Don P. from Aurora, CO at the 6th Annual Big Book Weekend at Tanglewood in Camden, ME

I am. You may kiss my ring.

And inside this scrawny little thing just filled with pump.

I love palm.

I love pompous people. They are one of the few people I can pick on without any guilt whatsoever.

You ain't pompous. You don't have what it takes to be pompous.

No, no, no, pompous, you're not. We have some other things we will talk about later.

He's also a good dad, you know what I'm saying? This baby is sleeping next to this drunk for God's sake. This nerd do well

this Oh my.

Anybody else here been pompous?

The worst place we display that is at home

in the criminal act called raising children.

That's usually a criminal activity, the way most of us did it,

Forcing my Kingdom upon yours. You will do what I say. You will be what I want you to be. You will behave this way. You are

reflection of me, blah blah, blah, blah. It's a criminal act. So we don't do that here anymore.

Neither were the people I sponsored, nor with my children and grandchildren.

Did you enjoy being pompous?

That's pompous

dismissal of you as a person. I disagree with you, but I don't have any way to counter your argument. So

in today's world, it says whatever.

Oh, somebody said that just not too long ago, didn't they? Whatever,

it just stops everything.

And by worship of other things.

Oh my God.

Money, power, cars, sex work, worship.

One of the funniest things I have ever seen with somebody who understood this, an Al Anon member

who played it out on the floor where I worked. I worked for an organization,

the gut jobs for the men coming out of prison. We did job counseling, setting things up, training, all that sort of stuff. So there'd be eight or ten of them sitting on a bench in the morning. And this little all and on named Paula She. She was cute and vivacious and bouncy and irreverent and nearly pornographic in every move.

It was just Paula

in her natural state

and the boys that sit there and walks and just wander. And we had a

an older Mexican counselor named Mercy Medina.

And Mercy and Paula really genuinely liked each other. And Mercy had a sense of humor.

And one morning when all the boys were sitting there, Mercy ran out and kneeled in front of Paula and said, thank you, Jesus, thank you.

And she put her hand on his head and said, Mercy, honey, I'd make a cripple out of you.

Playing pompous is a game because that's what it is. It's a game,

have some fun with all this,

but those get in the way.

My relationship with God

can't tolerate pomposity, can't tolerate worship of other things. And it isn't. There's a rule against it, but if I'm worshiping money, I can't worship the Spirit. You can't serve 2 masters. That sounds like a rule that's simply a statement of fact. You can't serve 2 masters.

This whole deal is about all or nothing and this is what was given to me. Thank God they didn't pussyfoot with me.

OK, it's all or nothing.

We finally saw the faith in some kind of God as a part of our makeup as much as the feeling we have for a friend.

What do you think of that? Just as a general idea?

Have you ever worshipped anything?

Tattoos. Yeah.

They are demonstrations of who I am or how I think. These are my signs. I worship this to the point where I make a mark on me. Just to let you know this is simple because, well, I've been bit by something.

Where is it? I'll bite him back.

This is me,

says Dawn.

Isn't that funny? At 17, I was already getting to the place where I had to put my name on my arm so I wouldn't forget it.

But you understand it. Worship of some sort? Yeah,

you would. What was yours?

I wish. I'm my daughter. OK, How does that play out? Great.

Would you give your life for her?

Yeah,

we make a mistake with that one sometimes. You know,

greater love hath no man than to give his life for his brother. I used to think that meant I belong to die for you, which is only one aspect of it.

The real truth of that one is I will give my life for you.

I will do my living for you. That's what this is about.

I will live my life as if it were your last day,

not as if it were my last day.

It's quite a change.

So you'd kind of like to stop drinking then, wouldn't you? Does that interfere with your worship of your daughter? OK,

that's good. How long has that been?

Two years? Next week, Hallelujah. Look at that.

Somebody told me he was new. He didn't know he's an old timer.

No, that, and that's good. How about you?

