Creating a Gap Between Thought and Reaction in Step 11 – Tom P.

I'm Tom. I'm a drug addict. Really grateful to be part of this and to participate in this. This has been really, for me, it's been profound. I go to a lot of retreats. I do a lot of this kind of stuff. This year I've already been to two silent retreats. I've led a retreat. I've been to another retreat on my own. There's something about this. I've always been drawn to this world. What we've done here and what has taken place here is really, really important and valuable. I'm going to tell you a little bit how I got to meditation. I've got a couple of things I want to... Then I'm going to lead us in a meditation form that I have found to be extremely valuable. It's called Lectio Divina. We'll probably do a 15-minute meditation after that, but I'll explain it. I'll lead up to all that stuff. I'll put some glasses on. A thought popped in my head about what should I start with. This was the line that came out. Instead of regarding ourselves as intelligent agents, spearheads of God's ever-advancing creation, we agnostics and atheists chose to believe that our human intelligence was the last word, the alpha and the omega, the beginning and end of all. That's an interesting thing to think. Bill's using that. It's kind of a throwaway line. What caught my mind on that was instead of regarding ourselves as intelligent agents, spearheads in the vanguard of God's ever-advancing... That tells me that that's something we should do. That we should regard ourselves as intelligent agents. That we should regard ourselves as spearheads in the vanguard of God's ever-advancing creation. I don't mean that in a prideful way. I mean that in a necessary... One of the instructions in the big book is that we claim spiritual progress. If I can't claim spiritual progress, then I'm not making spiritual progress. I can claim spiritual progress if I'm doing the things that I understand to be necessary for spiritual fitness. One of the things I believe to be necessary for spiritual fitness is this process of meditation. It's not the only thing. There are some that will go to the mountaintop and they will meditate their entire life. But that's not our job. Our job in the world of recovery, in the world of Cocaine Anonymous, is to do God's work in the fact that we have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body and that we, who have found the solution and armed with the facts about ourselves, can generally earn the confidence of that suffering alcoholic. Suffering drunk. And that's the drug attitude still out there. And we can do it as no other people can. Yeah, I'll start with... So I was thinking, what does meditation mean? So through the dictionary, it comes from the Latin word meditatus. And that is the past participle of meditare. And that means it's a frequentive... Frequentative... Frequentative of medare. So it comes from the word medare, which means to remedy. Looking further, in the Greek, that's akin to the mad healer. So we're healing madness. And that leads to the word meet. M-E-T-E. Which becomes meets and bounds. So meditation is the thing... I do to create space between the events of my life. So one of the things I can claim in spiritual progress is that today, I am very much aware of the fact that I have much more space between the thought I have about a situation and how I react. And that's a really important thing for me. And the more I do this, the greater that space gets. And in that space, what's available is an intelligence that's not... It's beyond my intelligence. Beyond ego intelligence. It's intelligence that comes from depth. And I can't get at the depth through ego. I can't get at the depth through normal psychological processes. The depth erupts. It's evoked. And so that's why it's important. I need to have that space. Here's something from Henri Nouan. This book is called The Wounded Healer. For the healing minister is called to recognize the sufferings of their time in his or her own heart. And make that recognition the starting point of service. Whether that person tries to enter into a dislocated world, relate to a convulsive generation, or speak to a dying man, his or her service will not be perceived as authentic unless it comes from a heart wounded by the suffering about which he or she speaks. Thus, nothing can be written about the suffering about which he or she speaks. Nothing can be written or said about ministry without a deeper understanding of the ways in which the minister can make his or her own wounds available as a source of healing. And that's our job. Our job is to get in touch with our own wounds. And we have a three-fold process for doing that. We have the process of psychological awareness that we get through the steps. The steps are intended to bring us from a position of selfish self-centeredness to a position of self-centeredness. Something other than that. Maybe on a good day, higher power-centeredness. Or mystery-centered. And in that, this stuff comes from the line, and I remember hearing Howard P. talk about this in early sobriety, and it blew me away. That selfishness, I mean self-examination, prayer, meditation, each on their own have great benefit. But when logically related and interwoven together, the result is an unshakable foundation for living. So what's the solution? What we do is we do self-examination. We do prayer, which is the relationship that Howard was talking about, that process of relationship, and meditation. And meditation is a broad, as we've heard from the people that I've presented, that it's