Twelve Steps to Religionless Spirituality Transcript (037)
DAVID LUNDY: Hello. I’m David Lundy, and you are at the Point of Learning with my friend and sometime scene partner Peter Horn. I’m an actor who performed with Pete in The Woman in Black at the Kavinoky Theatre in Buffalo last fall. I’m also a recovering alcoholic who has family roots in the Anglican church, so I’m very interested to hear Pete’s conversation with the Very Rev. Ward Ewing, whose new book is Twelve Steps to Religionless Spirituality: The Power of Spirituality with or without God, which explores Father Ewing's 40+ years of experience with A.A. groups as a non-alcoholic, and how everyone can benefit from rigorous honesty in supportive communities. Enjoy the show!
[01:01]
PETER HORN [voiceover]: On today’s show, the Very Rev. Ward B. Ewing.
WARD EWING Everybody has spirituality. Spirituality is not unrelated to belief in God, but it's not primarily about belief in God. It's how we perceive, how we respond, and the choices we make.
[VO]: What anyone and everyone can learn from the kind of community formed in Alcoholics Anonymous groups …
WARD: One of the things I like about A.A. is they are very clear: We are not striving for perfection, but for spiritual progress. Part of my objection to the church is it implies that we should be perfect, and that's a dangerous place to be because the only way I can be perfect is for me to believe I'm perfect and deny everything else!
[VO]: His new book offers a radical challenge.
WARD: What I think this book proposes is a deep challenge to our culture, which is focused on success, on money, on individual popularity, on individual achievement. And what I'm looking for is some sense of humility, and love and tolerance for others, and openness to ideas that are different. And it ain't gonna happen in a day!
[VO]: All that, and much more coming right up! Stick around!
[02:27]
[VO]: Ward B. Ewing is “the reverend” because he’s an ordained Episcopal priest, and “very reverend” because he is the former Dean and President of The General Theological Seminary in New York City. Before that role, he served as the Rector, or senior pastor, of the Episcopal church I attended with my mom when I was in high school, Trinity Church in Buffalo. During his time at Trinity, the average weekly attendance grew from under 50 to more than 300 people, with a rich offering of Sunday school, youth, and adult education classes, as well as an innovative small group program that many participants called “life-changing.” I had great experiences in Sunday School and youth group at Trinity, but I also appreciated that Ward welcomed high-schoolers like me to serve on committees and have a say in what went on with the church’s mission and outreach. A thoughtful leader, a compelling preacher, and an enlightened teacher, Ward had a deep influence on me as a teenager. I vividly recall his honest reflections on challenges we all face sometimes as he taught a diocesan youth retreat class one summer. His example of honoring young people with real respect was a model for me when I became a teacher. Father Ewing had come to Buffalo from Louisville, Kentucky, where he and his family helped grow a small, struggling mission into a thriving congregation with a new building. As he will relate at the start of our conversation, it was in Kentucky that Ward began his more than four-decade association with Alcoholics Anonymous as a non-alcoholic, which later included his service as Trustee and Chair of the General Service Board of Alcoholics Anonymous for the U.S. and Canada. In addition to the book that grows out of that experience, which we’ll be discussing today, Ward has also written one volume each on the Book of Job and the Book of Revelation. Though he works as a consultant for churches and other organizations, and still preaches occasionally, he is now mostly retired with his wife Jenny in Ten Mile, Tennessee, which is where I connected with him via Zoom in early March 2022.
[04:58]
PETER: The book you published last fall is called Twelve Steps to Religionless Spirituality, subtitled The Power of Spirituality with or without God, and I'd like to start with that title, because you are an unexpected messenger for two of the big ideas implied there. First, "Twelve Steps" refers to the original twelve-step program, Alcoholics Anonymous, or A.A., which you have credited with welcoming and supporting you by its culture of "honesty, spiritual growth, and gratitude" [p. 143]. You've been meeting with and in A.A. groups of different kinds in different parts of the U.S. for over 40 years—but you are not an alcoholic or a recovering alcoholic. How did this come to be?
