Daily Reflections
March 30
OUR GROUP CONSCIENCE
” … sometimes the good is the enemy of the best.”
–ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS COMES OF AGE, p. 101
Twenty-Four Hours A
Day
March 30
A.A. Thought for the Day
Before I met A.A., I was very unloving. From the time I went away to school, I paid very little attention to my mother and father, I was on my own and didn’t even bother to keep in touch with them. After I got married, I was very unappreciative of my spouse. Many a time I would go out all by myself to have a good time. I paid too little attention to our children and didn’t try to understand them or show them affection. My few friends were only drinking companions, not real friends.Have I gotten over loving nobody but my self?
Meditation for the Day
Be calm, be true, and be quiet. Do not get emotionally upset by anything that happens around you. Feel a deep, inner security in the goodness and purpose in the universe. Be true to your highest ideals. Do not let yourself slip back into the old ways of reacting. Stick to your spiritual guns. Be calm always. Do not talk back or defend yourself too much against accusation, whether false or true. Accept criticism as well as you accept praise. Only God can judge the real you.
Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may not be upset by the judgment of others. I pray that I may let God be the judge of the real me.
Walk in Dry Places
March 30
Identify, don’t compare
Good Judgment.
There’s always danger in comparing ourselves with others. If we use behavior and drinking as yardsticks, such comparisons can lead us to believe that we might not really be alcoholics. This mistaken conclusion has been the undoing of some alcoholics.
The better course is to identify with the problems others have in common with us. Thought drinking patterns and habits may vary between two people, individuals may at least share the fears and delusions that drinking brought.
Other common factors that bind alcoholics together are emotional immaturity, a misplaced faith that alcohol solves problems, loneliness, and a tendency toward resentments. These also make good discussion topics for meetings.
At the very beginning of AA, the founders had trouble coming up with a real definition of alcoholism. Since then, we’ve done very well be letting members “Diagnose” themselves. It’s best to leave it this way: “If your drinking is a problem in your life, AA has an answer for you.
Today I will not waste time comparing myself with others. Having accepted my alcoholism, I’ll devote my attention to the things that enhance sobriety.
Keep It Simple
March 30
Spirituality is … the awareness that survival is a savage fight between you and yourself.
–Lisa S.
As recovering people, we’re getting stronger each day. We go to meetings to learn how to be better people. But we also go to remind ourselves of the beast inside us–our addiction. This beast is waiting for us to slip–to go back to our addiction–so it can regain control.
Thus ,it’s wise to learn all we can about our disease. That’s why it’s important to do a good job on our Fourth Step. When we work Step Four, we learn how our addiction acts, thinks, and feels. With the help of our program, we can quiet the beast. One Day at a Time.,
Prayer for the Day:Higher Power, I’m fighting for my life. Thanks to You, I’m winning today and my life is free.
Action for the Day:I’ll talk to a friend about my addiction, the beast inside me. I’ll do this so it will have less power over me.
For happiness brings happiness
And loving ways bring love;
And Giving is the treasure
That contentment is made of.
–Amanda Bradley
Life is like a taxi. The meter just keeps a-ticking whether you are getting somewhere or just standing still.
–Lou Erickson
No matter what we have done, God always offers us the chance to begin anew. Knowing that God grants us a new beginning, we, too, can look at our parents, our children, our partner or our friends, anyone with whom we’ve had some distance, and say, “Let’s have a new beginning.” Love is greater than any of our mistakes.
–Mary Manin Morrissey
God, help me be open to all the ways you speak to me to help guide me along my path.
-Melody Beattie
Words are potent weapons for all causes, good or bad.
–Manly Hall
A blow with a word strikes deeper than a blow with a sword.
–Robert Burton
In our lowest moments God is with us to say, “Do not fear.”
–Bob Frankenburg
Father Leo’s Daily
Meditation
March 30
REASON
“For here we are not afraid to follow wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate error so long as reason is free to combat it.”
— Thomas Jefferson
As an alcoholic I was so often afraid to challenge the thinking and ideas of other people. My “people pleasing” demanded peace at any price. And yet so much of what I heard, read and practiced I did not agree with. Now I see that my behavior, my attitude — along with the alcohol consumption — kept me sick.
In my spiritual program today I am free to reject, consider and have my own opinions in life. I do not simply have to agree with everything that is said, in this way I am discovering my value and self-esteem.
Lord, I am grateful for the freedom to cooperate.
Daily Inspiration
March 30
Some can find fault in everything, but it takes a good and loving heart to find goodness, especially when it is less than obvious. Lord, bless me with gentleness and patience and the determination not to complain.
There is much wisdom in knowing what to overlook. Lord, may I take every opportunity to praise and choose carefully when I feel the need to criticize.
Elder’s Meditation
of the Day
March 30
“If anyone has children, they better teach their children to follow the traditions that we’re leaving behind because it is later than we think with all that’s going on.”
