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for all members really does not scream out to me for any sort of personal action or thought, in fact, this feels as if it is just a given and is the job of the group. this reminds me of a parable that i have heard in many different forms:
Everybody was sure that Somebody would do what was needed to make the meeting a safe place. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that, because it was Everybody's task. Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody would not do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have.
i have to admit i lifted that from another source, but it succinctly sums up what i heard this morning, that i can be that “somebody” and hopefully everybody will be that somebody as well.
two of the spiritual principles i ascribe to live by, is to honest and open-minded. in this instance what i see those to mean is that when someone says they do not feel “safe” in a meeting, it if my job to believe them and engage them in a conversation to see what, if anything i can do (somebody). the issue i have, is when they say it is what we read that fills them with trepidation. when it is one of my peers. acting badly that is easy to correct, i can go speak to them, quietly and in private, to address their behavior. when it comes to the literature however, the answer is far from that simple. i see that as a task of sponsorship, which for me means, that i work out with those i sponsor what the exact nature of what they feel happens to be. i really find it more than disconcerting when one of my peers comes to a group conscience and wants to change the readings that have been fellowship approved, because one or more of their sponsees find that the language makes them uncomfortable. in my mind, they are shirking their duty as a sponsor to help those they sponsor reach an accommodation with what is being read. in my experience, those who are new need very little to find an excuse to go away and spin down to the inevitable ends of active addiction.
i know i could have certainly been one of those and for me it was using the male pronoun for GOD, that drove me to distraction. my sponsor and i spent =many hours chatting about the language that comprise the literature of our fellowship and in the end, the accommodation that i came to was that when those steps were originally written, in the nineteen-twenties, that was how nearly everyone referred to GOD when choosing a pronoun. that issue has been addressed time and again at the lowest level of the service structure and each and every time has been voted down. who am i to think i am more spiritual than the collective group conscience of this fellowship. it was hubris to believe i knew better and when the time is correct, i am quite sure that the language will be changed by that same collective group conscience.
i eagerly await the day when i am asked to give my opinion on that issue and be a part of that process. in the here and now, i will guide the men i sponsor through their various hang-ups with what has been written to allow them the time and opportunity to find a place in this fellowship and make it their home, just for today.

∞ DT ∞