“Deep down in every man, woman, and child is the fundamental idea of God. It may be obscured by calamity, by pomp, by worship of other things, but in some form or other it is there.” — Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 55
“If one of us is a child of God, then all of us are.” — Chuck C., A New Pair of Glasses
A woman at a meeting once asked one of us a question we didn’t see coming:
“Do you think there’s anyone on earth exactly equal to you?”
He said, “No.”
She smiled and said, “Well then, that makes you a pompous ass.”
For a long time, we believed other people had life more figured out than we did — parents, teachers, even the Pope. And at the same time, we quietly compared ourselves to the people next to us and came out "better than" more often than we’d like to admit.
We’d run the list in our heads: our bank account’s bigger, we’re better looking, we’re more educated, "at least we didn't do that" — the kind of math that never shows up on paper but always shows up in our attitude.
That’s when it becomes clear: the moment we decide we’re either above or below anyone else, something gets blocked. If one of us is a child of God, then all of us are — struggles included. And doesn't this quiet idea of superiority, even when it feels harmless, create distance from a Higher Power?
Maybe the question isn’t about being equal at all. Maybe it’s about finally discovering what is blocking us off from us off from relating to other people in the first place.
Can we measure our distance from God by measuring the distance we put between ourselves and everyone else?