WARD: I'm a parish priest. I moved to Louisville, Kentucky in 1975. And one of the first calls I got was from a parishioner, the wife who said to me, she said, “Ward, I want you to go call on my husband. He got paid last night.” This is Saturday morning. “He got paid last night, went to a bar, spent his whole paycheck, got into a fight. He's in jail. I want you to go tell him I don't want anything to do with him. You need to visit him.” Well, I had no idea what to do! I mean, absolutely no idea—except to go get in the car and drive down to the county jail. And I talked with him and then he was released, and I don't think anything came of it legally, but I realized I didn't know why anyone would get paid, go spend his entire check in a bar and then get in a fight. That just didn't make any sense. So I said, I need to learn. And I thought the best place to learn was by attending open A.A. meetings. Back in those days, they were pretty smoky.
PETER: Right, right, right, right!
WARD: And I would come home from a meeting and Jenny would say, “Take your clothes off and leave ‘em outside! You stink!” So I’d been doing that about five years when Willie walked into my office. Willie was a member of the parish and a member of A.A. He had seven years of sobriety. And he said, “Ward, you’re the spiritual expert, right?” (I don’t think I answered that!) But he went on and he said, “I’m out of touch with God. The last time I was out of touch with my higher power, I drank. And if I drink again, I may die. I need you to put me back in touch with God.” And I had at least good enough sense to know that was not something I could do. And so we talked right then, and then we talked later, and decided to put together a group— turned out to be all men who had at least five years of sobriety who wanted to talk about spiritual issues in their life, and I was to be a part of that. There were about five or six of us—I think at one point, seven—who met every Tuesday afternoon. And that group is where I learned how to work the [Twelve] Steps [of A.A.]. And that became my primary spiritual program. And that group really changed my life. So that's five years with that group. And then I moved to Buffalo, continued being involved with A.A. in a variety of different ways, and then to [The General Theological] Seminary—same. And that was where someone asked me if I would be willing to serve as a Trustee. And the General Service Office, which is the head of A.A., is in New York. And I became a Trustee and then ultimately Chair of the Board.
PETER: I read the book and found it thoroughly compelling, but you were framing it right there as you were getting involved as an exercise in learning, like—
WARD: Absolutely!
PETER: You recognized, Here's something I do not know about. I need to learn about it. How can I learn about it? This is the way, or this is a great way …
WARD: I mean, I also took a course at the University of Louisville. I attended seminars that the University of Louisville was presenting that were helpful, but those were all in the head. A.A. is not a “head” organization. It's a “heart” organization. And I think that involvement was—I think that was a good way for me, anyway—to begin to learn. But yes, absolutely. My whole involvement in A.A. comes out of my ignorance!
PETER: Another unexpected element, again, for a book by Ward Ewing, an Episcopal priest—and you happen to be one who is the former Dean and President of a theological seminary—is that you’re writing about “the power of spirituality with or without God.” And so I wonder if it would be helpful to begin with what you mean by spirituality, which is to say: I was struck immediately by the expansiveness of “spirituality” as you define it in the opening pages. You say that, for example, when we become defensive because of criticism, that's a spiritual event. Or when we hold on to resentment. So the way that you’re considering it, spiritual realities include sunshine, the diagnosis of a serious illness, a good or bad evaluation by our boss—or at least maybe it’s our perception of those things and how we react to those things that makes them spiritual events …
[10:42]
WARD: Right. I define spirituality by looking at three different actions that human beings make. One is we perceive things. Now that's a very subjective thing to do! So we get a bad evaluation from a boss. How we perceive that is going be affect us spiritually. Another is how we feel about the world: how we feel about our boss, in this situation. If we like the boss and we got a bad evaluation, that's gonna be both upsetting and more likely to bring change. If we don't like the boss and we got a bad evaluation, we can just say, That's that guy. That's not anything about me. I am not gonna pay any attention to that. So then out of perception and feelings come choices, and all of these interact with each other. In other words, the choice that I make then to go look for another job is—I'm not gonna grow spiritually. The choices I make to change in my habits and try to figure out what I can do better, in fact, lead to a more mature spirit within me. How we feel about things evolves out of our perceptions and our choices. So these three things get intertwined in a pattern, and this is how we do things. So, for example, the simplest pattern, and maybe the place I began [in the book], is the active alcoholic who's drinking and believes he is not alcoholic and twists all of his perceptions to blame other people, to deny … I love the one about the guy who complained that when he got his third DWI, it was because the policeman happened to be on that road that night—not because he was drunk and driving, you know, and it's just really remarkable what an active alcoholic is able to do in his perception! And then there's a great tendency to lie and resent and then ultimately to be depressed and isolated, but all of that relates to his choices, his perceptions, and then his feelings that the world is a hostile place. It's a downward spiral that each of those factors play a part in. One of my favorite phrases that's not original with me, but is Spirituality is like health. Everybody has some. You have good health, you have bad health, you have poor health, you have excellent health. You have a mature spirituality, a healthful spirituality. You can have a destructive spirituality. I mean, look at what's going on in this world today in Ukraine. I mean, that has a spiritual base, in that Putin had a goal that he wanted and he's after. He's made decisions based on a perception that seems very skewed, as best we can understand. And it's a very unhealthy spirituality. Everybody has spirituality. Spirituality is not unrelated to belief in God, but it's not primarily about belief in God. It's how we perceive, how we respond, and the choices we make that form a person's spirituality. A pattern develops that forms a person's spirituality.
