The OA Big Book Study in Winnipeg, MB, Canada

Now on to chapter four, We Agnostics.

Now this is a chapter that is addressed to agnostics and atheists. And agnostic is a person who doesn't know whether there's a God or not. An atheist is a person who knows there is no God,

and I am an agnostic. I was raised by agnostics who were raised by agnostics. Third generation agnostic. I don't think I'll ever believe in a God, but I don't disbelieve. I just don't know and I know I never will know.

This program has not been a problem for me

because it is open and inclusive. Now, those of you who are religious may wonder why this chapter should be read because it's addressed to people who are not religious, who do not have a God, and there are two really important reasons for reading it if you're religious. The 1st is that you're going to meet people like me, and you're going to have to carry the message to people who don't believe in the God that you believe in. As a matter of fact, chances are good most of people you meet do not believe in the specific God you believe in.

And you're going to have to learn to use language

that is inclusive, even though in your external life, in your religious life, you may use a language that you're much more comfortable with, which is related to your particular religion, your particular kind of faith. So the first reason to read this is to know what the arguments are for someone who doesn't have your faith.

And that's an important thing because in step 12, one of your, well, your obligations to carry the message to people who still suffer. And I'm a person who still who, you know, people like me still suffer. And you have to carry the message to me and you have to learn how to do it. The second reason is a very practical one. If you haven't recovered, if you haven't achieved a freedom from food,

then clearly your faith is not working for you. And this chapter provides an answer for why your faith is not working for you. There's one page

which is addressed to everyone

towards the end. I'll keep you in suspense. By the way, I it is true that I am sucking and chewing something. That's because I have a cough and I do not want to burden any of you and the people on this

tape with that cough. So I am sucking something. But I will watch my eating throughout the day, I can assure you.

And believe me, this is not something that's going to awaken cravings in me. I mean, there's some sugar in it, but believe me, the taste is certainly not designed to make me want more.

So this chapter has it actually towards the end of it. It actually explains why the steps work

and it explains the difference between having faith and living faith and being sane. And it's, it's really, it's really wonderful and, and, and, and very, very powerful. I just realized I did not read to you Doctor Young's letter,

so I'd better reductor Young's letter to you.

It's all about faith. So it's it's it's apropos to read it now.

In 1961 January, Bill wrote to Carl Jung to thank him for the contribution that Carl Jung had made to Alcoholics Anonymous member. I told you about Roland

and he sent him a copy of the Big Book

and Drive, Young responded. And in the pictures that I was sending around

that picked the the letter is actually was framed by Lois very amateurishly. And it's up in this stepping stone that's called this house that Bill and Lois lived in on the second floor.

So Doctor Jung says, and this is found in a wonderful book published by a a called The Language of the Heart. And it's a book that contains all of bills essays that were contained in the

AA magazine called Grapevine, which is the equivalent of our our lifeline.

Dear Mr. W, Your letter has been very welcome indeed. I had no news from Roland H anymore and often wondered what had been his fate.

Our conversation, which he has adequately reported to you, had an aspect of which he did not know now. So first of all, Carl Jung is saying this is true. The conversation that you quoted me in which you quoted me is accurate.

I just read the article that questions that said towards the end of his life Jung was

kind of vaginas thinking and secretary wrote all of his letters for him but I don't care. This letter comes from Carl Jung. It's signed by Carl Jung. I'm going to think of

the reason that I could not tell him everything was that those days I had to be exceedingly careful of what I said. I had found out that I was misunderstood in every possible way. Thus I was very careful when I talked to Roland H, But what I really thought about was the result of many experiences with men of his kind.

His craving for alcohol was the equivalent on a low level of the spiritual thirst or hunger of our being for wholeness

expressed a medieval language, the union with God.

So his craving for alcohol, and this is really the obsession, the whatever alcohol brings to the alcoholic, whatever food brings to us, that sense of ease and comfort is a low level expression of our spiritual hunger for wholeness. We feel

apart, we don't feel whole,

he says. How could one formulate such an insight in the language that is not misunderstood in our days?

