Recently I was reading a book for a study group I attend, and I read the following: “Concern for fostering good relationships with others and the ability to overcome prejudice and fear are essential ingredients for promoting the culture of encounter, in which we are prepared not only to give, but also receive from others. Hospitality, in fact, grows from both giving and receiving.”1 I had little to no intention of fostering good relationships with others when I came into the Fellowship, and I certainly wasn’t prejudiced [except toward the British.]
I did what I had to do. I was invited to come early and stay late, to participate in the preparation and clean up afterward. I was friendly and yet kept most people at arm’s length. If I didn’t, they would get to know me, realize I was a skeleton, a fake, and know I was stupid. Best to keep them at a distance.
The Steps don’t work that way. When I finally experienced my spiritual awakening and took the program seriously, I discovered that step one is about “concern for fostering good relationships with others.” All my life I had hid in plain view. I’ve no doubt that people saw through me, but for most people, I was superficial.
Step one created a level playing field for all of us regardless of our socio-economic status or our place of employment. Step one opened my mind to the chaos I had created for myself and others. While I did not want to be an alcoholic or belong to this fellowship, I wanted what they had. I wanted what I saw in others with long term sobriety.
Step Four brought me face to face with my prejudices and fears. I was prejudiced against more than just “the Brits.” I was prejudiced against WASPS, Asians, and others with whom I had never had a conversation. I was prejudiced against myself. I had no idea who I was, what I believed. I was a stranger unto myself. I wanted company.
“Concern for fostering good relationships with others and the ability to overcome prejudice and fear are essential ingredients for promoting the culture of encounter…” First, I had to admit I was prejudiced; admit that I am human just like every other human on this planet, I made and make mistakes, have attitudes etc. Admitting that I am human brought me out of hiding, opened my mind and eyes to the goodness of “them,” of ‘those people” of whom I was one. It was essential that I begin to change my attitude and behavior in order to have an encounter with “them,” “us” and me.
The Fellowship, I discovered, is a place for a “promoting the culture of encounter.” I encountered people of all walks of life, all faith communities, all cultural backgrounds, all parts of the socio-economic ladder. I came face to face with them and they were me. This was no chance encounter. This was a real gut-level encounter that would not have happened in any other format—not even in church. This was a human encounter, a healing encounter, a spiritual encounter.
Our desire for fostering good relationships and the ability to overcome prejudice and fear broke down my walls and helped me encounter myself in a manner that no therapist had ever done. Steps one through five broke through my denial system and gave me the strength to reach out to others whom I otherwise would have judged or avoided.
I changed. Through working the steps and learning to live the program, I came to experience the promises coming true for me. I wanted what they had, and they gave it away freely by invitation and example: “Hospitality, in fact, grows from both giving and receiving.”
The Fellowship is not a place for selfishness. Rather it is in this fellowship that I learned true “hospitality.” “It grows from both giving and receiving.” As Bill W. wrote: “Many of my dearest A.A. friends have stood with me… Oftentimes they could help where others could not, simply because they were A. A’s.”2 I received so much initially that I did not understand. I was grateful for it, and I was selfish in the way I took it. In time I learned I too had something to offer, to share and it had nothing to do with currency or status—it was my experience, strength, and hope.
I came into this Fellowship as a stranger to myself and others and “too smart for your own good.” It was the genuine “Concern for fostering good relationships with others and the ability to overcome prejudice and fear’ [which created] ‘the culture of encounter in which we are prepared not only to give but also receive from others. Hospitality, in fact, grows from both giving and receiving.”
- 1) POPE FRANCIS: A STRANGER and You Welcomed Me. Edit Robert Ellsberg. Orbis Books 108.
- 2) AS BILL SEES IT. 303