broad. There's many different ways to do it. The 12th sense is it's essentially an individual adventure, and we can go as deep or as wide as we want to with it. I don't have a story about suffering in sobriety and then turning to meditation. That's not my story. I meditated intensely when I was getting loaded. Seriously. I mean formally. Formally. My first examples of the meditative contemplative life was really my grandmother, my mother's mom. She was a person who started going to daily mass at the same place in Chicago, Illinois, that from the point her brother got shot down in World War II, and taken prisoner of war until she died in February of 2002. So from 1943 to 2002, she went to mass every day. And when we would come to visit her, we lived with them for about two years, and I was the oldest of six, and for sure, somebody's going to mass with her. And it seemed like punishment. And I was the oldest. I ended up having to go to the most. But normally, the ones that I remember, you know, that five, six, seven age time frame, visiting Chicago, staying with Nana, and going to mass with her. And it was about a three or four block walk, so that was nice. It was nice to walk with her, and usually it was some time alone with her. And then to get to the daily mass in the Catholic Church is not like weekend masses. It's quiet. You know, I always liked the incense. I liked the ritual. I liked the mystery of it. And what I came to appreciate was there was just like a profound, profound silence. They're not glad-handing and stuff. They're there, you know, and they would kneel and pray. And so that memory would stay with me. So I had some clarity about, I was wondering, why is it that I've been able, I've been meditating from the very beginning. I've never stopped. I've never left CA. I've never left the middle of CA. I've never stopped going to meetings. I meditate. I have meditated. From the time I got sober, September 6, 2001, till today, I have probably missed 10 morning meditations. And in my morning practice, it's about a half an hour, and I usually do an afternoon meditation. And what I've started over the last several years is an evening meditation, like Terry was describing. I have been using the Insight Timer app, and I just turn on something there. But I don't know why that, so I was wondering, and I was sitting over there, and I guess I had read, I was reading to Donna about the vortices available on this property, and how they help bring clarity, and all of a sudden, I felt like I had a resonating clarity about some things. I think the reason that I went, in 1995, 1996, I had my first drink in 1970, and I've been loaded ever since. I get sober. I'm almost 44 years old in 2001. And about 1995, 1996 time frame, I had three drinks. I had a lot of hard times before. I'd probably done 18 months in jail by that time. I'd been arrested. I had five DUIs by that time. I had a lot of issues. But I went so far down the rabbit hole in 1995, 1996, and I couldn't get out. And I didn't know I was, the problem was I didn't know I was in the rabbit hole. I was completely psychotic. I was out of my mind. I ended up getting arrested 48 times. I'm in and out of these psych wards, and I think when I'm getting arrested, I remember, these conscious thoughts, that I'm being protected from the principalities of evil that are evading from the cosmos, and that I needed to be saved and put in a safe place in these cells because it was just nuts. And here's what I became aware of, is I know I couldn't get out of that. I couldn't get out. And I end up coming into CA, and I hear from another person's story. She tells her story of hopelessness. I get, I get to hear my story and hers, and I recognize that I've been trapped. And then about 90 days later, after all the stuff that gets me going to CA, Terry's talk, Doug bringing me to meetings, and really starting to engage this thing, at 90 days sober, I get invited to come back from California to Arizona because my daughters are there, and I get to see them. I haven't seen them for a long time. And they invite me, so I hop on a trailways bus, a Greyhound bus, and I come over, my brother picks me up at the trailways station down there at like 32nd or wherever it is, and I get in at 3 in the morning, and I get to spend some time with my daughters, and I go to a movie, and I get to go see A Beautiful Mind. And I have been in the psychosis for so long, I don't know I'm in the psychosis, and I watch A Beautiful Mind, and I see those that recognize that those people, they're not real. The ones that he was seeing, because he was in a schizophrenic, and he was, and I realize that maybe, the people I ended up, like Kirsten started, and my youngest daughter, she just punched me on the side, and she goes, Dad, they're not real. And that began, I was in the process of healing, and that was really important, but I, when I was at, so, even in 95, 96, in the midst of all this stuff, I know I'm in trouble, and I know that there's spiritual, so I start going to mass every day, and I smoke crack before I go into church, and I smoke crack the second I get out, and, and, you know, I get consolation in those, in the memories of those places, and it's, and it's useful, and I have, the church happened to be at a school where my daughters were at, and I had a restraining order, so I, at least I could see them. They couldn't keep me out of the church, so I would, I could go there, and, in the midst of that, I meet a group of people that are doing this, like, transformational work, and I do the process, I have a powerful, powerful