Prayer as a Communication System – John K.

Well, thank you, Susan, for a very, very wonderful message. Our next speaker is John Kay from Milwaukee. John? Thank you, Pat, ladies and gentlemen. I am John Kay, and I am from Milwaukee, and it would not be consistent with the tone of this meeting to spend any time plugging the quality which made our city famous. However, while listening as intently as I could to Susan, and this is my first privilege and a rare one indeed, to share the platform with her, and I might tell you, Susan, I could almost classify it as my second, the first, and last. You are simply too magnificent for one mere man to follow. But I was looking over this crowd and noticing all these people from Milwaukee. And if I may, I would like to introduce them to you. Would you stand, all of you Milwaukee people who are here this morning? Let's see who you are. Look at all of them, 10.30 in the morning. I can't use the product any longer, but I can use a lot of these people, I can tell you. When I came to AA, ladies and gentlemen, about eight years ago, as a completely bankrupt human being, it was impossible for me to realize the spiritual riches which lay out on the perimeter, as I call it, of this fellowship or this philosophy which we refer to as Alcoholics Anonymous. us. But it was a strange series of coincidences. One of the first pieces of A.A. literature I picked up was one written by a man whom I had known for a good long time, a man who oddly enough did not have this strange and insidious problem called the disease of disenchantment, but a man who had long, long been a dear and faithful friend of A.A. He was the late beloved Father Ed Dowling of St. Louis who together with the Anglican churchman Sam Shoemaker had a great deal to do in shaping the spiritual impact of all that A.I. represents today. Many times Father Dowling, Father Pug as a good many of us knew him said that in the spiritual tradition, this eleventh step which you and I are here to consider this morning, in the spirit of God, in the biblical tradition, this was the practice of the presence of God. I didn't come to AA looking for God. I came here looking for a method to disassociate myself permanently from the mad compulsive desire to drink alcohol. I only knew that there were people here who had been successful in this venture. What they had done with themselves beyond that point was a complete mystery to me. I think, however, that it is safe to say that you and I as alcoholics are in full agreement one great fact, that this philosophy which is peculiarly ours is in essence the slow seeping of Almighty God, however you or I understand him, into the eroded soul of a human being, which much like the land on much of the surface of the earth, is eroded by the flash floods and the uncontrollable torrents, which in our case is the flow of alcohol. As the flash flood subsides or the torrent, the drought that returns to that eroded soul is even worse. And it is here in AA that one day at a time, within the structure of the program we call Alcoholics Anonymous, that we begin to grow and to develop as human beings. We come to a point where we begin the recognize our inherent dignity as human beings and that is an impossibility unless we can tie it in with some relationship to the God of our understanding. You and I could not sanely pursue some power greater than ourselves, unless we first set up a communication system. That's the word that Susan used, communication. A communication system between ourselves and something that was above and beyond us. And whether that communication system be vocal or mental is neither here nor there. It has to be established, and in the eleventh step it's defined as prayer and meditation. I sometimes think, as one of those men who has been privileged to have been a part of the AA scene for these eight years, that we have a tendency to talk too much about prayer without ever attempting to define it. There was no point in discussing it with me eight years ago. There were no words in this program that were alien to me. I had heard prayer and meditation, charity, humility, tolerance, love, understanding. I learned the Lord's Prayer at my mother's knee. And yet I used prayer in a strange, strange fashion, always in a method to extricate myself from the jam in which I found myself after a drinking bout or perhaps as a type of therapy which would insulate me against all the strain and stress and tension which is part and parcel of everyday living. However, when I got into this 11th step I discovered that I was trapped because there was something that was beyond prayer and meditation. It said that we used them we used them for a specific purpose to establish a closer contact with the God of our understanding and even that wasn't enough the net was drawing a little tighter because the whole object of this prayer the whole subject of all meditations was to seek a knowledge of his will for me and then to ask for the courage to carry it out. I had neither courage, and most certainly I had no understanding of divine will. And I