The topic of "The Lord's Prayer"

Thank you. My name is Charles Lindenwood. I'm an alcoholic. Hi, family. It's good to be here.

It's good to be asked to talk in your home area. Most times when I talk, I'm so far away from home. I can be classified as an expert. You folks know me. I gotta tell the truth.

I've been living in Florida in your area for 14 years and of course this is home now. Do you feel a sort of a spiritual aura in this room? It's been wonderful, hasn't it? I thank the committee for selecting the people that I've got to try to come up to. These speakers that we've had up to now have really made this a beautiful, beautiful convention.

And I thank those people that have considered me among that group. I I feel a little inferior for some reason because, I know the reason there's there's not as many here this morning as there was last night. Father Peter got them all to go to church this morning. I want to go myself. I'm gonna talk about prayer this morning.

And that's a departure from what I usually talk about. I remember when I first came in Alcoholics Anonymous, and and I was pretty bad case. I was what they call a low bottom drunk. They used to point at me and say, keep drinking, you'll be like him. And, I thought that was a compliment.

I thought I thought that meant I was really in there, you know. If they hung around they'd get like me. I I some I sometimes I even forgot I just had 2 teeth. And, I had one up here and one down here and they didn't match. I had to honk on my jaw, sir, like like that.

And I love Spanish peanuts. And, I don't know if you ever tried to eat a Spanish peanut with just 2 teeth. But it takes about 50 clicks. That's not even counting the times you miss it altogether. And, there when a tooth is is sitting all by itself, it looks long, you know.

It's not any longer, but it looks long because it hadn't gained company. And, you don't need a toothbrush. A napkin will suffice you. And, I was in such bad shape. I thought that was a social asset.

And to this day, I'm not so sure it wasn't because there's no way in the world that you can grin at somebody with just one tooth and they don't grin back. But, that's, that's a part of my story and, I I really do want to talk about prayer. I I wanna talk about how impressed I was at my meeting when I first came in on a serious basis. Now let me explain that. I was brought into Alcoholics Anonymous in 1940.

And the people that called on me were 2 well dressed men from the Little Rock, Arkansas group, and I was in the state hospital for nervous diseases in Little Rock, Arkansas. And the only therapy they had was water, hot and cold, squirted out of a hose in a bathtub with hot water just before boiling and a cold tub just before freezing. And you got out of line, I mean, you made a little color coil. And and, they wrap you in a sheet and throw you in this they had a big, great, big attendant on this end and a great, big attendant on this end and dip you in that hot water and seemed like it was there long enough before you even hit it. And then pull you out and put you in that cold water.

That's so good. It was cold in there for you. And no matter how mad you were, you got over it. I think that's pretty good therapy. But, I got out of that.

The psychiatrist that worked on me never made it. He was a little too far gone after he worked with me. He, he asked me one time, said, do you ever have DTs? I said, I had them when they first come out. He says, he said, I'm gonna ask you a few questions and and you just give me the first answer comes in your mind.

I said, go ahead. I knew I was smarter than him. And he said, what would happen if I poke your eyes out? I said, couldn't see. He said, that's good thinking.

He said, now what would happen if I cut your ears off? I said, couldn't see. He said, back up. Now we're going to start over. He said, He said, now, if I poke your eyes out, I said, can't see.

He said, if I cut your ears off, I said, can't see. He said, how in the world do you come at this conclusion? I said, if you cut my ears off, my hat would fall down over my eyes. I can see. Every one of you people in here knew that.

Makes sense. But anyway, that's why he didn't get out. I confused him. And, things went on. I I finally got into AA and they invited me places.

Now I was I was one of them low bottom drunks and, I was standing in the middle of my wardrobe and had 2 teeth and smiled a lot. And they invited me to some nice ladies home where they had a party and nobody watched me and nobody searched me when I left. And they let me just walk around free without any attendants. And I thought, this is wonderful. And I'm still in the middle of my wardrobe.

And they let me go to a dance. And I went all I was having a wonderful time dancing with these pretty little women. We had dirt floor. Just having a grand time. These little old dirty legged women was friendly and and, one of the guys from AA came over and he said, Charlie, after you dance with one of these nice ladies, you ought to compliment her.

I said, certainly. So the next dance I had was with a full figured girl. And she was fat, what you would. But she was light on her feet and a beautiful dancer. And when we got through dancing, I said, I believe you sweat less than any fat woman I ever You can see where I needed some prayers.