experience, and I still drink, I still, still using drug, I can't stop, but the guy, the guy who led the program for me, it, got, had, had led a program for, and I tell this story, just to make a point about what we do, and the spiritual, the spiritual work we do, and, and why it's important that we can regard ourselves as intelligent agents, vanguard, spearheads in the vanguard of God's ever-advancing creation, so I, I get the chance to go to India, and meet the Dalai Lama, and, because of this guy's connections, and so, we, we do, and I get to meet Mother Teresa, and I do, I get to sit with Mother Teresa for two and a half hours, and I have this powerful experience, and I'm drunk, an hour and a half later, have this powerful experience with the Dalai Lama, and the next day, I am loaded on acid, as I'm walking up a hill, it doesn't solve it, I come back, I, I have to go to jail, and so I have another six month, I get another six month sentence, and this time, I'm not getting work released, and so I ask for some books, that I might read while I'm there, and so, my friend, gives me these books, one is, The In Search of the Miraculous, by P.D. Ospensky, which is, really about, by G.I. Gurdjieff, and another is a book called Essence, and some books by Ken Wilber, and so, I, I've always up to this point, have been a, a, I've been a seeker, but I've really been a seeker, in the, in the Catholic Christian world, and so I read these books, and they're different traditions, and I, and I get very interested in them, so I, I, when I get out of there, I, I join this, this program, it's called, the Diamond Heart Program, and I, it's put, A.H. Almas, is the guy who's organized it, it's a Gurdjieffian, Buddhist meditation process, I get assigned a Buddhist, a meditation counselor, I'd go to Denver once a week, I'd do, sit in the meditation with them, and he would do the counseling, I'd do this for probably about six months, and then the other thing is, once a month, we'd go up to Boulder, it's kind of a commune setting, and do Gurdjieffian awareness work, and, you know, there they serve wine, and all that stuff, so it's pretty nice, but, but at the, at the, at the, they're not, you know, they're not supposed to be serving it to alcoholics, and it's really not Buddhist, it's just like, it's a program, it's about connection, I guess is the best way to describe it, so anyway, I'm in this meditation with this guy, after about six months, and he goes, are you high? I said, oh yeah, I smoke crack before I come in here, and I go straight down to the bar afterwards, because this is profound stuff, this is really, really working for me, and at the same time, I'm explaining to him the goings on in the cosmos, and how the, how I'm, you know, becoming Jerry Garcia, and, and I joke about that stuff, but I, you know, there were parts of it that were just like, were just absolute, Astrid talks about PTSD through psychosis, that the brain doesn't know any difference, and I had so many of those experiences, I had, potential PTSD stuff in, like, normal experiences too, but, the, that, you know, just being in those places, and my things were not invaders, like police and stuff, it was like, serious stuff, I remember one morning, I called my, my ex-wife's husband, and, because they lived by Cheyenne Mountain, and I needed to, because I was watching it with a telescope, it's binoculars, and it was, the entire mountain was opening up, and expanding, and the, and the, the satellite communications were erupting from the mountain, the missiles, were coming out, and getting ready to fire, I'm not sure what they were firing on, I'm saying, I was assuming Mexico, but, and I, I called Jim, I said, Jim, look out your window, the mountain's going crazy, he says, what are you talking about? He says, I'm looking out the window, I said, you can't see this stuff, this is all camouflaged, you, I need to come over, and so I was, I was, and, there, I could go on, and on, and on with that stuff, and, and, so I end up at Chandler Valley Hope, and I, and I end up, after, after a failed suicide attempt, I end up at Chandler Valley Hope, and this lady shares her story, about how, finding her dead, dead on her basement floor, and it, and it starts to catch me, and I start to see my hopelessness, and, what ends up, what, I go, and I, I see the footprints, but they have a little meditation place, off their main room, and after that, I went and sat in that meditation, meditation place, and I just sat there for a while, and then I, after that, Doug, Doug picked me up, and I went to the East Valley Men's Group, I started after, after that, I started sitting in the meditation room, every morning, because, the people were crazy, and I just needed to get, and also, I was at a point, I couldn't talk to them, because, I knew, that I knew stuff that they didn't know, and, and I wasn't sure who I could trust, because there were, the principalities of evil, they plant people, and, and you have to be on, on guard, and so, I'd have my questions, I'd have my, you know, to confirm whether or not, where, what side they were on, whether they were neutral, whether they were supporting me, or whether they were threats, and most of them were threats, so I'd be in that meditation room, then I'd go have breakfast, and then, so I started doing meditation, I leave there, I go to this, this, halfway house in Dana Point, and, it's loud, I'm in a bedroom with two bunk beds, two sets of bunk beds, and crazy people, and, so I started waking up at 5.30 every morning, just to have some peace, and I would