PETER: This is the last part of the title I'll ask about, and then we can move into some other things! But, “the power of spirituality with or without God.” Part of what drew me to your preaching in high school, when you were rector, which is to say senior pastor, of Trinity Church in Buffalo, is that you were quite thoughtful about the challenges of faith. You were not at all dogmatic. I remember you preaching once that that doubt is an essential part of faith, not the enemy of faith, for instance.
WARD: Right.
PETER: But with this book, I imagine some people have to wonder how this priest came up with what seems to be ambivalent subtitle, you know, “with or without God” …
WARD: Right. I've done a lot of work with atheists and agnostics in A.A., and they've taught me a lot. And what I've learned and what I've seen and observed is that they have pretty much the same spiritual path that the folks who believe in God—and you hear a lot of talk about God in A.A.—but that the people who believe in God have a very similar path, and what we have learned to do is to talk about experience first and recognize that God is an explanation. But there can be other explanations, and there's still a spirituality there that is transforming people's lives. It's a bit of a controversy within A.A. There are those who feel like you've got to have a belief in a traditional sort of God. I'm in that school that says we really don't understand God. And one of my favorite stories is from the Rector before me at Trinity Church …
[VO]: At one point in the book, Ward quotes his predecessor at Trinity Church, Tom Heath, who had a summer cabin on Cape Cod, and used it as an analogy for knowing God—or rather, not knowing God. Father Heath said, “I know the cape where my cabin is located. I know the tidal pools where can find specimens at low tide. I know how the weather can roll in when a nor’easter is approaching. I know the best time of day to fish and the changes the seasons bring. I know where I can swim and where the bottom is too rough or the waves too dangerous. But I cannot say that I know the Atlantic Ocean or all the oceans in the world. My knowledge ends a few hundred yards from my cabin. Such is my knowledge of God. I know something of God from my experience, but to say I have full or complete knowledge about God is as foolish as saying I know the oceans of the world because of my experience on Cape Cod” [p. 43].
WARD: He understands his little niche of Cape Cod, but he does not mean he understands the oceans and all of the waters. And I think our understanding of God is really an experience that we have had some sign of experience about God that's changed our lives. Folks who are atheists and agnostics have had an experience of gaining hope, of moving toward a more rigorous honesty, of the power of a community to change lives. But what we have in common above all else is to recognize that we cannot heal ourselves, that we need help. So whether you have a belief in God and look to God for that help, or whether you don't have a belief in God but recognize that if I'm a part of this group, I will change my life and it will change me—we are on the same path. So there's real spiritual progress. And belief in God helps some people and provides an explanation for some people. It does for me. But it is just an explanation. And experience is what's most important, not the explanation. And I have an awful lot of people who tell me about their belief in God, in a God that I could never believe in.
[18:27]
PETER: You have connected your experience with A.A. and outside of A.A. with learning what you call “the importance of knowing that you do not know.”
WARD: Right.
PETER: What do you mean by this?
WARD: Well, I started going to A.A., got involved in A.A. because I didn't know anything about alcoholism or about recovery. And I knew I didn't know! I do a lot of work trying educate clergy about alcoholism and recovery, and the role that the church can play. That's not a pretty picture! And they do not seem to care that they don't know. And the hardest thing to do is to get people to say, I need to learn something about this because it matters in my congregation. It makes a difference to a vast number of my parishioners. But if you don't know that, you go along and say, Well, I'll just be helpful, which is usually the wrong thing to do.
