Daily Reflections
June 3
ON A WING AND A PRAYER
… we then look at Step Six. We have emphasized willingness as being indispensable.
-ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 76
Steps Four and Five were difficult, but worthwhile. Now I was stuck on Step Six and, in despair, I picked up the Big Book and read this passage. I was outside, praying for willingness, when I raised my eyes and saw a huge bird rising in the sky. I watched it suddenly give itself up to the powerful air currents of the mountains. Swept along, swooping and soaring, the bird did things seemingly impossible for mortal birds to do. It was an inspiring example of a fellow creature “letting go” to a power greater than itself. I realized that if the bird “took back his will” and tried to fly with less trust, on its power alone, it would spoil its apparent free flight. That insight granted me the willingness to pray the Seventh Step prayer.
It’s not easy to know God’s will in each circumstance. I must search out and be ready for the currents, and that’s where prayer and meditation help! Because I am, of myself, nothing, I ask God to grant me the knowledge of His will and the power and courage to carry it out – today.
Twenty-Four Hours A
Day
June 3
A. A. Thought for the Day
Some more things I do not miss since becoming dry: running all over town to find a bar open to get that “pick-me-up”; meeting my friends and trying to cover up that I feel awful; looking at myself in a mirror and calling myself a dam* fool; struggling with myself to snap out of it for two or three days; wondering what it is all about. I’m positive I don’t miss these things, am I not?
Meditation for the Day
Love is the power that transforms your life. Try to love your family and your friends and then try to love everybody that you possibly can, even the “sinners and publicans” everybody. Love for God is an even greater thing. it is the result of gratitude to God and it is the acknowledgment of the blessing that God has sent you. Love for God acknowledges His gifts and leaves the way open for God to shower yet more blessings on your thankful heart. Say “Thank you, God,” until it becomes a habit.
Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may try to love God and all people. I pray that I may continually thank God for all His blessings.
Walk in Dry Places
June 3
Self-help or Mutual
Aid?
Assisting others.
The Twelve step movement is sometimes called a self-help program. This falls short of describing what it really is. Mutual Aid might be a better term.
Self-help implies that an individual will help himself or herself. Mutual aid is a much different sort of thing. With mutual aid, we do help ourselves, but we hve found that the best way to do this is by helping each other. Self-help says, “I can do it,” where as mutual aid says… “WE can do it.”
We should not dismiss the idea of self-help or of doing one’s best in achieving self-improvement. We must know, however, that we need the assistance and loving help of others for our highest growth. There are times when we will feel helpless and alone. That’s when mutal aid will carry the day for us and perhaps even save our lives.
I’ll realize today that I have a bond with others and that I can achieve my highest good only in mutual service with them.
Keep It Simple
June 3
When I have listened to my mistakes, I have grown.
-Hugh Prather
Everyone makes mistakes. We all know that. So why is it so hard to admit out own? We seem to think we have to be prefect. We have a hard time looking at our mistakes. But our mistakes can be very good teachers. Our Twelve Step program helps us learn and grow from our mistakes. In Step Four, half of our work is to think of our mistakes. In step Five, we admit our mistakes to God, ourselves, and another person. We learn, we grow and become whole. All by coming to know our mistakes The gift of recovery is not being free from mistakes. Instead, we do the Steps to claim our mistakes and talk about them. We find the gift of recovery when we learn from our mistakes.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me to see my mistakes as changes to get to know myself better.
Action for the Day: Today I’ll talk to a friend about what my mistakes taught me. Today I’ll feel less shame.
What we give to others, we give to ourselves. What we withhold from others, we withhold from ourselves. In any moment, when we choose fear instead of love, we deny ourselves the experience of Paradise.
–Marianne Williamson
When we’re facing challenges, the ego is very seductive in trying to get us to think thoughts about “look what’s happening to me.” It is our spiritual work to keep returning again and again to God and asking, “Is my heart clear? Can I see this with love? I want to go through this with God’s presence.” And over time, Spirit can make any mess into a miracle.
–Mary Manin Morrissey
Many of us grew up in dysfunctional families, because modern society is a dysfunctional place. But the spiritual journey, the path of recovery and personal growth, is a detoxification process in which we bring up and out the negative beliefs we have carried with us from the past and that now poison the present.