think that Almighty God, with what must be a divine sense of humor, must laugh out loud on occasion when an alcoholic of my type who has spent half of his adult life or perhaps more screaming, give me my will, my whims, and my desires and give them to me now suddenly finds himself with his heart on his knees praying that his will be done. Not mine, but your will. That was the essence for me of the 11th step. This ruled out any need for me to continue praying for a new pink Cadillac. It also ruled out all the frustrations I once knew as a newspaper reporter at $75 a week when I was sure that the great American novel literally cried out to high heaven to be written. And because my frustrations and my anger and my resentment were so great, I got drunk. But I was trapped again on the 11th step because it had told me that, again, it was not my will but his. And so I began casting about for some interpretation of God's will for me as a drunk. And one day on the dust jacket of a little book that came to me as gift, I found that question resolved. What was God's Will? And as all things in AA are, simple, basic, I discovered that this divine will for me was simply accepting the circumstances of the moment for what they are. As part of some divine plan which I may never quite understand this side of eternity, but which I, as an alcoholic, had better accept if I want to remain sober. If I want to be a part and parcel of the mainstream of life, which is my obligation, then I had better except these circumstances of the moment as part of his will for me. And I had better do away with all the nonsensical ideas about the great American novel, and if it still plagued me, I had better sit down with a typewriter or with a pen and begin to work on it. And this was something that I couldn't do while drinking. A prayer in establishing a communication, and Susan pointed this out too, there's always seemed to me begins to establish a three-way communication. One with ourselves, one with our fellow men, and one with the God of our understanding. God help me is a superb prayer. It might be the most efficacious prayer that an alcoholic could possibly breathe if it is breathed with the right attitude, with the proper faith, and the humility that must be a part of it. God keep me sober this day is another magnificent prayer and one which I think you and I can never forget. Now this is the establishment, or perhaps the reestablishment for some of us, of a communication with the God of our understanding. And in return, and this does not come simply, in return these spiritual riches of AA begin to become well-defined out there on the perimeter, on the horizon. we begin to recognize again our inherent dignity as human beings. We begin to realize, and so I believe, that we are creatures of a divine creator, that we're here for a specific purpose, that if our meditation carried us no farther than this, where did I come from, what am I doing here, and where am I going, this might conceivably be enough. because in that kind of a meditation we are using the three faculties of the mind. Memory, will, intellect. We're turning them all to one little cause and perhaps this is why in the very early days of AA such great emphasis was laid on the five-minute quiet time each day. The little five-minute period when the member of AA could withdraw from all the strains and stresses and tensions which are part of living and establish some communication with the God of his understanding. Prayer in itself is most certainly, in a very, very simple form, nothing more than a bridge which you and I are given the opportunity to create between ourselves and God. But as I began to pursue the overall idea of this 11th step, I discovered that a lot of great minds down through history have given great time to understanding, to delineating, to attempting to assess that which prayer is. I discovered that Moriarty at one time, in a very, very profound definition, said that prayer was taking a direction. This is one that knocked one ex-drunk right off his feet. And once again, I was trapped and perhaps trapped to the point where I thought I might resign. What I have discovered as an AA that it's rather difficult to resign from a point of view. I was completely and utterly convinced that I was an alcoholic. It was perfectly obvious to anyone who knew my record, to anyone Who knew me, that if I were to achieve sobriety on a permanent basis, I had to take a direction. And I feel very strongly that that's exactly what the AA does in the very first step of this program. He takes a direction In my own case, I know that this was the first exercise in humility, this first step, that I had engaged in in all of my adult years. I had taken a direction and the direction pointed straight up. It couldn't go any lower. There was only one place to go and that was up. So here I was again confronted with a definition of prayer which said exactly the same thing. It said that I was taking a direction each time I prayed. And I wondered about the attitude and the physical posture. An AA is not concerned, I'm