I ran across a discussion today wherein a Catholic priest arrived at Step 1. He was describing his experience at his first AA meeting, and it really caused my thinking to do a paradigm shift.
What he said was how touched he was at his first AA experience. Figuratively and literally, he meant. In the meeting, he shared about being a priest, and at the end, he was freely hugged by many people in the meeting.
And what he said about that made me see differently, than I had ever, before. What he said was that, as a priest, people do not tend ever to touch him, because they see him as different than a normal human.
And he does not feel free to touch others, because of so much publicity of sex abuse scandals in the Catholic church.
Stop, and think about this.
And how much he had needed to feel those hugs.
This is no statement whatsoever about the Catholic church, or any religion.
It is a statement of humanity.
It's not just people locked outside the principles of religions. It's people locked inside, as well. Both are between a rock and a hard place, in terms of the principles.
What he said was how touched he was at his first AA experience. Figuratively and literally, he meant. In the meeting, he shared about being a priest, and at the end, he was freely hugged by many people in the meeting.
And what he said about that made me see differently, than I had ever, before. What he said was that, as a priest, people do not tend ever to touch him, because they see him as different than a normal human.
And he does not feel free to touch others, because of so much publicity of sex abuse scandals in the Catholic church.
Stop, and think about this.
And how much he had needed to feel those hugs.
This is no statement whatsoever about the Catholic church, or any religion.
It is a statement of humanity.
It's not just people locked outside the principles of religions. It's people locked inside, as well. Both are between a rock and a hard place, in terms of the principles.
I wonder if, in the case of religion, we in the rooms need to focus on the persons, and not the principles, of those religions.
Food for thought.
-The Traveler
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