sit, and at the same time, I'm going through the steps with my sponsor, I don't, it's important to say, I don't, that I need to, as a real drug addict, real alcoholic, I need more than meditation, I need to deal with the deep stuff, that, that, that can be categorized, as resentment, fear, and shame, and I need to have an active, practical program of action, that can address that stuff, and it's not going to, you know, the first time through, I'm not going to get, but what I'm going to do, is I'm going to clear enough away, so that I can descend a little deeper, and if I'm coupling that with meditation, what the meditation does, is it allows me to, to go deeper, and the more I do the work, of clearing up resentment, fear, and shame, especially as it's outlined in the book, and getting my reliance on, on a power greater than, myself, and shifted from, fundamental, the spirit of self-centeredness, which is a malady, to the spirit of mystery-centeredness, which is the truth. There's a mystery, at the center, and, I just need to get in touch with it. I don't need to name it, understand it, I just need to know that it's there, and I need to get in touch with it. And, so, I need to do that work of, of, self-examination, and, confession of shortcomings, leveling of pride, restitution, all that stuff, because what ends up happening is, the active part of my psyche, starts to settle down. And, it starts to settle down, so that when I'm sitting in meditation, I don't get those lightning strikes, over and over again, or when I'm sleeping, of, of thoughts about what needs to be done, what, what happened, you know, and so, as the lightning storm settles down, I start to be able to descend, deeper and deeper into that, into that mystery. That place where, there's an intelligence, that's not of my own. I get to descend into, the realm of the collective intelligence. So, I, I'm out here in California, in, at, at, when did I go there? I would have, in January, I go to a silent retreat. It's for the church. Oh, the other thing I started doing, I need to say this, is, my sponsor, who I got his name from, the East Valley Men's Group, I wrote it in my pocket-sized big book, and I come out to a meeting, and say, I'm going to be with Dan Clemente, next week, and the first man that shares, is him. And I don't know him, I just look at my book, and I said, that's crazy. And I asked him to be my sponsor, and he's still my sponsor, he's been my sponsor the whole time. What I've been able to see, through his spiritual practices, which include meditation, which include really deep devotion, is to see how he has reacted to, his daughter being found, dead of suicide by overdose, in her apartment, ten days after it had happened. And then going through the process, of watching that happen. And then, among other things, but then, finding out, that in the time period, she was a really successful, screenwriter in Hollywood. Had done some amazing things, with Aaron Shork, and always had a project on the burner, was going to come through. But David's wife kept giving her money, lots of money. And after the suicides happened, David discovers, they've got no money. And then the crash has happened, and he ends up having to file bankruptcy. So what I got to watch, through him, was a man, through devotion and spiritual practice, including meditation, his own form of meditation. He's a daily communicant, and master tender. So his meditation, is not coming to a room like this, and sitting down. He probably wouldn't do that. His is going into the pew, sitting quietly, with whatever he's reading. And it's his practice, and it works for him. But I got to watch the fruits of it. And the fruits of it for him, are that he was, he was sad. But he was sad in a joyful way. Not like he was sad, but he was sad, joyful, all the time, that he was able to be there, and do what it is that he needs to do. He was devastated, but he was always, had dignity, and he always stayed committed to the work that he was doing. And he was always helpful. Never, never did I hear, you know, any form of self-pity. So I went to my first silent retreat, in January of 2002. And there, I have some experiences. And I start to awaken. My grandmother dies in February, and so I go to the, I get taken to the funeral in Chicago, and I decide, you know what, I've got to fix some things. Because I've been doing restitution, men's work with David, and I've done some things with my family, but I had five warrants from the state of Colorado, so I had to go turn myself into the state of Colorado. And there, I had DUIs number six and seven, and I had three felony possession charges, that I had never shown up for, so they were all no bond charges. And so I went to the case that I had already thought, I had already pled guilty on, but I never showed up for sentencing. And the guilty plea had a stipulation, that I do seven days. Now seven days was easy, considering the fact that I've already had five DUIs, and it was kind of a mess. And so it was kind of, but they did that because the equipment, had found out, was faulty in other cases, and so people were getting off. So I turned myself in on that case, thinking that's how I'm going to go do seven days, and now I've got five and a half months of sobriety, I'm starting to get things put together, I know I'm doing the ninth step, I'm certain God's going to be carrying me through this process. And I had heard in a meeting, that somebody saying they had done two weeks, and so I kind of like figured out, I can do two weeks. And so I go in front of that judge, he