Daily Reflections
April 26
HAPPINESS IS NOT THE POINT
I don’t think happiness or unhappiness is the point. How do we meet the problems we face? How do we best learn from them and transmit what we have learned to others, if they would receive the knowledge?
-AS BILL SEES IT, p. 306
Twenty-Four Hours A
Day
April 26
A.A. Thought for the Day
The A.A. program is one of submission, release, and action. When we’re drinking, we’re submitting to a power greater than ourselves, liquor. Our own wills are no use against the power of liquor. One drink and we’re sunk. In A.A. we stop submitting to the power of liquor. Instead, we submit to a Power, also greater than ourselves, which we call God. Have I submitted myself to that Higher Power?
Meditation for the Day
Ceaseless activity is not God’s plan for your life. Times of withdrawal for renewed strength are always necessary. Wait for the faintest tremor of fear and stop all work, everything, and rest before God until you are strong again. Deal in the same way with all tired feelings. Then you need rest of body and renewal of spirit force. Saint Paul said: “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” This does not mean that you are to do all things and then rely on God to find strength. it means that you are to do the things you believe God wants you to do and only then can you rely on His supply of power.
Prayer for the Day
I pray that God’s spirit may be my master always. I pray that I may learn how to rest and listen, as well as how to work.
Walk in Dry Places
April 26
Never withholding
ourselves.
Living Sober.
We may have let ourselves believe that we’re supposed to display an attitude that expresses our opinions of others. If a person is crude and boorish, we should be cool and defensive for our self-protection. If a person is warm and friendly, we should respond in warm and friendly ways.
If we have believed these things, then we’re actually letting others control our attitudes and behavior. We are letting personalities interfere with the high principles we are learning in AA. We are not living at the best possible level.
In reality, we should always display an attitude that reflects kindness, optimism, friendliness, and concern. There other person’s disposition, whether it’s sour or sweet, should have nothing to do with our being what we want to be. We should never withhold the fine inner qualities that develop and grow as we continue to live the program.
In time, we begin to learn that this attitude always comes back to us in the form of greater peace and happiness. And what’s great about iti s that it’s always under our direct control.
As I go about my business today, I will express a kindliness and concern toward everybody. Nobody’s behavior can make me adopt a suspicious or defensive attitude.
Keep It Simple
April 26
Too many people miss the silver lining because they’re expecting gold.
-Maurice Setter
Silver shines as bright as gold does. So often we forget this. So often we push, push, push. We forget to live for the moment. Trying too hard can be a defect of character. It can be a way we avoid life. Gratitude, being thankful, is key part of recovery. Not just gratitude for getting our self-respect back. Not just gratitude for having a Higher Power. But gratitude for the moment. We’re alive again. Let’s see each moment as a time to explore life.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, thanks for helping me to enjoy each moment. I have gratitude for being alive.
Action for the Day: I’ll list ten gifts of recovery for which I have gratitude.
Children are our most valuable natural resource.
–Herbert Hoover
“Forgiving those who hurt us is the key to personal peace.”
–G. Weatherly
“Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.”
–Carl Bard
Spending time with God changes the rhythm of our life.
–Cheryle L. Cooper
Father Leo’s Daily
Meditation
April 26
ANSWERS
“If the work of God could be comprehended by reason, it would be no longer wonderful, and faith would have no merit if reason provided proof.”
–Pope Gregory I
Some things happen that I do not understand or comprehend, but I have faith that they will happen tomorrow: sunsets, night following day, the song of the bird, the colors of nature, and the joy and adventure of being alive. Perhaps the biggest mystery for mankind to grapple with is love – a man will suffer, endure persecution, even be put to death for that which he loves; the pain and sorrow of love is mingled into what it is to be a human being.
Reason does not have the answer to life. Faith is the medication for our existence. We have a belief in tomorrow because of what we have experienced today. If I can say “no” to alcohol today then I can do it tomorrow – if I really want to.
Lord, let me not seek for proof but daily seek to grapple with the problems of life.
Daily Inspiration
April 26
There are truly no bad days, just different kinds of days. Lord, thank You for today and for Your help through every situation.
