Step 2: We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity

What separates humans from other animals and even from other early humanoid beings, is this front part of our brain, the frontal lobes. All vertebrates have them, but in other vertebrates they are much smaller. Ours in comparison are huge. They make up almost one half of our brains size.

Other parts of our brain, and their various functions, are something we share with all animals, even though our brains are of many different shapes. They work automatically. They cause us to breathe, they tell our hearts to beat, they control our metabolism, our need for sleep, our need to eat and drink. Those parts of our brain are on call, thank God, all the time. There’s no turning them on or off willingly.

We share half our brains with everything else, but we only share our developed frontal lobes with each other. They are that part of the brain which makes us, according to our definitions, human.

It is where our consciousness rises from. We can think abstractly about the world- we are not merely reacting to the sticks in our path or to the raindrops or to our instincts, like ants, who don’t have frontal lobes. And unlike dogs or birds or snakes, who do have small frontal lobes, ours have developed in ways that allow us to imagine events before they happen. And that’s the key to our human consciousness. We know, pretty well, the consequences of our actions. And that’s because of something else our frontal lobes enable us to do: remember for a long time.

Our ancestors remembered that where the little trees were growing at the edge of their camp was exactly where they had their old apple cores. Putting that memory together with the all important question, “What if..?” – two important frontal lobe functions- enabled farming to begin. And agriculture- a fairly recent event in human history- changed everything.

Those frontal lobes went into overdrive, because for the first time in maybe a million years of human history, humans no longer had to spend ¾’s of their time thinking about what they were going to eat. They had time to relax, to think, to converse, to philosophize about an endless flow of “What if’s”. They even began, and this is really recent in the history of humans, they even began to write down in an always developing language, some of the things they were thinking about and that they had discovered.

Without frontal lobes, without this uniquely developed human part of our brains, we would, if we existed at all, certainly not be here in this place today. This building would not have been able to be imagined. The lack of memory about how things in our environment interact with each other would have prevented anyone from putting stones on top of each other to build a wall, or to make paper, or to write down, of all the abstract abilities of humans, music!

We would also, without this part of our brains, have never looked beyond the food we needed right now and been able to perceive God. Nor, would we have been able to recognize and respond to the voice of God.

There is a passage in Paul’s letter to the Roman church which talks about this. Now even though the Apostle Paul didn’t know a thing about frontal lobes or brain physiology, he is writing about something here that we can understand in a new and, I think, really interesting context. (In fact, at the time Paul was writing, it was believed that our emotions and most of our thinking came out of our hearts- what this thing up here was, was still something of a mystery.)

Paul was writing to people about the people they lived among in Rome, who didn’t acknowledge or understand God, or who had rejected God. He’s kind of harsh on them, but that’s the way Paul was. His long term memory was filled with memories of jail cells and whippings. Those memories influenced his present thinking, whether he was aware of that or not. Nonetheless, he was a very intelligent and learned man, and great truths emerge from his writing. Romans 1, verse 19:

¹⁹For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. ²⁰Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse; ²¹for though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened.”

Humans have, Paul is saying, the ability to see beyond what is there in front of them. And if they fail to see the obvious God who is there, as Paul says it’s possible for anyone to see God, they “become futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds are darkened.”

Futile thinking is a lot like the powerlessness that I was talking about last week in Step 1 of the 12 Steps: “We admitted that we were powerless over our dependencies..” Anyone who is focusing inward, toward themselves and themselves only, will end up with a life that becomes unmanageable. Humans need reasons to exist that are larger than themselves. They need to be able to imagine possibilities, to plan, to dream; humans need, and this is what the frontal lobes and God gives us that makes us human, humans need, in order to thrive, the ability to hope.

The addict is without hope. Be it alcohol, drugs, or anything else that stands between humans and their God-given possibilities, hope is sacrificed on the altar of immediate gratification. Self gratification can be- let’s not lie about it- self gratification can be loads o’ fun the first time, or for the first few days, or even for years. I am told that the very first puff of heavy metal laden methamphetamine smoke is almost glorious in its power, as it drains away adrenaline and dopamine reserves that have taken a lifetime to build up. That ‘glory’ will never be experienced again- there are no more reserves to draw upon- but the addict will pursue that false hope for the rest of their short lives.

The drunk begins to sweat and worry about 6:00 on Saturday evening if there is nothing in the house to drink tomorrow. (Liquor stores close early Saturday night and are not open on Sundays.) The bulimic will look forward to those few minutes alone each day when she, or he, can stuff themselves full with fleeting happiness and futile love from the refrigerator or Taco Bell. The shopaholic will hide credit cards, order new ones, and juggle them all for the false sense of immediate power and joyless gratification of buying another pair of shoes, another car, or a new whatever it is that Apple or Microsoft or Abercombie and Fitch says to buy, which will finally make them whole and happy and satisfied.

But the darkness descends. It is inevitable. The need for real joy, the need for happiness, the need for true love- the need for hope, those needs are as hard-wired into our God-imaged consciousness as are the needs we don’t have control over, like breathing. The day inevitably comes when the false light of perversions, or addictions, or dependencies, burns out. The frontal lobes are almost non-functioning at this point, clouded over by the reptilian part of our brain which screams “more more more” of whatever we have been feeding our souls. God’s doorway into the Kingdom of God, has become a static-filled, unreceptive squawk box, full of nothing more than a lot of false information put there by ourselves or accepted by us from others.