The next paragraphs are really interesting

heart. It took me a long time to understand

the only right and legitimate way to such an experience. The experience of spiritual wholeness, is that it happens to you in reality, and it can only happen to you when you walk on a path which leads you to higher understanding. So the only way you're going to get experience, experience is you walk in a path to a higher understanding.

And he gives two ways by which that can happen. He says you might be led to that goal by an act of grace or through a personal and honest contact with friends. So you can be led to that, a higher goal by contact with friends or by

an act of grace. Something just happens to you and you're just sort of opened up

or through a higher education of the mind beyond the confines, the box of near rationalism. Or if you're trying to educate your mind beyond going through just logic,

I see from your letter that Roland H has chosen the 2nd way, which was, under the circumstances, obviously the best way. So Roland chose a path that would lead to higher understanding by going beyond mere law, by going beyond mere logic.

OK, I'm strongly convinced, he says of the evil principle prevailing in this world leads this unrecognized spiritual need, this unrecognized spiritual need for wholeness into perdition, hell. These are words that don't come easily to me. I'll tell you so that this evil principle, that there's an evil principle that's in this world, and it leads this spiritual hunger for wholeness into hell,

which is like the hell of compulsive eating, the hell of alcoholism, the hell of all kinds of things and addictions.

If it is not, if it is not counteracted. So you need a counteracting force to this evil force.

And there are two kinds. Real religious insight

or the protective wall of human humanity.

An ordinary man, not protected by an action from above. Religious insight and isolated in society, No common wall of human humanity cannot resist the power of evil.

What does OAA, any 12 step group provide us but real religious insight or spiritual insight and the protective wall of human humanity?

So we're doubly protected in our goal for a higher understanding and our search for spiritual wholeness. I think that's brilliant. I, I, I think it's, it, it, it's just, this is what is offered to us, this whole notion that we're both protected by the Commonwealth of humanity and we're given a path

that's beyond the confines of mere logic to a higher spiritual understanding. And that's why this program answers our spiritual or thirst for wholeness.

Is that neat? He says

the use of such words it calls the devil arouses so many mistakes, one can only keep aloof from them as much as possible. These are the reasons I couldn't give a full and sufficient explanation to roll in H. But I'm risking it with you because I conclude from your very decent and honest letter that you've acquired a point of view above the misleading platitudes cliches when usually hears about alcoholism. You see alcohol and latinous spiritus and you use the same word for the highest religious experience, spiritus, as well as the most depraving poison, spiritus.

The helpful formula therefore is spiritus spirituality Contra against spirit tomb spirits, spirituality against spirits rather against alcohol. That's a neat letter. OK, so we agnostics page 44,

Joe and Charlie love to read this first paragraph. I do too.

In the preceding chapters, you've learned something of alcoholism. We hope we have made clear the distinction between the alcoholic and the non alcoholic. If, when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely. That's the obsession of the mind. That's the mental obsession. I want to stop drinking, but I can't. I keep going back to it. Or if when drinking, you have little control over the amount you take, that's the physical craving. I can't stop. Once I start, I can't stop. You are probably alcoholic

now. A A Joe and Charlie point out A A has a pamphlet called 44 questions to see if you're an alcoholic. OA has a pamphlet 15 questions or 18 questions. I forgot how many questions to see if you're compulsive eater. The big book has two questions. Do you have an allergy of the body or do you have an obsession of the mind?

You have one or the other. You probably have both

and that really is so much simpler to me. And that's one of the reasons I love the big books approach to the problem is that it's so simple to explain to a newcomer the symbol of the hand going to the mouth and the mind saying I got to stop and not being able to stop. Same for the alcoholic, the drinking. I got to stop. I got to stop and not be able to stop drinking or the drug addict. And all the many excuses that I use to go back

are this very simple ways by which you can explain to any compulsive eater, if that person is a compulsive eater,

what the miracle you experience is.

