Daily Reflections
April 28
TWO “MAGNIFICENT STANDARDS”
All A.A. progress can be reckoned in terms of just two words: humility and responsibility. Our whole spiritual development can be accurately measured by our degree of adherence to these magnificent standards.
–AS BILL SEES IT, p. 271
Twenty-Four Hours A
Day
April 28
A.A. Thought for the Day
We’re so glad to be free from liquor that we do something about it. We get into action. We come to meetings regularly. We go out and try to help other alcoholics. We pass on the good news whenever we get a chance. In a spirit of thankfulness to God, we get into action. The A.A. program is simple. Submit yourself to God, find release from liquor, and get into action.Do these things and keep doing them and you’re all set for the rest of your life. Have I got into action?
Meditation for the Day
God’s eternal quest must be the tracking down of souls. You should join Him in His quest. Through briars, through waste places, through glades, up mountain heights, down into valleys. God leads you. But ever with His leadership goes your helping hand. Glorious to follow where the Leader goes. You are seeking lost sheep. You are bringing the good news into places where it has not been known before. You may not know which soul you will help, but you can leave all results to God. just go with Him in His eternal quest for souls.
Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may follow God in His eternal quest for souls. I pray that I may offer God my helping hand.
Walk in Dry Places
April 28
Expect Miracle-working Coincidences
Spiritual direction
Somebody said that a wonderful coincidence is when God acts but does not
choose to leave a signature. Wonderful coincidences are appearing every moment of the day. People who live the spiritual life are especially positioned to recognize and understand coincidences.
The founding of AA abounds with coincidences that boggle the mind. Almost by chance, the Oxford Group ideas found their way to Bill Wilson. A business trip took him to Akron where, coincidentally. An earnest group of Oxford Group people were trying to help Dr. Bob Smith to sobriety. With his business venture in collapse, Bill made the telephone call that put him in touch with Dr. Bob, eventually resulting in the launch of AA.
Such miraculous coincidences work for the fellowship, and they’re also at work in our individual lives. If we look closely, we’ll discover that many such coincidences helped bring about our recovery or some other blessing.
God is the guiding power behind these coincidences. What appears to be chance is really a marvelous intelligence coordinating random events for the good of all.
I’ll have confidence today that God is always bringing positive results out of a number of random events.
Keep It Simple
April 28
Unless I accept my faults I will most certainly doubt my virtues.
-Hugh Prather
Before recovery, we saw only a blurry picture of ourselves, like we were looking through an out-of-focus camera lens. We couldn’t see the good in ourselves because we wouldn’t look close enough.
Step Four helps us look more closely. We see a picture of ourselves, with our good points and our faults. We don’t like everything we see. But we can’t change until we accept ourselves as we are.
Then we can start getting ready to change.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me see the good in me and love myself.
Action for the Day: Today, I’ll make a list of four of my good points and four of my faults. Am I getting to have my Higher Power remove these defects of character?
When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.
–Alexander Graham Bell
Only God can make us whole.
–Barbara Haynes
“When you face your fear, most of the time you will discover that it was not really such a big threat after all.”
–Les Brown
“The country clubs, the cars the boats, your assets may be ample, but the best inheritance you can leave your kids is to be a good example.”
–Barry Spilchuk
“Next time someone tells you ‘never,’ remember that means ‘not for at least one hour.’”
–Jeffrey Gitomer
Father Leo’s Daily
Meditation
April 28
PREJUDICE
“It is never too late to give up your prejudices.”
–Henry David Thoreau
Prejudice divides people and feeds upon anger, resentment and fear. Today I can see that my prejudices stemmed from my seeing in others what I disliked in myself. I hated people who appeared “weak” because I knew that I was weak and vulnerable. I hated people who were “different” because I knew there were parts of me that were different from how I appeared. I hated the people who stood up for their principles and talked about their feelings because, as a drunk, I never really had any principles and I couldn’t get in touch with my feelings.
Today I try to talk about my prejudices and overcome them. A knowledge of those people I disliked has proven useful in slowly overcoming my prejudices.
Teach me to locate myself in my criticism of others.
Daily Inspiration
April 28
Give your day to God and let Him bring out the best in you in all situations. Lord, I will use Your power within me to make the best of this day.
You are a blessed, creative, lovable and needed being created by God. Lord, may these qualities shine forth and be used to bless those around me.
Elder’s Meditation
of the Day
April 28
“Indians living close to nature and nature’s ruler are not living in darkness.”
–Walking Buffalo, STONEY
There are many Indian people who are living according to nature and according to ceremony and culture. They may not have a lot of material things, but that doesn’t mean they are not successful. What is success anyway? Can success be measured by material things? What is it we are really chasing anyway? The Elders say that what everyone really wants is to be happy and have a peaceful mind. Material things by themselves do not bring happiness and peace of mind. Only spiritual things bring happiness. When we live a spiritual life we will not have darkness. Instead, we will be happy.
Great Spirit, today, let me walk the Red Road
Today’s Gift
April 28
I will not cut my conscience to fit this year’s fashions.
—Lillian Hellman
Every fall there seems to be something new and different to get for school – a special folder, a new style of pants, or maybe a different haircut. These things change from year to year.
Sometimes we get carried away with the current trends. We start putting too much importance on such things. We may be tempted to join our friends in teasing someone who doesn’t wear the “right” clothes, or avoid someone who doesn’t say the “right” things. This is when we need God’s help.
Perhaps we can become the leaders for the next trend – looking beyond appearances of others to the beauty inside them.
Will I see the true value in those around me today?
Touchstones
Meditations For Men
April 28
Indeed, this need of individuals to be right is so great that they are willing to sacrifice themselves, their relationships, and even love for it.
—Reuel Howe
We may have an inner drive to be right – and even to prove we are right. We often have been expected to know about the world and how things work, as if our manhood were tied to knowing. So when we don’t know the right answer, or when a person disagrees with us, we may get upset because we feel our masculine honor is in question.
We should always remember that our honor requires being honest, not being right. Our masculinity is being true to ourselves as men, not being invincible. Demanding that our opinions always be accepted as right is destructive to our relationships. It cuts us off from people we love, and becomes hostile and selfish. We are learning to allow room for differences; we can love and respect people we disagree with. And we all have a right to be wrong part of the time.
I don’t have to have all the right answers. Today, my ideas are just one man’s honest thoughts.
Daily TAO
April 28
GUIDANCE
Worship with your conscience,
Receive grace with humility.
Guide with awareness,
Lead with modesty.
The altar is a tool. If we kneel before it and say we have done wrong, we are really telling that to ourselves. If we give thanks for our good fortune, we are expressing our modest appreciation for good luck. There is no outside force listening to us. There is no divine retribution for our wickedness. The altar is merely symbolic. Those who follow Tao use it to focus their self-awareness.
When we step away from the altar, we should not lose self-awareness. We should not take the fact that worship is symbolic to behave in immoral ways. Instead, we still have to act with a conscience and lead others without manipulating them or taking advantage of them.
It takes maturity to grasp that there are no gods and yet still behave as if there were. It takes insight to know that you must be your own disciplinarian. Only the wisest can lay down their own “divine laws” and find guidance as if they were truly heaven’s word.
Daily Zen
April 28
If you gather your mind in samadhi
You will understand the process
By which phenomena rise and fall.
– Sutra of Bequeathed Teachings