The Difference Between a Spiritual Experience and a Hallucination – Tom W.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can't, and the wisdom to know the difference. For the next while, I want to share some with you on some reflections on the eleventh step this expression of seeking through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understand God asking only for knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry that out, which is pretty advanced spirituality. Not just knowing what God's will is, which can be a big subject. Some of the worst AA meetings I've ever been to in my life have had as their topic, what is God's Will? People just think that's a magic button to hallucinate in front of the whole group and people do And I've always wanted to drink when that's the topic at an AA meeting. That's my personal neuroses, so don't flip out. I don't, but I always figure it would be easier with a lot of vodka listening to this stuff. But not just knowing what God's will is, but having the power to carry that out, which is what I've Always Sounded Difficult. Walking like you talk. getting practical out of the theoretical. I am from a background where it was not at all uncommon for us to have a couple of social drinks and discuss God's will. I mean, what does it really all mean? And we would get philosophical and theological. I've had some great discussions on dope on that too. There's an interesting tiny book written several years ago. it's a doctoral dissertation, the influence of the beer hall on Lutheran theology. A lot of times Martin Luther and the students at Württemberg would gather together and discuss what is God's will in scripture and so forth and so fourth, but always in the beer hall. So there's been an influence. And I find, give me a couple of drinks and I can get eloquent on some of this stuff. And I just thought to kick off this afternoon, I'd read to you just a tiny bit from the book of Proverbs, which is full of proverbs. Station time saves nine. Lots of advice. What does a good wife look like? What does a good husband look like good children, you know, take care of their parents, things like that a footnote on advice i know i don't say it right now i'll forget and you have to remind me that we're talking about the book of proverbs but one of the reasons some of us go to al-anon is because we are chronic advice givers and i have found that all i have to do is know you for about three minutes and i will give you advice on any aspect of your life and the less i know of your circumstance, the more intense my advice becomes. And I was listening to a woman who'd been in Al-Anon for some time and the craziness that is dealt with in Al- Anon, in my experience, is more subtle than the crazines that is dealed with in AA. In AA we think we're doing real well as soon as we stop peeing on ourselves. Now the fact is we are doing real well when we stop peeing on ourselves but that's just the beginning. In Al-Anon it's a while before it kicks in how crazy you really are and then you start realizing oh man I've been practicing the disease chronic advice giving so this woman I know was in Al-Alan and she noticed that everything was badly written and could be better organized. And so she wrote her own version of how Al-Anon should go, and it was hundreds of pages long, you know, with diagrams. And she would hand it out to people at meetings just indiscriminately. Clearly, she was the diagnosed patient. She was the craziest person in the room. As her recovery began, she only gave her manuscript to people who asked for it and then a few more years passed and she started editing her manuscript and it got smaller and smaller and she had less and less advice to give until finally after she'd been an al-anon for a while she only give one piece of advice to anybody and i said what is it because she threw the manuscript out she realized how crazy she was I mean, she wanted to run the world. I said, what advice do you give? And she says, well, I tell the people I sponsor, call before you shoot. I mentioned that in AA meetings and they wonder, who would she shoot? But I wrote that down and I have given that advice out to several people I sponsored. Call before you should. Anyway, back to Proverbs. This is at the end of 23, Proverbs 23, and it says, Who scream? Who shriek? Who have strife? Who have anxiety? Who have wounds for nothing? Who have black eyes? Those who linger long over wine these are in the days that are pre-scotch you know those who linger long over wine those who engage in trials of blended wine which one's better which one stronger you know look not on the wine when it is red when it sparkles in the glass it goes down smoothly but in the end it bites like a serpent or like a poisonous adder your eyes behold strange sights your heart utters disordered thoughts you are like one now lying in the depths of the sea now sprawled at the top of the mast it's kind of that I think that's a rather nice description of the major and minor whirlies, you know. I mean, you're up and down. They struck me, but it pained me not. They beat me, but I felt it not. When shall I awake to seek wine once again? And that is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. For a long time, people thought that what this little section was was a denunciation of drinking and there's always folks who are willing to do that but if you listen to it as a sober alcoholic this is not a denunciation of drinking this is a description of DTs see and the reason I think it's important to mention is just to know that whoever wrote Proverbs is one of us seeing weird things disordered everything and then of course you wake up and you need a drink when can I wake up to drink wine once again I like that a lot also I in one of my readings I stumbled across the quotations of one of the rabbis a rabbi by the name of Scharfman i like him he didn't have a lot of friends but that was frequently because he was right