Endigar 354 ~ Mysterious Ways
From Today’s Daily Reflections;
. . . out of every season of grief or suffering, when the hand of God seemed heavy or even unjust, new lessons for living were learned, new resources of courage were uncovered, and that finally, inescapably, the conviction came that God does “move in a mysterious way His wonders to perform.” (Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 105)
After losing my career, family and health, I remained unconvinced that my way of life needed a second look. My drinking and other drug use were killing me, but I had never met a recovering person or an A.A. member. I thought I was destined to die alone and that I deserved it. At the peak of my despair, my infant son became critically ill with a rare disease. Doctors’ efforts to help him proved useless. I redoubled my efforts to block my feelings, but now the alcohol had stopped working. I was left starting into God’s eyes, begging for help. My introduction to A.A. came within days, through an odd series of coincidences, and I have remained sober ever since. My son lived and his disease is in remission. The entire episode convinced me of my powerlessness and the unmanageability of my life. Today my son and I thank God for His intervention.
END OF QUOTE
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The sin concept of any human weakness, such as self-destructive chemical dependency, has manufactured a culture of shame and revealed God as an entity always waiting for an opportunity to judge and punish humanity. In our day to day lives, he is a grumpy, detached deity barely tolerate of our lives. He is either ignoring or condemning us because we are steeped in sin.
Bill W. and Dr. Silkworth passed on to this fellowship another beautiful heresy by replacing the pathological concept of sin with the more accurate and hopeful disease model. Alcoholism is a disease, and not a first class ticket to damnation. The resulting calamities of this disease are the result of a progressive, chronic, and if untreated, terminal addiction. Now we can dispense with the ridiculous social control shaming popular in churchianity, and use specific guilt to identify the structure of our disease and begin the healing process of our lives. Shame never ends, but guilt can be addressed and satisfied.
What is funny to me is that the contributor of today’s daily reflection seemed to miss that his God was presenting the truth of the disease model to him in the situation of his afflicted son. The contributor said that he felt he was “destined to die alone and that he deserved it.” He was living in the shame of the sin-concept culture. In the midst of his alcoholism, did the contributor still love his son even though the child was weak enough to acquire a rare disease? Yes. Should his son be destined to die alone? Absolutely not. Did his son deserve condemnation for allowing the affliction to consume him? Of course not. As self-loathing as this alcoholic contributor was, he was willing to face the eyes of his indignant and condemning God, if only he could save his son’s life. I think God was trying to show him that he is a loving and concerned Father and not the iconic psychopathic Judge promoted by churchianity who is willing to send a majority of His created children into the damnation of an eternal hell.
Mysterious Ways is code for Saving Heresies.
Daily Reprieve 
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