Daily Reflections
December 29
THE JOY OF LIVING
… therefore the joy of good living is the theme of A.A.’s Twelfth Step.
-TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 125
A.A. is a joyful program! Even so, I occasionally balk at taking the necessary steps to move ahead, and find myself resisting the very actions that could bring about the joy I want. I would not resist if those actions did not touch some vulnerable area of my life, an area that needs hope and fulfillment. Repeated exposure to joyfulness has a way of softening the hard, outer edges of my ego. Therein lies the power of joyfulness to help all members of A.A.
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
December 29
A.A. Thought For The Day
Participating in the privileges of the movement, I shall share in the responsibilities, taking it upon myself to carry my fair share of the load, not grudgingly but joyfully. I am deeply grateful for the privileges I enjoy because of my membership in this great movement. They put an obligation upon me which I will not shirk. I will gladly carry my fair share of the burdens. Because of the joy of doing them, they will no longer be burdens, but opportunities. Will I accept every opportunity gladly?
Meditation For The Day
Work and prayer are the two forces which are gradually making a better world. We must work for the betterment of ourselves and our fellow men. Faith without works is dead. But all work with people should be based on prayer. If we say a little prayer before we speak or try to help, it will make us more effective. Prayer is the force behind the work. Prayer is based on faith that God is working with us and through us. We can believe that nothing is impossible in human relationships, if we depend on the help of God.
Prayer For The Day
I pray that my life may be balanced between prayer and work. I pray that I may not work without prayer or pray without work.
Walk In Dry Places
December 29
Mending the past
No Regrets of the Past
“The past is best mended by living so fully today that its errors have no place in our lives.” These words by an AA member suggest an approach for healing from the past.
All of us would benefit to use today’s knowledge to deal with situations we mishandled in the past. But we must remember that whatever mistakes we made, we had available only the knowledge and resources we possessed the, and we may have done about as well as we possibly could at this time.
We should also remember that active alcoholism is a crippling and ugly disease with many terrible consequences. It’s not surprising that bad things happened to others and us when we were drinking. We can only be grateful that we are now recovering and that matters are better, not worse, than they once were.
I’ll live fully today, allowing no thoughts of regret from my past to intrude.
Keep It Simple
December 29
Many people are living in an emotional jail without recognizing it.
-Virginia Satir
Our disease was our jail. We felt so bad that we were sure we must have done something awful. But we didn’t cause our disease. We have done nothing to deserve our disease. We aren’t responsible for the fact that we have a disease. But we ARE responsible for our recovery. We have been granted probation. The terms of our probation are simple: don’t drink or use other drugs, and work the Steps. If we follow these simple rules, we’ll be free. And it will be clear to us that only a Power greater than ourselves could give us this freedom.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me to stay free. For this next twenty-four – hour period, take from me any urge to drink or use other drugs. With Your help, I’ll be free.
Action for the Day: Today, I’ll think about my disease. I am not morally weak. I have a dangerous illness. What can keep me free from my disease?
Having the world’s best idea will do you no good unless you act on it. People who want milk shouldn’t sit on a stool in the middle of a field in hopes that a cow will back up to them.
-Curtis GrantWhen you make a mistake, make amends immediately. It’s easier to eat crow while it’s still warm.
-Sherrie R.“When nobody around you measures up, it’s time to check your yardstick.”
-Bill LemlyWithout God’s inner source of enlightenment and refreshment, I would soon stagnate
and feel despair.
-Shelley
Father Leo’s Daily Meditation
December 29
MADNESS
“The madman who knows that he is mad is close to sanity.”
-Juan Ruiz de Alarcon
An alcoholic who continues to drink is committing suicide. An addict who continues to use is committing suicide. An overeater who continues to eat compulsively and destructively is committing suicide. Madness.
It is like a man standing in the town square stabbing himself with a knife and asking the passer-by, “Why am I bleeding?”
Today I accept my past destructive behavior and try to change it on a daily basis. Spirituality is loving yourself enough to “see” the writing on the wall and do something about it. Change is sanity for the madman!
God, You seem to have given me a dose of insanity. Let me use it to Your glory.
Daily Inspiration
December 29
Today picture yourself as the happiest person that you know and watch how contagious this enthusiasm for life is. Lord, may I bring out the best in those with whom I share today so they can in turn bring out more of my best.
Choose God instead of choosing to worry. Lord, in Your justice, rescue and deliver me.
Elder’s Meditation of the Day
December 29
“What you see with your eyes shut is what counts.”
-Lame Deer, LAKOTA
Another whole world opens up when we close our eyes and calm our mind. Be still and know; be still and hear; be still and see; be still and feel. Inside every person is a still, small voice. Sometime it is necessary to close our eyes to shut down our perception in order to see. Try this occasionally; when you are talking to your child or spouse, close your eyes and listen to them. Listen to the tone of their voice; listen to their excitement; listen to their pain-listen.
Great Spirit, today, let me hear only what really counts.
Today’s Gift
December 29
The price of dishonesty is self-destruction.
—Rita Mae Brown
There once was a woman who told her husband what she thought he wanted to hear. She told him she was happy when she wasn’t. She told him she liked his friends when she didn’t. She tried to figure out what he wanted so she could do it for him. She felt hurt when he didn’t do the same for her. She felt he should also try to read her mind and do what she wanted without her having to express it. She was scared to tell him how she really felt.
However, her pain and resentment grew so much she couldn’t stand it any longer, so she told him her true feelings. He was so used to hearing her lies that he called her a liar when she told the truth. Now she knew how much she had hurt herself by trying to please him at the cost of her own honesty and needs.
Honesty is necessary for a good relationship with anyone. When we lie to ourselves, we cannot tell the truth to others. By being honest, we open our doors to others, we trust them with our true feelings, and they love us for who we really are.
Who can I tell how I really feel today?
Touchstones Meditations For Men
December 29
Our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
After we get a new understanding about ourselves we think, “Now I will never have to make the same mistake again!” But our lessons are usually not that easily learned. We have to get them into our muscles and bones as well as our heads. Some of us have to learn how to be kind; others, how to be good listeners or how to stand up for ourselves in many different ways. Every new situation calls on a little different way of knowing, and perhaps we have to fall a few times in the learning.
The most important asset in our lives is the faith to get up again and continue. We must accept our imperfections. Each time we fall and with each mistake we make, we’re vulnerable to doubting and losing faith. By rising again, we make progress in our learning and continue to become better men.
Today, I will have faith, even in the midst of my mistakes.
Daily TAO
December 29
NIGHT
In night’s vast ocean,
Sun, moon, and earth align,
Pulling the earth out of roundness
And making tides rage.
Such is the power of night.
Night. You are mother of all. You existed before all. You are the background, the fabric, the whole underpinning of the universe.
In you is abstruse mystery, darker than the deepest water, blacker than the sleep of sleeps. You are an inconceivable fertility, a wild and uncontrollable realm from which strangeness and power and creativity and mutation and life spring. The miracle of birth comes from you. And the horror of death. That is why you both comfort and frighten us.
Stars and planets are scattered through you like luminescent pearls. You string them on your current effortlessly, and the pull of syzygy is so tremendous that the birth shape of the earth is pulled out of roundness, the seas exceed their brims, and the heads and hearts of all the creatures on this planet are made to pound and wonder in dazzled confusion.
When stars and novas burst, energy untold is unleashed — explosions of such magnitude that human intellect and instruments could never hope to measure even if made superior by a hundredfold — and yet these flames burn out, sputter, become mere dim coals in the supreme expanse that is night.