Daily Reflections
March 12
A DAY’S PLAN
“On awakening, let us think of the twenty-four hours ahead. We consider our plans for the day. Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives.”
—ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 86
Every day I ask God to kindle within me the fire of His love, so that love, burning bright and clear, will illuminate my thinking and permit me to better do His will. Throughout the day, as I allow outside circumstances to dampen my spirits, I ask God to sear my consciousness with the awareness that I can start my day over any time I choose; a hundred times, if necessary.
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
March 12
A.A. Thought For The Day
The Prodigal Son “took his journey into a far country and wasted his substance on riotous living.” That’s what we alcoholics do. We waste our substance with riotous living. “When he came to himself, he said, ‘I will arise and go to my father.’” That’s what an alcoholic does in A.A. He comes to himself. His alcoholic self is not his real self. His sane, sober, respectable self is his real self. That’s why we’re so happy in A.A. Have I come to myself?
Meditation For The Day
Simplicity is the keynote of a good life. Choose the simple things always. Life can become complicated if you let it be so. You can be swamped by difficulties if you let them take up too much of your time. Every difficulty can be either solved or ignored and something better substituted for it. Love the humble things of life. Reverence the simple things. Your standard must never be the world’s standard of wealth and power.
Prayer For The Day
I pray that I may love the simple things of life. I pray that I may keep my life uncomplicated and free.
Walk in Dry Places
March 12
Popular Gossip
Higher Thinking
The newsstands are full of publications that seem to delight in exposing the sins and foibles of celebrities and prominent officials. Think of the excitement that’s been generated just over the sexual misadventures of important people running for public office.
While some of these disclosures may be true, we don’t help ourselves by reveling in them or reading them. We may even harm ourselves if we get secret enjoyment over the fall of a celebrity. It’s never beneficial to find ourselves thinking, “It serves him right.”
Reading such trash, even in the daily newspapers, is a form of gossip. We can use our time in better ways if we wish to enhance our sobriety.
If this sounds a little too stringent, we should remind ourselves that growth in sobriety calls for better management of our thinking and attitudes. Nobody ever got drunk simply because he or she read gossipy trash. But neither did that person make progress over the general problem of gossip.
I’ll have no interest in the weaknesses or shortcomings of those who might be in the news. Popular gossip can be just as harmful as personal gossip.
Keep It Simple
March 12
“The Twelve Step program is spiritual, based on action coming from love …”
—Martha Cleveland
To be spiritual means to be an active person. It means spending time with others. It means sharing love. It means looking for ways to be more loving to others. It means looking for ways to make the world a better place. Step Three helps us to look at the world better. We turn our lives over to the care of our Higher Power. So let’s allow care to direct our lives. Let’s always be asking ourselves, “Is what I’m doing something that shows care?”
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, let me be active in a loving, caring way. Let the love in my heart be my guide.
Action for the Day: Today, I’ll do something good for someone and keep it a secret.
“Take time for solitude. How else can you contemplate the blessings of recovery,”
—Abby Warman“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“Everyone who has been mistreated by another has mistreated others at one time or another.”
—Paul Ferrini“Deep faith eliminates fear.”
—Lech Walesa“God’s grace can turn pain into joy and blessing.”
—Isabelle Zeigler Ross
Father Leo’s Daily Meditation
March 12
DREAMS
“I have learned this at least by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”
—Henry David Thoreau
Drugs brought me nightmares, never dreams. For years I lived in fear. In the night I imagined horrible shapes, strange colors and sounds, experienced unspeakable tortures and awoke in tension and sweat.
Today in sobriety my dreams are serene and tranquil; I remember friends and loved ones and those I most admire. I imagine God in the beauty of His creation. He breathes His love through me. My dreams are part of my wellness.
God, who created men to dream their dreams, help me to live mine.
Daily Inspiration
March 12
If you count your blessings and answered prayers, there is less time for grumbling and complaining. Lord, may I always appreciate the wonders of my life and celebrate Your presence in it.
You cannot be discouraged for long if you are close to our Heavenly Father, the giver of all hope and blessings. Lord, I will spend time daily with You and strengthen my faith.
Elder’s Meditation of the Day
March 12
“The old people say, `Learn from your mistakes’. So I try to accept everything for what it is and to make the best of each situation one day at a time.”
—Dr. A.C. Ross (Ehanamani), LAKOTA
The Creator did not design us to beat ourselves up when we make mistakes. Mistakes are our friends. It is from mistakes that we learn. The more mistakes we learn from, the faster we gain wisdom. The faster we gain wisdom, the more we love. The more we love, the fewer our mistakes. Therefore, mistakes help us to learn love. God is love. Mistakes are sacred and help us learn about God’s will for ourselves.
