August 23
Different Words for Help
One member speaks easily about God. Another describes the group as their Higher Power. Their words can sound far apart, and we may feel protective of whichever language has carried our own recovery. We listen for agreement with our understanding before listening for the experience being shared. The meeting becomes narrower in our hearing than it is in fact.
We need not pretend that all beliefs are interchangeable to recognize common work. A person may be learning honesty, making amends, and accepting help through an understanding different from ours. We are free to speak plainly about our own spiritual experience without requiring everyone to translate theirs into our terms. Unity preserves a place where people can seek recovery together while questions remain unsettled. The trust that grows there may depend less on matching words than on how we treat the people who use them.
Which words make me stop listening for the experience beneath them?
We have come to the same meeting with different understandings.
For the A.A. nerds: Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, Tradition One and Step Two.