Audio
About this recording
- Topic
- Oxford Group Meditation Methods Part 2 7th Archives Workshop
- Speaker
- Jay S
- Date
- 2002-09-01
Transcript
Source: Jay S – Oxford Group Meditation Methods Part 2 7th Archives Workshop – 2002-09-01.mp3 File: jay-s-oxford-group-meditation-methods-part-2-7th-archives-workshop-2002-09-01.mp3 Duration: 00:17:27
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Mary thought, This can't be guidance. This isn't nice. This can't be from God. This is just me thinking, etc. Write down everything that passes through your minds: names of people, things to do, things to say, things that are wrong and need to be made right. But write down everything: good thoughts, bad thoughts, comfortable thoughts, uncomfortable thoughts, holy thoughts, unholy thoughts, sensible thoughts, crazy thoughts. Be honest.
Write down everything. A thought comes quickly and it escapes even more quickly unless it's captured and put down. And then six suggests that what we do is we test our thoughts. When the flow of thoughts slows down, stop. Take a good look at what you've written down. Not every thought comes from God. We need to test our thoughts, and here is where the written record helps us to be able to look at them. Are they completely honest, pure, loving, unselfish?
Are they in line with our real duties to our family, to our country? And are they in line with my understanding of the teachings of the Bible and other spiritual literature? Seven: check. When in doubt and when it's important, what does another person who is living Two-Way Prayer think about this thought or action? More light comes through two windows than one. Someone who also wants God's plan for our lives may help us to see more clearly.
Talk over together what you've written. Many people do this. They tell each other what guidance has come. This is the secret of unity. There are always three sides to every question: your side, my side, and then what's right. And eight, obey. Carry out the thoughts that have come. You'll be sure of guidance as you go through it. But it's only as you go through it. A rudder will not guide a boat until the boat is moving.
As you obey, very often the results will convince you that you're on the right track. Nine, blocks. What if I don't seem to be getting any definite thoughts? God's guidance is as freely available as the air we breathe. If I'm not receiving thoughts when I listen, the fault's not God, it's usually, it's mine, because there's something that I will not do. Something wrong in my life that I will not face and make right.
A habit or indulgence I won't give up. A person I will not forgive. A wrong relationship in my life I will not give up. How do they know? A restitution I will not make, or something that God has already told me to do that I will not obey. Check these points and be honest, and then try listening again. Ten, mistakes. Suppose I make a mistake and do something in the name of God that isn't right. Of course we make mistakes. We are humans with many faults.
However, God will always honor our sincerity. He will work around and through every honest mistake that we make. A friend of mine says, Make us proud. Go out there and screw something up. But remember this, sometimes when we do obey God, someone else may not like or agree with it. So when there's opposition, it doesn't always mean that you've made a mistake. It can mean that the other person doesn't know, or what to do, or to do what is right. Supposing I feel to do something that I've been told and have the opportunity to do, and it passes.
There's only one thing to do: put it right with God, tell Him you're sorry, ask Him to forgive you, and then accept His forgiveness and begin again. God is our Father. He's not an impersonal computer. He understands us far better than we do. And the results. We never know what swimming is like until we get into the water and try. We will never know what this is like until we sincerely try it. Every person who has tried this honestly finds that a wisdom not their own comes into their minds and that a power greater than human power begins to operate in their life.
It's an endless adventure. There is a way of life for everyone everywhere. Anyone can be in touch with the living God anywhere, anytime, if we fill His conditions. When man obeys—when man listens, God speaks, and when man obeys, God acts. This is the law of prayer. And I spend, you know, I've been fortunate enough to be an active member of AA for 23 years,
[00:05:01]
and prayed and meditated a lot of different ways. This is something that I use. Do I do it every day? No. But I do it regularly. And one of the things is, is that, you know, a lot of alcoholics have busy minds, as my friend Herb King said. And for somebody that has a busy mind, this is a great way to have a meditation practice where what you're not doing is you're not trying to clear yourself out. It's really difficult at the start to get used to writing things down.
It feels like I'm, because what I've always been used to doing is being quiet and trying to be still. And so it feels like I'm starting and stopping the engine when I was first learning to do this. But it's a real wonderful and interesting and exciting technique. Try it. Or if you don't want to try it, inflict it on somebody you sponsor. Let them do it. Make them report. You know, we never have to do anything alone again in Alcoholics Anonymous.
And is this the only way to do it? No. But it's fun if you pick up the copy of the thing, read it, and then go home and read the 11th Step. See if you don't recognize a bit of it. And finally, the last thing I'm going to inflict on you, and we will get out of here before 4 o'clock, is, I'm sure that most of you know this, but this is Samuel Moor Shoemaker's I Stand by the Door. He said it's an apologia for my life.
I stand by the door. I neither go too far in nor stay too far out. The door is the most important door in the world. It is the door through which men walk when they find God. There's no use my going away inside and staying there when so many are still outside and they, as much as I, crave to know where the door is. And all that so many ever find is only the wall where a door ought to be. They creep along the wall like blind men with outstretched groping hands, feeling for the door, knowing there must be a door, yet they never find it.
So I stand by the door. The most tremendous thing in the world is for men to find that door, the door to God. The most important thing any man can do is to take the hold of one of those blind, groping hands and to put it on the latch, the latch that only clicks and opens to that man's own touch. Men die outside that door as starving beggars die on cold nights in cruel cities in the dead of winter, die for the want of what is within their grasp.
