Ten years ago I met a man from West Texas who told me a story that changed my life.
Good stories have the power to do that you know – and this was a good one. With Christmas almost
upon us, and it being the season for exchanging gifts, consider his story my little gift to you.
What prompted the telling was my complaint that the 12-Step Program I belong to didn’t seem
nearly as strong nor as spiritually grounded as when I first joined it back in 1972.
My West Texas friend responded with the story of the 5 M’s. It’s the story of what happens to spiritual
institutions– any spiritual institution – over time. As soon as I heard it, I understood the
program, and the church and my own recovery differently. I hope you may as well.
The guy said every spiritual institution starts with a man. That man could be Jesus or Buddha or
Frank Buchman or Bill Wilson. (Now that man could just as easily be a woman but the “W” in
“woman” instead of the “M” in “man” really screws up the story!)
Anyway, that man (the first
M) has a spiritual experience. It might be Jesus being baptized at the River Jordan, Buddha
finding enlightenment under the banyan tree, Frank Buchman experiencing the power of the
cross in a little church in England, or Wilson’s white-light experience while detoxing at Towns
Hospital.
Each man has a direct encounter with the Divine. His consciousness is awakened to
what the Big Book calls “the fourth dimension” of reality. It’s the spiritual experience which is
the goal of the 12 Steps. And what happens to each man, as a result of his encounter, is he
comes back “changed.” Each has a wholly new perspective on his life, on his relationship with
God, and on his life work.
And so each “changed man” then tries to carry the message (the second M) to those around him.
He really has no choice but to do so as the message exerts such a powerful hold on him that he
wouldn’t be complete if he didn’t share the good news. And it’s important to understand that the
message he carries isn’t that the man who received it is so very special and unique – but only that
he’s awakened to a reality that’s readily available to all who’ll remove their blinders and come to
see and experience it for themselves. Jesus called it the kingdom or the rein of God, Buddha
termed it enlightenment or Nirvana, Buchman called it being “maximal” or “fully surrendered,”
12-Steppers call it serenity or recovery. If they’re ready for it, the message they carry resonates
deep inside those who hear it and they too are attracted to it. Often they know almost
immediately that it is a message directed to them and their future path is clear. They must follow
the same path as the man who carried the message to them.
And with this is born the third M: the movement. Now we have Jesus with an ever-growing
number of disciples, Buddha with his band of monks, Buchman with his dedicated Oxford Group
followers and Wilson with the First One Hundred sober alcoholics. This is the glorious heyday
of the movement as it tries to pass on the life-changing message of its founder’s experience to an
awaiting world. It’s a critical time where the group is often viewed initially as a cult and a threat
to the established order of things, but then finds greater respectability with increased numbers
and leaders able to carry on the work of transformation even after the death of its founder.
Before long, however, as the young movement grows, both in membership and in complexity, it
is presented with an increasing number of issues that call for clarification and group conformity.
The message must now be organized and codified so false prophets and false doctrines don’t
arise to lead the group astray. The message must also be written down and protected for future
generations.
Enter the attorneys, the secretaries, and the theologians. They comprise the fourth
M: the machine. The job of the machine is to create traditions, and formulas, and rituals that
capture the spirit of the founder. And so we have bishops and bibles and creeds in the church,
abbots and monasteries among the Buddhists, foundations and a castle in Switzerland set up for
the Oxford Group and the Big Book and the New York Central office for A.A. Now the machine
is absolutely necessary for the continuation of the movement, but over time, what invariably
happens through machines is the machinery replaces the message – the law replaces the spirit.
People go through the motions, but the power and the mystery are diminished as the machine
waters down the message.
I knew the machine was at work in a 12 Step meeting I attended in Tennessee. A woman was
playing solitaire at the table where the5:00PM meeting was about to start. When the time for
the meeting arrived she opened the meeting with the Serenity Prayer while she continued to deal
her cards. The machine had arrived! She would go through the motions but there would be no
real “meeting.” I was also reminded of it when I visited Bill Wilson’s birthplace in Vermont
several years ago. Someone, I’m sure with good intentions, had placed a lamp over the spot
where Bill had been born. Now we have a “perpetual light” shining there that will never go out.
Good work, machine! No doubt in a few hundred years the sacred coffee pot from the first AA
group in Akron will be on display and maybe even the cigarette ashes from the first hundred
alcoholics will be rubbed on our foreheads of chronic relapsersin search of a miracle cure!
Rather than encouraging new members to go through the same transforming experience as the
founder, the machine simply takes us through the motions.
Left unchecked, the machine will grind on, spewing out new laws and literature, producing
mindless but obedient adherents who follow the form but miss the message.
This, of course,
leads invariably to the Fifth M: the Mausoleum. The power of the movement is dead. It no
longer has the spiritual energy to inspire and transform lives. When this happens – and it will, as
it is the nature of institutions – then other men (back to the First M) come along willing to
challenge the lost vision of the group and willing to lead it through the 5 M’s all over again. And
when they do, they generally go back to the experience of the founder and ask the question,
“Who was that man and what really was his message?”
This may be a wonderful season for each of us to ask that of Jesus and Buddha and Buchman and
Bill. Have I experienced what they experienced and has it transformed me and carried me
toward that fourth dimension, or have I just put those guys on a pedestal, read a quote or two
from them now and then, and continued to deal the cards in a lonely game of solitaire? It’s your
deal!
Anonymous Alcoholics 