Daily Reflections
May 3
CLEANING HOUSE
Somehow, being alone with God doesn’t seem as embarrassing as facing up to another person. Until we actually sit down and talk aloud about what we have so long hidden, our willingness to clean house is still largely theoretical.
-TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p 60
It wasn’t unusual for me to talk to God, and myself, about my character defects. But to sit down, face to face, and openly discuss these intimacies with another person was much more difficult. I recognized in the experience, however, a similar relief to the one I had experienced when I first admitted I was an alcoholic. I began to appreciate the spiritual significance of the program and that this Step was just an introduction to what was yet to come in the remaining seven Steps.
Twenty-Four Hours A
Day
May 3
A.A. Thought for the Day
A.A. teaches us to take it easy. We learn how to relax and to stop worrying about the past or the future, to give up our resentments and hates and tempers, to stop being critical of people, and to try to help them instead. That’s what “Easy Does It” means. So in the time that’s left to me to live, I’m going to try to take it easy, to relax and not to worry, to try to be helpful to others, and to trust God. For what’s left of my life, is my motto going to be “Easy Does It?”
Meditation for the Day
I must overcome myself before I can truly forgive other people for injuries done to me. The self in me cannot forgive injuries. The very thought of wrongs means that my self is in the foreground. Since the self cannot forgive, I must overcome my selfishness. I must cease trying to forgive those who fretted and wronged me. It is a mistake for me even to think about these injuries. I must aim at overcoming myself in my daily life and then I will find there is nothing in me that remembers injury, because the only thing injured, my selfishness, is gone.
Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may hold no resentments. I pray that my mind may be washed clean of all past hates and fears.
Walk in Dry Places
May 3
Knowing a new
freedom
Spiritual growth
Most of us place a high value on freedom without always knowing what it really is, or ought to be. “Freedom” in the drinking world is often merely license to indulge ourselves without concern about consequences. This false freedom usually forces us into dependency or the need to rely on others to get us out of trouble.
The “new freedom” that comes out of the 12 Steps is a higher order. It means that by following principles in living we find choices and experiences that were never possible in the old life. We are free from the destructive behavior that always ended in pain and defeat.
This freedom is more of the spirit than of worldly things. It is knowing the truth about ourselves and life. As the Bible says, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” In this new freedom, we no longer pursue activities that are ruinous and wasteful. We no longer deceive ourselves with painful illusions and false hopes, because we’ve learned to live and think on higher levels. Knowing the truth, we’re free from alcohol and from the bad thinking that poisoned our lives and relationships.
Today I’ll be grateful for the new freedom I have found in the program. I am free from the compulsions that caused me to hurt myself and others. I am free to choose new opportunities for service and self-expression.
Keep It Simple
May 3, 201
When I have listened to my mistakes, I have grown.
—Hugh Prather
Everyone makes mistakes. We all know that. So why is it so hard to admit our own? We seem to think we have to be prefect. We have a hard time looking at our mistakes. But our mistakes can be very good teachers. Our Twelve Step program helps us learn and grow from our mistakes. In Step Four, half of our work is to think of our mistakes. In step Five, we admit our mistakes to God, ourselves, and another person. We learn, we grow and become whole. All by coming to know our mistakes The gift of recovery is not being free from mistakes. Instead, we do the Steps to claim our mistakes and talk about them. We find the gift of recovery when we learn from our mistakes.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me to see my mistakes as changes to get to know myself better.
Action for the Day: Today Ill talk to a friend about what my mistakes taught me. Today I’ll feel less shame.
You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance.
–Franklin P. Adams
When the pace of change seems overwhelming, we find stability in God.
–Sherry Holloway
Father Leo’s Daily
Meditation
May 3
UNIQUENESS
“God sees nothing average.”
–Anonymous
God created every human being from the dust and yet He bestowed within all of us His image. This means that we are divine. We are creatures created to create. We share God’s life for the universe. We are anything but average!
And yet for years we thought we were not good enough. We needed drugs, food or people to make us okay. We considered ourselves “less-than”, inferior or freaks.
But today we awake to a new message. The spiritual message tells us that we are forever holding the hand of God. He needs you and me to work in His vineyard. In us He makes miracles. Today I know that I am beautiful. I am important. I am unique.
Master, part of Your beauty is in Your healing power. Help me to be healed daily by beholding my beauty that is forever within and without.
Daily Inspiration
May 3
Patience grows with practice and elevates the hearts of those who benefit from it as well as your own. Lord, may my actions show love and speak loudly of Your presence within me.
Most of us never set our sights as high as Jesus intended we should. Lord, may the celebration of Your birth serve as a rebirth within me of my sense of commitment, consecration and purpose.
Elder’s Meditation
of the Day
May 3
“But I have learned a lot from trees: sometimes about the weather, sometimes about animals, sometimes about the Great Spirit.”
–Walking Buffalo, STONEY
Nature is the greatest teacher on the Earth. Nature produces many different plants, animals, trees, rocks, birds, insects, and weather patterns. Nature designed all these various things to grow and multiply while at the same time live in harmony with each other. We can learn a lot of we observe and study Nature’s system of harmony and balance. Today, go sit on a rock and quietly observe and ask to be shown the lessons.
Great Spirit, Nature is my teacher. Today, let me be the student.
Today’s Gift
May 3
Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent.
—Erica Jong
How easy it is to look at others with envy, certain that everyone we know is better in every way: school, sports, games, and appearance. What we may not know is that each of us is exactly right the way we are. And what’s more, no one of us is without talent. Perhaps we simply have not discovered it yet, or maybe we’ve been certain we knew what the talent should be, rather than letting the talent within us emerge.
It’s reassuring to know that we are talented, that we are special just as we are, that no one else is able to bring to this life exactly the same ingredients that we’re able to bring.
What special talent shall I exercise today?
Touchstones
Meditation for Men
May 3
Honesty without compassion and understanding is not honest, but subtle hostility.
—Rose N. Frarnzblau
Any good thing can be used in hurtful or destructive ways. Our entire recovery is based on a fundamental premise of honesty. But our honesty becomes distorted and hurtful when we are not in tune with our motivations. A man who contradicts other group members to feel superior rather than to be helpful is being hostile. If we criticize people about things they cannot change, we are only hurting them. In making amends, we should not approach people who are better off without our contact, or who are better off without our confessions.
As we grow, we encounter more parts of ourselves that may be hurtful. We need to accept those parts too, not condemn ourselves for being human, and not hide our destructive impulses from ourselves. Then our honesty with ourselves and with others will not be tainted by dishonest motives.
I pray for honesty with myself first so my honesty with others will be pure.
Daily TAO
May 3
CENTER
From a bud, only a promise.
Then a gentle opening :
Rich blooming, bursting fragrance,
The fulfillment of the center.
True beauty comes from within. Take a flower as an example. In the beginning it is only a bud. It does not yet show its loveliness to the world, it does not attract bees or butterflies, and it cannot yet become fruit. Only when it opens is beauty revealed in its center. There is the focus of its exquisiteness, there is the source of its aroma, there is its sweet nectar. In the same way, our own unique beauty comes from within.
Our glory has nothing to do with our appearance or our occupation. Our special qualities come from an inner source. We must take care to open and bloom naturally and leisurely and keep to the center. It is from there that all mystery and power comes, and it is good to let it unfold in its own time.