says, nice to see you, yes, do you have anything to say? And I tell him what I've been doing, how wonderful I am, and how much I've grown, and where I'm, he says, you know, I've been looking at the stipulation, this doesn't work for me. So he sentences me to a year in maximum security, and, and so I'm sitting in maximum security, and I'm just, I'm actually bummed, I was really bummed. I was more bummed then than I think I ever was bummed. Because I believed the program was going to work. And I thought the way the program would work is, you get the key to the prison doors, and they swing open for you, because that's what happened to St. Paul. And the chains fall off, and you walk out a free man. I didn't understand that that was all metaphorical for, for, for, interior chains. So I, after six days, I pray. And it's, it's funny, this happened to be my ex-wife's birthday, March 7th. And I, I prayed, and I, and I asked God what, you know, to give me a sign that me being there was part of his will. And so the next morning, the door swings open, and it hasn't, this hasn't happened, the chaplain walks in, and throws a Bible on the bed, and with the meditation, I said, yeah, I'm not a big scripture guy. I like ritual, but not, not this stuff. And he says, you've got nothing else to do, and so. I read the meditation, said, read Romans 12, 14, and I open up to Romans, Romans 12, 14, and I read, bless those that persecute you, bless them and do not curse. Give up your conceit, and be with people of low position. I thought, holy crap, there's a lot of those. Including me. It says, when there's joy, share in the joy, and when there's sorrow, share in the sorrow. And I thought, that is weird. Because I had prayed, and I knew I was conscious of my prayer. I knew I was, I had asked God for a sign, and God, and this seems kind of God-related. And, so I, I look up to the next verse, and it said, the verse above it said, the authorities are in place to carry out my will. And I had in there, like a powerful experience of freedom. I had a sense of like, like the chains had fallen from my heart. And I know that this is, that's not a permanent condition, but it was, it was what I needed for that moment to free me, and know that I was exactly there doing what I was supposed to be doing. And I became, I know, any time anybody asked me when I was there, I told them, I broke the law, I'm supposed to be here. I need to do my time. I ended up, ended up going on, God took care of me, and I ended up getting out of that place in six months. But while I was there, so the next, I start ordering books. And the first book I ordered when I went down the library list was a book by Houston Smith about world religions. And it was a academic text, a college academic text, and it just had like information on different world, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Native American traditions. It, and I read it, and then so I started ordering books. And I started ordering books on meditation, ordering books on God from a Hebrew perspective, God from an Islamic perspective, God from a Hindu perspective. You know, I just, and I kept them, it was bibliography, and I'd write notes about each book. And I, you know, I still got them. I did 124 books. And I started reading things like Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. And I started to see the hero's journey or the path of the recovering addict in all this stuff and how this stuff becomes repetitive. And not that it's repetitive, but it's a, there's a perennial wisdom that's being spoken about in all these traditions, seeming to point to the same thing. And then I started to really recognize that, man, this is the way we're surfing. This is the thing that we're doing. This is what 12 Steps of Spirituality is about. This is the thing. And I got out of there and I started doing this stuff. And I went, that October, I went to a retreat at St. Andrews. And at St. Andrews, Father Francis did a meditation that I'm going to show you guys. It's called Lectio Divina. And it's been really appropriate to me. Let me just, I think that's about all I want to talk about on that. I'll get back up to the, the intelligent agent thing because I think that's really important. And I'm going to touch that base on that in a really quick discussion about the traditions after we do our meditation. And how the traditions with the spiritual infrastructure that the principles are and how they hold the, they give a unitive experience. They make the fellowship whole in unity. That there's something required for that to happen. And what's required is a mass of awakened spirit. And where the awakened spirit comes from is like people like us, sitting in places like this, doing the work that we're doing. We've got to get out and we've got to do the recovery work in the steps. We've got to get out and do the service work through the help. But what informs that at the middle is the soul. The soul is how, is the process of meditation contemplative lives. And it's what we do. I can only imagine what it was like in those weeks that Bill stayed at Dr. Bob's house in Akron. And every morning, because remember Dr. Bob and Ann have been in the Oxford group for over two years. They've been doing this stuff for a while. Bob's been, Bob had been in the Oxford group for over two years before he met Bill. He had been trying the spiritual approach. So one of the things that they really, really stressed, and it's in some of their notes about, is their morning meditation. And I can only imagine what it was like. Because I, my guess is the rock