Daily Reflections
November 11
SELF-ACCEPTANCE
“We know that God lovingly watches over us. We know that when we turn to Him, all will be well with us, here and hereafter.”
-TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 105
I pray for the willingness to remember that I am a child of God, a divine soul in human form, and that my most basic and urgent life-task is to accept, know, love and nurture myself. As I accept myself, I am accepting God’s will. As I know and love myself, I am knowing and loving God. As I nurture myself I am acting on God’s guidance. I pray for the willingness to let go of my arrogant self-criticism and to praise God by humbly accepting and caring for myself.
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
November 11
A.A. Thought For The Day
When I think of all who have gone before me, I realize that I am only one, not very important, person. What happens to me is not so very important after all. And A.A. has taught me to be more outgoing, to seek friendship by going at least half way; to have a sincere desire to help. I have more self-respect now that I have less sensitiveness. I have found that the only way to live comfortably with myself is to take a real interest in others. Do I realize that I am not so important after all?
Meditation For The Day
As you look back over your life, it is not too difficult to believe that what you went through was for a purpose, to prepare you for some valuable work in life. Everything in your way may well have been planned by God to make you of some use in the world. Each person’s life is like the pattern of a mosaic. Each thing that happened to you is like one tiny stone in the mosaic, and each tiny stone fits into the perfected pattern of the mosaic of your life, which has been designed by God.
Prayer For The Day
I pray that I may not need to see the whole design of my life. I pray that I may trust the Designer.
Walk In Dry Places
November 11
The rewards of truth
Seeking the truth
“The punishment of the liar is that he cannot believe anyone else,” wrote one shrewd philosopher. This is another way of saying that we reap what we sow, or that we tend to judge others by our own actions.
But when we decide to be completely truthful, we are not immediately given the ability to discern whether others are lying or not. It’s more important for us to realize that others’ lies don’t have the power to hurt us permanently if we persevere in the program.
Some people would argue with this, pointing to lies that have hurt innocent people in the past. But having no way of knowing all the facts of these cases, we cannot be the judge.
In our own experience, we’ll find that God alone is the source of all truth and will give us the protection and care we need if we seek truthfulness in everything we do. Any fear of being victimized by lying, we’ll learn, will melt away as we follow this conviction.
I’ll be as discreet as possible today, but I’ll also be truthful. I’ll find that this alone will lessen any fear of being victimized by a liar.
Keep It Simple
November 11
“Have the courage to live; anyone can die.”
—Robert Cody
Living means facing all of life. Life is joy and sorrow. We used to be people who wanted the joy without the sorrow. But we can learn from hard times, maybe more than we do in easy times. Often, getting through hard times helps us grow. When things get tough, maybe we want to turn and run. Then, a gentle voice from within us says, “I am with you. You have friends who will help.” If we listen, we’ll hear our Higher Power. This is what is meant by “conscious contact” in Step 11. As this conscious contact grows, our courage grows. And we find the strength to face hard times.
Prayer for the Day: I pray for the strength and courage to live. I pray that I’ll never have to face hard time alone again.
Action for the Day: I’ll list two examples of “conscious contact” in my life.
“I can’t have a better tomorrow if I am thinking about yesterday all the time.”
—unknown“You can clutch the past so tightly to your chest, that it leaves your arms too full to embrace the present.”
—Jan Glidewell“You can choose to worry about something or you can realize that there are actually very few circumstances in life you can control, and just let things be. This is not an ‘I don’t care’ attitude, this is simply accepting what is.”
—unknown
Father Leo’s Daily Meditation
November 11
PEACE
“Peace without justice is tyranny.”
—William Allen White
Peace at any price! Not for me today. For years I sought a peace that was based upon the “no-talk” principle remaining quiet, rather than causing upset or risking embarrassment. Such a peace was unjust. It only fed the disease and helped to keep me sick.
Today I seek a peace that involves discussing or confronting painful situations, often making me and others uncomfortable. Serenity is a peace that is arrived at after periods of pain but a necessary pain.
In my life today I have the courage to speak out and make choices that are good for me; God is alive in my choice.