PETER: One of the things you write later on in the book, when you're talking about what you see as more helpful moves that the church could make—so you're writing about church folk speaking as yourself, somebody inside a church context—saying “we need to look clearly at the damage done by our presumption that we know the truth and that those who are not with us are less than healthy” [p. 177].
WARD: Right.
PETER: Which is what I think a lot of people, especially people outside the church who have a view of what people in the institutional church are about is that they take this kind of moralistic, dogmatic stance that says just that.
WARD: Too many churches play into that! And of course, I'm in Tennessee now, in not the heart of the Bible Belt, but certainly on the edges. When I hear these preachers get up and declare that they have the truth and if you don't believe as they believe you're going to hell, I just want to say, “Oh my goodness gracious, can't you open your eyes?” Archbishop Desmond Tutu was a friend of General Seminary, and was often there. And it was wonderful to get to know him a bit. As he said, “So Dalai Lama gets to heaven at the gate and Peter says, ‘But you didn't believe in Jesus. You can't come in!’ He says, ‘Are you kidding me?’” So, you know, we get that. And I think right now it's the most damaging thing that's happened to Christianity in our country. I'm also in the town—the church where I go is in Athens, Tennessee, which recently made national news for banning the graphic novel—
PETER: Oh, Maus! Art Spiegelman …
WARD: Yes, Maus. Our church—I’m so proud of us. Our rector said, “Let's have an open hearing on this. Let's talk about it. Let's not just ban books because some people think they're terrible,” and had a couple of hundred people, I think, turned up and was very careful to be sure and include the Jewish community. But that's one voice out of all the churches in Athens, Tennessee.
PETER: Wow.
WARD: And I think that's sad. I think the churches should have been out there, but they don't often do what I think they ought to do!
PETER: I used to teach that book.
WARD: Oh, did you?
PETER: As an English teacher. Oh yeah. Two volumes of it. And you know, kids really enjoyed it. Because of course, their first thought—because many kids were familiar with graphic novels, especially in later years, because they've been fairly popular for a while now. And certainly kids were, you know, familiar with comic books. So they thought like, “Hey, I'm gonna be [reading a comic book]!” And then they looked at it and they like, “Wow. So this is a different way to get this very hard story.” But what a way to tell it, and for this person whose art form it was, Art Spiegelman you know, being a [graphic] artist, but then telling his family's story.
WARD: Yeah, an important book, and actually now a best seller, thanks to the education board of Athens, Tennessee!
PETER: I noticed it on my brother's coffee table when I was at his house last week. I think he was making a point!
WARD: Yeah, not a good strategy if you really didn't want it read! But to get back to my concerns in the book, when churches decide they know what's right and try to impose that on others, they've sort of lost the center of the gospel, which has to do with humility—we probably don't know exactly what's right, and others have opinions that are really important— and love, which is to support a kind of dialogue. But in our polarized world, we've just lost all that, and the churches are as bad as everybody else. I think it's the most dangerous thing that's happening to the Christian faith right now. And it certainly is not in any way changing the trend, which has been going on for some time, which is fewer and fewer people are active in churches.
[24:08]
PETER: I've long been a fan of the Talmudic wisdom that we see the world not as it is, but as we are. Now don't get me wrong: like most people, I tend to act on a daily basis as though I perceive the world objectively, but when I slow down and challenge myself—or respond to the challenges of friends, loved ones, and colleagues—I recognize that my biases very much influence what I perceive as "the facts" or "the truth" of any given situation.
WARD: Right.
PETER: Because a certain amount of your book has to do with the value of rigorous honesty in A.A., I wanted to ask how do the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and the culture and community of A.A., in your experience, help A.A. members begin to discern the truth?
