Daily Reflections
April 19
BROTHERS IN OUR DEFECTS
We recovered alcoholics are not so much brothers in virtue as we are brothers in our defects, and in our common strivings to overcome them.
–AS BILL SEES IT, p. 167
The identification that one alcoholic has with another is mysterious, spiritual–almost incomprehensible. But it is there. I “feel” it. Today I feel that I can help people and that they can help me.
It is a new and exciting feeling for me to care for someone; to care what they are feeling, hoping for, praying for; to know their sadness, joy, horror, sorrow, grief; to want to share those feelings so that someone can have relief. I never knew how to do this–or how to try. I never even cared. The Fellowship of A.A., and God, are teaching me how to care about others.
Twenty-Four Hours A
Day
April 19
A.A. Thought for the Day
Since I’ve been putting sobriety into my life, I’ve been taking out a lot of good things. I can describe it best as a kind of quiet satisfaction. I feel good. I feel right with the world, on the right side of the fence. As long as I put sobriety into my life, almost everything I take out is good. The satisfaction you get out of living a sober life is made up of a lot of little things. You have the ambition to do things you didn’t feel like doing when you were drinking.Am I getting satisfaction out of living a sober life?
Meditation for the Day
It is a glorious way – the upward way. There are wonderful discoveries in the realm of the spirit. There are tender intimacies in the quiet times of communion with God. There is an amazing, almost incomprehensible understanding of the other person. On the upward way, you can have all the strength you need from that Higher Power. You cannot make too many demands on Him for strength. He gives you all the power you need, as long as you are moving along the upward way.
Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may see the beautiful horizons ahead on the upward way. I pray that I may keep going forward to the more abundant life.
Walk in Dry Places
April 19
Who pushes my
buttons?
Personal Relations
AA old-timers would be mystified today to hear program members talk about people “pushing their buttons.” (They can’t get your goat if they don’t know where it is tied) This expression wasn’t around when the early AA members pulled themselves out of the swamp and began their long journey to sobriety.
But they had their buttons pushed aplenty. Dr. Bob, treating alcoholics at St. Thomas Hospital; heard snide comments from other physicians who resented giving bed space to drunks. Bill W. struggling to launch a worldwide movement, took most every alcoholic, then and now, gets some heavy kidding from the world of drinkers.
What is the real problem in these instances? Are others pushing our buttons, or do we set ourselves up for this by being sensitive and vulnerable? Nobody could push our buttons if we didn’t have buttons to push.
We no longer have to worry about button-pushers if we accept them as they are, realizing that we don’t need their approval and can’t really be hurt by anything they do or say. Our serenity in the face of such problems may actually serve to attract people to AA.
Nobody can push my buttons unless I let them. Today I’ll be serene and clam no matter what others say and do. Thanks to the program, I’ll not worry about certain individuals who try to get under my skin.
Keep It Simple
April 19
We give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.
–Sacred ritual chant.
Good things keep happening to us. We are sober. We can think clearly. We can see progress on how we handle our problems. We have friends. We have love. We have hope.
We are starting to feel joy. Our fears are getting smaller. We are starting to trust our new way of life. Our new life brings good things to us. It brings blessings every day. We are beginning to expect them. But we’re still surprised at how good life can be. What a difference from the days before we entered our program!
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, thank-you for the blessings You keep on giving. And thanks for whatever today will bring.
Action for the Day: One way to give thanks for my blessings is to share them with others. How can I share my recovery today?
“Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.”
-John Wooden
“A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes.”
-Scottish Proverb
You’ll never plow a field by turning it over in your mind.
-Irish Proverb
Father Leo’s Daily
Meditation
April 19
FREEDOM
“Freedom is the right to choose: the right to create for yourself the alternatives of choice. Without the possibility of choice and the exercise of choice a man is not a man but a member, an instrument, a thing … ”
–Archibald MacLeish
Spirituality involves the freedom to change; it requires the variety of choice in order to grow.
My past addiction was a life of slavery because it removed from me creative choice and left me obsessing about drugs and alcohol. My life, conversation and thoughts revolved around the bottle, and I was oblivious to the true meaning of life. I could not “do better” in my life because I was addicted not only to drugs but to the destructive lifestyle that goes with them. My freedom to experience the spiritual power of God’s creativity was lost to a mindless craving for drugs; in this sense, drug addiction is slavery.
