Here's a pic of the First Edition of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous:


                                                      


Yesterday, at church, we read the Gospel bit when Jesus was eating with the Republicans and Sinners, and how the synagogue leader came to find Him, to ask Him to come and restore his daughter to life.

As Jesus was getting up to go attend to that chore, a woman touched the hem of His robe, certain that just touching His garments would be enough to heal her.

And it got me to thinking - all of these actions required Jesus to be onsite, so to speak -  He couldn't telecommute and do miracles. More than that - He couldn't exactly multitask, other than turning His physical attention to each situation. And that really placed some limits on Him. After the woman touched His robe, He still had to walk all the way over to the rabbi's home to resurrect his daughter. He actually had to BE whereever he was to get things done.

To that extent, it seemed (to me - although I'm nobody's Bible Scholar) that the Resurrection really freed up Jesus' resources; once He got out of that body, He could be everywhere, all the time, so that we don't have to get in line or take a number or (most definitely) wait for Him to drive by.

In addition - while He was in a body, He was, indeed, human - this implies that he was subject to "the ills that flesh is heir to" and He would have to live with hunger, discomfort, and sleepiness - how else could He know what we live with? I can't help but wonder (and it's just wondering - don't shoot me :) if there were times when He would think "...but I don't WANNA go over there and heal those folks! I need to take a nap!"

So I'm thinking that, just maybe, the Resurrection freed Jesus from the limits, constraints and problems associated with being in a body, so that He could then give everybody what they needed - especially since He no longer had any "needs" of his own to distract Him.

And I'm thinking that the same sort of thing happened with the publication of the first Big Book.

The First One Hundred tell us, in the Forward, that "we are too few, at present to handle the overwhelming number of personal appeals which may result from this publication. Being mostly business or professional folk, we could not well carry on our occupations in such an event."  In other words, they were limited as to what they could do. They were pretty much located in New York, Akron and Cleveland, and they couldn't do anything to help all of those drunks in the rest of the world.

So later on, in Chapter Two, they tell us that they were overwhelmed by the awareness that drunks were dropping like flies, and that they couldn't be everywhere to carry this message to all of them, so they came up with the idea of the Big Book:

"If we keep on the way we are going there is little doubt that much good will result, but the surface of the problem would hardly be scratched. Those of us who live in large cities are overcome by the reflection that close by hundreds are dropping into oblivion every day. Many could recover if they had the opportunity we have enjoyed. How then shall we present that which has been so freely given us?

"We have concluded to publish an anonymous volume setting forth the problem as we see it. We shall bring to the task our combined experience and knowledge. This should suggest a useful program for anyone concerned with a drinking problem."

Sometimes, when I read these words, I want to cross myself and say "Amen". The thought, itself, brings tears to my eyes - God, acting through these nameless drunks, brought the first 164 pages of the Big Book into being, and - as a direct result - I'm alive today, and I'm not in jail, and I'm able to be of some use to somebody else.

When they wrote the Book, they did more than just provide an answer for alcoholism that could be sent out to others with whom they had no direct contact; they also separated the message from the messenger -  once it was on paper, they couldn't fiddle with it. They couldn't say "No, wait - we didn't mean all that stuff. We'd like to amend it - edit it - limit some of the sweeping statements, qualify some of the generalizations, reduce the demands and eliminate the "musts".

Not only that, but anyone who got that message via the Big Book wasn't about to edit it themselves. Having gotten an answer that works, we became unwilling to allow anyone to mess with that answer. Having been reduced to such a state that we were willing to blindly follow the printed word, we elevated that word to Principle and bound ourselves to it.

Had Bill and Bob not done this - had they kept the message personal and vital and oral - they might have changed it. The message might have changed form and shape and content based on who was speaking; the same message might not have made it to Seattle, Los Angeles and Miami that was being spread in Ohio and New York. The message might have been fallen prey to each messenger's interpretation or orientation or denomination or affiliation or even irritation.

But it didn't. And I have no intention of allowing that to happen - at least, not on my watch.

Tomorrow is Founder's Day - June 10, the 73rd anniversary of Doctor Bob's first day of permanent sobriety. Up in the North Valley, the Anthem Optimist's Group is going to be celebrating a day early (gee, they really are Optimists :) since we couldn't get the meeting room that we use tomorrow night instead. And I just wanted to - once again, but never enough - thank the founders for doing what they did; for pouring so much sweat and blood and love into the creation of Alcoholics Anonymous, and then for doing what they could to insure that nobody - not even they themselves - could hurt it.