so often and uh in one of his his little um insights into things he says a shallow mind is a sin against god a person who does not struggle is a fool i like that um that helps i i sometimes sit next to people who haven't struggled in years and i always envy them and it just helps if i think of them as being fools a shallow mind is a sin against god good for you and then i was thinking about um I was reading something from the Chinese. The Chinese were writing poetry when my ancestors were painting themselves blue in trees, you know. So I every so often pay attention to the Chinese, one of the members of my community is Chinese and I learn a lot from him. there is a Chinese book of wisdom called the Tao spelled T-A-O but it's pronounced Dao and reflections on a lot of things and how to go with the flow and what is the rhythm of life and how do you connect and how does that work and how you disconnect it's rather nice put together by Lao Tzu and one of his reflections is this 1,000 miles from home I open the same prayer book. Some nights it was only obligation. Tonight it is a comfort. A thousand miles from a home I open the same pray book. sometimes it was only an obligation I'm supposed to read this tonight it is a comfort that rhythm of going from times when things are just a burden why do you go to meetings? because I have to my sponsor told me to go to 90 meetings in 90 days and I'm going do you like it? no it's a big pain in the butt but I'm doing other times you go to meetings as if you are a drowning person off a raft and you're so glad to be there right now it's a comfort to be at meetings and this is one of the things about spiritual practice there are times when it really does feel like a burden or obligation and there are other times when it is the safe place a thousand miles from home I do the same thing and it's comfort which leads us in a bit to this stuff of the 11th step I mentioned in yesterday's talk that across the board from Hindu to Buddhist to Muslim to Christian to Jew these are communities of people who have been trying prayer and meditation for a long time and they realize there are different different levels of this and for some of us we we only pray when we're in pain and some of us only pray When We Want Things and others of us get an insight about how we are our own worst enemy and God please deliver me from this and others of us get a notion about what are we supposed to do here on the planet and we are supposed to cooperate in some way with the God who is at work, the God who is busy doing stuff. A lot of prayer and meditation is learning how to listen. Now there's also prayer and meditation that's very chatty. I don't know about you but at times I have wanted to be close to God like I was God's advisor. And when I would pray or meditate, I would give suggestions to God. Oh God, by the way, over here please. And it took me a while to realize that one of my ideas about God was that God was a slow child who needed a lot of encouragement and my job was to encourage god to do god's job come on god come on now we're waiting let's get it done and um my spiritual director who is a hopeless alcoholic suggested to me that that position of prayer was arrogant and that perhaps god and i would get along a little better if i looked at the third step where God's the one in charge and the employer, you know, the one supposedly who knows what's going on. And in the eleventh step, praying only for knowledge of God's will for us, one of the things I need to learn how to do is listen. Among the Muslims, one of the ways that Mohammed is talked about sometimes Mohammed is talked about as being only an ear why? because he listened so carefully to God when I try to pray or meditate, I just sometimes am far too busy to listen. I don't know if you have tried this but I will try meditation or prayer I'll try to put myself in a quiet place and read something meditatively, slowly calmly and I get very restless there is a movie called The Gods Must Be Crazy which is quite wonderful I thought it was splendid some cleric told me that a decent person would never see a film like that and so I went that afternoon. I do things like that and I've seen some remarkable films because they've been condemned in churches. Anyway, early in the film one woman wanders up to another and says, does the noise in my head bother you? And one of the things that's true for many of us is we do not know how noisy our heads are because we've never tried to be quiet. We always have stuff going on, I sure do. I mean, I'm with the word processor and the TV's on. I hope Cagney and Lacey's going to be interesting today and I kind of watch them out of one eye as I'm kind of putting things together here and then I might have Gilbert and Sullivan going on over there just because I like HMS Pinafore and the phone rings and I'm talking on the phone and I am very busy all day long. one of my friends who is sober for a while has as his spiritual director a spiritual director is someone who teaches you to pray and helps you listen to find God's will and it's a talent and a skill and a gift anyway my friend Steve has a spiritual director who is a Trappist monk and to my mind that is going to any length travis tend to lead serious lives and this is up in oregon state uh and so steve goes to see this guy and takes instruction now what i'll do is say so steved what did he tell you and then i'll try some of it see i don't want to go see him myself for a number of very important reasons but if i can just snag something useful i'm willing to use it um i don' t think this is dishonest i think this is creative so what the monk told steve was this at night at the end of the day sit in a room light a candle turn out the lights and for 15 minutes pay attention and my instant response which is not always the best response but my instant response was pay attention to what well whatever you can review your day you can look at the candle you can