sure. But then I remember one time hearing that remarkable fellow Patsy from Minneapolis saying that when he prayed, he knelt down. and he knelt down for a very specific purpose because he believed that any man who could kneel humbly before the God of his understanding could stand humble before men. So I got down on my arthritic knees and I began to pray and I wasn't much different than a lot of friends I have in AA because I frankly don't know what I was praying for other than sobriety One night, not too long ago, my wife and I were discussing prayer with a clergyman friend of ours And we touched on the subject of how you go about acquiring the habit of prayer And once again, the simplicity of AA was unfolded He said, how did you learn to ride a bicycle? You practice I practiced as a kid And as a grown man, not a very mature man, but as an adult man, I had to practice the whole concept of prayer. It's not easy. One friend of mine tells me that for four years, day and night he said his prayers buried about him after he had been told at Hazelden that this was one method of staying sober, one of the methods which AA advocated. And for four year it had utterly no meaning until one day the heavens opened in a sense and what he was setting out to do became evident to him. And he said, at that point, my life began to change. Now, Ronald Knox, during his days as an Anglican, referred to prayer, the most perfect prayer, as simply doing God's will. And there again, it seems to me that the AA is trapped. Because here it is, not my will but thine be done. And I think that you and I who have had the problem of addictive drinking, we who have been reduced to nothing, and that term always reminds me of the Finnish theologian who one time said, those whom God would use, he first destroyed. I think this has a particular bearing and a particular meaning for the alcoholic because all of us, in a sense, have been destroyed. And certainly it is our duty and it is out obligation to do our utmost however we can to point out to the newcomer who comes here looking for hope and succor, to point out to him the value of this 11th step, the absolute necessity if he is going to become the mature, well-integrated personality that you find so frequently among AA people who have taken this program to their hearts and their minds. This I believed as I looked at all the serene faces with which I was surrounded eight years ago. This was something, most certainly, which was not reflected in my face. This was Something I Had to Do Something About. And it certainly became very evident that it was a long and tedious struggle, but a struggle that was worthwhile. And when we begin to meditate, and I know this is an old story, but it always seems strangely apropos for we people in AA, Of the three hermits who had retired to a hillside cave there To meditate in complete and utter silence Staring at a wall, day in, day out When on an especially beautiful Sunday morning A magnificent brown stallion rushed past the entrance to the cave Five years later, the first hermit said That was a beautiful white stallion Seven years later The second hermit says That was not a white stallon, sir That was another one That was also a brown stallon Eleven years later, the third hermit got to his feet and said, Gentlemen, I'm leaving here. I can't stand this constant bickering. Perhaps that's the attitude we have in mind. I think that was mine when I approached the whole concept of meditation. I thought that this was great stuff for the religious of the world, those who had taken the veil, those who had retired behind the monastic wall. I thought, what part can this play in a 20th century society? How can we meditate? But I've learned. I've learn that you can drive your car down a highway and meditate. I've learnt that you could come to a stop sign and instead of swearing at that girl in the right lane who's trying to make a left-hand turn, you can pray. You can say, God help me. And these are the things that have come to me through AA and over the region. As I said, I learned the Lord's Prayer at my mother's knee. And yet I had to come to AA a good many years later to understand that the zenith of the entire prayer was in that one little phrase, Thy will be done. This is where it came home to me. This is what it came to be a part of my makeup. And I discovered, much to my astonishment, that when I stood at the end of an AA meeting and said, give us this day our daily bread, the bread which I had to ask for first of all was the bread of surprise. Because for me as an alcoholic, this was the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end of everything. As long as I could stay sober, I could get up each morning and take one more swing at life. I could go up and spit on my hands and say yesterday was a bad one, but maybe this one will be better. This is the one little piece of insurance I have. So I had to pray for surprise, and I prayed. And I continue to pray each day of my life that I can be sober this 24 hours. and I discovered that as long as we're talking about this