Around the Year with Emmet Fox -- NO MORE POSTING
12-Step Recovered Alkie
Thread Starter
Join Date: May 2010
Location: West Bloomfield, MI
Posts: 5,797
Around the Year with Emmet Fox -- NO MORE POSTING
I've given it some thought.....some prayers........and I've been listening for an answer....
At this time, I won't be posting the Emmet Fox daily readings anymore.
It was a cool experience. When I started doing it, I had my book open and would have to type them out...by hand, yanno. MAAAANY days it was a total pain in the ass and I didn't want to do it. I missed a fair amount of them and then I'd have to go back and do 2 or 3 at a time..... It also got me to REALLY read those words.....and I saw a lot of new stuff in there even though I've had and read that book for a couple years.
Anyway.....I'm not going to post them any longer. Emmet's writings are Christian-based and he doesn't hold that back at all. I know....I know......he had his own deal with church but to a newcomer to the 12-step forum, someone who's maybe Jewish, or Muslim.....or whatever...... the last thing I want them seeing is "Jesus this or Jesus that" and assuming it has a direct relationship to AA or the steps.
I love the book.....but I'm also Catholic. To ME though, quotes out of the Koran would be cool......so would stuff from the Bible......from Buddha......from Ghandi....... from Islam..... I'm down for some hard-core atheist stuff too........ but I've been around AA for a while, I'm open-minded about it, I know if I've got a problem with it the problem is me.....etc. Someone new.....it's doubtful they'll be in the same boat I am out of the gate.
So.....unless I get some really obvious nudge from above that those posts NEED to go back up here.....I won't be posting them anymore.
For those of you who liked them and want to keep seeing them, you have 2 options:
1.
-click on the down arrow next to search near the top of the forum
-click on advanced search
-in Keywords, enter "around the year april" (or whatever month you want)
-in User Name enter DayTrader (it doesn't work so well if you don't put my name in.....fyi)
2.
-go get the book.
(of course, getting the book will take you one step to being cool like me so yanno.......that's a bonus) LOL
*Amazon has it for about $10 and Alibris.com has it for $3 and change.
At this time, I won't be posting the Emmet Fox daily readings anymore.
It was a cool experience. When I started doing it, I had my book open and would have to type them out...by hand, yanno. MAAAANY days it was a total pain in the ass and I didn't want to do it. I missed a fair amount of them and then I'd have to go back and do 2 or 3 at a time..... It also got me to REALLY read those words.....and I saw a lot of new stuff in there even though I've had and read that book for a couple years.
Anyway.....I'm not going to post them any longer. Emmet's writings are Christian-based and he doesn't hold that back at all. I know....I know......he had his own deal with church but to a newcomer to the 12-step forum, someone who's maybe Jewish, or Muslim.....or whatever...... the last thing I want them seeing is "Jesus this or Jesus that" and assuming it has a direct relationship to AA or the steps.
I love the book.....but I'm also Catholic. To ME though, quotes out of the Koran would be cool......so would stuff from the Bible......from Buddha......from Ghandi....... from Islam..... I'm down for some hard-core atheist stuff too........ but I've been around AA for a while, I'm open-minded about it, I know if I've got a problem with it the problem is me.....etc. Someone new.....it's doubtful they'll be in the same boat I am out of the gate.
So.....unless I get some really obvious nudge from above that those posts NEED to go back up here.....I won't be posting them anymore.
For those of you who liked them and want to keep seeing them, you have 2 options:
1.
-click on the down arrow next to search near the top of the forum
-click on advanced search
-in Keywords, enter "around the year april" (or whatever month you want)
-in User Name enter DayTrader (it doesn't work so well if you don't put my name in.....fyi)
2.
-go get the book.
(of course, getting the book will take you one step to being cool like me so yanno.......that's a bonus) LOL*Amazon has it for about $10 and Alibris.com has it for $3 and change.
Laozi Old Man
Join Date: May 2008
Location: Detroit, MI
Posts: 6,665
Originally Posted by DayTrader 
I've given it some thought.....some prayers........and I've been listening for an answer....
At this time, I won't be posting the Emmet Fox daily readings anymore.
At this time, I won't be posting the Emmet Fox daily readings anymore.
12-Step Recovered Alkie
Thread Starter
Join Date: May 2010
Location: West Bloomfield, MI
Posts: 5,797
Originally Posted by Boleo
- before you get to the next "Dark Night" experience.
at least now though, I'll get to blame you for jinxing me! lol
Sober Alcoholic
Join Date: Aug 2011
Posts: 3,541
Reading your post today reminded me of something Bill Wilson wrote that made an impression on me. Sorta long but quite worth the read IMO.
