How would you define God in three words?
 

“We found that as soon as we were able to lay aside prejudice and express even a willingness to believe in a Power greater than ourselves, we commenced to get results, even though it was impossible for any of us to fully define or comprehend that Power, which is God” - page 46 big book

I would define God as kind, loving, and forgiving.

Good morning Realest. Thanks for starting another thread here. This is a great topic. I appreciate your activities. You and 5329guy are keeping this sub-forum pretty active. Of course thanks to Dave42001 for the daily readings too. OK - enough blather from me. I will respond to the matter raised by the original post. And like a good AA member sharing at a meeting my response will be a bit off the mark. But not totally off.

So I was raised Catholic. And if one attends any volume of AA meetings in my area one will run into other AA members who were also raised Catholic. Many of them have negative views of the Catholic faith and they share that fact in meetings. At least part of their negative view of the Catholic faith is due to their almost universal impression that in their experience, the Catholic nuns and priests pushed the view that God is a punishing God. I think I should also note that most of the folks who share this in meetings are over 40 years old. Most of them (no surprise) have little to do with the Catholic church today. Well except that they will gladly attend AA meetings at the church. Absent one thing that happened in my life I would probably share their view. But fate dealt me a different set of cards. You see our home happens to be located in an area that is poorly served by the public school system so we decided to send our daughters to (gasp) Catholic school. What a wonderful environment for our children. Things had changed a lot from the days of my youth and mostly for the better. Sister Mary Discipline with ruler in hand was nowhere to be found. Anyway getting back to the topic at hand, because of what I kept hearing in AA meetings about the Catholic church I asked both of my daughters who were now teenagers a simple question.

Is God a Loving God or a Punishing God?

Both immediately responded that God is a Loving God.

Anyway to put a wrapper on this I was at lunch with a couple of professional colleagues and one of them is a Christian preacher who serves a couple of small churches on the weekends. He's actually a pretty nice fellow. So I told him the story above. He responded by saying that God is both a Loving God and a Punishing God. I think he got it right.

Well that's a lot more than three words but that's my story. YMMV.

Catholics in my AA group laughingly referred to themselves as recovering Catholics. I was not sure exactly why. None ever went into any explanation, but I thought it was a playful snipe at their previous conditioning.

Great post! Thanks for sharing!! I love the 3 you mentioned.. one I heard at a meeting last night was, “freedom!” I thank my HP every minute of the day that I’m now free from the bondage of king alcohol!!

Great point AAPJ, I love to see the activity in our area too!!

Have a great day, Real!

Love,Joy,and Peace

of

my

understanding

:thanks

Joy and compassion, if I experience those emotions I know that I am experiencing God.
Good on you Realest for keeping this sub forum alive and of course thanks to Dave for the daily readings.
CaiHong

Probably doesn't exist.

Ex-Catholic.

How about in three syllables. Ineffable

Ever feel an outgoing of love from the very best that is within you to your Father, God. Love Him as you do your life, for He is your life. Keep yourself constantly in His love (Jude 21) by loving others as yourself, for He is their Life as well as yours, and by maintaining a loving attitude toward life in general, for Life is God and " God is Love."

My constant companion.

omniscient-knows everything
omnipresent-always there
omnipotent-able to do anything

Power, grace and mercy.

I rejoined the Catholic faith after around 10 years of sobriety.

To me, it fits like a hand in a glove with the 12 Steps of AA.

I went to Catholic (all boy) schools for 9 1/2 years and got a lot out of it.

But I also literally got out of it by transferring to a public school to finish high school.

My faith and my working the 12 Steps and my taking meds are the 3 legs of the stool on which my mental, emotional and spiritual health balance.

Good. Kind. Loving.

Wow love this.

Im not him