Transcription
[Applause] Well, good morning, everybody. My name's Sandy Beach, and I'm an alcoholic. It's really been a wonderful weekend, and I love being at events like this because we're here to celebrate the power of the spiritual program of Alcoholics Anonymous. And the only way to celebrate it is to see it. And that's when we look around and we go, it's not a theory, it's real. It's right here. And I just love being in the middle of that and just let it come in. And when it does, it changes how I look at things. Now, I don't see the world as so cruel or unfair. I just see it as the way it is, just a place for God's kids to hang out, as Chuck Chamberlain would say, and see if they can learn a little more and grow a little closer to Him, which is the only point of being alive anyway.
I got sober on December 7th, 1964, up in Washington D.C. Thank you. I was in the Marine Corps and was a fighter pilot, and I had had a few mishaps and ended up in a nut ward and was there for six months. When I was let out, it was suggested I call AAA because if I ever drank again, I would lose my career. And so I had started drinking again, and I knew I was gonna get caught. And so on December 7th, Pearl Harbor Day, I called the inner group, and they got the one other Marine who was in AAA down at Quantico. And he came to my house. And I had, you know, probably had about six drinks before he got there, maybe. But he talked to me and my family, and mostly my family, six kids and my wife. And they all hated me and said I was terrible. And I wished that he would just take me out of there somewhere. And I explained to him that they were exaggerating, that I really was a pretty good guy, they had no reason, there was just a lot of unfair things that happened that anyway. He got me in the car, and I went to my first meeting. And it was a group anniversary and Manassas. And oddly enough, I'm going up there next weekend for their 55th anniversary. And I'll be back at my first meeting in Virginia, you know what I mean? And it's not the same building. That building deserved to be torn down. It was a good rathole. And the group in the NF group is having its anniversary. And the day it was, it's out in the country. And this is back in the 60s. And I mean, God, they just celebrated and celebrated. They ended up with square dancing and fiddles and country fiddlers and food everywhere. And on food, it made me sick. I didn't, I didn't like hearing about sobriety. There was just awful. And I've been there about three hours, and I was, you know, now I've been sober maybe six, which is, you're not feeling too good. And I was trying to escape. And I remember standing on the front porch of this old wooden Odd Fellows Hall with a stinky, non-flush toilet and a space heater hanging from the ceiling. And it's just like, oh. But there was nowhere to run to, you know what I mean? There were no lights, there was no bar down the road that I could see. There was just darkness. And I was standing out there and I said, well, maybe I'll just run into the darkness because I couldn't stand being inside of my skin. And I thought running over there would help. I don't know if you've ever done that. And then you get over there, you know, it didn't help. I'll run over there. And an Al-Anon lady named Betsy Lynch must have seen something in my eyes. And she came out and she put her hand on my shoulder. And I turned around and I thought I was in the presence of an angel. I mean, if that's what it felt like. And she said, it's gonna be alright. Come on back in. And I believed her. And I turned around and came in. I never fought this program again. That was the end of the struggle.
So I was given a wonderful gift that night that took away a lot of the stuff that some of us struggle and struggle and struggle and then we surrender. And I just did. And so it's really been a wonderful maybe 42 years soon. And I've got the same sponsor. He's got lung cancer. So say a lot of prayers for Bill T and Virginia because we're gonna try and make 50 years together. And he's a tough old guy, so it could happen. Anyway, if Sunday morning, and you know, we talk about the spiritual side of the program. There, there isn't any other side. That's it. It is just a spiritual program. And it's all about God. The problem is, nobody's ever seen God. I never even met anybody who saw God. You're Bill Wilson saw a light. And so how do you talk about God, you know what I mean? It's not an easy subject. Well, they're gonna spend the next 40 minutes talking about God. And I can hear you all. Well, good luck. [Laughter]
So, I mean, how is it done? How has it been done ever since the beginning of time? Now, I'll tell you how it's been done. With stories. That's how it's done. There's no other way because we're talking about something that created us, that is incomprehensible. So there's nobody to go, well, let me describe. But when we tell stories, the right stories, we know that we just felt this thing that we're looking for, which is really the definition of the higher power anyway. It's that that we know is missing in our lives. And we feel it when we get connected. And we go, "If that was nice, tell that story again." And I, when Sean was talking near the end of his story, I connected with you as if I was part of you. I honestly felt, I said, "I'm part of him, and he's part of me." And it was because his story, it didn't touch my brain, which his comedy did. Thought it was funny. That was funny. That was funny. But near the end, his story, his reality touched my heart. And I felt my heart connect with his. And I