A bit of an update first - I’ve received a promotion at work, to team leader. It was a welcome bit of news, pay bump and all that, and the increase in responsibility was also welcome. At any rate, on with the post.
Two different threads coalesced for me this evening, one triggered by a news item about the murder of Dr. George Tiller and the other after watching “Valkyrie,” the Tom Cruise movie about one of the more significant attempts to kill Adolf Hitler. When merged, the question that arose was is it ever permissible - in the eyes of God - to kill someone so as to prevent greater loss of life? Think hard before answering that question, no matter how sure you are of your answer.
I tend to avoid blogging on some subjects, and same-sex marriage is one of them. For me, it is something not possible to support in Scripture, so homosexuals who wish to marry one another have no support for their position in the Church. Having said that, the world outside the doors of the local congregation seems hell-bent on forcing the issue of equality to the front, and forcing the Church to accede to their wishes.
In New Hampshire today, compromise language that would have permitted local churches to decline to marry same-sex couples and be legally protected for holding true to the tenets of their faith was shot down by the House in a 188-186 vote. New Hampshire’s governor had said he would sign a bill into law if it had those exemptions in place. That a compromise could not be reached is not a surprise - and no compromise is what is called for. The Church Universal (as opposed to individual denominations with their struggles to deal with all the issues surrounding homosexuality) has always held that it is sin, and should not be accepted or acceptable as a practice.
It is not a popular position that I hold, but I’m not here for a popularity contest. Should the several states declare homosexual marriage to be a legal right, that is something that I believe the voting public should decide, and not a handful of activists - but even so, should the populace decide that it is legal, do not for one minute expect that the Church should give in and support that position. If the state declares something as legal, that in and of itself does not make it moral - abortion being another example.
The world is not the Church, and the Church is not the world. Where we differ, the differences are often stark and and pointed - or they should be. Wherever it is possible to peacefully co-exist, we have a duty to do so. When “social issues” that are in fact moral issues are addressed, the Church should be clear on which side of the fence they come down on. Is that to say that homosexuals should not be permitted to marry? Yes - if by marriage one means the spiritual union of a man and a woman, sanctioned by the local congregation and recognized by the state. If something other is meant - and while I’ve heard the arguments about equality, parity with heterosexuals on issues of insurance and inheritance, etc., I disagree with the logic - then it is not something the Church should be a party to. If the state insists on forcing its agenda onto the Church, I fear what is to come - but I will not be moved.
Tags: Christianity, Daily Life, Politics
To my regular readers, my apologies for the extended absence from writing. Those who’ve just found the space, welcome.
The last few weeks have been hectic. I’m back at the Northwest / Delta counter at work - suffice it to say while it is not a long story, I’m happy to be back where I know what I’m doing already and don’t have to learn the same material with different terminology on ancient technology. Comair was happy to have me back, and I’m back in the swing of things with the NWA side while learning the Delta side of the operation.
The newest change in my life came through a phone call from my oldest son today, letting me know I’m soon to have the coveted title of Grandpa - I told him I was too young for the job, which had both of us laughing. Truth be told, I’m still getting used to the idea.
There have been many other things to write about, but after the Three Tenets series I thought I’d take a little bit of a breather while I caught up on other things. I’ll try to get some of the other thoughts written down and posted next week - busy weekend ahead with graduations and parties.
Tags: Community, Daily Life
Were this a summary of all 12 Steps, I would be obliged to cover Ten and Eleven. Suffice it to say that for our purposes here, the working of those Steps are assumed - the continuing self-inventory coupled with admission of error when discovered as well as the seeking to improve one’s conscious contact with God, asking for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry it out. Without the active working of these Steps, there would be little point in going on to the 12th Step, which reads (emphasis mine)”Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to others and to practice these principles in all our affairs1.”
There are a number of different schools of thought on how one works the 12th Step, as well as how soon one can be actively involved in doing 12th Step work. For my telling of how it has worked its way out, an analogy might help - an imperfect one, admittedly - some folks get the concept. In the movie The Karate Kid, Daniel pleads with Mr. Miyagi to teach him karate (after getting his butt soundly kicked). After Mr. Miyagi gets Daniel’s commitment to follow instructions, he then puts Daniel to work on specific tasks - all to be done a certain way, with no questions - none of which (to Daniel) seem to have any bearing whatever on learning karate. The breakthrough moment for Daniel comes when he is ready to quit after days of doing these chores, and he gets put through his paces by Miyagi. So it was with my coming to understand what 12th Step work looked like, and how one prepares for doing it.