WARD: Well, I think as we've already said, knowing that you don't know as a first step is important. And that's what the first Step of the Twelve is: admitting that we are powerless over alcohol and that our lives have become unmanageable. In other words, realize we have a problem! Until you take that step—and I think that's the hardest Step for people to take. And it's the hardest step for the rest of us to take, which is to say, I'm not really perceiving the world as it is. I need to find another way. But until you take that step, then the arrogance and self-focus that we have will just rule. So the first step toward honesty is to recognize we have a problem. And then it's actually in the text of the book, Alcoholics Anonymous—it's usually referred to as “the Big Book,” because it is kind of big—that it speaks of those who are unable to be honest with themselves as those that are unable to follow this program and find sobriety. So that's where the phrase “rigorous honesty” is found, that gets picked up by the fellowship. So the spirituality of the Steps is a little more than just the Steps, but then the Steps take that rigorous spirituality and go to Step Four, where we make a searching fearless, moral inventory of ourselves. And then in Step Five, you tell God and another human being what you have done. It's interesting too, that as people live into the program, they do that the first time, but then they come back a year or two later and do it again, there's an awful lot they didn't notice the first time through! And then sometimes, one of the things that I've done is to do a fearless, moral inventory of all the things that have been given to me, and all the things I need to be grateful for. So it's not always a negative inventory, but it's always a look at self. And it's out of that, that you begin to, hopefully, begin to reach some kind of honesty about self, saying there is a problem. And with that, some kind of movement toward change.
PETER: You anticipated my next question, which was about Step Four, because I was very interested reading in the several places in your book talking about this “searching, fearless moral inventory” that people are asked to take of themselves. And you just clarified that one of the things that you can add to that is to say, “Well, let me be honest about what I have been given.” You know, as opposed to maybe, “what I've earned or come up with myself.”
WARD: [overlapping] “The bad things I’ve done!”
PETER: Right, exactly. But could you give an example of an item or a couple of items that might be on there, just to have a sense of what this kind of inventory is like. Is there a specific question that you ask in order to do this for yourself, or what's that process like?
WARD: The Big Book does list some questions that you might ask, and they will involve things like money, relationships, sexuality, and so on. I mean, it really does cover [a range]. The fact that it's written in the 1930s, it’s kind of amazing what it covers, but it's coming out of a group of men who were being rigorously honest.
PETER: So for example, money, you might ask like, “What are you spending your money on?” or—
WARD: To me, the impact would be how much is money running my life? How much is the desire of money making me make choices and decisions that I don't feel comfortable about? Do I cheat on my taxes? Do I make decisions about not being with people that I love because I want to make more money? I mean, it’s about what's running your life.
[29:36]
PETER: One of the things that you get at early and often in the book is the problem of resentment. At one point, you say, “Resentment is a primary symptom of the bondage to self that is at the heart of not only the alcoholic but at the heart of our human problem. Resentment focuses us on ourselves as having been offended by others. It is less a feeling and more a way of seeing” [p. 39]. So does it connect to a kind of victim mentality that things happen to you?
WARD: Well, it’s a piece of the whole denial process, but it also is particularly destructive because it does keep the focus on self. One of the things that I've learned through this fellowship is that when there's a problem that I'm angry about, that I feel like someone has misjudged me and done some wrong and I've been offended, and I can't let it go, is to move that focus just a little bit to say, What was my role in this happening? Maybe I was too quick in responding, and they responded to that negatively. Maybe there's some ways I can change my behavior that will lighten this resentment. That's how we deal with it in Twelve-Step spirituality. The rector that followed me at Trinity Church—we had a fabulous education program going, both in small groups during the week and on Sunday morning. We would have 80 to 100 people involved in three different classes. We had good youth work. We had good Sunday school. He was not interested in Sunday school, and he actually undercut it. And it's now gone. And there was a little while that I was resenting that, and I thought, “How could he do that? My wonderful program!” And then slowly, I began to say, “You know, Ward, you left that and it's gone and you gotta let go of that.” And part of your behavior is to let it go and to recognize also that “what you did made a difference for the people who were there at that time. That's all you can do anyway, and he brings other abilities and strengths that you need to know about.” And actually we are in some correspondence, and I would say we are friends. And I think that has to do with my working through that resentment and trying to figure out some other ways to number one, let go of my being offended, and number two, try to build some sort of relationship that is at least an honest relationship between the two of us. I don't know if that helps.
PETER: It does. I mean, one of the questions I ask when I'm feeling that way is to say, “Is this really about me?”
WARD: Right!
PETER: “How do I know? I feel like about me, but is it really?” you know, and then sometimes if I take a good hard look—
WARD: And this wasn't about me, this was about him. I mean, it really wasn't about me. Right. but it does take a while to learn that sometimes!
PETER: Sure. Especially when it feels that way at the outset.