do some deep breathing exercises but be there this seemed so simple to me that I was willing to try it and I am an enthusiast I am willing to try any number of things once or twice. My problem is trying them consistently. I get bored and try something else. So that night, I got a candle lit, lights out, and I sat down in a chair, and I was going to be quiet for 15 minutes. And what you need to know is that this was the busiest 15 minutes of my day. suddenly I needed to make phone calls write letters I noticed that the books were arranged wrong I noticed that things were out of whack there were people I had to contact my head went into overdrive the second I tried to calm it down I don't think this is an uncommon experience and I think there are those of us after having had a couple of experiences like that who conclude I tried to pray and meditate and it doesn't work because the committee goes into operation and we have these very important discussions and a lot of five to seven votes. That's usually how my committee breaks down. There's a couple of swing votes there that make a big difference in how my day goes. So, what to do here? Well, what you do is you keep lighting the candle turning out the lights and trying to be quiet and this is a process that takes years years now as an addict and an alcoholic footnote one reason I didn't really do Valium very much is because it took 20 minutes and who has time you know I want instant quick transformation and I carry that lack of patience with me when I try to pray or meditate. I want changes. There was a movie made in the late 1950s or early 60s, I guess I was maybe in high school and in this made-for-TV black-and-white film Diana Ross plays a nun and it's at the end of the last century and she's with a little group of other nuns and they're all wearing hundreds of yards of clothing. And they're going across the American prairie, and there's locusts and drought and awful and misery and bandits and everything that could be going wrong in between the commercials is going wrong, and it's really bleak. And their lives are all finally super threatened by something that's roaring down the prairie. And they say, oh, what should we do? And she says, oh I will pray. And here's what she does. she falls down in front of the group on her knees which is encouraged at some home meetings burden burden weighed down seconds pass she's lighter seconds pass she's listening her face beams suddenly there's an answer she gets up and says God has answered our prayers we do X, Y, and Z she saves the day and the hour comes to an end the person who wrote that scene doesn't pray unless you drop after them think that's prayer prayer and meditation is a much slower time a much slower time there is something out of Isaiah the prophet, where Isaiah reflects that an awful lot of us have hearts that are made out of flinty little stone. And Isaiah prays that over time God can take this flintly hard-hearted stone and turn it into a real human heart. Some people have that happen real quickly. A lot of us don't i mean we're we're just a little less flinty which is good and we know that as time goes on and we do steps and be willing to cooperate over time we have a human heart and we start looking like human beings but for a lot of us this takes time prayer and meditation is a willingness on my part to let God do whatever God needs to do to turn this rock into something that is recognizably human. And so what I, which is I think God's will for us, I think what I want to bring to that is my willingness to cooperate. Prayer, meditation. Prayer and meditation. How do people pray and meditate? How do they pray? How do you get into conscious contact? well there's lots of ways and there's lots of things written about this but first let me start a little bit of negative negatively let me start a little bit negatively some of us think that conscious contact is like what happens to sister Diana you know or we think that conscious contact is when you have a slow buzz oh I'm in conscious contact I can feel God and a lot of us want to feel the connection? Well, sometimes we do. Sometimes we don't. Spiritual writers who have written about their own experience and thus can share with us and teach us write a lot about this process of feeling connected and feeling disconnected. Some of the great teachers of prayer in Western Christianity, a woman and a man. The woman's name is Teresa of Avila. The man's name is Juan de la Cruz, John of the Cross. They're both Carmelites, and their whole life and focus was prayer and meditation. They were kind of a Western version of a good Buddhist monk. I mean, it's amazing internally what the similarities are. And they write about a funny movement, a funny rhythm, a sunny dance, which I think we need to know about if we're going to take spiritual practice at all seriously and regularly. And it goes like this, and this involves generically what would be called spiritual practice. What is spiritual practice? Spiritual practice might be the candle 15 minutes every evening. Spiritual practice might be going to meetings. Spiritual practise might be breath exercise. Spiritual practice might be writing meditatively spiritual practice might be singing in a church choir spiritual practice might be running in a kind of rhythmic way connected with the higher power there's all kinds of spiritual practice but if you begin doing spiritual practice regularly oftentimes very frequently the first experience that many of us had is that it's really very sweet it feels so good it's refreshing it's energizing it is splendid you'll hear people at meetings say things like I was so high at last night's meeting that I just am going to go to meetings for the rest of my life if I can get that high everybody was funny and interesting everybody looked fabulous to me my sponsor made sense I couldn't believe it this was wonderful and we have peak experiences there now this is referred to as the