TEXT (pp. xviii-xix): By the close of 1941, A.A. numbered 8,000 members.... Our Society then entered a fearsome and exciting adolescent period. The test that it faced was this: Could these large numbers of erstwhile erratic alcoholics successfully meet and work together? ... Would there be schisms which would split A.A. apart? Soon A.A. was beset by these very problems .... But out of this frightening and at first disrupting experience the conviction grew that A.A.'s had to hang together or die separately.
THOUGHT: In one of the stories in the back of the Big Book (p. 417), a physician writes: "Shakespeare said, 'All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.' He forgot to mention that I was the chief critic. I was always able to see the flaw in every person, every situation. And I was always glad to point it out, because I knew you wanted perfection, just as I did." It used to be very common for me to criticize individual members and entire groups in A.A. Today, I try to remember to ask myself whether those criticisms are worth the threat they pose to the unity of A.A.--given that my life depends upon the unity of A.A.
PRAYER: Father, please enable me to set aside everything I think I know, for an open mind and a new experience; help me to see the truth about my need to criticize everything and everyone.
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