[VO]: I asked if there was anything else ward would like to add about how people who are not in recovery can use A.A. principles and practices, as we seek to know what is true.
WARD: Well, let's try to put it in simpler form. One, know that there's stuff you don't know. Know that there are problems you're not facing. Know that your perceptions are not objective, and know that your feelings represent your history, not what's actually there. So the first thing is that kind of humility about knowledge. The second thing is to recognize that that means we need to get help, that knowing that I'm not perceiving things correctly does not change it very much—maybe a little more humility—but I really need to get a power greater than myself that will help me move to sanity. And that power may be another person. It may be another group. I mean, this is why I think small groups are so important in the church, because I think that's where people get challenged, and move, and change. So, the power of a group, the power of a companion, will help us begin to see things a little bit differently, and at that point, then, we are ready to do some fearless moral inventory and to begin to ask God to remove from us these personality defects. One of the things I like about A.A. is they are very clear: We are not striving for perfection but for spiritual progress. I mean, part of my objection to the church is it implies—I don't think it says it—that we should be perfect, and that's a dangerous place to be, because the only way I can be perfect is for me to believe I'm perfect and deny everything else!
[VO]: If this conversation about self-learning is prompting new ideas and questions for you, as it is for me, I invite you to consider supporting this podcast as a financial contributor. There are two easy ways to do it, available from the show page. Just click the button that says Learn about Supporting Point of Learning and you'll find out about how to make a one-time contribution of any amount, or a monthly donation that fits your budget. Nobody can support everything, of course, and the most important thing to me is that you enjoy—and learn something from—the conversations that I showcase here. If you can think of just one other person who might benefit from Ward's insights, please go ahead and share the episode with them. It will mean most coming from you. Thank you! Now, back to my conversation with the Very Rev. Ward Ewing.
[36:06]
PETER: One of my convictions developed through experience, and it's also been reinforced by social science research—so there’s a bit of, you know, “head” stuff in there as well—but that honest sharing between people, whether we're talking about political ideas, or how to work effectively as a group, or working through a challenge as a married couple, is that the kind of sharing that you need in that situation is predicated on trust, which in turn is predicated on respect. So to me, the way I often look at it is that basic respect is the foundation for trust. And then when you have trust, you can really discuss hard things. And so I'm just interested how you've seen this work or develop in A.A., which is not people who have known each other for a long time as a family.
WARD: Right.
PETER: So if I'm coming into a Twelve-Step group for first time, am I apt to share my story then? Or how does trust develop in that kind of context?
WARD: Okay. Let me talk about Al-Anon instead of A.A. Just a bit on this, because in A.A., they come in, because they've absolutely got to. They're at the end of their rope and they need help. And they know that. And they usually don't say anything for the first half a dozen meetings, but they're welcomed and loved and hugged and told, “Keep coming back. It'll change your life. It's good. You're in a good place.” Al-Anon’s a whole lot harder. First of all, the level of resentment—
PETER: I just wanted to clarify, [Al-Anon] is for family members of alcoholics.
WARD: This is family members. Mostly spouses, but it also can be parents. It can be very helpful for parents whose children are headed down the path toward death or insanity. I mean, it's just an awful thing. And of course, the parents want to control the kids because the kids are on a death march. But what they've got to learn is that the kids can't make a decision when the parents are trying to control them. They're only gonna react, and [parents have] got to learn to let go of that, which is really, really difficult! So they come into the group and usually the first time they speak, they share all their resentments about how awful their husband is, or how terrible the situation is with their children and how can they control them. And they're listened to. Nobody says, “You need to change how you're doing this.” And it's not like We've got the answer! It’s that We love you and want to support you, and you'll figure it out. To me, it's the way the church should respond to anybody that walks in the door the first time. But we don't always do that. We’re not great at that. But love and tolerance is the code for A.A. and for Al-Anon. And that means they listen to this … crap, if I may say so, about how terrible the husband is. And they just say, Keep coming back. It'll get better. Stick with us. And after a while, the person who's carrying all that resentment gets tired of it. And sometimes she begins to let go with love, which is a really hard thing to do. I love the phrase they use in Al-Anon: I didn't cause it, I can't control it and I can't fix it. [Described as “the three Cs” on p. 112, with the third term indicated there as “I can’t cure it.] Part of the problem when they walk in is they also feel a lot of guilt that somehow, since the active alcoholic has been blaming them all the time, somehow they must be at fault. And to let that go and learn a new way, it takes a while. For some spouses, it may take a year or more before they really do change the behavior. But when they do, they discover that it's a new place that they're in. And that the drinker now has a choice, which the drinker never had before, because the drinker could only react and only protect his supply and only kind of try to protect his fragile ego. But once the spouse is no longer attacking, blaming, and focused on the drinker, life changes. There are no guarantees they'll go get sober, but their life changes, and it's better for everybody. And in fact, they often do get sober. They often do then go to A.A.