It is the darkness of meaninglessness, the joylessness of futility, and there is nothing more awful. Some people, too many people, have no one at that point to reach out to, or have nobody- even more tragically- reaching out to them. And those saddest of human stories ensue.

For the fortunate ones, and there are many of us, for the fortunate ones there are those persons nearby who have not given up on us, moms and dads and grandparents who have never stopped praying for us, friends who able to see beyond the mess we are, who are able, even when we can no longer do it ourselves, to hold onto hope for us.

That hope of others can also be read about. It may be a brochure picked up months ago and stuck on top of the refrigerator- “I’ll get around to reading it someday.” A friend of mine from high school told me that those were her exact words one day eleven years ago. Then one day ten years ago, waking up one morning with someone she didn’t know, again, she went to that little dust covered brochure and read, “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol..” And Patty began, again, that morning, despite a horrible hangover, to be born again.

That’s how it works. When we begin to take our own egos out of the equation, the answers will begin, if we let them. Listen to this remarkable little episode written about by the prophet Daniel about 2500 years ago. It’s Daniel 9, beginning at verse 19. He was pleading to God, in a prayer for himself and his people. He had run out of options, as had the nation.

“Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive; O Lord, listen and act and do not delay! For your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people bear your name!”

It’s a demand. He’s pleading, he’s desperate. Here’s what happened, verse 20:

“While I was speaking, and was praying and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplication before the Lord my God on behalf of the holy mountain of my God— ²¹while I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen before in a vision, came to me in swift flight at the time of the evening sacrifice. ²²He came and said to me, ‘Daniel, I have now come out to give you wisdom and understanding. ²³At the beginning of your supplications a word went out, and I have come to declare it, for you are greatly beloved.”

At the moment Daniel began to speak, a word went out in the heavens, and Gabriel, messenger of God, was on his way to Daniel. At the moment we are able to say the words of Step Two, however garbled and confused and even silly they may seem, God hears.

“We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”

God hears, and Gabriel is on his way. God hears, and Jesus, who’s been knocking at the door for years, has an opportunity to enter in. That’s why, at an AA meeting, surprisingly enough to many people, that’s why there is always room for the drunk who wanders in. A person doesn’t have to be sober to call out in desperation- most of them, in fact, are not. But room is made for even the sick drunk who can barely stand up, because everyone else there knows that a power greater than that drunk, greater than any of them, is on the way. And because of that power, that power that has made, kept, and is keeping them sober, they’ve learned something about God’s love for the least of these, that many people have missed.

For the person who can say that there is a power greater than themselves, even if hey know nothing about the name, the personality, or the history of that power, for the person who can admit that they can no longer manage being the King or Queen of their own lives, for the self-centered person who is able, even for a moment to step out of the spotlight of their terminal unique-ism, for that person, new birth begins. And God is on the way to assist in the delivery.

The sun has begun to just peep over the eastern horizons, a sunrise has just begun. The opening chords of a great symphony, have just sounded. A single swipe of oil paint has just been brushed over what will become an ageless masterpiece. “Behold!” Paul would later write, “all things have become new!”

It is good to mark such a time and place with a symbolic act, so that we remember (and we will need to remember in the days and years ahead), so that we will remember the where, when, how, and why of everything becoming new with us. With one man I was with, it was a joyful emptying of probably $500 worth of liquor from the liquor cabinet which had become a household altar. Another man sat in the parking lot of the church in Dallas and smashed with a hammer a very large collection of porno tapes. Others have cut up all the credit cards except one for emergencies which they then freeze inside a block of ice, which gives them time think should that thing they suddenly “really need” rear its head again.

For me, it was symbolically, prayerfully, with witnesses, handing over to Jesus the last and final six-pack. If I want another one- ever- I’ll have to wrestle it from Jesus’ arms to have it. And I’m not willing to do that.

Now, is all over? Is it a downhill slide at this point into sobriety and wholeness from this point on? There are ten more steps; the answer is no, sobriety has just begun. The important thing though, is that is has begun!

The body will scream for more. The soul will ache with a parched pulse for more of whatever it is that closed down the receptors of the brain to the breath of God. The lies we told ourselves- “I can handle it”, “Just one won’t hurt”, and “I’ll start again tomorrow” will eloquently and seductively begin their song, and dance, again and again. The words, “Unmanageable” , “Came to believe”, and “restored sanity” are not one time spoken events. They need to be repeated daily sometimes, affirmed hourly some days, or breathed constantly to remind ourselves that “God is here, we are not alone, thanks be to God.”

And, finally, what is that sanity to which we hope to be restored? It is that full functioning of those frontal lobes which define our humanity. It is that renewed capacity to see beyond ourselves- to know that we are a part of a community, citizens of the Kingdom of God which we are getting to know better and better. It is the ability to plan beyond the next hour or the next day, it is the renewed ability to imagine our lives in the colors and sounds of continuing Creation, it is the ability to know, as Gabriel told Daniel, that we are greatly beloved.

It is the ability to hope.

Amen