Daily Reflections
December 26
ACCEPTING SUCCESS OR FAILURE
Furthermore, how shall we come to terms with seeming failure or success? Can we now accept and adjust to either without despair or pride? Can we accept poverty, sickness, loneliness, and bereavement with courage and serenity? Can we steadfastly content ourselves with the humbler, yet sometimes more durable, satisfactions when the brighter, more glittering achievements are denied us?
-TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 112
After I found A.A. and stopped drinking, it took a while before I understood why the First Step contained two parts: my powerlessness over alcohol and my life’s unmanageability. In the same way, I believed for a long time that, in order to be in tune with the Twelve Steps, it was enough for me “to carry this message to alcoholics.” That was rushing things. I was forgetting that there were a total of Twelve Steps and that the Twelfth Step also had more than one part. Eventually I learned that it was necessary for me to “practice these principles” in all areas of my life. In working all the Steps thoroughly, I not only stay sober and help someone else to achieve sobriety, but also I transform my difficulty with living into a joy of living.
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
December 26
A.A. Thought For The Day
I am glad to be a part of A.A., of that great fellowship that is spreading over the United States and all over the world. I am only one of the many A.A.’s, but I am one. I am grateful to be living at this time, when I can help A.A. to grow, when it needs me to put my shoulder to the wheel and help keep the movement going. I am glad to be able to be useful, to have a reason for living, a purpose in life. I want to lose my life in this great cause and so find it again. Am I grateful to be an A.A.?
Meditation For The Day
These meditations can teach us how to relax. We can be of service to other people in a small way at least. And we can be happy while doing it. We should not worry too much about people we cannot help. We can make it a habit to leave the outcome of the things we do to the Higher Power. We can go along through life doing the best we can, but without a feeling of urgency or strain. We can enjoy all the good things and the beauty of life, but at the same time depend deeply on God.
Prayer For The Day
I pray that I may give my life to this worthwhile cause. I pray that I may enjoy the satisfaction that comes from good work well done.
Walk In Dry Places
December 26
Humility: Teachable and Honest
Open to growth.
Humility is often used in the context of being honest enough to admit one’s faults, but it also means being teachable. The truly humble person realizes there’s always more to learn and is open to such learning.
If we think we have humility, we usually don’t. However, we can look back and recognize times when we made wonderful progress while being deeply humble. This was particularly true when we recognized our alcoholism and achieved sobriety. In this one action, we changed our lives.
If we continue to practice the honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness that helped get us sober, these traits will be apparent in other areas of our lives. Though humility isn’t generally sought as a way of life, it’s the right way for recovering people.
I’ll be open today to ideas from any direction. I can learn something from every person.
Keep It Simple
December 26
To be emotionally committed to somebody is very difficult, but to be alone is impossible.
-Stephen Sondheim.
Let’s face it, relationships are hard to work! But we are lucky! Recovery is about relationships. We learn how to set limits. We learn how to listen to and talk to others. In Step One, we begin a new relationship with ourselves. In Step Two and Three, we begin a relationship with our Higher Power. In later Steps, we mend our relationships with family and friends. In our relationship with our sponsor, we learn about being friends. And our past relationships with alcohol and other drugs is being replaced by people and our Higher Power.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, thank-you for all the new relationships. Thank-you for teaching me how to feel human again.
Action for the Day: Today, I’ll make a list of all the new relationships I have now, due to my sobriety.
The paradox of control is simple. The more we try to control life, the less control we have.
-Joan Borysenko, Ph.D.
Father Leo’s Daily Meditation
December 26
APATHY
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
-Edmund Burke
I read about the Holocaust and I am ashamed. I am ashamed to belong to the human race that allowed, by an overwhelming silence, the slaughter of millions. The ultimate in people-pleasing is to do nothing. The fear of being an outcast or traitor allows the addiction to Power to develop. Power is an addiction that is rarely discussed in society. And yet evil needs people and politics to function alone it is but a word.
