Some bridges must never be burned

During a time when drunks were jailed, kept in hospitals or mental institutions, or forgotten on the streets, a drunken stockbroker named Bill Wilson decided that he was powerless over his addiction and asked God for help while in hospital for the 4th time.  He called out to God to show Himself, and experienced what he called a "white light experience" as God showed him that He was real.  

Since Bill was a stockbroker, he traveled a lot.  After this spiritual experience and early in his fight against temptations to fall back into drinking, he found himself in a hotel in a different city , and in that hotel there was a bar.  After battling several urges to go into the bar, finally he called members of the local religious organization of which he was a member in his own town. After several calls, he met Dr. Bob Smith, to whom he explained his new-found knowledge that alcoholics need to help each other recover from their obsession to drink.  Thus began the seeds of Alcoholics Anonymous, back in 1934.

AA has kept its mandate and helped millions of hopeless self-confessed drunks recover from their addiction.  The primary purpose of AA is "to carry the message to the alcoholic who still suffers." 

I wonder what might have happened if Bill Wilson had fully embraced the church and turned his back on his alcoholic brothers, thinking "that life is behind me now."  Many of us, it is probably safe to say, might never have been born, and countless thousands, even millions, would still live in hopelessness and despair.

The idea that one who has been delivered is in the best position to deliver others from the same thing, can be seen in the story of two starving lepers who decided one day to throw themselves on the mercy of their oppressors.  They set out after their city had been besieged by an invading army for weeks to the point where mothers were resorting to cannibalizing their babies to survive. When they arrived at the enemy camp, to their amazement, they found it deserted, with food and supplies aplenty.  Something (or Someone) had frightened the invading army so much that they had all left everything behind to beat a hasty retreat.  

The lepers ate their fill, unable to believe their good fortune.  And then they started feeling guilty.  "Our people are starving and here we are filling our stomachs!  Yes, we're outcasts - but we know where they can find food and lots of it!  Let's go back to the city and get them to come back with us!"  They did, and after the king sent emissaries with them to make sure they weren't sent by the enemy to trick them, they brought an end to the desperate situation of their town.  

What would have happened, though, if the lepers had decided to clean themselves up and get dressed in the clothing that was left behind by their enemies?  Upon their arrival back in the town they would have been killed, that's what!  But because they didn't remove themselves from their identities as lepers, it gave their story enough credibility that they were able to save their people from certain starvation.

A similar thing happened a few centuries later.  A notorious man, known throughout the countryside around his small village for his insane and violent behavior, met with an individual who exorcised his demons and left him in his right mind.  "I'll follow you wherever you may go," he exclaimed in gratitude.  But his deliverer said, "No.  Stay here.  Show the people who know you best what great things God has done for you."  And he did.  And many people were convinced that God still touched people and transformed their lives.

A dear friend of mine wrote a song a long time ago.  It is a parable about a spider who built a grand web in a very good spot for catching flies.  He started the web by anchoring a single strand from the ceiling.  The web was huge and caught many flies; the spider grew fat and never wanted for anything. One day he was surveying his kingdom, and saw a strand of web that looked out of place to him. To quote my friend's song -  " 'What need have I of this strand?'  A pull - and then a cry!  Down came the web, the home that fed, now dead the spider lie..." (© D. L. Shannon, circa 1972)

The bridge across which we ourselves crossed from the dark, oppressive world of our own failure, addiction, and loss is the bridge we must never burn.  We may wish to distance ourselves from it.  We may fear that should it remain it will tempt us back across to the abyss. 


But it is the only way others who are in that very same world will be able to get out of their own prison.  If we lose touch with that, if we forget the passageway we traveled from there to here and think we don't need it anymore, we run the risk of becoming disconnected from the very people we are suited to help.  We may think we are better than they, as if by our own efforts alone we were miraculously transported into the light.  We forget Who built the bridge.  And we risk falling into a deeper pit - a self-righteous, delusional one - than the honestly painful one from which we were delivered. 

Worst of all, who will be able to carry the message to the ones who still suffer?