October 1 9 5 5

“There were men like clergyman Sam Shoemaker, whose early teachings did so much to inspire Dr. Bob and me. 9 9 Hill W. in A A c’r,,,rcs 01 AKF

Rev. Canon Samuel M. The Spiritual Angle Shoemaker, D.D. By the Reverend Samuel M. Shoemaker Heprinlrcl f r o m the Ocloher 195.7 Gruperine

The Episcopal clergyman who inspired I T WAS clear to Bill from the first, I take it, that Dr. Jung’s simple declaration that science knew no anwas not theoretical, it was evidential. Before us were people in whose lives the beginnings of a transformaearly members swer, Dr. Silkworth’s incalculable tion had taken place. You could of AA. “. . . He help from the medical angle, and question the interpretation of the William James’s great wisdom in experience, but you could not quespassed on the Varieties of Religious Iixperience tion the transformation itself. spiritual keys still left the great need for a spiritual In Acts 3 and 4 is the story of the by which we factor which would create a syn- healing of a lame man by Peter and thesis and offer a dynamic motive to John. A lot of the ecclesiastics were liberated.” sobriety. The problem was how to wanted to know how it came about. translate the spiritual experience The apostles told them it was into universal terms without letting through the name of Christ that the it evaporate into mere ideals and man was healed. And it says, “And generalities. beholding the man which was healed And so, immediately after Step standing with them, they could say One, which concerned the unman- nothing against it.” ageableness of life as some of us You can fight a theory about an had been living it, came Step Two: experience, but you have to ac- We “came to believe that a Power knowledge the experience itself. greater than ourselves could restore AA has been supremely wise to us to sanity.” The basis of this belief emphasize the reality of the experi-

ence, and to acknowledge that it inescapable experience, and told action, and hurl your life after your There is a great hue and cry tocame from a Higher Power than people to “turn our will and our held conception of truth, that things day about people seeking benefits human, and then leave it at that. lives over to the care of God as we start to happen. If it is genuine from God. I’d like to know where, :I It would have been easy, and understood Him.” That left the truth, it will accomplish things on in Heaven’s name, a bewildered and must have been something of a theory and the theology-very im- the plane of actual living. defeated person is to go for the help temptation, to go into the theo- portant as they are-to the churches When we open the door on a he desperately needs, if he doesn’t logical business. Here the evidence to which people belonged. And if spiritual search, with our whole lives go to God! Of course he is conwas. It was evidence of a Power. they belonged to no church and thrown into it, we shall find Him cerned about himself. He ought to All right-then let’s define the could as yet hold no theory, then always there, ready to receive our be, he must be, if he is ever to be Power! But this would have struck they must give themselves to the feeblest approaches, our most selfish made useful to others. But later on against several possible difficulties. God they saw in other people. This and childish prayers, our always en- he must also grow up, stop just If the early AAs had said more, is not a bad way to set in motion a tirely unworthy selves, and ready to using God, and ask God to use him. some people would have wanted spiritual experiment and the begin- get down to business with us. One begins a mature religion at them to say much more, and define nings of a spiritual experience. The experimental approach seems the point where he stops trying to God in the way most acceptable to Maybe it is what we all do when we to me to be of the essence in finding get God to do what he wants, and them. It would have taken only two let religion change over from a mere the help of the Higher Power. Wc begins asking God to show him what or three groups like this, dissenting tradition to a living power. first lean on another human being He wants. from one another, to wreck the I want to emphasize the psycho- who seems to be finding the answer. Many people will tell you they whole thing. logical soundness of all this. Do not Then we come to lean on the Higher have given up faith. They prayed for Moreover, there were people with think it applies to alcoholics alone; Power who stands behind him. Wil- something they wanted, and it did an unhappy association with religion it applies to everyone who is seeking liam James, in the famous passage not come-so either there is no ‘ -a dead church or parson, some genuine spiritual faith and experi- from Vurieties of Religious Experi- God, or else He is not interested in churchgoing people whose weekday ence. When one has done the best he ence, says, “The crisis [of self- them. lives did not support their Sunday can with intellectual reasoning, there surrender] is the throwing of our What childish nonsense! How can professions-and this would have yet comes a time for decision and conscious selves on the mercy of you expect God to listen to every meant a factor to be overcome, in action. It may be a relatively simple powers which, whatever they may selfish, half-baked prayer we send addition to those already present. decision: really to enter wholly into be, are more ideal than we are up to Him? In five minutes, He’d Also there were the agnostics and the experiment. The approach is actually, and make for our redemp- have the world in worse chaos than atheists, who said they either did more like science than like philos- tion. . . . Self-surrender has been and it is! Prayer is not telling God what not know anything at all about ulti- ophy. We do not so much try to always must be regarded as the vital we want; it is putting ourselves at mate realities in the universe, or else reason it out in abstract logic; we turning point of the religious life.” His disposal so that He can tell us definitely disbelieved in any defin- choose a hypothesis, act as if it were This, of course, becomes the heart what He wants. Prayer is not meant able or reachable god. (There are a true, and see whether it is. If it’s not, of all religion. Most of us come to to try to change the will of God; it good many people who disbelieve in we can discard it. If it is, we are God in the first instance from a is meant to find the will of God, to God for emotional reasons. As free to call the experiment a success. need. If you want to say so, we align or realign ourselves with I-lis Unamuno says, “Those who deny You can sit about in a vacuum- come selfishly; but I would point purposes for His world and for us. God deny Him because of their whether this be the privacy of your out that, beforc we can be of any That is why it is at least as imdespair at not finding Him.”) room, or an academic classroom, or use to anybody else, we must find portant for us to listen as to speak For an outfit like AA to have be- a pulpit-and discuss the truth of a thc beginnings of the answer for in prayer. come dogmatic would have been theory forever, and it may do you no ourselves, so that this may represent Oftentimes, wc come to Him fatal. So the founders stuck to the good. It is whcn you let truth go into a necessary step in progress. feverishly and willfully, and we just

