Appendix II: Spiritual Experience

When I go to an AA meeting where we study the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, I am surprised at how often the foot notes that refer to the Spiritual Experience in the back of the book are overlooked or ignored. I don't know about you, but I require a spiritual relationship with the old HP to stay sober. The few pages explaining different types of spiritual experiences has been invaluable to establishing and maintaining a bond with my Creator. Yet it seems they are rarely included in the study.

A couple of weeks ago, I was in an AA meeting where we skipped over the foot note. Several of the others in attendance obviously feel the way I do about the Spiritual Experience and it was interesting to see how we each reacted. One of us spoke first when the discussion part of the meeting began and expressed disapproval of the lapse. One of us simply read the whole thing when his turn to share came. I signed up to chair the meeting for the next month, which started this week.

Appendix II on Spiritual Experience was the Big Book reading the first meeting this month and it was a great meeting, too. Several people in early recovery spoke about their anxiety over not having a 'bright light' as Bill W., one of AA's founders, had experienced. Others felt that not having the bright light or burning bush moment was more proof that God could help them but would not do so because they were too bad/sinful. The reading and discussion cleared up some misunderstandings and gave some different perspectives to approach a relationship with a personal Higher Power. Hark! Perhaps that is why they put those pages in there! Who'd have ever guessed?

There is a quote at the end of the Spiritual Experience written by Herbert Spenser:

"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation."

In closing the meeting, I told the group that I knew of the perfect example of contempt prior to investigation, but it was not AA approved literature. (There were a few sticklers about this in the meeting.) I said that, while I was a bit nervous to fly in the face of convention, I was going to show the literary piece anyway. I took it out of my back pack and held up the book
"Green Eggs and Ham", written by Dr. Seuss.

Have a good and sober day.