Daily Reflections
November 12
MORNING THOUGHTS
Ask Him in your morning meditation what you can do each day for the man who is still sick.
-ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 164
For many years I pondered over God’s will for me, believing that perhaps a great destiny had been ordained for my life. After all, having been born into a specific faith, hadn’t I been told early that I was “chosen”? It finally occurred to me, as I considered the above passage, that God’s will for me was simply that I practice Step Twelve on a daily basis. Furthermore, I realized I should do this to the best of my ability. I soon learned that the practice aids me in keeping my life in the context of the day at hand.
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
November 12
A.A. Thought For The Day
I am less critical of other people, inside and outside of A.A. I used to run people down all the time. I realize now that it was because I wanted unconsciously to build myself up. I was envious of people who lived normal lives. I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t be like them. And so I ran them down. I called them sissies or hypocrites. I was always looking for faults in the other person. I loved to tear down what I called “a stuff shirt” or “a snob.” I have found that I can never make a person any better by criticism. A.A. has taught me this. Am I less critical of people?
Meditation For The Day
You must admit your helplessness before your prayer for help will be heard by God. Your own need must be recognized before you can ask God for the strength to meet that need. But once that need is recognized, your prayer is heard above all the music of heaven. It is not theological arguments that solve the problems of the questing soul, but the sincere cry of that soul to God for strength and the certainty of that soul that the cry will be heard and answered.
Prayer For The Day
I pray that I may send my voiceless cry for help out into the void. I pray that I may feel certain that it will be heard somewhere, somehow.
Walk In Dry Places
November 12
The importance of maintenance.
Fortitude
In praising their success with AA, people sometimes overlook the importance of maintenance. AA not only helps us achieve sobriety, but it can also help us maintain our sobriety for a lifetime.
Members often touch on this matter when they admit that they were able to sober up hundreds of times, but didn’t know how to stay sober. It is staying sober that makes all the difference between life and death for us.
Our tools for staying sober___ for maintaining our sobriety___ are the simple ones that put us back on our feet in the first place. We continue to admit that we’re alcoholics and need the help of fellow members and our Higher Power. We also continue to attend meetings and to carry the message. We remind ourselves that we’re never out of the woods permanently, no matter how much our lives improve.
I’ll take the routine steps today that are needed for the maintenance of my sobriety. Doing this will help protect me from the terrible consequences of returning to drinking.
Keep It Simple
November 12
Daydreaming gives us hope. It makes our world bigger. Daydreaming can be part of doing Step Eleven. As we meditate, we daydream. Through our daydreaming, we get to know ourselves, our spirit, and our Higher Power. What special work can we do? Our dreams can tell us.
There is time to work and time to dream. Daydreaming helps us find the work our Higher Power wants us to do.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, please speak to me through my daydreams.
Action for the Day: I’ll set aside time to daydream. I will look into a candle flame, at picture, or out a window, and let my mind wander.
Father Leo’s Daily Meditation
November 12
RELIGION
“It is the test of a good religion if you can joke about it.”
-G. K. Chesterton
Today I am able to joke with God and about God. I am able to laugh at me swinging incense at a candlestick and then swinging the incense at the Bishop! I smile at the determined seriousness of choirboys who receive communion while at the same time sticking chewing gum under the arm rail. I chuckle at the embarrassment of the baptism family when the baby pulls the plug out of the font and the holy water drains away.
Today I am able to laugh at God and His Church it joyously reflects man’s imperfection but at the same time reminds him of his glory.
God, I contemplate You laughing at our pompous piety.
Daily Inspiration
November 12
Write down who you think you are and then write down who you want to be. Lord, help me realize that with little effort I can be who I want to be and give me the determination and will power to blossom.
Prayer is the best preparation for the day. Lord, although I don’t know all that I will need for today, give me clarity and wisdom and remove from my path that which I am yet not strong enough to bear.
Elder’s Meditation of the Day
November 12
“I don’t think that anybody anywhere can talk about the future of their people or of an organization without talking about education. Whoever controls the education of our children controls our future, the future of the Cherokee people, and of the Cherokee Nation.”
