Tag: prayer

Silkworth, Buchman & Bill

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Alcoholics Anonymous resulted from a combination of two historical trajectories.

One of these had to do with certain people at a certain time wrestling with the puzzle of a particular type of alcoholic. The best doctors, notably William Silkworth and Carl Jung had found their methods utterly ineffective for a certain type of drinker. Silkworth and Jung effectively said to Bill Wilson and Rowland Hazard – we’ve tried everything we know, and we can’t help you. Bill and Rowland were the type of alcoholic who drank even when they didn’t want to, even when they knew a great deal of accurate knowledge about their drinking experience.

To varying degrees, and with varying experiences, they would be overcome by what Silkworth called a physical ‘allergy’ to alcohol, which triggered a phenomenon of craving. One drink could usually trigger this. They also had a mental obsession, or a kind of blank spot, which meant all previous experience of suffering and humiliation and damage went out the window. The alcoholic ‘thinking’ that precedes, justifies, rationalizes or just throws in the towel just before the first drink.

Though such drinkers were often perfectly normal in other respects, being good men, successful businessmen, skilled physicians, etc., will power seemed to be non-operative with regard to alcohol. Their only hope, according to Silkworth and Jung, was what some called ‘vital spiritual experiences’, which had seen some of these types recover. But such miracles were rare and little understood. Alcoholics like Bill and Rowland were sent off looking for such a solution…

The second historical trajectory had to do with other people at another time seeking to get back to the basics of religion – in this case, Christianity. This trajectory in a sense goes all the way back to the dawn of humanity and all religious ideas, but in more practical terms it starts with the experience of Frank Buchman.

Buchman was a Lutheran minister who had started up a hospice for young men, and had grown so upset at the board over financial disagreements that he resigned. At the 1908 Keswick convention in England, a message preached by Jesse Penn-Lewis brought him face to face with his self-focused, self-justifying anger. He came to see that they had probably wronged him, but the main point for him was that he had gotten “so mixed in the wrong that I was the seventh wrong man.”

This foundational pivot, a perfect example of taking the log out of your own eye (Matthew 7:5), set Frank on a trajectory of founding the First Century Christian Fellowship, a movement seeing to embody a return to the original teachings of Christ, simple and practical. This fellowship, later known as the Oxford Group, had a particular affection for the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord’s Prayer, and the epistle of James. They were convinced that faith without works was useless, and that one must clear their blockages from God, be of service to others practically, and seek constant daily direction from God through prayer and meditation.

This movement, seeking to build Christianity down to it’s most vital elements, grew in effectiveness and size. Though they had no formal articulation of their process, through their four absolutes (Honesty, Unselfishness, Purity & Love), they saw the lives of many people with various struggles turned around, including many alcoholics. One in particular went by the name of Ebby Thatcher.

These two trajectories were made for one another, and would merge in the person of Bill Wilson.

Bill Wilson was one of those rare types of drinkers for whom there seemed no solution, save the rare spiritual kind. He was a friend of Ebby Thatcher, who had been dramatically sobered up through the Oxford Group. The story of Ebby sharing his experience with Bill is featured in chapter 1 of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, called ‘Bill’s Story’. At the time of the writing of the book, according to one of the foundational stories called ‘He Sold Himself Short’, the Oxford group had a sub-group of Alcoholics who seem to have tailored the Oxford process into a sequence of 6 steps, as used by Dr. Bob (the co-founder of A.A.):

1, Complete deflation.
2. Dependence and guidance from a Higher Power.
3. Moral inventory.
4. Confession.
5. Restitution.
6. Continued work with other alcoholics.

Bill and nearly a hundred other alcoholics adopted the Oxford process and formulated the 12 steps of AA as they are known now.

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. 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.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

When you look at the steps, especially as they are explained in the AA Big Book, you can see that the first two steps encapsulate the wisdom of Dr Silkworth concerning the unique powerlessness and insanity of the alcoholic concerning alcohol. The rest of the programme seems clearly dependent on the process of the Oxford Group.

So there you have it.

Silkworth & Jung found that the alcoholic problem needed a spiritual solution
Frank/OG spread a spiritual solution that relieved all kinds of problems.
Bill and the early AA’s said yes – thank you.

secret transformation

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At the summit of the sermon on the mount, Jesus teaches on the three central spiritual practices. Giving, Prayer and Fasting.

Prayer is the only one where he gives a practical example. The Lord’s Prayer. It stands out as something we should just do. Despite his focus in this section on being discreet, this prayer is given in a public, shared, communal form. ‘Our Father…’ It is the most – or one of the most – recited set of words on earth.

