In 1864, during the height of the Civil War, a Union soldier named William McCarter found himself dying of dysentery in a crowded military hospital.
The man who nursed him back to health—who fed him, cleaned him, and sat with him through the worst nights, was a Confederate prisoner of war.
Mercy knows no enemy.
Two men who, by every measure of their time, were supposed to be enemies, bound by a conflict that had torn the nation apart, discovered:
Kindness wears no uniform.
McCarter later wrote that this man, whose name he never learned, taught him that
Salvation needs no name.
Who would ever have thought?
For many of us there came a moment when we got the help we needed from the most unlikely source. When something like that happens it tends to dismantle your view of the world.
For instance, Malcolm X went to prison illiterate and came out one of the most articulate voices of the 20th century. The cell that was meant to confine him became the classroom that liberated him.
The prisoner who found freedom in a cage.
Who would ever have thought?
Let me just say —
I’m no Malcom X but I, too, had a moment when I found enlightenment from the most unlikely of sources, and because of it ~ I found a way out of my cage.
My story goes like this…
As a younger man alcohol had a fierce grip on me. It was as if I lived in a cage.
- one of my own making
- one with an open door
- one I refused to leave
Such was its grip on me.
It kept me hostage in an imaginary world over which I had no control, in a cage I was free to leave at any time, yet chose to live in for 22 years.
Then one night after a drunken brawl I was dragged from my cage and forced to reckon with a world where the only way to fly was — sober.
It was the beginning of many startling discoveries. Oh, the mystery I had become to myself! So much of who I thought I was was simply not true.
For instance, I had always fancied myself as a person who harbored no prejudice.
- I’d lived in a black urban ghetto in Chicago.
- I’d traveled the world and mixed with many cultures.
- I had friends of all different faiths and beliefs.
And God only knows, I drank with anyone, anywhere, who’d buy the next round.
But all my affability for humanity and was just a disguise.
NOT the truth.
I simply hid my prejudices in high-minded opinions.
Then something happened to thoroughly undress me.
After my first year in AA my sponsor suggested I cochair a meeting with “Steve,” who had five years of sobriety — a conservative Baptist preacher.
Whoa, boy, I said. I can’t do that.
- Not a Baptist preacher
- Not in a thousand years
My sponsor would have none of it. He said, “Do the math, Pat. He’s got five years — you’ve got one. In this program time takes time and whatever his day job is he’s got way more sober time than you do. Let me suggest you take the cotton out your ears and start listening.”
I didn’t argue with him.
I’d finally reached a point where I no longer trusted my own thinking. The truth was I’d come up empty way too many times.
Over the next six months something extraordinary happened. I experienced a time that was lively, stirring, and spiritually revitalizing.
Steve had done deep work grounding the 12 steps in his life, and everyone who came into contact with him was better for it — including me.
His insights into sobriety were remarkable.
Getting to know him changed not only my view of him, but my view of myself, and with it the whole process by which I formed opinions about other people.
I discovered that living in my head was a pretty dark and lonely place.
My heart opened to people totally unlike me.
When I replayed the conversation I initially had with my sponsor, I was appalled. What I saw was a reflexively biased intellectual snob — exactly the kind of bigot I so often railed against.
At the end of our chairing time together it wasn’t a Baptist minister I shared the table with, but a guy named Steve with whom I shared a common humanity.
The man I’d written off as my enemy was actually my brother.
Who would ever have thought?
Just a thought…
Pat