addendum

I knew yesterday's short post was too good to be true! I never have that little to say!

So I wanted to add something to my little dictation on prayer. I got to thinking on my way home about my acronym for prayer and I wondered if it was enough. Is "practicing the reverse and adjusting yourself" sufficient to bring about the change that program promises us? I wondered whether it lacked a sort of quiet calming reflection that perhaps might be what makes prayer so useful or helpful to those who believe in god. If the actions I take in steps 6 and 7 are the same as the "prayer and meditation" from step 11, then why are they different steps? Defining prayer in a way that merges it with another step just didn't feel quite right. Plus, can external action help if internal concentration is needed? I wondered whether prayer might be more of a mental-related "action" than a physical-related action.

And then I read something from another agnostic this morning that I found to be dead on-point and quite profound so I thought I'd share it here. He said that he was an atheist when he came to program but was willing to do anything, which included praying every morning and evening and that, like reading, it helps to calm his head down. He said that he believes his higher power to be his inner self and that "prayer" for him "is actually about shutting the noisy child down and allowing the adult inside [him] to have his say." He also said that when he prays and asks for answers, he gets them.

This actually makes more sense to me than my acronym - talking to yourself, essentially - talking to the calmer, wiser you, and asking the sane part of yourself to consider something. So when my sponsor tells me to give something away and ask that it be removed, maybe this is more about letting go of a situation and a character defect that I do not have the power to control, spending some quiet time talking to my inner self about how I would like to be and seeking the ability to be that way, and then of course practicing the corresponding opposite of that character defect while my inner self figures out how to be that way on a more permanent basis.

This is a little confusing for me because the context in which my question about defining prayer came up had to do with character defects, which is partially what led me to the acronym that involved practicing the opposite, but prayer is also brought up in step 11 (which I've always thought of as "study") or in the context of general program advice to "pray about it." So I guess that "pray" doesn't always mean the same thing to me - sometimes it might mean "study", and other times it might mean quiet time talking to my inner self, asking for answers, asking for guidance (what's the best thing for me to do here? what feels right?). I believe that's called a "polysemy" - one word, multiple meanings. (And no, I'm not that brilliant - I had to look that one up.)

So no more fancy acronym for me I guess ... I'm moving on to the more advanced polysemy!!!