Because if they have that problem, they know exactly why it's a miracle to say I can be around ice cream or any binge food and not want it. Because they have the mind that has always given them permission to go back. And they despair for good reason of ever being able to get rid of the mind. They go on, they talk about alcohol, atheism and agnosticism. They say don't worry, half of us were agnostics or atheists. It's not that big a deal,

and we'll tell you why in this chapter. On page 45.

They set out the problem, Lack of power. That was our dilemma. What's the problem? Lack of power, that's what step one is. Powerlessness. The problem. Step one, we have no power. We're powerlessness. We're powerless over food,

so that's simple. Once we accept that we ourselves are powerless, that we have no control, the Big Book says we have to find a power by which we could live, and it had to be a power greater than ourselves. How could it not be had to be more powerful than we are, because we are powerless. As Bill says, there had been no more power in Ebby than there was in me at that moment, and that was none at all. And yet he had a miracle and I didn't. So clearly he found a power that was greater and more powerful than he was,

Big Book says. Obviously had to be a power greater their self. That's the second shortest sentence in the Big Book.

But where and how will we define this power? Where is described in this chapter? How is described in the rest of the book?

Well, that's exactly what this book is about. It's main object is to enable you to find a power greater than yourself which will solve your problem. Not which will help you solve your problem, but which will solve your problem. I mean, I'm not proud one way or the other. The fact that I have recovered and that I've been abstinent for X number of years because it has nothing to do with me. If I were left to my own devices, I would not have been abstinent. If I were left to my own devices, I would wait 4 or 500 lbs.

It's a power that all I did was follow instructions and got a power which is not my power. How could it be my power? If it were my power, I'd be eating. I'm powerless. So

I have found a power greater than myself, which has solved my problem and continues to solve it on a, on a day-to-day minute to minute basis.

And they talk about agnostics and they say, oh, look at the agnostic. And we, we, we see religions and we have all kinds of doubts because religions were with each other. And it's all a skeptic if everyone's skeptical.

And they say on page 46,

much to our relief, we discovered we did not need to consider another's conception of God. Our own conception, however inadequate, was sufficient to make the approach and to effect to create a contact with them

as soon as we admitted the possible existence of a creative intelligence, the spirit of universe underlying the totality of things.

I suppose it's possible that's all

we began to be possessed of a new sense of power and direction, provided we took other simple steps. The rest of the steps we found. God doesn't make too hard terms with those who seek Him. To us, the realm of spirit is broad, roomy, all inclusive, never exclusive or forbidding to those who earnestly sleep. It is open, we believe, to all men. And here's again. Remember I told you that I showed you the chat, the paragraphs addressed to women and and to to young people. Here's a chapter addressed to people like me who can't stand any of the religious

terms that are found in this book as open and inclusive as they try to be. Page 47. When therefore we speak to you of God, we mean your own conception of God. This applies to to other spiritual expressions which you find in this book. Don't let any prejudice you may have against spiritual terms deter you, stop you from honestly asking yourself what they mean to you. At the start, this was all we needed to commence spiritual growth, to affect our first conscious relation with God as we understood.

So

we need to ask ourselves, they say in that same in the next paragraph, But one short question. Do I now believe or am I even willing to believe that there is a power greater than myself? Am I willing to believe? Well, you know, was I willing? When I started this program, I saw recovery in other people. They told me that they used to be like me, and they describe themselves in ways that made it very clear that they were like me, but they weren't like me. Now

they clearly were different. One,

they had reached a healthy body weight. But more important than reaching out the body weight, they were able to describe how they were completely insured against going back and having another bite, How they didn't want what I knew I couldn't stop from going to.

And that was a miracle to me. And they told me they did it by having a spiritual awakening. They told me they got that spiritual awakening by following the 12 steps of Overeaters Anonymous. Well, was I willing to believe that I could find some kind of spiritual power by using the doing the 12 steps? What did I have to lose? Was I willing? Sure I was willing. What did I have to lose except my obsession?

What did I have to lose except the pounds? Nothing.

How many diets had I tried in which I should have had much less faith? Because every diet I ever tried gave me back the food and sent me back to the misery that I used to be in? Why shouldn't I try something that seemed to do something different?