Today I am free to see God’s world in people, places and things and I make a choice to live, love and laugh.
I am growing in the awareness of Your multifaceted love for me.
Daily Inspiration
April 19
Peace is one of our greatest needs because it provides for the strength we need in times of turmoil. Lord, I turn to You because You are my source of peace.
Stand tall and smile often and it will be very difficult to be unhappy. Lord, may my disposition reflect the joy and peace that is Your Will.
Elder’s Meditation
of the Day
April 19
“We all come from the same root, but the leaves are all different.”
–John Fire Lame Deer, LAKOTA
We all come from one Great Spirit but we are all different and unique. Nothing in the Great Creation has a twin that is identical. Even children that are twins are different. Every single person is extremely special and unique. Each person has a purpose and reason why they are on the Earth. Just like every leaf on a tree is different, each one is needed to make the tree look like it does. No leaf is better or worse than the other—all leaves are of equal worth and belong on the tree. It is the same with human beings. We each belong here and do things that will affect the great whole.
Great Spirit, today, let me see myself as a valuable contributor to the whole.
Today’s Gift
April 19
Inch by inch, row by row Someone bless these seeds I sow … ‘Til the rain comes tumblin’ down.
—David Mallett
We plant a garden with faith, never knowing exactly what the harvest will bring. We attend to those aspects of gardening, which we have some control over, planting good seeds in rich soil, in straight rows, the right distance apart. We weed and fertilize, and we tie up our tomato plants.
We may pray for rain, but we never know if we’ll get too much or too little. We can’t control the wind or rabbits or bugs or the strongest strains of weeds. Yet most of us don’t let these things keep us from planting.
With this same sort of faith, we can tend to ourselves. Though we don’t know what each day will bring, we can plant the seeds in ourselves to meet most anything. We can rise each morning determined to give what we have. We can’t plant the seeds for others, and we can’t keep the storms from coming. The beauty is, we don’t have to.
What seeds of joy can I plant today?
Touchstones
Meditations for Men
April 19
Some of us, observing that ideals are rarely achieved, proceed to the error of considering them worthless. Such an error is greatly harmful. True North cannot be reached either, since it is an abstraction, but it is of enormous importance, as all the world’s travelers can attest.
—Steve Allen
How many of us, seeing others who failed to live fully by their ideals, cried, “Hypocrite!” Perhaps we even pointed to others’ shortcomings to excuse our own. Now, in this program, we may be tempted to swing like a pendulum to the other extreme. We may hold to our values and principles so tightly that we are perfectionistic.
The idea that True North cannot ever be reached is very useful. If we don’t achieve True North, even though we establish it as our standard, we will generally be heading in the right direction. Although we never perfectly achieve our ideals, they remain our standards today for orienting our lives.
I do accept standards for my life. I will not beat on myself for my imperfections.
Daily TAO
April 19
FUNDAMENTALS
After completion
Come new beginnings.
To gain strength,
Renew the root.
In music, the fundamental tone is the lowest, or root, tone of a chord. Without its presence, no true character is established. Our actions in life are as similarly varied and complex as music. Without a thorough grounding, there is no harmony.
Followers of Tao emphasize cycles. This must include a sound understanding of what to do whenever a cycle comes to an end. New ones will begin : Some of them will be engendered by the old one, others may simply be in the background and will now come forward. If we are to properly shape these new movements and if we are to prevent unwanted cycles from beginning, we must take stock and renew our basis in the fundamentals.
Everyone wants to be daring, creative, and original. Everyone wants to do things in new ways. But unless we return over and over again to the basics, we will have no chance to truly soar. Do not forget the root. Without it, we can never issue forth true power.
Daily Zen
April 19
The Wise Ones of Old
The wise ones of old had subtle wisdom
And depth of understanding,
So profound that they could not be understood.
Because they could not be understood,
I can only describe how they appeared in the world:
Cautious, like crossing a wintry stream,
Irresolute, like one fearing danger all around,
Ceremonious, as one who pays a visit;
Yielding, like ice beginning to melt,
Genuine, like a piece of uncarved wood,
Open-minded, like a valley,
And mixing freely, like murky water.
– Lao-Tze