Hot Stove League

Law: (Legal) The body of binding rules and regulations, customs and standards established in a community by its legislative and judicial authorities.

Law: (Physics) A statement of an order or sequence or relationship of phenomena that is invariable under certain conditions.  

I think a good nickname for me would be Stove-Toucher Steve.

There's this interesting discussion about laws and breaking laws and what we can get away with and what we can't get away with.  Mostly what we can get away with.  We're rule-breakers.  We hate rules.  We hate being told what to do.  WE tell OTHER PEOPLE what to do.

Now with the legal stuff there's a lot of wiggle room.  If you don't get caught you haven't broken the law.  There are some dumb laws, too, and laws I don't agree with, but whenever I get caught breaking some law I invariably see that I got caught doing something I shouldn't have been doing.  I clearly recall talking with my first sponsor about a speeding ticket.  Together we went over the facts: the speed limit; my speed which was clearly above the speed limit; and the penalty - if caught - of exceeding the speed limit.  I had a lot of excuses: it was a speed trap; I always drove that fast on that particular highway; everyone else was driving that fast; etc. etc. etc.

No dice.  Broke the law.  Got caught.  Paid the fine.

Then there are the laws of nature.  These laws are immutable and harsh should you break them.  Zero wiggle room.  Go outside with your coffee cup and drop it on concrete - the law of gravity takes over and smashes your cup.  You are not being picked on by some corrupt cop who doesn't like your car - gravity shrugs and claims another piece of porcelain.  

It's the same thing with our spiritual life.  When I behave badly as a person, a family member, an employee, a citizen, then things don't work out for me.  When a group flaunts our Traditions it frequently withers up and blows away, dust in the wind.

Here's a great line from the Big Book: "There is a complete failure of the kind of defense that keeps one from putting his hand on a hot stove."  That's how we are: we keep putting our hands in the fire and getting burned.  And what's worse we get pissed at the fire for burning us.  The fire isn't picking favorites.  The fire is being fire.

If you only knew how many blameless inanimate objects I've broken in my life in fits of rage . . .