This morning I have chosen to write on one of the paths that AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) recommends to improve our conscious contact with God: prayer.
Prayer is one of the mysterious paths to a conscious encounter with a Higher Power or God.
It is mysterious because we are talking about an encounter between a finite being and an infinite being- and there is a kind of paradox here. If you do not like the word mystery- use the word- paradox. Because there is a kind of contradiction here for how can a mere human communicate- make conscious contact with an infinite being- a God.
Prayer is one path to a conscious encounter with God. (Note I do not describe or define your God or higher power- that is your business.)
Some reflections to keep in mind-
1. Beware of the teacher/preacher-individual who talks about an “authentic religious or spiritual experience.” The word they emphasize is “authentic” which means usually that the teacher-preacher is telling you that your encounter to be authentic must follow the same pattern as his/her encounter. That means their experience is made the criteria to judge all other experiences.
As I see it- in order for your experience to be genuine or authentic is first of all needs to be your experience and not dictated by a someone else no matter how much they claim to be speak for God.
2.There are two extremes that we could fall into regarding prayer: one is the overly formal mechanistic and secondly the overly free spontaneous.
Formal Prayer can become mechanistic and prevent someone from being open and honest. Do not misunderstand, I am not degrading formal prayer- the Lord’s Prayer is a well known and often used formal prayer and I would in no way be critical of it being used. But, it can become mechanical and superstitious.
Free spontaneous prayer-is becoming quite popular but the danger with free spontaneous prayer is the possibility of profaning prayer; that is, treating prayer as if we were talking with old Joe across the street. Paul Tillich, a theologian from Germany wrote about his concerns in that overly free spontaneous prayer removes the mystery out of prayer.
3.Through the scriptures, both the Hebrew and the Christian Bible, prayer is most often described as “crying to the Lord.” Turn anywhere in the book of Psalms and you will see the phrase…”I cried unto the Lord…”
In the 5th Psalm- these are the words:
“Heed the sound of my cry, my King and God,
For I pray to you…”

And in the 6th Psalm we discover the connection of tears to this kind of prayer…
I am weary with groaning, every night I drench my bed,
I melt my couch in tears….

And then the Psalmist switches the image to hope:
“The Lord heeds the sound of my weeping,
The Lord heeds my plea. The Lord accepts my prayer.”

Now do not misunderstand me, I am not advocating an emotionally dominated prayer experience but I am advocating an honest sincere appeal to God and if tears are involved- that’s okay.
I might add, Note that word groaning…interesting word. I am remembering a verse found in Romans 8…where Paul uses this word in reference to prayer: He is talking about how we do not know how to pray. How true that is! (So I pray, “Lord, help me to pray as I should.”) And then Paul says- the Spirit helps us! (God helps us in prayer!)
How?
“The Spirit intercedes with groaning to deep for words” (8:26)

Have you ever been in the situation that you knew you wanted to pray but just did not have the words. It is a common experience. Paul says- those are the times that Spirit (God) comes to assist us. I remember the times when my Mother was praying and all I remember her doing was literally groaning…”Oh God, help my son.” And of course I remember my mother crying.

So prayer can be with words or with groaning, with tears or silence. What matters is the intent of the heart and being open and honest with oneself and God.

