The Lord's Prayer at A.A. Meetings

THE LORD’S PRAYER AT A.A.
April 17th A.D. 2004
You can take the Big Book at face value or you can interpret it whatever way you like. According to how I understand things from G.S.O. I prefer to take the Big Book at face value and when I read in the 3rd Edition 3 times that they closed the Meetings in the usual way with the Lord’s Prayer (pages 270, 291 and 381), well that to me is tradition and we ought to hang onto it. These messages were specifically put into the Big Book so we would have them as guides.
Something happened when A.A. came over the Rocky Mountains into British Columbia as the Lord’s Prayer is not said at any meeting I’ve been at in 21 years. The Lord’s Prayer is part of our heritage, it reflects where A.A. came from. Religion invented A.A. Matter of fact Jesus Christ is the first co-founder of A.A. then Bill Wilson and then Bob Smith. Figure it out, while Bill was in Towns Hospital December 1943 he experienced a great white light and a spirit blowing, a new world of consciousness, feeling of Presence, and his inner voice spoke to him saying, “So this is the God of the preachers!” (As Bill sees it, P. 2; A.A. Comes of Age, P.63). The Big Book if you take it at face value, tells us to “Be quick to see where religious people are right. Make use of what they offer.” (P. 87). This doesn’t mean that A.A. itself is a religion, why reinvent the wheel, A.A. is designed to embrace all faiths, we are religious though in the sense that we acknowledge the ultimate reality of God. And there is no better prayer that puts the perspective of our relationship with God into form than the Lord’s Prayer.
As you go through the Big Book you’ll get the drift, “He is the Father we are His children” (P. 62).
I would like to ask, Who is it that has a problem with the Lord’s Prayer? Is it the Muslims, the Hindus, the Buddhists, the People of Jewish Faith? According to the letters to the Editor in the Grapevine it doesn’t sound like any of them. I would put my money on it that these folks have no problem with it, just as I a Catholic Christian restored to my Faith (P. 29 Big Book, It was in A.A. that we rediscovered it.) have no problem praying to Yahweh, Creator, Eternal Essence, the Light of Truth, etc…
The Lord’s Prayer worked for Bill and Bob, to me it is a tradition thing, if we allow the drunks to eliminate it from A.A. then what’s next? A.A. will be destroyed only from within, well those in A.A. who want the Lord’s Prayer out maybe that beginning. Forgive them Father for they know not what they do; is a quote from a very famous person. It could possibly be that not having the Lord’s Prayer at the end of A.A. Meetings violates Tradition 4, (P. 146, 12 x 12), the group – the individual must eventually conform to whatever tested principles would guarantee survival. It maybe that not having the Lord’s Prayer at the close of meetings may affect other groups as the idea spreads, and then lead A.A. further from its roots. The Lord’s Prayer being the usual way they closed meetings makes it a tradition.
The Lord’s Prayer is very fitting for the close of meetings especially when you take into account the ending “deliver us from evil.” The Grapevine in January 1963 published the Letters between Bill Wilson and Dr. Carl Jung in which the devil was identified as the real problem behind alcoholism. To quote Dr. Jung: “An ordinary man, not protected from above and isolated in society, cannot resist the power of evil, which is called very aptly the Devil.”
The Circle and Triangle are also very interestingly not seen around A.A. as much these days. They ought to be at every A.A. meeting for the same reasons the Lord’s Prayer ought to be said at the end of every meeting. As Bill points out in As Bill Sees It # 307, and in A.A. Comes of Age P. 139, “the symbol for A.A., a circle enclosing a triangle is perhaps no accident. The priests and seers of antiquity regarded this symbol (the circle enclosing the triangle) as a means of warding off spirits of evil, and A.A.’s circle and triangle of Recovery, Unity and Service. Now unless we all of a sudden have for some particular reason began to see things differently than Bill let’s get these back into the Meetings. And not to know these roots is, walking into a tangled bunch of roots without understanding one sure way out that worked.
Will A.A. continue to be effective without the Lord’s Prayer and the Circle and the Triangle, are we squandering away our inheritance, you all are lucky Henrietta Sieberling is not around she would have you lot squared away in short order. I have no factual evidence but it has been said the success rate of A.A. used to be around 80% and it may only be 20% nowadays. I see people in and out of the Program; people fall away all the time. If we water the concept of God and A.A. down to much it may become simply totally ineffective. We ought to watch what we are doing, and to quote another famous person, “Let’s not louse things up.”
We get sober through the 12 Steps, many answers come to those who live and practice the program. When we take action and work the Steps, we truly live the program. P. 87 Big Book, there is also much more help available, P. 144 By no means do we offer it (Big Book) as the last word on the subject (alcoholism), P. 163 with this book in your hand. We believe and hope it contains all you will need to begin.
Our communion with one another in A.A. is really about the celebration of life and God. God is doing wondrous things for us, we ought to be open and strive to learn all we can about Him and His Ways. The most profound qualities are hidden deep, supreme strength, fullness of wisdom, unquenchable joy. These are hidden deep and thus the need for the spiritual quest or study of those who have gone before us and have found these truths (Bill and Bob, and whom they sought truth from). The A.A. Program helps us unearth the resources that are within us, and theology will continue it along (P. 221, 3rd Edition Big Book). A.A. will keep us sober it has recently been said, and religion will help keep us faithful.
Our search ought not to not have any boundaries other than is it good and is it from God. We are all made in the likeness and image of God, let us always keep that in mind, and let it help everyone to get along. We all carry God in hearts; not all of us have recognized Him yet. He maybe hidden, some deny Him, but none the less He is there. He may have another name than were familiar with, but He can cause each one whom calls on Him to glow. No one is beyond His reach. When it comes to A.A. and the Lord’s Prayer or any other prayer at A.A. Meetings, if there is a problem with it, the problem is mainly in people’s minds. The drunks have been complaining since the early days. The drunks complained that God was being spoke about to much at A.A. Meetings, well they were promptly told that their basic problem all along was getting what they wanted all the time when they were drinking, if they didn’t like hearing about God they go find other meetings in other fellowships where they don’t talk about God. (Read about it in our history books, hint it has something to do with Henrietta Seiberling, I won’t say much more less I start an outside controversy).
As people in A.A. grow spiritually if it is truly from God they ought to naturally develop an interest in things religious, or if they don’t they are likely just saying “NO” and their minds are not truly open, and they are not truly willing to go to any lengths (P. 76 Big Book, go to any lengths for victory over alcohol). A.A. is not a religion, but that does not stop us from using what they offer (P. 87, Big Book).
In truth we are all brothers and sisters on the road of recovery, we are all one in God, some are farther along the path to God than the rest of us. Let this not cause divisions, but let the more spiritually advanced pull us along to higher growth. We don’t have to agree with each other’s theology, but it is each one of ours strength, hope and experience, and we need to hear it, embrace it. One of those ways is reciting the Lord’s Prayer at the end of meetings.
Yours truly, in the fellowship of sobriety, Jerome D.