ever achieved this milestone (65 years).
From: Shakey1aa@aol.com . . . . . . . . . . . . 5/15/2009 7:15:00 PM
Phila, Pa. USA
From: Bill Lash . . . . . . . . . . . . 5/17/2009 9:28:00 AM
From: Charles Knapp . . . . . . . . . . . . 5/16/2009 3:59:00 AM
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FROM CHARLES K. AND ARTHUR S.
From: Charles Knapp
found at Area 54 website. 1966 was the first year a theme was used. This
can also be gotten from your Delegate or GSO.
1967- Sponsorship--The Hand of A.A.
However, the 1951-65 Conferences did have dominant or keynote topics.
From: Arthur S . . . . . . . . . . . . 5/15/2009 7:07:00 PM
From: dave_landuyt . . . . . . . . . . . . 5/15/2009 6:01:00 PM
first half-dozen printings from 1946-1950".
Could Tommy, or anyone with the knowledge of
these changes, that would also be appreciated.
Dave L.
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From: Glenn Chesnut . . . . . . . . . . . . 5/18/2009 3:25:00 PM
the 1949 edition.
From: Bill Lash . . . . . . . . . . . . 5/17/2009 12:17:00 PM
Dr. Silkworth Birthday Celebration!
this year).
(Monmouth Rd.), West Long Branch, New Jersey.
and Bill S. (currently writing a book about
the first edition AA Big Book).
PLEASE BE SURE TO BRING A LAWN CHAIR OR
SOMETHING TO SIT ON.
Bill at 201-232-8749 (cell).
plazas, and several automobile dealerships).
Watch for green road signs stating “Route
(this is just before the sixth light).
Take this turnoff to the right, past Carriage
Road).
Glenwood Cemetery appears very quickly on the
pillars and the name).
Once inside the cemetery, bear left, go up
the hill and make the first right (a hard right).
The gravesite is near the first tree on the right.
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++++Message 5715. . . . . . . . . . . . High Road to Happiness Waterloo Iowa
(eztone at hotmail.com)
http://aabibliography.com/
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++++Message 5716. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Themes for General Service
Conference
From: Kevin Short . . . . . . . . . . . . 5/18/2009 7:26:00 PM
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The theme for the 2010 General Service
Conference will be: "Practicing A.A.'s
Principles -- the Pathway to Unity."
Kevin
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++++Message 5717. . . . . . . . . . . . Early AA meeting formats
From: victoria callaway . . . . . . . . . . . . 5/21/2009 11:14:00 PM
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At our BB study tonite I was asked if I knew
anything about early AA meeting formats and
could I find out any info about them. Anyone
have any info on this?
thanks God bless
vicki
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++++Message 5718. . . . . . . . . . . . Wednesday removed from 4th ed. He
Sold Himself Short
From: garylock7008 . . . . . . . . . . . . 5/22/2009 10:43:00 AM
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Speaking of changes made in the 4th edition of
the Big Book - I am wondering why they took the
word "Wednesday" out of Earl T's story ("He
Sold Himself Short," page 262/263) in the 4th
Edition, in all the printings?
Back in the past this was the only day
[afternoon] a doctor in the town I grew up
in - in Nova Scotia - ever took off.
To me it tells of the sacrifice and dedication
Dr. Bob and his family had made for the
fellowship! With the stroke of a keyboard -
a part of history is gone.
Gary up in Canada eh!
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++++Message 5719. . . . . . . . . . . . Dr. Silkworth''s own religious
beliefs
From: katiebartlett79 . . . . . . . . . . . . 5/20/2009 2:34:00 PM
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Hi,
Katie from Barking Big Book study, The Way Out.
Me and my group are wondering if Dr. Silkworth
was himself a religious person.
Many thanks,
Katie
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++++Message 5721. . . . . . . . . . . . Four essays on spirituality
From: Glenn Chesnut . . . . . . . . . . . . 5/22/2009 5:12:00 PM
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Glenn C., four essays on spirituality
http://hindsfoot.org/spiritu.html
TWO ESSAYS on Rudolf Otto and his famous book
"The Idea of the Holy."