From the dawn of time, humanity has sought the Ultimate Reality. Humans are “God seekers.” It is a profound and unique characteristic of the human species. I am a “god seeker!” This past week, I was reminded of the 11th step in the AA program. It is a wonderful prescription for life and I might add, not just for the alcoholic. I would like to just make a few meditative comments about the first part of that 11th step:
Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him…
What is the verb in that step? The verb is sought. It is the past tense of the verb- to seek.
What are we seeking? To improve our conscious contact with God.
Note for a few general principles of AA before I draw some meditative thoughts from this step. The previous steps – establish the idea that the alcoholic has a power problem…powerless over alcohol (or MJ or cocaine) and because of that his or her life has become unmanageable. The first step in the AA program is to recognize that problem. The second step is to begin to look outside yourself for a Power (notice the capital letter) and to believe in that Power (trust in the Power) –there is hope here- and believe that – that Power could restore you to sanity. (The implication is that yes- the alcoholic was living an insanity- the insanity of using a drug that not only was destroying yourself but destroying every other relationship in your life. The third step is to turn your life and will over to the care of God (the first time the word appears in the 12 steps). Here is the paradox (mysterious contradiction) – with the self-awareness of powerlessness- and with believing in a Higher Power (or God as you understand him or her) – you find a power!
That brings us back to Step 11- which assumes that you have already made contact with the Higher Power- (you have worked through step 1-3). Let me put it to you this way. Alcoholics are encouraged to improve their conscious contact with God because that is the key to obtaining power over their treaded allergy to alcohol. Continual sobriety is only promised through continual contact with the Higher Power.
Now with that in mind, here are some meditative thoughts for this week:
One, It is an exciting possibility- a hope is generated when you and I realize that contact with God is possible. Whether you call it- contact, encounter, or realizing the presence of God, the point is- there is the possibility of contact or encountering God. God is not just out there- in the heavens; God is here among us. (In the Catholic and Protestant Christian tradition, this God among us principle is called the incarnation…God in-fleshed).
Question: Are you seeking God?
There is a pluralistic dimension to the Twelve Steps which I appreciate. What I mean, AA does not tell you who your Higher Power has to be! It continually uses the phrase “God as you understand him” (or her).
Second thought- AA suggests two paths or ways to improve our conscious contact with this God.
Sought through prayer and meditation…Now realize these are two broad paths because AA does not suggest what prayers or what forms of meditation to use. (Although, in most AA meetings, the Lord’s Prayer and the Serenity prayer dominate).
Question: Are you using these two paths for the express purpose of a making or improving conscious contact with God?
This Wednesday- I will continue to discuss these two paths- go deeper…
By the way one final thought: The Hebrew and Christian God desires humanity to seek him/her and even promises to reward them who seek!

Until then- SEEK GOD– fellow God seekers!

I thought today I would write on faith… and use for a basis of my theme a text taken from the New Testament- from the Letter or Epistle to the Hebrews 11:6

“And without faith it is impossible to please God for whoever would approach him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”

Theologians especially of the Christian religion have complicated and distorted this faith issue. Faith is not a system. Let me first talk about what faith is not. Thirty years ago when I started preaching, I preached a distorted view of faith. How was it distorted? I defined faith as a mental assent and a submission of the will to a system of beliefs. If you wanted to be saved, that is, accepted by God- then a person had to believe and submit to specific idea (construct) of Jesus. “You need to believe and commitment yourself to Jesus as God who became man, died on the cross for your sins and resurrected on the third day.” That was it! Faith was mere mental assent and submission to a series of dogmas.
It has taken twenty five years for me to awaken to the idea that faith is itself a gift. It is not a work to perform in order to get something. Much of the distortion of the concept of faith has come about by disconnecting a particular phrase – preachers speak of be “justified by faith alone” but the literal rendering the text found in Ephesians 2:8 “for by grace are you saved by faith”…
Salvation or justification- being accepted by God is a matter first of all- of GRACE…
Faith is the receiving act and is itself a gift of grace!

