My entire OA recovery has been online, My “home” meeting is called “On Awakening”, and it is a two-way prayer meeting. I wish I could tell you about the first time I attended, but the truth is that I don’t remember it especially.
What I can tell you, is that I am not religious. I’m not anti-God. I am agnostic. By this I mean, I don’t know if there’s a God or not. Sometimes I think it makes sense, and other times, less so. And yet, despite this absolute uncertainty, I turn up, day after day, week after week, year after year, at a two-way prayer meeting. When I can’t attend for some reason, I do my own practice. Two-way prayer has become a crucial part of my spiritual recovery; here’s why.
First, a brief explanation (we give a fuller one in the meetings). After some readings, and meditation time, we spend 10 minutes writing. We ask a question of our Higher Power. It could be very specific, about a problem in my life today, or it could be much more open, like “what is your will for me today”. Then, we listen, and we write the response. The responses I have had some days have completely floored me. An unexpected response a few months ago had me sobbing in the meeting, and facing up to a character defect I’ve buried for years. I have been convinced I am right about something, only to be educated by my HP. I have days where I’m frustrated and I can’t hear my HP, and I have days where I can barely write fast enough because my HP has so much to say. Sometimes, I don’t follow my HP’s guidance, and pretty much universally I later realise the consequences of holding on to my will.
Now at this point, especially if you are atheist, you may be thinking something like “it is obvious that she is talking to herself, not an external Higher Power”. My answer to that is you may well be right! How can I know? Really, truly know? I never can, I never will. But what I can do is act on faith. I can trust when others told me that this worked miracles for them. I can accept the fact I will never know. To me, it really doesn’t matter. Maybe I am talking to an external higher power. Maybe I am talking to a deep part of my subconscious, a part that has learned and grown through connection with fellows and working the 12 steps. Either way, I am talking to a higher power, in a way that I otherwise rarely reach. I am not looking for proof one way or another, because I have been loved and guided in a way I never thought possible, every morning that I start my day with two-way prayer. And that is all that matters to me.
Lucie H, Kent, England
Interested in trying two-way prayer?
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