A PROGRAM FOR LIVING

I lacked serenity. With more to do than seemed possible, I fell further behind, no matter how hard I tried. Worries about things not done yesterday and fear of tomorrow's deadlines denied me the calm I needed to be effective each day. Before taking Steps Ten and Eleven, I began to read passages like the one cited above. I tried to focus on God's will, not my problems, and to trust that He would manage my day. It worked!  Slowly, but it worked! 

The Step That Keeps Us Growing

"Sometimes, when friends tell us how well we are doing, we know better inside. We know we aren't doing well enough. We still can't handle life, as life is. There must be a serious flaw somewhere in our spiritual practice and development. What, then, is it?
 
 The chances are better than even that we shall locate our trouble in our misunderstanding or neglect of A.A.'s Step Eleven - prayer, meditation, and the guidance of God. The other Steps can keep most of us sober and somehow functioning. But Step Eleven can keep us growing, if we try hard and work at it continually."

AS BILL SEES IT
GRAPEVINE, JUNE 1958

Limits On Prayer?

Keep me out of it

Step Eleven says "praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out." Does that mean that there is only one kind of prayer I should do to draw closer to my Higher Power?

I doubt it.

It seems to me that this "will and power" prayer is a terrific tool to improve our conscious contact with the God of our understanding -- after all, that seems to be the objective of Step Eleven -- but I don't think it was ever intended to be the only prayer in my life.

God Box

Amplifying prayer

Step Eleven encourages us to pray, and most spiritual paths agree praying is a good thing. Whether the prayer is praise or petition, petty or profound, most faith traditions would agree that the power of prayer is amplified by speaking it aloud. Hearing my prayer fixes it in my mind in a way that dialog in my head can't do. Somehow the vibrations in the air create a reality more real than my thoughts alone. Theologians call this externalization.

What if I take this further?

If I write my prayer, it seems to me that externalization advances another notch -- the words are a more real real.

Big Book Meeting Step 11

StepChat Big Book Meeting 8:30 am EST

 Page 86 big book

When we retire at night, we constructively review our day. Were we resentful, selfish, dishonest or afraid? Do we owe an apology? Have we kept something to ourselves which should be discussed with another person at once? Were we kind and loving toward all? What could we have done better? Were we thinking of ourselves most of the time? Or were we thinking of what we could do for others, of what we could pack into the stream of life? But we must be careful not to drift into worry, remorse or morbid reflection, for that would diminish our usefulness to others. After making our review we ask God's forgiveness and inquire what corrective measures should be taken.

Meditation

A friend in Program says . . .
Meditation was always a mystery to me. I didn't know how to do it, and I never like trying something that I'm not going to be good at. I always thought there was a "right" way to meditate; that is, until I took a walk one day and decided to meditate while walking.

Several minutes into the walk, I suddenly felt myself getting focused. For more than fifteen minutes, I was experiencing the moment. I was aware of so many sights, sounds, and smells. The sun was just rising; there was a cloud that continually changed colors in the new morning light; there were chirping crickets and singing birds.
So it seems to me that our lives are a series of moments, and meditation is simply experiencing those moments one after another. If we ever perfected meditation, life would be one big moment of total awareness. But for me, just then, merely having a series of brief moments of being in the "now" was a wonderful and glorious thing.

"The spiritual life is never one of achievement: it is always one of letting go."