realized that I really loved him a lot, you know what I'm talking about? It was just like, wow, it's amazing. He's. And then I said, "We all have the same Father." That's why we say that prayer. And so we're all part of each other. Now, how would we know this, you know what I mean? I'm not, I'm gonna try. I'm staying with the program, telling you what I think the program says to us. How does the Big Book start? Bill's story, right? Then start with, "Here's the steps," or anything like that. Read this story. And then there's 40 stories in the back. What happens when you read the stories? All of a sudden, there's your story. And then you go, "Oh, I get it. I get what all this step, all of this explanation, and all of that is." And so speaker meetings were very big when I got sober in Washington D.C. There were probably seven speaker meetings for every discussion meeting. There were two speakers at each meeting. So in order to just fill the quota of speakers in the area, everyone had to talk probably ten times a year, everyone, or we didn't have enough speakers to go around. And so telling your story was a very powerful thing. And listening to somebody's story, it was a complete package. And it almost told more about the program than a step lecture because you saw it, the product in action. And when you had three months, you, if you go to a discussion meeting, but you weren't allowed to talk. The basic message was, the secret to spirituality is listening. It is listening. It is quieting my agenda and my story that I am telling myself in order to maybe get in touch with what's really going on and what the real truth is and who I really am. And so I, I really relate to the storytelling part of Alcoholics Anonymous. And there, that's why the CDs. And I listen to Bill Wilson. He's my favorite speaker to listen to. And I get tapes and CDs and I just love it. And as I got sober longer and longer, the more important AAA's history was. What is history? It's a story. And then when you start looking at the story of AAA, it's like the Christmas story or something, you know? Oh my God, this is a very spiritual story all the way. And you just see that there was somebody in charge of this thing other than self-centered human beings who never would have come up with this. Bill wanted to have it all run by money. I mean, I was here, he came from Wall Street. I don't know, you know. He and Dr. Bob met, and they said, "We got it. We got this message. We got to get it out to all the millions of alcoholics." And Phil said, "Well, we'll just use the Wall Street approach. We'll get paid missionaries, get a chain the drunk tanks and hospitals in a book, and we need millions." I told him, he told him to go raise it. And he couldn't raise a nickel. Couldn't read. Nobody would give him any money because it wasn't meant to turn out that way. That isn't what the story was. The story was love and service. And it succeeded beyond his wildest dreams by not following his plan. Now, in that wild, just saying how great your life would be if it didn't follow your plan, just think about that. Nothing ever turned out your way. Sounds bad, doesn't it? Well, I'll tell you, it wasn't my plan to be in AAA. But once I was forced in here, I had to change my mind. I heard a speaker a long time ago, and he made me laugh. It was just, but it sets it up perfectly for what I'm trying to talk about. And he got up to start his story. "Hi, my name is Ralph. My story divided into two parts: what happened during the years that I drank, and what I thought happened during the years that I drank." I could say the same thing about my childhood. My childhood is divided into two parts: what happened when I was a child, and what I thought happened when I was a child. Not what, what, what are you talking about? I'm talking about my story that I told myself about my childhood. My sister and I both were sent to the same Catholic Church. She's got 30 years in AA. I got 42, almost. We sat in the same pew. She saw the cutest, friendliest nuns that she's ever seen, and she still loves going there because it's so friendly, comforting, and wonderful. I saw the nuns as an extension of Hitler's SS. That's what I saw. And then they started telling me about what this church, what the good news was. I didn't hear any good news anywhere. It was all bad. "I'm in trouble. I'm gonna die. I'm gonna suffer. I'm in trouble. I'm gonna die. I'm gonna suffer." And when I was about eight or nine, I had my first total, all on my own, spiritual insight. I looked at the crucifixes. But I've been looking at it for years. I was there. It was being wooden, 20 feet across, hanging from ceiling. And all of a sudden, it spoke to me and said, "Little boy, do you see this? Yeah. Well, this is what God did. His only son that he loved. Guess what he's gonna do to you." So that was my story. Now, here's the funny part. If you were to listen to the talks I gave when I had about 10 years sobriety, and then compare them to the talks that I give today, today I had a much better childhood than I used to. How could that be? How could you have later on have a better childhood? I got closer to my higher power. And as the promise says, "He removed all kinds of injuries and all kinds of pain." And with the removal of that pain, I was no longer able to say my childhood cost me all this pain because there wasn't any. So I had to go back and say, "Must have been a pretty good one." That is freedom from old ideas, freedom from our own story. And there's no way to get free from it totally like this except spiritually. It's a gift. It is a gift.
