Daily Reflections
May 25
PROGRESSIVE GRATITUDE
Gratitude should go forward, rather than backward.
-AS BILL SEES IT, p. 29
I am very grateful that my Higher Power has given me a second chance to live a worthwhile life. Through Alcoholics Anonymous, I have been restored to sanity. The promises are being fulfilled in my life. I am grateful to be free from the slavery of alcohol. I am grateful for peace of mind and the opportunity to grow, but my gratitude should go forward rather than backward. I cannot stay sober on yesterday’s meetings or past Twelfth-Step calls; I need to put my gratitude into action today. Our co-founder said our gratitude can best be shown by carrying the message to others. Without action, my gratitude is just a pleasant emotion. I need to put it into action by working Step Twelve, by carrying the message and practicing the principles in all my affairs. I am grateful for the chance to carry the message today!
Twenty-Four Hours A
Day
May 25
A. A. Thought for the Day
In twelfth-step work, the third thing is conviction. Prospects must be convinced that they honestly want to stop drinking. They must see and admit that their life is unmanageable. They must face the fact that they must do something about their drinking. They must be absolutely honest with themselves and face themselves as they really are. They must be convinced that they must give up drinking and they must see that their whole life depends on this conviction. Do I care enough about other alcoholics to help them reach this conviction?
Meditation for the Day
There is no limit to what you can accomplish in helping others. Keep that thought always. Never relinquish any work or give up the thought of any accomplishment because it seems beyond your power. God will help you in all good work. Only give it up if you feel that it’s not God’s will for you. In helping others, think of the tiny seed under the dark, hard ground. There is no certainty that, when it has forced its way up to the surface, sunlight and warmth will greet it. Often a task seems beyond your power, but there is no limit to what you can accomplish with God’s help.
Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may never become discouraged in helping others. I pray that I may always rely on the power of God to help me.
Walk in Dry Places
May 25
Forgetting past
failures
Living today.
“You never do anything right!” Some of us carry this accusation deep in our minds, perhaps from childhood. We remember past mistakes and failures, sometimes dredging them up again when new failures occur.
When we do this, we unduly burden ourselves with a past that should be released and forgotten. The result of past mistakes was a feeling of inadequacy and helplessness that prolonged our sickness. IN those troubled days, we were trying to solve our problems in ways that actually made the problems worse. On that path, there was no hope of a real solution.
Today our failure and mistakes are but signs that we are will human and still fall short of perfection. But now we can use failure to good advantage and even learn from it. Our best progress will come when we separate ourselves from the mistakes and failures of the past.
Today I will not believe that “I never did anything right!” I will go through the day knowing that I am capable and effective, and have the help of my higher power in everything I do.
Keep It Simple
May 25
In all the world, there is no one else exactly like me.
-Virginia Satir
Let’s keep this in mind: each of us is special in our own way. Often, we’re hard on ourselves because we’re different.
Our Twelve Step groups pull our differences together. We listen and learn from our differences.
We learn to see that each one of us is different—and this is important. Our program and the Steps stay alive for us, because each new person brings a different way of seeing things. Let’s celebrate our differences instead of trying to be alike.
Prayer for the Day: Today, is a day to celebrate that, in all of the world, there is only one me. Thank-you, Higher Power, and help me see clearly how special I am.
Action for the Day: I’ll make a list of what makes me special. I’ll share this with a friend or my sponsor and my Higher Power.
He who learns, teaches.
–African Proverb
“You must get good at one of two things: sowing in the spring or begging in the fall.”
–Jim Rohn
“Don’t ever slam a door; you might want to go back.”
–Don Herold
“We are each gifted in a unique and important way. It is our privilege and adventure to discover our own special light.
–Mary Dunbar
” For every minute you are angry you lose 60 seconds of happiness”
–Ralph Waldo Emerson
Father Leo’s Daily
Meditation
May 25
VARIETY
“The growth of the human mind is still high adventure, in many ways the highest adventure on earth.”