The central emphasis in A.A. spirituality is on
learning to develop our God-consciousness and
our awareness of the presence of God. The most
important spokesman for this concept in early
twentieth-century thought was the German
philosopher and theologian Rudolf Otto (1869-1937).
We need to know a little about Otto's book to
fully understand what early AA people meant by
this term "God-consciousness."
"Learning to See the Sacred Dimension of
Reality. Rudolf Otto and the Idea of the Holy,
Part 1: The holy as one of the categories of
the human understanding." The human experience
of the holy and the sacred, the story of Bill
Wilson, the sense of the divine presence, the
holy as the experience of the "numinous," the
use of metaphors, analogies, and ideograms to
talk about this experience.
http://hindsfoot.org/g04sacr.pdf
"The Seven Faces of the Experience of the
Divine Reality. Rudolf Otto and the Idea of
the Holy, Part 2: The experience of the sacred
as the source of true serenity and the healing
of the spirit."
(1) Tremendum: the feeling of awe and dread,
(2) Majestas: the call to total surrender,
(3) Energeia: power, energy, love and Eros,
(4) Alienum: the divine abyss lying behind the
surface illusion of understandability,
(5) Fascinans: salvation itself as living in
the continual presence of the sacred,
(6) Augustus: the power which condemns us but
then washes us clean,
(7) Illuminatio: inspiring us to see and be
gripped by the true goal of the spiritual
life.
http://hindsfoot.org/g05myst.pdf
______________________________
In the 1930's, Rudolf Otto* and Karl Barth**
were considered to be the two greatest theolo-
gians in the western world. In Otto's formative
work, "The Idea of the Holy," he said that
the heart of all of the world's religions lay
in the experience of what he called the holy
or the sacred, which played a central role
even in religions which had no concept of God
(like nontheistic Buddhism and the Native
American spirituality of tribes like the
Navajos and Potawatomis).***
When Bill was talking with Ebby in his kitchen,
he suddenly remembered his encounter with the
experience of the sacred (as Otto's book called
it) at Winchester Cathedral, and he remembered
how his grandfather had talked about experiencing
the same mysterium tremendum while gazing at
the starry heavens in the middle of the night.
Shortly afterwards, Bill Wilson checked himself
into Towns Hospital on Central Park West in
New York City and had a second spiritual
experience while in the hospital, a vision of
light (an Illuminatio as we have called it in
this discussion of Otto's work), where God gave
Bill W. his mission.
*Rudolf Otto was a German Lutheran Pietist
like Frank Buchman (the founder of the
Oxford Group).
**Karl Barth was a Swiss Reformed theolo-
gian (Reinhold Niebuhr, the author of
the Serenity Prayer, was his most famous
American representative).
***Otto's work is especially important
because he showed how even atheists
(or better put "nontheists") like Zen
Buddhists and the members of many Native
American religions can still have a rich
and effective spirituality which can
convey the sacred power which heals
alcoholism and addiction -- but only if
these men and women learn how to
experience the overwhelming power of
the Wholly Other which Otto called the
holy or the sacred dimension of reality.
______________________________
TWO ADDITIONAL ESSAYS:
"The Ground of Being: God and the Big Bang."
Our universe exploded into being in the Big Bang,
13.7 billion years ago. God (the ground of being)
is the infinite and unknowable Mystery out of
which the Big Bang occurred. Eighteenth and
nineteenth century attacks on the infallibility
of the Bible and the rise of modern atheism in
the 1840's. Atheism as control neurosis and
control fantasy. How twentieth century science
destroyed the roots of modern atheism. The ground
of being as the basis of real spirituality.
