When my youngest son Patrick was born, I had been sober in A.A. for several years. When he was little, we usually played board games together, and as he became more able to learn, I taught him how to play Chess. One of the rules of play in Chess is that, once you've made your move and have removed your fingers from the Chess piece, there's no going back. You might quickly see that you've just made a terrible mistake, but once you lift your hand from that piece, you can't change your mind and make a different move. As bad as your last move was, you just have to live with it and suffer the consequences. That's the Rule of Play.
Patrick is a quick study and was soon developing strategic moves at a pretty young age. Even though he was still in the "rookie stages", he would challenge me to a game nearly every evening. I remember the first time it happened: Patrick made a decisive move on the board,and he lifted his hand from the Chess piece. But, then he saw his mistake -- just as I was getting ready to pounce and take his piece off the board. With that, he suddenly cried out, "Daddy....can I have do-overs?" I was just about to remind him of that old Rule of Play, when I stopped and thought about my 4th Step inventory and all the amends that I'd made at Step 9. I had made quite a few "bad moves" and a whole lot of terrible mistakes in my life, but through working those Steps, I'd been given the opportunity to go back and correct all those mistakes. In essence, I'd said to God, "Daddy...can I have do-overs?" And I was given a second chance to re-think and re-do things. The game of life had not beaten me because God gave me that second chance.
So, here's what I said to Patrick. "Yes, you can have do-overs. Anytime in your life you see that you've made a mistake, you can always go back and fix it." I bent the Rules of Chess for Patrick because my Father had bent the Rules of Life for me. I guess that why they call it....Mercy.
