Joe Blaylock: Alcoholic preacher
~~~
“‘If any of this appeals to you, Joe, by all means, use it. We have a saying, Don’t analyze; just utilize. That’s a pretty good working tool for those of us who have difficulties when we come into these rooms.
“‘So, we merely suggest you do three things. You can do them any way you like. First, we say don’t drink and go to meetings. Preferably one a day. Second, pray in the morning, God, please keep me away from a drink today. And third, pray before you go to bed, Thank you, God, for keeping me sober today. That’s all. It may help you to stay sober each day.
“‘As I say, if you have difficulty with God, then just act as if there is a personal God who cares for you and loves you. And think of the AA groups as being your Higher Power. Above all, go to meetings — one a day, if at all possible.’
“This all sounded simple enough. I just worried about where I was going to get work, and where I was going to sleep for the period of time it would take me to earn enough to rent a room for myself. But, I desperately tried to do as pastor told me, to pray to stay away from a drink, and to get to a meeting every day.
“I have to tell you, it worked. I managed to stay sober, one day at a time, from then on.”
Willy said, “And from sobriety to the pulpit? What twists and turns of fate did that take?”
Chapter 21 – Is Jesus the Only Way?
Joe talked faster as if he feared time would run out.
He said, “Things went rather rapidly after that. From the day I walked into that Storefront Chapel and on into Alcoholics Anonymous I was a new man.
“Pastor Ely (I joined those using his nickname) ferreted out details about my circumstances.
He first suggested a better soup kitchen. You have no idea how important that is to a homeless man.
“A few days later he asked if I’d like to help Suitcase set up tables and chairs for a potluck dinner. The church paid me for this. It wasn’t much. But it was earnings from my own labor.
That was pivotal to regaining some self-respect and renewed confidence.
“I got along well with Suitcase. He invited me at other times to help in similar situations.
Then one day he suggested I might like to apply for his job. That surprised me. But he told me he was moving up a notch shortly, to the position of church sexton. He told pastor of his idea, who also approached me to see if I’d like the job.
“They even helped me find a furnished room in the neighborhood.
“You may have guessed already. It wasn’t more than a month or so before Pastor Elihu asked me, ‘Do you play guitar?’
“So I played bass guitar with the musical group at a church social. It was deja vu all over again.
“Then they had me play piano for another social. I was eventually asked to assist the music director at Sunday services. Within a year I moved up to that position.”
“Shortly thereafter they discovered my love of ragtime and wanted me to play at more church socials. I rose like a meteor to great heights. Pastor suggested one evening that I might want to attend a local college which had a good curriculum in Bible studies. Needless to say, I took him up on the offer. My income soon exceeded my needs by so much I was able to buy an automobile. And I moved to more suitable living accommodations.”
~~~
“That is the story of my recovery. I soon became a deacon of the church. Then a preacher.
From there I became a roving pastor, invited hither and yon, to various congregations to preach and play music. I don’t want to take on a regular church pastor’s duties. I like what I am doing.
And I will continue as long as it pleases the Lord.”
Willy said, “Stepping back a bit, how did you resolve the conflict between AA and your religion? I mean how is that you and Pastor Elihu both find the healing in AA of the sort that Jesus gave to his followers?”
Joe said, “Let me tell you what Pastor Ely told me, right from the start. He pointed out that our trying to cure ourselves was like the story of the Tower of Babel. In that story men tried to reach Heaven by their own resources, building a tower so high that they could reach right up to heaven. But their materials were all faulty. They used man-made bricks instead of stone. And slime instead of real mortar. It failed. And so does our own effort at healing ourselves by our own efforts.
“Then there are those who say all we need is to have Faith in Jesus, and we will be healed.
Just as he healed lepers and the blind. But faith without works is dead. The Epistle of James makes this point very clearly.
“If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and be filled.’ And yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.’
“And sure, we in AA attain recovery through a deep spiritual experience. Some of us experience our spirituality in sudden lightning-like flashes. But others, like me, get it slowly, in a mundane, pedestrian kind of way.
“We privately acknowledge these are born-again experiences. There is no other way to see it.
Our whole attitude toward our fellows and God’s universe is revolutionized, just the way Jesus speaks of it in the Gospels. We know with certainty that God has entered our hearts in ways that are truly miraculous. No human power could have done it. None of us could have gained our sustained sobriety by our own effort alone. No physician could do it for us. Nor is there any medicine that could do it.
“There was no middle-of-the-road solution. For us drunks, life had become impossible. We had but two alternatives. We could have continued our drinking which would have killed us, put us behind bars, or into an asylum. On the other hand, we could accept help from God. As I said, we chose to call God our Higher Power insofar as AA was concerned. As you discerned, though, AA is not a religious organization. We leave that teaching to church leaders. AA is simply a means of getting us sober and keeping our sobriety. It is like a physician with a cure, like Jesus put mud in the blind man’s eyes.