I remember the first prayer that I said, and this was before the day that I came into AA. I said, Oh Lord, my God is there no help for the widow's son. And I hear one man back there that knows what that means. There's another one nodding. But anyway, this was from a prayer that I had heard and learned a long time ago.

And I remember the second prayer after I came into Alcoholics Anonymous. I've been sober all day. That is, I hadn't had a drink all day. And they had gotten me a room. You see, I'd been sleeping in flop houses, and somebody got me a room, a $3 a week call room with a chair painted on the wall.

There wasn't room enough for furniture and me in the bed too. But I they told me about prayer that day. I've been adopted. You talk about sponsorship. I mean, you know how it is that you try to sponsor somebody and you say, I'll pick you up.

So and so they say, I got a car. Well, do this. What you need. They don't need anything. They've got everything.

I needed anything you had. Shoestrings. Thank you. Need some shoes to put them in. Anything you had I needed and you had supported whatever it was you gave me.

And I'm I'm thrilled about being somebody, you see. Before I came to AA, I was just nobody. I was a lush or nut and a lot of other names that I'd learned to accept. But one of your nice members told me that you believed I was an alcoholic and that just rolled off your tongue. How cool holly.

I was something, somebody. And I didn't know how to pray. But they said, just say whatever you want to say to your Father which is in heaven. So I knelt down beside this little bed that was in my room and I said, Thank you God for keeping me sober today. And that must have been the right prayer at that time because I got up in that bed and it seemed like I was wrapped in a protective shroud.

Nothing could harm me and I slept like a baby. And the next morning, the sun was shining through that old dirty window at the end of the bed, and it seemed like God was casting his light on me. And I got up and I had dropped my shoes the night before. And one of them had rolled under the bed and I got down on my knees to retrieve that shoe. And while I was down there, I said, God, help me to stay sober today.

And that was the way I prayed at first. And then I remembered that my mother had taught me to pray the Lord's prayer at her knee when I was a child. And I used that word wrong. She prayed. I repeated the Lord's prayer.

Have you ever noticed that in Alcoholics Anonymous, we do not repeat the Lord's prayer. We do not say the Lord's prayer. We pray the Lord's prayer. And we pronounce every word clearly and distinctly, just as if it were the first time God had ever heard it. And it was a direct petition from Him and from us.

And it covers everything we need. They talked a whole lot in those days about Saint Francis of Assisi and his prayer. And I'm sure you're all familiar with that. But in the beginning of that prayer, it says, Lord, make me an instrument of my peace. I didn't want to be an instrument of anybody's peace.

I wanted a little money. I I wanted to be rich. I I wanted to be famous. I wanted to be a whole lot of things, but to be an instrument of Thy peace. And that kept rolling through my head.

And I had been sober for years before, just like a light came on, I realized what I've been concerned about. Lord, make me, force me to be an instrument of Thy peace. I don't wanna be an instrument of anybody's peace. I don't wanna have this and that where those and those are. Where there is hatred, let there be love.

Where there is injury, pardon. Where there is doubt, faith. Where there is despair, hope. Where there is darkness, light. Where there is sadness, joy.

Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console. To be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive. It is in pardoning that we are pardoned. It is in dying that we are born to everlasting life.

But it was that part about make me an instrument of thy peace that sold me on the fact that this was a good prayer. And I pray that every once in a while and I still have to read it. It never has placed itself indelibly in my heart yet so that I can pray it verbatim. And I can't understand why that is because I love it so much. We have another prayer that we use in Alcoholics Anonymous, the serenity prayer.

We just said it a little while ago at every meeting. And then we have what we call the 3rd step prayer. It's short, but it's sweet. It's on page 63 in the big book. This is the big book.

I got this from the Mississippi State Penitentiary, and they covered it for me in this leather and put AA in the praying hands. And over here, that's not a chalice. That's 2 people facing one another. And they explained to me that that was eyeball to eyeball AA. And that's what we're having today.

Eyeball to eyeball AA. And on the front of this, there's there's some names. A whole bunch of names. And every one of those people doing life, you know, the what they wrote in there was to one of us, camp 5 group, Parchman, State Penitentiary, Mississippi. I was accepted as one of them because I have done a lot of time.