Have you worshipped anything along the way?

Michigan,

Yeah.

Did you ever pray at the tube when the Wolverines were planned?

No, it isn't. Silly as it sounds, those are whatever occupies my attention, whatever gives me the power. That is my God. That's what I'm worshipping

and we all go through that.

That stands in the way. I can only serve one master.

This is a bitch. This calls for some serious thought, doesn't it? I thought, this is going to be easy. Come in, don't drink, go to meetings.

Oh, sometimes we had to search privacy, but he was there.

It was as much a fact as we were.

We found the great reality deep within

in the last analysis. It is only there that he may be found. It was so with us.

What a scary thing to present to somebody like me who had gone deep within what he found. He had to kill it.

Thank God for the people who understand it. Like Bruce said, there's nothing in there that hasn't already killed you,

and if we go in and face it and shine the light on it, it will go away.

Great promise. God can't stand a vacuum. So as I open up

will fill me up.

If I get rid of who I'm not, then I'll become who I am. It's automatic. I don't even have to look anymore.

Is that an acceptable idea? That this is deep within

means casting out most of our old ideas. Most of us have been taught it's out here somewhere, some nebulous place called Heaven or whatever,

or it doesn't exist at all, or if it does, I don't want anything to do with it.

This casts all those ideas out if I'm going to go deep within.

Would you like to try that journey?

I mean, it's a little rigorous journey. It takes several weeks. You can awaken immediately, but the journey to the Quiet place takes a little bit of time because you got a lot of sludge to clear out of the way. So OK, well, I'm, I've taken the journey before. I like it.

I like to go back down to the beginning of the road and pick some guy up and bring him along with me

and make the journey all over again. The journey is most of the fun

in a Jack. It's the journey.

I thought the spiritual awakening meant it's over now. This is the end of the road.

My favorite gospel and I love gospel music. Oh, I didn't know that, but I love to sing those old gospel songs.

Oh, Mahalia Jackson sang. One that epitomizes my sense of my spirituality.

Rusty old Halo. Skinny white cloud. Or skinny white wings and a robe that's so itchy it scratches. A rusty old Halo. A skinny old cloud,

second hand wings full of patches.

And that's kind of it.

OK, no more pump, no more urban,

just a skinny white cloud. And I rolled this woolly. It scratches

any of you ever hear Mahalia Jackson sing?

If you ever have the opportunity, just listen.

She was the voice of God came right through her.

She did to music with Jack dust of wood.

She carved away everything that didn't belong in a song and then sang whatever was left with power and gusto.

So that's where we're going to go looking

as Bruce said, whom I drew near to him, he disclosed himself to us.

How it works is an important chapter that we read so often we've forgotten how important it is.

Its meaning gets lost. It is the approach

to the program.

Rarely have we seen a person fail as thoroughly followed our path.

Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program.

It's not a judgment, it's an observation.

People don't recover. Simply don't use the recovery process. That's simple.

These are usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. Do any of you think that that you're in constitutionally incapable of being honest with yourselves?

You still think that

I used to think there

I want, I want to film, told him that, he says. Well, that's the most honest statement you've ever made. So you're capable.

They're not at fault. They seem to have been born that way. They are not

naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty.

Jesus had a lot of meanings on what is rigorous honesty. What's so funny? We either spend our meeting time talking about things we don't know anything about,

or we dissect things that are very simple. Rigorous honesty means rigorous honesty.

What does that mean? Rigorous honesty.

Their chances are less than average.

There are those two who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders,

but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest. I am one of those

grave emotional and mental disorders to the point where competent authorities properly diagnosed me.

A psychopath is a person that doesn't know the difference between right and wrong, so you can't help them.

A sociopath is a person who does know the difference between right and wrong. I just don't give a damn, so you can't help them. And I was that second

a type 2, whatever that means. I don't know what a type one is, but

I don't need it.

Grave emotional mental disorders

to recover if they have a capacity to be honest.

