This morning I woke up late but got to work early. I had to make a call to skip breakfast. I got to work and there was a big breakfast event.

I was able to make the noon meeting. We read from page 67 - 69. I got to read the paragraphs about the "different angle" and about the power of forgiveness. I shared my analogy about the full swing with forgiveness as the follow through.

I realized afterward that there was more that could be said. I remembered about how my mind always clung to a few, a very minuscule number, .001 percent of people like Jeffrey Dahmer, Hitler, or Charles Manson who were sociopaths or patently evil.

I thought about how the personal inventory got me to look at the truth about myself. I had to list my faults before me and see that I had many of the character defects that I loathed in others. I saw that I had the capacity for violence, bigotry, sexual deviancy, exploitation, oppression, and hate. I was just fortunate that I didn't take these any further than I did.

I was able to swallow the truth about myself when I looked at my faults as shortcomings as a disease of the character than an evil nature. Through this perspective my internal defenses dropped and I became able to admit much more truth than I previously could. This is still ongoing today.

But something else happened that opened up a whole other level of spiritual power and healing. I was guided to view the disease concept as the basis for wrong doings of others just as I did for me. Since then the history of evil men has made a lot more sense to me. There was now and explanation for how good kids could go on to be men who did terrible wrongs. Had my circumstances been different, had I been in the wrong environment at the wrong time, had I been in with the wrong people at certain times of my life, how I had more money, power, influence, my defects could have been nurtured to the extent of evil.

I can look at the evil man and say but for the grace of God there go I.

That doesn't mean that what they did was right or somehow diminished. That doesn't mean that I have to like what they did or rationalize it as something not so bad. That doesn't mean that the deeds of evil men don't demand justice. It just means that I must separate the wrongdoings from the person and I must view the person as a victim of the evil also. I must see the person as another child of God caught up in the potential for evil of this world. Also I must check that the hate, even for an impersonal evil does not fester within me.

The Co-Anons really taught me to differentiate the person from the addict. People of faith taught me to love the sinner even if I hate the sin. AA taught me to treat them like sick people too.

This evening I had to practice a little forgiveness with my wife.

Thanks be to God for this day.