The phrase "God As We Understand Him" is perhaps the most important expression
to be found in our whole AA vocabulary. Within the compass of these five
significant words there can be included every kind and degree of faith, together
with the positive assurance that each of us may choose his own. Scarcely less
valuable to us are those supplemental expressions - "A Higher Power" and "A
Power Greater Than Ourselves." For all who deny, or seriously doubt a deity,
these frame an open door over whose threshold the unbeliever can take his first
easy step into a reality hitherto unknown to him - the realm of faith.
In AA such breakthroughs are everyday events. They are all the more remarkable
when we reflect that a working faith had once seemed an impossibility of the
first magnitude to perhaps half of our present membership of three hundred
thousand. To all these doubters has come the great discovery that as soon as
they could cast their main dependence upon a "higher power" - even upon their
own AA groups - they had turned that blind corner which had always kept the open
highway from their view. From this time on - assuming they tried hard to
practice the rest of the AA program with a relaxed and open mind - an ever
deepening and broadening faith, a veritable gift, had invariably put in its
sometimes unexpected and often mysterious appearance.
We much regret that these facts of AA life are not understood by the legion of
alcoholics in the world around us. Any number of them are bedeviled by the dire
conviction that if ever they go near AA they will be pressured to conform to
some particular brand of faith or theology. They just don't realize that faith
is never a necessity for AA membership; that sobriety can be achieved with an
easily acceptable minimum of it; and that our concepts of a higher power and God
as we understand Him afford everyone a nearly unlimited choice of spiritual
belief and action.
How to transmit this good news is one of our most challenging problems in
communication, for which there may be no fast or sweeping answer. Perhaps our
public information services could begin to emphasize this all-important aspect
of AA more heavily. And within our own ranks we might well develop a more
sympathetic awareness of the acute plight of these really isolated and desperate
sufferers. In their aid we can settle for no less than the best possible
attitude and the most ingenious action that we can muster.
We can also take a fresh look at the problem of "no faith" as it exists right on
our own doorstep. Though three hundred thousand did recover in the last
twenty-five years, maybe half a million more have walked into our midst, and
then out again. No doubt some were too sick to make even a start. Others
couldn't or wouldn't admit their alcoholism. Still others couldn't face up to
their underlying personality defects. Numbers departed for still other reasons.
Yet we can't well content ourselves with the view that all these recovery
failures were entirely the fault of the newcomers themselves. Perhaps a great
many didn't receive the kind and amount of sponsorship they so sorely needed. We
didn't communicate when we might have done so. So we AA's failed them. Perhaps
more often than we think, we still make no contact at depth with those suffering
the dilemma of no faith.
Certainly none are more sensitive to spiritual cocksureness, pride and
aggression than they are. I'm sure this is something we too often forget. In
AA's first years I all but ruined the whole undertaking with this sort of
unconscious arrogance. God as I understood Him had to be for everybody.
Sometimes my aggression was subtle and sometimes it was crude. But either way it
was damaging - perhaps fatally so - to numbers of non-believers. Of course this
sort of thing isn't confined to Twelfth Step work. It is very apt to leak out
into our relationships with everybody. Even now, I catch myself chanting that
same old barrier-building refrain, "Do as I do, believe as I do - or else!"
Here's a recent example of the high cost of spiritual pride. A very tough-minded
prospect was taken to his first AA meeting. The first speaker majored on his own
drinking pattern. The prospect seemed impressed. The next two speakers (or maybe
lecturers) each themed their talks on "God as I understand Him." This could have
been good, too, but it certainly wasn't. The trouble was their attitude, the way
they presented their experience. They did ooze arrogance. In fact, the final
speaker got far overboard on some of his personal theological convictions. With
perfect fidelity, both were repeating my performance of years before. Quite
unspoken, yet implicit in everything they said, was the same idea - "Folks,
listen to us. We have the only true brand of AA - and you'd better get it!"
The new prospect said he'd had it - and he had. His sponsor protested that this
wasn't real AA. But it was too late; nobody could touch him after that. He also
had a first class alibi for yet another bender. When last heard from, an early
appointment with the undertaker seemed probable.