An old Jewish joke about an actor who suddenly collapses in the middle of a play and for a while people think it's the the it's part of the play. But curtains is drawn and manager comes out and says is there a doctor in the house? And a doctor stands up and goes backstage

and then the doctor comes out and says, ladies and gentlemen, I'm sorry to inform you, the actor has died. Give him some chicken soup, says someone from the audience. The man is the actor is dead. And the play give him some chicken soup

and the doctor says the actor is dead. Can't hurt, you know,

and that's how I sort of look at this program. It can't hurt. Let me try it. You know what are you going to lose

They now on page 48 start with a series of arguments to the agnostic or the atheist and I used to read this and laugh. I studied a lot of philosophy. I studied logic.

I know a lot about arguments for and against the existence of God. A lot about them, really. I've studied a lot about them

and I used to laugh at this until I started to really, really read the big book and I realized that every other chapter had some greatness in it. Maybe this chapter had something in it too. So I start to analyze the arguments and I and I have been able to understand the arguments. I don't think they're expressed quite the way I'm going to express them, but these are the arguments that they make. First one starts on page 48 and goes on to the middle of page 51.

And this argument is addressed to a scientific mind, a scientific mind. The scientific method is based on this very clear concept.

You come up with a hypothesis, an idea, and you test it and you test it in all kinds of ways. And if that test works out the hypothesis, the idea is worth believing in. We have never seen molecules. We have never seen atoms. We probably never will

because it's what we're composed of. But we believe they exist, at least most of us do. And we believe that electricity consists of the motion of molecules along conductors in in certain ways. Go back to the, you know, the 15th century, the 17th century, even the 18th century, the beginning of the 18th century. And the electric light switch would have been magic. People would not have understood it or accepted that it existed on physical principles. Certainly in the 1500s it would have been magic.

And yet we accepted as commonplace because we accept the theories that work, the theory of electricity, the theory of atomic motion, all kinds of scientific theories. And if we haven't studied them, we may not know them, but we certainly accept the science behind which they do. It's not, it's not as if God turns on that turns on these lights in in any way, or that there's a magician who somehow created these lights. They're based on sound scientific principles which we cannot prove.

But we believe in them because they're based on theories and we've had all kinds of theories over the years which have changed because the tests for those theories have proven them to not to be quite accurate. I'll get into that in a few minutes.

So they say. Here's our theory.

We work these steps and they give us a spiritual awakening which relieves us of our mental obsession.

And it works. Try it.

That's not a bad argument. I mean, when you come to think of it, if a theory works, why shouldn't I try it? If I have a scientific mind, why shouldn't I try a theory that works? And that's basically page 48 to page 51. Page 50 For instance, they say, they talk about the personal stories, and they say right in the middle, on one proposition, all kinds of people have found their God in all kinds of different ways. To say on one proposition, these men and women are strikingly agreed.

Every one of them has gained access to and believes in a power greater than himself. That's the theory. This theory has in each case accomplished the miraculous, the humanly impossible. That's the fact.

These are people who have conquered food or in whom food has been conquered,

and they all say they did it using certain spiritual principles, spiritual ideas. You get honest with yourself, you get honest with another human being. You make amends for the wrongs you've done,

you help others with a hope of reward, of prestige, and you pray to whatever God you you believe in for guidance.

Here are thousands of men and women, worldly indeed. They flatly declare. This is since they've come to believe in a power greater themselves, to take a certain attitude toward that power, to do certain simple things. The steps. There's been a revolutionary change in the way of living and thinking. In the face of collapse and despair, in the face of the total failure of their human resources, they founded a new power. Peace, happiness, a sense of direction flowed into them. This happened soon after they wholeheartedly met a few simple requirements. Thus steps

once confused and baffled by the seeming futility of existence, they show the underlying reasons why they were making heavy going of life. Leaving aside the drink question, they tell why living was so unsatisfactory. They show how the change came over them. When many hundreds of people are able to say that the consciousness of the presence of God is today the most important factor their lives.