They live on the other side of it, live because they have not found it. Nothing else matters compared to helping them find it and open it and walk in and find Him. So I stand by the door. Go in. Go way in, great saints, all the way in. Go the way down into the cavernous cellars and way up into the spacious attics. It is a vast roomy house, this house where God is. Go into the deepest of hidden casements, of withdrawal, of silence, of sainthoods.
Someone must inhabit those inner rooms and know the depths and heights of God, and call outside to the rest of us how wonderful it is. Sometimes I take a day off to look in, sometimes venture in a little farther, but my place seems closer to the opening. So I stand by the door. There's another reason why I stand there. Some people get part way in and become afraid, lest God and the zeal of His house devour them, and these people feel a cosmic claustrophobia and want to get out.
Let me out, they cry, and people way inside only terrify them more. Somebody must be by the door to tell them that they are spoiled. Once taste God and nothing but God will do anymore. Somebody must be watching for the frightened who seek to sneak out just where they came in, to tell them how much better it is inside. The people too far in do not see how near these are to leaving, preoccupied with the wonder of it all. Somebody must watch for those who have entered the door, but would like to run away. So for them too, I stand by the door.
I admire the people who go away in, but I wish they would not forget how it was before they got in. Then they would be able to help the people who have not yet been able to find the door, or the people who want to run away from God. You can only go in too deeply and stay too long and forget the people outside the door. As for me, I shall take my old accustomed place, near
[00:10:05]
enough to God to hear Him and know He is there, but not so far from men as not to hear them and remember that they are there too. Where? Outside the door. Thousands of them, millions of them, but more important for me, one of them, two of them, ten of them, whose hand I am intended to put on the latch. So I shall stand by the door and wait for those who seek it. I had rather be a doorkeeper, so I stand by the door.
Thank you. I never get that far through that thing without… So, are there any questions, or— Yeah. Yeah, we're going to go pick up some liquor stores and sing AA hymns. Jay, just, wasn't Emmett Fox a part of this whole group in the 20s and 30s that folks were all listening to with some of his crazy rallying? Yeah. The question is, what was Emmett Fox's relationship to the early members of AA? Emmett had a church downtown New York that a lot of the gang liked going to a lot. Emmett Fox was recommended by Dr.
Bob to all the guys he sponsored. His books were in Bill's library. I have not read of any personal relationship like Bill had with Sam or with— Yeah, some of the other folks. But there were a couple of the folks that were, you know, very active in the start, and I know that a lot of the folks from the early Foundation Office spent a lot of time down there. A lot of phraseology that Fox used early in the late 20s shows up in the Big Book. Yeah. Yeah.
I can't imagine that somehow it wasn't influenced. Yeah. Wasn't his wife one of—worked for AA in the— No, that wasn't. The question was about, wasn't Fox's—actually, wasn't it Reinhold Niebuhr's wife that was— That was a big, that worked in the office, but I don't… Okay, you're going to stick with Emmaus for five dollars. All right. Yes, sir. Oxford Group faded out when it became… Yes. Yes. The question is, is Moral Re-Armament still in existence?
Yeah, it's called Initiatives for Change, and they're— I'm sorry? No, no, it's, well, yeah, I mean, it's active all over the world. They still have their center in Caux, Switzerland, C-A-U-X dot org. It's a marvelous group of people, and I've had the good pleasure of speaking with a number of them. Yes. How many different people had their office in 61 Gramercy Park? It seemed like a lot of different people.
You know what? I don't have a clue. The question was about the number of people that offices at Gramercy Park. I mean, the 61 Gramercy Park was where the center of the chapel, the Calvary Church was, and in that office was all the stuff that went on, the people who were working at Calvary. There were people who lived there. There were also— that's where the Oxford Group library was. I've got an old literature list, you know, that's got everybody's, all the recommended books and, you know, send away to send your money into 61 Gramercy Park.
But aside from the Oxford Group and people and the folks that were active in the church itself. I don't know really any more than that. Yeah. What about the Hadley guy? Did he write a book? Did—well, not Hadley. I don't—Hadley's stories in the Varieties of Religious Experience. The question is, did he write a book? It's 181 on this copy. It's 181 on this copy.
[00:15:00]
It says here, James notes that I have abridged Mr. Hadley's account for other conversions of drunkards. See his pamphlet. So there's one we got to find. Harry S. Hadley's pamphlet on rescue mission work, published at Jerry McAuley's Old Water Street Mission, New York City. A striking collection of cases also appears in the appendix to Professor Lubbier's article. So we can, you know, we can go back into the bibliography of The Varieties of Religious Experience and maybe find a couple more.
Oh, here's the book that Mark was talking about that I mentioned, The Will of God in Man's Life Work. Was that Frank Buchman? Yes, he was one of them. The cool thing is, is like everybody, you know, he got to hear and get to know Speer, and there's a couple other people. I'm sorry, their names… I spent all night reworking this thing so we could try and put it on a CD-ROM. So I'm a little fried today.
I've only got a third of my personality is working. So, yes, sir. Okay. We were just told that there are about 2,000 members of Initiatives for Change in the United States and around the world today. Yeah, I never asked Randy Ruffin, when I speak to her at the office in Washington, D.C., about how many members they have. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Excuse me.