Endigar 890
From Courage to Change of May 28:
I have heard it said that the only valid comparisons are between myself as I am and myself as I used to be. When I think of Step Two and of being restored to sanity, such a comparison comes to mind.
I remember an incident some twenty years ago in which I was riding my motorcycle to a meditation class. I was late and in a big hurry to arrive on time. Right outside the meeting place I crashed my bike. My attempts to force solutions, to rush to an encounter with serenity, had failed. Did I feel contrite? Not exactly. Even then, I felt the irony of rushing to meditation, but mainly I felt angry that the town had failed to maintain the road on which I was riding. Rather than taking responsibly for my own haste and carelessness, I blamed others and saw myself as a victim. I did not feel thankful to have survived; I felt angry that I had been roughed up and thrown off schedule.
Today’s Reminder
Looking back, I see many examples of the grace of a Power greater than myself at work in my life. I see progress in being restored to sanity, and I am increasingly confident that my progress will continue.
“Our business in life is not to get ahead of other people, but to get ahead of ourselves.”
~ Maltbie D. Babcock
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Rev. Babcock was a Presbyterian minister and an American writer. He was known for his intelligence and oration. He battled depression, and was, at one point, hospitalized for this condition. He spent four weeks in a sanitarium in Danville, New York for “nervous prostration.” He visited the Holy Land a decade later and on his return trip, he and some of his associates contracted Mediterranean Fever, now known as brucellosis, which is known to cause depression. He ingested mercuric chloride and slit his wrists and died at 42. His wife published one of his poems after his death that has since became a Christian hymn, called, “My Father’s World.” He and his wife had two children, both of which died in infancy.
His wife lived on to be 86 years of age. If not for her, her husband’s writings would not have survived his suicide. If not for her, the Christian hymn would not have been preserved. Her name was Katherine Elliot Babcock (nee Tallman). I have found no significant biography on her life.
I have heard that it is a fallacy of logic to dismiss the message because of the failings of the messenger. I have also read that the Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche believed you have to consider the messenger in conjunction with the message. I’m not sure which camp I sit in. If you are preaching and teaching about a way to live that you yourself cannot live, should I trust the burden of these words in my life?
Maybe it is best just to share one’s experience and let the listener chose what is best for themselves.
I suppose Rev. Babcock left it to his wife to live out the Step Two ideals he invertedly wrote about. If you hear harshness in my words, it comes from my heart for the apparently devoted wife he decided to leave behind.
Here are a few more quotes from Rev. Babcock:
“to have failed is to have striven, to have striven is to have grown.”
“Opportunities do not come with their values stamped upon them. Everyone must be challenged. A day dawns, quite like other days; in it, a single hour comes, quite like other hours; but in that day and in that hour the chance of a lifetime faces us.”
~ Maltbie D. Babcock
I suspect he missed a “chance of a lifetime” on the return trip from the Holy Land, there in Italy, with associates he could have reached out to.
Daily Reprieve 
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