I M Perfect lady

Here is an excerpt from the book, "What we talk about when we talk about God." by Rob Bell

"I was twenty-five years old, just starting out as a pastor, and one evening after I'd given a sermon, a man named George walked up to me and told me that I needed to go to an AA meeting.  I was totally caught off guard and muttered something about how I wasn't aware that I was an alcoholic.  He said that it didn't matter, that everything I needed to know about being a pastor I would learn if I went, and that when it came to my turn to share in the meeting I should simply say, "Hi, I'm Rob and I pass." 

"So, I went, and it changed my life."

"As the people when around the room and told their stories, the gears in my mind turned as fast as they could, trying to figure out and name what it was about the meeting that was so different from any other gathering I'd ever been in."

"Slowly it dawned on me what it was: I was in a bullshit-free zone."

"In the first meeting I went to, people were talking about the first of the twelver recovery steps, which deals with admitting your powerlessness."

"Admitting demands Honesty."

"Admitting demands a ruthless assessment of your condition."

"Admitting is what happens when you've hit the wall, 

 when you have no energy left to pretend,

when you're done playing games, 

when you no longer care what other people think,

when you've come to the end of yourself,

when you're ready to embrace the truth that you need help, and that on your own you're in serious trouble because you've made a mess of things."

"As I sat there, it was as if I could see, really see, for the first time, just how much time and energy and effort we expend making sure that everybody knows how strong, smart, quick, competent, capable, together, and good we are. (I imagine you could add your own words to the list.)"

"It's hard to see just how much that posturing consumes us until you're in a room where it's absent – a room where people aren't doing any of that because they are giving their energies to admitting."

"Our need to control how others see us is like a God we've been bowing down to for so long we don't even realize it  But in an AA meeting, no one has the energy left for that sort of thing. You come face to face with yourself as you truly are."

"And now here's the twist,

the mystery,

the unexpected truth about admitting that takes us back to the counter-intuitive power of gospel: 

When you come to the end of yourself, you are at that exact moment in the kind of place where you can fully experience the God who is for you."  Steven Pressfield

I have great respect for the folks who are at the end of themselves, who live their lives in the bullshit-free zone!

It is rare and brilliant when you see them in all their glory…uncapping their whole lives, leaving nothing out.

Often it seems like I live in the bullshit-free zone and collide with those who are repelled by it.  It leaves us standing in a weird space. Where they can't believe my story and I can't believe theirs.  Where their bullshit doesn't fit into my world…it just doesn't make sense, doesn't fit the definition, doesn't compute or relate.

How easy the world would be if we all were to face who we truly are.