Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

STEP ELEVEN

says. For in meditation, debate has no place. We rest qui-
etly with the thoughts of someone who knows, so that we
may experience and learn.

As though lying upon a sunlit beach, let us relax and
breathe deeply of the spiritual atmosphere with which the
grace of this prayer surrounds us. Let us become willing
to partake and be strengthened and lifted up by the sheer
spiritual power, beauty, and love of which these magnifi-
cent words are the carriers. Let us look now upon the sea
and ponder what its mystery is; and let us lift our eyes to the
far horizon, beyond which we shall seek all those wonders
still unseen.

"Shucks!" says somebody. "This is nonsense. It isn't
practical."

When such thoughts break in, we might recall, a little
ruefully, how much store we used to set by imagination as
it tried to create reality out of bottles. Yes, we reveled in
that sort of thinking, didn't we? And though sober nowa-
days, don't we often try to do much the same thing? Per-
haps our trouble was not that we used our imagination.
Perhaps the real trouble was our almost total inability
to point imagination toward the right objectives. There's
nothing the matter with constructive imagination; all sound
achievement rests upon it. After all, no man can build a
house until he first envisions a plan for it. Well, meditation
is like that, too; it helps to envision our spiritual objec-
tive before we try to move toward it. So let's get back to
that sunlit beach—or to the plains or to the mountains, if
you prefer.

When, by such simple devices, we have placed ourselves