DO IT IN A WAY THAT WORKS FOR YOU – “… we communicate with our Higher Power in a way that is very tangible to us. OAs have been known to deliver prayer letters to God … . We’ve mailed them to our sponsor, put them in a can we labeled our “God Can,” made burnt offerings of them, hung them on a tree branch, or dropped them in a river.” (Overeaters Anon 12 & 12, p. 95)
“Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.”
– William Butler Yeats (1865 – 1939) Irish Poet
What are some of the creative ways you’ve communicated with your HP, in the past?
A Prayer for My Daughter
W. B. Yeats, 1865 – 1939
Once more the storm is howling, and half hid
Under this cradle-hood and coverlid
My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle
But Gregory’s wood and one bare hill
Whereby the haystack- and roof-levelling wind,
Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed;
And for an hour I have walked and prayed
Because of the great gloom that is in my mind.
I have walked and prayed for this young child an hour
And heard the sea-wind scream upon the tower,
And under the arches of the bridge, and scream
In the elms above the flooded stream;
Imagining in excited reverie
That the future years had come,
Dancing to a frenzied drum,
Out of the murderous innocence of the sea.
May she be granted beauty and yet not
Beauty to make a stranger’s eye distraught,
Or hers before a looking-glass, for such,
Being made beautiful overmuch,
Consider beauty a sufficient end,
Lose natural kindness and maybe
The heart-revealing intimacy
That chooses right, and never find a friend.
Helen being chosen found life flat and dull
And later had much trouble from a fool,
While that great Queen, that rose out of the spray,
Being fatherless could have her way
Yet chose a bandy-leggèd smith for man.
It’s certain that fine women eat
A crazy salad with their meat
Whereby the Horn of Plenty is undone.
In courtesy I’d have her chiefly learned;
Hearts are not had as a gift but hearts are earned
By those that are not entirely beautiful;
Yet many, that have played the fool
For beauty’s very self, has charm made wise,
And many a poor man that has roved,
Loved and thought himself beloved,
From a glad kindness cannot take his eyes.
May she become a flourishing hidden tree
That all her thoughts may like the linnet be,
And have no business but dispensing round
Their magnanimities of sound,
Nor but in merriment begin a chase,
Nor but in merriment a quarrel.
O may she live like some green laurel
Rooted in one dear perpetual place.
My mind, because the minds that I have loved,
The sort of beauty that I have approved,
Prosper but little, has dried up of late,
Yet knows that to be choked with hate
May well be of all evil chances chief.
If there’s no hatred in a mind
Assault and battery of the wind
Can never tear the linnet from the leaf.
An intellectual hatred is the worst,
So let her think opinions are accursed.
Have I not seen the loveliest woman born
Out of the mouth of Plenty’s horn,
Because of her opinionated mind
Barter that horn and every good
By quiet natures understood
For an old bellows full of angry wind?
Considering that, all hatred driven hence,
The soul recovers radical innocence
And learns at last that it is self-delighting,
Self-appeasing, self-affrighting,
And that its own sweet will is Heaven’s will;
She can, though every face should scowl
And every windy quarter howl
Or every bellows burst, be happy still.
And may her bridegroom bring her to a house
Where all’s accustomed, ceremonious;
For arrogance and hatred are the wares
Peddled in the thoroughfares.
How but in custom and in ceremony
Are innocence and beauty born?
Ceremony’s a name for the rich horn,
And custom for the spreading laurel tree.
My higher speaks to me without works. I feel his presences. This connection I need to strengthen.
I’m just now realizing it, but I think the calmness through which I have approached the difficult times I have been having, has really helped me interact with my environment in a more productive and peaceful manner (3)
Bravo.
During the swimming season I feel I can allow my mind to relax and feel very much at peace when my laps are done.
I think this “language of the people” could be reflected in attraction rather than promotion, when i’m practicing step 11, maybe people will want what i have as they say……
(6 mins)
Although I could use a little practice, I sometimes feel when I sing or when I’m really dancing up a storm, I get a sense of being in contact with my higher power. I also use the meditations here to feel more spiritually connected and it works.
What an enormous gift that we can pray and meditate in so many different ways. I went to two meetings yesterday which were “prayers.” We shared about our experiences with Love. Someone shared that we love when we are of service; One piece of literature states that love cannot exist without the dimension of justice. Maybe we also love when we pray. When I can take a walk, I can meditate. When I feed the hungry, I love. Every act of being of service is a prayer; every statement of gratitude is a prayer. My Higher Power has given me so many ways to stay in conscious contact. I choose joy and love through gratitude and service.