So when we come into the program, have you noticed that we're really, Bill talks about it all over the place, that knowledge doesn't help. And everything before we got here, okay. Bob, what's the deal? I want to learn the deal. I want to learn the deal. Okay, the deal is, you have to unlearn what you already know. And we're gonna rip it out of you one story at a time, one resentment at a time, one unfairness. And we just, so it's a process of unlearning. Chuck Chamberlain calls it, "Uncovered, discovered, discard." Oh, here's something else I'm wrong about. It's freedom. It is the most exciting thing. Oh my God, that's an, that's a better way of looking at it than I do. I love it when somebody comes, here's another way of looking at that. What they're doing is they're telling me another story. Here's a better story about how to understand you and the universe and God and all those things. And I thank you. I don't go, "Well, I liked my story." And now people like your story better. I like their story better. You follow what I'm saying? To find, to be, have the freedom from your own judgment about how your life should go, you know what I mean? It's just to not even have a way that your life should go. That's what Bill is talking about. All the pain that human being suffers from not getting their way comes in many fashions, but it boils down to it, just isn't going my way. You know what I mean? I've been through a couple of divorces. That is not, I don't want this. Well, you may not want it, but this is what's happening. And it's painful enough to experience the loss, but we can triple that pain by fighting it and by saying, "This is unacceptable." I can't accept this. Well, why not? It is. So I accept what I used to consider unacceptable. It was a very hard process for me to go through. I don't think I started getting a handle on this for a number of years in AAA. I think the early learning process is humiliation, you know what I mean? You just screw up. And then your sponsor says, "Look at that. You screwed." There was something inherent in us that didn't want to be wrong. God, I didn't like the idea of being wrong. I thought maybe you'd collapse if you were wrong. Hey, you're wrong. All the air goes out of the balloon, and you're no one anymore. So you had to defend. You have to have convictions. It's not inappropriate that that also means going to jail. But I thought, you, man, stuck by his beliefs and stuck by his convictions. That's called a closed mind. But it sounded very noble. And it was very ego syndrome. Yeah.
And so when we come here with our story about God, it can be, we all have different stories. Matter of fact, if AA has a million half people, it's probably a million different stories about God in sober alcoholics. If we could stop them all, it's "Your God?" "Well, it's the universe." "Well, I went back to the Catholic Church." "So Martha Catherine." "I'm a Lutheran." "God?" "Well, I'm just sort of a spiritual, don't know what, whatever it is." So there's all these differences. So when, when I arrived here, I had the punishing. You may have arrived here with, "There is no God." Your God was, "There is no God." And we all bring in all of these different ideas. It's our reaction to what we saw when we were little. And we just kept building up. And this is how it is for me. There's no such thing. I've never seen any evidence of God. Never seen any of these things. And so my sponsor helped me with this. He says, "We're gonna conduct a spiritual experiment." You're like a scientific guy. Spirituality can be approached scientifically. As a matter of fact, that's what AAA does. Really? I didn't. Yeah. Let me show you how it works. Okay. Hey, now you've been around how long? I saw. Oh, I've been around about a year. Well, have you ever been totally honest with me about your spirituality? I said, "Not really." Bill. "Well, let's do it right now. Would you be willing to be 100% honest?" I said, "Sure." "Okay. How much do you pray?" "You mean like really?" "Yes, really." "How much?" "Mean really, really pray." "I don't believe in it, Bill. So I don't do it at all. I know that's gonna upset you, but I don't. I don't. I don't like it. I don't believe in it. I think it's