honeymoon or the pink cloud and it's very real it's also a real trial for those of us who aren't there you know the enthusiastic newcomer who's so grateful for everything and just loves meetings and goes to a lot of them and hopes to see you at all of them too. And when you say, does anyone have a topic? They say, we want to talk about God and gratitude and I'm just so grateful and they start sobbing in the meeting. Now, it's real. But what you need to know is Isaac Newton. to a reaction there is an equal and opposite reaction the spiritual writers john and teresa will talk about that that initial fervor and excitement which might last four months as consolation you feel consoled you feel close to god you feel vibrating with the universe bill wilson walking hand in hand with the creator of the universe after doing his fifth step this is sweet and it passes so the same person having had this pass now goes back to the same meeting and in find of instead of finding it full of wonderful insightful fabulous people he finds it full of smelly, bad-tempered galoots. What's going on here? Your sponsor has become a jerk and a nag. Meetings never end. They just keep on going on and going on, and they ask some idiot to speak, and then they ask someone who is more of an idiot to speech, and you can't believe the kind of drivel you're hearing at meetings, and do I have to stay until the end. This is called desolation, and everybody experiences it to some degree or other. Now, we don't talk about it because the hit we get is you should feel fabulous every day, and if you don't, what's wrong with you? What step aren't you working? Well, there's good days and bad days I was sharing a little bit at my home group meeting which on occasion I do and I was blaming others which is my gift and things were a little bleak and somebody ran up and said you know basically Tom if you worked a better program you wouldn't have these hard feelings and I said thank you very much for sharing which is the polite phrase you know but the fact is Teresa and John write about this a lot now why do we need to know about this a little bit well number one if you're in consolation you might think it's a reward for being good and it's not everyone goes through some kind of consolation I mean Hitler had good days just remember that Hitler had some good years as a matter of fact if you think about it everybody experiences consolation it's also true that everybody experiences desolation and for some of us if we don't know that rhythm when we're in desolation we think we're being punished or we think something's wrong worse we'll say some desolación is very dramatic but the one that I hate the most is called arid extra dry this is when you're attempting some spiritual activity meditation, prayer going to a meeting being of service doing tai chi doing some yoga and you get nothing out of it and you try it again and you don't get it. And you get nothing out of it. And for two weeks you've been showing up to do your regular spiritual practice and it is as dry as the Dead Sea Scrolls. The danger here is this, we say I'm getting nothing out of it, I'm going to stop. Clearly it no longer works for me. the spiritual writers say this about consolation and desolation. When you're in consolation, enjoy, enjoy. But know it's going to pass. Don't take it personally, one way or the other. You're having a good day? Well, hooray. It's goingto pass. Stay grounded. You're in desolación. This will pass. to keep the balance. What I want to make sure, and this is me on a bad day, if I'm in consolation, how do I nail this down to make certain that I always feel like this? See, that was part of the promise of alcohol and drugs to us. How can I make sure I'm always going to feel this way? Well, so much of these and so many of those and I'll do it. In prayer and meditation it's a very, very different thing. And when I'm in desolation and I was in a four or five years ago I did a 30-day retreat which is part of the Jesuit dance you do that several times in your life and this was the second time I had been through the 30-Day Retreat and for almost the entire retreat I was just in desolate nothing connected nothing made sense there was no purpose or meaning or direction It was just bleak. What did I do? I had to talk about it. I went to a meeting every day on bad days. I went through two meetings. I continued trying to show up, and it was very difficult. At the end of the retreat, it lifted. Well, what was going on? I have no idea. I have not a clue. I have got no idea, except it was very difficult to stay present. And from Moses to Jesus to the Buddha, one of the big spiritual messages is be present be here don't run from what's going on if it's dry, it's drive but so if it pleasure, it pleasure so consolation and this is my last point on consolation and desolation it can be very, very subtle I mean, I could be going around my whole day and I feel pretty good until I say alright, for the next half hour I'm going to read my prayer book, spiritual practice. And I will suddenly come up with 97 other things I should do beforehand. So I delay it a little and suddenly it's too late and there's no time and oh well, I guess I'll do it tomorrow. That's kind of desolation, see? Because I'm avoiding doing it. Also, I know I'm in desolación if when I am doing some kind of spiritual practice, regardless, the time goes by really slowly or the time doesn't move at all have you ever been at a meeting that's an hour long but you know it's three hours long it's never going to end and I get panicky and I just figure this is like time warp it's not going to happen it's just never going to end that's desolation I've also been at meetings and they're over before I know it. Do you mean an hour is gone already? Well, this was just fabulous. This has also happened to me in church. This has aussi happened to m in a lot of other situations. But the writers are real clear on this. If you're in