Category: AA

Let God Do the Heavy Lifting

2/13/2015

12 Steps for Centering Prayer
by Mary Lapham

The only "work" we do in Centering Prayer is consent.

I’ve attended so many 12 step meetings where people say they feel bad about how they are "working," or not working, the steps.

This orientation seems to trigger ego (false self), performance, and shame.

There are even people unwilling to sponsor others, because they feel they haven’t done their own program perfectly, or enough, or "right."

I hear a lot of focus on our own "effort" in meetings.

It is my experience, both in recovery and Centering Prayer, that God does all the heavy lifting. God does all the work, and that’s a good thing!

All I CAN do is be humble, open, and willing to consent to God’s Presence and Action within me.

Father Thomas Keating, in his book The Better Part, says:

   The heart of prayer is to recognize the presence and action of God and to consent to it. We
   do not have to go anywhere; God is already with us. Effort refers to the future and to what we
   do not yet have. Consent refers to the present moment and its content. Faith tells us we
   already have God - the divine indwelling.

It was this emphasis and thinking that motivated me to write a version of the 12 Steps from a contemplative perspective.

I have been in recovery 30 years, and practicing Centering Prayer for almost 20. At this point in my journey, I am coming to see how beautifully they work together, and how they might bring about a new level of transformation. As I see it, "restored to sanity" has come to mean freedom (from my false self), clarity, and emotional sobriety. This parallels the transformation into the mind of Christ that Keating describes as the goal of Centering Prayer. We are able to "Act - Not React" - no longer triggered by frustration of our old, familiar programs for happiness: the desires for security/safety, approval/affirmation, and power/control. Both motivation and intention have changed: I no longer have to go through life unconsciously trying to satisfy and pacify my wounded inner child. Instead, knowing I am unconditionally loved, and in constant relationship to the God within, I am free to fulfill the practical responsibilities of everyday life with gladness, and to serve others with love.

As you will see, I am still in process. For some of the steps, I have written several options. I am eager to receive feedback: I would love to know how this strikes you, and what, if anything, fits for you:

1. Admitted (accepted) we were operating out of old, learned programs for happiness, that will never satisfy spiritual hunger.
1. Admitted our programs for happiness don’t work, and that living out of our false self makes life unmanageable, and makes us self-absorbed and useless to God.
1. Admitted we were looking outside ourselves for happiness, abandoning our True Self, and so, God.

2. Came to believe in our inherent Goodness, and the Divine Indwelling.
2. Came to accept God’s infinite love, by expanding our capacity to receive Him in Centering Prayer.

3. Made the intention to consent to God’s presence and action in every moment, beginning with our regular centering prayer practice every day.
3. Became willing to consent to God’s presence and action by practicing Centering Prayer everyday.

4. Allowed God to take our inventory, and accepted it.
4. Began to see how our old emotional triggers and patterns from childhood block God’s love, and hurt God, self, and others.

5. Came out of isolation to tell our stories: admitted our addictions, denials, defenses and pain to each other. Began to hear new ways to live.

6. Became honest and vulnerable. Expressed our truth, and allowed for emotional unloading.

7. Humbly consented to transformation in Divine time, without comparison or need for rational understanding.

8. Gradually practiced new ways to live God’s love: with compassion and forgiveness for self and others, especially when we fall down and miss the mark.

9. Went back to humbly repair the damage cause by the consequences of living out of our False Self. Accepted (consented) to God’s comfort and guidance.

10. Used the Welcoming Prayer and active prayer sentences to continue to grow in God’s love and acceptance of our own life and humanity, and letting go of the desire to change our thoughts, feelings, situations, others and ourselves.

11. Sought through Centering Prayer and Lectio Divina to expand our capacity to receive God’s love, by consent.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening, we live our lives out of the transformative presence of God’s love, and sharing it with every person we meet.
12. Allowed God to live our lives, to live through us.
12. Continued to take action in our lives, and to share the fruits of the spirit in service to others.

Thanks for reading this. Let me know what you think. It came to me on retreat, and the only thing I know to do is share it.

