Daily Reflections
January 30
FREEDOM FROM … FREEDOM TO
We are going to know a new freedom …
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS , p. 83
Freedom for me is both freedom from and freedom to. The first freedom I enjoy is freedom from the slavery of alcohol. What a relief! Then I begin to experience freedom from fear – fear of people, of economic insecurity, of commitment, of failure, of rejection. Then I begin to enjoy freedom to – freedom to choose sobriety for today, freedom to be myself, freedom to express my opinion, to experience peace of mind, to love and be loved, and freedom to grow spiritually. But how can I achieve these freedoms? The Big Book clearly says that before I am halfway through making amends, I will begin to know a “new” freedom; not the old freedom of doing what I pleased, without regard to others, but the new freedom that allows fulfillment of the promises in my life. What a joy to be free!
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
January 30
A.A. Thought For The Day
A drinking life isn’t a happy life. Drinking cuts you off from other people and from God. One of the worst things about drinking is the loneliness. And one of the best things about A.A. is the fellowship. Drinking cuts you off from other people, at least from the people who really matter to you, your wife and children, your family and real friends. No matter how much you love them, you build up a wall between you and them by your drinking. You’re cut off from any real companionship with them. As a result, you’re terribly lonely. Have I got rid of my loneliness?
Meditation For The Day
I will sometimes go into a quiet place of retreat with God. In that place, I will find restoration and healing and power. I will plan quiet times now and then, times when I will commune with God and arise rested and refreshed to carry on the work which God has given me to do. I know that God will never give me a load greater than I can bear. It is in serenity and peace that all true success lies.
Prayer For The Day
I pray that I may strengthen my inner life, so that I may find serenity. I pray that my soul may be restored in quietness and peace.
Walk In Dry Places
January 30
No Justified Resentments
Personal Inventory
One of the greatest hurdles in sobriety is the so-called justified resentment. We feel that we have a right to be angry at somebody who has hurt or offended us. This feeling might be correct if our anger could remedy the matter and bring it to a just conclusion, but this hardly ever happens. If we are angry, we usually want revenge more than we want justice. Uncontrolled anger will make us behave as unjustly as those who harmed us did. This means more trouble.
Whether revenge is sought or not, anger also poisons our own lives. Emmet Fox compared it to the insane practice of drinking prussic acid. People cannot take a drink of acid and then assign it to the person they detest. They will bear its effect in their own bodies. In the same way, our anger produces its own acids, which destroy our peace of mind and make us ineffective.
We can deal with “justified resentment” by reminding ourselves that there’s no justification for the pain and sickness a festering resentment will cause in our lives. There is no justified resentment.
Today I may have to swim against the tide by not getting upset over matters that enrage others. I will not let myself be drawn into the angry currents around me.
Keep It Simple
January 30
Go and wake up your luck
–Persian proverb
We’ve been given recovery. For this, we’re lucky. And we’re grateful. Now it’s up to us.
We must accept our choices. When we’re afraid, do we choose to be alone? Or do we choose to go to extra meeting? When we’re not honest, do we keep it secret? Or do we admit it and try to be more honest? No matter what we choose, we’re responsible for that choice. Through choices, we either make our program strong or weak. We can choose to be lucky. Or we can choose not to be.
The choice is ours. Our addiction robbed us of choice. It taught us to blame others. Now we see ourselves as responsible.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me to choose wisely. Help me remember I’m responsible for my choices.
Action for the Day: Today I’ll work at being responsible for my choices. I’ll see myself as one of the lucky ones.
Bricks and mortar make a house, but the laughter of children makes a home.
–Irish Proverb“If I can just love you because here we are, then you are free to grow as you need to grow, because none of it’s going to change my feeling of love.”
–Ram Dass“What we must realize is that we cannot see everything. We do not know everything. More important, we must understand that it is impossible for us to control anything. The process of life is a spiritual one, governed by invisible, intangible spiritual laws and principles.”