-Wilma P. Mankiller, CHEROKEE
The world has changed in the last 50 years. It will change even more in the next 50 years, and it will change even faster. We must educate ourselves to ensure our future generations will maintain the language and the culture of our people. We need to be concerned about our land because when our land goes away, so will our people. We need to be concerned about leadership, our families, and about alcoholism. We need to be concerned about what’s going on around the world. We can only do this by being educated. Then we can control our future.
Great Spirit, please guide our children; let me know how I can help.
Journey to the Heart
November 12
Wash Old Pain Away
“I don’t know what’s going on,” a woman told me, “but lately memories of the past have been coursing through me like a river. I see scenes from my life, then the feelings appear– old pains, old hurts, old wounds. Nothing is triggering this that I can tell. It’s just happening spontaneously.”
We walk around with old wounds, old hurts– remnants of other times, ancient times, in our lives. We may be aware of these old feelings, fully conscious they’re there and why. Or we may only have partial awareness, a lingering sense that there’s some hurt within, without a clue as to its source. We may get a glimpse of it when we open our eyes in the morning and notice something deep inside aches, but we don’t know why. Or we may not be conscious of the pain or it’s connection to a particular event. The pain is hidden away, deep within our soul.
It has become time to cleanse the past.
Let the feelings come to the surface and pass through your consciousness. Let memories emerge as they will. You aren’t going back to your past. What’s happening is normal. Your heart is finding a way to heal.
Clear away the past. Let the river of life wash old pains away. Feel the feelings until the river runs clear.
Today’s Gift
November 12
No life is so hard that you can’t make it easier by the way you take it.
—Ellen Glasgow
Jimmy and Karen were out catching insects for their science class. Jimmy had caught a gray moth and Karen a monarch butterfly.
“My moth sure isn’t very pretty,” Jimmy said as he looked at the two insects. “Now I’ll have to catch something else.”
“Oh, but it is,” said Karen. “See what a fat body your moth has compared to my butterfly, and it’s got fuzzies on its wings.”
“You’re right,” said Jimmy, beginning to smile at his moth. “I was almost going to let him go.”
How many times in the past have we taken just a quick look at something before rejecting it? Often, simply because a thing isn’t quite what we expected, we don’t give ourselves a chance to discover what it is that makes that thing beautiful. There is a secret beauty in everything, even ourselves. When we take the time to seek it out in other people and things, especially those that have disappointed us, that beauty is reflected in us, too.
Can I find the beauty in something common today?
Touchstones Meditations For Men
November 12
An ideal is a man’s portrait of his better self.
—Louis Binstock
When in training for athletics, we use a daily routine to reach a peak condition. We stretch; lift weights, run, and do special conditioning to develop our bodies and skills for that big day of competition. It’s hard work. Sometimes we hate it, but at other times we do it just because it feels so good. Then when the day of competition comes, we can depend on that practice. At a crucial moment there’s not time to think about how we will respond. We just do it the way we learned and use our physical ability to carry us through.
In this program we go to our meetings, we work the Steps on a personal level, we develop a relationship with our Higher Power, and we keep in touch with our sponsor. Some days we may wonder if it’s worthwhile, but most of the time the process is full and rewarding in itself. We make progress toward the ideal although we never achieve perfection. When the challenges or threats to our sobriety come, we have our conditioning within the program to carry us through.
In this day ahead I will remember that I am building myself to peak condition. I will be faithful to my “training program.”
Daily TAO
November 12
REST
The year’s end is coming;
I feel great contentment.
Completion means rest.
Rest means renewal.
Renewal means new beginnings.
Perseverance is a great virtue, but perseverance cannot be cultivated without endings. Perseverance does not mean an endless engagement is Sisyphean tasks. It means beginnings, middles, and ends, and then starting over again. We are nearing the end of our year, but we could not contemplate this ending without having gone through the completions of all the days and months that have come before.
It’s good to look toward the end of things. Not only does it provide perspective, but it also provides the stepping-stone to our next endeavor. When things end, it should ideally mean the attainment of our goals. We should start everything with a definite goal in mind; otherwise our lives will lack purpose. Once we attain our goals, we should be glad and rest. We need the time for our psyches to absorb the significance of our acts. With rest comes renewal, and with renewal we can build the force of our characters and thereby stand stronger for our futures.