Have you conceded to your animal self yet that you are alcoholic?

That's as rigorously honest as you need to get to begin the path.

That's the first step in recovery,

to concede to my innermost self that I am indeed alcoholic. And that being the case, there is no treatment for it. I am doomed

to either

live a miserable life or drink myself to death without spiritual aid. That's that's the deal.

Is that OK with you?

Good. Well, he just sent you an Angel.

He sent me three of them. They were ugly, except for Bruce.

Then I'm told how to present myself again. I'm being taught our story is disclosed in a general way, what we used to be like,

what happened and what we are like now.

Now that's pretty clear. Sometimes I hear people talk about what it was like, what happened and what it's like now. And it confuses me a little bit because it isn't the definition. The drama is good backdrop for what it is. What was I like, what happened, and what am I like now? And, and for me, and this is not a please, not a condemnation, but you asked me to share my life with you. I would never ever think of taking a personal problem to an IA meeting.

I can't think of anything sillier for me to do.

Go in with a problem and there's 20 of you here. I leave with 21 problems

now. I'm not going to do.

There are people that we sometimes call sponsors or advisors. They get that

because they will show me a solution. They won't try to give me an answer. They'll show me a solution, which is always the same. Have you prayed about it yet?

Jesus? Why do I call him?

What I do take to meetings is what I was like when I had the problem,

what happened to me and what I'm like now that I don't have the problem, because there may be somebody there with that problem and it takes all three. If all I came to A and heard were war stories, why would I stay here? I know all about that. I mean, I think they're amusing and I think they're vitally important for identification, but there better be more than that. I want to know what happened to you. How come it is you don't drink anymore?

And Bruce and Phil and Roy would tell me that

Now, what do you like? I've changed.

What am I like today? Well, you've been with me over the weekend. Part of the time I

I'm a multi opinionated old man

if you want to take that view.

Brian thinks I'm cute,

but Brian is very astute.

So it goes far beyond that

fact #1 is that I have been continuously sober, alcohol free for a little over 35 years.

That's part of who I am. New people need to know that

you may not want what I have, but you may want that, and that's a possibility. I am living hope and so are you.

We could have worked him over on the street. Wouldn't be the first time

more better, we thought. Let's bring him here among all of us.

Maybe he can gather hope just from seeing the numbers of people

living this way that are laughing and eating and having fun,

really getting something out of life. Let me offer you something here. This book. I get tickled with this knowing Doctor Bob used to sit down at the kitchen table with some of the boys and count noses because most Alcoholics don't make it.

After about three years they were counting noses. One night realized they had 40 people

doing essentially the same thing, that we're staying sober for long periods of time, like six months and seven months,

some of them even two and three years. This is a big deal. Doesn't happen. We better write a book about that.

By the time they got it done to were about 100 roughly. I have heard people say well there were only 77 but Bill liked even numbers. Whatever the hell the truth is doesn't matter.

The fact is, there are more people in this room today than we're in all of Alcoholics Anonymous the night they decided they better write this book.

Is that powerful? Just knocks me through a loop.

What a deal.

And both of them died sober, by the way.

If you decided you want what we have

and I wanted to go to any length to get it,

then you're ready to take certain steps. We had hundreds of meetings on, particularly midnight meetings at York Street on what does any lengths mean?

It means any lengths.

What we spent meetings talking about that was important is what possible lengths are there that we wouldn't go to.

But it just means any likes whatever.

You want me to push peanuts down Broadway with my nose? If that'll keep me sober, I'll do it. You have to convince me that'll keep me sober because I don't humiliate myself before anybody. I'm one of God's kids. But I'm willing. If you can show me a good reason to do it, I'll do it. If it'll make my granddaughter laugh, I'll do it in a flash.

Oh please protect me from the five year old. She could get me to do anything.

We thought we could find an easier, softer way, but we could not.

