Daily Reflections
June 27
CONFORMING TO THE A. A. WAY
We obey A. A. ’s Steps and Traditions because we really want them for ourselves. It is no longer a question of good or evil; we conform because we genuinely want to conform. Such is our process of growth in unity and function. Such is the evidence of God’s grace and love among us.
-A. A. COMES OF AGE, p. 106
Twenty-Four Hours A
Day
June 27
A. A. Thought for the Day
If you can take your troubles as they come, if you can maintain your calm and composure amid pressing duties and unending engagements, if you can rise above the distressing and disturbing circumstances in which you are set down, you have discovered a priceless secret of daily living. Even if you are forced to go through life weighed down by some unescapable misfortune or handicap and yet live each day as it comes with poise and peace of mind, you have succeeded where most people have failed. You have wrought a greater achievement than a person who rules a nation. Have I achieved poise and peace of mind?
Meditation for the Day
Take a blessing with you wherever you go. You have been blessed, so bless others. Such stores of blessings are awaiting you in the months and years that lie ahead. Pass on your blessings. Blessing can and does go around the world, passed on from one person to another. Shed a little blessing in the heart of one person. That person is cheered to pass it on, and so, God’s vitalizing, joy-giving message travels on. Be a transmitter of God’s blessings.
Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may pass on my blessings. I pray that they may flow into the lives of others.
Walk In Dry Places
June 27
Have I ever been
helped?
Unselfishness.
Sometimes we hear hard luck stories by people who claim they never “had a single helping hand.” Everybody was against them.
It’s true that certain people have had more than their share of abuse and abandonment. But it’s hard to believe that helping hands haven’t been extended … acts of kindness, often made by selfless but ordinary people.
Our problem has been in recognizing such helping hands. Lost in self-pity, we could hardly have recognized help when it was given. Nor were we capable of giving constructive assistance to others.
Furthermore, if people were against us, we may have provoked it. Our task is to change our thinking about the past and to be grateful for the people who were kind to us.
I realize that there are kind and decent people who have helped me. There are many such people in the world, and I want to be one of them.
Keep It Simple
June 27
Hell is not to love anymore.
—George Bernanos
Someone in an AA group said, “From the first day I started this program, I felt like I had died and gone to heaven.” This person had walked into a room full of love. In recovery, we are spiritual people because we believe in love. We have faith in love.
Love is respect. Love is truth with kindness. Love is being willing to forgive and help others.
Love is thinking about how our Higher Power wants us to act. Love is what we do best. We have turned our will and our life over to love.
Prayer for the Day: I pray that I may love all parts of life. Higher Power, help me seek out love, not material things.
Action for the Day: Today, I’ll think about what I love about recovery. I will share this with a couple of friends and my Higher Power.
Set others free to achieve and experience the path that leads to their highest good and you, too, will become free to find yours.
–Melody Beattie
Learn a lesson from the redwoods. Let them teach the power of patience and calm. Life goes on. Things happen. People change. Times move along. There are stories to live and stories to tell, but we can be calm and know that, always, all is well.
–Melody Beattie
“Forgiving is not forgetting, it’s letting go of the hurt.”
–Mary McLeod Bethune
“Life holds so much–so much to be so happy about always. Most people ask for happiness on condition. Happiness can be felt only if you don’t set conditions.”
–Artur Robinstein
Father Leo’s Daily
Meditation
June 27
HYPOCRISY
“The devil can cite scripture for his purpose.”
–William Shakespeare
This quotation reminds me that the disease of alcoholism is “cunning, baffling and powerful”. I am aware of the need to walk like I talk, to make the action fit the word, to live my program today rather than talk about it for tomorrow. Why? Because the disease can talk program! I have caught myself saying things that I do not practice in my life. I catch myself saying things to others that I do not live out in my own life. Today I am aware of my hypocrisy. Today I am aware of the disease in my life.
I need to be aware of this aspect of the disease because I am such a good talker, such a convincing talker, such a practiced manipulator! Today I know that I am not perfect, but that should never be an excuse to avoid dealing with my character defects. I must not “con” myself into staying sick!
I pray that I may strive to live the message.
Daily Inspiration
June 27
It is normal to make mistakes, but it is the better person who is able to grow from them. Lord, I am not perfect, but may each day bring me a little closer.
Not only must we know God’s will, but we must do God’s will to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Lord, I commit myself to obeying the will of my heavenly Father.
Elder’s Meditation
of the Day
June 27
“What could be greater than to be Wakan- Tanka’s mind, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, arms, hands, legs, and feet here on earth?”