PETER: But the way that that trust then develops, for example in the Al-Anon meeting, is that it is immediately a welcoming, supportive environment. These codes are love and tolerance.
And that, over time, you know, and that's the other ingredient, [time], you keep coming back. WARD: Yeah. Right. And that allows the person then to make some different choices. When you give them the answers, it's no better than the spouse is doing to the drinker! It doesn't change things. It just freezes everything. And for the new person in A.A., when they come in and when they do begin to speak, they may talk about how awful it's been and have some blame and resentments that are there. So it's just, You are welcome. Whatever you think, we are happy to listen to. And we honor you as a human being. Love and tolerance. Wonderful, wonderful code!
[42:17]
PETER: When we spoke last month, getting ready for this conversation, you noted that you are more and more convinced that the only way toward creative knowledge is through a group.
WARD: I would use “creative” in the sense that it will go beyond what I have presently thought about.
PETER: Okay.
WARD: And let me give you an example from my little group in Louisville. One of members of the group was killed in an industrial accident. I was really upset. I was angry. I was angry at the industry that did not have appropriate safety codes. The accident should not have happened. He should not have died. I was really upset. And finally, one of the members of the group said, “Ward, shut up. He died sober. That's a victory. We're not gonna mourn all this other stuff. We're gonna celebrate that he was sober.” And I thought, “Wow!” So that's creative learning, but it comes from a group where you've established a standard of honesty, where you do good listening. I didn't mention listening earlier, but part of what makes a good group is do some training in listening. With the small group work that we did in Buffalo, I think it was the third or fourth session that we spent the whole time talking about listening. And then we talked about it again, and then we talked about it again, because if we're gonna have trust, then we've got to try to, at least try to understand each other. But when I think of “creative,” it's that suddenly the boundaries of my thinking have been expanded is I think what I would would mean by that. And that certainly can come from an artist or an artistic community, but it could also come from a small group, like our little group in Athens that did the conversation about Maus. That pushed some people in ways they might not have otherwise been, and it also included the Jewish community, which in a small Southern town is not very powerful and whose voice is not heard very much. And they were very intentional about being sure their voice was heard at this meeting. So that's what I think I mean by “creative.”
PETER: You wonder at one point in the book—for those reading along at home, this is page 175—you write, “Imagine church-sponsored groups of people with differing political views meeting together over a long period of time.” You know, I love this idea, because of course our politics has not gotten any less toxically divisive since you published these words. And also because civil discourse is a passion of mine and a focus of my professional work.
WARD: Well, part of my transformation in terms of racism was as a senior in high school, I went to this program sponsored by the National Council of Churches. And for the first time in my life, I was a minority! I had been raised in the segregated South. I didn't know there was a problem. I mean, that seems a little unbelievable, but I didn't! It was not a problem that touched me in any way or form. And suddenly my eyes were open. And that's the kind of thing that can happen, but I think we need for people who are willing to come and talk to share. You do have to build that trust. You have to have that respect. You do have to be good listeners. You do have to think about how you're gonna express your ideas when it's a minority opinion. But a group that is tolerant, that's open to different opinions—that welcomes different opinions, in fact, as long as they're honest—and has that kind of standard of honesty, that's gonna change the lives of the people that are in that group. I think it's a piece of how we're gonna move forward with race, sooner or later. It's a piece of how we may someday—I don't know, I think bridging the political differences now is a lot harder than that because we're not getting the same information. But I’m still in touch with some of my folks from Louisville who are in the Trump neighborhood. We don't talk about that, but you know, one of the things you learn is that they have children who are not doing well, or children that are doing well, or they have a car accident, or they have an unforeseen medical expense and you have compassion. You don't have to have agreement. You just need to have a little compassion. And it's amazing how much that opens things up!
