Daily Reflections
January 12
ACCEPTING OUR PRESENT CIRCUMSTANCES
Our very first problem is to accept our present circumstances as they are, ourselves as we are, and the people about us as they are. This is to adopt a realistic humility without which no genuine advance can even begin. Again and again, we shall need to return to that unflattering point of departure. This is an exercise in acceptance that we can profitably practice every day of our lives. Provided we strenuously avoid turning these realistic surveys of the facts of life into unrealistic alibis for apathy or defeatism, they can be the sure foundation upon which increased emotional health and therefore spiritual progress can be built.
AS BILL SEES IT, p. 44
When I am having a difficult time accepting people, places or events, I turn to this passage and it relieves me of many an underlying fear regarding others, or= situations life presents me. The thought allows me to be human and not perfect, and to regain my peace of mind.
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
January 12
A.A. Thought For The Day
The longer we’re in A.A., the more natural this way of life seems. Our old drinking lives were a very unnatural way of living. Our present sober lives are the most natural way we could possibly live. During the early years of our drinking, our lives weren’t so different from the lives of a lot of other people. But as we gradually became problem drinkers, our lives became more and more unnatural. Do I realize now that the things I did were far from natural?
Meditation For The Day
I will say thank you to God for everything, even the seeming trials and worries. I will strive to be grateful and humble. My whole attitude toward the Higher Power will be one of gratitude. I will be glad for the things I have received. I will pass on what God reveals to me. I believe that more truths will flow in, as I go along in the new way of life.
Prayer For The Day
I pray that I may be grateful for the things I have received and do not deserve. I pray that this attitude will make me truly humble.
Walk In Dry Places
January 12
IF IT FEELS GOOD …
Facing Other Excesses
In the drinking life, one of the flippant sayings we heard was, “If it feels good, do it!” We hear that often in sobriety, although it sometimes appears on a bumper sticker or as casual comment. And if we’ve learned anything in sobriety, we know that this remark is really a permit for disaster. We drank to feel good, but we often ended up feeling terrible.
Yet the same slogan, properly understood, can be useful for the recovering alcoholic. We all want to feel good. But a drink means temporary pleasure followed by pain, guilt, remorse, and ruin. This is not really feeling good. It is a nightmare of the worst feeling we can imagine.
Happy sobriety does feel good, even though it may include short-term discomfort or temporary boredom. The long-run tendency of sobriety is toward having peace of mind, feeling good about ourselves, and using our talents and opportunities wisely. This is the mature way to feel good, but we achieve it only by thinking and acting in the right ways. Perhaps our slogan could be, “If it will make you feel good now and in the future, do it!”
Today I will pass up anything that seems pleasurable in the short run but will make me guilty and unhappy later on.
Keep It Simple
January 12
Remember always that you have not only the right to be individual, you have an obligation to be one.
–Eleanor Roosevelt
When we were using alcohol and other drugs, we often thought that we were different from others. We secretly thought that no one could understand us. Maybe we tried to be one of the group, but we were lonely. Now we know for sure–we are different from others. Everyone’s unique. We all have this in common. Being like others helps us feel safe and normal. But we need to feel good about the ways we’re different from others too. We think a little different, act a little different, and look a little different from anyone else. We each have our own way to make life better for others.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me be an individual. Help me use my special gifts, not hide them.
Action for the Day: Today, I’ll make a list of the things I’m good at. I’ll think about how I can use these gifts.
You are a child of God. You are a child of Light. The Soul that is your true identity resides naturally in love and joy.
–John-RogerYour talent is God’s gift to you. What you do with it is your gift back to God.
–Leo Buscaglia
Father Leo’s Daily Meditation
January 12
VALUES
“The aim of education is the knowledge not of fact, but of values.”
— Dean William R. Inge
Facts can sometimes confuse. They can be used to hide behind. They can be manipulated into lies. Facts are no substitute for values — human values.
Today I not only value my life but I value life itself. When I walk amongst nature, I taste her purity, observe her beauty, experience her strength — and I know I am a part of it all. Today my values have changed because I see myself as “part of” rather than “separate from”. I belong to this universe, this world, this planet and what I do affects the essential value of life. With my daily respect for self comes a respect for property, people, different cultures and God.
Today the things I truly value I do not pay for; the things I cherish cannot be won or bought. Spirituality is free.
Teach me to value the meaning of freedom and the richness of life.
Daily Inspiration
January 12
Take today and make it beautiful. Lord, my life is no accident and neither is how I live it. Help me to fill it with smiles.
We can be serious about our work without being serious about ourselves. Lord, help me to enjoy the person that I am.
Elder’s Meditation of the Day
January 12
“The first thing that we want you to understand is that spirit has no color or race to it. It doesn’t matter whether your skin is white, black, red, Hispanic, whatever. No one out there is any better than you, and you are no better than anyone else out there.”
–John Peters (Slow Turtle), WAMPANOAG
We are all created to be of equal worth. We may be different sizes, different heights, different ages, different colors, we may have different beliefs and be of different cultures. In the unseen world, we are all spirit formed into different shapes and colors but we are all worthy. For example, you can have water, you can have steam, or you can have ice. Which of these is not made up of H2O?
My Creator, today, let me see equal worthiness in all people.
Today’s Gift
January 12
I held a moment in my hand, brilliant as a star, fragile as a flower, a shiny sliver out of one hour. I dropped it carelessly. O God! I knew not I held an opportunity.
—Hazel Lee
Once, a famous artist was hired to put stained glass windows into a great cathedral. His eager young apprentice pleaded for the chance to design just one small window. The master artist feared an experiment on even a small window would prove costly, but the persistent young apprentice kept up his pleas. Finally, the master agreed that he could try his hand on one small window if he furnished his own materials and worked on his own time.
The enterprising apprentice began gathering bits of glass his master had discarded, and set to work. When the cathedral doors were open, people stood in groups before the small window, praising its delicate excellence.
Our lives are like this. If we take the time to gather together the moments and opportunities we too often discard and waste, we find we can weave them into something beautiful.
What can I make of moments I usually waste today?
Touchstones Meditation For Men
January 12
I should be content to look at a mountain for what it is and not as a comment on my life.
—David Ignatow
We have recognized our self-centeredness as addicts and codependents. On the other side is the feeling of peace and well being when we are released from it. Self-centeredness caused us to take everything personally. We were hypersensitive to our surroundings, to other people, and to how they reacted. Yet, so often these things had very little to do with us. God sends rain for the just and the unjust.
When we can look at a mountain and lose ourselves in the sight, we are refreshed spiritually. But no mountain is necessary for this experience. When we listen to a friend and simply hear his perspective, when we pet a dog and just enjoy this loving creature, when we look at a sunset and drink it in for what it is – then we are growing.
God, grant me release from the oppression of my ego.
Daily TAO
January 12
SHAPING
Potter at the wheel.
From centering to finished pot,
Form increases as options decrease;
Softness goes to hardness.
When a potter begins to throw a pot, she picks up a lump of clay, shapes it into a rough sphere, and throws it onto the spinning potter’s wheel. It may land off-center, and she must carefully begin to shape it until it is a smooth cylinder. Then she works the clay, stretching and compressing it as it turns. First it is a tower, then it is like a squat mushroom. Only after bringing it up and down several times does she slowly squeeze the revolving clay until its walls rise from the wheel. She cannot go on too long, for the clay will begin to “tire” and then sag. She gives it the form she imagines, then sets it aside. The next day, the clay will be leather hard, and she can turn it over to shape the foot. Some decoration may be scratched into the surface. Eventually, the bowl will be fired, and then the only options are the colors applied to it; its shape cannot be changed.