Daily Reflections
May 18
FREEDOM TO BE ME
If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.
-ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p 83
My first true freedom is the freedom not to have to take a drink today. If I truly want it, I will work the Twelve Steps and the happiness of this freedom will come to me through the Steps – sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. Other freedoms will follow, and inventorying them is a new happiness. I had a new freedom today, the freedom to be me. I have the freedom to be the best me I have ever been.
Twenty-Four Hours A
Day
May 18
A.A. Thought for the Day
We’re in A.A. for two main reasons: to keep sober ourselves and to help others to keep sober. It’s a well known fact that helping others is a big part of keeping sober yourself. It’s also been proved that it’s very hard to keep sober all by yourself. A lot of people have tried it and failed. They come to a few A.A. meetings and then stay sober alone for a few months, but usually they eventually get drunk. Do I know that I can’t stay sober successfully alone?
Meditation for the Day
Look by faith into that place beyond space or time where God dwells and whence you came and to which you shall eventually return. “Look unto Him and be saved.” To look beyond material things is within the power of everyone’s imagination. Faith’s look saves you from despair. Faith’s look saves you from worry and care. Faith’s look brings a peace beyond all understanding. Faith’s look brings you all the strength you need. Faith’s look gives you a new and vital power and a wonderful peace and serenity.
Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may have faith’s look. I pray that by faith I may look beyond the now to eternal life.
Walk in Dry Places
May 18
No Limits on our
Higher power
The Spiritual Way
One ancient saying claims that “with God, all things are possible.” That’s quite a statement, one we may claim to believe without living as though we do.
What it really neat is that God exists outside the conditions and restrictions that make our own lives so limited. The more we can move into conscious contact with God, the more freedom and power we will experience.
It might be said that all real human progress is the same order. Every advancement in science really reveals more information about God and the universe. We are always discovering new possibilities for humankind as we stretch the frontiers of knowledge.
Our most serious lag is in learning to understand ourselves and each other. It is humbling to realize that the ideas we’re using in Twelve Step programs have been around for centuries. Fced with impossible problems, we must remember that God can solve these problems if only we ask.
I’ll follow today the old idea of working as if everything depended on me and believing as if everything depended on God.
Keep It Simple
May 18
You cannot plan the future by the past.
-Edmund Burke
We got tried of how we were living. We honestly looked at our life. We saw that alcohol and other drugs controlled our life. We met others who understood us. And we came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could help us. We turned our will and our life over to this Power. In so doing, we learned that life doesn’t take place in the past or in the future. We find our program in the present.
Prayer for the Day: I pray that I’ll leave the past in the past. I pray that I’ll walk into each moment with my Higher Power.
Action for the Day: The only time we revisit the past is when we tell our story. Today, I’ll tell my story to someone. I’ll tell what really happened. I’ll tell what life is like now.
Self-esteem is so delicate a flower that praise tends to make it bloom, while discouragement often nips it in the bud.
–Alex F. Osborn
There are many paths to the top of the mountain, but the view is always the same.
–Chinese Proverb
“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing; that’s why we recommend it daily.”
–Zig Ziglar
“No matter what you have done to this moment, you get 24 brand-new hours to spend every single day.”
–Brian Tracy
“Make sure you have finished speaking before your audience has finished listening.”
–Dorothy Sarnoff
Father Leo’s Daily
Meditation
May 18
FAITH
“Faith has need of the whole truth.”
–Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Faith is a journey that ends in God. Our understanding of imperfection teaches us to look beyond ourselves into the truth that is yet to be revealed. Our daily attitude adjustments bring us, step by step, to that truth and freedom that awaits us in the future.
Sufficient today to know that we are not God and nobody has all the answers. The hardest part of being a human being is accepting the limitations of our lives. Things happen without our involvement. We need not be there for existence to happen; there is life beyond me! God holds the world together, not me. Truth is in me but also beyond me. In this sense my faith is enriched by others, and at some point in the future we will all become ONE in truth.
As I look to the future I see the Oneness of tomorrow.
Daily Inspiration
May 18
If you are stressed, you are probably makings things more important than they really are. Lord, I pray for clarity of thought and calmness of spirit because I know that when my heart grows weary, You send me peace.
Joy does not depend on your circumstances, but rather on your triumph over your circumstances. Lord, my joy comes from within where Your spirit fills my soul and You bless me with Your strength.