Fortunately, such rank aggression in the name of spirituality isn't often seen
nowadays. Yet this sorry and unusual episode can be turned to good account. We
can ask ourselves whether, in less obvious but nevertheless destructive forms,
we are not more subject to fits of spiritual pride than we had supposed. If
constantly worked at, I'm sure that no kind of self-survey could be more
beneficial. Nothing could more surely increase our communication with each other
and with God.
Many years ago a so-called "unbeliever" brought me to see this very clearly. He
was an M.D. and a fine one. I met him and his wife Mary at the home of a friend
in a midwestern city. It was purely a social evening. Our fellowship of
alcoholics was my sole topic and I pretty much monopolized the conversation.
Nevertheless, the doctor and his lady seemed truly interested and he asked many
questions. But one of them made me suspect that he was an agnostic, or maybe an
atheist.
This promptly triggered me, and I set out to convert him, then and there. Deadly
serious, I actually bragged about my spectacular spiritual experience of the
year before. The doctor mildly wondered if that experience might not be
something other than I thought it was. This hit me hard, and I was downright
rude. There had been no real provocation; the doctor was uniformly courteous,
good humored and even respectful. Not a little wistfully, he said he often
wished he had a firm faith, too. But plainly enough, I had convinced him of
nothing.
Three years later I revisited my midwestern friend. Mary, the doctor's wife,
came by for a call and I learned that he had died the week before. Much
affected, she began to speak of him.
His was a noted Boston family, and he'd been Harvard educated. A brilliant
student, he might have gone on to fame in his profession. He could have enjoyed
a wealthy practice and a social life among old friends. Instead, he had insisted
on being a company doctor in what was a strife-torn industrial town. When Mary
had sometimes asked why they didn't go back to Boston, he would take her hand
and say, "Maybe you are right, but I can't bring myself to leave. I think the
people at the company really need me."
Mary then recalled that she had never known her husband to complain seriously
about anything, or to criticize anyone bitterly. Though he appeared to be
perfectly well, the doctor had slowed down in his last five years. When Mary
prodded him to go out evenings, or tried to get him to the office on time, he
always came up with a plausible and good-natured excuse. Not until his sudden
last illness did she know what all this while he had carried about a heart
condition that could have done him in at any moment. Except for a single doctor
on his own staff, no one had an inkling. When she reproached him about this, he
simply said, "Well, I could see no good in causing people to worry about me -
especially you, my dear."
This was the story of a man of great spiritual worth. The hallmarks were plain
to be seen: humor and patience, gentleness and courage, humility and dedication,
unselfishness and love - a demonstration I might never come near to making
myself. This was the man I had chided and patronized. This was the "unbeliever"
I had presumed to instruct!
Mary told us this story more than twenty years ago. Then, for the first time, it
burst in upon me how very dead faith can be - when minus responsibility. The
doctor had an unwavering belief in his ideals. But he also practiced humility,
wisdom and responsibility. Hence his superb demonstration.
My own spiritual awakening had given me a built-in faith in God - a gift indeed.
But I had been neither humble nor wise. Boasting of my faith, I had forgotten my
ideals. Pride and irresponsibility had taken their place. By so cutting off my
own light, I had little to offer my fellow alcoholics. At last I saw why many
had gone away - some of them forever.
Therefore, faith is more than our greatest gift; its sharing with others is our
greatest responsibility. So may we of AA continually seek the wisdom and the
willingness by which we may well fulfill that immense trust which the Giver of
all perfect gifts has placed in our hands.
The phrase "God As We Understand Him" is perhaps the most important expression
to be found in our whole AA vocabulary. Within the compass of these five
significant words there can be included every kind and degree of faith, together
with the positive assurance that each of us may choose his own. Scarcely less
valuable to us are those supplemental expressions - "A Higher Power" and "A
Power Greater Than Ourselves." For all who deny, or seriously doubt a deity,
these frame an open door over whose threshold the unbeliever can take his first
easy step into a reality hitherto unknown to him - the realm of faith.
In AA such breakthroughs are everyday events. They are all the more remarkable
when we reflect that a working faith had once seemed an impossibility of the
first magnitude to perhaps half of our present membership of three hundred
thousand. To all these doubters has come the great discovery that as soon as
they could cast their main dependence upon a "higher power" - even upon their
own AA groups - they had turned that blind corner which had always kept the open
highway from their view. From this time on - assuming they tried hard to
practice the rest of the AA program with a relaxed and open mind - an ever
deepening and broadening faith, a veritable gift, had invariably put in its
sometimes unexpected and often mysterious appearance.