http://hindsfoot.org/g06grnd.pdf
"Mount Sinai and the Burning Bush: The Cloud
of Unknowing, the Altar to the Unknown God, and
the Dark Night of the Soul." In order to find
a God of our understanding, we first have to
let go of all our old misconceptions about God,
the universe, and ourselves, and make the ascent
up Mount Sinai, following Moses into the Cloud
of Unknowing. As we continue to climb further
and further into the doubt and anguish of the
Dark Night of the Soul, we use the twelve steps
to guide us into a radical reframing of all the
presuppositions of our lives. Disoriented within
the infinite and all-encompassing Mystery, we
discover the God of the empty altar -- the
Altar to the Unknown God, the Agnosto Theo
(Acts 17:23-28) -- and hear the voice from the
Burning Bush giving us only the bare words,
"I am what I am" -- the divine Person whose
grace is his love offered to ALL the needy
and suffering, without condition.
http://hindsfoot.org/g02sinai.pdf
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++++Message 5722. . . . . . . . . . . . Keeping the silkworth.net site
online
From: Glenn Chesnut . . . . . . . . . . . . 5/22/2009 5:57:00 PM
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Messages 5630, 5635, and 5636 ("Is the
silkworth.net site down?") made us all aware
of the problem which Jim Meyers has had
keeping the website up and on line, after
his being on disability and unable to work
for the past ten months.
Some of the members of our AAHistoryLovers
group have encouraged Jim to set up a Pay Pal
account for silkworthdotnet, where those of
us who wish to, could do the equivalent of
passing the hat to help the website out.
I know that this goes against our normal
policies in the AAHistoryLovers, but I think
that for the good of the community of AA
historians around the world, we very much
need to post this note on the AAHistoryLovers,
explaining what has now been done to keep
silkworthdotnet going.
The new Silkworth.net Pay Pal account is at:
http://jimm.freevar.com/
Jim Myers says there:
Hello my fellow AAHistoryLovers! First let me
express my gratitude to all of you who emailed
me in support of silkworth.net.
As most of you know, I have been unable to
work for over 10 months due to disability
reasons. It's been a rough year for me. But
I am confident that the future will be much
brighter for me than the present.
My name is Jim Myers, the creator and owner
of silkworth.net. A little history for you.
It was the year 2000 and I was introduced to
computers by my mother. She was on her way
to Canada and she showed me how to use ICQ
instant messaging computer program to
communicate with each other while she was in
Canada -- one of the largest communications
networks on the internet. It was probably about
6 months later, I became bored with ICQ and
decided I was going to teach myself how to
build websites.
It was rough at first and my first attempt was
building a site about UFO's. That didn't last
long. Then while searching the internet about
AA related stuff, I ran accross Mitchell K's
website. I became very interested in AA history
right then and set out to build a website about
AA stuff. I had to study the code of many
websites and learned at a rapid rate.
Oh, before I forget, I took the suggestion of
those who said open a Pay Pal account so anyone
who wishes to help support silkworth.net can.
http://jimm.freevar.com/
Just click on the URL above and you will be
taken to the Pay Pal page where you can help get
silkworth.net back online and keep it online.
OK, where was I? At first, silkworth.net took
on many forms -- completely different than it
is today. Then I started learning other things
about building websites. For instance, whether
silkworth.net was going to look the same in the
four main browsers, and coming to realize that
most people don't want to hear music on the
web pages. So I started making changes to the
site for simplicity reasons till silkworth.net
evolved to where it is today.
I never intended silkworth.net to grow as large
as it is today (almost 2 gigabytes). I also
never expected the site to become so busy (over
a million hits per month). I got a email one
day not to long ago from doteasy.com where
silkworth.net is hosted. They told me I had
to control the bandwidth, which is unlimited,
and a few other things. They said my site was
the cause of all their servers shutting down.
Well, I think I have said enough for now.
Again, I would just like to say thank you and
I am very grateful to you all for your help.
Yours in Service
Ever Grateful
Jim Myers
P.S. I believe I am going to upload all of
silkworth.net to a free web host just in case
silkworth.net goes off line again, which God
forbid. Again, I extend my gratitude to all
of you who wish to help get silkworth.net
back online.
