Let us
take a look at what the definition of the subject word is:
1. The passing of judgment on an issue under consideration.
2. The act of reaching a conclusion or making up one's mind.
3. A conclusion or judgment reached or pronounced; a verdict.
4. Firmness of character or action; determination.
Now we
need to see what the first hundred wrote for us, in the original anonymous
text book, all the while, thinking about what has transpired, up until
now, as relates to something that seems to be important to God, and is
slowly encompassing the globe.
On page
fifty eight and fifty nine, we find the following quotes:
If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it
- then you are ready to take certain steps.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God
as we understood Him.
To prove
our point, let us go back to the book of Genesis, and more specifically,
the ninth chapter, verses 20-21:
Noah, a man of the soil,
proceeded to plant a vineyard. When he drank some of its wine, he became
drunk and lay uncovered inside his tent. (NIV)
Any of
you all ever heard the expression "the town drunk?" For
many centuries, ever since Noah came up with the idea of alcohol,
drunkenness had plagued humanity, without a solution, until the first
anonymous fellowship came along, with it's beginning, in the spring of
1935, during the recovery from the Great Depression. Those folks,
from that era of time, really knew about hard times, nationally.
A fact,
little known about Christopher Columbus, is that history has him labeled a
drunkard, that died in a dungeon, in an European country, either Spain, or
Portugal, don't remember which.
And since
it has worked so well for them, the co-founders and early pioneers, it is
alleged that there are now over two hundred and forty anonymous
fellowships, all using the Twelve Step format, in search of a better life.
However, since they are all anonymous, we do not have a clue about how to
go about defining them, with their appropriate name. That does not
matter though, in that we desire to move beyond all of each's singleness
of purpose, and provide a unifying concept, for all anonymous seekers
of faith.
Now to
the reason for this web page. Let us think what those first one
hundred men and women were really given. First, they were given the
gift of sobriety, which is freedom from alcohol. Next God gave them the
beginnings of something that would eventually envelope the earth.
A few years
into the anonymous fellowship experiment, some understood that it was too
religious, for a few of the people, and decided to come up with a generic
God, so that you did not have to accept Christ as your savior, in order to
be a member in good standing in the anonymous fellowship. There were
agnostics and atheists in those days, as there are in America today, maybe
even in greater number than then, considering how divided this nation
seems to be, on issues of the day.
Anyway,
the pioneers broke away from the then Oxford Movement - a Christ based fellowship,
which really caused tremendous potential for division, strife, and
generally bad feelings, from many. Guess that some felt like that
they were betraying God. Wonder which groups were the liberals and the
conservatives, on that issue?
It is this scribe's opinion, with no way to verify it at all, that there
must have been a small handful of people that believed that God was
going international with this concept. And if that was the case, it
had to have a generic God, not an Allah, Buddha, Confucius, Christ, or
Mohamed mandate, so
that all could participate, if they had a desire to stop drinking.
The strange thing though is that the spiritual principles embrace all
religions, with out bias or partiality. You have to come up with
what makes sense to you.
Can you
imagine the fights in those rooms of international flavor, if someone had
the opportunity to say, in the mist of all of us hot heads, "you have the wrong
god?" Have even heard, several of the religious leaders, of one
of the large religions, in the south, has said to all of their members, that they
had better stay awake from the cult members in A. A. Seems that his
response was based on the concept that some think that God is a door knob.
Guess that we need to expand on that idea.
Have
heard it explained by real old timers that if you can make it to the rooms
of anonymous recovery, find a cup of coffee, a table, a seat, and
ultimately a sponsor that will help you work the steps, that lead you to a
higher power, then let the door knob be your god - higher power - until that event comes to
pass. But be sure to make it to that door knob every day, until the
spiritual awakening does occur.
So,
considering that the gift of what was given to the pioneers of the first
anonymous fellowship, which apparently has global importance to God,
who among us has now decided that they want something of that magnitude, and is
willing to take certain
steps?
Should your answer be in the affirmative, we suggest that you pray
your ass off.
If you
are unable to make up your mind, at this time, it is alright with
us. We do understand. Circumstances made us willing too.
But
to help you make up your mind, maybe you can take time to read the
following web page, In
Touch.
The
decisions that we make today directly and proportionately affect the
choices that we have available to us tomorrow.