Mary Lapham volunteers on the board of the Minnesota Chapter of Contemplative Outreach and is in formation to become a Certified Presenter of Centering Prayer. To contact her by email, click here.

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The Power of Starting Again

9/16/2014

By Jon Spayde

For me, one of the greatest stumbling blocks to keeping up a Centering Prayer practice is perfectionism. It’s not that I hold up some lofty standard of excellence and compulsively strive to attain it. No–for me, just maintaining a minimum of effort can be difficult, so my perfectionism works at a low level and always in the negative: if I slack off at all, I feel like all of my previous efforts suddenly mean nothing, my commitment is a total lie, and I may as well give up and binge-watch another five episodes of Scandal.

A Spiritual Schlub?

If I miss one of my twice-daily CP sessions, or both of them, for a day, or two days, or several days, it’s proof positive to me that I’m a spiritual schlub who has no business pretending that he cares about conscious contact with God.

This nasty habit invades my actual CP sessions. If I spend most of the time daydreaming and forget to use my Sacred Word, I get depressed and wonder why I started this practice in the first place. I get visions of spiritual giants—Thomas Keatings and Thomas Mertons and Thérèses of Lisieux—their faces alight, their spirits swept up into the darkly glowing presence of God, while I sit slumped in my chair thinking about how I’m going to pay the house painter.

Come Back, Come Back

But if there’s one thing that most spiritual giants—great teachers, contemplatives, roshis, and rabbis—agree on, it’s that slacking off is inevitable and natural, and that the essence of real spiritual practice isn’t staying in a perfect groove—it’s starting back up again, and again, and again. Simply returning to the sacred word, the prayer, the breath, the practice, after falling off or falling away.

“If you break your vow ten thousand times,” the Islamic saint Rumi sang, “come back, come back.” A retreatant once complained to Thomas Keating that she had lost her concentration a thousand times during the CP session. Keating told her she was lucky—she’d had a thousand chances to reconnect with God.

So I am well advised, after three full days without any Centering Prayer at all, to simply return to my chair, set my timer, and whisper that sacred word in my head. Here I go once more, and when I run off the rails, I am perfectly capable of getting back on them again.

Crossposted from 12StepSpirituality.org

Quest for the Keys

6/1/2013

By Jon Spayde

In my fifteenth year of sobriety, I realized that I wanted to thank God in a formal way for rescuing me from alcoholism. Joining a church seemed like the best idea—I wanted to pray regularly with others—and I had been attracted to Catholicism for a few years without taking the plunge. So one bright autumn day I marched up to my neighborhood church, St. Luke's (now St. Thomas More) and enrolled in the RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults) class. At Easter of 2000—a resonant year—I was received into the Church.

I have a background as an academic agnostic with a jumpy mind, and it seemed obvious to me that my biggest challenge in practicing the Christian faith would be figuring it out. I loved the beauty of the liturgy, of course, and the dedication of the priests and the religious, but I knew that my real task was getting a clear handle on things like the two natures of Christ, the Trinity, the Virgin Birth. There must be a set of intellectual keys, I thought, for unlocking and understanding these strange things.

When I got the opportunity to write a book in 2006, it was in service of this quest. How to Believe (Random House, 2008) is based on a series of interviews with Christian thinkers, clergy, and laypeople in which I ask them to explain their understanding of the faith, and especially of mind-bending doctrines like the above. To my surprise, many of my informants told me that figuring these paradoxes out wasn't the point. The point was to use them as perfect tools to open my mind to the presence of God, who can never be fully "thought-out," only surrendered to, adored, and thanked.

Not long after, I joined the Centering Prayer group at St. Thomas More—as kind and loving and truly spiritual a cluster of human beings as I have ever come across. I had known about Centering Prayer for a few years—I'd taken instruction in it from Basil Pennington during one of his visits to the Twin Cities—but I hadn't practiced it much, distracted as I was by my search for those doubt-destroying, certainty-producing, purely intellectual keys.