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++++Message 5723. . . . . . . . . . . . Dr. Bob and Masonry
From: Woodstock . . . . . . . . . . . . 5/22/2009 11:52:00 PM
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I believe that I read somewhere that both
Dr. Bob and Clarence Snyder were fraternal
members of the Free and Accepted Masons
fraternity, though not active during their
AA membership.
I think I read about their membership from an
interview or story written about Clarence, but
I am not sure.
Does anyone have a source or knowledge of
Dr. Bob's Masonic membership?
Jim S.
Pensacola, FL
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++++Message 5724. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Early AA meeting formats
From: S Sommers . . . . . . . . . . . . 5/25/2009 8:41:00 AM
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I have heard a recording of a lead by Bill
Dotson, AA number 3, from the first anniversary
of a group - possibly Canton, Ohio's first
birthday celebration. I believe it's the only
extant lead of Bill D's we have. In his story
he tells of early meetings when the group
didn't know who was going to lead the meeting
until the meeting itself. After five minutes
of quiet time, the group members would vote on
who would lead the meeting.
My thought is that early formats of meetings
might be recalled in some of the old leads, but
the memory of even the sober worthies may not
be historical fact. It's a starting point for
knowing about the structure of early meetings.
It would be interesting to know what was
happening in the "flying blind" period before
the book Alcoholics Anonymous was written.
Thanks for everything.
Sam Sommers
Elkhart, Indiana
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++++Message 5725. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Dr. Bob and Masonry
From: buck johnson . . . . . . . . . . . . 5/23/2009 10:01:00 PM
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Mitchell Klein, "How It Worked," Chapter 9
http://www.aabbsg.org/chs/chs09.htm
"Clarence became involved with the Masons
in Florida. Like Dr. Bob, Clarence was a 32°
Mason."
- - - -
"Bruce C."
(brucecl2002 at yahoo.com)
Also refers us to Mitchell K.'s "How It Worked"
- - - -
From: jdf10487@yahoo.com (jdf10487 at yahoo.com)
The following article claims that Dr. Bob was
a Mason.
Sincerely, Jim F.
http://www.worldviewtimes.com/article.php/articleid-3537
"Dr. Bob was a Mason. Suspended in 1934, he
gained reinstatement after being sober for
some years."
The endnote gives Cedric L. Smith, PGM, Grand
Secretary of Masons in Vermont, as the source
of this information.
- - - -
Note from the moderator:
I would suggest that some member of our group
who is a Mason check the Vermont Masonic records
to see if everything in that last statement
(especially the part about Dr. Bob being
"suspended" and all that) is in fact correct,
before anybody repeats all that information.
- - - -
More importantly though, if Dr. Bob was a good
Mason, then he believed that all you had to do
to be approved in God's eyes was to be an
ethical monotheist. Although most American
Masons were Protestants, Jews were also allowed
to join.
So Masons beleived in one God, the Great
Architect who had designed and created this
universe, and in living a life of honesty and
the highest moral principles, based on God's
Moral Law.
But you did NOT have to believe in the divinity
of Jesus Christ to be a Mason, nor was anyone
required to accept Jesus Christ as their
personal savior.
A number of American presidents were Masons:
George Washington, James Monroe, Andrew
Jackson, James Knox Polk, James Buchanan,
Andrew Johnson, James Abram Garfield, William
McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard
Taft, Warren Gamaliel Harding, Franklin Delano
Roosevelt, Harry S Truman, Gerald R. Ford, Jr.,
and Lyndon Baines Johnson.
The U.S. Declaration of Independence reflected
this same Deist and Masonic conception of God
and the universal moral law. If we observe
"the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God,"
it is a self-evident truth, the declaration
proclaimed, "that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable Rights, that among these
are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
http://www.givemeliberty.org/DOCS/DECLARATION.HTM
This is the core of AA's moral code: Treat
all other men and women with respect as human
beings equal in importance (in God's eyes)
to ourselves. Respect other people's rights
at all times. Show tolerance to all, and
give everyone else the Liberty to live their
own lives on their own principles -- I have
NO RIGHT to act like a tyrant and try to
impose my will and my beliefs on anyone else.
