Daily Reflections
March 26
THE TEACHING IS NEVER OVER
Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to Him and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of your past. Give freely of what you find and join us. We shall be with you in the Fellowship of the Spirit, and you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the Road of Happy Destiny. May God bless you and keep you — until then.
– ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 164
These words put a lump in my throat each time I read them. In the beginning it was because I felt, “Oh no! The teaching is over. Now I’m on my own. It will never be this new again.” Today I feel deep affection for the A.A. pioneers when I read this passage, realizing that it sums up all of what I believe in, and strive for, and that — with God’s blessing — the teaching is never over, I’m never on my own, and every day is brand new.
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
March 26
A.A. Thought For The Day
Strength comes also from working with other alcoholics. When you are trying to help a new prospect with the program, you are building up your own strength at the same time. You see the other person in the condition you might be in yourself and it makes your resolve to stay sober stronger than ever. Often, you help yourself more than the other person, but if you do succeed in helping the prospect to get sober, you are stronger from the experience of having helped another person. Am I receiving strength from helping others?
Meditation For The Day
Faith is the bridge between you and God. It is the bridge which God had ordained. If all were seen and known, there would be no merit in doing right. Therefore God has ordained that we do not see or know directly. But we can experience the power of His spirit through our faith. It is the bridge between us and Him, which we can take or not, as we will. There could be no morality without free will. We must make the choice ourselves. We must make the venture of belief.
Prayer For The Day
I pray that I may choose and decide to cross the bridge of faith. I pray that by crossing this bridge I may receive the spiritual power I need.
Walk in Dry Places
March 26
I can’t…. God can…. I think I’ll let God
Guidance
One of the delusions that keep alcoholics in bondage is the belief in the power of the personal will. “I still think I’m strong enough to whip it,” alcoholics have declared defiantly, just before heading out for another debacle.
Willpower has a role in recovery, but only in making a decision to turn the problem over to Higher Power. This sets in motion powerful forces that come to our assistance. We don’t know how and why this process works as it does. We do know that it has worked repeatedly for those who sincerely apply it in their lives.
What’s needed to start the process is an admission of defeat, a willingness to seek a Higher Power, and at least enough open-mindedness to give it all a fair chance. The outcome can be very surprising.
There’s also no need to be apologetic about our Higher Power after we’ve found sobriety. Nobody had a better plan, and we can remember that other severe problems can be handled in the same way.
I’ll do my best today to solve every problem and meet every responsibility. If something is too much for me, I’ll turn it over in the same way I did my drinking problem.
Keep It Simple
March 26
We are here to add what we can to, not to get what we can get from, Life.
–Sir William Osler
Service is a word we hear in our recovery program. Service means work we do for others. It’s the backbone of our program. The reason is simple. Service to our Higher Power and to others breaks down our wanting to be self-centered. Service brings us back into the world. We really are part of the group when we pitch in to make coffee, set up chairs, or talk in meetings. We really feel like part of the family when we run errands and help with meals and housework. We really connect with our Higher Power when we pray, “Use me today to help others.” Service breaks down the feeling of being alone that being self -centered brings.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me to be of service to You and others. Show me what is needed.
Action for the Day: Today will be a service day. I’ll see how valued I am. I’ll give to others, knowing that I, too, will receive.
Like a tree blowing in the wind, friendships can bend and waver, yet they will both remain standing if they have strong roots.
–Suzanne LongThere is light within a person of light, And it shines on the whole world.
–The gospel of Thomas” … I saw people willing to compromise themselves, or change themselves, to acquire what they thought was important. I don’t judge what other people do, many choices that may be right for others are definitely not right for me.”
–Kathy IrelandGod is singing and Creation is the melody.
–David PalmerForgiveness restores us and our relationships.
–J. Keith Brown
Father Leo’s Daily Meditation
March 26
TEACHING
“The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery.”
— Mark Van Doren
I have a need of a “sponsor” in my life. Somebody I turn to when I have problems, when I am confused or in pain, when I simply need to talk, when I feel lonely or when I am about to make a major change in my life. Every addict needs a sponsor; somebody to bounce ideas off, especially ideas that affect the living of my life because I truly understand that the disease of alcoholism lives in my life!
My sponsor guides, suggests and gently leads me to where I need to go; he does not demand or dictate. My sponsor is a friend whom I can trust, and he makes a point of not being a “fixer” in my life. He will not allow me to escape into his life. He will not allow me to become addicted to him.
O God, let me always be free enough to discover You in my life.
Daily Inspiration
March 26
Trouble comes to everyone, but feeling miserable is no reason to make others miserable. Lord, may I never destroy another’s happiness.
With our blessings come responsibilities. Much is required of those to whom much has been given. Lord, may I use my blessings to be a blessing to others.
