Daily Reflections
October 11
SELF–RESTRAINT
Our first objective will be the development of self-restraint.
-TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 91
My drive to work provides me with an opportunity for self-examination. One day while making this trip, I began to review my progress in sobriety, and was not happy with what I saw. I hoped that, as the work day progressed, I would forget these troublesome thoughts, but as one disappointment after another kept coming, my discontent only increased, and the pressures within me kept mounting. I retreated to an isolated table in the lounge, and asked myself how I could make the most of the rest of the day. In the past, when things went wrong, I instinctively wanted to fight back. But during the short time I had been trying to live the A.A. program I had learned to step back and take a look at myself. I recognized that, although I was not the person I wanted to be, I had learned to not react in my old ways. Those old patterns of behavior only brought sorrow and hurt, to me and to others. I returned to my work station, determined to make the day a productive one, thanking God for the chance to make progress that day.
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
October 11
A.A. Thought For The Day
How good a sponsor am I? When I bring new members to a meeting, do I feel that my responsibility has ended? Or do I make it my job to stay with them until they have either become good members of A.A. or have found another sponsor? If they don’t show up for a meeting, do I say to myself: “Well they’ve had it put up to them, so if they don’t want it, there’s nothing more I can do? “ Or do I look them up and find out whether there is a reason for their absences or that they don’t want A.A.? Do I go out of my way to find out if there is anything more I can do to help? Am I a good sponsor?
Meditation For The Day
“First be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift to God.” First I must get right with other people and then I can get right with God. If I hold a resentment against someone, which I find it very difficult to overcome, I should try to put something else constructive into my mind. I should pray for the one against whom I hold the resentment. I should put that person in God’s hands and let God show him or her the way to live. “If a man say: ‘I love God’ and hateth his brother, he is a liar, for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?”
Prayer For The Day
I pray that I may see something good in every person, even one I dislike, and that I may let God develop the good in that person.
Walk In Dry Places
October 11
Keeping anger in safe limits
Dealing with anger
“The most heated bit of letter-writing can be a wonderful safety valve,” AA co-founder, Bill W. said, “providing the wastebasket is somewhere nearby.” This is a delightful bit of advice about the right way to handle anger.
Writing an angry letter is at least a way of bringing our feelings out so that we can see them. This is far healthier than the peculiar method of “Stuffing” one’s feelings and pretending that there was no hurt or offense. But an angry letter, once mailed, can be more destructive than a bullet. We may live to regret ever having mailed it. It could have unintended consequences of the worst kind.
That’s why the wastebasket becomes the second hand way to deal with our anger. We throw the letter away and let time and wisdom heal the matter. What usually happen under the guidance of our Higher Power is that we find a much more satisfactory way of settling whatever has happened. If I become angry today, I’ll admit it to myself. Perhaps I’ll even put my feelings on paper. But I’ll have the good sense not to go further with such outbursts.
Keep It Simple
October 11
May you live all the days of your life.
—Jonathan Swift
The truth is, life hard. Accepting this fact will make it easier. Remember how well it worked in Step One? Once we admitted and that we were powerless over alcohol and other drugs, we were given the power to recover. It works the same with life’s problems.
We can spend a lot of energy trying to avoid life’s hardships. But our program teaches us to use the same energy to solve our problems. Problems are chances to better ourselves and become more spiritual. We have a choice: we can either use our energy to avoid problems, or we can face them. When we stop wasting energy, we start to feel more sure of ourselves.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, life is to be lived, both the easy and the hard parts. Help me face and learn from it all.
Action for the Day: I’ll work at not complaining about how hard life is. I’ll take the same energy and us it to solve problems I may face.
A clear conscience is a good pillow. –American Proverb
“It’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get back up.” –Vince Lombardi
There are risks and costs to a program of action, but they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.
–John F. KennedyThe first service one owes to others in the fellowship consists in listening to them. Just as love of God begins in listening to His Word, so the beginning of love for the brethren is learning to listen to them. It is God’s love for us that He not only gives us His Word but lends us His ear. So it is His work that we do for our brother when we learn to listen to him.
–Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), Life Together“Often we seek to grow or change ourselves by adjusting the external aspects of our lives. We all too often forget that permanent or real change only comes when the center of our being, our inner drives and motivations, undergoes transformation.”
–Errol Strider
Father Leo’s Daily Meditation
October 11
ART
“Art is not a thing; it is a way.”
– Elbert Hubbard
In the spiritual twelve-step program it talks about “…a God as you understand Him.” This is a liberating concept that teaches us to risk and think “big”. God is not only found in churches, temples and rituals — God can be found in the myriad of art forms. God is always to be found in the creative. Because art is always concerned with life and truth, God is always involved.