But for all three – giving, prayer and fasting – there is a focus throughout on doing it in secret or discreetly. It is secret practice where the reward is.

I wonder if the ‘reward’ is formation, transformation.

If this is the case, could the opposite also be true? Is it the case that if my praying, fasting and giving is mostly public, I will be transformed the least from those practices?

Could it be the case that only private practices truly transform us?

spirit reality

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Question 1: What do these four have in common?

  • Foot-stomping, healing-declaring, tongue-speaking, Charismatic/Pentecostal churches
  • The prayers, incantations, curses, blessings and healing practices found in the vast diversity of various indigenous spiritualities
  • Catholic spirituality which includes practices like adoration of the Host (flowing from a belief in Transubstantiation), praying to departed saints, etc.
  • The various occultic practices that are stereotypically ‘dark’ and engage in a multitude of ways with the unseen realm

Answer 1: They all believe that interaction with spiritual realities is a normal, every-day component of life in our time-space-matter world.

Question 2: What do these two have in common?

  • Atheists, deists and/or philosophical naturalists.
  • A lot of Christian churches and denominations

Answer 2: They tend to strictly separate spiritual from physical, except for rare interventions, which one of them denies entirely.

Short Reflection:

Contrasting these two lists is a bit of a cheeky attempt at framing things to make a point. Another way to frame them would be on a spectrum, from totally denying any/all spirit activity at one end, to some possibly harmful ways of being hyper-focused on spiritual activity at the other end. (For example, I would not want to naively accept every belief or practice reflected in the rather ad-hoc and vastly diverse collection of the first four.)

But it is worth noticing the binary. It’s a warning to people like me. The more I think and speak and act like naturalistic atheists or deists, the less vital my spiritual life will be.

Whatever negatives we may want to assert about any of the first four, the basic worldview at work is perfectly reasonable and resonant with vast human experience. A worldview that has at least these few points:

  • reality is not just physical but also spiritual
  • engagement with spiritual reality is not just for special rare occasions, but to be a regular part of life
  • Spiritual reality is not simplistically ‘good’ and pure, but also consists of spiritual realities that are good-that-has-been-corrupted, or good that is no longer good, or good that is curved in on itself, or good that has fallen into a state of malevolence. Or put simply: there are angels and demons. Good and Evil.

Taking evil seriously is directly referenced in the prayer that Jesus gave his disciples: “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one…”

The evil one does not tempt us in stereotypically obvious ways. It’s possible to be meticulously avoidant of any situations that could possibly lead you to anything even remotely resembling ‘demon possession’, whilst being naively unaware of evil’s sway in your life through ordinary things like viewing advertisements, shopping, avoiding people you don’t like, hundreds of ordinary fears and resentments, escaping from work with sensational travel experiences, etc.

The evil One, the great enemy, the adversary, the devil, the deceiver, the prince and power of the air, the Satan, Lucifer, and all the evil spirits or demons that exist – are rightly understood to be temporary, limited, permitted, defeated, destined for destruction, and in no way equal to the power and authority of the Good Creator.

sovereign intervention

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I think I believe two seemingly contradictory concepts.

On the one hand, I believe that God has made the world in such a way as to respond to and use our actions, including our prayers. Despite our preferences for a God as predictable (and controllable) as a machine, equally and lawfully distributing oxygen, planets, miracles and tsunamis, God sometimes seems to act like an interventionist genie, conjured up by profiteering faith-healers and televangelists. How embarrassing.

On the other hand, I believe that God is by definition the kind of being who is unchanging, eternal, and thus God will do what God will do no matter what. Whether we forget or remember to pray, a little or a lot, as individuals or in global concert, praying for vague blessings or specifically for things we are certain that the God of Scripture would approve of, God sometimes seems totally OK with being perceived as Richard Dawkins’ blind watchmaker. How disappointing.

To reference a couple of book titles by Pete Greig, the articulate and wise international founder of 24-7 Prayer, God is both the God of the shocking miracles of Dirty Glory, and the shameful silence of God on Mute.

How then, should we pray to this kind of God? We could make at least two errors.

On the one hand, we could pray our foot-stomping, confidently contending, passionately persisting prayers, dripping with biblically shameful audacity for God to break in act like an interventionist deity, and all the while forget to leave God any room to have a different purpose or plan than us for that situation. Tragically, we could do serious damage to our faith or the faith of others – all simply because we had a view of God that was not large enough to allow God to be both responsive and sovereign.