When I am in bitter conflict with other people,
I must ask myself, which do I want? to be right
or to be happy? Sane people (most of the time)
choose "the pursuit of Happiness" in those
situations as their goal.
Dr. Bob was 55 years old when he met Bill W.
and got sober. It doesn't matter what was
preached by some religious youth group that Dr.
Bob had belonged 40 or 50 years earlier. How
many of us still believe when we are 55 what
we believed when we were 5 or 10 years old?
If Dr. Bob had joined the Masons, then this
means that AS AN ADULT he had come to accept
the principle that all God required of us
human beings was that we recognize Him
as the creator (the Great Architect of the
universe) and as the Author of a universal
moral law which intelligent people could work
out for themselves, using their own conscience
and their own common sense, without having to
appeal to any church doctrines or dogmas or
holy books.
Glenn C. (South Bend, Indiana)
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++++Message 5726. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Early AA meeting formats
From: Matt Dingle . . . . . . . . . . . . 5/25/2009 2:55:00 PM
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Early AA meeting formats: see Message #5300
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/AAHistoryLovers/message/5300
"How early AA meetings were held in Akron and
Cleveland."
Matt D.
- - - -
Also see Message #5301
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/AAHistoryLovers/message/5301
and also see numerous passages in "Dr. Bob and
the Good Oldtimers."
There was considerable flux (and considerable
variety) in the way AA meetings were conducted
during the early period.
GFC
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++++Message 5727. . . . . . . . . . . . 27th Annual Manitoba Conference,
Winnipeg, 1971
From: mrpetesplace . . . . . . . . . . . . 5/23/2009 2:36:00 PM
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I have a plaque with pictures of Bill and Bob
on it, that comes from the 27th Annual Manitoba
Conference in Winnipeg in 1971.
For Bill it has 1895 - 1971 so I know it was
made sometime later that year after Bill passed
(he died on 24 January at the beginning of 1971).
I have a picture of it at
http://www.aastuff.com/plaque
I know it is about 38 years old but am curious
to know more about when the conference was held
or any information on it.
Also, any information on this plaque would be
great. Were there more of them made? I'm thinking
it was a centerpiece for the podium at conference
or perhaps might have been given to quest
speakers (in which case, more than one would
have been made).
Thank you in advance for help.
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++++Message 5728. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Early AA meeting formats
From: James Flynn . . . . . . . . . . . . 5/25/2009 2:55:00 PM
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What happened during the flying blind period
was Bill and Bob had lots and lots of failed
attempts at trying to get and keep alcoholics
sober. Bill D. was AA number 3.
There have always been small number of
alcoholics who have gotten sober through
religious conversion and even the psycho-
logical approach (see Richard Peabody's
"The Common Sense of Drinking).
The Washintonians were perhaps the first to
show that sobriety could be mass produced,
followed later by Alcoholics Anonymous, but
there may have been other large movements
throughout the course of history that have
arisen and faded away.
Sincerely, Jim F.
- - - -
From: S Sommers
Subject: [AAHistoryLovers] Re: Early AA meeting formats
To: AAHistoryLovers@yahoogroups.com
Date: Monday, May 25, 2009, 5:41 AM
I have heard a recording of a lead by Bill
Dotson, AA number 3, from the first anniversary
of a group - possibly Canton, Ohio's first
birthday celebration. I believe it's the only
extant lead of Bill D's we have. In his story
he tells of early meetings when the group
didn't know who was going to lead the meeting
until the meeting itself. After five minutes
of quiet time, the group members would vote on
who would lead the meeting.
My thought is that early formats of meetings
might be recalled in some of the old leads, but
the memory of even the sober worthies may not
be historical fact. It's a starting point for
knowing about the structure of early meetings.
It would be interesting to know what was
happening in the "flying blind" period before
the book Alcoholics Anonymous was written.
