., we don't know what makes it work, but it works. We know what makes it work. Some of us are pretty timid about telling anybody about it. Love makes it work. Now for just a moment or two, you really didn't think you were going to get in here without hearing a little sermon, did you?
Do you know that three words, I love you, have shaped and changed history more often than any other power or force known to man? And God in his own infinite wisdom and in his own goodness of being, twenty-five years ago revitalized the words, I love you, for people like me. We don't have anything new. It's as old as time. We've rephrased it a little bit. We've put it in steps to make it simple for ourselves, and with an unwavering devotion to this we've found we have not waited for people to beg.
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We have gone anywhere anybody would listen to give it to them, and it continues to work. We like to say a man calls us at two or three o'clock in the morning, he's drunk, we never heard of him. And folks ask us, why do you get out of your bed and it's pouring rain and go across town to talk to some drunken joker you never heard of before? And we say, well, it keeps us sober. We could stay in bed and stay sober.
We know that's not the truth. When this man calls or this woman calls, she doesn't or he doesn't say five words before you're in love with the person. You know his troubles and his problems and the hell he's undergoing, and you're not going just to stay sober, you're going to satisfy the yearning and the love you feel for the individual. This man of Nazareth knew about the power of love. I think of all the disciples, Peter was always my favorite.
He's so like us, headstrong, hard-headed, arrogant, and yet God could make something great out of these attributes. I remember so well the story of the time when Peter avowed his love for his Lord. Why, he said, I'd follow you even unto death. Jesus said, before the cock crows again, you will deny me three times. And I remember well the story, it's as though I could hear it told right now. Peter stood off in a crowd and somebody came up and they said, weren't you one of his followers?
Not me. This reminds me of some AA's I know. Aren't you an AA? Not me. He's drinking right then, see. Well, he's telling the truth. He's not. And again, and again, and then we read that the cock crowed and Peter went out and he wept bitterly. Some of us are to weep bitter tears because we've denied others the privilege at times. I don't think it's because Peter remembered suddenly just that Jesus had said, Peter, you're going to deny me.
I think Jesus must have said to Peter when Peter said, I'll follow you unto death, Peter, I love you so, and I know you mean this, but you're too weak to do it. But oh, how I love you. And he became the great apostle because of the love of his Lord. And I don't think there's any more beautiful story ever been written than that moment when the crowd found the woman in sin and brought her and threw her in the dust at the feet of Jesus.
He was so embarrassed at being even associated with these people. The self-righteous, the pious. And I guess you'll gather right now, piety makes me sick right up to here. He knelt and wrote with his finger in the sand, and finally, with all the scorn and indignation that's ever been mustered, I think, he said, if you're without sin, go ahead and cast the first stone. And they couldn't stand this. They quietly slipped away.
Didn't this a beautiful moment when he gently lifted her to her feet and said, where thou accusest? And I condemn you not either. Go thou and sin no more. And if she didn't hear it from his lips, she read it in his eyes. I condemn you not because I love you. I had the privilege of trying this in my twelve-step work a few years ago, and I have never approached a man or a woman since in any other way.