Great Spirit, help me, today, to learn from my mistakes.
Journey to the Heart
March 12
You Have the Power to Redefine Your World
One power we gain on our journey to the heart is the ability to redefine what we believe. We learn to see things in a new way.
We usually have a definition for most areas of our lives, particularly important areas such as work, love, money, and ourselves, but we’re not always conscious of it. The experiences we go through can help our definitions surface, help us see more clearly how we define these areas. That’s called growth. This growth, this process of redefining, will happen naturally on our path. But we can also consciously, actively work on our definitions.
Ask yourself if you’re defining something or someone right now in a way that you’d like to change. Perhaps a work relationship, a love relationship, a project, or an issue is causing you distress. You may find you have the power to redefine this area in a way that minimizes or reduces your pain.
A healing professional and friend once taught me a technique that can be used on any subject you’re trying to define. On a sheet of paper write down everything you currently believe, including and especially everything negative, about the subject or issue. Include all the “I Can’t’s” and the “Why Not’s.” That’s your current definition.
On a clean sheet of paper write down how you want to redefine this area, and your involvement in it. Write down everything you want it to be, what you wish for it, what you think the highest truth possible about this subject could be.
Burn the paper with the old definitions. Let the smoke clear away from your eyes. Save your new definition. Then watch how the new definition comes to life and take shape.
You don’t have to let past definitions of life, love, God, and yourself limit you anymore. You are free to redefine and help create the life you choose; you’re free to see life in a new way.
Today’s Gift
March 12
“Gentleness is not a quality exclusive to women.”
—Helen Reddy
Each of us has our soft side: maybe it’s when we’re petting a kitten, caring for a baby robin with an injured wing, or soothing a crying child who is afraid. Behaving in a gentle way toward others gives us warm feelings inside. It also encourages others to treat us gently, too.
We don’t always feel like being gentle. If we’re sad or worried about school or a friend, we might not even notice the people around us who need our gentleness. But when we remember gentleness, it lifts our spirits. Two people will always be happier when we’re gentle–the person we’ve been gentle to and ourselves.
Who can I share my gentleness with today?
Touchstones Meditation For Men
March 12
“No sooner do we think we have assembled a comfortable life than we find a piece of ourselves that has no place to fit in.”
—Gail Sheehy
We usually think of children going through stages. If we talk about a man going through a stage, there is usually a tone of a put down in it. But adults go through stages in their lives too. We have different drives and needs at 22 than we had at 16. Age 40 brings a different experience than 30. It would be sad to reach age 60 or 70 and have no more wisdom than we had twenty years earlier. An adult life crisis can come anytime. We may have grown out of a formerly comfortable job. Perhaps we feel new urgings for a more satisfactory relationship than we have settled for. From our recovery experience we know that crisis can bring growth.
Courage is required of us from the cradle to the grave. Change continues throughout life. With courage, we can face our crises and the changes that come, and eventually we find the gift of new growth.
Help me find courage enough to live this day and meet the challenges it brings.
Daily TAO
March 12
ENTERTAINMENT
The mind that turns ever outward
Will have no end to craving.
Only the mind turned inward
Will find a still-point of peace.
It seems people never tire of seeking new thrills. They crave entertainment, and they want newer, sharper experiences. Events do not even need to be actual — people are more than content with recreations, displays, and stimulating machines. Music must be amplified. A historic location must have museums, shops, and festivals. Life must have elaborate ceremonies with images, music, speaking, dining, and drinking.
Followers of Tao regard all reality as being projections of our minds. All phenomena are subjective and relative. Therefore, it is folly to further entangle ourselves in confusion. True reality lies in withdrawal from the swirling variations of the outside world. It lies in looking within and then slowly peeling away the layers of subjectivity. What will remain is not a core of objectivity, but a kernel of truth that absorbs rather than reflects. If we enter into this kernel, our minds cease to continue their habits of creating stimulating realities, and we enter into a silence that feels perfect and whole.
Daily Zen
March 12
Waking from sleep,
I can hear the dew in the trees.
I open my door
Overlooking the garden.
The winter moon
Clears the eastern cliffs;
Water murmurs
Through roots of bamboo.
The mountain stream’s
Beyond my hearing,
But a mountain bird cries once,
And then again.
Leaning in the doorway,
I follow night through to dawn.
What words can I summon
For such mystery and peace?
– Liu Tzung-yuan (773-819)