consolation, be grateful and continue doing whatever it is you do. If you are in desolation, continue doing whatever it is you can do and if you can be grateful, that's okay. But it's real difficult. One of the books I read in this past year is written by a man named David Critchfield, entitled Thank You and Okay, colon, An American Zen Failure in Japan. I'm attracted to the word failure I always relax around it and this is someone an American fellow who's a Buddhist and takes all of that stuff very seriously and went to Japan and tried to be Japanese Buddhist and it didn't work very easily for him thus the American Zen failure in Japan but he went into one of the temples and the temple was exquisite exquisite it was beautiful and understated and the design and the color and oh it was a place you could pray you wanted to pray in a place like that and one day he was praying there and he found next to the incense supply a little matchbook that had ugly colors and it was funny shaped and the words thank you and okay were on the matchbook and this bothered him more than I could tell you he thought it was tasteless he thought it was hokey. Also, it was not grammatical. No one in the English speaking world says thank you and okay. So this drove him crazy until finally he pointed it out. I mean, we do have to share things that drive us crazy. He pointed out to one of the other monks how bad that was and how this ruined his meditation and probably is encouraging him to lose faith in everything this awful ugly little thing with the bad grammar and the other monk who was japanese but spoke some english david explained it to him and then the monk looked at it and saw the words thank you and okay and said well it might not be grammatical and it might not be pretty but it is the goal you know gratitude and acceptance thank you and okay a lot of prayer and meditation is to get us into a place where we can have some gratitude and a lot of acceptance especially self-acceptance oh God how could you have put me together like this I'd be a lot happier if but to accept who's here accepting our alcoholism accepting our quirks and foibles, being able to talk about defects of character and realizing that through that this energy of God flows. One of the things that I noticed wandering through the steps one time was I kind of had the impression that if I did the 12 steps right not only would I get my own way a lot more often which would please me more than I could tell you but all of the defects of characters that bothered me would be removed and that's not what it says it doesn't say and all the defects of character that bother you will be removed it says the defects of character that stand in the way of my usefulness get removed see I don't really want to be that useful I'd much rather be admired um I like trying to get a stocking with Sony you know just mine and I can go and stand there and people admire from a great distance and that's not the movement of the program so much of the programme is to accept who's here as I am and then realise that with the eleventh step with a little bit of prayer and meditation I can cooperate with how God does things there are a lot of meditation books out let me speak for a moment about meditation books and this is a personal opinion but I am right my tendency is to own all of them use none of them and I find that it is it is better to use one or two or three of them a lot than to use none of the none of them but have them look nice on the shelf and which ones should you use well use the one that speaks to you my friend Jim is up in Seattle, Washington and he uses five meditation books a day. Now he's German so he uses the same five meditation books and he used them in the same order every day. There is no frivolity in his spiritual program I assure you. And if he doesn't do that he feels ill at ease. He likes structure. Well good for him. I'm more one of these people who's willing to dabble with almost anything uh so i my first couple of years sober i used meditation books the 24 hour a day book and a couple of others and then for 10 years i didn't use them at all i just thought they were hokey and stupid and got in my way and now i'm using a coupleof meditation books again so i don't know if i'm getting better or worse but i find to use them is a tool it's one of the tools how how does this work um we all work it out a little differently but here's some rules of thumb for meditating number one realize that if you're going to meditate part of the meditation is everything goes into slow motion especially for those of us who are speedy who have taken evelyn wood reading dynamics more than once uh a friend of mine took that evelyn would speed reading course and announced to us that he had sped red war and peace and we said what's it about and he said Russia well one of one of the ways that I shoot myself in the foot pardon the metaphor is I'm someone who has a tendency to skim and skip this is not the energy around meditation. The energy around meditation is to go slower, sink deeper. Some rules of thumb around it. Do this regularly. What's regular? Regularly. Every morning or three mornings a week or every Tuesday. But regularly do this. so you want to have some kind of regularity number two it's real important if you have a starting time and an ending time so say that four days a week at eight o'clock in the morning you start well how long should I go for I think I'll try an hour well you might do that once then you're so impressed that you went for an hour you'll never do it again start small say I'm going to start with seven minutes every morning and then once you've done that for a month go to ten minutes and when you've done that for two months maybe go to fifteen minutes or thirteen whichever one you need but have the time settled before you begin I'm gonna start at eight I'm Gonna Be Over At Eight Fifteen because this is where that consolation or desolation comes in if you're in