Far too smart for my own good.

The second kind of person described in AA's Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (chapter 2) is the person who once had faith but lost it. Well.... would this have anything to do with how easy it is to skip going to church these days? Or, when I get to Sunday school, how often I don't go to the worship service? Hum. 

This person sounds a lot like the letter called Revelation where John tells the church at Laodicea, "Would that you were hot or cold, but since you're neither I'll spew you from my mouth." These are not the atheists who believe they can prove God doesn't exist. They are not the agnostics saying his existence cannot be proven, nor the religious people who believe it can be proven. Instead, these wanderers from faith find themselves in profound confusion, bewildered. 

But the second kind of problem, I guess somewhat an outgrowth of this bewilderment, is the "intellectually self-sufficient man or woman." Yep, that's me, far too smart for my own good, precocious. "We used our education to blow ourselves up into prideful balloons, though we were careful to hide this from others. Secretly, we felt we could float above the rest of the folks on our brainpower alone." Unfortunately, this one hits me right on the head. For a while I've at least personally and sometimes in conversation acknowledged that I'm prejudiced for the educated. I'm not sure I fall in the description of thinking the spoils of victory would be mine for the thinking, but I certainly had a god of intellect, at least alongside the god of theology. 

This section, too, has the quotation that caught hold of me a few days ago when I read it in As Bill Sees It: "humility and intellect could be compatible, provided we placed humility first. When we began to do that, we received the gift of faith, a faith which works. This faith is for you, too."

I used that in deciding to make available a series of poems I wrote last month. One of the last of the poems was this, talking of a chapbook which is a collection of poems:

This Chip of a Book 

Our hope is that when this chip of a book is 

launched on the world tide of alcoholism, 

defeated drinkers will seize upon it, to follow its 

suggestions. Many, we are sure, will rise to 

their feet and march on. They will approach still 

other sick ones and fellowships of Alcoholics 

Anonymous may spring up in each city and 

hamlet, havens for those who must find a way 

out.“ (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 153) 

Humility and intelligence 

coexist just fine if humility
stands first. So Bill W
said ten years after he wrote
the chip of a book that named
Alcoholics Anonymous
and launched recovery
not just for drunks bur for us all.
Intelligence Bill had in spades,
too smart for his own good for years,
yet a scant four years before the launch
he sat, drunk, before the dawn,
about to be launched himself to
existence’s fourth dimension.

These poems are fun, have
told me things about myself
I’d never found. To share them?
Pride says yes. Show them off.
Humility says get behind me, pride.
To share is good, not for your praise
but like Bill’s chip, perhaps these may
touch people’s need and perhaps
become a tool for God to use.

If you'd like a copy of the chapbook, email me at oastepper@gmail.com and we'll talk about getting it to you.