They present a powerful reason why once you have faith,

and that's true, that's what got me. I was willing to do anything, anything to get out of the horrible hell that I realized I was living in. And once it was made clear to me that that hell was something I could never get out of my own, I turn to anything that would help me.

And that was the steps. That was what this program offered me, and that's what I clung to.

That's the first argument. A theory that's grounded in fact is worth trying and worth believing in. That's clear. It's a very sound scientific principle, a very sound argument. The next argument is similar, a little different. The only progress that has ever been made in human existence comes from people willing to look outside the box.

That's clear too. I mean, I studied Aristotle, the great Greek philosopher. He had a mind that was bigger than any mind I've ever encountered, except another philosopher named Kant and probably Albert Einstein. But I don't understand Einstein. I have some understanding of Aristotle and Khan. These are Aristotle 2500 years ago, or however long ago he lived, was as brilliant, more brilliant than almost anyone in the world is today. And yet he believed that the

stars went around the earth. He believes in all kinds of things that we do not believe in now.

The the progress in thought came when people decided to try something different. They used examples of Galileo. Galileo and Copernicus were people who were willing to think well

for years as as ship navigation was just confined to small areas, the stars. The movement of the stars based on the theory that the earth, that the stars went around the earth, and that the sun went around the earth worked. But as shipping became, as people began to go farther in the shipping, the stars moved

and they weren't able to be used in this with the same accuracy. And Galileo Copernicus came up with a theory.

Maybe the Earth is revolving around the sun and is rotating on its axis and that then explains why the stars move in the way they do in the way that the previous theory didn't do it. Now Galileo was almost put put to death for believing that because was against the common understanding of his time. But those were theories that they said out were outside the box.

There are all kinds of ideas about whether Columbus was really the only person who believed that the Earth was round.

But here's a guy at least who is, from a legendary point of view, is the idea everyone else thought. You get to certain point and you fall over the edge of the Earth. It was flat. And he was willing to believe that the Earth was round and he could get to India by going in the opposite direction from where India was, Just go around the world and he didn't get to India. But he certainly did prove to many people that the earth was round, that you didn't at least fall off the edge

and and fall beside the turtle, that the four turtles that were holding up their standing on the elephant that held up the Flat Earth.

A willingness to go beyond the box. Roger Bannister and John Landy, where people were runners who were living in a world in which people said you could never beat the four minute mile. No one ever beat the four minute mile they thought they could. They trained. They beat the four minute mile. Bannister was 358. Landy was 359. No one who runs competitively

doesn't beat the four minute mile. They all beat the four minute mile because these people were able to break the burial

just before the Wright brothers flew their plane. Kitty Hawk, Kitty Hawk, Louisiana. The New York Times evidently had a huge symposium of physicists and mathematicians who all came to the conclusion that was impossible to build a heavier than air flying machine, that you would never be able to do it.

Two months, three months later, 2 bicycle mechanics created a heavier than air flying machine and fluid for 67 seconds or whatever it was A willingness to try something that's not been tried before. Our willingness to go outside of your traditions, outside of your normal belief system, is the only way you might be able to achieve change in your life. That's a very powerful argument. It appeals to the adventurous scientist and logician in me.

And they say on page 52.

We have to ask ourselves why we shouldn't apply to our human problems.

The same readiness to change our point of view. We were having trouble with personal relationships. We couldn't control our emotional natures. We were prey to misery and depression. We couldn't make a living. We had a feeling of uselessness. We are full of fear. We were unhappy. We couldn't seem to be a real help to other people. Was not a basic solution of these bedevilments more important than whether we should see news wheels of lunar fright flight? Of course, it was

when we saw others solve their problems by simple reliance upon the spirit of the universe. We had to stop doubting the power of God.

Our ideas did not work. The God idea did. Now if they didn't have that paragraph in there saying, forget the word God, we're using these words. You can use whatever words you want. I would not have read much farther, but but it's simple. We in OA, we in a, A, we in all the 12 served groups have an idea. You work these steps, you'll find some kind of a higher power that will solve your problem. It seems to be a solution that we have and you have not found any solution for yourself.