desolation that 15 minutes is going to seem like an hour and a half so it's real useful in times of prayer and meditation to have a watch or a metronome something something that is external to the situation that you can check with and you realize boy I've been here an hour and you check the watch and it's been five minutes conclusion must be in desolate what should I do when I'm in desola I want to head for the border I want to get out of there I hate desolation it is a big drag it feels like sand is being poured into what's left of my brain I simply don't have the time to waste and if I'm getting nothing out of it there might be something on TV I wonder if Cagney and Lacey are on if your meditation program is to spend 15 minutes spend 15 minutes but it's 14 minutes and it's excruciating go the extra go 15 and then if you want heroism which I don't go 16 this really stretches this is very difficult other times I sit down with a meditation book and it is just a pleasure to be there a thousand miles from home it is a comfort to do this regularly to have a starting time and to have a finishing time and to make this as a very important part of my day becomes a crucial part of the program and some people then extend that to half an hour or an hour one of my Buddhist companions does as a regular part of his he's a very he's a very structured person and he says he spends an hour every morning breathing and I told him well so do I you know but his is a little more focused he's very conscious of it one of my Buddhist companions does as a regular part of his he's very he's a very structured person and he says he spends an hour every morning breathing and I told him well so do I you know but this is a little more focused he's really he's conscious of it and when he's I mean we go to a spiritual person say teach me how to pray He goes to his master and says, teach me how to breathe. And to breathe in through the nostril and out through the mouth. And then to breathe it through one nostril. And then all of your attention and focus is to be on the breath as it enters that nostril and expect distraction. You're going to think of Las Vegas and you're going to think of people you hate and you're going to think of going to Cancun for a week and you are going to think about all this stuff and when your mind gets real distracted refocus on the breath and the nostril so he was taking instructions from his teacher and his teacher said now breathe through your right nostril and I'll be back in an hour I mean I would have Cagney and Lacey's on, don't you know I'm missing Wheel of Fortune reruns what's important so the master came back in an hour and my friend was still breathing through the nostril and the master said what have you learned? my response would have been you've been gone a long time is what I've learned for an hour and an eternity that's another thing I would have learned but my friend who was paying attention to his breathing said what I have learned is that each breath is different and the Zen master said you're a very quick student it took me a year to realize that which means if no two breaths are the same all life is about change and I cooperate with change or I resist change my sponsor who needs the program real badly I was explaining how difficult my life was to him once face-to-face, which doesn't help I prefer his machine sometimes because his machine doesn't stifle little yawns I was explained how complicated things were and I said that I found change very painful and he said change isn't painful resistance to change is painful. He's still my sponsor, although it was real close that day I wanted to find someone who had human feelings. Prayer and meditation. How do you know what God's will is? Well, say you're praying and meditating there for your half hour or 15 minutes. You're reading a meditation book and how do you do it? Read it slowly. This is one. Read it slow. Read it very slowly. This is slow time. Again, the problem is we skim for information. You know, war and peace is about Russia. You kind of read it. Well, here is one method. Take something, and something might be as ancient. I like praying out of stuff that a lot of people have prayed out of. Sometimes, not always, but sometimes I really like the Psalms because Christians, Jews and Muslims use the Psalmes. I find that enriching me. So I'll look at one of the Psalmas and say, all right, I'm going to spend a little bit of time there and I flash on to it and, oh, Psalm 125. those who put their trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion that cannot be shaken that stands forever pause then I read the next paragraph pause then I kind of get to the end of the psalm then I go back so I kindof have an idea of what the whole I have 15 minutes to spend on this now I kindoff get the picture I know if the psaumist was happy or sad or upset or joyful or connected or disconnected. And then I go and I just might take it line by line and in between the lines, stop and breathe. Those who put their trust in the Lord, breathe. And I might see if anything comes up for me. Maybe the word trust is just really a powerful word this morning. Trust. And I think about it and the spiritual writers say when you're doing this kind of slow meditative reading? Stop where you find fruit. Or if a phrase or a word is really juicy for you and gives you energy and interest, stay there. Stay there. And then when you're done with it, move on. If you're in a lot of consolation, all kinds of words might just feed you and you spend the whole 15 minutes on two lines. If you are in desolation, nothing moves you. So, you get to the bottom of the psalm the first time and then you go through it line by line the second time. The third time, break it up into smaller units. Go like every three words. Those who put breathe in and out. Their trust in breathe in and out. The Lord are. You know, just kind of change that. See again, does any word jump out? Go all the