–Norman Cousins
Today my life is an adventure. I am prepared for the unusual; I expect the confusion of life; I revel in God’s reflected difference within creation: variety and the acceptance of variety is part of my joy in living.
God is to be found in the “odd” things in life: The dance, relationships, Charlie Chaplin, jogging, the pet dog and the sincere hug. The adventure we find in life reflects our adventure in God.
Spirituality is seeing beyond the ordinary into the extraordinary: “The Kingdom of God is within”.
May I always seek to find You in the smallest and strangest places.
Daily Inspiration
May 25
The best way to guide your own behavior is to make a commitment to always be a good example. Lord, may I be a reflection of Your love.
Should you find your energy lapsing, a sure remedy is to give someone a helping hand or a word of support and make their day. Lord, You are patient with me and loving. May I be the same with the people in my life.
Elder’s Meditation
of the Day
May 25
“If you listen close at night, you will hear the creatures of the dark, all of them sacred – the owls, the crickets, the frogs, the night birds – and you will hear beautiful songs, songs you have never heard before. Listen with your heart. Never stop listening.”
–Henery Quick Bear, LAKOTA
The night time is full of life, full of song, and full of beauty. Have you ever gone outside at night and listened? One has access to serenity and peace. At night all our senses change their roles. Because we can’t see, our hearing is much stronger, our smell is even more enhanced, our sight is different. We are able to join nature through sounds and smells, through the songs of the night birds, and through the night winds. We can close our eyes and experience interconnectedness in a different way. Try it tonight and experience oneness with the Creator.
Great Spirit, allow me to listen to the teachers of the night.
Today’s Gift
May 25
Do we really know anybody? Who does not wear one face to hide another?
—Francis Marion
A woman in her fifties watched her mother in her eighties struggle against the wrinkles in her face and neck, trying to hide them, pretend they weren’t there. She wanted her mother to accept that she was getting older but found her unwilling to listen.
Haven’t we all run into this situation? We can learn so much just by remembering that what is right for one person may not be right for another, and others are entitled to decide how they want to behave. Often, we are just worried about ourselves, concerned, for instance, with our own ability to age gracefully. We don’t need someone else to do it for us. We can take care of ourselves.
What do I worry about in another that I can take care of in myself?
Touchstones
Meditation For Men
May 25
For him who confesses, shams are over and realities have begun; he has exteriorized his rottenness. If he has not actually got rid of it, he at least no longer smears it over with a hypocritical show of virtue.
—William James
On the path we are following, confession is a frequent part of our experience. We admit our powerlessness; we make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves and admit our wrongs; we make amends to people we have harmed; and we continue with personal inventory, promptly admitting our wrongs. With each of these Steps we grow spiritually. By expressing on the outside what we privately know inside, we feel relief and gain self-respect.
Sometimes we have harbored and protected a real rottenness inside that needed to be exposed so we could change. Other times, what we felt was rottenness turned out – under the light of confession – to be only a human foible in need of airing. In either case, we grew stronger as we drew closer to reality and gave up the show of virtue by admitting our mistakes.
I will walk the path of recovery today by confessing my wrongs promptly.
Daily TAO
May 25
VIEWS
Red sea through pine lattice.
Islands kneel like vassals before headlands.
Rain clouds snag on coastal ridges.
Yarrow stands spectral in the lighthouse beam.
It is difficult to take in the details of a landscape all at once. Our eyes can only focus on one point at a time. We look near, then we look far. We look left, then we look right. Our view of any one subject, if it is large, is never whole but is a composite image in our minds. The same is true in regard to our approach to Tao.
Tao is continuous, flowing, and changing, but there is no knowing it in a single view. We rely on composite images that we form in ourselves. For a beginner, glimpses of Tao will be random and fleeting. You will stumble on it from time to time, or you will see it in the brief spaces between events. For the mature practitioner, your composite view comes from training, technique, research, and the experience of self-cultivation. But even after years, it is impossible to take in the totality.