What Have You Done for You Lately?

I know them, and you know them too: those bible-thumping, scripture-quoting, righteous-feeling people. Some of them talk the talk without walking the walk.

The last time I went to church religiously (pun intended), I became disillusioned when the new pastor, a righteous-feeling married man, resigned in disgrace after an affair with a woman in the church. We've become nauseated by a stream of reports through the years of priests molesting underage boys. Did they think God was napping when they committed these atrocities?

I hear a few people at A.A. meetings quoting Big Book passages but doing nothing. Are they living those passages or grandstanding? Cynthia said at my home group meeting that she knew a man who attended A.A. meetings for 20 years, but did nothing for A.A., other members, or his own sobriety. He died drunk.

"Faith without works is dead" (Big Book, page 88).

The Daily Reflection for February 15 reads: "One of the most important things A.A. has given me, in addition to freedom from booze, is the ability to take 'right action.' It says the promises will always materialize if I work for them. Fantasizing about them, debating them, preaching about them, and faking them just won't work. I'll remain a misearble, rationalizing dry drunk."