Fr. Bill begins a short series focused on a new book he’s writing on Two Way Prayer. This episode gives a brief history of how the prayer practice developed within the Oxford Group and its important place in the early days of Alcoholics Anonymous. Fr. Bill draws on several quotations from AA literature telling how the practice was done by some of the early members.
Show Notes:
“Where did we learn about moral inventory, amends for harm done, turning our wills and our lives over to God? Where did we learn about meditation and prayer and all the rest of it? The spiritual substance of our remaining ten Steps came straight from Dr. Bob’s and my own early association with the Oxford Groups….”
Bill Wilson, The Language of the Heart, p. 298.
“The central theme of Wright’s book (The Will of God and a Man’s Life Work) was that an individual could, through “two way prayer” - listening for guidance as well as talking - find God's will for his life and for the ordinary events of the day. Wright himself set aside half an hour for such listening prayer first thing every morning. At such times - and indeed at anytime in the day - he declared that what he called “luminous thoughts” came from God, provided only that the human receiver was clean enough to pick them up. These thoughts Wright wrote down in a notebook and always tried to carry out.
Garth Lean, On the Tail of a Comet, p.74.
More Selections from Dr. Bob and the Good Old Timers & Pass It On in this episode.