“Then, of course, AA also broadens our religious outlook. We become more tolerant of other people’s religious views. We each stick to our personal faith. But we have come to see that there is more than one way to acquire faith besides our way of getting it.
“There is nothing in the AA program that conflicts with any religious faith. Nothing more than a surgeon performing a needed operation conflicts with any faith.
“In AA’s early days, only the most desperate alcoholics accepted the view that alcoholics could not recover on their own. And even these desperate alcoholics often had difficulty realizing how hopeless they had become. But a few did wake up and took hold of AA principles with fervor like drowning men seizing life preservers. And they invariably gained lasting sobriety.
“AA was built on the premise that if these methods could keep low-bottom alcoholics sober, it probably would also work with others less afflicted. For the most part it did. However, some of the less desperate alcoholics tried AA and did not succeed. They could not yet see their own hopelessness.”
‘There is only one key to AA’s healing power. It is our own willingness to surrender to God’s will for us. That is the way faith works.
“If we accept the fact that we are powerless over alcohol, and have faith that God will heal us it gives us recovery from our alcoholism. Faith, to be sure, is necessary, but faith alone avails nothing.
“The power of our faith rests entirely upon our willingness to turn our will and our lives over to God.”
~~~
“Even the smallest beginning, just a tiny amount of faith the size of ‘a mustard seed’ as Jesus put it, is all we need. We simply need the willingness to give up our self-will, and turn ourselves over to the care of God.
“We learned we must make that decision or kid ourselves that we do have faith. We must make the decision to get out of God’s way. We must let Him take over our will and ou
r lives.
Sure, once we make that decision, our self-will immediately slams the door on God. This occurs again and again. Therefore we must again make the same decision to turn our will over to God.
Again and again.”
Willy reminded him, “Some though point to the Gospel of John which says Jesus is the only way.”
“Yes,” Joe said, “it’s strictly a matter of personal opinion as to the meaning of those words.
Those having that opinion would agree with us that Jesus is the Son of God, and as such is Divine, the Perfect God-man. We too agree that there is only one way, Jesus’ way. We say that AA, as a non-religious organization, just doesn’t use Jesus’ name. We skimp too on the use of the name, God, as I’ve told you. But we do insist that it is virtually impossible to get sober and stay sober without relying upon God. So, I don’t know how that is different than Jesus being the only way. It seems to be a matter of words. More semantics, than substance.”
Chapter 22 -Restitution
Joe wrinkled his eyes, gave a sour chortle and continued his tale.
“Pastor one day said to me, ‘Did you say Oliver? Your middle name is Oliver?’
“I said, ‘I did. Why?’
“He said, ‘Do you see that your initials spell J.O.B.’
“‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but hadn’t realized the significance. Golly, it is unnerving. You’re right. I have been re-living the life of Job, haven’t I?’
“‘It did occur to me,’ he said. ‘Even before I knew your middle name. But then, not to worry. Do you realize that in the epilogue to the Book of Job God gives Job full restitution?’
“‘As you know, Pastor,’ I said, ‘I am still learning. I’ve never studied the Old Testament very closely. I’ll have to take another look.’
“‘I hope I haven’t troubled you,’ he said. ‘The verses are simple. It says: The Lord made Job twice as rich as he had been before…gave him thousands of sheep, camels, oxen, and donkeys…seven sons and three daughters. Then Job lived another hundred forty years… long enough to see his great-grandchildren have children of their own.’”
~~~
Willy shook his head, said, “What a story! We all know about Job, though I must not be alone in not knowing the details. So, you say that Job got everything back more than two-fold?
That makes a good story. But, I can’t imagine it replacing your loss of your parents and your sons?”
“True,” Joe said, “though it does make it less painful. You can’t get the past back, no matter how good the future becomes. But, I will say, Pastor Elihu taught me so much that it makes life worth living again – and without the taste of booze or street drugs. Let me tell you.”
Chapter 23 – Doing God’s Will
Joe was on a roll. He gave Willy a summary of Pastor Elihu’s wisdom.
“I’ll put it simply. He told me, ‘I’m afraid of saying this for fear it will contribute to one’s egoism. But we who practice the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous are closer to Jesus’ teaching than most church-goers.’
“He said, ‘It means we must try to be accepted by God. We don’t hold revivals, or try to win souls, or build churches. We don’t even try to serve the poor. Those are all good works, to be sure. But as Saint Paul so aptly put it, ‘though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, but have not love, it profits nothing.’
“‘No,’ Pastor said, ‘love is not how you feel. Love is not even in what we do. We must give up our personal desires and try instead to do God’s will.
“‘I mean we must continually turn our will over to Him – moment by moment, every second of every day. And that is Jesus’ call. Following God’s will is what Jesus meant when He said, ‘I am the way.’ Jesus meant His way! Jesus said, ‘No one comes to the Father except through me.’