I got arrested and turned loose and paid out and rearrested and turned loose. I was doing life on the installment plan. But this 3rd step prayer is, We were not step 3. Many of us said to our Maker, as we understood him, God, I offer myself to thee, to build with me and to do with me as thy wilt. 4 Believe me of the bondage of self, that I may better do thy will.

Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may hear, may bear witness to those I would help of thy power, thy love and thy way of life. May I do thy will always. That's the 3rd step prayer on page 63 in the big book. Then we have another prayer. We call it the 7th step prayer.

And it goes, when ready, we say something like this. My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character that stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength as I go out from here to do your bidding. Amen.

We have then completed step 7. And that's all there is to step 7. Step 6 and 7, and there's 7, just that one short prayer paragraph. Well, when I stood on the day that I became serious, I was in another institution in the psychiatric ward. And I looked over those men that were in there, and I did some constructive thinking.

You see, always before when I was in jail, I was in there because of a series of circumstances. Truth was I got caught. And when I was in the nut house, everybody else in there was crazy. I was there because of a series of peculiar circumstances. But on that day, I became aware of the fact that every time I was in jail, I was guilty.

I should be thankful for all the times that I was guilty and I didn't get caught. And I knew then that day that those people that were in that psychiatric ward, there was about 60, 65 men, and we were all locked up for the same reason, to keep ourselves from hurting ourselves or someone else. I didn't make a deal with God, but I told God. It was just a conversation with God, just a remark. I said, God, if you ever get me out of this nuthouse, I'm going back to Alcoholics Anonymous, and I never am gonna leave.

That was May 15, 1945. And since that day, I've been active in Alcoholics Anonymous, and I intend to stay active in Alcoholics Anonymous as long as I live. Because of you and because of an indebtedness that I owe to you. For it was you and God, the combined effort of you and God that made it possible for me to come from a tutu, lousy I had a few small lives, small but active. They set me down on the front row amongst the infillables in AA.

What's next to the cleanest little man you ever saw in your life? And I'm sitting there scratching and belching and stinking And these lights needed, moving around to make us both more comfortable. He's sitting there sweating because of me. He got a problem. Me.

And you can just hear the wheels turning in his head. Oh Lord, see he's playing. He said, Oh Lord, what do I do with this one? I don't wanna move and let him go and take a bath. He might leave and never come back.

He solved his problem. He took his cigarette pack out of his jacket and he thunked it. And you know how that pyramid of cigarettes comes out? He offered me the pack, and he said, Have 1. And I took 2 and acted like it was an accident, you know.

And I said, oops, I got 2 and offered him that one back. I knew he wouldn't take it. I know it had already been contaminated and he said, No, you keep it. I already had it in my pocket. Then he reached in his jacket pocket and took out a lighter and lit my cigarette.

Then he lit his own, and then he moved over and took an ashtray and set it in between. He said we'll both use this. That's human compassion at work. And the definition of human compassion at work is love. And that man was showing me love.

He was giving me respect, and I knew what he was doing. I knew that man didn't wanna sit next to me and get lousy and that he'd had a hard time figuring out how to do that without hurting my feelings, but I appreciated it. And after that meeting, everybody came up and shook hands with me, and there was a guy came up, a real got had perfume or something. Smells good. And he came over and grabbed my hand.

I said, uh-oh. And he pressed a dollar bill in it, and he said, I was in the same shape you were in when I came in, buddy. And I knew then what He meant. He was just letting me know that he felt for me something that was other than sympathy. This business that, going to, I don't know see I'm not talking to the kind of crowd that frequents missions.

But I used to go to missions all the time, and there would be different church people on duty. And I I would look like the wrath of God, and, I would need anything that anybody had. A kind word would be sufficient. I've looked at people's eyes for a familiar face for years. And I've walked in these missions and somebody from the church would look at me and take a a double take and I said, Oh no.

Well, I'll deal with this one. And then come over and say, have you been saved? And I would think great day in the morning. If I've been saved, what do the rejects look like? I remember one mention that it was it was during the WPA days in in California.

They had a lot of missions, and they had these guys making 25¢ an hour preaching. And they had this mission, had long benches, just 1 bench after another. And the last bomb that come in said on the last they can see. And up in the corner over here, there was a lady that was doing like this, clean. And 3 guys would go in and eat donuts and coffee or whatever, and then everybody would move up.