On the other hand, we could pray safe tidy prayers that cover all theological contingencies, making our prayers little more than self-referential pontifications pointed at God reminding him – and us – that basically we should remember to trust in his machine-like sovereign faithfulness over all things; all the while failing to have the prophetic imagination that God may be willing and postured to act from eternity within time in what we can only call a ‘response’ to something we pray. Tragically, we could fail to see healing of relationships or withered hands, or the confrontation of unjust systems or personal sin – all just because we had a view of God that was too arrogantly sophisticated to allow that God frequently does his work on earth through humans.

So then.

Let us pray with that strange and holy cocktail of deep assurance in a very large and unimaginably sovereign Father reigning over all things, and childlike urgency that can ask with unassuming and open-hearted expectancy for good gifts from the same sovereign interventionist Father.

accept what I resent, change what I fear

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Step 4 of Alcoholics Anonymous, which involves making a “searching and fearless moral inventory” has two significant categories: resentments and fears. Through making this inventory, and sharing it with another person, I can become awake to the ways that my anger (justified or not) and my fears are operating in ways that are not helping me (or, for the alcoholic, driving them to alcoholic obsession and compulsive drinking).

The famous Serenity Prayer also has two major categories: things I cannot change, and things I can. In this prayer, I ask God for serenity to accept the former, and the courage to change the latter.

I think these categories neatly align.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change…
…which are probably the things I resent… and my lack of acceptance of them will not serve me well. 

Courage to change the things I can…
… which are probably the things I’m afraid of trying to change… my lack of courageously trying to change them will not serve me well.

peace through prayer

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The ultimate goal of God is shalom.

God desires flourishing relationships in all possible relational directions between all entities – God, self, others, creation. In one sense, those relationships are really simple. God creates and sustains all things by eternal gift. Creation, crowned by the humans that image God’s generous love, share in the gifts and the giving to one another. In the swirling mass of relationships we negotiate every day, this perfect peace would play out at dinner tables, in restaurant kitchens, on crop fields, through international trade, in halls of politics and power, and alongside the neural pathways of each and every brain. Everything as it should be. Sounds nice.

But from Genesis 3, a fatal disease has been corrupting these relationships. And that disease is fear. I have a thesis that all fear can be framed as fear of loss. Everything we value – relationship, freedom, life, meaning – we fear to lose. This fear takes up residence in our minds and hearts and poisons all of our thinking, imagining, planning, self-protecting and wondering about life, our families, our friends, our work, our goals, the situations we inhabit. Fear drives us.

In some sense, it seems to be obvious that dealing with fear involves paying attention to and shaping my postures and attitudes towards the things I fear to lose. Perhaps Christian Scripture and Yoda (think Episode III – Revenge of the Sith) agree – I must Trust in the Lord and Let Go of everything I fear to lose. And it seems that prayer is the simplest and most effective tool we have for doing this work.

In Philippians 4, Paul gives some famously helpful guidance on how to pray. This guidance deals directly with the fear and anxiety problem we have in our relationships (and it’s interesting that he gives this guidance immediately following his discussion of an interpersonal conflict – a relationship needing some shalom – between Euodia and Syntyche). He writes:

4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Some observations.

  1. Joy evaporates fear like light chases away darkness. It’s so important that Paul repeats himself.
  2. The language is sweeping. When do I Rejoice? Always… Pray about what? Every situation… Anxiety? No, not about anything.
  3. No specific ‘answers to prayer’ are promised here, but it is promised that my anxious heart and my obsessed mind are protected by ‘the peace of God and they can rest from fear and trying to understand whatever is happening.

bad remorse?

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The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, gives incredibly simple, practical and transformative guidance for daily rhythms of prayer and meditation. Instructions are given for how to pray and meditate a) to start the day (“Upon awakening…”), b) during the day (“As we go through the day…), and c) as you finish the day (“When we retire at night…”). It’s brilliant stuff.

The advice on how to finish the day suggests we “constructively review” the day. This is very similar to the Examen prayer familiar to some Christians. It is, however, less generally focused on ‘where did I sense God’s grace today’ and more specifically inquisitive – asking us to look for when we may have been “resentful, selfish, dishonest or afraid” at any point. It leads us to bring this to God and ask for what we might do to correct this.

It then has some great advice about making sure this review is constructive rather than self-destructive. It says: “But we must be careful not to drift into worry, remorse or morbid reflection…” Why not, you may ask? The advice continues and answers, “…for that would diminish our usefulness to others.” (p. 86)

When I’m obsessed about myself, even my own failures, I’m really no use to anyone.

