Step Eleven softens my heart every time it\u2019s the topic of discussion in one of my meetings.\u00a0 That wasn\u2019t the case when I first got sober however; it wasn\u2019t the case for the first year or two.\u00a0 Not because I didn\u2019t believe in the possibility of the power of prayer or meditation; but because I had never tried it before walking into AA.\u00a0 And then when I did, I simply couldn\u2019t sustain conscious contact when I did try.\u00a0 Nor could I fathom what God\u2019s will for me might be.\u00a0 Actually, I had never ever considered the concept that God might have a plan for me.\u00a0 For any of us.<\/b><\/p>\n
Following that first meeting on May 24, 1976, I\u2019d go to multiple meetings weekly and listen intently to others talk about their sobriety, their prayer life and the commitment to meditation they had made on a daily basis, and I felt like a fraud.\u00a0 I\u2019d nod in agreement while they spoke.\u00a0 I wanted to \u201cseem\u201d like them.\u00a0 When alone, I\u2019d edge close to what they said they did but I didn\u2019t feel like they claimed to feel.\u00a0 Not at all.\u00a0 I felt nothing.\u00a0 Nothing at all.<\/b><\/p>\n
I wasn\u2019t a quitter though.\u00a0 I prayed.\u00a0 I really did, even though it seemed hollow to me.\u00a0 But meditate?\u00a0 Not really.\u00a0 Not in the way others said they did.\u00a0 I sure wanted to learn though, primarily because it appeared that others were living more peacefully than I was.\u00a0 I felt anxious and unsure of myself.\u00a0 All the time.\u00a0 I knew there had to be something I was doing wrong.\u00a0 I just didn\u2019t know what.\u00a0 I often suspected others knew more than I knew because they had gone to treatment.\u00a0 I, on the other hand, got sober in AA.<\/b><\/p>\n
After being in the program for about a year, I heard people talking about Transcendental Meditation and how much they loved it.\u00a0 I was curious so I took a course in T M, as it was referred to.\u00a0 I was desperate to succeed at meditation.\u00a0 I wanted to be like my friends.\u00a0 It proved to be very effective for me and over the next few years I was a regular meditator. To this day I remember my \u201cmantra.\u201d\u00a0 And then, like so many good habits, I let it slide and have not been a regular meditator since then.<\/b><\/p>\n
Don\u2019t get me wrong, I do sit quietly and talk with God on a daily basis, more than once, in fact; and I am always available to His messages.\u00a0 But I feel nudges more than hear words.\u00a0 They serve me well enough though.\u00a0 The absolute in my life is my willingness to believe, wholeheartedly, that God has been with me as a constant companion during every breath I have taken.\u00a0 And I believe too that He doesn\u2019t really care if I sit down and formally meditate.\u00a0 He will be present to guide me regardless of my actions.<\/b><\/p>\n
How glad I am that I stuck around AA and willingly listened to others, to my sponsors, and most importantly, practiced the tools I was handed on that very first night that I walked into Alcoholics Anonymous.\u00a0 The tools, though completely confusing to me at first, particularly the slogans which I considered lame, at the very least; were eventually adaptable even to a skeptic like me.\u00a0 And now, many years later, I am still singing the praises of every slogan, every step, and particularly of prayer and of meditation one day at a time.\u00a0 I know, without a doubt, that I owe my very life to those many tools that at first merely rested on my dresser.<\/b><\/p>\n
But what is it about Step Eleven that is still so captivating after all these years?\u00a0 Personally I think the very idea of \u201csearching\u201d through prayer and then \u201csearching\u201d through meditation gives us the okay to not be expert at either for how ever long it takes us.\u00a0 Even though I was quick to practice praying, I didn\u2019t really have a handle on who God was, how God might show up in my life, if God could actually be present to all of us at the same time.\u00a0 Like I said, I was a bit of a skeptic.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t grow up in a household where God reigned supreme.\u00a0 In fact, He was never mentioned as far as I can remember.<\/b><\/p>\n
What changed my very understanding of God was reading the book: The Magical Mystical Bear. How glad I am, to this day, that a friend mentioned this book to me.\u00a0 It was written by Matthew Fox, an Episcopal Priest, and his very soft, very accessible definition of God allowed me to literally feel snuggled up to a concept that worked for me. \u00a0 Fox suggested you think of God as your friend.\u00a0 Invite Him to go for walks, to shop with you, to be at your side regardless of what you were doing.\u00a0 Thinking of God in that way made Him real.\u00a0 Almost human in a strange sort of way.\u00a0 I considered Him my confidante.\u00a0 And life became so much easier.\u00a0 I was able to sustain conscious contact, in my way.\u00a0 And I believe what ever way works for any one of us satisfies Go<\/i>d.<\/b><\/p>\n
Knowing God\u2019s will for us and having the power to carry that out is the whole point of Step Eleven, of course.\u00a0 As I said earlier, I was completely stymied regarding God\u2019s will for me.\u00a0 And a good friend suggested I try his interpretation.\u00a0 He asked me, \u201cDo you believe that God is love?\u201d I did.\u00a0 And then he said \u201cWill is thought.\u00a0 God\u2019s will is loving thought.\u201d\u00a0 That worked for me.\u00a0 If I behave in a kind, loving way toward everyone, I will be fulfilling God\u2019s will for me. \u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n
How much simpler can it be?\u00a0 I had been afraid that God might want me to do something I wouldn\u2019t want to do.\u00a0 I gave up that idea.\u00a0 It\u2019s been many years now that I have been trying to practice, on a daily basis, being kind and loving.\u00a0 I don\u2019t always succeed but I do think God is pleased with my attempt any way.<\/b><\/p>\n
I think God is pleased with all of us, in fact, as long as we are showing up in the lives of our friends and strangers too, to the best of our ability.\u00a0 How lucky we are to have a blueprint for living, one that demystifies the many choices that stand before us.\u00a0 There is always the right one to make.\u00a0 God can help us make it.\u00a0 But if we insist on making the wrong one, we can still trust that God will love us any way.\u00a0 How great is that?<\/b><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Step Eleven softens my heart every time it\u2019s the topic of discussion in one of my meetings.\u00a0 That wasn\u2019t the case when I first got sober however; it wasn\u2019t the case for the first year or two.\u00a0 Not because I didn\u2019t believe in the possibility of the power of prayer or meditation; but because I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-what-i-believe-you-and-your-higher-power"],"yoast_head":"\n