Circles Within Circles

·47 min·4 clips

A pastor explains why the 11th step of AA—prayer and meditation—isn't a one-time event but a lifelong attitude for everyone recovering from anything.

The speaker returns to a series on the 12 steps of AA after noting it has been 10 Sundays, with a couple of breaks along the way. The series has been recasting those steps through a New Testament lens and making their spiritual connection more visible. Recovery is stretched beyond substance abuse to include the changes every person is living through. The episode names that recovery as spiritual transformation and ties it to what the speaker describes as a present-tense understanding of salvation as spiritual liberation. Attention then lands on the 11th step. That step brings prayer and meditation into conscious contact with God, asking for knowledge of God's will and the power to carry it out. A client from the speaker's earlier recovery work opens the question of whether the 11th step is really being practiced. The question reveals the gap between talking about prayer and actually arranging a life around it. The discussion connects awareness with discipline. It compares the need for nourishment and focus with the need to cultivate awareness, while admitting that discipline is not always a welcome word. Prayer is presented through formal forms that give practice a framework. The speaker recalls the Our Father, the Hail Mary, the Glory Be, the Rosary, and the liturgy from a Catholic upbringing. That structure receives a Hebrew name: kevah. Kevah describes the framework created by prayer's words and the order of the liturgy. The episode argues that structure helps awareness grow because waiting for inspiration means starting only when awareness has already arrived. Jewish prayer is used to stress that practice matters whenever a person wants to do something well. Prayer is set beside sport, music, and writing as a discipline that asks for continual practice even when desire is missing. The closing movement turns preparation into an image of soil being made ready for a life aligned with divine purpose. The final prayer asks for guidance step by step and for recognition that each return around the circle can bring deeper knowledge of God, the self, and one's place in life. It ends with gratitude, a request for help in doing one's part, partnership with God, and a prayer in Jesus' name.

As heard by us

A New Testament reading of the 11th step treats prayer as steady practice for deepening awareness of God.

The episode approaches AA's 11th step through a New Testament lens, framing recovery as spiritual transformation and salvation as a lived liberation in the present.

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Why you'd press play

You want prayer to survive distraction? Start with the 11th step and the discipline of kevah.

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