You wouldn't know what the hell they were preaching about. They changed preachers three times before I ever got up to the front. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and they was about to start over when I got up front with mister 3. I walked in, and they had some benches in there, and she wanna know what I saved. And I said, I've been saved 3 times this morning.

It was that led us 3 out of missions. It was raining that day. And she said, would you like to pray? I said, well, I will if I got it. She said, kneel down here, she's stench.

And I had a bottle of wine in my pocket, my inside jacket pocket. And as I knelt down by that bench to pray, it it hit that bottle and it scooped right out on the floor and they threw my eyes out. I mean religion has gone the pot right there. And I didn't want too much to do with that kind of religion. But there was something about the way you people prayed the Lord's prayer.

And I knew I didn't have sense enough to memorize the Lord's prayer or to conceive of what the full meaning was. So I prayed the Lord's prayer along with him to the best of my ability. But I wanted to know more about what made your eyes clear and what made you walk with a firm step. And I wanted to know what made you have something that I wanted and I didn't know how to get it. And I took this prayer and divided it into 12 parts.

And the first part of the Lord's prayer is hour. Just the word hour. And the first word of the 12 steps is we, we and our. This belongs to us, not to just you or you or you, but to all of us collectively. And it applies to us in our lives because that's what we're doing here.

We're here to prolong and save our lives that were once hopeless and helpless and is not useful. And we know it because people pat us in the back all the time. People shake our hand. People say, my, you're doing a good job. A man with 4 days are so bright, he got a standing ovation last night.

Where else in the whole world would a guy get a standing ovation for staying sober? Something he ought to been doing all the time. Our Father. Now if we can truly and sincerely say our Father, what have we said? We've said that God is our Father, your Father, and my Father too.

If God is your father and he's my father too, that makes you and I siblings. And the sibling, the word sibling, means brother sister relationship. And that's why I say Christ family, because this is my family. You are my brothers and you are my sisters. And I love you, and I want you to know it.

That's why I say cry family. It's in the book. It's in the big, big book. Not this book. A big, big book.

That establishes a relationship between you and me and God Almighty, our Father. And if you're a little hesitant about getting into the real works of this program, just dwell on those two words, our Father, and what it really means. And you have made a foundation, a strong foundation, upon which to build your spiritual life, because that's what this program is, completely and holy and 100% spiritual. Not religious. Nobody has ever asked you what was your religion in AA.

Nobody has asked you anything about whether you were this, that, or the other. Nobody really cares. But everybody was does want to know if you're doing the best you can with yourself. And that's spirituality. Now we say our father, we've determined whom we are addressing.

We're praying to our Father. And where is he? With art in heaven. Now if he's in heaven and we're on earth, we're a long ways apart. And I said to myself, good gracious.

God's way up there in heaven, and here I am down here in this flop house. God's gonna have to listen off of close because there's a lot going on between me and him. And then after a few years, the astronauts went up on the moon and made some pictures of the earth. And lo and behold, the earth is floating out there in the heavens. The earth is a part of the heavens.

So God lives in the heavens. Sure. And we live in a part of God's heavens. The earth is a part of the heavens. And then then the third part is hallowed be thy name.

I I had to look that word up. You see, I I was raised in Arkansas and way out in the country. I mean, way out in the country. And and on Sunday morning, full daylight, we'd hitch up the mules to the work wagon and put some boards across and some toe sacks full of corn shucks so the old folks could sit on them and and, put some hay and grain in for the mules to eat after we got to church. And we would drive and drive and drive for miles and finally get to this church and take the mules' bridle off so they could eat.

And they would stand out there and stomp and swish their tails and make sounds that news make. And, the kids would be running around playing games, run sheep, run and catch and all that sort of thing. And the women would go inside the church with them little daddy type babies and then then, nursing from the original container. And and, the preacher had to holler. And I thought it was hollowed designee.

But there was a woman in Washington DC, thought his name was Harold. So I wasn't doing so bad. That's hallowed be thy name. Hallowed means holy, revered. Did you ever notice that when anybody uses God's name, if they use it in a hallowed manner, in a holy manner, you feel drawn to that person because he has respected your father, your heavenly father, and you know this man is your brother.

But if he uses God's name in a disrespectful manner, if he uses it in a blasphemous manner, it sort of builds up a wall between you and him, and you're separated. I noticed that even before I ever came to AA, that there was something about the way the means God was used that impressed me, either favorably or unfavorably. So thy kingdom come. We'll get to that. That's the 4th part of the Lord's prayer.