The word ‘remorse’ jumps out at me. Isn’t ‘remorse’ a good thing for those who have done something wrong? What is meant by this guidance about avoiding ‘remorse’?

Dictionary.com has this helpful discussion of the Latin root for the word ‘remorse’:

In Latin, mordere means “to bite;” thus, remorse is something that “gnaws” at you over and over. In criminal court, judges are always looking for signs that a convicted felon is suffering remorse for his crime; if not, the judge may well lengthen his sentence or deny him parole after serving part of it. Remorse is stronger than mere regret; real remorse is the kind of thing that may last a lifetime.

The wisdom of the AA Big Book’s guidance becomes instantly clear. This kind of ‘remorse’ is far more than admitting, acknowledging and amending for past wrongs. It is a continual ‘biting’ of self that is hopelessly self-focused, self-pitying, self-obsessed, and ultimately self-destructive.

One final reflection on the judge and sentencing metaphor may be helpful.

It’s true that judges consider remorse as they weigh up appropriate sentencing. I think this is true socially as well. If a politician is caught doing something wrong and isn’t ‘remorseful’ enough, they are seen to be arrogant and not appropriately sorry, and likely to do the same thing again. Social discourse is quick to pounce on anyone who is not publicly and severely ashamed of themselves.

There can be an unintended dynamic that results from such understandable social judgmentalism. Wrongdoers know what is coming if their situation is to become known, and they anticipate and internalise the judgment upon themselves. They are quietly killing themselves even as they continue in the wrong. Another thing that can happen is that remorse can be performative. We perform remorse to assure our critics that we are sufficiently horrified at ourselves. But performative remorse is self-protective and not transformative.

The AA Big Book strikes a profound balance. Wrongdoing of any kind is to be weeded out with the utmost vigilance and humility. But such weeding must be ‘constructive’ and transformative. It is not about protecting oneself from public shame, or proving to them (or yourself) how sorry you are and demonstrating the high level of justifiable hate you have for yourself. Obsessing about how bad, stupid, foolish or wrong you were is really of no use to anyone.

What is of use to everyone, including ourselves, is simple, and far less dramatic and sensational. Admitting and seeking to amend your wrongs.

the tempting evil of unforgiveness

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In Matthew 6, Jesus gives masterful teaching about prayer. He understands with perfect clarity the way that our egos work as we relate to others in the world.

The usual form of the Lord’s Prayer that most of us know and use is a combination of the versions given here in Matthew 6 and in Luke 11. With this combined form in mind, Matthew’s version seems to end abruptly. And on top of this, the follow up teaching on forgiveness seems a bit late, coming after the final bit about temptation and evil. It can feel like the gospel writers (or Jesus) made a literary mistake and got the order of lines out of whack. Something like:

  • pray this way about forgiveness
  • and finally, pray also about temptation and evil
  • Oh yeah, rewind back to forgiveness, I got a tad more to say on that…

This apparent disorder vanishes when I recall that Jesus (and the gospel writers) were rather intelligent people, and when I recognise that unforgiveness is a very common, tempting, and evil tendency for humans.

Jesus, we must remember, is the one with the most important and accurate information on humanity. He knows precisely how our egos tend to judge others and justify ourselves. He knows this tendency is profoundly common, very tempting, and he rightly uses the language of ‘evil’ directly in the middle of it all. Positively, Jesus knows what how we must think, act, and pray to counter this. With the greatest urgency, we must learn, practice and keep practicing the art of being a forgiving person.

Jesus knows how natural it is for us to point the finger of judgment at ‘them’. Look at what ‘they’ did. He knows how quickly we assume that ‘we’ would not (indeed, could not) ever do what ‘they’ did. Jesus knows that if I insist that I could never do what ‘they’ did (to me or to others), then I don’t think I need the same kind of forgiveness that ‘they’ do. He knows how this self-righteous judgment blocks me from fully savoring – and sharing – the forgiveness that the Father so freely offers me.

So then, I can read these verses more like this…

“Forgive us our various kinds of sins, just as we keep on practicing forgiving others of their various kinds of sins.
After all, do we not all stand in need of forgiveness, and could we not all see ourselves in one another?
Keep us from being tempted away from forgiveness like this.
Deliver us from the evil One who is the source of all blame, finger-pointing, gossip, and discord.
Deliver us into the free and forgiving arms of You, our Father.”
For this is how forgiveness works. It has to be shared to be experienced. Your Father is eagerly watching and waiting for us to get our hearts in a posture that can receive forgiveness and share it. It just doesn’t work any other way.

the primal temptation: a poem

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The ancient story is my biography.
It’s true.
It recapitulates the shape of my soul.