Long before I was aware of what was happening, my sponsor2 and/or others would invite me along when they went on 12th Step calls. We would go to wherever the person wanted to meet with us - their home, a restaurant, wherever - and we would meet with them. While in most cases we would be done with the initial meeting within an hour or two, there was never a clock running on these meetings. In many cases, the individual we went to see was either intoxicated, or just coming off of being so. When we left one such session and our prospect didn’t seem all that interested in following up with our suggestions, my sponsor asked me if I thought it was a successful meeting. When I replied that I didn’t think so, he asked me if I was sober when I walked in and when we left. Puzzled, I said yes. Next he asked me if we’d tried our best to carry the message and not the disease. Again I answered yes. Then it was a successful 12th Step Call, he assured me. That helped me refocus on what a true measure of 12th Step work was about. I am not responsible for the outcome, but I am responsible for the effort. I need to have my own spiritual house in order and be well grounded in what I know and believe, and know what my mission orders are as well as what they are not. I do not effect a conversion; God is responsible for that heavy lifting. My job is to present the message of salvation (or sobriety), with my life bearing witness to what He has done in me and for me. What He does through me is not mine to judge - someone who may not seem to either get it or want it may come around at a later point based on what they heard and saw before them. In point of fact, one of my best friends - the same fellow I’d given my stash to when I decided to get clean - had survived my early “preaching” efforts, and was a witness to how my life did change from merely abstinent to one of sobriety. Nearly five years later, we had another long meeting at his home, and today he has been in recovery for over twenty years, and a follower of Christ as well. God gets the credit (and the glory and the praise), and I get a friend and a brother for a longer timeframe than might otherwise have been - but I did not help him get sober nor become a Christian - God did that. I got to be a witness, nothing more and nothing less.
Boiled down, what I’ve learned about working with others? Don’t preach, but do be a witness. Don’t harangue, but do engage and encourage. Don’t isolate yourself to a life lived only in the rooms (or the church), but do let people see who you are today out in the world and let them ask “What happened? You’ve changed - and it looks good - what did you do?” The answers will come naturally once you are out of the way.
- This adaptation of the 12th Step of AA is meant to be generic; Alcoholics Anonymous is specifically reaching out to other alcoholics, Narcotics Anonymous to other addicts, etc.. Since the principles involved need not be limited to those suffering from addiction, I have substituted the word others to allow for a broader reading. ↩
- For Christians not familiar with AA, think of a sponsor as a combination as a confessor and a teacher with practical experience - someone who has lived out what they speak of - not neccessarily a pastoral type. ↩
Tags: 12 Step, Addiction, Belief, Community, Daily Life, Recovery, Repentance
There is a period in early recovery called the “pink cloud” that usually happens during the time between the recognition that God is doing for us what we can’t do for ourselves and the realization that there are some things we must do for ourselves that are going to be difficult, if not downright painful. The Christian corollary seems to be that timeframe from when we first accept salvation right up until we have to start living in accordance with what Jesus taught, becoming doers of the word and not merely hearers. For both groups, the responses seem to be markedly similar. For those who entered recovery and make it through Step 3 only to balk at seriously undertaking Steps 4 through 9 based simply on reading what they entail, and those believers who just want the joy of their salvation experience to last without doing the harder work on ourselves, the end result can often look the same - stuck in a rut and having to endure increasing periods of depression as the (never to be admitted aloud to ourselves) self-pity party grows - but the difference for the addicted person is that a return to active using is a very real possibility. In fact, it happens often enough that we have a term for it; we call it the waltz, from the 1, 2, 3, Use pattern of behavior. Not surprisingly, this is also known as the “grow or go” period in recovery.
I will try to make something as clear as I can here: I do not see a difference in people here, whether about to become a newly professing Christian or a newly clean/sober individual who has made a decision to turn their will and their life over to the care of God as they understand Him but has not yet recognized Christ’s call on and claim to their lives. Once the drug of choice is out of the picture, all of us are on a level playing field. Salvation and sobriety are not the same thing; though one can receive the other as a gift from God without ever having to darken the door of an AA meeting, those who come to know Christ as the God of their understanding through a 12-Step program and those who are led to make a decision for Christ (I don’t care much for that way of expressing it, but it is understood by most readers) arrive at the same point.
In the briefest of summaries, Steps 4 through 9 are the housecleaning steps. We are to make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves, admit to God and to another human the exact nature of our wrongs, become willing to have God remove our character defects, humbly ask Him to do so, make a list of all those whom we have harmed and engage in the amends process - with the caveat that such amends must not bring harm to another. Much has been written in the literature of the recovery fellowships about how to work these Steps, and I will not recap all of it here by any stretch. What I can pass on is that it is impossible for anyone to get to the meat of recovery or the meat of the Christian life if these areas are not addressed. No store can stay in business very long if it does not know what items are of good quality and in stock, what is overstocked and not moving, and what has gone bad. Such is the inventory process. The confession required in the 5th Step is scriptural as well as spiritual - all the Steps have their basis in scripture - and this is true regardless of whether one is Catholic or Protestant in their outlook. We are - and stay - as sick as our secrets, and many of ours tend to be toxic to the spirit. Steps 6 and 7, sometimes referred to as the forgotten Steps, are crucial to ongoing recovery and in one’s faith walk - why would anyone want to keep carrying around a sackful of garbage when it can be picked up and removed? Lastly, Steps 8 and 9 are where we take our faith in God - which can only have been strengthened if we have been painstaking and thorough in our earlier work - and put it on the line by approaching those whom we’ve harmed, asking what can be done to set things aright, and asking their forgiveness. We take these Steps trusting in Him for the outcome - even if someone does not believe us or accept our amend. We are responsible for the effort to clear away such debris we’ve left in our wake.
Make no mistake - this is a lot of work. It is worth it, but that can truly be said by those who’ve undergone the process. Those who’ve never engaged it merely pay it lip service, and they have their reward.
Tags: 12 Step, Addiction, Belief, Community, Daily Life, Recovery, Repentance
