Such a Contrarian! (God is a Door Knob!)

At times, I'm struck numb by how much of a contrarian I really am! I often disagree with something before a person's done making their statement. I mean really! There was even one time a couple of months ago when someone was chairing a meeting in Sacramento and during his share he was kind enough to quote me two or three times during his chair... "You know, like Mike says, blah blah blah..." Instead of being honored I was struck in two ways: one, that he was quoting me correctly (people don't always do that!) and two, I disagreed with each of the quotes correctly attributed to me!

Another strange example of how far I will go to disagree is that I will sometimes even reverse directions and adopt a position espousing something that I have adamantly disagreed with in the past: e.g., I've always thought it was rather silly to consider a door knob as being one's higher power and felt it short of helpful in terms of helping people get in contact with their own understanding of a higher power. But some months ago, someone was chairing a meeting and they said something rather demeaning about the idea of electing to have God be a door knob.... And as soon as they said it, I instantly became a passionate advocate of God as Door Knob theology!

How did I do that? Well, in addition to just being a compulsive contrarian, I started trying to come up for reasons supporting God as Door Knob and it didn't take me long to come up with a rather convincing argument for this image of God. What is a door knob? It's an object that we grab on to in order to get into another room. We use it to get into the next room. And, most important to this theology, once we get into the other room, we must let go of the door knob before we can get very far at all into the room. Door knobs have a specific and temporary purpose then: to allow us into the next room. Once we're in the next room, we need to let go of the door knob before we can completely enter and roam around the room. And eventually, we're going to discover another door knob that we're just going to have to test out!

I think understandings and names for God (including Higher Power) are very much like door knobs. These understandings and/or names help us better understand "something other than ourselves" (and ourselves!). They do help, but that help is limited and temporary. Eventually, as I understand it, we need to let them go once they've served their purpose. To do otherwise, gets us back into the age old problem referred to in How It Works: the problem of holding on to old ideas!

I chuckle to myself whenever I hear that part about 'old ideas' in How It Works read in meetings: I mean it's simply not true! Some of us? No way! Have you EVER met an alcoholic (or non-alcoholic for that matter) who didn't try with all their might to hold on to certain old ideas! I've yet to meet one!

"Some of us tried to hold on to our old ideas!" No, I think truth in advertising requires us to modify that statement to read, "All of us!". Ultimately, we all seem to get to the point where certain old ideas, like the idea that we can drink like a non-alcoholic, just stop working for us and we have to replace them with new ideas. If we are going to grow. Sure, most of us like to think that these "new ideas" are permanent and unchanging --- but both that thought and these new ideas are going to change whether we like it or not. Trust me. Even if they don't change: they do get old! (And isn't that a change?)

Take care!

Mike L.