Lord's prayer for just a moment this was the only perfect prayer ever given to man and in it you find outlined the whole plan for man outlined by the maker of men how much farther do you have to go and yet you and I have the temerities A.H. and again I can never quite decide when the God laughs out loud or winces a little bit when he hears us say, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. You and I have the temerity to stand and ask for forgiveness, and yet I'll give you a little long wager that you and I have a tough time forgiving those others. It's a little difficult to forgive the wife who probably locked you out of the house when you deserved it completely. Or it's a little difficult to forget the irate neighbor whose daddy bed you ruined when you fell into it. And it's a little bit difficult to forgive that judge who handed you 30 days when you should have had 30 years. These are difficult things because we're human, because we've got human natures. and our alcoholism seems to compound those human agents. We are the people for whom frustration, fear, doubt, and loneliness are the four melancholy horsemen of the alcoholic apocalypse and we'd better remember it. We'd better pray that we'd be given the weapon, the graces, the entire arsenal which J.A. afforded us as human beings and as alcoholics to keep all of these things in tow. This is not something we graduate from, and prayer is something we don't use one day and put aside. There are times for me when it is most difficult, almost impossible to pray. But if you look very closely at the spiritual figures of the Middle Ages, you will find that they knew their own type of aridity. They knew their old ways, own moments, their days, their months, perhaps their years, when the establishment of some communication with the God of their understanding was virtually impossible. And yet this is probably the time when the prayer that they uttered, however difficult it was in coming, was most efficacious before the throne of Almighty God. Because here was man again reduced to nothing. Here was his entire human nature rebelling against all that was divine. And Yet these people were successful in the pursuit of the God of their understanding because they continued to pray. They continued to meditate. You and I as alcoholics, if we are grateful for that which AA has given to us, then you and I must continue to pray Someone once, I think John Van Dee, another Anglican churchman, once said that gratitude was the aristocrat of the emotion. Someone else wants to find gratitude as a memory of the human heart. You and I have a lot of memories, but they're not all good ones. The memories of yesterday might serve to clarify, to keep in perspective that which we pursue today in the guise of AA virtues and AA principles. John Van Dey said that this was the aristocrat of the emotions, this gratitude. It always seems to me that if you and I can't find any other reason in the world for gratitude, genuine gratitude, then we can find reason for being grateful to the God of our understanding for having dipped deep his hands into the rich, warm suds of our personal lives that we might live. and I couldn't have lived much longer. You can't discuss AA and forget God. And to me, the logical extenuation of the 11th step has always been the return of the individual and again, that's entirely up to the individual but it has been the returned to some formal expression of faith. For me, it was absolutely necessary I needed a frame, a format, in which I could go before the God of my understanding so that I could understand this strange little cross which was mine and which is yours. The same cross which belongs to six or seven or eight million people, admittedly, throughout the country today. The same cross which has caused so much resentment, so much self-pity, so much frustration. And yet like every other cross it's the same one that can for you and me as alcoholics within the structure of AA become the old phallic scope in our lives. The old happy fault. The happy fault which reintroduced every one of us to the basic concepts of charity, love, understanding, tolerance, service. Look around you. Look among your contemporaries. Take a long look at 20th century society and ask yourself, as I ask myself, if I don't really have gratitude for having been brought here by some forces which I'll never understand. I didn't come here alone, not at all. I came here, I'm sure, because of the prayers of countless thousands of people, thousands I say, who knew my problem long before I knew it myself. And despite their own frustrations, despite their old fears, despite the wrong doubts from their own loneliness. They continued to pray that one day I might be able to step out of the line of march, so to speak, and take a long look at myself. That I might come to a point where I could admit and then what is so much more important to accept, the idea that I was an alcoholic. Within the last two years, my mother and my only sister died in my arms about 90 days apart. They were two incredible women, women who