With all the earnestness that I command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough. From the very start,

some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas with

the result was nil until we let go. Absolutely nil means nothing.

You get no results at all by holding on to anything.

Have you noticed that with new people,

one of the ways that gets displayed

sponsors need to watch for

is suddenly around the four step, you don't hear from them anymore.

And then six months later they come back for the second time and wonder why it didn't work.

And I used to start them at the beginning and go through assuming we missed something.

The last two I've had to did that. I won't let them do that. They were in the middle of inventory. Finish it.

We're not going to do a 123 dance for the next 10 years. Finish this and when we finish the whole process, if you need to, we'll go back and do the whole thing again.

I haven't heard from either one of them. They don't like that idea. They want somebody to do the dance with them.

One of them called me and this sounds cold and hard but I think it's loving.

I do. I want to hear some bad and I want him to die as soon as possible so we can get here quicker

and I prop him up. I can keep him alive for years in desperation. I don't want to do that.

He drank an 11 year sobriety.

His sponsor had done something that he didn't much like, and he got a little resentment toward his sponsor, and his sponsor died before he got it cleared up. When he drank, his sponsor was this higher power. Of course he drank.

I had a low grade resentment that really made him mad. How dare he die before I get it straightened out.

And he dragged and he kept drinking and kept drinking. He finally got to me several years later

and we kind of looked at his life. He was a a holistic chiropractor.

Now I want to show you how God works. I went to one once because of the neuropathy we're looking at.

I've got chronic pain and I just, I get tired of it sometimes and we're just looking at solutions. And they wanted me to take some adrenal cortex compound. It sounded like a good thing till I read the label, 80% alcohol. And I looked at all the rest of their little remedies, 80% alcohol. That's the base. So that's out for me.

So he and I discovered something as we chatted.

He was taking his own medications for certain problems he had. The reason he couldn't stop drinking is that he never stopped drinking.

OK? And then pretty soon he'd go to drinking.

But he'd been drinking the whole time, didn't even know, and the craving was on him. Anyway, we got all that done. He called me. We we had a good Thursday. He was getting ready to ride inventory. He was actually getting started,

had a list made and got a couple columns written and disappeared and over that right after Christmas called me and said I drank over the holidays. What should I do now?

And I pray when I get questions like that, I don't know what to say. There's no rules on that. What does he need?

And I prayed and I heard myself say to him, this Go drink.

Drink until you understand that you cannot not drink. Then call me back

and he's called me once but he was drinking. He hasn't discovered yet that he can't not drink. Sounds harsh but I'm there. I'm ready any anytime he calls, I'm ready.

But until he comes to that, he hasn't conceded to his innermost self that he can't, that he's alcoholic. What can I do for him? Nothing,

and I don't want to spoil a future opportunity.

Time comes that he finds that he will call me because he can trust me enough to call me and we'll go to work. He may die before then, I don't know.

I do know that I can kill him if I just keep putting up with him.

Don't take that as a rule. There are other guys that I just nurse and nurse and nurse. I nurse Chuck for over a year before we got anything done. He was so badly wounded. That's what he needed.

Remember, we deal with alcohol

hunting. Baffling. Powerful

without help. It is too much for us,

but there is one who has all power. That one is God.

May you find him now,

right now.

Find him right here, right now. If you'll get right here right now,

you will find him because that's where it exists and he's everything

OK, and you probably won't fall in your chair.

One third step. We did have an epileptic seizure,

but I think that would have happened anyway. This is a rather uptight person that was getting ready to do it anyhow. Just pick that time for dramatic effect.

I don't know.

Half measures of illness? Nothing.

That's a harsh, harsh piece of truth. Half measured. Don't get me half sober,

half measures available. Nothing.

There's no need to even start this unless you're going to finish it. It's what that says to me,

don't even start it unless you're going to finish it, because this is rigorous. This is not easy. This is really tough stuff we're about. It takes the power of God to get me where I can even look at myself for goodness sakes. And then it kind of honestly, I can't do it alone. I can't get rigorously honest.