way to the end of the psalm. And if you're done and there's still time, go word by word. Those breathe. Who breathe. You really spend some time with this. You're not doing speed reading. You can do this exact same thing with the big book. you can do this exact same thing with Isaiah or Mark or the Bhagavad Gita or the Koran this is how monks prayed for centuries in the Benedictine monasteries and in the monasteries in Japan and it's listening it's learning how to listen now it's not very efficient and that's something to say about prayer and meditation if you are an American who is inclined to getting things done and having products as a result. Prayer and meditation is not efficient, but it slows you down to pay attention. I can be so distracted. I scatter quickly. Anything that helps me focus is helpful. This is why even that simple experience of lit candle in the room... By the way, Steve still does that. he doesn't brag about it like I would I would say hi my name is Tom I'm an alcoholic I meditate 15 minutes every night can I tell you about it I mean I'd want you to know that I do this you know people who are more trustworthy don't talk about stuff like that on the first date but what I've noticed as Steve has visited my house he always carries a candle with him you know sets it up and this is something he does it's part of the program that keeps him sober now if you're praying and meditating being quiet there are thousands of ways of doing that but say you're just slowly reading a text the peace prayer Lord make me an instrument of your peace the third step prayer take it line by line phrase by phrase or any of those if you suddenly hear a voice saying something like Oh Tom The lottery number is... You want to check your medication on that real fast. God doesn't usually communicate that way to people that I trust. Now, there are some incidents evidently in the history of the human race where God has made direct contact with folks. I'm very glad for them. I don't expect to be one of those people. When I was drinking a little socially, I would go into churches of my denomination and look at statues and say things like, if there is a God, wave back. Well, again, that's not spiritual experience. That is hallucination. And the difference... Sometimes it's a very fine difference what's one and what's the other. There is a way of telling. And the way of telling is this. If you've had a real spiritual experience, over time your behavior gets better. If it's just a hallucination, you don't change. You stay as much of an asshole as you always were. That's the difference. So some people who talk about remarkable gifts given them, you start noticing that their lives begin changing. They do get clean and sober, they do start thinking of others, they suddenly are able to put the group as part of their equation and they become real people with hearts that are human hearts rather than flinty, sharp, jagged things that a lot of us came in with. What else about prayer and meditation? I find that much of the language of Alcoholics Anonymous talks about seeking God. And I like that. I like, uh, that notion of people on the journey and people who are seeking. I also find it pretty helpful to reflect on the fact that looking at larger religious traditions, many religious traditions believe that not just we seek God, but rather God seeks us. God seeks us. God reaches out. Not because we're especially fabulous, but clearly God finds us interesting. I don't know why. And so sometimes in prayer and meditation what I'm doing is just sitting still long enough for God to find me that day. For God to get a little familiar with me that way. That day. I want to be stationary for a little bit. And my prayer sometimes is not just God help me, but God find me. You know, I know God knows everything and so forth, but I'm talking about this experience of connection. And there are times I do feel the conscious contact. Not just sometimes feel it. Usually I'm aware of the conscious contract. That's not the same as having a warm, runny feeling in my stomach about it. But usually I'm just the way I perceive things I know that everything we're doing is charged with the grandeur of God. And I become a great believer in the power and the creativity of God when I see women and men who should be dead get well. And God, as I understand God, has an awful lot to do with healing, seeking out those of us who are in shambles and rebuilding lives. And I find that very, very powerful. In prayer and meditation, I want some kind of conscious presence with whatever the power is that makes that difference. So where have women and men connected with God a lot? Especially if you feel pretty alienated. Do people get angry at God? Oh sure, I do. In fact, I am right now. And it's just going to take a little while for me to get over some stuff. Okay. I think God is smart enough to figure that out. But this relationship thing with the higher power. What I think I should do sometimes is run to my room by myself with a couple of books and figure this out. And soon as I figure it out, I'll have conscious contact with God. This has not been my experience. It's usually I am at my most dangerous when I am alone in my room figuring it out with a couple of books. Where have women and men connected with God? Where has God connected with women and man over the last 30, 40, 50, 60,000 years? A couple of basic places. Number one, there is a huge connection in nature. it's so obvious we don't think about it but nature is a primary place where people connect with the higher power and that's one reason why many of us who seek God who are searchers will go to beautiful places not just to snorkel but because snorkeling helps to look at the water to look up to look out the trees to look in the mountains some people go to the desert because the desert speaks to them Some people go to mountains. It's an interesting thing if you look at the way women and men have thought about