We much regret that these facts of AA life are not understood by the legion of
alcoholics in the world around us. Any number of them are bedeviled by the dire
conviction that if ever they go near AA they will be pressured to conform to
some particular brand of faith or theology. They just don't realize that faith
is never a necessity for AA membership; that sobriety can be achieved with an
easily acceptable minimum of it; and that our concepts of a higher power and God
as we understand Him afford everyone a nearly unlimited choice of spiritual
belief and action.
How to transmit this good news is one of our most challenging problems in
communication, for which there may be no fast or sweeping answer. Perhaps our
public information services could begin to emphasize this all-important aspect
of AA more heavily. And within our own ranks we might well develop a more
sympathetic awareness of the acute plight of these really isolated and desperate
sufferers. In their aid we can settle for no less than the best possible
attitude and the most ingenious action that we can muster.
We can also take a fresh look at the problem of "no faith" as it exists right on
our own doorstep. Though three hundred thousand did recover in the last
twenty-five years, maybe half a million more have walked into our midst, and
then out again. No doubt some were too sick to make even a start. Others
couldn't or wouldn't admit their alcoholism. Still others couldn't face up to
their underlying personality defects. Numbers departed for still other reasons.
Yet we can't well content ourselves with the view that all these recovery
failures were entirely the fault of the newcomers themselves. Perhaps a great
many didn't receive the kind and amount of sponsorship they so sorely needed. We
didn't communicate when we might have done so. So we AA's failed them. Perhaps
more often than we think, we still make no contact at depth with those suffering
the dilemma of no faith.
Certainly none are more sensitive to spiritual cocksureness, pride and
aggression than they are. I'm sure this is something we too often forget. In
AA's first years I all but ruined the whole undertaking with this sort of
unconscious arrogance. God as I understood Him had to be for everybody.
Sometimes my aggression was subtle and sometimes it was crude. But either way it
was damaging - perhaps fatally so - to numbers of non-believers. Of course this
sort of thing isn't confined to Twelfth Step work. It is very apt to leak out
into our relationships with everybody. Even now, I catch myself chanting that
same old barrier-building refrain, "Do as I do, believe as I do - or else!"
Here's a recent example of the high cost of spiritual pride. A very tough-minded
prospect was taken to his first AA meeting. The first speaker majored on his own
drinking pattern. The prospect seemed impressed. The next two speakers (or maybe
lecturers) each themed their talks on "God as I understand Him." This could have
been good, too, but it certainly wasn't. The trouble was their attitude, the way
they presented their experience. They did ooze arrogance. In fact, the final
speaker got far overboard on some of his personal theological convictions. With
perfect fidelity, both were repeating my performance of years before. Quite
unspoken, yet implicit in everything they said, was the same idea - "Folks,
listen to us. We have the only true brand of AA - and you'd better get it!"
The new prospect said he'd had it - and he had. His sponsor protested that this
wasn't real AA. But it was too late; nobody could touch him after that. He also
had a first class alibi for yet another bender. When last heard from, an early
appointment with the undertaker seemed probable.
Fortunately, such rank aggression in the name of spirituality isn't often seen
nowadays. Yet this sorry and unusual episode can be turned to good account. We
can ask ourselves whether, in less obvious but nevertheless destructive forms,
we are not more subject to fits of spiritual pride than we had supposed. If
constantly worked at, I'm sure that no kind of self-survey could be more
beneficial. Nothing could more surely increase our communication with each other
and with God.
Many years ago a so-called "unbeliever" brought me to see this very clearly. He
was an M.D. and a fine one. I met him and his wife Mary at the home of a friend
in a midwestern city. It was purely a social evening. Our fellowship of
alcoholics was my sole topic and I pretty much monopolized the conversation.
Nevertheless, the doctor and his lady seemed truly interested and he asked many
questions. But one of them made me suspect that he was an agnostic, or maybe an
atheist.
This promptly triggered me, and I set out to convert him, then and there. Deadly
serious, I actually bragged about my spectacular spiritual experience of the
year before. The doctor mildly wondered if that experience might not be
something other than I thought it was. This hit me hard, and I was downright
rude. There had been no real provocation; the doctor was uniformly courteous,
good humored and even respectful. Not a little wistfully, he said he often
wished he had a firm faith, too. But plainly enough, I had convinced him of
nothing.
Three years later I revisited my midwestern friend. Mary, the doctor's wife,
came by for a call and I learned that he had died the week before. Much
affected, she began to speak of him.