Then they go through the steps to tell us exactly what we're faced with and our response is automatic. What an order. I can't go through with that.

Making amends looks pretty scary when you're not even sure that you've done anything wrong. After all, it was their fault.

One of my favorite things when I'm working with inmates in therapeutic situations

is to just ask somebody who brought you here,

the judge, sheriff, the marshals, and we go through. Seldom have I ever had anyone say, oh, I did, but that's where we go,

OK,

I won't get through this part because I get tired of this technical stuff and I want to tell more stories.

What an order. I can't go through with it. Well, don't be discouraged. No one among us has been able to achieve anything like perfect adherence to this principles. We're not Saints. The point is we are willing to grow along spiritual lives,

the principles we have sat down here, our guides to progress and we claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection. Very important for me to learn that I thought you go from

sick bad guy

to spiritual fine guy.

It's all

then I'd get my little wool coat with the leather patches on the elbow, my little place up on up near Evergreen at the side of Lookout Mountain, and I would listen to Mozart and Beethoven during the day out on the patio. I had just outside the French doors and dispensed a little wisdom to the peasants as they passed by.

Beloved by all

know the crap we think of

our description of the alcoholic, which we have spent

quite some time describing the chapter to the agnostic

and our personal adventures before and after. Make clear 3 pertinent ideas. One, we're alcoholic and cannot manage your own lives. Second, there's probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism. And third, God could and would if He were sought

another time to get off the train or to go back when I'm working with people and see what we missed. Because the next thing says being convinced we were at step three. If we are not convinced of those 3 propositions, we need to spend some more time getting convinced. Are you all convinced? Can you run your own life?

No.

Can you not drink?

Can you run your own life?

Not well, drinking. Which is, by the way, what you do best, right?

Is that what you do best? Drinking.

No, No. Is that what you do most?

Nobody do it really well. You do it really well. You ever do it when you don't want it?

OK,

that's good enough for a start. That's good.

Do you think you can stop by yourself?

I would. Ten months span drinking once, did you? Yeah. That's a good strip. I had to live out the woods and I didn't actually see that.

Following my peyote vision, I lived in the woods for four months. It's the only way I could do it to. The minute I got to San Francisco, I got drunk.

Yeah. No wonder I like you. I'll manage my life. I'll go live with the animals.

You think you're alcoholic? Yes. Can you manage your own life?

Not today. Well, this is the only one you got.

Do you think any of us can relieve your alcoholism?

Relieve it for me? No. No Good. He's not filled with illusion. You're right. We can't. Alone or collectively, we can't.

The next proposition is the one

are you convinced that God couldn't? What if he were Sock?

God could and would if he were soft.

Yeah, that's more difficult. It doesn't say found, doesn't say found. It does not say God was found. Says here we leave it in the seeking. Are you willing to seek?

Good?

That's a straight answer.

He's yours now, Brian.

He's yours now.

Oh, you poor thing. No,

we can move forward. We're now at step three. I'm willing to seek.

I understand I can't do it. I understand you can't do it. So I'm wanting to seek deeper than myself to see if I can find a power greater than myself within myself.

I can relate my alcoholism.

If that's what you want, then we're Step 3. There's no more complicated than that.

Well, I wish I lived here. I'd really like to sponsor you, but I don't.

So I'm going to turn you over to Adolph over here.

No, actually, we're making some fun of that. Brian's the one that found him

on the street,

all right on the street in Camden. Brian found him.

Is that right?

No wonder he looks as scared when we walked up to you.

It's them.

They've been following me all over town.

Oh, you're dear to my heart.

Six years ago it was June.

Same place,

wild eyes totally cycle,

Yeah.

Thank you for letting me love you.

Yeah,

well-being convinced were Step 3,

which is we decided to turn our world in our life over the care of God as we understood Him.