Try something out-of-the-box.

That's a good argument.

The next argument though, is the most powerful because it shows me to be the hypocrite that I am.

And it it, it starts in the bottom page 52 and it goes on for a while. Basically, it's not working for you. self-sufficient doesn't. self-sufficiency doesn't work for you. You might think you're self-sufficient, but you're not. You're eating, you're drinking.

You try to be logical. It's not working for you. Logic isn't working for you. Logic would tell you you shouldn't go back to eating. Your mind should be able to, if you're logical, should be able to say to you don't have that first bite, don't have that first drink, don't use the don't have the first drug use. Don't gamble again, but it doesn't work. Your rationality is not working.

And then on page 53 they say, and the 2nd last paragraph there arrived. At this point, we're squarely confronted with the question of faith. We couldn't duck the issue. Some of us had already walked far over the bridge of reason toward the desired shore of faith. That's a wonderful image. There's a bridge there, and reason brings us so far. Reason tells us we should try things that if nothing else works, we should try a theory that has been tested and seems to work. Those are the logical things,

the outlines of the promise. The new land had gone luster high, light Polish to tired eyes and fresh courage to flagging spirits. Friendly hands. It stretched out and welcome. We were grateful that Reason had brought us so far, but somehow we couldn't quite step ashore. Perhaps we've been leaning too heavily on Reason that last mile, and we did not like to lose our support. We're we're arrived at a certain point where there is a gap between the Bridge of Reason,

the end of the bridge of reason and the shore of faith. And that's a gap that has been described by the great philosopher Sharon Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher in the early 1900s, the late 1800s, early 1900s, as requiring a leap of faith.

And that leap of faith is just flying out into the unknown. And why do we do that? I mean, we have to do that. Clearly, that's where we are. We have to do that. How do we take that leap?

Well, the big book says

right at the bottom. Let's think a little bit more closely without knowing bottom. Page 53 Had we not been brought to where we stood by certain kind of faith? For did we not believe in our own reasoning? Page 54 did we not have confidence, our ability to think? What was that but a sort of faith? And that's true. How do I prove that logic is right? I can't, because the only way to prove something is to use logical reasoning. You can't use logical reasoning to prove logic. You have to assume logic to prove

to to you to start with logical reasoning. And that's true. And some philosophers have created all kinds of philosophical systems based on different forms of logic which which are contrary to what we know is logic.

You, you, you assume logic. So I believe in something even though I can't prove it. Now it happens to be logic and not God, but I believe in something and I can't prove it. And then they go on and they begin to screw, put the screws on very tightly.

Yes, we've been faithful, abjectly, hopelessly faithful to God of reason. So in one way or another we discover the faith had been involved all the time. We found two. We had been worshippers. What a state of mental goose flush that used to bring on. Had we not variously, in in various different ways, worship people, sentiment, things, money and ourselves? And then, with a better motive, had we not worshipfully beheld the sunset, the sea, or a flower?

Who of us had not loved something or somebody? How much did those feelings, these feelings, these loves, these worships, have to do with pure reasoning? Little or nothing we saw at last.

Were not these things that tissue out of which our lives were constructed? Did not these feelings, after all, determine the course of our existence? It was impossible to say. We had no capacity for faith or love or worship. In one form or other, we've been living by faith and little less.

When my daughter was first born in this very hospital, I held her one minute after she was born and I I don't. I know if I said it or just thought it, but I know the thought came to my mind. I might have said it and I would have and I'd still do it. Although over the years, in her teenage years, there were moments I I might have regretted that decision. But

I mean, she's an incredibly wonderful and lovely person. And, and, and we went through some difficult times and I, I only joke about that. I I have always

loved her tremendously. But what reason led me to the notion that I would die for my daughter? Or that I would die for my wife or I die for my other daughter? My second daughter was born in this hospital as well. What? What? There's no reason. When my daughter was one minute old, I was of more value to the human race than she was.

You know, I was doing nice and good things and, and, and there was every reason to believe that at least for the next 20 years, I would continue to be more valuable to the human race than she would be.