there was not Dr. Bob. And for sure it wasn't Bill. He was a wild promoter. He was, you know, he was doing exactly what he was supposed to be doing. But my guess is it was Ann. Sitting there as, you know, because she's the one that wanted to go to the Oxford group in the first place. And she's the one that drug her husband to the Oxford group. And then she's the one that's reading the scripture. And guiding the meditations for him. And that's what I'm talking about. At the center of the fellowship is the soul. And it's held together through the work that we're doing here. Lectio Divina is a word for, it's Latin for sacred reading. So it's a process of reading. I discovered it and it meant something to me because I would read stuff. And it would like just hit me in the heart so hard. And I wanted, I said, I want to, but I would, my training, the way I had learned in life and everything was move on to the next one. You know, read this shit as fast as you can. And get there and pick up the next one. But that's not what Lectio Divina is about. Lectio Divina is about a process of reading small pieces of some kind of sacred. It started in the desert. It began with the desert mothers and fathers. When they, after the church had a lot of, it was a line with the empire. A group of people moved to the deserts in Syria and Egypt. And they are, the most famous of them are people like Evagrius Pontius, John Cassian. I can't think of the other guy's name. But there were also a whole group of women. And what they would do is they took the scriptures with them. All of them. The non-canonical, all that stuff. The gospel of Thomas, the gospel of Mary Magdalene. All that stuff. They had all, and that's what was put in the cave. They found in with the Dead Sea Scrolls in Egypt. All those things. They were preserved by the desert mothers and fathers who took them. And they developed this process of Lectio Divina. And they would typically do it with the Psalms. And what they would do is they would read a small verse. And in that verse as they read it, a word or a phrase would touch them. Would stand out in some way. And so then what they would do is they would read it again slowly. And then they would get a sense of what the phrase, the verse was saying to them. And then they, so they would take that word and they would use it. And they would use it like a mantra. Or they would use it like a centering prayer word. And they would use that word to bring them back to their center. And in the process of this, you can read Lectio Divina stuff and it will look more like a formula. But my experience has unfolded. It's more like, and I will note these things as you're in the process of meditation. Not like a ding to change the way you're thinking. But maybe to pay attention to the unfolding stages in your own experience. And so the first stage is Lectio. And that's the reading portion. So I'll do some reading after we get set. The next stage is Meditatio, meditation. Which is a process of, Bill tried to describe this. Because remember Bill gets hooked up with Father Ed Dowling. Father Ed Dowling, oh I forgot to mention this. Nerdist of Variety. You're three years sober. I had heard about this stuff. I had heard about Father Ed Dowling and the Ignatians. And I had always been fascinated with them because they seemed to be on the edge. So I embarked and I joined up with a group of people. Because I had assumed, I had kind of come to the thought that what we were doing here was some form of spiritual kindergarten. And so I'm going to go do, I'm going to do a year long process of the Ignatian spiritual exercise. That's going to take me where I want to go. So I do the Ignatian spiritual exercises. And what I discovered as a result of the exercises is that this is not kindergarten. This is the real thing. And we, in fact, we do it more profoundly than those kinds of, you know. People will go off into silence for 30 days to do the Ignatian spiritual exercises. And, but we're doing this stuff all the time. We're doing it every day. We are the Sangha, the Dharma, the Buddha, every day. We're living in that stuff. So anyway, Bill gets hooked up with Father Ed Dowling, Jesuit. He becomes aware of the Ignatian spiritual exercises. And so he tries to describe it in the Step 11 and the 12 and 12. When he goes through the St. Francis prayer, the narrative he's framing it with is about this. He says, put yourself in it. Put yourself on a beach. That's not necessarily what was intended. The intention was, you know, if you hear, you know, the Psalmist talking about the pain and despair of being attacked, being spoken ill of, put yourself in that place. What's that? We can all relate to that stuff. And then, so I'm going to do one that is from, what did I pick? Then the next step will be Horatio. Horatio is a form of prayer. And that prayer is recognizing yourself in the scenario. Imagining yourself in the scenario with the word activated in your... A prayer to whatever mystery it is that's guiding you to bring you, like Terry did with the meditation, give us hope. Whatever it is. And then the final stage, the final phase, is a resting phase. It's a resting phase. And my experience has been, sometimes I rest in nothingness. And it's pretty cool. Sometimes, you know, nothing really happens. But sometimes I do get... And so for my afternoon practice, my afternoon practice is usually Lectio Divina. Because there's lots of stuff to read. I've got, there's so much stuff that I want to get my hands on. And then, not only do I want to read it, I want to read it deeply. I