Daily Reflections
February 15
TAKING ACTION
Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us–sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 84
One of the most important things A.A. has given me, in addition to freedom from booze, is the ability to take “right action.” It says the promises will ALWAYS materialize if I WORK for them. Fantasizing about them, debating them, preaching about them and faking them just won’t work. I’ll remain a miserable, rationalizing dry drunk. By taking action and working the Twelve Steps in all my affairs, I’ll have a life beyond my wildest dreams.
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
February 15
A.A. Thought For The Day
If alcoholism were just a physical allergy, like asthma or hay fever, it would be easy for us, by taking a skin test with alcohol, to find out whether or not we’re alcoholics. But alcoholism is not just a physical allergy. It’s also a mental allergy or obsession. After we’ve become alcoholics, we can still tolerate alcohol physically for quite a while, although we suffer a little more after each binge and each time it takes a little longer to get over our hangovers. Do I realize that since I have become an alcoholic, I cannot tolerate alcohol mentally at all?
Meditation For The Day
The world does not need super-men or women, but super-natural people. People who will persistently turn the self out of their lives and let Divine Power work through them. Let inspiration take the place of aspiration. Seek to grow spiritually, rather than to acquire fame and riches. Our chief ambition should be to be used by God. The Divine Force is sufficient for all the spiritual work in the world. God only needs the instruments for His use. His instruments can remake the world.
Prayer For The Day
I pray that I may be an instrument of the Divine Power. I pray that I may do my share in remaking the world.
Walk In Dry Places
February 15
AA is an Automatic Sprinkler System
Emotional Emergencies
Wise managers install automatic sprinkler systems to protect their businesses. The system’s great value is that it goers into action during the first few minutes of a fire, before it gets out of control. This gives the fire department precious time to arrive and put the fire out.
Our AA program gives us something like a sprinkler system. We never know when the flames of resentment might leap up, seemingly out of nowhere. If we’ve been working our program, something takes over automatically to begin dealing with resentment.
This gives us time to bring more of our valuable spiritual tools into use. Knowing that resentment is burning away, we can try one thing and then another until it is brought to rest. Perhaps we will try prayer. We might also discuss our problem with a close friend or sponsor. Maybe we’ll attend a meeting and lay the mater out for the group attention. We may help somebody, even in a small way. An amazing healing of resentment can come from any helpful action. Even a simple action like helping a person in a stalled automobile can work wonders in deflecting the pain of ongoing resentment.
I need not fear the sudden appearance of resentment if I have been following my program.
Keep It Simple
February 15
Easy Does It.
Twelve Steps slogan
We are people who push ourselves to hard. We try to be perfect. Well, we need to lighten up. Easy Does It.
We need to slow down our pace. Why? Because our program teaches us to give up trying to be perfect.
We begin to love ourselves for who we are. We are enough. Over and over we hear this as we live the Steps. It’s the message of God’s love. Our Higher Power want us to live at a pace that’s not fast and hard, so we always know we’re loved. Remember, we’ve turned our life over to the care of God. And our life is a wonderful gift. As recovering people, we may know better than others.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, teach me to live at Your pace, not mine. Help me keep in mind that life isn’t a race. It’s a spiritual journey. Walk with me.
Action for the Day: Today, I’ll take two hours just to relax and do loving things for myself. I’ll take time to count my blessings.
Better the foot slip than the tongue.
–French Proverb“The walls we build around us to keep out the sadness also keep out the joy.”
–Jim Rohn“You must look into people, as well as at them.”
–Lord ChesterfieldGod, help me recognize that I am a part of your creation and don’t need to fight it. Help me live in peace and celebration of life.
–Melody Beattie
Father Leo’s Daily Meditation
February 15
HUMILITY
“I am a man; nothing human is alien to me.”
— Terence
Humility is not so much about trying to be “good” as accepting that I am imperfect. For too long I thought that humility was “keeping the peace,” appearing to be “perfect,” bottling up my anger and resentments — living a life of “people-pleasing.”
Today I understand that humility is being real. It is accepting my humanity and being honest in my relationships. Humility is respecting the lives of others but also respecting my own. Humility is seeking to reveal that divinity that God has given to my life. Humility is knowing that in the lives of my fellow man — the good and the bad — is me.
Master, let me have the humility to be real.
