When Bill Wilson came to write about meditation in the AA Big Book and in the Twelve and Twelve, he probably felt a little uneasy.

Like other members of the Oxford Group -- and all the early members of AA in Ohio were members of the Oxford Group -- he would have his hour of "quiet time" each day. (That "quiet time" came first in the list of things to do each day which the early members carried around with them.) But by the time the Big Book came to be written, AA had separated from the Oxford Group, and the latter's founder, Frank Buchman, had encountered international condemnation. If Bill talked about "quiet time," he would sully the AA name ....

In the Twelve and Twelve, he hit upon the idea of meditating on the prayer of St. Francis: "Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace ...." It is hard to imagine that he could have made a happier choice. For the treatment of Step 11 in the Twelve and Twelve, and this choice of prayer, make it clear that peace comes through meditation and only from God. It can never come from talking about our minds, our feelings, our hopes, and our fears. Talking about these things merely helps to externalize them, to see them for what they are. But it can never -- never, never, never -- bring peace. That can come only from God, and only when -- as the Big Book puts it -- we "abandon ourselves to God."