want to read it deeply and I want to have a real experience with it. Okay. This is something from Richard Rohr. It's from a little book that he put together. It's called Just This. And this Just This is his little bite-sized writings that you can... And it's intended to do for this contemplative practices. And so this happens to be the one he presented for today. So if you wouldn't mind, just, you know, get yourself comfortable. Two big breaths. Clench up your shoulders to your ears. And drop them. Thanks, Leah. Do it again. Drop them. And know that you're safe. The lion will not get you tonight. Or maybe they will. Get yourself in a comfortable spot. And I will read this. I'll read this twice, maybe three times. And as I read it, I'll read it slowly. Listen for a word or a phrase that the spirit brings to you, that touches you, that stands out. And bring that phrase back into your heart through a meditation, silently. And as you do that, meditate on what the reading, what it means to you and how it impacts you. Be ready. Be present to God in the here and now. The ordinary. The interruptions. Being fully present to the soul of all things will allow you to say, This is good. This is enough. In fact, this is all I need. You are now situated in the one loving gaze. That unites all things in universal attraction and appreciation. We are practicing for heaven. Why wait for heaven when you can enjoy the divine flow in every moment, in every one? Because you have come to this world to live. Be ready. Be present to God in the here and now. The ordinary. The interruptions. Being fully present to the soul of all things will allow you to say, This is good. This is enough. In fact, this is all I need. You are now situated in the one loving gaze that unites all things in universal attraction and appreciation. We are practicing for heaven. Why wait for heaven when you can enjoy the divine flow in every moment, in every one? Take the word or the praise that the Spirit brings you and bring it deep into your heart. Take the word or the praise that the Spirit brings you and bring it deep into your heart. Take the word or the praise that the Spirit brings you and bring it deep into your heart. Take the word or the praise that the Spirit brings you and bring it deep into your heart. Imagine yourself in the context of the reading. Things like be ready, present, here and now, ordinary. Present to the soul of all things. Now situated in the one loving gaze. United with all things in attraction and appreciation. Practicing for heaven. Why wait for heaven in the divine flow at this moment? With everything, with everyone. Kissing all the intervention as a Friend. Do beautiful things. Think of the living nature of that in this moment of service. Second, Just be tho your Self, and to come to visit your world, There's a deep wound that you see and that you discover in the meditation about this reading. Ask the divine healer through your word to join you in the wound and bring healing. If you've experienced healing of a deep wound or part of a deep wound, thank the divine healer. Thank the creator with the word that you have found, the divine word, the divine praise. Bring the mystery into that place in your life. That's prayer. Thank the creator. Thank the creator. Thank the creator. Thank the creator. Thank the creator. Thank the creator. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So, so, so, The dissertation I'm working on basically evaluates a lot of work that's been done on the evolution of human consciousness. And I posit, or introduce an idea that the 12-step spiritual movement occupies an important place. And this has already been acknowledged by many people in the world of social sciences, but the recognition of the contribution to social capital that 12-step spirituality is. But the work that brings about recovery is profound. It's been organized in a way that really seemed to work, that touches us, but it's not new. There's nothing new in it. There's a perennial wisdom that Ernest Kurtz talked about that diffused in 1935, in the late 30s, into this process. But it's been around before. All traditions. That's why it's so easy to identify it in other traditions. So... Self-examination, restitution, sharing, confession, all that stuff. What's unique about the 12-step spiritual movement, about AA, about everything that has come about? You know, in the big book, page 162, it says that Someday we hope that every alcoholic who journeys will find a fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous at its destination. To some extent, this is already true. Little clusters of 2, 3s, and 5s have sprung up through contact with our two larger centers. Well, the truth of that is, there's two meetings, Akron, New York. There's guys in cars, two guys in this car, three guys in this car, maybe five guys in this car. And they're driving around. And they're doing this thing. And they voice an optimism that is beyond understanding. That is, someday we hope that every, not just a few, that every alcoholic finds a fellowship at its destination. So the crazy thing is, under the protective, under the cloak of anonymity, this thing has spread all over the world. Nobody's waving flags about it. Nobody's putting up YouTube videos about it. Nobody's, because, you know, there's a sacredness to that anonymity principle. And I heard this take, of course, from Howard, on the traditions. Because the traditions are what's unique. The traditions are a spiritual infrastructure. That holds up, in a fluid way, the whole envelope of AA and CA, everything else that