Prayer as a Communication System – John K.

About This Speaker Tape

A newspaper reporter earning $75 a week, convinced the great American novel cried out to high heaven to be written, but drowning in the flash floods of alcohol. John K. describes the alcoholic soul as eroded land, stripped bare by torrents of drink and left in a drought.

He entered the rooms a bankrupt human being, treating prayer as a tool to extricate himself from a jam or as insulation against stress. He discovered the 11th Step is not a request for a pink Cadillac, but a communication system to seek a Higher Power's will. For John, this meant accepting the circumstances of the moment as part of a divine plan.

He speaks of the four melancholy horsemen of the alcoholic apocalypse—frustration, fear, doubt, and loneliness—and the necessity of a "happy fault" that reduces a man to nothing so he can be rebuilt. He views prayer as taking a direction that points straight up, because there was nowhere lower to go.

Topics

Timestamps

• 0:45 John K. introduces the Milwaukee contingent in the audience.
• 2:15 Discussion of the 11th Step as the 'practice of the presence of Higher Power' via Father Ed D.
• 4:30 Laughter: John K. on the irony of a lifelong egoist suddenly praying 'Thy will be done'.
• 6:10 Defining the divine will as simply accepting the circumstances of the moment.
• 8:45 The 'direction' of prayer and the importance of kneeling to stand humble before men.
• 11:20 The story of the three hermits and the struggle with meditation.
• 14:10 The 'four melancholy horsemen of the alcoholic apocalypse': frustration, fear, doubt, and loneliness.
• 16:30 Emotional reflection on the deaths of his mother and sister.
• 18:15 The concept of the 'happy fault' and the necessity of the 11th Step for the newcomer.
• 20:00 Closing prayer and the Irish wish for the audience.