I’m simply unfit for the tree.
Unqualified to quantify
good and evil.
Such eternal and infinite matters,
like pretending to pose as The Tree of Life
to reach out and touch it
must always stay beyond my grasp.

Lord, put a flaming sword
between me and my desire to dethrone you
and resentfully rule others.

It’s a sad story.
But I love its luxury.

A story of I and Thou.
A script of Good and Evil.

thou art always the toxic problem.
I forever the pure solution.

The familiar arc of injustice
The boring trajectory of self-justification
Blind to my logs
Seeing only your sawdust.

The story sticks to me
and makes me Stuck.
Incurvatis in se.

Lord, pierce my heart with that ancient flaming sword.
I want to help you renew all creation.
Tikkun Olam.

But I only fix
by first finding my faults.
Mea culpa.

Not my brother,
not my sister.
it’s me.
Kyrie Eleison.

the human connection between anger & temptation

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The sermon on the mount is the best teaching on human living. It lays down the patterns for full and complete humanness. After the Beatitudes and opening statements, the first two issues that Jesus deals with are a) anger leading to murder, and b) lust leading to adultery. It won’t do to simply label murder and adultery as unlawful, immoral or wrong. Jesus knows we have to get to the heart of these matters and deal with our anger and lust.

The early chapters of Genesis are also profound in their statements about humanness. Every human is like Cain, who gets ‘very angry’ and is tempted into taking actions that violate the humanity of his ‘brother’. In chapter 6, we see the moral devolution of humanity is so degraded that the beautiful daughters of men were being treated like sexual property. The Creator is grieved to the point of being willing to uncreate the whole creation.

Anger and Sex are connected. We need not illustrate all the ways that this interrelation plays out through rape and pornography.

Their interrelation also shows up in another text that is likewise profoundly awake to the realities of human nature: The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, written by Bill Wilson. The Step 4 inventory (see chapter 5, ‘How it Works’) of ones own life invites an addict to reflect on a) Resentments, b) Fears, c) Sex conduct and d) Harm to others.

Anger and Fear can be understood as a natural pair, just as Sexual dysfunction and Harm can be. For example, consider Resentment and Fear. When I resent another person, I am looking down on them in judgement (perhaps sometimes justified judgement); and when I fear someone, I am looking up at them. When I process my resentments (and fears) properly, I discover that I need not look down on (or up at) others. I can look them in the eye as equals. This humane equality is a profoundly disturbing idea for someone whose identity is dependent on feeling superior to others.

The same is true for the Sex and Harm pairing. Healthy sexual relations is a mutually helpful matter of freely giving and freely receiving. Literally ‘intercourse’. Harm, by nature, including sexual harm, is the opposite of giving and receiving. Instead of giving it forces itself on someone. “You will have this whether you want it or not.” Instead of receiving it is taking. “I’ll take this whether you’re giving it or not.” It is violent and violating.

So therefore, according to Jesus, Moses and Bill, it seems to be a human reality that when we feel resentment towards someone who we feel has wronged us we sooner or later are tempted to some kind of violence or dysfunction.

This connection between anger and temptation, finally, is seen within The Lord’s Prayer, which is – not surprisingly – the humane prayer in the structural centre of the humanising Sermon on the Mount, preached by the one Christians see as the True Human. I am instructed to link my own forgiveness from my Father in heaven, with the forgiveness I am continually working at with others who have ‘transgressed against’ me. Immediately following (and linked to) this, is that I must be on guard against being led ‘into temptation’.

Whether our resentment is justified or irrational, political or personal, sharply focused or a foggy haze; we are reminded of an important moral human truth. The longer we allow anger to fester and burn the more tempted we can be to find our way into a fix, escape, or treat. This could be in the form of a verbal insult, a preachy self-righteous Facebook comment, some form of sexually energising daydream or exploration, or any other drug of choice (working late hours, over-eating, gambling, numbing myself with drink).

And so, the journey to full humanness must include humane prayers where we lay our vulnerability to anger and temptation before the Lord.

Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the Evil One.

Or, we might paraphrase…

Lord, help me to so savour your mercy towards me that I too flow with mercy towards others, especially those I am likely to point the finger of superior judgement towards, whose wrongs I feel the most burned up about. The ones who threaten me and interfere with how I think the world should run. Those who make my blood boil. The ones who, like me, do not deserve mercy.
And keep me far away from letting my anger drive me into some kind of tempting and ultimately self-serving power trip. Deliver me from the fleeting and temporary soothing ego trips of violence of any kind to myself or another.

Amen.