–Iyanla Vanzant
Father Leo’s Daily Meditation
January 30
POTENTIAL
“Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you help them to become what they are capable of being.”
— Johann W. von Goethe
My program of recovery from alcoholism helps me have a relationship with myself and helps me relate to and understand others. The more I understand my strengths and weaknesses, the more I am able to understand others.
Any understanding of spirituality involves other people. If spirituality helps me become what God intends for me, then this is also true for others. Today I choose to treat myself and other people as children of God, remembering that we were created to reach for the skies!
Lord, our potential forever rests in You.
Daily Inspiration
January 30
Slow down and see the gracious blessings that God has for you. In my quient moments, Lord, I know that You are there.
When we have to justify our actions, it may be that our actions are not just. Lord, Your will is goodness. May I always have the strength and courage to choose Your way so that I can simplify my life and enjoy the peace of Your presence.
Elder’s Meditation of the Day
January 30
“Bright days and dark days were both expressions of the Great Mystery, and the Indian reveled in being close to the Great Holiness.”
–Chief Luther Standing Bear, SIOUX
The Great Spirit created a world of harmony, a world of justice, a world that is interconnected, a balanced world that has positive and negative, this way and that way, up and down, man and woman, boy and girl, honest and dishonest, responsible and irresponsible, day and night. In other words, He created a polarity system. Both sides are to be respected. Both sides or anything are sacred. We need to do good and we need to learn from our mistakes. We need to honor what takes place in the daytime and we need to honor what takes place in the nighttime. WE learn that we need to learn and we see what we are supposed to see by staying close to the Great Spirit. We need to be talking to Him all the time, saying “Grandfather, what is it you want me to learn?”
Great Spirit, let me learn today that all things are sacred. Help me stay close to You, my Creator.
Today’s Gift
January 30
Everyone has his own fingerprints. The white light streams down to be broken up by those human prisms into all the colors of the rainbow. Take your own color in the pattern and be just that.
—Charles R. Brown
We are often amazed at how different members of the same family seem to be. Contrasts are often great: one child might be loud and funny, one might be timid and quiet, and yet neither seems to take after the parents. A family is like a vegetable garden. The vegetables respond to outside influences. The one exposed to more sunlight will grow differently than the one growing in a damp, shady place. Vegetables growing in crowded areas of the garden may not be as developed as those around them, but they might be tastier. Although we may have common roots, outside experiences and friends mold us too, making each of us unique. We sometimes lose ourselves by comparisons and feel as if we don’t belong, but the variety of our family garden is what makes the world so interesting.
How can I honor another person’s uniqueness today?
Touchstones – Daily Meditation For Men
January 30
Man can live his truth, his deepest truth, but cannot speak it.
—Archibald MacLeish
For many men, being addicts meant living double lives. There were public selves whom others knew, and private selves whom no one met. It was a compulsive world, and both sides were false. Many of us grew up in addicted families and learned this double life early by hiding from outsiders what life was really like at home.
In this program we learn to live our truth before we can speak it. It is more in our actions than in what we say. We may never know the words for this truth because we do not consciously invent it. It comes to us quietly over time and slowly merges all our parts. Gradually we begin to feel whole again as we surrender our double lives for single, truthful ones.
Let me have the trust to give myself to the work of recovery and follow it where it takes me.
Daily TAO
January 30
LOVEMAKING
Nocturnal downpour
Wakes the lovers,
Floods the valley.
Making love is natural. Why be ashamed of it?
That seems simple, but it is actually a great challenge in these complex times. Too many other layers of meaning have been imposed upon sex. Religions straitjacket it, ascetics deny it, romantics glorify it, intellectuals theorize about it, obsessives pervert it. These actions have nothing to do with lovemaking. They come from fanaticism and compulsive behavior. Can we actually master the challenge of having lovemaking be open and healthy?
Sex should not be used as leverage, manipulation, selfishness, or abuse. It should not be a ground for our personal compulsions and delusions.