His was a noted Boston family, and he'd been Harvard educated. A brilliant
student, he might have gone on to fame in his profession. He could have enjoyed
a wealthy practice and a social life among old friends. Instead, he had insisted
on being a company doctor in what was a strife-torn industrial town. When Mary
had sometimes asked why they didn't go back to Boston, he would take her hand
and say, "Maybe you are right, but I can't bring myself to leave. I think the
people at the company really need me."
Mary then recalled that she had never known her husband to complain seriously
about anything, or to criticize anyone bitterly. Though he appeared to be
perfectly well, the doctor had slowed down in his last five years. When Mary
prodded him to go out evenings, or tried to get him to the office on time, he
always came up with a plausible and good-natured excuse. Not until his sudden
last illness did she know what all this while he had carried about a heart
condition that could have done him in at any moment. Except for a single doctor
on his own staff, no one had an inkling. When she reproached him about this, he
simply said, "Well, I could see no good in causing people to worry about me -
especially you, my dear."
This was the story of a man of great spiritual worth. The hallmarks were plain
to be seen: humor and patience, gentleness and courage, humility and dedication,
unselfishness and love - a demonstration I might never come near to making
myself. This was the man I had chided and patronized. This was the "unbeliever"
I had presumed to instruct!
Mary told us this story more than twenty years ago. Then, for the first time, it
burst in upon me how very dead faith can be - when minus responsibility. The
doctor had an unwavering belief in his ideals. But he also practiced humility,
wisdom and responsibility. Hence his superb demonstration.
My own spiritual awakening had given me a built-in faith in God - a gift indeed.
But I had been neither humble nor wise. Boasting of my faith, I had forgotten my
ideals. Pride and irresponsibility had taken their place. By so cutting off my
own light, I had little to offer my fellow alcoholics. At last I saw why many
had gone away - some of them forever.
Therefore, faith is more than our greatest gift; its sharing with others is our
greatest responsibility. So may we of AA continually seek the wisdom and the
willingness by which we may well fulfill that immense trust which the Giver of
all perfect gifts has placed in our hands.
Member
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: uk
Posts: 2,548
Would be nice to discuss some of Emmetts writings on the board from time to time.??
Gotta say, some of his stuff i really struggle to to grasp....enjoyed sermon on the mount... but parts of it.... like wading through treacle, it wouldn't be the first time ive complicated something really simple....
Gotta say, some of his stuff i really struggle to to grasp....enjoyed sermon on the mount... but parts of it.... like wading through treacle, it wouldn't be the first time ive complicated something really simple....
Laozi Old Man
Join Date: May 2008
Location: Detroit, MI
Posts: 6,665
Originally Posted by shaun00
Would be nice to discuss some of Emmetts writings on the board from time to time.??
12-Step Recovered Alkie
Thread Starter
Join Date: May 2010
Location: West Bloomfield, MI
Posts: 5,797
Originally Posted by shaun00
Sounds like a plan ....maybe we could discuss sermon on the mount since i struggle with some of it ....be good to get some members take/ perception on different chapters .
I read Sermon on the Mount right before I sobered up then again in years 1, 2 and 3 but it's been over a year or two I think since I've read it. I also snagged a couple other books by E. Fox but haven't cracked them yet.
I KNOW Boleo is a GREAT reference source on Emmet's books.....no need to be modest Boleo......
Unless someone already started one, I'll go start a thread now and we'll see where it goes. I'm thinking something small in scope vs. "everything Emmet" as the larger the topic the greater the likelihood of it derailing.
vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv vvvvvvvvvvvvvv
http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...ml#post3360010
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-monnnnnnnnnnnn doooooooooown!!!!!
Member
Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: ROSELAND 32957 FL
Posts: 4
Fox made a LOT of difference in my life .
"New Thought" means repentence, the opposite of resentment.
I know just enough of other religions -- including Buddhism -- to recognize the NONDENOMINATIAL benefits of being nondenominational. In fact for my Jewish sponsees, I point out that EF quotes and references the OT almost as much as the Gospels - and after all, with rare exception, the NT IS the OT, later edition.
Just like I am ME, but new edition.
"We had to let go of our old way of thinking absolutely, or the result was nil."
"New Thought" means repentence, the opposite of resentment.
I know just enough of other religions -- including Buddhism -- to recognize the NONDENOMINATIAL benefits of being nondenominational. In fact for my Jewish sponsees, I point out that EF quotes and references the OT almost as much as the Gospels - and after all, with rare exception, the NT IS the OT, later edition.
Just like I am ME, but new edition.
"We had to let go of our old way of thinking absolutely, or the result was nil."
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