May I forever search for the “peace” that is real. May I find “peace” in the justice of my lifestyle.
Daily Inspiration
November 11
Choose the direction of your day and then make a point of enjoying your choices. Lord, help me to do what I can when I can, but also, help me to know when doing nothing is the better choice.
Take care of yourself so that you may give care to others. Lord, may I never totally ignore myself and my feelings for the sake of others and fit in time daily to refresh my spirit.
Elder’s Meditation of the Day
November 11
“If you don’t know the language, you’ll only see the surface of the culture … the language is the heart of the culture and you cannot separate it.”
—Elaine Ramos, TLINGIT
The Creator gave to every person their own special way to communicate and understand. Indians understand connectedness, balance, harmony, spirituality, and the relationship to Mother Earth. The understanding of these things is expressed in the language. The true understanding of culture is expressed in the language. The language is the heart of the people. If we have not learned the language, we need to find a teacher.
Great Spirit, help me to learn the culture. Let me pray and sing to You in my language.
Journey to the Heart
November 11
You’re Not a Victim Anymore
Sometimes people have problems that make it extremely draining to be around them, problems like alcoholism, other addictions, other issues. No matter where we go, who we are, how long we’ve been working on ourselves, a lot of people have these problems. That hasn’t changed.
What has changed is us.
We’ve learned our lessons. We can’t control the addictions, the problems of others. They may be the very problems they came here to solve. We’ve also learned and learned well, that we don’t have to stand and absorb the energy from these problems, energy that isn’t ours, that no longer holds lessons or payoffs. We no longer need the payoffs of the past—that we’re victims and can’t take care of ourselves.
We’re free to walk away with compassion and love.
But most of all, we’re free.
Today’s Gift
November 11
We shall not cease from exploration,
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive from where we started
And know the place for the first time.
—T. S. Eliot
We spend much of our lives looking forward to milestones we hope will mark our passage into wisdom – that time and place when once and for all we will know all there is to know.
When I am 13, I’ll be grown up, we say. When I am 16, 18, 21, drive a car, graduate, marry, write a book, own a house, find a job, or retire; then I’ll be grown up.
When we seek complete transformation, mere insight is disappointing. We find we don’t know all there is to know – not at thirteen or 35 or 80. We are still growing up.
The baby, the child, the younger person each of us was yesterday is still with us; we continue to love, hate, hurt, grieve, startle, delight, feel.
There is no magic moment of lasting enlightenment; simply a series of fleeting moments lived one at a time each day. They bring us home to who we’ve always been.
What small thing have I learned today?
Touchstones Meditations For Men
November 11
“Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you’re a man, you take it.”
—Malcolm X
It does little good to complain about our wives or parents or lovers. We only accentuate our role as victims when we say, “I would be happier if she were different.” “If he would just get off my back, I would act better.” We each have a side, which is loyal to the victim within. Some of us take comfort in acting helpless and being taken care of; some of us relish the power of being catered to; some of us wallow in self-pity. These patterns of thought retard our recovery and put a drag on our relationships. When we decide that we aren’t willing to live this way any longer, we are ready to assert our independence.
Real emancipation can’t come at someone else’s initiative or as a gift. It can only begin from within, by saying, “I will take my independence.” Then we begin to be responsible men because we own it on the inside.
Today, I will not wait for others to set me free. I will do what is within my own power to be a free man.
Daily TAO
November 11
JOY
Do your devotions make you happy?
Is your life a joyous song?
In all this talk about spiritual devotion, there is one simple fact. You have to like it. It should make you happy. It is unfortunate that so much coercion, unhappiness, bitterness, guilt, and fear become wrapped up in spirituality. Why can’t we simply do things out of joy?
Practicing spirituality isn’t a matter of drudgery. It isn’t a matter of fear. It isn’t for fitting into a social group. It has nothing to do with status. Being devoted to holiness in your life is a matter of joy and celebration. When you sit down to meditate, a smile should come to your lips and a feeling of joy should permeate your body. When you go to consecrated ground to give thanks and celebrate, you should do so not because of the day of the week or out of the habit of ritual, but because this is the best way that you know how to adore your gods and express the wonder of being on this earth.