had their own particular and very special communication with the God of their understanding. And as each one of them breathed their last, the only thing I could think of at that moment was the title of the autobiography of my sister's book, What Would the Dawn Rejoice In? Because I had been given an opportunity to stand by them and to be of service during the closing years of their lives as a son and a brother. And if it hadn't been for this 11th step, and all the other steps of AA, and the strange and fascinating and incredible fellowship which is part of this program, I wouldn't have been there. So again, prayer was answered. and it seems to me as you look around when you see that poor bedraggled human being stumble through the front door for the first time I've got to remind myself and I've gotta pray too that I can't sit in judgment he came here for the same reason that I did I look just as bad and I think I probably smell just as good and I'm glad and I'VE GOT TO REMEMBER THAT GOD GAVE MAN THE ABILITY TO JUDGE only that he might judge himself and forgive others. As I look at the hosts of people whom I've been privileged to meet and know throughout the country who are part of this fellowship, it's borning on me more and more that certainly the hand of Almighty God, however you or I understand Him, reached down and singled us out because we had one moment of truth for this reason or that, and which we are willing to ask for help. This is the thing I think which keeps us glued together. This frank recognition of a problem which can destroy us. The frank recognition of our complete nothingness. The frank recognition that actually in comparison to the God of our understanding, we are so abysmally small it is laughable. These are the thoughts, I think, which lead always back to the first step, to the concept of humility, which means a great deal to me, the ability to assess myself with 100% accuracy. I can't do that because I'm too human, but I can try. But if I can assess myself with even partial accuracy, I know that my number one shortcoming when I came here was the compulsion to drink. And I know que si ahora, si voy a continuar a ser alivio en una base personal y permanente de esa compulsión, tengo que orar y meditar. Y lo haré en mi propia vida y en mi propio camino, y eso es la filosofía del AA. Esto siempre debe permanecer nondenominacional en el escopo. and I always with great joy go back to a little prayer I discovered supposedly breathed by an English nobleman just before he rode into Bath it's a good one for me because it says very simply Lord I shall be very busy this day if I in my humanity should forget thee do not thou in thy divinity forget me That, I think, is strangely apropos for we as alcoholics. I think it says a great deal. I think too that out of our gratitude, just for the privilege of being here this morning, we can continue to try to carry the true concept of AA to people who still suffer. in itself is a noble work, and yet we can never become noble about it. Because a man's nobility is measured by the degree to which he is willing to take responsibility for others. That's something I must always remember. I was told when I came up here that there were two little sets of lights. When one flipped on, I should be prepared to leave. When the other one flipped off, I was going to be thrown out. One is slipping on now. And because I don't want to wind up out here in the lake. I want to thank the committee for inviting me to be a part of your intergroup conference this morning. It's been a rare and wonderful experience. If I might leave you with a request, it would be very simply that as you use the 11th step in your own way, you might remember me. Lest I, as St. Paul once said after having spoken too much, should fall. And inasmuch as both Susan and I have had the privilege of talking exclusively on Step 11, I think I should like to say good day with the last couple of lines of an old and prayerful Irish wish. Long a favorite of mine and one which in the English sounds something like this. May your guardian angel and your patron saint lift you by the elbows across all the holes you may encounter in the road. And when it comes time for you to die, as all men must. May each and every one of you be in heaven at least 30 minutes before the devil even knows you're dead. Good morning. Thank you. God bless you. Now I think you can understand why no superlatives were needed to introduce these two speakers. I want to thank Susan and John for getting the conference off to such a wonderful start. You'll notice if you look at the program that there is not a lot of time left for lunch, a definite lunch break. This was done because, as I told you earlier, we're fighting a very tight schedule. So if you will just eat lunch at whichever break you would like, whichever break your choose. Last year we all went down and ate at the same time And the line was too long And a lot of resentments and so forth So just sit it in as best you can We will now take a 30-minute coffee break And reconvene here at 12 o'clock Thank you