But sitting with my friends in the sanctuary on Tuesday nights, in silence, resisting, retaining, and reacting to none of my many thoughts, I slowly found myself going in two beautiful directions at once: on the one hand, letting go of my demand to understand the faith on my terms; and on the other, coming to find that words like Trinity, Real Presence, and Communion were taking on a new and deeper resonance and a clarity too, a clarity beyond definition. As I went deeper into silence in the presence of Love, those words became road signs toward a deeper silence and a richer Love.

And I also began noticing the changes that are the real point of being on a spiritual path: I was being a little more consciously loving with my wife, a little less prone to annoyance with the world, a little more welcoming of whatever shows up in my life. Today I'm convinced that this task of welcoming and accepting is the best possible employment for my mind, while, with the help of Centering Prayer, I let God change me in whatever paradoxical ways He chooses.

Jon Spayde is a facilitating member of the St. Thomas More Centering Prayer group, and is a regular presenter at the 12 Step Spirituality Workshop, which meets at the Colonial Church of Edina from October through May.

A Testimonial

8/15/2012

By Ted Tappan

Nearly four years ago now while incarcerated in Stillwater prison, in Minnesota, I was given instruction on, and began the daily meditation practice called Centering Prayer. I attribute miraculous changes in me and in my life to that daily practice and to a practice of 12 step principles.

I have been lifted from a scrap heap, and life has been restored to a goodness. I am out of prison, my chemical addictions have been successfully treated, most broken relationships have been restored, and my professional life is healing.

I have a relationship with God I never had. I have better relationships with my family than ever (not perfect). I have a humble confidence, a deep sense of gratitude, and a joy in my life that I never thought was possible. With Centering Pray I can Hear better than ever...but I can also See, Touch, Smell, and Taste all that I could never really experience before.

With Centering Prayer (meditation) anything is possible.... And the effects can be felt almost immediately. Like riding a bike or playing golf you get better with practice. I could go on talking about all the life changes I’ve had, or the changes I’ve seen in others…. But I will stop here with a suggestion to anyone who wants a better life: Try Centering Prayer.

Ted Tappan actively participates in the Centering Prayer Group at Plymouth Congregational Church in Minneapolis and for two years has attended the Workshop for Centering Prayer and the Twelve Steps held at Colonial Church in Edina.

Aftercare Spotlight

3/1/2012

Centering Prayer can bring silence to your soul.

By Kathleen Lindstrom

Dick Young's search for peace started 50 years ago when his wife, Carolyn, gave him an ultimatum: "Either get into therapy, or we get a divorce." Five years and 250 therapy sessions later, he began facing the demons that haunted him since childhood when he was abused by an alcoholic father and narcissistic mother. It left him with a stutter and an inability to master reading, writing and arithmetic.

"Without the Twelve Steps and Centering Prayer, I'd be a raging maniac right now filled with anger and resentment — someone who couldn't feel one feeling."

Young went on to graduate from college, marry, get sober, raise two children, work his way up the corporate ladder and, in 1999, retire as the chief financial officer for a Fortune 500 company. Even more important, he works the Steps daily and claims to experience those intangible blessings of freedom and peace promised in the Big Book. He insists it's all due to the support of loving people who crossed his path along the way, and he's spent most of his life trying to return the favor.

Young's workshops, "Exploring 12 Step Spirituality" are one way he hopes to give back. The three-hour sessions are held once a month and include testimonials, group discussions, readings from the Big Book and 20 minutes of Centering Prayer meditation.

"Centering Prayer," he explains, "is one way to work the 11th Step, with the goal of improving our conscious contact with a Higher Power through prayer and meditation. They're both very compatible. Like the Twelve Step program, Centering Prayer is all about surrendering to something bigger than ourselves and deepening our relationship with the Divine."

For Young, discovering Centering Prayer was a turning point and something he unabashedly calls a "God-touch." "We had just lost our son in a tragic accident and his death was devastating. He was only 25. Carolyn and I were in bad shape. We read some books on grief and one of them talked about the healing power of meditation, so my wife started to do Centering Prayer. I have ADHD and sitting still for 20 minutes twice a day was unimaginable. But I saw the changes in her and decided to try it. Three years later I got up from my 20-minute session and realized the pain was gone. I still miss my son, but after three years of meditating, the octopus of pain that was strangling me had let go."

