Daily Reflections
December 2
SERENITY
“Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps …”
-TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 106
As I continued to go to meetings and work the Steps, something began to happen to me. I felt confused because I wasn’t sure what it was that I was feeling, and then I realized I was experiencing serenity. It was a good feeling, but where had it come from? Then I realized it had come ” … as the result of these steps.” The program may not always be easy to practice, but I had to acknowledge that my serenity had come to me after working the Steps. As I work the Steps in everything I do, practicing these principles in all my affairs, now I find that I am awake to God, to others, and to myself. The spiritual awakening I have enjoyed as the result of working the Steps is the awareness that I am no longer alone.
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
December 2
A.A. Thought For The Day
The thoughts that come before having a slip seem to be partly subconscious. And yet it is likely that at least part of these thoughts get into our consciousness. An idle thought connected with drinking casually pops into our mind. That is the crucial moment. Will I harbor that thought even for one minute or will I banish it from my mind at once? If I let it stay, it may develop into a daydream. I may begin to see a cool glass of beer or a Manhattan cocktail in my mind’s eye. If I allow the daydream to stay in my mind, it may lead to a decision, however unconscious, to take a drink. Then I am headed for a slip. Do I let myself daydream?
Meditation For The Day
Many of us have a sort of vision of the kind of person God wants us to be. We must be true to that vision, whatever it is, and we must try to live up to it, by living the way we believe we should live. We can all believe that God has a vision of what He wants us to be like. In all people there is a good person whom God sees in us, the person we could be and that God would like us to be. But many a person fails to fulfill that promise and God’s disappointments must be many.
Prayer For The Day
I pray that I may strive to be the kind of a person that God would have me be. I pray that I may try to fulfill God’s vision of what I could be.
Walk In Dry Places
December 2
Bringing Projects to Completion.
Fortitude
Starting projects without completing them can be part of our alcoholic nature. It’s related to immaturity and a tendency to become bored and discouraged quickly.
The 12 Step program can help us overcome this problem. First, we realize and admit to such tendencies, fearlessly facing what has really been a very bad habit. Then we become honest about our motives. We realize that we didn’t actually have the abiding interest that would have helped us complete some projects. In such cases, the projects never should have been started… and in the future we’ll take are not to embark on similar projects.
When something does need to be completed, the program will help us stay with it until it’s done. We will always find that the satisfaction of completing a necessary project will be part of sober living. We’ll also know that we’re growing in the program.
I’ll take the necessary steps today to move any project toward completion. This will also help with future projects.
Keep It Simple
December 2
… we tried to carry this message to alcoholics.
-Second part of Step 12
In this part of Step 12, we carry the message of hope. But it’s not up to us if anyone accepts the message or not. This keeps us from playing God. We just gently deliver the message. We don’t force the program down people’s throats. In general, Step Twelve tells us, “Be helpful to those we can help.” When a neighbor is sick, mow her lawn. When a friend is in the hospital, visit him. Step Twelve reminds us that we make a difference. We have hope to give the world. And hope is what we stand for to the addict who still suffers. Hope is what we stand for to the addict’s family. How beautiful to stand for hope! Remember when our lives stood for despair?? What a change!
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me shine brightly as a symbol of Your hope.
Action for the Day: Today, I’ll help someone in need. It may be an alcoholic or other drug addict, or just someone in need. I’ll help make the world a better place.
Destroying pride — man becomes endearing;
Destroying anger — man gets rid of sorrow;
Destroying desire — man acquires peace;
Destroying greed — man achieves happiness.
-Satya Sai Baba
Father Leo’s Daily Meditation
December 2
PROBLEMS
“The certainties of one age are the problems of the next.”
-R. H. Tawney
Life is a process of change that inevitably produces problems; the fear of the new, the discomfort of old values being seen to be wrong, the confusion that so often accompanies growth. Problems are part of life and we can only escape them in death. (Even then nobody can be sure we will be free of problems!)