a bunch of crap." When they're doing the Lord's Prayer, I go, "Mmm-hmm." It's a joke. It's a joke. I don't do it. I don't do it at all. Okay, zero for prayer. [ __ ] Oh, relax. There's no problem. Now, how about meditation? Have you ever contemplated getting quiet, allowing the spirit of the universe and listen to your breath? Come on, Bill. What would I do that for? I get a lot of problems. I'm working on the problems. I like sports. I mean, I got crap going on. I can't sit there. I mean, everybody will go by. So zero meditate. Yadira meditation may be something, but don't. Zero. Zero. Okay. You ever go and sit in a church? It's filled with spiritual energy. These buildings, they just have something special. Many, many people have found. Told us. No, pedal. I thought I was there when I was a little kid. It's a very bad place to go. It's filled with bad energy. Even when I went to France, and they had those famous cathedrals, I said, "Screw that. I'm gonna go to the museum." I just did not know. I know that. Okay, fine. Hi, zero. How about spiritual books? Like New Age people have thought about these things. They can give you different ideas about. So I said, "No." I go, "I don't even go near that section in the bookstore. I go over there, get sports books, flying. I like flying. I like that." No. It's none. So he said, "Okay. So you have zero all the way." I got one more question. "How's it going?" "What does it feel like to be inside of you?" "Oh, that's awful in here. I can't stand that. I'm always afraid. I'm in pain. I'm indeed a baby." But well, this is what I'm trying to explain. The laboratory where we perform the scientific spiritual experience is inside of you. And that's what the no spirituality experiment produces. Those are the results you get. Now, would you be willing to try a different experiment and see what kind of results you get inside? Because we tried it and we got wonderful results. Entirely different results than we had before. It's kind of fun to be inside of me now. And you know what I did? I stood there debating it. And Bill writes about this in the 12 and 12. And he says, "We're like a scientist who refuses to perform a certain experiment, lest it prove his pet theory wrong." "What if I prayed and got happy? I'd look like an [ __ ] all these years I've been saying that's a bunch of crap. I can't look bad. So I'm gonna stay screwed up." I mean, you, we laugh at this, but ladies and gentlemen, that's the human dilemma. I don't want to be wrong, even if it's great for me. Look in the chapter, "The Agnostic," in the Big Book, right at the very, very beginning. It explains that if you, when you drink, you can't control it. And when you stop, you can't stay stopped, then you're an alcoholic. And if that's the case, you are suffering from a disease that only a spiritual experience can conquer. What you're suffering from a disease that only a spiritual experience can conquer. Nothing else has ever helped. Mmm. "Well, I don't believe in spiritual experience." "Oh, well, then you're screwed. Sorry. We don't have a non-spiritual way." "Well, what do I do?" "How about changing your mind?" "What? What? What?" It's not complicated. Spirituality all occurs inside of us. It has nothing to do with looking around to find anything. It's, we are in charge of the results. That's what our job is, to measure the results. And so we go, "Would you try a four, six months, and then compare it to how you used to feel?" Okay. And then you feel better. You go, "Wow, maybe this works." It doesn't work in some sort of a theoretical thing. So later on, the chapter says, "To be doomed an alcoholic death or to live on a spiritual basis are not easy alternatives to face." That's the funniest line. You could have come on up. Your new car. Come on. If we got two doors back here, this one says, "Die an alcoholic death." This one says, "Live on a spiritual basis." Okay, Alice, which one? Oh, oh, do I get a phone call? Yes. You get a phone. Phone? Yes. Okay. Yeah. Dr. Abrams. Yeah. This is Nancy. I have a friend of mine that would like to know how bad is an alcoholic. Oh, God. Okay, I'll take the door. Spiritual basis. That's it. That's how complicated it is. There's nowhere else to go.
