Tradition 1 for the church

I’m still thinking about the twelve traditions of AA and how they might play out in the church with a few minor changes.

Tradition 1 states: “Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends on AA unity.”

In a small church basement a Jew sits next to an Arab. Across the circle a doctor is talking quietly to his friend who happens to be a night janitor at the local college. Meanwhile a retired woman sits in the corner sipping coffee happily talking with a girl who looks like she is at least 30 but in reality only just turned 22. All sorts of other people mingle before a middle aged man with glasses and a slight belly paunch walks to a podium and opens the meeting, “Welcome to this meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous….”

Everyone in the room knows that who they are outside the room doesn’t matter at all. Everyone knows that the only important thing is that they continue to recover, and they know that alcohol takes no prisoners, plays no favourites, doesn’t see colour age or gender. It doesn’t pay attention to religious preferences or sexual orientation, it simply destroys lives… Everyone knows that in order to get better they need to love each other, no matter their background or social status. They need to love each other. Their sobriety is dependent upon their loving each other. It is dependent upon their unity. All the rest of the shit be damned, because it is going to be anyway.

A friend who pastors in Gardena, CA was up teaching on the nature and the purpose of the church. As he closed he began to sing, “I surrender half…” He is never understated. Earlier, in a fit of passion he nearly shouted, “The church couldn’t be more divided if God had commanded it and Christ had prayed for it.”

A by product of “individualizing the faith” has been that we’ve lost sight of the fact that God always intended for salvation to be offered and demonstrated in the church. Why would anyone want anything to do with a church that squabbles and finds things to fight about. We act like my kids in the car, “Dad, Thomas is looking out my window! Tell him to stop!” or “Dad, Maggie is breathing the same air that I am! Tell her to stop!”

I kid you not that God has to hear our fights in a similar vein. They simultaneously make him smile at our foolishness and cry at our complete myopia. We fight cause we forget how bad our own plight is. We have no real need of our fellows cause really we aren’t that bad. We need to look again, cause I think we are. We need each other and in the words of Bonhoffer, We Belong Together. Tradition 1 reminds alcoholics of this fact. It is read at nearly every meeting they attend.

Comments

[Barefootmeg]

I like the AA analogy because I think most of us "get" it in a way that we're often not used to "get"ting church.