Daily Reflections
January 29
THE JOY OF SHARING
Life will take on new meaning. To watch people recover, to see them help others, to watch loneliness vanish, to see a fellowship grow up about you. to have a host of friends – this is an experience you must not miss. We know you will not want to miss it. Frequent contact with newcomers and with each other is the bright spot of our lives.
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS , p. 89
To know that each newcomer with whom I share has the opportunity to experience the relief that I have found in this Fellowship fills me with joy and gratitude. I feel that all the things described in A.A. will come to pass for them, as they have for me, if they seize the opportunity and embrace the program fully.
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
January 29
A.A. Thought For The Day
What a load wasting money puts on your shoulders! They say that members of A.A. have paid the highest initiation fee of any club members in the world, because we’ve wasted so much money on liquor. We’ll never be able to figure out how much it was. We not only waste our own money, but also the money we should have spent on our families. When you come into A.A., that terrible load of wasted money falls off your shoulders. We alcoholics were getting round-shouldered from carrying all those loads that drinking put on our shoulders. But when we come into A.A., we get a wonderful feeling of release and freedom. Can I throw back my shoulders and look the whole world in the face again?
Meditation For The Day
I believe that the future is in the hands of God. He knows better than I what the future holds for me. I am not at the mercy of fate or buffeted about by life. I am being led in a very definite way, as I try to rebuild my life. I am the builder, but God is the architect. It is mine to build as best I can, under His guidance.
Prayer For The Day
I pray that I may depend on God, since He has planned my life. I pray that I may live my life as I believe God wants me to live it.
Walk In Dry Places
January 29
Willingness is the Key
Strong Desire.
Although willpower alone does not work in overcoming alcoholism, there is a place for the will, or willingness, in the search for a happy sobriety. Things can happen if we are willing to let them happen. More important, progress often depends on our willingness to give up what stands in our way. It also requires our willingness to take that actions necessary for success.
This same willingness, so vital to finding sobriety, is also applicable in other areas of our lives. The pioneers of AA suggested that getting sober required being willing to go to any lengths. This is the key to other achievements and to the overcoming of problems besides alcohol.
We often have to put up with unpleasant conditions simply because we do not want to change them badly enough. For example, we may dislike the unpleasant coughing and risks of smoking, but lack the willingness to quit. We may brood over lost opportunities, but be unwilling to take advantage of the opportunities we have now.
The key to constructive change in our lives is willingness … and that applies to other matters as well as to alcohol.
I’ll try to be honest today about what I really want. I will remind myself that if I want something badly enough, willingness is they key to action and to success
Keep It Simple
January 29
An alcoholic spends his life committing suicide on the installment plan.
–Laurence Peter
None of us woke up one morning and found we had suddenly turned into an addict. We got to be one by practice. And we practiced often. We ignored our families–we left work early–and went drinking and drugging. Daily, we chose chemicals over anything else. Likewise, getting sober is no accident. We work the program. At meetings, we’re reminded to help others. We all get sober on the installment plan. A day at a time. We got sick one day at a time; we recover one day at a time.
Prayer for the Day: Today, with my Higher Power’s help, I’ll be happier, more honest, more sober. Sobriety is like a good savings account. Higher Power, help me to put in more than I take out.
Action for the Day: I’ll go over my Step One to remind myself it’s no accident I’m an addict.
“Let us open our natures, throw wide the doors of our hearts and let in the sunshine of good will and kindness.”
–O. S. MardenPrayer of St. Theresa
May today there be peace within
May you trust your highest power that you are exactly where you are
meant to be….
May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith
May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love
that has been given to you….
May you be content knowing you are a child of God….
Let this presence settle into our bones, and allow your soul the
freedom to sing, dance and to bask in the sun….
It is there for each and everyone of you….
–St. Teresa
Father Leo’s Daily Meditation
January 29
SUCCESS
“Success is a journey not a destination.”
— Ben Sweetland
So long as I am sober I know that I am successful. But I also know that my sobriety is more than keeping away from the first drink. My sobriety requires that I be a creative and successful human being in all areas of my life — in my relationships, at work, with my family, my business ventures and in my acts of charity. The road to success is exactly that –it is a “road” that I am traveling along, and I will be on it until the day I die. I suppose the danger is in thinking that I have arrived. Then I get complacent and apathetic, I slow down and the energy for recovery is diminished.
Today I know that I am successful so long as I keep moving along with my spiritual program.
Let me always be confident as I walk in my journey of life.
Daily Inspiration
January 29
Call on God when you need a friend to make it through the day. Lord, may we share Your love and beauty so that our lives may not be lonely.
Holding on to hurts causes us to live the pain over and over. Lord, may I forgive so that I may heal.
Elder’s Meditation of the Day
January 29
“We grieve more because we have been disconnected from our earth, our first Mother, our spiritual Mother.”
–Larry P. Aitken, CHIPPEWA
Where does all life come from? The Earth. Where does everything return to? The Earth. Where do values come them? The Earth. Many people are lost because they don’t know the importance of connection to the Earth. They connect to money, to relationships, to success, to goals. When we are disconnected from the Earth, we have feelings of being sad or lost. When we are connected to the Earth, we feel warm and secure.
Great Spirit, help me to stay connected to the Mother Earth.
Today’s Gift
January 29
Think in terms of depletion, not depression … You can understand how a body can replenish itself, whereas it may be difficult to understand the way out of depression.
—Claire Weekes
Despair and depression may come over us suddenly, for no reason we can figure out. But if we stop and reflect, we may realize we are reacting to too much of something–too much work, too much excitement, too much fun. We may be having a letdown after holidays, after completing a project, or at the end of a school year. When we feel a letdown coming on, we must give ourselves time. We need to take some time off and do nothing, plan nothing. Then we can ask God to help us let go of the negative feelings that come along with a letdown. We can plan a small gift for ourselves–a walk by the lake, for instance. In our excitement with a rush of events, we often forget that we, like the infants we once were, need to take a rest and reenergize.
Do I need to do something just for myself today?
Touchstones – Daily Meditation For Men
January 29
We grow in time to trust the future for our answers.
—Ruth Benedict
When we first started in recovery, we approached it as we did our codependent and addictive behaviors, wanting to possess it all – quickly and totally – and to do it right. Some of us thought we could learn all we needed to know about recovery in a few weeks. In living with this program, we begin to see we are engaged in a lifelong process. We are in a maturing process and this program is our guide. We can’t rush it or move on to the next stage too soon. An apple tree does not blossom in the fall, and we do not expect the newly forming apples to ripen before they’ve grown.
Our existence in this world is like walking through the woods on a rambling path. We can only see as far ahead as the next bend. We no longer seek some big moment when we finally get the outcome or a “cure” for life’s experiences. The experience along the way is all we need.
Today, I will think about the tasks and rewards of this day and trust the future for what is unanswered.
Daily TAO
January 29
SCARS
Markings in dry clay disappear
Only when the clay is soft again.
Scars upon the self disappear
Only when one becomes soft within.
Throughout our life, but especially during our youth, many scars are inflicted upon us. Some of them are the results of violence, abuse, rape, or warfare. Others arise from bad education. A few come from humiliation and failure. Others are caused by our own misadventures. Unless we recover from these injuries, the scars mar us forever.
Classical scriptures urge us to withdraw from our own lusts and sins. But scars that have happened through no fault of our own may also bar us from spiritual success. Unfortunately, it is often easier to give up a bad habit than to recover from the incisions of others’ violence. The only way is through self-cultivation.