Dick B.’s Letter of Thanks to Tuchy P., Author, Philanthropist,
Owner of Healing-habits (Publisher), Christian leader, and Long-Recovered AA 10/4/2013
Dear Tuchy:
I am writing this
letter to give you another special vote of thanks for all you have done in
reprinting so many of A.A.’s key historical books—particularly those by A First
Century Christian Fellowship (later known as the Oxford Group) group of highly
skilled Christian activist authors, often recovered alcoholics, who “found”
God, were cured of alcoholism and had their lives changed.
I’m publishing this
thank you for several reasons.
As a participant in
our International Christian Recovery Coalition, and one who has also participated
in our investigative research in St. Johnsbury, you are rendering a very
special service that not only glorifies God, but also makes known his
power, love, and healings as set forth in the Bible and applicable to all
sickness, particularly alccholism.
Your Healing Habits
has now reprinted widely known and used Oxford Group books by Victor
Kitchen, Harold Begbie, Cecil Rose,
Olive Jones, Sam Shoemaker, Stephen Foot, A. J. Russell, and Charles Clapp.
These are the books
which contributed the very language that Bill Wilson incorporated into his new
version of the A.A. program when he published the first edition of the Big Book
in 1939.
They were eagerly
sought out and often purchased at a high price by those of us who were able to
recognize the language of the authors in many pages of Bill W.’s writings. And,
of course, Bill was far more involved with the Oxford Group from 1934 to 1937
and then in 1938 and 1939 with Rev. Sam Shoemaker than almost anyone in early
A.A. including Dr. Bob.
You have generously
donated many of these books to places which make them available to AAs and
those in recovery all around the world. You donated a number of copies to the
Dr. Bob Core Library at North
Congregational Church in St. Johnsbury when we were all there dedicating the
library and rounding up mounds more A.A.
history about Dr. Bob, his family, his church, his excellent training in the
Bible, his participation in Christian Endeavor and YMCA activities as a
youngster, and his rigorous Bible study and church attendance while at St.
Johnsbury Academy.
A word to others. Tuchy
has just started chemotherapy for abdominal cancer; and our heart goes out to
him in prayers, good wishes, and miracle affirmations. We ask the same of those
who read this letter.
Tuchy’s latest
reprint effort is Victor Kitchen’s Believing
in False Gods: I Was A Pagan in which Kitchen (an avid Oxford Group member,
Christian, friend of Sam Shoemaker’s, and friend of Bill W.) spelled out how he
moved from idolatry to Jesus Christ, changed his life, and was cared of smoking
and alcoholism. May all those who read this book profit from it as much as I
did when I was researching and writing my landmark book, The Oxford Group & Alcoholics Anonymous: A Design for Living That
Works, 2d ed, www.dickb.com/Oxford.shtml.
I particularly
cherish the last line of this reprint where Kitchen wrote: “My thanks to the
Oxford Group who led me to Christ, and to Christ Who is leading me to God.”
This sentence is the
epitome of First Century Christianity in action. And it more than justifies the
name “A First Century Christian Fellowship” adopted by Frank Buchman and his
friends in the early 1920’s, and the name “Christian Fellowship” adopted by the
early Akron A.A. Christians who founded A.A. in Akron in 1935.
God Bless you, and
keep you, Tuchy
Dick B.
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