Course correction

“AA is one of the only places I know where you can claim to be the worst person in the room and have to fight for the title.” – Tom, commenting on one of this week’s Catches

Time for a slight course correction. You need to always leave room to be able to do this in your journey through life. You can’t always get it right. Especially if you happen to be married to my wife, Marti, which, of course, you aren’t since I am — for 43 years now (yesterday was our anniversary, by the way. Thank you very much). Marti has vision gifts; I have prophetic gifts. We need each other. She needs mine to be accurate; I need hers to be relevant.

Last night Marti pointed out that it was starting to sound like this was going to be a course on the 12 Steps, which it is not. If it is, we’re doing no more than a fly over. Twelve weeks on what most people spend a lifetime on and still don’t get it all. But that’s not it. Instead, I will be using the 12 Steps as a backdrop for what God is telling me to tell you about His truth right now, today. This is not going to be a summary even of the 12 Steps. Rather, it is going to be spiritual insights brought on by, and inspired by the 12 Steps, but not requiring the AA experience to understand it.

Contrary to what I said yesterday, you don’t have to be in a group to get it. Marti reminded me that I have spent a lifetime talking to individuals. It’s what I do. My songs and stories and insights speak to individuals, even if I’m talking to a group. It’s part of my gift. You can certainly learn from a group and we are going to give you that opportunity to do that through live interaction on the Internet, but you can also catch a good deal of insight for your own life by keeping up with these Catches.

So I will say it again: This is not going to be a course on the 12 Steps, so that if you have spent years on this, you might as well check out now, or I can move over and let you teach it. But it’s not going to be like that. You may have heard stories of people spending years on just the first three steps. How arrogant to think I could teach this in just twelve weeks. So hang that up. Phew.

However, I do guarantee it will be new — a new way of looking at something old. Together we will look at what we can take away from this list of practical advice that has been helping millions of people cope with life for over 80 years.