has come about. It's amazing that there are 30,000 12-step meetings in Iran. The last part of the world has been the Muslim world. And now there's, there's starting to be meetings popping up regularly there. So, this thing, it's, it's, and our job is to address our, to address our little part. Where it is, wherever it is we're supposed to be doing it. But, there's nothing wrong with acknowledging we're part of something else. In, you know, that, when it's looked at, looked at 300 years from now, and they look back, we're only 85 years into this thing. We're 37 years into CA. You know, that's barely a generation. But so the, but the traditions have a profundity to them. Anonymity. Introducing the foreword of the first edition, with the, under the idea that fear, based on fear, because their lives are going to get overwhelmed by the number of personal appeals that are going to come in. So, anonymity gets introduced to the conversation. And it becomes the spiritual foundation of all our traditions. And the bookends of the traditions are, our goal, and how we're going to get there. Common welfare, anonymity. Unity, what is anonymity? He says in the first sentence in the tradition, the 12th, tradition essay, the spiritual substance of anonymity is sacrifice. Now, I think sacrifice is, what do I have, what do I got to give? Or I might think sacrifice is the virgin being thrown in the volcano. But it's, but he goes on, it's not that sacrifice. It's a sacrifice that's far more generous to me. And to all of us. I think, you know, I think it's, I come from a background where it's the thou shalt, thou shalt. And so that's how I would view the traditions in the rich, but it's not. At the core of the fellowship is a spiritual center. But of awakened people. Surrendering to this thing. What I'm, what the traditions allow me to sacrifice is things like, in tradition two, there's one who has all power, that one is God. It's going to be found through the, an informed group conscience. What that gives me the permission to do, is not have to know everything. I can listen to some people. I can, and I can trust in this, the group conscience process is not intended to be effective. And it's not a, it's not a production line. It's about, it's about moving us from different levels of spirituality. From different levels of spiritual consciousness. The group consciousness, the group, that group conscience process, elevates our consciousness. So, tradition three, and I'm not going to go through all of it, but I'm going to go through it. I'm going to touch on it, so you can get an idea. Our singleness of purpose tradition. CA, singleness of purpose, is way broader. VA, singleness of purpose, is alcohol. But, what it does, the permission it gives me, is I don't have to judge who's coming through the room. I don't have to come, judge who's coming through the door. They're coming in here, because they want to be in here. They say they're, they have a desire. My, my debating society gets to stop. I don't have to worry about it. Tradition four, and this is a big one for me, because I will definitely judge how well, or how poorly a meeting is being run, or. And you give me, through the traditions, the permission to not have to do that. And when I don't, so when I get permission to stop these ego-centered functions, I start having some freedom, creative freedom. And, and, you know, like in the 11th step part of the big book, it says, we stop wasting energy foolishly. And I stop wasting energy foolishly. You know, I'm here for one reason, and that is our primary purpose, to carry this. So I don't have to worry about affiliating this with anything else. I'm here for one reason, because I've had a personal experience that I know is profound, that it is transforming me from something I could not get out of the pit. There's no way. I think the reason that I have stayed so close is because I have always unconsciously known that if I'm back in that pit, there's no way I'm getting out. That I can't do it. That I can't do it. That I couldn't get out. I got out because you guys pulled me out. We don't affiliate. Here's a, this is a cool one. This is way beyond what I would understand. My ego shame, my sense of inferiority, my belief that I don't belong, would cause me to think, okay, if there's somebody popular, and we affiliate with them, then they'll think better of me. You're giving me the permission to not have to do that. To trust that this thing works on, that it stands on its own. Same thing with the 7th position. Is, you know, we get, we're self-supporting, so we don't go out and get, but what you, what that does is it gives me the permission to see that truth. That we really, that we really can do it. That I don't need to go get a handout. That I can do, I can do this thing on our own. That we can trust that there is a power working through us. Anyway, with all that stuff, I just wanted to say that, that's why we can claim ourselves as intelligent agents. You know, spearheads in the vanguard of God's every event, that's a military term. The spearheads in the vanguard, those were the guys in the Roman Legion who are carrying, and they're the ones that are getting picked off. They go in, they're, they go into the huns, and they've got their, and they're the, they're the first ones to get killed. They do some killing on their own, but they're, and that's our job. Our job is to do that. Our job is to be out there, and to get picked off. And trust that, you know, whatever it is that's picking us off, God's gonna put us right back in the game. Anyway, thanks.