Thy kingdom come. We're gonna get back to that just like in the 4th step. You know, the 4th step is the first inventory step. But way on further in the steps, when you get up to the 10th step, you're right back to another inventory. I'll call your attention to that when we get a little further in there.

Thy kingdom come. It's like to me in in the beginning, it was like it's a promise. Thy kingdom is gonna come. If you just be patient, God's kingdom will come. And then the the next part is thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

I gotta be off of patience because earth and heaven, I I can't quite grasp that, but it's so simple. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Well, if we're already in the heavens, if the earth is just floating out there as part of the heavens, it's already here. We've been living in God's heaven ever since we were born, and all of our ancestors have been in heaven. We've just abused the privilege and not accepted the reality of God's gift to us.

We're the only creature that he created that can think for themselves, that can determine what direction they're going. You can leave this place this morning and go out and do good, or you can go out and do bad. You can go north, south, east, or west. There's no other animal, reptile, reptile, insect, no other of God's creations that can do anything but what he was just made to do. You try to get a dog to do certain things and they still do certain things that you don't approve of, but they certainly do approve of each other by doing them.

Snakes do things. We, as creatures of God's will, created in His image, what makes us in His image? Do we look like God? No. I can't see God as a man or a woman.

I see God as intelligence. I think of God as intelligence because that's the only thing I can think of that can live forever and ever and ever and grow and expand and become more and more as it lives. Older and older it gets, the stronger it gets. Intelligence. So God has given you some of his intelligence.

You'll always meet people that are smarter than you. You'll always meet people that are dumber than you. But they're all smarter than snakes and animals and reptiles. So the 5th part of the Lord's prayer is give us this day our daily bread. There's no way in the world that people sitting here in this audience can confuse give us this day our daily bread with anything but the AA program.

That's all we can live. It somebody says, we we live one day at a time, and and, and they talk about that. And I see no reason to discuss that at all. Is there any other way we can live? You can't live tomorrow.

You can't relive yesterday. It's sort of like the fellow asked me one time, are you letting your hair grow? I said, did you ever try to stop it? You can't live any other way but one day at a time. But the thing here is, give us this day our daily bread.

What is your daily bread? Your daily bread is not the same as yours, and yours is not the same as yours. I know Mary's daily bread is that her cancer will be put into remission. I know that. And she's over getting treatment for this.

I know another lady that's pregnant. And her bed for today is that she'll have a healthy child with all of its fingers and all its toes and two eyes that see. If you've got a child that's gonna graduate soon, and needs a dress, your daily bread for the day is that she gets that dress. Whatever it is that you want most that's paramount in your heart, that is your daily bread for the day. And don't ever hesitate to ask God because it's too infinitesimal to ask God.

God knows the number of hairs on your head. He marks the fall of a sparrow, and he respects your every need. And he's given you intelligence to get it. And if you're in a condition where you need help, he'll give it. But you've got to have faith.

You've got to know. And in Alcoholics Anonymous, that's what we teach. Faith. If we didn't have faith, the next bleary eyed drunk that comes through that door would be rejected. We have faith in thousands of drunks that are out there that we've never seen.

And we know that if they come in here, they'll be alright. And you hear people say over and over, everything's gonna be alright. And some drunk, what the hell are you talking about, man? I'm hungry. I'm getting placed to sleep.

Everything's gonna be alright. I'm sick. Get me a drink. No. No.

You don't drink. Some of you get people to drink. I knew a guy in Washington. He was a saint if ever there was one, and he kept a bottle. He was manager of the club in Washington, and he kept a bottle, the whiskey, and a drunk would come in, and he looked like he was going into the d t's or ram.

He'd pour out a big slug for him, And he'd sit there with him. He said, now step on that, and he'd hope. Be gone. And it begins by saying, if you are painstaking, and then there's 12 promises. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who trespass against us.

Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Forgive us our trespassers as we forgive those who trespass against us. However you say it means the same thing. In an elevator a while ago, it was kinda crowded and a guy stepped on my pet corn. And I had a hard time forgiving him that right then.

I wanted to step on his foot. That was the first impression, you know. But, you know, if if you really wanna be serene, if you really wanna be happy, forgive everybody you know, everybody in this room, forgive everybody you're gonna come in contact with for the next mistake they make. And then when they make it, even though it may be against you, you've already forgiven them so you can't get mad. You've already forgiven them.