But what is faith- without which one cannot please God. Well, allow me to digress in a short teaching. Man – you and I live in two dimensions. There is the horizontal dimension of man relating to man- the finite with the finite. Then there is the vertical dimension- the finite with the infinite; that is man interacting with a higher power, God. In 1975, I experienced something beyond space and time. I experienced the presence of the holy in my life. I experienced the Eternal in my temporal existence. Using the words of Paul Tillich, I had a religious experience- “I was grasped by the ultimate concern.” Why did it happen? Well, to use the words the text above: I was seeking God. I knew God existed and I desired a relationship.
Faith is not about beliefs- opinions or doctrines. It is about relating to the ultimate! And it begins with being open and staying open to the possibility of relating to the infinite.
Final thought for today: Realize and be open to the idea that in all of our experiences there is the possibility of an ultimate experience; that is- experiencing the ultimate.
Religion is the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern, a concern which qualifies all other concerns as preliminary and which itself contains the answer to the question of the meaning of our life. Paul Tillich

I have a cat. This cat is what in philosophy would be called sui generis, which means he is in a class all by himself, unique! He is a “ragdoll.” That is his breeding designation but it really does him no justice at all. His name is “wicket.” Note the spelling, it is not spelled wicked but wicket. He is named after the Star War figure – remember the ewoks those hairy bipeds native to the forest moon of Endor who helped fight the evil empire. Yes that’s what we name our cat after- wicket the ewok. (By the way, Wicket weighs 30 lbs…he continues to deny that he is obese. He tells me that “Ragdolls” are the largest cats in North American and I believe it. But I keep telling him there is a limit to the size of a litter box. His current litter box is a 4o gal plastic storage bin modified- 38”X24”X18”)

There are a number of lessons I should have learned early in my life- which I recently realized and encountered through my cat. Yes, I learned some things from my cat. I am not ashamed to admit it.
Lesson # 1. I learned to forgive and let go – to forgive and forget. Wicket is so longsuffering! If you need a dictionary just turn the word around- he knows how to suffer for a long time. It is an old English word which has this definition: long and patient endurance of offense. This is what I have observed in my cat- no matter how many times the 1 year old grandson pulls his tail, wicket keeps coming back. The joke about this kind of behavior is that wicket is “brain dead” or cats have pea sized brains or short term memory deficit. But I don’t buy that! I honestly sense that my cat forgives and consciously forgets. I know what you are thinking- it is hard to believe but I told you my cat is sui generis. Now I have to brush my cat at least twice a week and you can tell he doesn’t like it. I mean he whines, meows and tries to run away. But when we are done with the chore-he still rubs up against me, hops on my lap and licks my hand. I learned that it is not that difficult to forgive and forget- it requires that I make a choice to do so.
Lesson #2- I learned to clean the mess up before you mess up again. Now this also started as a humorous little observation. It is quite a disgusting habit. My cat is intelligent! He waits to use his pooper (what in the trade is referred to as a litter box) until I clean it. Let me put it to you this way- he has got me trained- as soon as I clean the pooper- he is ion there again messing it up. Lesson learned and applied: Don’t let the messes pile up. I mean, that is wise! Clean up the mess before you mess again. And this can be applied to spiritual as well as physical things. Don’t let the spiritual-character defects pile up! Deal with them one at a time. Don’t let them accumulate- they will suffocate you! In the case of my cat- the smell will nauseate you.
Final lesson: Don’t stress out- take your time and frequently rest. I have never seen my cat stress out…oh, wait a minute. I take that back. Whenever I vacuum my office- actually as soon as he see me bring the vacuum into the room, don’t even have to turn it on- he runs; and I mean he runs and hides underneath the bed. But other than that- I have never seen him stress out. And I believe it is due to two key factors:
One, He takes frequent naps. Have you ever seen a cat not nap? I believe he spends more time napping than anything else with the exception of spending time in his pooper which is a close second to napping. I should have learned this long ago that I need to take frequent rest periods. What I mean here is not literally napping but quiet times when I just close my eyes and shut down the brain that wants to keep on going and going just like the energizer bunny. Yes, the type A personality- that’s what I am describing. Well, my cat is definitely not a type A!
Secondly, he moves very slowly! The only time I have seen him move like lightening is when the vacuum comes out or a bird perches on the window sill. I have learned to slow down- and that is probably the hardest lesson that I am still working on! Slowing down! I have learned from my cat the importance of just enjoying the whole damn process we call life.