Daily Inspiration
February 15
Hide your troubles and disappointments and you will find that they grow much smaller from neglect. Lord, help me to direct my focus so that I can make a difference today with a smile and a kind word.
Prayer may not always change a situation, but it will always change us. Lord, I accept Your answers to my prayers because I know that they will always be right and, in Your wisdom, best for me.
Elder’s Meditation of the Day
February 15
“One of the essential characteristics we need to learn as men was to be gentle, and to be gentle means to be serene, to enter meditation or a prayerful state in the morning and evening.”
–Larry P. Aitken, CHIPPEWA
The most important talk we can do during any day, is to start the day with prayer and meditation. We need to ask the Creator to be in our lives. We ask Him to direct our thinking. We ask Him for the courage and the power to be gentle. In the morning quiet time, we make our request for guidance using our spiritual tools. We pray for the people and we pray for ourselves. In the evening we thank the Creator for the day, for the lessons and for the opportunity to be of service to others. Then we go to sleep.
Great Spirit, today, show me the power of being gentle.
Journey to the Heart
February 15
Ask the Universe for Help
You have come so far. You have learned to ask for help from people when you need it. You have learned to ask God. God as you understand God, for help,too. Now you’re entering into a relationship with the universe, an active, vital, living relationship. Now you can learn to ask the universe for help as well.
Talk to the universe. Talk aloud if you can. Say: Show me, guide me, lead me, help me. This is what I want, this is what I need. Say: Show me which road to follow, where to go, and what to do. Yes, talk to people. Talk to God. They are part of the universe and world we live in. But talk aloud to the universe,too.
Then listen to your inner voice. hear what it says and trust what you hear. Answers come in many ways, from many sources, many places. But if the answer is right for you, your heart will know, and it will feel true.
Talk to the universe. Ask it for help. Then listen to your heart. Because that quiet voice, the one in your heart, is how the universe talks to you.
Today’s Gift
February 15
The human brain forgets ninety percent of what goes on.
–Jan Milner
There were two women who shared a house and raised their daughters, two toddlers, together. Then one of the women got transferred to another city and moved with her daughter.
Ten years later, they had a reunion. The mothers asked their kids what they remembered about living together. Did they remember all the books? No. Did they remember a mom in the kitchen every morning, fixing eggs and toast? No.
What they remembered was playing in the pink bathtub for hours, pulling the pink shower curtain shut for privacy. And the morning the mothers sneaked in, turned off the lights, threw plastic cups and spoons over the curtain and cried, “It’s raining spoons!” They laughed and laughed.
We are lucky in this life – our minds think laughter is what’s worth remembering.
What laughter from yesterday can I remember today?
Touchstones Meditations For Men
February 15
Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back into the same box.
—Italian proverb
Much of our time has been spent saying, “I’m not good enough for that job,” “She’s too good for me,” or “I don’t deserve that compliment.” Sometimes we have been very status conscious because underneath we felt unworthy. Many of us have taken either superior or inferior roles with everyone we’ve dealt with. We ended up with no one who could be our peer or our friend.
True humility occurs when we stop shaming or inflating ourselves and begin accepting ourselves as no worse and no better than anyone else. Then all people are our peers. At our meetings, our powerlessness puts us all in the same box. In the sight of God we are all equal – and status games, which have seemed so important are ultimately silly.
Today, I will remember we are all brothers and sisters in the sight of God.
Daily TAO
February 15
ORGANIZATION
Pattern and creativity
Are the two poles of action.
It is wise to plan each day. By setting goals for oneself and organizing activities to be accomplished, one can be sure that each day will be full and never wasted.
Followers of Tao use patterns when planning. They observe the ways of nature, perceive the invisible lines of destiny. They imagine a pattern for their entire lives, and in this way, they ensure overall success. Each day, they match interim patterns against their master goals, and so navigate life with sureness and grace. It is precisely this ability to discern and manipulate patterns unknown to the ordinary person that makes the follower of Tao so formidable.
When unpredictable things happen, those who follow Tao are also skilled at improvisation. If circumstances deny them, they change immediately. To avoid confusion, they still discern the patterns of the situation and create new ones, much like a chess player at the board. The spontaneous creation of new patterns is their ultimate art.
Daily Zen
February 15
Words cannot express things;
Speech does not convey the spirit.
Swayed by words, one is lost;
Blocked by phrases, one is bewildered.
– Mumon