Elder’s Meditation of the Day
March 26
“In our modern world today, we may seem like drowning men because of the loss of much of our spiritual tradition.”
–Thomas Yellowtail, CROW
Our spiritual tradition shows us the way to live in harmony, balance and respect. The tradition taught us how to behave and how to conduct ourselves. The spiritual way taught us to pray and to purify ourselves. Handed down from generation to generation were the teachings about a way of life. Our relationship to Mother Earth and to each other was very clear. The Modern World does not relate to spirituality but to materialism. If we do not allow spirituality to guide our lives, we will be lost, unhappy and without direction. We are spiritual beings trying to be human, not human beings trying to be spiritual. It is said, Know thyself.
Grandfather, lead me to spirituality.
Journey to the Heart
March 26
Make Each Moment Count
“A picture isn’t taken in a moment,” stated the brochure for the Cottonwood Colorado hotel. “It’s taken of a moment.”
It took me a long time to learn that important truth. I spent years trying to get my life together and keep it together, as though it were a solid chunk that could be arranged in a certain place, then made to stay there. It took me a long time to learn about moments.
In many ways, our lives are like a movie reel, made up of individual frames and single moments each one leading into the next. It is a waste of energy to try and hold on to the moments of the past. By the time we begin reaching for them, they’re gone. It is just as poor timing to try to jump into moments that have not arrived yet– the future.
Stay in the present moment, the frame you’re in now. That’s the only moment where happiness, joy, and love can be found. And remember to make each moment count.
Today’s Gift
March 26
There is a proper balance between not asking enough of oneself and asking or expecting too much.
—May Sarton
The boy’s mother baked pies that morning before he was up. She left them on the back porch to cool, their warm aroma curling up through his bedroom window. His mouth was full of the smell when he woke.
Before she left for work, she said, “You may do anything you want today, anything at all. Except for one thing – don’t step in those pies.”
All day the boy could not get the pies out of his mind; his feet itched just thinking about them.
Don’t step in those pies. He heard her voice inside his head. By late afternoon he could control it no longer. One, two, three, four, five, six–his foot fell squarely into the middle of each pie.
When we expect the worst from others, we often get just that. The same goes for our expectations of ourselves. And when we trust others, it too is returned.
Do I expect the best of others–and myself–today?
Touchstones Meditation For Men
March 26
As long as I am constantly concerned about what I “ought” to say, think, do, or feel, I am still the victim of my surroundings and am not liberated. … But when I can accept my identity from God and allow Him to be the center of my life, I am liberated from compulsion and can move without restraints.
—Henri J. M. Nouwen
As we get more settled in our recovery, we are more vulnerable to becoming rigidly ruled by ideas of behavior, which should serve as guidelines, not moral edicts. If we find ourselves saying we should pass the message of recovery to others, perhaps the spirit of the program is missing. If we are telling ourselves we should go to meetings but don’t feel the benefit, perhaps we have lost the spiritual path.
Our powerlessness is the source of vitality in our relationship with God. In the painful awareness that our will and our own devices get us nowhere, we can put aside the shoulds and again accept our identity from God.
Today, I will set aside my shoulds and return to trust in my Higher Power.
Daily TAO
March 26
RETROSPECTIVE
You could labor ten years under a master
Trying to discern whether the teachings are true.
But all you might learn is this:
One must live one’s own life.
When one starts out learning a spiritual system, there are many absolute assertions that the masters make. These must be accepted with a provisional faith: Each must be tested and proved to yourself before you can believe in them. You will be exposed to all types of esoteric knowledge, but you need only be concerned with whether or not you can make them work for yourself.
There will come an intermediate, joyous point where you find that certain techniques work even better than the scriptures claim. In the wake of these discoveries, you will also find that life continues to be just as thorny and problematic as ever. Does this mean that the stud of Tao is useless? No. It only means that you have been laboring to equip yourself with skill. You must still go out and live your life to the end.
When you look back and realize that you have absorbed the teachings so thoroughly that they have become routine, it is not the time to reject the system you have learned. It is the time to utilize what you have learned. It is the time to utilize what you have learned. You must express yourself, take action in the world, create new circumstances for yourself and others. Only then does the long acquisition of skill become worthwhile.
Daily Zen
March 26
Mornings we see Wu hill horizontal,
Evenings we see it rise straight up.
Wu hill strikes many different poses,
Turning this way and that,
Showing off for us.
A man of retiring ways built this red pavilion,
Completely empty, nothing inside,
Only those thousand-pace slopes
East and west as ornaments to top its blinds.
Spring comes, but I’ve no prospect
Of returning to my homeland;
They talk of autumn sadness,
But spring’s even sadder.
– Su Tung-p’o (1072)