He meant doing God’s will, His way.
“Pastor often said, ‘I gain faith by my persistent willingness to do God’s will, in the very next thing that is in front of me, in all my personal relationships, and in all the most menial tasks of my everyday life.
“‘This assures us of keeping our sobriety. That is our personal reward. It’s immediate. It’s our insurance against taking another drink. And that is the ultimate protection of the quality of our life. As you know, it keeps us out of the gutter, out of prison, out of insane asylums. It protects others also from the savage behavior we are capable of when we get into a drunken stupor!’”
~~~
Willy said, “Sounds as if you AA-ers have a serious religious bent. So, must you be religious to get sober in AA?”
“Not at all. Many of us practice AA principles without even realizing we are being Christian.”
“How so?”
“We start by deciding we will turn our will and our life over to God. We make a list of all the errors we have committed – to others, as well as ourselves. All of them must be listed, especially those we did while under the influence of alcohol or drugs. I mean we take a thorough moral inventory of our failings and shortcomings. Not easy. We then must confess these errors to God and to another human being. And then we make a big effort to make restitution to those we have harmed through what we have done. Prayer is an essential part of our AA work. We pray for divine help in overcoming our shortcomings. And we, of course, do our part. The best we can.
“Can you see how this is basic Christianity? It is exactly as we are instructed to do in the Gospels. And especially in Paul’s Letters.”
Willy shook his head. “That’s pretty serious Christianity, if you ask me.”
“It is that, of course. But it is all based upon natural law.”
“You are losing me now. I thought natural laws are what scientists have discovered, like the law of gravity and such. Do you mind explaining?”
“Not at all.”
Chapter 24 -Joes’ Preaching
Joe said, “Think of nature. Consider how plants and animals begin life as seeds. That’s the physical side of their life cycle. But there’s also the invisible side of each seed’s essence. The oak tree is a latent pattern of a perfect oak tree inside the acorn. It will manifest as a towering oak given the right soil, moisture, sun, heat, nutrients.
“You see, each human being also begins as a pattern for a perfect human being inside a seed planted in the fertile soil of a mother’s womb. Then, as everyone knows, new-born babes are unfinished sprouts. It takes lots of nurturing for babes to grow physically into social beings.
Their mental capacities, too, must be cultivated to give them the ability to cope in the world as mature adults – getting work, establishing homes, having families, getting along with others.
“Some of these traits are physical; some are intangible, indiscernible to others. They manifest internally in the person. Two people who receive the same training may turn into very different kinds of adults. Our will has a lot to do with it. What the child wills, I mean. For instance, I had much the same early-life training as my cousin, Bart. But I was rebellious. He wasn’t. I wanted a music career. He wanted to be a doctor, like my parents wanted me to become. What we each intangibly, invisibly willed made the difference in how we turned out as adults.
“Then, we usually overlook the amount of nurturing the soul also needs. The soul’s cultivation is not provided in the child’s schooling. The parents nurture the child’s soul. And the parents got their nurturing from their parents, as well as church and Bible.
“Babes initially have nothing but animal instincts. They are not capable of earning a living, nor getting along in society. They need to learn these skills. How well they learn them determines how well they will get along in adult life.
“If the child grows up and learns to become a carpenter, then it will get work and support itself and a family with these skills. If it learns to get along with other people it will live more harmoniously with family, friends, co-workers, employers and customers.
“All the while the child is growing it is being torn between its animal and its social inc
linations. These wild beast powers are within every human. They are part of our basic animal nature. They are in our self-love, our egotism, our ignorance, our stupidity, our malice, our vanity, in our thinking only of our own sensual desires.
“Temptation is merely the power of our animal propensities to demand expression.”
~~~
“It is this aggregate of our animal instincts that cause our misunderstandings, and all their consequences. Without spiritual direction, our ego co-opts them, and considers them as the right way to act, and exercises them freely. Some extreme examples are psychopathic criminals, and demagogic political leaders like Hitler, Stalin, and even our self-centered politicians who think they know best what is good for us despite what we think.
“In the Gospels we are given the example of Jesus in the desert being tempted by the devil, the devil being the aggregate of the animal impulses within His human form, for after all, Jesus was human while He was here on earth. ‘Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered, and once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation.’
“There was His temptation to perform miracles by turning stones into bread. Actually, of course, that is poetic metaphor. Turning stones into bread merely means magically turning earthly products, like grains into bread. It’s the power to turn earthly things into products to satisfy our animal pleasures – food, sex, sloth.
“The devil’s second temptation was to test Jesus’ claimed to be the Son of God. The devil egged on Jesus to jump from a high tower to see if angels would catch him and prevent him harm. And the third temptation was to have him use his divine powers to exercise his animal desire to rule over others. We get an idea of this in our political leaders today, who are more interested in ruling over us than in serving our higher needs.