It was not planned, and I didn't intend to do it this way. I cannot take credit for it. There came a beautiful young lady to our parsonage one Palm Sunday afternoon. One Palm Sunday Afternoon, Would You Come and Talk to My Husband?, Yes, I'll Come, What's Wrong?, He's Been Drunk Now for 4 or 5 Days, He Hasn't Been Out of the Bed, I Can't Do
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Anything with Him, Like All of Us, Does He Want to See Me?, Yes, I Went Up the Road, Began Thinking, It's 4 O'Clock in the Afternoon, It's Palm Sunday, I Got Another Church Service Tonight, I'm Busy, Well, I'll Go and I'll Give Him a Quick Pitch, He Can Take It or Leave It and I'll Go Home, And How Many of You Did This Yesterday?, A Quick Pitch, If They Don't Want It, Forget It, We Got to the House and Went Up the Stairs to His Bedroom and She Opened the Door and It Dawned on Me that Quick She Had Forgotten to Tell Me All There Was About This Man, For I Looked at a Hopeless Cripple Lying in Bed, There Sat Leaning Against the Foot of the Bed, Two Cruel Metal Contraptions with Which He Walked and This Was a Fine Looking Young Man, and I Forgot the Little Canned Talk, and I Walked Across and Sat Down and I Couldn't Think of Anything Quite Right to Say, Because I Believe If I Ever Saw a Man Who Had an Excuse for Staying Drunk in Bed, He Had It, He Looked at Me and He Said, Why Did You Come Here?, Well, I Could've Said, Didn't You Send for Me?, and If He Said No, I Could've Left, and I Don't Know Where I Got the Words Unless They Came from on High, I Said, Because I Love You, Well, to Shorten a Wonderful Story, He Went in the Hospital that Night and He Came Out, and a Couple of Sundays Later I Was Already in the Pulpit of My Church, and He Came Clanking in the Back and Sat Down, and I Remember the Thinking that Rushed Through, Why Couldn't He Have Waited till Next Sunday, This is the Communion Day, I'm Not Even Going to Preach a Sermon, and There's So Much I Want to Say to This Fellow, and Here I Got Him in the Church, and I'm Probably Going to Lose Him Today, Well, I Forgot about God Being in My Church, and He's There in Spite of Me Sometimes, We Went on with the Service and the Invitation to the Holy Sacraments was Given, and This Man and His Lovely Wife were Among the First People Who Stood Up, and Very Slowly and Very Painfully He Came Down the Aisle, and He Couldn't Kneel at the Altar of the Church, but He Stood on His Crutches, and I Got Before Him with the Sacraments, and Before I Could Say a Word, He Said, and I Love You, and He's Never Had the Desire for a Drink since the Night I Told Him I Loved Him. Let's Not Tell People Anymore We Don't Know What Makes This Work, You and I Know What Makes It Work, You and I Know that We Behold Within Our Hands the Secret to Life for So Many People. We Don't Have to be Amateurs, Psychiatrists, or Physicians, or Priests, or Ministers, All We Have to Do is Be in Love with Our Fellow Man, and He Too Can Live. I Think You Would Understand when I Say to You that I Never Begin a Day of My Life, that I Don't Stop and Thank God for AA, and for All of You, and Every One of You All Over the Face of the Earth, because You are AA, and it's because of You that I Have a New Day of Life, and I Never End a Day of My Life that I Don't Spend Some Time in Prayers of Thanksgiving for AA, and for All of You, for it's because of You I've Had Another Day. Oh, I Know God Gives These Things, but You Opened the Door to Him for Me. I Never Go into My Church, and I Would Dare Not Step into the Pulpit, that I Don't Stop for a Moment and Kneel at the Altar, and if it will be Worth Anything to You, I Don't Care Where You Are at the Eleven O'Clock Hour on the Sabbath Day, I Wish You'd Join Me for a Moment, because at that Hour Always, I Kneel, and it's not a Part of the Ritual or the Order of Worship, it's My Moment to Thank God for AA,
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and for All of You, for if it were not for You, I wouldn't have this Privilege. And I Never Go into My Home and See My Lovely Wife and My Four Wonderful Sons, that I Don't Stop, and Always it Chokes Me a Bit, but I Have to Breathe a Prayer of Thanksgiving for AA and for All of You, because if it were not for You, I would have Lost These. And I Thank God for All of You this Night, for Sharing this Hour with Me, and I Thank God for Those who Guide this Gathering this Weekend, for Allowing Me to be a Part of This with You.
Thank You and God Bless You. Rev. Thomas Lovren, we Thank You, we are Grateful for bringing us this Magnificent Message today. Now we will all stand and be adjourned by having Dr. Skinner to lead us in the Lord's Prayer. Let us pray together. 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. Amen. To be free again, just to be again, when the bloom is on this day.