PETER: Absolutely. And to recognize, you know, so much of the the programming that we are sold, on networks or over the internet, through advertisements and so forth, these people who collect audiences of millions of people … So much of that plays on a part of ourselves which for most people is actually fairly small, which is to say, what's my political affiliation, you know, what's my team jersey—is it red or blue? But that part is played up because that can be one of the things that, you know, you get people fired up, fearful about, or angry about, and then you've got an audience and, you know, that's what they're coming back for. I think one of the things that can happen if through a group such as you're imagining, or just recognizing the fuller realities of your friends in Louisville, is to say, you know, “I'm more than who I voted for or chose not to vote for in the past election. I’ve got all these things going on in my life.”
WARD: “I'm a human being! A very complex, disorganized, hurt, loved human being!”
PETER: “Broken and blessed.”
WARD: “Broken and blessed,” you bet!
PETER: We are more than that. And I think that's part of—I just keep coming back to the commercialization of it, you know? How much money is involved with some of these big shows in particular. If you look at, you know—not to call anybody out in particular, but somebody like Tucker Carlson, how much money would you have to be paid to say true things, you know? WARD: Right.
PETER: You can't believe some of the things that you're saying—if not many of the things you’re saying—or maybe you've said it enough [that you do], but like, what are you willing to do for this paycheck? Or what wouldn't you be willing to do for a paycheck? And where does that come from? So, I mean, it's just, you know, that profit incentive is—
WARD: Profit and publicity. The number one, I mean, he's the number one most popular, newscaster, right?
PETER: “News.”
WARD: Yeah, “news”! Success? Ours is still a success-oriented, individualistic society. What I think this book proposes is a deep challenge to our culture, which is focused on success, on money, on individual popularity, on individual achievement. And what I'm looking for is some sense of humility, and love and tolerance for others, and openness to ideas that are different. And it ain't gonna happen in a day!
PETER: Absolutely.
WARD: But if we don't find some way to move the toward this, and why I think the spirituality of the Steps is important is because I do think there are some tools there that can help us move toward a society that's less focused on achievement and self-glorification.
[50:30]
PETER: Is there anything that you would've liked me to ask that I did not ask, or anything that came up for you while we were talking that you'd like to circle back to? Any other points that you wanted to make?
WARD: Yeah. One thing, and that has to do with the subjectivity of spiritual experience and spiritual growth. Well, how do we sort out truth—and that takes a community—but also how do we sort out the truth of a spiritual experience, whether you want to use God as a piece of that experience or choose not to, there are some things that happen: A person's life has changed. The person becomes open to change, and that change will be ongoing. There’s a shift from where they were to where they're headed, in a new direction. And I think the ultimate test of that has to do with gratitude, that gratitude is the primary sign of a person who is truly in recovery, that they are moving away from this self-focused, self-preservation mentality to a life of service and openness. And when that happens, they realize—I mean, instrumental in any kind of service work is that we may not fix the problem. We may not be able to fix this, but we are gonna do what we can do, and be grateful that we were able to do that. So gratitude is the sign—I believe the primary sign—of a spiritual experience that has really set a person on new growth, a new direction toward openness, towards love, tolerance, community, support, service.
[VO]: That's it for today's show! My great thanks to Ward Ewing for joining me. More information about his new book, including how to support independent bookstores when you buy a copy, can be found on the show page for this episode, along with a full transcript and other resources. Thanks as always to Shayfer James for outro and intro music. Dates and venues for Shayfer's Spring 2022 tour with Will Wood are also available on the show page. Special thanks to Joshua Lerner for letting me sample some of his guitar virtuosity for today's soundtrack. Now a progressive educator and school leader in Chicago, Josh was not only once my student for AP English Language and Composition, but also my guitar teacher for a few months in the early aughts. Finally, thanks to you for listening, subscribing, sharing, rating, and reviewing this passion project of mine. Point of Learning is written, recorded, edited, mixed, and produced by me here in sunny Buffalo, New York. Financial supporters are listed on the show page. Thinking about joining them? It's a good move for a kid your age! Just click the button for more info. Next month I'll drop another classic episode, but I'll be back soon with an all-new conversation about what and how and why we learn. I'm Peter Horn. See you then!