So now we come through that door, and we are handed a new experiment to perform. We don't believe in it yet because we haven't performed it. We haven't done the 12 steps. So you can't believe in them, but you have an open mind. As a scientist, you're now a spiritual scientist. And I am going to perform the experiment that these people are claiming is the law of the land. But hate the law until it works. And so we start through it, often quite skeptically. I remember my sponsor telling me, "Everything you need is in the 12 steps." And I finally said, "Okay, all right. I believe you." I mean, it was just, you know, that's all I heard. "Everything you need is contained." So I went home. I really studied them, you know, like for real. Up till then, I underlined crap and, you know, I'm not sure. Move the pages and look like the, you know, the coffee stains and. But now I said, "All right, I'm gonna check. I think maybe I'll have. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna study, study, study." And I came back to him and I said, "Okay, Bill, what, what just help me out? Just give me a clue. Which one is the money step?" Because that was my problem. I'd been thrown out of the Marine Corps, my career was over, I couldn't really get a good job. I had six kids. And eventually, that financial pressure, we were broke for so long, and that ended that marriage of 20 years. The financial stress was so awful. But that's a separate story. And he said, "There isn't a money step." I said, "Well, then why would I want to do them?" He says, "What is your problem with money?" I said, "It's driving me crazy to not have enough to get by every month. We just barely make it. If the car battery dies, I got to wait four days to payday to get the frickin battery replaced." Before they had credit cards in. And he said, "No, what is the problem again?" I said, "It's driving me crazy because I'm almost run out of money every payday." "Well, what if we could have God remove the driving me crazy part?" "Bill, I don't think that really qualifies as a solution." "Yes, your financial problems can be solved without any money." "Well, technically, I could see that, Bill. But I mean, I would have peace of mind and no money." "Yep." "Bill, I don't think that's possible." "Well, that you ever walk into the bar with not enough rent money through the next day, and you're panicking?" "Yeah." "What happened after three drinks?" "Oh, I bought everybody around. I said, 'The rent money's due tomorrow. It's not due today.' And I sat there and I didn't have, I didn't worry about the rent money all night, really." So a power can lift us above our alleged problems. And I say alleged because the next thing that we find out, it's Bill takes us along. And he says it, and I think in three places, our problems, we think are of our own making. Oh, no, as they aren't. They're caused by them. They're caused by these events. My boss was rude to me, and it made me feel terrible. I got angry. I felt slighted. I felt this. I felt that. And I said, "What if you thought your boss said that, and you didn't have those feelings?" "Well, that's not really a solution. The only solution is to get him to stop that." "Well, that may be the solution in the material world, but people won't obey that. They just keep doing it. What we have here is the power to allow that to happen, to forgive them and love them. And you can do that with any situation that ever faces you, giving you total freedom from the events of the world." "Well, I'd like it in the abstract, but I like the idea ripping the world apart and changing it and getting involved in everything and doing all these things." "Well, how does it make you feel?" "Shitty. I'm angry all the time. I'm." "Well, we're back to the ultimate answer, which is to turn my way over to the will of my higher power. And that's what I think all the steps are for, is to reach in there and find every single idea that is separating me from my higher power and handing it over." My sponsor said, "The secret is to don't have a way. Then nothing cannot go your way." And what do we say in the 12 and 12? "What? Turn everything over. Not have a way." "I'll be the hole in the donut." Anybody remembers that? That's the third step in this. "Well, I'll be a nonentity. Who the hell will I be? I won't have any prejudices. I won't have any anger. I won't have any ways that everything has to be. I won't have all. Who will I be? I'll be nothing." "Well, I'll be is spiritual child of God. I will have." And this is the goal, is to just find more things to turn over so that everything is fine just the way it is. That's a big order for an ego who's been used to running the whole show. If it just reduces me to nothing and God to everything, what a ridiculous idea. Me nothing, God everything. Well, I'll tell you what I thought when I read in the Big Book, "God is either everything or is nothing." You remember this? It's in, I think it's one of the early chapters. It's God. It's either everything or he said, "There is a solution." I think God either is or he isn't. So I asked my sponsor, "What does that mean? God, it's everything or he's nothing?" "Well, I'll tell you what it means. It means God is everybody in this room. Everybody in this room is God. I'm God. God is me. Everything about me is God. God is everything about me. God is the whole world. There's nothing that isn't God." And I went, "Wow." Now, let me tell you what I concluded out of that. I thought about it and I said to myself, "I know that it sounds funny, but I think I exist in addition to everything." Now, how could you exist in addition to everything? Now, we all feel that, right? Yeah. I was, I understand everything, and then there's me. Well, the only way we could exist in addition to everything is to make up a story that we exist in addition to everything. And it gets lonely out there after a while. It gets real