“Conscious Contact”
The phrase “conscious contact” in the Eleventh Step is one of my favorites, not only for its alliteration, but also for its mutuality. The prefix “con” in both words means “with.” “Knowing touch” means virtually the same thing as “conscious contact” except that I can knowingly touch your knee or your left ear without any cooperation or partnership from you. But “conscious contact” means that both you and I want to touch. It invites the image of a pair of dancers shaping together their movement. In terms of the Eleventh Step, it means that the only Higher Power worth worshipping or relating to is not only “caring” (from the Third Step) but also has an active interest in us, is virtually “praying” to us as much as we might be praying to the Divine. God is, as it were, leading the dance of our lives.
And so, in our prayer and meditation, we dare, as we think about our day, to “ask God for inspiration (page 86)” and we relax and act accordingly. We pause, through the day, when uncertain “or agitated and doubtful (page 87),” and request of God the next right thing for us to do or think. As it is given, so we do it, “no longer running the show.” We have been undisciplined. So “we let God discipline us in the simple way we have just outlined (page 88).” We are becoming disciples of the Divine. The Big Book states it: “It works,--it really does (page 88).”
With my 36 years in the community and my experience of the Eleventh Step today, I say “Amen!”
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