576
PARTISAN REVIEW
n o t p o liticall y wh ere I was at," but Berrym a n d eta iled hi s feelings in
R ecovery:
The special trouble was that my students were in crisis themselves,
the nation-wide wave of strikes had just hit the University, o f my
seventy-fi ve kids only one-third had shown up the p reced ing T hurs–
day and my assistant was los t, he didn 't know what to tell them. I had
to hear them and tell them myself, the President is a very capable guy
but he was handling this particular business all wrong, in fact he was
not
handling it, he had just put students and staff alike on their
"consciences," what a way to run a vast institution .
" Yo u know, Jim, you 're a ver y a ffectio n a te m a n ," Berrym an told
him a fter th e talk was over. No o n e h ad ever said su ch a thing to losel
before, but h e was awar e tha t Berrym a n was a lso address ing himself.
losel' s actio n s tha t d ay a lso served to sh ock Berrym a n in to a new
spiritua l exp erien ce, as
R ecovery
rela tes:
That afternoon as I tho ught over what had happened I saw that a
d irect intervention had taken p lace and I recovered one particular
sense of God 's being I lost as a child. My father sho t himself when I
was twelve. I didn 't bl ame God for that, I 'just lost all personal sense
of Him. No doubt about the Creator and Maintainer, and later it
became quite clear to me th at He made himself availabl e to certa in
men and women in terms of inspiration-arti sts, scienti sts, states–
men , the saints of course, an ybody in fact-gave them special power
or insight or endurance-I'd felt it myself: some of my bes t work I
can ' t claim any credit for, it fl owed out all by itself, or in fact by His
moving. But I couldn 't see Him interes ted in the individual life in
the ordinary way. Now I did. (Jim ) was his angel if you like–
emissary, agent-I've never had any trouble with angels. Or what
th ey call "miracles" either. I became a different man .
Berrym a n believed th a t thi s inter ventio n en a bl ed him to accept the
Second Step of AA-" Ca m e to believe tha t a Power g rea ter than
o urselves could res to re u s
to
sanity" - a nd w ro te o f it o n June 4th :
Finall y you opened my eyes.
My double nature fu sed in tha t point of time
three weeks ago day before yes terday.
Now, brooding thro' a history of the earl y Church,
I identify with everybody, even the heres iarchs.
Altho u g h , in Dr. Ma nn 's o pinio n , this experien ce o f con version
was n o t las ting, Berrym a n did refer to it con sta ntl y a nd devoutl y.
It