God. The Greeks found gods on the mountaintop. Moses connected with God on the mountain top. Mount Fujiyama outside of Tokyo is the mountain, is that place of the gods. Jesus is transfigured on the fountain. I mean there is something about high places. So there are times I take myself there, the high places, beaches I think there's a biological reason for that if my understanding of the way we've emerged all life comes from the sea and when I feel real alienated from the living I might need to go and be by the sea for a while I mean, there's something there I might even jump in the water but to be there life nature plants trees botanical gardens these are wonderful places of prayer and meditation a second place where we make a connection with the higher power I really do think is with other people this is why if you are completely nuts and a pain in the butt your sponsor will say why don't you go to 90 meetings in 90 days why? because you'll be in a room with people and maybe one of those 90 days you'll hear something that can get through even your craziness but go a lot. This is also, you know, God connects to other people. This is all so why people join congregations or parishes or churches or spiritual communities because in the community you can sense the presence of God. I like belonging to a community that's been around for a while. I like belonging to a community that has prayed together for centuries I find that nourishing others don't, that's fine but we do hear, connect sense God's presence in others and sometimes from the most unlikely people now this is a little defective character of mine and if you quote this I'll deny it but I find at a meeting I am really willing to listen to people I like. But sometimes it's the people I don't like who say the things I need to hear. And I just can't stand that. But it happens more than I'm comfortable, let me tell you. I just know one person is a jerk! And they'll say something that saves my life one more day. That just fries me. So, nature, other people, scripture, things written down are ways that people connect with the higher power and ways that the higher power connects with us. This is why when you're especially nuts, your sponsor says, read the book or read other books. I'm a great reader. Reading is one of the things that gives me vast pleasure, so I do it a lot. Whoever taught me how to read in the third or fourth grade, second, I'm real happy whoever that person was. It just delights me and I read a variety of things and one of my rules of thumb is I do want to read some things that have nourished people's hearts for centuries. I find there may even be power there for me, if I'm in a good place. The last area that people seem to make contact with the higher power is through art, music and science. Art, music, and science Art and music, one of the nice things is frequently they're non-verbal and that will catch us by surprise Because if you're like me, verbally you're very well defended But something musical or artistic can just take your breath away if you're exposed to it. And science, the reason I throw science in there is because what true science is all about is asking questions. And I think those who seek, find. Prayer and meditation, 11th step. What is God's will for us? In the book of the prophet Micah, Micah says one thing the Lord asks of us to love God and to act justly. Justice is part of it. To walk humbly with our God and be of service. It's much better in Micah. I just am glitzed in my own brain right now because I'm right at the end. I should have written it down. I thought this morning I was remembering it fine. Right now it's garbled. So look up Micah. It's a little book, but it's right in there. We're called to be sisters and brothers together. We're told to be of service. We're cold to make a difference. We are called to labor with the God who labors. Some of us are so gifted, we're able to carry the message of recovery into places where no one else could go. This is intimate connection with God. This is doing God's work. And I'm sure a lot of that is God's will. As far as, you know, is it God's Will for me to make a million dollars or not? I don't think God cares. I mean, I think God is, you Know, does God think I should have chicken or pork tonight? I think God's worrying about bigger things, and what do you want to do? You know, chicken or pork, fine. But there's, you know, God's worried about Japan this week, and there are some issues there. I think I get to make lots of choices, and the choices I make, I want to cooperate with this energy of God that makes a big difference. But we are called to have human hearts, to be of service, and to form some kind of community and home, especially for those of us running for our lives from the horrors of lives of drug and alcohol abuse. So we get to be lights shining in darkness. We get to Be Salt, which flavors everything. We get To Be Mustard Seed and Yeast. And part of my inventory, part of My Gratitude List which was one of the things I had to do one of the things I had to do to make amends is not just writing some people letters of apology for being such a jerk and there were times when I was I know that shocks you but I had to write some people letters of gratitude to thank them for being in my life in very special ways people that I had not thanked in my there were several relatives I had to thank when I was a kid one of my relatives owned a ranch outside of Hollister, California. And I got to spend a couple of summers with cows and horses and rattlesnakes and goats. Now, I didn't think that was all that hot at the time. But looking back, those were some of the happiest summers of my life. And i got to write these folks when i was in my late 30s to thank them for something that took place when i was 12. I thought that was real important. So thank you, and okay, and day at a time, and daily bread, and mustard seed, and yeast, and easy does it. Thank you. Thank you.