–Marianne Williamson
“Don’t just do something, sit there! Sit there long enough each morning to decide what is really important during the day ahead.”
–Richard Eyre
You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips.
–Oliver Goldsmith
Father Leo’s Daily
Meditation
June 3
DREAMS
“I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.”
–Thomas Jefferson
I am an optimist. I believe that things are getting better day by day. Today I believe that what happened yesterday need not happen today or tomorrow. Dreams can come true. I know this to be true. Today I have dreams. Today I have a hope for my life and on a daily basis it is coming true. My life is becoming more meaningful. Today my dreams have coincided with God’s dream for me.
Now I love myself enough to speak out for me – and it feels good. Now my decision to embrace the spiritual life is not dependent upon others. Today I can dream to be me.
Help me to dream with my feet firmly on the ground.
Elder’s Meditation
of the Day
June 3
“IN THE BEGINNING were the Instructions… The Instruction was to live in a good way and be respectful to everybody and everything.”
–Vickie Downey, TEWA / Tesuque Pueblo
A long time ago, in the beginning, the Creator gave to all people and to all things the Wisdom and the knowledge of how to live in harmony. Some tribes call these teachings the original Instructions, the original teachings, or the Great Laws. All of Nature still lives and survives according to these teachings. In modern times, human beings are searching for the Instructions. Many churches claim they have these Instructions. Where are these teachings? The Instructions are written in our hearts.
Great Spirit, today, whisper to me the secrets of the original Instructions.
Today’s Gift
June 3
Men will find that they can prepare with mutual aid far more easily what they need and avoid far more easily the perils which beset them on all sides, by united forces.
—Baruch Spinoza
Three travelers stopped in a small town on their way to the city. They had tents to sleep in, but no food or money. They knocked on doors asking for a little food, but the people were poor, with little to eat and nothing to spare.
Cheerfully, they returned to their camp and built a fire.” What are you doing?” asked a bystander, “Building a fire with nothing to cook?”
“But we do have something to cook!” they said.” Our favorite dish, stone soup. We only need a pot.”
“I think I can find one,” said one of the bystanders, and she ran home to fetch it.
When she returned, the travelers filled the pot with water and placed two large stones in it.” This will be the finest soup we’ve ever made!” said the first traveler.” I agree,” said the second, “but don’t you think it would taste better with a cabbage in it?”
“I think I can find one,” said another bystander. And so it went the whole afternoon until, by evening, the travelers had a hearty, fragrant feast, which they shared with the hungry townspeople.
What can I do with help today, that I couldn’t do alone?
Touchstones
Meditations For Men
June 3
Almost anything you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.
—Mohandas Gandhi
Looking back at yesterday, looking at today, what sense do we have of progress in our growth? Probably nothing very significant. Sometimes it is amazing how little a person can accomplish in a day’s efforts. Yet, what alternative do we have? Only that we could do nothing. Or worse, we could return to our old ways.
Gandhi, one of the greatest spiritual leaders of the twentieth century, said he felt that almost anything one can do will be insignificant. Yet to do something is very important. Each day, each chance is small but takes us in a direction. When we look back over the last month or last year, we may see that only remaining faithful to our program, one day at a time, has carried us a very long way. The kind of person we each become is just as important as what we accomplish in the world around us.
May I learn to have patience with the insignificant moments in the present. They are very important indeed.
Daily TAO
June 3
SHEATHS
Outside is form,
Inside is thought.
Deepest is the soul.
Traditional sages describe a human being as having three sheaths. The outer one is the physical body and incorporates primitive drives and instincts. The inner one is the mind and includes discrimination, reasoning, and sense of individuality.
Both the body and the mind are enslaved to the outer world because they gain their knowledge from sensory input. They cannot know anything “intangible,” anything without a form or a name.
At the core of every person is the soul. This is a pure, virgin self. It does not think in the ordinary sense of the word, has no egotism, and is not concerned with maintaining itself in the world. Although the body has a shape and the mind is multi-faceted, the soul is completely without form or features. No markings, profiles, names, formulas, numbers, ideas, or conceptions can be projected upon it. It is pure, shapeless, and empty.