So what, what got me to the point where I would say I would die for you. And, and you know, I, I mean, I happen to be a, a, a, an incredible admirer or not. I happen to be a great admirer of Mahatma Gandhi, who I think was just an incredible person. And I've, I've thought to myself, you know, if Mahatma Gandhi suddenly appeared in the birthing room

of this hospital and I'm holding my daughter and Mahatma Gandhi said, I've just been sent back on a mission to save the world. And I know I can do it. And I would believe that Gandhi could do it, but it requires the sacrifice of your daughter. I would have said go to hell, not, you know, my daughter's living.

What reason would have brought me to that? What reason is there in my worship of Johann Sebastian Bach, the great composer? There's no reason in there. When I listen to his music, I am transported.

What? What logic gets me transferred. Logic doesn't get me transported. I worship that I love those things, and that love is more powerful than any logic in the world is. So the big book says. So you need to have a leap of faith to go from the bridge of reason

to the shore of faith. Haven't you already taken that leap already? Don't you already believe in things?

And my first sponsor said to me,

what do you believe in? What is more important than you are? Do you believe in anything that you can't justify? Is there anything that you would be willing to die for?

And I said yes, because that was the truth. I mean, I don't know. I, theoretically, I, I, I know I die for my daughter and my wife. I, I know that would be like an automatic reflex. I don't know if I die for everyone. I don't know if I have the courage to, to die in ways that I think I could die for. You know, I'd like to think I'd die for all kinds of principled ways. But who knows what would happen in the pins. But theoretically,

I made a list of what was more important than I am. Truth, love, justice and beauty. Those are concepts. They're not a God in the sense of what many people would call God in in the outside world. But they're things I believe in and they're things that I believe are more important than I am. And I said that to my sponsor, said call it God. I said, well, it's not God. God means, you know, some kind of being that exists both in another world, in this world

in some way, call it God, he said. What's your what's your problem

in OA? In the 12 step fellowship? It means anything you want. And some people here will remember

Barb, I just spanked your name for a second. Who was the first person I talked to in OA? She was on the phone list. She's passed away. And she had a religion, a very, very deep religion, which was absolutely contrary to everything I believed in. And she and I had wonderful conversations about God because she didn't care what my God was like and I didn't care what her God was like, what we saw in each other.

For me, it was more passing because I was relapsing in and out of the time when before she died. But when I was had had those moments of recovery, those weeks or months of recovery and we talked about God. We were so happy for each other's spiritual truth. And we had no interest in trying her, trying to oppose her spiritual tools on me or my trying to pose my spiritual truth on her. Able to discuss God in this program

and that's what my sponsor said. He said call call it good orderly direction. That made sense to me. People who are more religious talk about getting direction from God in the form of their spiritual scriptures

or their spiritual leaders or from their surroundings in some way. They get some direction that tells them where they should be going. In a sense, God is pushing them from the behind in the shape of what they believe in. And for me, God is like a compass direction. It's like true north, truth, love, justice, and beauty all around. There's a compass that is giving me 359 other directions, which I call Lori's way,

and then there's the way of truth, love, justice and beauty, true north. And for me that is my direction. So instead of

more religious kind of God pushing you from behind, I have a God that pulls me from in front. But either way, I'm getting directions. And so I get direction from my God. But my God is completely conceptual and abstract. But I live a life according to truth, love, justice and beauty rather than a life according to my concepts of what should be happening this world.

I'm living a spiritual path. So that's my answer. And that's the answer that my sponsor gave me. And, and I am led to that because I believe in those things. They are my passion. They are what I believe in and I cannot justify them.

And so I have taken that leap of faith already without even thinking about it. I am a hypocrite. I say, oh, I can't believe in God because no one should believe in something that he or she can't see or prove or anything like that. And yet I believe in all kinds of things. I can't see or prove Truth, love, justice and beauty. So that's, that's the argument to the agnostic and the atheist. You do believe in something and what's working for what you think works isn't working for you and you should try something different. Very simple argument.