So what do we mean by that? Just what do we do? Then Bill goes through this wonderful thing about the actor, which really pulled my chain because that's me.

How many of you run through this piece before

briefly as we make this approach, and this is particularly pertinent,

selfishness and self centeredness that we think is the root of our troubles.

Are we convinced of that?

OK,

our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. They rise out of ourselves.

We must be rid of this selfishness. If we don't, it kills us.

OK,

there often seems no way of entirely getting rid of self without God's help.

I can't do it. You can't do it. I can't use self to get rid of self.

Can't solve the problem with the problem,

neither could we wish reduce our self-centered as much by wishing it away. I had to have God's help.

He gives us a couple ideas about images for God,

God the Father, the age, the we're his agents and all that sort of thing. I had a little trouble with the Father thing, but I had I had time

to run that through. My sponsor encouraged peripheral contemplation as well as meditation.

And here there's an admonition that don't let your prejudices deter you from asking what spiritual terms mean to you. And I realize most of them don't mean a thing to me. I've been stealing them all my life. But what does this mean,

father? Why am I so upset with my dad? Because my dad was truly a lovely man. He was not perfect, but he was a good man. He was there all the time. He provided for the family. He taught us things.

He exposed us to life.

He'd pull us out of school sometimes because he thought we'd learn more where we were going and we wouldn't. At school,

when we take our lessons with us and we go to Carlsbad or some of what we hadn't experienced,

he was fun, he was playful, he was a musician. He one day he came out, a bunch of us were getting tricky with our bicycles. My dad came out just as a lark, got on it backwards, sat on the handlebars facing the wrong directions, and rode off

Incredible.

But I was pissed at you,

and I've discovered why in that quietness of my own heart, I know deep within me is the fundamental idea. I know what Father means, not as a gender thing, but as a principle.

God the Father, I know what that is. And my dad didn't match up.

No human being can.

I'm asking things to him that are beyond his ability to give me. I was pissed because he didn't give me what I needed at 5:00. Well, nobody could have. For goodness sakes. I was a demanding little shit.

Plus the fact that I'm no longer 5 and I don't need that anymore. Anyway, got to get off his back.

A number of things occurred, but mainly I knew what the truth was and he didn't match it. Shame on me.

My dad and grandpa were the head of the Colorado Ku Klux Klan in the late 20s and early 30s, so we had some funky ideas in our house for a while, and they both awakened spiritually and spent the rest of their lives straightening that up.

They took their robes off somewhere in the 30s. I left their robes on them for years after that.

That's what we do.

That's some of the truth that came out of just this basic idea

that he had done the very best he could of what he had. As far as I was concerned, that wasn't enough. That doesn't matter. He done the best he could, and so had I. At least mine was there all the time. I'm going to penitentiary so my kids are in a foster home.

Maybe I ought to get off his back

inside me, and getting off his back got me off of my back. I've done the very best I could and this is where I am. Maybe I better try something new

because my way doesn't work. It's a wonderful little thing.

And where is children?

I didn't know it then, but what a lovely idea that is. Think about that. What is it that children are supposed to do most of the time?

Play,

and we take it so seriously. Playing, sleep and eat.

Well, if I'm one of God's children, maybe I need to learn how to play.

And I have. I really have learned how to plan. You know where I learned it? Children, adults don't know how to play. See, They've forgotten

one of the guys I sponsor. Brilliant, brilliant man. He's now a millionaire. We don't hear much from him because he's just he's out there somewhere.

But when we got, he's the one that gave me, after 10 hours of listening to his footstep, I'm dying. He's just the juice is gone.

And I said, man, we got to stop. But

so I climbed up on his bed and went to sleep. Woke up two hours later and he's still going at it.

He put a long tent step on my answering machine once. I wasn't there. He didn't care.

But he came to me one day and he said sadly. He said I need to have you teach me how to play.