As an alcoholic I tried to run away from my problems by drinking. But the next day the old problems were still there and my drinking had usually brought new problems. Alcohol only produced a momentary escape but reality always returned.
Today, with the acceptance of my alcoholism and my decision not to “pick up the first drink”, I face my problems. I deal with my problems. I live with the problems of life.
Teach me to accept joyously the problems that life and growth inevitably bring.
Daily Inspiration
December 2
Life will be so much easier if you can accept that things don’t always go as planned and see that these are often magnificent opportunities. Lord, help me learn from the occurrences of today that seem to go awry and show me how to make the situation better through my own flexibility and creativity.
Enthusiasm keeps the mind young and the spirit growing. Lord, may I always see wonder in the ordinary happenings of my day.
Elder’s Meditation of the Day
December 2“The smarter a man is the more he needs God to protect him from thinking he knows everything.”
-George Webb, PIMA
A spiritual person needs to be careful. The more confident we are, the more likely our egos will get us into trouble. It’s relatively easy to become self-righteous. We start to think we are teachers and others are students. We start to judge others. We start, very subtlety at first, to play God. After a while we really get good at it. This is very dangerous. We need to remind ourselves, we are here to do God’s will. We need to pray every morning. Each day we need to check in with God to see what He would have us do. At night we need to spend time with God and review our day. By doing these things, we will stay on track.
My Creator, guide my path and show me how to correct my life.
Today’s Gift
December 2
When one is a stranger to oneself, then one is estranged from others, too.
—Anne Morrow Lindbergh
There’s a person inside each of us just itching to be known and loved. But if we don’t get to know and love that person, how can we expect anyone else to know us?
That’s why it’s so important to spend time alone getting acquainted with ourselves. And how do we do that? We can sit quietly with ourselves, thinking and listening. Then we can write our thoughts in a journal, or we can draw or paint them. If we play a musical instrument, we can put our thoughts and feelings into music.
When we make the time and effort to know ourselves, it encourages others to want to know us, too. Since everything we do and feel begins inside us, we must feel good about ourselves in order to feel good about anything else. What wonders we are, that we have all the power we need to make our world a happy one!
How do I feel about myself today?
Touchstones Meditations For Men
December 2
The management assumes no responsibility for what is found.
—Abraham Maslow
There are so many occasions when we would like to blame somebody – wife, child, parent, or “the management,” for our feelings. When we get frustrated, overworked, or angry, we want somebody else to take responsibility. In truth, each of us has his own path and is responsible for his feelings. One man said that living alone made it clear to him that his wife wasn’t creating his feelings. Until then he thought she was responsible.
This blaming and not taking responsibility keep a man in the role of victim. When we accept the difficult message that our feelings are ours to deal with and no one else’s, self-improvement begins. We begin to walk the difficult but self respecting path of spiritual awakening. We can do something about whatever hurts. Even in that awakening there are no guarantees that who we are will be totally what we want to find. Our only guarantee is that our Higher Power is with us to deal with the realities of our lives.
Today, help me be responsible for what I feel and do.
Daily TAO
December 2
WISDOM
A white-haired couple sits on the park bench,
Reading the paper, discussing the day’s news.
He repeats a poem, learned in his youth;
She finishes the stanza as he nods in pleasure.
At twilight, the air seems clearer than noon.
In past times, educators emphasized memorization. You can still meet older people who can recite certain poems, passages from classics and religious texts, or mathematical formulae. In fact, some people assert that those who remember more are wiser.
Young people often have a mania for more and more information. But mere accumulation is not enough. The more you take in, the more that data needs to be managed. Without that, you have encyclopedic knowledge and minuscule wisdom. True wisdom is a qualitative value built on a quantitative foundation. The vital elderly did not become venerable through good memory alone. They also learned to manipulate those facts. They mixed their knowledge with a healthy dose of experience, experimentation, and contemplation. It takes time to intuit special connections between facts.