Here, God

Meditation:  A devotional exercise of, or leading to contemplation.
Prayer:         A practice of communicating with one's God.

For many years I attended a Twelve Step men's retreat at a Catholic retreat center.  The leader was always a Jesuit priest who in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction (good proof of the fact that a strong belief in a god isn't enough for some of us).  I was resistant at first, skeptical that a solid retreat could arise in such a religious setting and led by such a religious figure.  A lot of the time I find too many "Thou Shalt Nots" and "Thou Shalt Even Though Thou Doesn't Want Tos" in organized religion.  But because I've come to believe that I no longer know everything I signed up, showed up,  and had a blast.  While the Jesuits - the bad boys of the Catholic faith - had some capital with me they really made it about alcoholism.

Anyway, one of the retreat masters was working through the Steps when he took a long pause at Step Eleven.  Prayer and meditation doesn't come naturally to a lot of alcoholics.  We find prayer too formulaic and objectionable, too many rules and regulations,  and nobody knows what the hell is going on with meditation.  Are we supposed to stop thinking or stop trying to control our thinking?  Aware of our surroundings or off in another world?  I have no idea most of the time.  Prayer feels like being in a car that is stuck on a short stretch of a dead end street and meditation feels like being in a car with no steering wheel going 150 MPH.

Practical:  Being likely to be effective and applicable to a real situation; able to be put to use.

Here were a few of his suggestions, none of which I find weird or indistinct or theoretical:

Spend some time in nature.  Why, he asked, do you think the monks built their monasteries on mountaintops or in the desert or on cliffs overlooking the oceans?

Go look at some art.  Do you think Michelangelo was just winging it, doing that without some help from something else?

Put on your headphones and listen to some music.  Really listen to it.  Do you think Beethoven, still composing symphonies when he was totally deaf, was on his own?

Read a book.  Read the BIG Book, for god's sake.  Do you think Bill and Bob were smart enough to write those instructions without some inspiration?

Here, God.  Heeeerrrre, Boy.