Daily Reflections
June 26
A GIFT THAT GROWS WITH TIME
For most normal folks, drinking means conviviality, companionship and colorful imagination. It means release from care, boredom and worry. It is joyous intimacy with friends and a feeling that life is good.
-ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 151
The longer I chased these elusive feelings with alcohol, the more out of reach they were. However, by applying this passage to my sobriety, I found that it described the magnificent new life made available to me by the A. A. program. It “truly does get better” one day at a time. The warmth, the love and the joy so simply expressed in these words grow in breadth and depth each time I read it. Sobriety is a gift that grows with time.
Twenty-Four Hours A
Day
June 26
A. A. Thought for the Day
We must know the nature of our weakness before we can determine how to deal with it. When we are honest about its presence, we may discover that it is imaginary and can be overcome by a change of thinking. We admit that we are alcoholics and we would be foolish if we refused to accept our handicap and do something about it. So by honestly facing our weakness and keeping ever present the knowledge that for us alcoholism is a disease with which we are afflicted, we can take the necessary steps to arrest it. Have I fully accepted my handicap?
Meditation for the Day
There is a proper time for everything. I must learn not to do things at the wrong time, that is, before I am ready or before conditions are right. It is always a temptation to do something at once, instead of waiting until the proper time. Timing is important. I must learn, in the little daily situations of life, to delay action until I am sure that I am doing the right thing at the right time. So many lives lack balance and timing. In the momentous decisions and crises of life, they may ask God’s guidance, but into the small situations of life, they rush alone.
Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may delay action until I feel that I am doing the right thing. I pray that I may not rush in alone.
Walk In Dry Places
June 26
Let it Happen
Easy Does it.
Student pilots learn a simple method for getting an airplane out of a stall; Release the stick forward, and the airplane rights itself. Continue to hold the stick back, and you cause a fatal spin.
Many times, we cling too tightly to conditions that could simply right themselves if we would only let go. Situations often work themselves out when we stop pushing and pulling too hard.
If we’re living on a spiritual basis and following our 12 Step program, lots of unpleasant conditions will clear up without any strain or struggle on our part. The secret, then, is to do our part and act prudently, but also to be willing to let things happen.
I’ll remember today not to push or pull too hard to get my way. Things might work themselves out if I simply let natural forces work properly in every situation.
Keep It Simple
June 26
But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads.
—Albert Camus
Sometimes we sat we’re getting out lives together. Together with what? With our selves. The Twelve Steps help us clean up the mess we’ve made. We’re fixing our mistakes. We’re looking at ourselves closely—at what we believe, what we feel, what we like to do, who we are. We’re asking our High Power to help us to be our best.
No wonder over lives are coming together! No wonder we feel more peace, harmony, and happiness!
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me remember the best harmony comes when I sing from Your songbook.
Action for the Day: Today, I’ll make choices that are in line with who I am.
However many holy words you read, However many you speak, What good will they do you, If you do not act upon them?
–Buddha
If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. And if they don’t, they never were.
–Kahlil Gibran
The true test of character is not how much we know how to do, but how we behave when we don’t know what to do.
–John Holt
Be gentle with yourself, learn to love yourself, to forgive yourself, for only as we have the right attitude toward ourselves can we have the right attitude toward others.
–Wilfred Peterson
“Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.”
–Helen Keller
“There is no one giant step that does it. It’s a lot of little steps.”
–Peter A. Cohen
Father Leo’s Daily
Meditation
June 26
GENIUS
“In the republic of mediocrity, genius is dangerous.”
–Robert G. Ingersoll
Spirituality is a creative and positive energy that forever seeks new ways to improve and heal itself. Spirituality is never satisfied with mediocrity. God is alive in musicians, writers, singers and prophets — and always the standard of “excellence” is searched for; best can be made better!
As a drunk I often settled for convenience, “no sweat”, mediocrity. My motto was “Why bother? It can be done tomorrow.” I had low energy. Addiction robs the human being of God’s productive energy.
In recovery I seek the best because I believe I am the best; God made me — and I respect His choice!
Lord, save me from the “comfortable way” that makes no demands on my genius.
Daily Inspiration
June 26
Enjoy life while you’ve got the chance. Lord, may I view each day as a gift and a privilege.
Knowing about God and knowing God are very different things. Lord, may I recognize Your workings in my life so that I may really know You.
Elder’s Meditation
of the Day
June 26
“ … when faithful human beings or other creatures called upon them for help, they [the Powers of the Four Directions] must send their powers … ”
–Fools Crow, LAKOTA
Each of the four directions has special powers. These powers or Grandfathers are there to help us. The powers are from the East, the South, the West, and the North.
To call upon the power we need to stand in the center and face each of the directions and honor all forms of life in each direction. Facing the East we honor all the two legged, four legged, winged ones, plants’ nation and the animals.
We repeat this prayer in each of the four directions. This allows us to become centered. When we are centered, then we are ready to call the helpers. It is said, when the student is ready, the teacher appears. If we are to be ready, we need to remember to always get quiet first. We do this by honoring and praying to the four directions.
Grandfathers from the four directions, come to me today with Your powers. Give me Your gifts so I can serve the people.
Today’s Gift
June 26
One cricket said to another – come, let us be ridiculous, and say love!
—Conrad Aiken
Let’s all sit in a circle and take turns being ridiculous about what our love is like. Let’s play tag with it, and pass it on. Let’s say that our love is like diamonds sprinkled on a clear moonless sky, and let’s pass it on. Let’s say it’s like one rose petal too tender to touch, and let’s pass it on. Let’s say it’s like rainbows filling a city sky, and pass it on. Let’s say it’s small and hard, like an agate or shell, and let’s keep passing it on.
We can find images for love all around us, and when we express it to others this way, it grows.
What is my love like today?
Touchstones
Meditation For Men
June 26
God is near me (or rather in me), and yet I may be far from God because I may be far from my own true self.
—C. E. Roll
Our relationship with God and our relationship with ourselves are always interwoven. Sometimes we feel disconnected from ourselves or emotionally flat. We may block the flow of communication with our deeper selves by trying to evade a difficult or painful truth. At those times we grope for some kind of contact and may even ask, “Where is God?”
God is always with us, but sometimes we are the missing party. In the past, most of us were deeply alienated from ourselves and from our Higher Power. Our first moments of spiritual awakening may have been when we saw how far we were from our true selves. This honest message from ourselves to ourselves was painful but was also a re-contact with the truth that made it possible to find God.
I need not ask where God is because God is loving and always near. I only need to ask, “Where am I?”
Daily TAO
June 26
Unfortunate
An unfortunate one is a rootless ghost,
His walk a mad angel’s gait.
Insolent steps of thrown from heaven
To toil in red dust,
As if he had not had enough
In a thousand previous lifetimes.
Where is his heart? Where is his soul?
To call this heaven’s will
Is a cheap answer.
There was once a god who committed a crime. His punishment was to be thrown back to earth to suffer the misfortunes of being human.
When you see those less fortunate than yourself, whether they are the homeless on the streets or simply the ugly and unpopular, can you be sure they are not like that god flung back to this made planet?
Is their misfortune their own fault? Or do you explain with references to morality, destiny, reincarnation, and cosmic justice? Even the words of saints offer no relief for their suffering, so ti hardly seems fair to blame them.
Let us not hold ourselves above our fellow human beings, no matter how great the disparity. To withhold your scorn is already beautiful. To see how we are all of one family is compassion.