lonely because it was like back when the astronomers thought that the Earth was the center of the solar system, and nothing made sense. Never find in your life that doesn't make sense, just going along. You, or what is this? I don't, doesn't make any sense. I've been around here for 35 years, and I don't see where I'm going or what it is. And then they changed and said, "No, the Sun is the center, and the Earth is going around the Sun." And ba ba ba. Mankind isn't the center of this. That light is. And when they did that, everybody are comfortable. No. Okay, now it all fits. Now I'm in harmony with reality. And the same thing happens here. I have spent my entire life with me as the center, and with me as the center, nothing makes sense. I'm uncomfortable all the time. I'm in pain all the time because I'm not really the center. I'm trying. Did you ever try and force the wrong part into something? It really doesn't go here. And your repair, goddamn it, it will fit in there one way or the other. It's the wrong. And so we come in here and they go, "No, the real center is God." Oh, well, conduct an experiment and live in your mind. Make a decision. That's how you do an experiment. That he's the center. Make a decision to do a new spiritual experiment. I'm gonna turn my well in life over to the care of God as if he were the center and see what kind of results you get. That's all it's asking. It's just, you get better results with your Creator as the center, or with you as the center? Hmm. I hate to admit it, but it is better with Him at the center. But I don't get to do anything. I don't get to decide stuff and make judgments and do all that. What am I supposed to do? Help people. Oh, yeah. I mean, I do some of that. I mean, that's fine. I do that. No, you're supposed to do that. That's what you're here. That's why we're all here. What, what is it that you're seeking? Happiness. And how are you seeking it? Oh, I stink crap up, and then I go get it. That's my plan. And sometimes I'm real close. When I first got my boat, well, I was there. But boats only lasts about a week, and then they just don't do it anymore. And so we're all driven by a desire to be happy. And when you look at William James, that Bill mentions in our book, "The Varieties of Religious Experience." He really liked him, and that's why he mentioned it in the book. And James concluded that the most valuable things that churches have ever contributed to mankind were enlightened individuals. That other than that, they have really haven't done much. And like Bill Wilson, like Gandhi, like Martin Luther. And then you see the spiritual story and just go, "Whoa." And that becomes the light that we, the rest of us can follow. So there's tremendous value in this churches or whatever spiritual path is being followed because of the beacons that pop up from time to time. And I'm sure in your area, there are beacons that have been here a long time that have provided stability to the AAA and the Austin and Minneapolis area. And that you are grateful that the transformation took place in them so that you don't have to take it on the theory, you can see what's available for you now. James and most other spiritual writers offer this as the proof of the existence of God. It is the fact that inside of human beings, there is a perpetual unrest that cannot be fixed by anything else. We, it comes in the form of, "There's something missing." That was, that was what I felt. I don't know what's wrong, but I don't belong here. There's something missing. And then we look, and there's two schools attracting us. The material school. Oh, you got that unrest? Cadillac. Here's a Cadillac. Owner, Bob, do you have that unrest anymore? No. It's gone. Joe, buy a Cadillac. The unrest will be gone. Okay, so that's the, that's the material world. Come to Las Vegas. What happens here stays here. That'll fix that unrest. But it doesn't. The closest thing that we ever experienced was drinking. That was the closest thing to a spiritual experience that you can have. But it isn't the right one. It's still when we get sober, it's missing again. It's missing. And so that's what he said. He said, "We have this unrest that something's missing." And C.S. Lewis says, "There's something a lot inside of us that keeps telling us how we ought to behave, and we can't get rid of it." You ever have that? You know, "Well, I really ought to." But I go over here. And then the second thing is, we can't live up to it. Those were, those are the dynamics. In other words, inside of human beings is this thing going on. And we, in seeking happiness or to shut this thing up, are coming up with a plan. What's your plan? PhD. "When I get my PhD, that damn thing is shut up." I mean, how many, if I get married? How many alcoholics? Is it, yeah, I know. My problem is I'm not married. I'm gonna get married. When I have a kid. I mean, women alcoholics, they'll tell us, they go, "Oh, as soon as I have a child, all of this will be fixed." And it appears that way. But then it starts coming back. The ultimate source, as Bill said, of all serenity is God himself. It is a personal contact with your own Creator. And you're the one who conducts the experiment. You're the one judging the results. It has nothing to do with everybody else. We just simply are wave showers. Where is God? Hmm. I don't know him or anything like that. I just don't. That way. You know, 8-step. Go make a list. That way. Go make an amend. And lo and behold, our program suggests the transformation takes place. And sometimes we don't even see it, even though we read it all the time. We read the promises as if they were nothing. And as a matter of fact, and then we go, "Are these extravagant promises?" "Well, no, we think not." But people are answering back. You know why they're not extravagant? Because God's doing them. Can you imagine trying to have that done by human power? Okay, let's.