Thanks for everything.
Sam Sommers
Elkhart, Indiana
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++++Message 5729. . . . . . . . . . . . RE: Four essays on spirituality
From: jenny andrews . . . . . . . . . . . . 5/23/2009 4:43:00 AM
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DONALD REEVES
There is a powerful description of "deflation
at depth" in Donald Reeves' autobiograpy.*
Reeves, now a retired Anglican priest, told
how in the 1950s he experienced his own rock
bottom, viz:
"Over the days I received what I can only
describe as a gift, not mediated by anyone or
anything. The gift came with the words,
'Do not fear; you will be all right.'
PAUL TILLICH
Years later in a sermon by Paul Tillich, in
"The Shaking of the Foundations", I recognised
what I experienced in that Beirut church:
'We cannot transform our lives, unless we allow
them to be transformed by a stroke of grace.
It happens; or it does not happen ... Grace
strikes us when we are in great pain and
restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through
the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life
... It strikes us when the longed-for perfection
of life does not appear, when the old compulsions
reign within us as they have for decades, when
despair destroys all joy and courage.
Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks
into our darkness, and it is as though a voice
were saying, 'You are accepted, you are accepted,
accepted by that which is greater than you, and
the name of which you do not know.
Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will
find it later. Do not try to do anything now;
perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek
for anything; do not perform anything; do not
intend anything. Simply accept the fact that
you are accepted!'
If that happens to us, we experience grace. After
such an experience we may not be better than
before, and we may not believe more than before.
But everything is transformed.'
Theologians and preachers sometimes say far
too much. I was not transformed there and then,
but I recognised enough in Tillich's words which
resonated with my own life.
Atheists irritated by this 'emotional waffle'
say: 'You were just exhausted and wanted a break'.'
To which I respond: 'You are right, but why
reduce everything to just? Can't you understand
the depth and width of what I am describing?'
They say: 'Why can't we have this experience,
then?' And I respond: 'I do not know'. At which
point the conversation falters."
REEVES ON A.A. MEETINGS
In an earlier book Reeves described an AA meeting
as "an arena of hope".
____________________________
*The memoirs of a 'very dangerous man';
Donald Reeves; Continuum; 2009. ("A very
dangerous man" is how Margaret Thatcher
described Reeves when she was UK prime
minister and he priest at St James's church,
Piccadily, London!)
- - - -
Original message from: glennccc@sbcglobal.net
Date: Fri, 22 May 2009 14:12:55 -0700
Subject: [AAHistoryLovers] Four essays on spirituality
"Mount Sinai and the Burning Bush: The Cloud
of Unknowing, the Altar to the Unknown God, and
the Dark Night of the Soul." In order to find
a God of our understanding, we first have to
let go of all our old misconceptions about God,
the universe, and ourselves, and make the ascent
up Mount Sinai, following Moses into the Cloud
of Unknowing. As we continue to climb further
and further into the doubt and anguish of the
Dark Night of the Soul, we use the twelve steps
to guide us into a radical reframing of all the
presuppositions of our lives. Disoriented within
the infinite and all-encompassing Mystery, we
discover the God of the empty altar -- the
Altar to the Unknown God, the Agnosto Theo
(Acts 17:23-28) -- and hear the voice from the
Burning Bush giving us only the bare words,
"I am what I am" -- the divine Person whose
grace is his love offered to ALL the needy
and suffering, without condition.
http://hindsfoot.org/g02sinai.pdf
- - - -
Also see AA historian Richard M. Dubiel,
"Paul Tillich: Key Philosophical Theologian
of the Mid-Twentieth Century"
http://hindsfoot.org/dubtill.html
Also see two chapters by Glenn Chesnut
on Paul Tillich (and Albert Einstein) at
http://hindsfoot.org/pers2.pdf
Chapter 10 (pp. 56 ff.) "Paul Tillich:
An Impersonal Ground of Being"
Chapter 11 (pp. 69 ff.) "Tillich and Einstein"
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