The philosopher R.M. Hare used the made-up word blik to describe the adoption of an article of faith as definitive. For example, he said, suppose a college student has a blik about his teachers: He believes they're out to kill him. To help him overcome his blik, we accompany him around campus, we take him to tea with a teacher, we stand off at a distance to "guard" him so that he's in no danger. But nothing we do makes any difference. He insists that the teachers haven't killed him because we're there; if we go away, they'll certainly attack him and murder him. Nothing we can do or say makes any difference; the student still has the blik.

For many of us with religious faith, our belief amounts to a blik. We may originally have arrived at our position of faith because of things that happened to us, because someone influenced our thinking, because of a book we read. But long ago our faith became a blik. Originally we believed it because we thought it was true. Now we think it's true because we believe it.

When someone thinks something is true because she believes it, she's telling us something about herself -- that she's unteachable in this particular area. He'll only listen to information which confirms what he believes. She'll turn away from information which may call the belief into question or cause it to be changed in some way.

When we have bliks, the meditative part of Step 11 can present a challenge that most of us prefer to turn away from. For Step 11 meditation is about experiencing God -- not reading about God, thinking about God, talking to God, but experiencing God. And when we experience God in meditation, what we may experience may very well not fit with our bliks about God. And then what are we going to do?

That's why meditation can be so reminiscent of when we first developed faith, either in Program or in some religious context. Those early days may have been exhilarating, but they were also frightening because we did not and could not know where we would be taken. That exhilaration and uncertainty are also a part of Step 11 -- and, if we meditate consistently, we will learn to live with them as part of the normal process of improving our conscious contact with God ... whoever, whatever, wherever God might be.