Built by the One and the Many, p. 155We give thanks to our Heavenly Father, who, through so many friends and through so many means and channels, has allowed us to construct this wonderful edifice of the spirit in which we are now dwelling–this cathedral whose foundations already rest upon the corners of the earth.On its great floor we have inscribed our Twelve Steps of recovery. On the side walls, the buttresses of the A.A. Traditions have been set in place to contain us in unity for as long as God may will it so. Eager hearts and hands have lifted the spire of our cathedral into its place. That spire bears the name of service. May it ever point straight upward toward God.“It is not only to the few that we owe the remarkable developments in our unity and in our ability to carry A.A.’s message everywhere. It is to the many, indeed, it is to the labors of all of us that we owe these prime blessings.”
1. A.A. Comes Of Age, p
WHICH ART IN HEAVENHaving clearly established the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man, Jesus next goes on to enlarge upon the nature of God, and to describe the fundamental facts of existence. It is the nature of God to be in heaven, and of man to be on earth, because God is Cause, and man is manifestation. Here heaven stands for God or Cause, because in religious phraseology heaven is the term for the Presence of God. The word “earth” means manifestation, and man’s function is to manifest or express God, or Cause. In other words, God is the Infinite and Perfect Cause of all things; but Cause has to be expressed, and God expresses Himself by means of Man. Man’s destiny is to express God in all sorts of glorious and wonderful ways. To express means to press outwards, or to bring into sight that which already exists implicitly. Every feature of your life is really a manifestation or expression of something in your soul.Since it is misunderstandings about the relationship of God and man that lead to all our difficulties, it is worth any amount of trouble to correctly understand that relationship. Trying to have manifestation without Cause is atheism and materialism, and we know where they lead. “Our Father which art in heaven.”. . . as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them . . . (2 Corinthians 6:16)© 1931 by Emmet Fox
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FATHER OF ALLHe that prayeth well, who loveth wellBoth man and bird and beast;He prayeth best, who loveth bestAll things both great and small:For the dear God who loveth us,He made and loveth all.
~ Coleridge ~But ask now the beast, and they shall teach the; and the fouls of the air, and they shall tell thee: Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee: and the Fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee… that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this (Job 12: 7-9).
© 1931 by Emmet Fox
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FORGIVE US OUR TRESPASSESForgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us (Matthew 6:12).This clause is the running point of the Prayer. It is the strategic key. Having told us what God is, how the universe works, how we are to do our own work, what our true nourishment or supply is, and the way in which we can obtain it, he now comes to the forgiveness of sins.The forgiveness of sins is the central problem of life. Sin is a sense of separation from God, and is the major tragedy of human experience. It is, of course, rooted in selfishness. It is essentially an attempt to gain some suppose good to which we are not entitled in justice. It is a sense of isolated, self-regarding, personal existence, whereas the Truth of Being is the all is One. Our true selves are at One with God, undivided from Him, expressing His ideas, witnessing to His nature. Because we are all one with the great Whole of which we are spiritually a part, it follows that we are one with all men.Evil, sin, the fall of man, in fact, is essentially the attempt to negate this Truth. We try to live apart from God. We act as though we could have plans and purposes and interests separate from him. All this, if it were true, would mean that existence is not one and harmonious, but a chaos of competition and strife. But, of course, it is not true, and therein lies the joy of life.
© 1931 by Emmet Fox
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OUR DAILY BREADGive us this day our daily bread (Matthew 6:11)Because we are the children of a loving Father, we are entitled to expect that God will provide us fully with everything we need. If we do so expect, in faith and understanding, we shall never look in vain.It is the Will of God that we should all lead healthy, happy lives, full of joyous experience; that we should develop freely and steadily. To this end we require such things as food, clothing, shelter, means of travel, books, and so on; above all, we require freedom. In the Prayer all these things are included under the heading of bread. Bread, that is to say, means not merely food in general, but all things that man requires for a healthy, happy, free, and harmonious life. But in order to obtain these things, we have to claim them, not necessarily in detail, but we have to claim them, and, we have to recognize God and God alone as the Source and fountainhead of all our good. Lack of any kind is always traceable to the fact that we have been seeking our supply from some secondary source, instead of from God Himself, the Author and Giver of life.© 1931 by Emmet Fox
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WHICH ART IN HEAVEN
Having clearly established the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man, Jesus next goes on to enlarge upon the nature of God, and to describe the fundamental facts of existence. It is the nature of God to be in heaven, and of man to be on earth, because God is Cause, and man is manifestation. Here heaven stands for God or Cause, because in religious phraseology heaven is the term for the Presence of God. The word “earth” means manifestation, and man’s function is to manifest or express God, or Cause. In other words, God is the Infinite and Perfect Cause of all things; but Cause has to be expressed, and God expresses Himself by means of Man. Man’s destiny is to express God in all sorts of glorious and wonderful ways. To express means to press outwards, or to bring into sight that which already exists implicitly. Every feature of your life is really a manifestation or expression of something in your soul.
Since it is misunderstandings about the relationship of God and man that lead to all our difficulties, it is worth any amount of trouble to correctly understand that relationship. Trying to have manifestation without Cause is atheism and materialism, and we know where they lead. “Our Father which art in heaven.”
. . . as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them . . . (2 Corinthians 6:16)
© 1931 by Emmet Fox
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FATHER OF ALLHe that prayeth well, who loveth wellBoth man and bird and beast;He prayeth best, who loveth bestAll things both great and small:For the dear God who loveth us,He made and loveth all.
~ Coleridge ~But ask now the beast, and they shall teach the; and the fouls of the air, and they shall tell thee: Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee: and the Fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee… that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this (Job 12: 7-9).© 1931 by Emmet Fox
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OUR FATHER
Now the Lord’s says, not “My Father.” But “Our Father,” and this indicates beyond the possibility of mistake, the truth of the brotherhood of man. It forces upon our attention at the very beginning the fact that all men are the children of the Father; and that
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28).
Here Jesus cuts away the illusion that the members of any nation, or race, or territory, or group, or class, or color, are, in the sight of God, superior to any other group.
The final point is the implied command that we are to pray not only for ourselves but for all mankind. None of us lives to himself, however we may try. In a much more literal sense than people are aware we are limbs of one body.
“Our Father”—a spiritual explosive, that will ultimately destroy every kind of human bondage.
© 1931 by Emmet Fox
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