Elder’s Meditation
of the Day
May 18
” … Grandmother the Earth. That power is here all the time. It is continuous, and nobody controls it.”
–Wallace Black Elk, LAKOTA
There are certain powers that the human being has no choice but to obey. We cannot negotiate or barter with this power. Our choice is either to conform or to live out of harmony. Whatever our choice, it will be the end result in our lives that we notice. So it is with the powers of the Earth which produce life. The Earth has the life force power. If anyone plants a seed, the seed will grow. The Earth treats everyone equally. The human cannot interfere, only obey. We should all show great respect for the Earth and Her powers.
Great Spirit, today, let me honor and respect the power of the Grandmother, the Earth.
Journey to the
Heart
May 18
Love All of Yourself
Do more than just accept yourself, tolerate yourself, put up with yourself, endure who you are. Love yourself.
There came a time in my life when I simply could no longer put up with putting up with myself. I had talked about self-love. I had said aloud that I loved myself. The words were good, but they didn’t ring true. I had to actually begin experiencing and practicing love for myself. It became the next step on my path.
To live in a magical way, one in which you connect with the universe, loving yourself isn’t optional. It comes first. To hear the quiet voice of your heart so you know when you’re being led, to hear your thoughts so you can see what you really believe, to trust, and open your heart, you must first experience love for yourself.
Have you abandoned yourself? Let yourself see if that’s true, feel if that’s true. Then learn to experience love for yourself.
Learn to love the way you handle things. Love your unique way of learning, growing, and seeing things. Love where you’ve been. Love what you’ve done. Love where you are, and what you’re doing now.
Love how you look, smell, and feel. Love the color of your eyes, the color of your hair, and the radiance in your heart. Love how you laugh. Love how you cry. Love your mistakes, and love all the good you’ve done. Love it all. Love all of you.
Step into love for yourself, and the universe will reflect that love back to you.
Today’s Gift
May 18
He that cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which
he must pass himself; for every man has need to be forgiven.
—Thomas Fuller
We have all seen adventure movies in which the heroes or villains are caught on a bridge that collapses. As they fall to whatever lies below, they are perhaps able to climb to one side or the other. But for the time being, their ability to cross between the two sides is gone.
When we have been hurt by people in our lives, or when we have hurt others, mutual forgiveness is needed in order to rebuild the trust between us. It is very much like rebuilding a bridge – one piece at a time. We take cautious steps at first – testing the safety and strength of our bridge.
When two people have become separated by loss or anger, it is forgiveness that can rebuild the bridge between them. Forgiveness needs time and so does the rebuilding of trust.
Can I begin to rebuild a friendship today?
Touchstones
Meditation For Men
May 18
One should learn to enjoy the neighbor’s garden, however small; the roses straggling over the fence, the scent of lilacs drifting across the road.
—Henry Van Dyke
There are many gifts around us which we overlook when we’re busy dealing with our anxieties and obligations. We talk about burning out from our high-intensity lifestyles. We act as though nothing would get done if we didn’t do it ourselves. We get so engrossed in fighting with the frustrations of life that we fail to see the good things coming our way that took no effort on our part.
As we look around us this very moment, what good things do we find? Has a friend given a warm hello? Is the sun shining? The rain falling? Has the traffic flowed smoothly? We have no claim on these generous events, and we can’t say God smiles on us when we have them or He frowns when we don’t. We can say there are always generous forces coming our way, which comfort and heal us. We only need to take time to enjoy them.
Today, I will take some quiet moments to notice the good things coming my way. I will be grateful for them.
Daily TAO
May 18
SCHOLASTICISM
Ocean inside a skull-cup,
Seeking the universal code in letters.
The mind is like a flower on icy water,
An eye within the petals.
The intellect is one of the thorniest problems for a spiritual aspirant. One cannot do without it — indeed, it is essential — and yet one cannot allow it to remain totally dominant. The intellect must be fully developed before it is brought to a point of neutrality. Unless this is done, it will act as a block, and there will not be any ultimate spiritual success.
Scholarship is thus an important first step. Education is a means of gaining access to the conventional world, of satisfying our curiosity, and of avoiding superstitious tendencies. There can be no talk of delving into philosophical mysteries if one has not even satisfied one’s curiosity about nature, civilization, mathematics, and language. But once mental cultivation is achieved, one must focus increasingly on a part of the mind that is far beyond the scholarly.