Practicing contact
I have discovered, through time, that the more alive I keep my conscious contact with God as I understand Him, the greater my feeling of ease with life; that everything is as it should be. My awareness of this has gradually grown over time. It certainly isn’t something that happened overnight – though of course, I wanted it to at the outset. I wanted everything ‘right now’ when I was first in the Rooms. But I have found that this isn’t how recovery works for me. That was my old thinking – perfectionism, immediate reward, the feeling that I was entitled to the best (if only someone else would do it for me).
It was one of those light bulb moments for me, when I realised in an early meeting that I was going to have to start taking responsibility for my recovery. There were countless people in AA prepared to help and love me along the way, but I was the one who was going to have to take some action. And one of the first actions that my sponsor suggested to me was daily prayer. Nothing complicated, just, “Please may I have a sober day,” in the morning and, “Thank you for a sober day,” at night. I had little understanding or feeling for what I was doing, but I just started doing it. I started adding the Step Three prayer, then the Step Seven prayer, sometimes the Step Eleven prayer. I started asking God to direct my thinking, my actions, my words. My evening prayers are ones of gratitude for the day.
But the real difference that has come about with time, is that through making a practice of prayer part of my daily life, my conscious contact with a God of my understanding has grown into something that I can plug into throughout the day. It is something that has moved from my head to my heart; something that I rely on and can trust at any moment of the day or night.
Prayer and meditation, for me, are intertwined. In an early meeting, I heard someone say, “Prayer is talking, meditation is listening.” So, my prayer includes both talking, which I find easy, and listening, which requires a little more discipline! But combined, they give me a sense that all will be as it should be. And it is no longer up to me to control or shape the world and the people around me. I have a poor track record left to my own devices.
It is up to me to keep the channel between myself and God free of resentments and anger and all the other negatives that can clog it up. A daily practice of prayer and meditation and inventory helps me do this. With God’s help, which is constantly available at any time of the day or night, I can be grateful for the life I have today.
SELINA, Hants