Use your difficult times to learn more about God’s love and blessings. Lord, may I see Your hand working in every moment of my life and realize that, even in my darkest hour, things are far better than they could be because You are blessing me with what I need to make it through.
Elder’s Meditation
of the Day
April 26
“If those bad words come, I let them come in one ear and go out the other. I never let them come out of my mouth. If a bad word comes in your ear and then comes out of your mouth, it will go someplace and hurt somebody. If I did that, that hurt would come back twice as hard on me.”
–Wallace Black Elk, LAKOTA
What do we do with temptations when they come? What do we do when we hear gossip? What do we do when we hear bad things? If we hear these things and pass them on we will not only hurt the other person, but we will do harm to ourselves. We must be careful not to hurt others. Whatever we sow we will simultaneously reap for ourselves. We must be accountable for our own actions.
Great Spirit, today, let no words come from my lips that would hurt another.
Today’s Gift
April 26
“The horror of that moment,” the King went on, “I shall never forget.” “You will, though,” the Queen said, “if you don’t make a memorandum of it.”
—Lewis Carroll
Crises come in many forms. When we are in the middle of any kind of crisis, we may feel like we have fallen into a deep hole. We may see no way out and begin to feel hopeless and overwhelmed by the size and darkness of the hole.
Yet we are not alone. An animal caught in a hole would cry out until someone came along and helped it out. We, too, can call out for help – to our Higher Power and to the important people in our lives. We can learn to trust that, with the help of our friends and our Higher Power, we will be able to crawl out of our holes.
With trust, we will climb out of our crises and be healed with the passage of time. Such holes are a part of our landscape, yet every time we will be able to climb out and walk, leaving the darkness behind us.
What help can I ask for today?
Touchstones
Meditations for Men
April 26
I drink not from mere joy in wine nor to scoff at faith – no, only to forget myself for a moment, that only do I want of intoxication, that alone.
—Omar Khayyam
What has been our drug of choice? It may be alcohol. It may be sugar or gambling or dependent relationships. Some men have used anger, sex, sports, or the accumulation of money. Growing in this program, we learn there is a great brotherhood among us. Our problems have not been only with a certain substance or a given behavior. We have been seduced and trapped by a ritual of forgetting ourselves. If we hadn’t found one way, we may have found another. In giving one up, we often found ourselves drawn to a new substitute.
Now we are learning to accept ourselves and to forget ourselves in healthier ways. We all need to move beyond the bounds of an oppressive ego. In our old style, we could not learn healthy releases because we were hooked on unhealthy ones. Now we are learning meditation, making friends, helping others, and letting go as ways to forget ourselves.
I pray for help today in staying away from self-destructive intoxications, so I am able to learn healthy releases.
Daily TAO
April 26
FULFILLMENT
Accomplish your visions.
Persevere in your ambitions.
Only then can you negate
Visions and ambitions.
Some say that one should not have ambitions; they equate these with greed and lust. However, some ambitions are the result of curiosity and inner desire. They are individual interests, like wanting to know about a certain subject or wanting to achieve goals. As long as they do no harm to others, they should be exercised rather than suppressed.
Many young people are held back by their peers and their elders. Sometimes there are valid reasons, but usually the motivations of the others are colored by fear, ignorance, jealousy, or inadequacy. No one should hold you back from achieving your life’s goals.
Whatever you want to do, do it to the fullest. There are just a few provisions. First, you must realize that nothing is forever. You may achieve your goals only to find out that they are no longer important to you. This is all right. That means you have come to the end of your interest and are now free to go on to something else. Secondly, your ambitions should not determine your life. You are a human being first, and your goals are merely adjuncts to your basic quest as a person. Finally, you should realize that the fulfillment of your goals should include the eradication of all fears. Once you have accomplished these things, you will truly have nothing standing between you and spiritual realization.
Daily Zen
April 26
Blossoms of apricot will perish,
Sound of the rain grow quiet.
Moss in the footsteps on the path,
Its green reflected on my gown.
Wind’s fierce,
Can’t keep the little window shut…
Fallen flowers, pages of poems
Together fly away.
– Yuan Mei (1716-1798)