I use that as much as I can. I haven't reached the state of perfection yet. I haven't become a saint, and I don't think I'd like one if I met them because we're sort of down to earth as people in AA. We've been there. We've been through hell barefooted, all of us, in your own private hell.

Didn't make any difference if it had lace curtains, or if it had a dirt floor, or if it was in some doorway, some hallway, or under some loading platform. You were still a child of God and he was looking out for you. I used to wonder when I would be in, a gondola on a freight train and it start raining. Oh, God. You didn't do this to me on purpose, did you?

It's pretty rough riding on a gondola in a freight train. You can't get off. You can't get under anything. You got to do like the animals do. You just got to take it.

But it was a good lesson. I don't think that I would have made it if I hadn't drank every drink that I ever drank. I don't think I would have made it if I hadn't had every drunk that I ever endured, I had to do everything I did in order to make it possible for me to accept these 12 simple steps and this beautiful prayer that means so much to Alcoholics Anonymous. Lead us not into temptation. Can you, by any stretch of the imagination, make yourself believe that God who is infinitely good would lead you into temptation?

No. But let's go with that again. It says, lead us period. Not into temptation. We've been in temptation.

We've succumb to temptation. I didn't know that. I've been sober about, oh, I was getting to be an old timer. I've been sober about 3 weeks, and I had some folding money in my pocket. I had it folded like this the long way, and then this way, that 4, 5, $1 bill stuck in here and they and they wouldn't work out.

And you could feel anybody going in after them. And I'm standing in front of a liquor store, and it was all decorated. And that's that's beautiful design, that bourbon. I was always I love bourbon and I called it my round shouldered friend. Did you ever notice bourbons always put up in round shoulders?

Blah blah, and and old temptation. So go on in there and get you a bottle of that, boy. Nobody know it but you and me. And conscience spoke up and say, yes. You go in there and get a bottle of that, and everybody'll know it, including the judge.

And and temptation don't quit right away. They pointed over to a bottle of that Dixie Belle Gin. You know that's put up in that frothy looking bottle. It says, whoo. Won't you get you some of that?

Just think how comfortable that'll make you. And conscious said, you get so comfortable you can't move. And then there was one of these long drinks, you know, mixed drinks, and and it had something like celery and radishes. I don't know what all they put in them things. But anyway, Kent Hastings says, whew.

Look at that. It effervesces. Wouldn't that taste good going down? And and conscience say, yeah. But think how it taste coming up in long green string.

We gotta we gotta exercise our memory. I was thinking about the 1st drink of rubbing alcohol I ever had. I'm sitting on a railroad track. I'm sick, been drunk for days, needed a drink. I'm sitting there, high, dry heaves, and some guy comes up and he says, son, you look sick.

I said, I am sick. He said, if you got a quarter, I know where we can get a drink. I had a quarter. I gave it to him, held his coat for security. Right.

He went away, come back with a bottle with a package all wrapped up in yellow paper. I don't know where he got it. He opened it up rubbing alcohol. He took a sip of it, say, here. I read the label.

It says rubbing alcohol. If taken internally, serious gastric disturbances will result, and they did. But I I took a slug of that and lost it. And he said, man, that ain't no way to drink rubbish, dawg. He say, where you drink rubbing alcohol, you say, you take just a little bit in your mouth and hold it there till the saliva dilutes it.

And then you swallow, lovey dub cocktails was my first mixed drink. Well, that was temptation. I conquered temptation on that deal, and I hope I continue to conquer it because temptation's gonna be with you always. You'll always be tempted. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Now the evil that we need to be delivered from is something that only you know because away down deep in the dark recesses of your very soul live some secrets that you don't share with other people too easily. But let me give you a little cheerful something to dwell on. In the final analysis, this program of ours is between you as an individual and the God of your understanding. He is your final sponsor. He is the conscience that lives within you.

He's that still small voice that says no or yes or go ahead or wait. You got to listen to that conscience. And you've got to remember from whence you came. What made you eligible for membership in this fellowship? And whatever that was, whatever brought you to that invisible line beyond which you could not cross, be thankful for that because that's what kept you from hitting the bottom.

We talk about bottoms. It don't make any difference what your bottom was or what your bottom hit. There's only one bottom. The bottom is death. Not insanity.