Today, the Youngs are certified Centering Prayer teachers and have led a Centering Prayer group for eight years.

Young explains that Centering Prayer is a form of meditation practiced by the desert mothers and fathers in the third century, and eventually entrusted to monastic communities for safekeeping. In the mid-1970s, Thomas Keating and two other Trappist priests repackaged this ancient prayer for the modern world, called it Centering Prayer and introduced it to the lay population.

Centering Prayer enables us to move deeper into our hearts and just be, Young says. "We sit in silence twice a day for 20 minutes. We say nothing; we ask for nothing; we just surrender to the moment and allow God to be with us. Keating has said that 'silence is God's first language. Everything else is a poor translation.' So we sit in that silence, listen with the ear of our hearts and gradually wake up to the presence of God."

How has this practice changed him?

"The best way to answer that is to ask someone you've known for a long time. So I asked my wife of 54 years if I've changed, and she said ‘Yes! It's unbelievable. No one from your past would know you today.'

"I've been working the 4th Step for 50 years," he adds. "For the first 30, I did it without Centering Prayer. For the last 20 years, I did it with Centering Prayer—and the rate of healing was exponentially faster. Centering Prayer reduced my anger and resentments faster and more completely than I could have done it otherwise.

"I've seen other people change also. It's in their faces—there's a quietness there, a peace and joy. They slow down. They are more accepting. They know a loving God is present in their lives. And isn't that all any of us really need to know?"

For more information about “Exploring 12-Step Spirituality,” visit 12stepspirituality.org.

© Published with permission from Renew Magazine, January/February 2012 issue

AA - Eleventh Step Prayer and Meditation

7/1/2009

By Jim Babin

The Alcoholics Anonymous Eleventh Step can be easily undervalued or overlooked as one travels their Twelve Step journey. Bill W., one of the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous, said in his Grapevine Writings that it took him 24 years to realize its importance. He realized that his twelve step friends were moving ahead of him in their spirituality. This was a wakeup call for him.

The Eleventh step reads, "Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, Praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out."

While many of us are used to verbalizing the prayer part; requesting help for ourselves or others, or saying words of gratitude, or acknowledging our creator, we can easily fail to overlook the meditation part or under use it because of our limited understanding of its meaning.

I believe that as this step was originally written, the word meditation was meant to ponder or ruminate, AA’s or other spiritual readings. This is an active and valid use of meditation and a good one. It’s a reflective way of meditating.

Many AA’ers have been discovering and are using another form of meditation called Centering Prayer as a valuable way of seeking "Gods Will and the power to carry it out". This is known as a receptive means of meditation.

The method Centering Prayer is one of quiet and detachment. A wise sage said that “we have two ears and one mouth, because we need to listen twice as much as we need to speak”. Centering Prayer is a practice that disciplines us to listen to the "Ear of our Heart", that deep spiritual center that we all have. We put aside our thoughts and agenda and simply practice listening and waiting for God to present Himself, inviting Him to do so. How will God speak to us?

None of us really knows, but those who practice the Centering Prayer method know that He finds many ways. We just need to keep our spiritual antennae raised to be receptive. Centering Prayer creates that space. When we practice it, we surrender ourselves to our Higher Power [our Ultimate Reality] and let Him work within ourselves, empowering us to carry out His will.

Bill W. had really developed the 12th step of "carrying the message to others" but had forgotten that our spiritual awakening is an ongoing process that needs to be renewed and re-energized and is needed lest we burn out. Taking time out to Let Go and Let God by the use of Centering Prayer can refresh and renew our lives. Twenty minutes twice a day can transform us. We simply need to regularly practice it.

Let God Do the Heavy Lifting

The Power of Starting Again

Quest for the Keys

A Testimonial

Aftercare Spotlight

AA - Eleventh Step Prayer and Meditation

Presence & Action Blog

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