–Juanita Centeno, CHUMASH
The habits, attitudes, and beliefs that carry the human through the trials of life are developed at a very young age. If we are taught respect at a very young age, the odds are we’ll be respectful throughout our whole lives. If we are taught to dance at a young age, we’ll dance our whole lives. If we are taught to sing the traditional songs while we are young, we’ll sing those songs throughout our whole lives. And who do we drum and sing songs to? Our children. This is how we keep it going.
Great Spirit, today, teach me to teach the children.
Journey to the
Heart
March 30
Who or What Is Pulling on You?
Learn to become sensitive to the quiet as well as the clamorous pulls on your energy, your time, your emotions. You are becoming connected– to yourself, the universe, God, others– in a way you have never been before. To deny these pulls is to deny the connections.
A quiet tug on our consciousness may be telling us what we need to do. We think about an old friend and contemplate calling her, but we don’t. Don’t be silly, we tell ourselves. Why would I do that now? But maybe that friend is calling out to us. Or we have a problem we haven’t known how to solve. That situation begins to work on us, bothering us, interrupting our day. Maybe our instincts are telling us it’s time to do something about it.
We are living differently now, more magically, more at ease, more at one with our actions. One way we know it is time to do something not on the calendar or the clock is to pay attention to the quiet pulls on our energy. Being conscious of these impulses, then trusting ourselves to naturally know what to do and when to do it puts us in harmony with the universe and our soul.
Who or what is pulling on you? What do you think you should do? Now, take it to the next step, the next level. What does your heart lead you to do?
Today’s Gift
March 30
Come stand by my side where I’m going, Take my hand if I stumble and fall, It’s the strength that you share when you’re growing, That gives me what I need most of all.
—Hoyt Axton
The bear cub was miserable. Her father, the leader of the pack, had left a month ago to find them winter shelter and had not yet returned. Everyone went on as if nothing had changed.
One evening the cub had a dream in which her father appeared and said, “Daughter, I know you grieve for me, but your burden is too heavy to carry alone. Share it with the others and let them comfort you. Sharing will only lighten your load, and if you can accept help now you will find it easier to give when others are in need.”
The next morning the little cub woke with a much lighter heart. As it turns out, everyone in the pack shared the same dream. There was much hugging and crying and reaching out and healing.
We can easily lighten our loads by asking support from those who love us, knowing our turn to help will come.
What help can I ask for today?
Touchstones
Meditation For Men
March 30
We all carry it within us: supreme strength, the fullness of wisdom, unquenchable joy. It is never thwarted and cannot be destroyed. But it is hidden deep, which is what makes life a problem.
—Huston Smith
How does a man lose touch with his strength, his wisdom, his joy? Perhaps it is in the nature of humanity. Our most profound qualities are hidden deep. They never go away, but we cannot always find them. There may be nothing wrong with ourselves as men when we lose touch. It doesn’t have to mean that we are “bad guys” for getting depressed or for feeling inadequate. Who doesn’t have that problem? It is the nature of life that we sometimes feel this way. This program helps us unearth the resources hidden within us.
When we cannot find those reassuring feelings of strength and wisdom and joy, we may think they are gone forever. We even doubt we ever had them or could have them again. But they are still there. They cannot be destroyed. And when we regain contact we know they have been with us all along.
I will have faith that the innermost places in me can never be destroyed.
Daily TAO
March 30
DISENGAGEMENT
Wearily I open my prayer book,
Sepia photograph of sage on amber page,
Flaming raven Sanskrit, strange syllables,
Intone, chant, repeat.
Number vows with beads:
Every resolution is inspiration petrified.
There are some days when one is disengaged from Tao, not interested in devotion, and everything just becomes an empty form. Gone are spiritual bliss, deep insight, and integration with the rhythm of the universe. Instead, there is duty, form, and stiff discipline. One can try to remember the reasons for one’s quest, think of the achievements of the past, reaffirm one’s goals, and still not be inspired to do one’s practice. What do you do?
Every once in a while, it is permissible to skip things for a day. If you are angry, under great stress, or ill, then it is best simply to rest. But if one has made vows, if it is only a matter of laziness or indifference, then you must exert your discipline and practice even if it means that you are just going through the motions. In at least half the cases, something significant will happen. The rest of the time, going through your forms is in itself a good practice. It builds a tremendous momentum that will manifest itself in later times.
Daily Zen
March 30
The east wind, knowing I plan to walk
Through the hills,
Hushed the sound of endless rain
Between the eaves.
On peaks, fair-weather clouds,
Cloth caps pulled down;
Early sun in treetops
A copper gong suspended.
Wild peach smiles over low bamboo hedges;
By clear sandy streams,
Valley willows sway.
These west hill families must be happiest of all,
Boiling cress and roasting shoots to feed
Spring planters.
– Su Tung-p’o (1073)