Death. You never hit the bottom. You came to a line, an invisible line beyond which you could not cross, and you asked for help. You said, God help me. Or you said something to your power greater than yourself.

In some way, you said you needed help. And you were sincere and God knew it and he gave it to you. And that's what brought you to Alcoholics Anonymous because Alcoholics Anonymous is the only place in the world for drunks. We've got the only book that was written by drunks for drunks. We've been in filtered by a great many other people.

I understand, but the latest count, there was 97 other people using our steps. People as I had a a young man the other day come in. Hey, buddy. Came up to me and said, will you be my friend? I said, well, with certain conditions I had on a necktie I was older than him.

He says, I need a fix. I said, son, you talking to the wrong man. This is no place to come to get a fix. You go somewhere else, wherever they sell fixes, whatever's wrong with you. But in here, if you're an alcoholic, you've come to the right place.

But we can't fix you because we don't know where you broke. But in here, we we've got a tool that fits ever enough, and I think you won. Well, We need to be delivered from evil, and evil as far as Alcoholics Anonymous concern. You people have been in AA for a while, have heard many times that Alcoholics Anonymous is certainly secure. It's got a beautiful set of steps.

Bill Wilson wrote those steps in 35 minutes in bed. Inspired? Certainly. This is an inspired program for drunk, the only program in the world that has ever worked for drugs. Stick with it and protect it.

We have a a thing in alcoholics anonymous that says, cooperation not affiliation. And we can cooperate with people with anything. We can show them where to go. We can help them. We can walk there with them.

We can help them start groups for whatever's wrong with them. But we can't affiliate. Because if a man comes to me with something other than alcohol that's wrong with him, I can be sorry for him. That means I've got sympathy for him. But did you ever see an alcoholic that wants you to feel sorry for him?

No. But when you've got compassion for a person, when you walk in their shoes, they know it and they can feel it. And when you talk to a person at their level, with understanding and compassion, their home, no matter how far down the road they've gone. For Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory. Kingdom.

You remember we talked a while ago about thy kingdom come? Down here we've come to that, says for thine is the kingdom. This is the kingdom. We've been living in God's kingdom all our lives and all the people that in history have been living in God's kingdom. Let's accept it freely and with graciousness.

For thine is the power. The power? Oh, what we need is power because we became powerless. And to be powerless means you don't have any power. You run out of gas, And you need power whether it's a little bit of power or a whole lot of power.

You need that power. And that power comes from that God of your understanding. The way you understanding. And it you notice in Alcoholics Anonymous, we never put a name on our higher power. I call him God, and I I accept him as intelligence, But it don't make any difference.

I was in Africa and I saw some of the the most spiritual people I ever saw. When I got off of the plane in the airport, there were 2 great big tall policemen with short pants holding hands and skipping along like that. I said, good God. I run into a whole country of queer. And I noticed that as they talked to one another, they held one another's cheek and and took their ear and caressed one another.

And after I was there a few days, I said, my God. That's what we're lacking in the United States. Little children do that. Little boys and little girls play together, and they skip, and they hold hands, and they caress one another, and they love one another, and they kiss one another. When did we change?

When our mothers and fathers said, don't hold that little boy's hand. That don't look right. For that little girl, don't be doing these little things. Don't associate with those people over on that side of the railroad track. Don't associate with them.

They're Episcopalians. Don't associate with these people because they're bad. Well, who are we to judge whether a person is bad or not? If we had been judged bad for the things that we did, you and me, we wouldn't be here. We'd be locked up in either a nuthouse or in jail somewhere because you know you've been guilty of things that are not acceptable to yourself, much less to society.

So in AA, I noticed we hug one another. I got a couple of hugs coming in. I got a couple of kisses coming in. I love that. And and can you imagine a guy?

Now I got a whole set of teeth. I got an extra set at home. But can you imagine a guy with 2 teeth? Can you imagine, me me looking at a movie? And you know how you project your personality on a screen?

And as a lover, just you got you gotta have a lover and a lovey. I'd be the lover, a 2 tooth law lawyer. And I do fine doing the hand holding and the conversing and the smiling and the grinning, you know, like that. But when it come to kissing, I couldn't stretch my imagination that far because there ain't no way even if you found a 2 tooth lovey. I mean, if you got excited, you you you'd call 1 another day if you like, one another.