With this new day I seek to be involved in the good life. Today I am not afraid to stand alone for what I believe to be the principles of a God-given spirituality. I know evil because I know myself. I know tyranny and injustice because for years I perpetrated negativity in my life. Now I choose to say “no”. Today I seek to make amends for past wrongs by being rigorously honest in all my affairs. Because I know what it is to hate, I seek to love. I wish to be responsible in God’s world.
Teach me not only to learn from past mistakes but translate this knowledge into action.
Daily Inspiration
December 26
If you think success and really believe it will happen, you will perform in a manner that leads to success. Lord, may I always avoid negative thoughts and visualize myself in the manner that You intended for me.
We are powerless to change our past, but we can change how we look at it. Lord, help me to realize that my past has made me a stronger person and show me that these experiences have taught me valuable life lessons.
Elder’s Meditation of the Day
December 26
“The way of knowledge.is like our old way of hunting. You begin with a mere trail — a footprint. If you follow that faithfully, it may lead you to a clearer train-a track- a road. Later on there will be many tracks, crossing and diverging one from the other. Then you must be careful, for success lies in the choice of the right road.”
-Many Lightenings Eastman, SANTEE SIOUX
An entire apple tree is initially contained in the seed. Visions are initially contained in the idea. If you trace the path of a blooming flower backwards, it goes from the blooming flower back to a bud, back to a stem, back to a seed. So it is in the way of knowledge. Often we will experience a hunch or a feeling that we are supposed to do something. At first it may not make any sense. This is the seed stage. Once we start to investigate, more gets revealed. As more is revealed, the more knowledge we get. This is the way the Great Spirit guides us.
Great Spirit, help me to choose the right choices.
Today’s Gift
December 26
I take it that what all men are really after is some form of, perhaps only some formula of, peace.
—James Conrad
When snow drifts quietly down on a winter evening, the hush of nature brings a great sense of peace. Each of us has known times like this. Many of these times did not depend on conditions like snow, or soft music. When we are able to keep a quiet center within ourselves, we are truly in tune with the spirit. Peace of the heart comes from a Power greater than ourselves, and from the faith that all of us, and all that happens to us, are part of a great plan.
Just as the snow falls softly, without fear, without regard for whether it will land on a tree bough or in the street, we, too, can live our lives with peaceful acceptance of whatever comes along, knowing it comes to us naturally and from God.
Am I prepared to accept wherever I will land today?
Touchstones Meditations For Men
December 26
He who knows how to be poor knows everything.
—Jules Michelet
Letting go is one of the simple yet profound spiritual tasks taught by many of the world’s religions. Knowing how to be poor means knowing how to have a full and rich life without a dependent relationship with material wealth, food, chemicals, or sex. It means not relying on the props in life like expensive clothes, a prestigious job, or a sporty car, but relying only on the basics. Knowing how to be poor is knowing we are not in control and not wasting our serenity in trying. It means being completely honest in all things. It means knowing life is neither easy nor free of pain.
Learning how to be poor is learning how to let go of all the essentials and appreciating the simplicity that endures. We don’t automatically know how to do that, but we can learn.
I don’t expect to know everything, but my Higher Power can guide me and show me how to let go.
Daily TAO
December 26
ENDING
A shadow edge is never on the edge.
The time to contemplate the ending is before the ending.
Five days left to this year. There will be an ending. And there will be a new beginning. That is Tao.
If you look at a vase by a window and examine what makes it appear round, you will see a shadow on it. That is the shadow edge. It is the darkest shadow on that face. It is never on the edge. The main light source strikes the vase on one side, and reflected light comes from the other.
In the same way that the shadow edge, which establishes the roundness of an object to our eyes, is never at the edge, so too should we consider limits and endings before we reach them. We cannot do without limits and endings. They bring definition to our endeavors. But if we are to use them to our advantage, we have to plan how to meet them. For those who follow Tao, those who can accommodate endings gracefully are among the most admired.