–Fools Crow, LAKOTA
In order for the Creator to do His work on this earth, He needs the human being to do it. How He guides us is through our eyes, ears, hands, nose, mouth, arms legs and feet.
We are instruments of the Creator. We are His keepers of the earth. We are the keepers of our brothers. We are to teach His children. We are to respect the things He has made. We are to take care of ourselves and treat our bodies and our minds with respect.
We are to do respectful things. We are to walk the Sacred Path. We should have good thoughts. We should do only things that we think the Creator would have us do. What an honor to be a human being. What an honor that He would talk to us and guide us to perform His wonders.
Oh Great Spirit, let me appreciate the role you have given me. Let my sense be sharp to hear Your voice. Keep my mind clean so I can do the things You would have me do.
Today’s Gift
June 27
When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.
—Helen Keller
In the game of musical chairs, everyone walks around a circle of chairs. When the music stops, they scramble for the nearest open chair. If we were playing this game and found the nearest chairs taken, wouldn’t we quickly look around for the next open one? To remain immobilized, angry that the chair we wanted was taken, would undoubtedly lose our place in the game.
Sometimes in life, we set our sights on a particular chair. Perhaps there is an award we want to win, or we want to be the high scorer on our team. Perhaps there is a promotion or a job we would like to get. When we do not get what we want, it is easy to keep looking at what we didn’t get instead of seeing all we have.
It is important to be grateful for what we have – for the open doors and empty chairs waiting and inviting our attention. Loss and disappointment are a part of life – but the music will play again and our lives can move on.
What is available to me today?
Touchstones
Meditation For Men
June 27
The tremor of awe is the best in man.
—Goethe
We have a spiritual experience in knowing and being touched by something much larger than us, something beyond what we understand, something of mysterious dimensions. It can happen as we stand on the banks of an ageless river, listen to beautiful music, read scripture, or say a prayer with a friend. When we set aside defiance, willfulness, and our demands to subdue whatever we meet, we become receptive to a larger reality. The experience of awe brings out the best in a man because it instills a spirit of respect and gratitude. It inspires humility and expands our minds into realms we can’t express in words.
The sense of awe is a kind of reverence. After we learn where our personal awe is inspired, we can return to it again and again. As we feel it more, we become more open to it in the mundane parts of our daily lives. Today we might feel the spirit in the visit of a wild bird on a branch, the spontaneous “Hi” from a small child, or the stillness before prayer at the dinner table.
Today, I will look for moments of awe in my life.
Daily TAO
June 27
Childhood
No. No. No.
This ruins a child.
Children are one of the most precious aspects of life, and yet they often are mistreated and abused. If you are a parent, your most important task is to raise your child with as little trauma as possible. Firmness, consistency, and patience are essential. There will undoubtedly be times when you have to correct a child to prevent mistakes and bad habits. However, when it comes to a child’s curiosity, individuality, or initiative, there should never be any discouragement. In that sense, it is wrong to say no.
There is a legend about a thief who stole into heaven and took the peaches that gave immortality. He returned to earth and was about to eat them when he chanced upon two little boys. Taken with their intelligence, he asked them riddle after riddle about the deepest meanings of life and they answered with laughing ease. The thief decided to share his peaches with the boys, and they all became immortal.
If the boys had had their curiosity killed early in life, could they have answered well? If a thief could be kind to children, can’t the rest of us be too? And if the children never had an opportunity, could they have become immortals?
In God’s Care
June 27
Our contempt says we matter if we can look down on another person or life itself.
-Ellen Reiss
Putting someone down might have been the only way many of us could feel important. We went along telling ourselves how bad things were and how superior we were to everyone else – our family, teachers, friends, or people of different color or culture. We had a crick in our neck from looking down on others.
But our spiritual self knows that contempt is wrong and can see what a destructive attitude it is. We are all the same in the eyes of God, all loved equally. When we put others down, we bring ourselves down too. At the same time, we are short-circuiting the connection with our Higher Power.
Today I will try to raise, rather than lower, someone’s self-esteem.
Day By Day
June 27
Dropping biases
Addiction is not biased, nor should we be biased in the program. Whatever our beliefs before we found this solution, it helps if we avoid letting them interfere with our Step Twelve work. There are few enough places where people are accepted regardless of status, religion, nationality, or appearance.
Each of us needs everyone else in the fellowship. Whether laborer or judge, white or black, addict or alcoholic, if she or he can carry the message of recovery, he or she can save your life. Am I letting go of all bias?
Higher Power, help me let go of my biases so that I can better help save lives.
Today I will take an inventory of my biases and practice letting them go by…