September 1948

then he had a potent idea. But also t l ~ edynamics of its transmission.

1 whether that idea would take root I am reading a great book by Paul in the ground of the actual and Tillich. In it he spenks of there begrow, or whetlrcr it would die as a ing such a thing as a “kuiros”, a

I good idea depended on many fac- “fullness of time”, wluch he says, tors. A n d So F r m My Hem I Say” As I write, 1 am on my vacation, “according to the New Testament use of the word, describes the movery plant-conscious: it takes uwllile nrent in which the eternal .breaks for a flower or a tree to strike root- into the temporal, and the temporal — you are not sure what is going to happen. Then one day you see the is prepared to receive it.” new leaves begin-and thereafter it I verily believe that A.A. repreis a straight course to the time of sents a genuine “kairos”, a coming flower or fruit. Again, while the into time of the Eternal with the need is so sheer and therefore the right message for one kind of hu- BY man need. When I get into one of openness so obvious, and while the Rev. Samuel M.Shoemaker, D.D. patient good sense with wlrich Bill those companies of men and women, went to work was a tribute to him so lovable, so honest about themin these men which showed him and his associates, there still was selves, so modest in h e i r claims yet

I T does not seem many years 860 since we invited some of our gcn- there was a law in operation here, tle~nan-drunk friends to come If a few men could h c l sobric~y and stay at Calvary House; and when tllrougl~what William James called Sontething bigger flturt diey at work in the whole perforr~~ance. There is a difference between so sure of their actual expcrierrcc, I feel that I am experiencing sorncthing much more like the gatherings of the early church than are many there was a “second floor” to old “a firmer hold on religious realties,” thought and dynamics. You can have church services and meetings. Calvary Mission, down in the Gas then nlnny might. Ile went to work the right idea, but what will really House District, where some of the to discover.’ what those laws were, put it over? Especially, you can I’uying lip-service to God .is one men who knew better days and wero and to set about ways of making have the right idea about what per- thing-experiencing the power of ‘standing’ in the new-found way of them available to more people. sons in various kinds of need ought Cod to give a wlrole new outlook on life were living together in a kintl Bill is a smart fellow, but I shall to do-but what will get them to do life, to know victory instead of deof starkly simple spiritual commu- always believe there was something it? There you are in the mysterious feat, and adventure instead of denity. way beyond Bill working in the realm of human dynamics. The idea spair, is quite another. We made a lot of mistakes in tlloso amazing shrewdness with which he must grow warm, first in your own And so from my heart I say, and old days. Some of the Lays helped his insight into alcolrolics, mind, then in the minds of others. say often, God bless A.A.! I think the others, as we hoped they would; into eternal spiritual laws, and into Faith exercises its mighty part, with it one of the greatest, most henrtenbut some helped them downwards the ways in which one can bring men its belief that the unlikely or even ing things happening today on the instead of upwards. Yet these early and women into touch with God with- impossible can take place. Love me- surface of this tried and troubled experiments had their contribution out raising needless religious preju- diates faith to others, by caring what planet. And I believe we have not to make to the beginnings of A ~ o – dices and creating unnecessary spir- happens to them, by patience, by seen the beginnings of what it can holics Anonymous. At least they itual divisions. persistence, by humour, especially as do, not alone for alcoholics, but for showed some of the ways nod to do He was good enough to send me regards oneself. By contact with the all men who need a change of heart it. one of the early prospectuses of the Author of all life, we receive these and first begin to get it as they see Bill often says he saw something book Alcolrolics Anonymous. I knew gifts that include the right idea and it in others.