I've decided to deviate from my current path of a review of the Big Book version of Step 11 and post one of my all time favourite quotes (which I just happened to stumble across yet again).
Like many other quotes in AA literature, it's not from a member of any twelve step programme (the man who it's attributed to died 30 years before Bill W got sober) but has been adopted over the years.
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation."
Kind of a cock-eyed double negative almost sarcasitic statement (it was stated or written well over a hundred years ago) but once distilled it makes sense to me and rings true of the way I often judged the world until about ten years ago (when I became teachable):
If I choose to live a life where I refuse to open my mind to new ways of thinking and new experiences then I will remain in the same place I am now - nothing will change.
That's how I read it anyway.
The quote is particularly relevant to my life experience of coming to grips with a "God as I understand him" (or do not understand him as the case may be).
It's very easy to prove the non-existence of my old version of God (the guy with the white beard dishing out thunderbolts) - and I never failed to win those arguments.
It was not until I let go of that particular old idea absolutely that I started to see things differently, at first a little and then, later, a lot.
I'm obviously not alone as it is quoted at the end of an appendix to the Big Book Appendix II - Spiritual Experience.
This particular appendix is tucked away right away at the very end of the Big Book, which is kind of a shame. For me (a disillusioned non-believer) it was a great insight... But I guess you get to see these things when the time is ready: "Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God's world by mistake.". But that's the subject for another post.
The quote's origins are disputed but that is irrelevant.
It is a wonderful reminder to not take anyone's word for things just because they say so or otherwise.
No matter who they are: Govt, Doctors, Sponsors.
Have a great day!
RQ
According to this extensive article it dates back to Rev. William H. Poole in 1879 who was citing William Paley who wrote something similar in 1794).
This is even harder to decipher than the 1939 version. I think it's time we reinvented the reinvention. Stay tuned.