*. have to quiet down before He can that, unanswered, leave us without there is always potential electricity that changes us deeply on the inside do anything for us. When our voices direction or moorings. But science in a wire plugged into a socket that -that it begins to show on the outare clamorous and demanding, there has no answer to them; philosophy is in touch with a dynamo. But you side. This intrigues people. They is no place for His voice. When we only the answers of a human guess. do not get the power till you close wonder what has happened to us. let the willfulness cool out of us, He Faith is the one candle in the dark- the circuit by turning the switch. They begin asking questions. And can begin to get His will across to ness of life’s mystery. When we get Prayer, in ways unfathomable to us then is the time to open up and us. And, as Dante said, “In His will through to God, by whatever name theoretically, but always open to us witness by words. We do not preach is our peace.” we call Him, or rather when we let nctuully, turns on the switch, opens to others; we do not talk down to There are many people who do Him get through to us, then we be- up the power by closing the circuit. thcm; we do not point to ourselves i, not like the implication of weakness gin finding light and the answer. We do not so much “get what we as the answer. But we do share in the word “surrender.” They likc Thcre are four factors, it seems to want,” as find out what we should those beginnings of victory that we to think they are strong characters me, in all genuine spiritual awaken- do. Awakening, in the individual or know. Every real bcliever must enwho can take care of their own ing: conversion, prayer, fellowship, in companies or in nations, always gage in Twelfth Step work if he is destinies. This is fictitious thinking. and witness. includes discovering the power that to keep spiritually alive. Everyone in this world is some kind By conversion 1 mean the place is in prayer. The parallels between these four of weakling; if he thinks he is not, where one turns towards God, But somehow we never can do points and AA’s Twelve Steps must then pride is his weakness, and it is where one begins to want to be this alonc. From the first, Jesus drew be obvious to anybody. To me, AA the greatest weakness of all. People honest about oneself in the light of about Him a company. To join Him, is one of the great signs of spiritual may think they avoid the overtly one’s faith. I do not mean perfec- you had also to join that company. awakening in our time. It is experidisreputable sins; none of us avoids tion; I mean the search for it and The church has always been a mental and experiential in nature, the folly of selfishness, of self-cen- the start towards it. It is within the scratch company of sinners. It is not not dogmatic; but none can doubt teredness, of pride. That man is reach of all, and it is the beginning. the best people in thc community, that God is what has made AA and fortunate whose problems are of A lot of religious people are likc a gathered together for self-congratu- today inspires it and keeps it growsuch a kind that they get him into crowd sitting in a railway station, lation; it is the people who know ing. trouble, and he has to do something thinking they are traveling. They they have a great need, gathered to 1 believe that AA will go on servabout them. Would that temper and hear the names of trains and sta- find its answer in worship towards ing men and women as long as it pride and laziness and scornfulness tions; there is the smell of luggage God and fellowship with one an- may be needed, if it keeps open to and irritability and greed brought and the stir of travel. But they have other. The church is not a museum, God for inspiration, and. open to people to the same state of con- never gotten on the train. Con- it is a hospital. people for service. 1 bclievc that AA scious need as alcoholism does! No version is where you get on the Witness comes by life and by has been wise to confine its orgaone is strong, and the people who train. You leave St. Louis for Chi- word. A lot of average and self- nized activity to alcoholics. But I think they are are only self-deceived. cago, and you are not in Chicago righteous people think they are “wit- hope and I think we may see an We act as if character and reason- right away; but you arc soon out of ncssing” every day, but thcrc is not clfcct of AA on mcdicinc, on psyably good behavior were the end St. Louis for Chicago, and you are enough dificrcncc between thcm and chiatry, on correction, on the cverand aim of existence. really on the train. Convcrsion is the rcst of the world for it to make prcscnt problem of human nature The real questions in life, which getting on the train and bcginning to any real diffcrcncc. It is whcn a itself and what we can clo about it, underlie matters of behavior, have move away from whcrc you werc. spiritual expcricncc has begun-one and-not least-on the church. an answer that comes only from Prayer-privatc, group, or public God. Whence came I? What am I -is the place whcrc we gct in touch meant to be doing here? Whither am anew with God and His powcr. I going? These are the questions God’s powcr is always thcrc, as