I don't know how to play. Dad never showed me. I had no brothers. I've been serious my whole life. Would just show me how to play. So we took him up to Estes Park and took him go Kart riding to start with. That's where boys ought to start

on a go Kart with a governor on it so nobody can get hurt.

What he didn't know is we'd made arrangements because we did the roof on this place that if one of us asked, they take the governor off our cart.

But we had a lot of fun. We began to learn to play, took him fishing, took him skiing with me. I didn't go skiing for the first time. Well, the second time, first time I went skiing, I was 16, some kid fell down right next to me and hurt his leg go snap. And I went road to Boggins the rest of the day and didn't go back till I was 50. So I'm a recreational skier.

I really like green slopes. If there's a mogul on it, I don't want to see it.

I just like to

I'm the one the first three times up was embarrassed because some tiny little voice would go on you left and some tiny little kid would go shooting by me. I fell down once in this little creature about so big, said. You all right, Mr.

But I've only fallen a couple times. I don't like falling. My kids took me up there and taught me to ski.

They took me to the very top and they said, pop, there's only one way down. And then throughout the day, each one of them would trade off hanging with me while I learned how to get down off of that mountain. And they told me, use your fear. I'm afraid I'm going to fall. Well, that's what skiing is. It's falling down a mountain.

It's just that you control the fall, but you are falling, make no mistake about it. And if you don't control it, you're going to run into a tree or another skier or something anyway. I'll learn to ski, but I'm a recreational ski. Paul got serious about skiing and he stopped playing. He started doing mobile jumps and all this shit and I lost him as a as a playmate,

so I had to go find me another one. I've got one now that's a fishing buddy.

He's a former. Well, he worked for the Parks Department of Colorado

and he knows all good fishing holes and I'm letting him teach me how to fish.

It's like playing cribbage.

Show me where it is. I know how to get it.

We're children.

Children live with a sense of awe,

and so do I.

The more the longer I live in with a sense of the presence of God in my life and the more I do spiritual things, the more in awe I am because the less I know.

This is an incredible.

We spent a good part of Thursday just sitting on Brian's porch. Brian is such a kind man. He let me sit on his porch

just looking at Maine. Do you know how stunning the places where you live, you have water,

Lots of water

and green trees and rolling hills and the earth smells and I just, I'm stunned by your state. I will go back to mine because that's where I belong. But I sure did enjoy this one. I'm in awe. How can all this be going on here?

And I want to develop that sense more and more and more.

Part of why I can talk to you is that you know I'm not talking down to you.

I know you're scared. I know you're nervous. I know you're baffled, and so am I, and you know that. And we just. We'll get through this thing together.

Yeah. And so we developed that trust because I'm not an adult. I don't know anything he doesn't know,

but I know him and he knows me

and we both have to go to Dad one I had. Let me tell you one thing, we'll jump. Do you want to take the third step now or you want to do it later this evening?

Help me time it OK. I want to tell you one last hang up I had to head to get rid of. My first sponsor became a talking in tongues reborn Christian.

MY2 best friends on the street and my first St. sponsor became reborn talking and tongue Christians. I made myself available to the experience that it just hasn't happened for me. And I went through a period of time where I thought there must be something wrong with me.

And one of my best friends made that same shift. So I started Bible studies and I followed Dick Grant around and would ask him questions, and I truly made myself available. It just didn't happen that way to me. Well, Jim Ellis and I were doing Bible studies

and Jim stopped at the 6th week we got together. He says we're going to stop this. I have come to understand that you love Jesus as much as I do and I don't want to fool with that.

Didn't know what that meant, but I took his word for it before I got unconfused.

A very dear friend of mine,

truly spiritual woman. This woman is on a mission for God and has been for years that manifests this way. There was a time she had work to do, so she couldn't work and she had no money and she had no gas in her car, but she drove it for four months anyway. People would put a rag in, nothing in there. I don't pretend to understand it, I just know she had a mission to take care of and she had transportation.