Today I am able to look for God in His or Her World.
In my recovery from the disease of addiction I need to discover the wonder and splendor of life that got damaged in my drinking days. Art can help me to feel again. It helps me to think and be concerned again. Art teaches me to be involved in life.
Thank You for the artist — another aspect of priesthood.
Daily Inspiration
October 11
Weeds grow easily, but flowers need care and nurturing to bloom. Lord, may I turn away from evil and tenderly encourage the goodness that comes my way so that I, too, may blossom.
Never doubt the power, the wisdom and the love that God has for you. Lord, thank You for Your constant care and the certainty of Your love for me.
Elder’s Meditation of the Day
October 11
“Men and women have an equal responsibility to restore the strength of the family, which is the foundation of all cultures.”
–Haida Gwaii Traditional Circle of Elders
The family is the heartbeat of strength of the culture. The grandfathers and grandmothers taught their children; they in turn had children who taught their children. If the family isn’t taught the culture, then the children become adults, and the adults become the grandfathers and grandmothers, and the result is the culture becomes lost. This is how language is lost; this is how dances are lost; this is how knowledge is lost. We need to listen to our Elders, today, before it’s too late.
Great Spirit, teach me the culture so I can teach the children.
Today’s Gift
October 11
A musician must make music; an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be.
-Abraham Maslow
The same is true of a seamstress, carpenter, homemaker, lawyer, or mechanic. The question is, who and what am I? What must I do to be at peace with myself? What can I be, for that is what I must be?
A lucky few of us find the answers to these questions fairly early in life, and we work to develop into the people we can be and must be. We do that by looking at our deepest desires, and ask what would bring fulfillment for us. We ask what we would enjoy doing most, what we believe we have the ability to be really good at. What is it that sometimes burns within us to be expressed or done? The answers to what we can be, what we must be, come from within, through asking ourselves these questions.
What kind of a person am I capable of being?
The Language Of Letting Go
October 11
Recovery
How easy it is to blame our problems on others. “Look at what he’s doing.” “Look how long I’ve waited.” “Why doesn’t she call?” “If only he’d change then I’d be happy.”
Often, our accusations are justified. We probably are feeling hurt and frustrated. In those moments, we may begin to believe that the solution to our pain and frustration is getting the other person to do what we want, or having the outcome we desire. But these self-defeating illusions put the power and control of our life in other people’s hands. We call this codependency.
The solution to our pain and frustration, however valid is to acknowledge our own feelings. We feel the anger, the grief; then we let go of the feelings and find peace – within ourselves. We know our happiness isn’t controlled by another person, even though we may have convinced ourselves it is. We call this acceptance.
Then we decide that although we’d like our situation to be different, maybe our life is happening this way for a reason. Maybe there is a higher purpose and plan in play, one that’s better than we could have orchestrated. We call this faith.
Then we decide what we need to do, what is within our power to do to take care of ourselves. That’s called recovery.
It’s easy to point our finger at another, but it’s more rewarding to gently point it at ourselves.
Today, I will live with my pain and frustration by dealing with my own feelings.
Touchstones Meditation For Men
October 11
I resolve to meet evil courageously, but when even a small temptation cometh, I am in sore straits. That which seemeth trifling sometimes giveth rise to a grievous temptation.
—Thomas a’ Kempis
Even in recovery, we know we are vulnerable men, always subject to a return to old patterns. Sometimes we can understand the triggering event; other times there is no apparent reason for temptation to reappear. Perhaps it comes when we least expect it, when our guard is lowest. We may be tempted simply because we are addicts or codependents. Our powerlessness reminds us of our need for faithfulness to the program.
When we think we have moved beyond the draw of old behaviors, we veer away from our path of recovery. In saying we have grown out of our powerlessness, or that our resolve can now protect us, we are heading back into old troubles. Admitting the truth is unsettling. It also makes us more honest, more accessible, more spiritual, and more ready to deal with threats to our recovery.
I live with my powerlessness every day. Help me admit it to myself.
Daily TAO
October 11
ENVIRONMENT
How can you live
With the constant noise of traffic?
The stench of garbage?
The sight of buildings instead of mountains?
The movement of streets instead of rivers?
The feel of pavement instead of earth?
There are some metropolitan areas famous for their power, their sophistication, their history, their place in civilization. These places cannot be centers of spirituality too. You only need to look at them with open eyes and heart. How can anything holy root there?
The noise of traffic is constant. At any time of the day or night, that distracting roar, that underlying trembling disrupts the subtle. The air is not clean but is filled with dust and soot. Especially when the weather is hot, the smell of rotting garbage wafts up from the foundations like the odor of leprosy. The earth is unable to breathe, smothered beneath concrete, asphalt, steel, and junk.