Daily Reflections
September 21
THE LAST PROMISE
We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.
-ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 84
The last Promise in the Big Book came true for me on the very first day of sobriety. God kept me sober that day, and on every other day I allowed Him to operate in my life. He gives me the strength, courage and guidance to meet my responsibilities in life so that I am then able to reach out and help others stay sober and grow. He manifests within me, making me a channel of His word, thought and deed. He works with my inner self, while I produce in the outer world, for He will not do for me what I can do for myself. I must be willing to do His work, so that He can function through me successfully.
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
September 21
A.A. Thought For The Day
Let us continue with Steps Four, Five, Six, Seven and Ten. In taking personal inventory of ourselves, we have to face facts as they really are. We have to stop running away. We must face reality. We must see ourselves as we really are. We must admit our faults openly and try to correct them. We must try to see where we have been dishonest, impure, selfish, and unloving. We do not do this once and forget it. We do it every day of our lives, as long as we live. We are never done with checking up on ourselves. Am I taking a daily inventory of myself?
Meditation For The Day
In improving our personal lives, we have Unseen help. We were not made so that we could see God. That would be too easy for us and there would be no merit in obeying Him. It takes an act of faith, a venture of belief, to realize the Unseen Power. Yet, we have much evidence of God’s existence in the strength that many people have received from the act of faith, the venture of belief. We are in a box of space and time and we can see neither our souls nor God. God and the human spirit are both outside the limitations of space and time. Yet our Unseen help is effective here and now. That has been proved in thousands of changed lives.
Prayer For The Day
I pray that I may make the great venture of belief. I pray that my vision may not be blocked by intellectual pride.
Keep It Simple
September 21
Love doesn’t make the world go around. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile.
—Franklin Jones
Before recovery, anger, self-pity, and sadness often filled our hearts. The world went on. We came to hate the ride.
In recovery, love fills our hearts. We begin to love life. Love is really caring about what happens to other people. Love is what makes the ride worth it
We find much love in our program. People really mater to us. We really matter to others. For many of us, we learn how to love in our meetings. The program teaches love because the program is love.
Prayer for the Day: I pray that I’ll welcome love into my heart and others into my life. Love brings me closer to my Higher Power.
Action for the Day: I’ll list all the people I love and why they matter to me.
Four steps to achievement:
Plan purposefully. Prepare prayerfully. Proceed positively. Pursue persistently.
–William A. WardHope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don’t give up.
–Anne LamottTake the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.
–Martin Luther King Jr.Forget mistakes. Forget failures. Forget everything except what you’re going to do now and do it. Today is your lucky day.
–Will Durant
Father Leo’s Daily Meditation
September 21
ACTION
“I shall pass through this world but once. If, therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do, let me do it now; let me not defer it or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.”
– Etienne de Grellet
Today I know that God requires me to be involved in my recovery and sobriety. God has always wanted me to be sober but the miracle took place when I wanted it, too. His hands were always extended towards me, the miracle happened when I chose to embrace Him. My sobriety involves me.
Today I understand that sobriety is more than “not picking up the first drink”; it involves quiet acts of kindness to myself and others. God works through me — through my hands, my smile, my voice, my love and my acceptance. When an opportunity arises for me to be ordinarily kind, I intend to give it; God knows I have needed such kindnesses from others in the past.
May I never avoid an opportunity for shared healing.
Touchstones Meditations For Men
September 21
He underwent a nine and a half hour operation. On the eighth day his wife picked him up from the hospital and said, “You want to go home?” to which he replied, “No, I want to go to the office.”
—Herb Goldberg
What is it that drives us men to such extremes in our work? Are we afraid of the intimacy we could develop with those who love us and whom we love? Are we driven to prove over and over that some old painful self-doubt is untrue? Is this how we feel masculine? Or are we trying to control our addictive problems by constant work? Perhaps we still have more to learn about surrender and powerlessness.
It is especially common to recovering men that the excesses of work unconsciously replace the excesses of addiction and codependency. This too is an unhealthy escape. We must confront our relationship to work if we are to continue on our path of spiritual awakening. It is good to have some unplanned, unstructured time in each day.
Today, help me remember that being good at my work is only one of my qualities
Daily TAO
September 21
NONINTERFERENCE
I love this lake,
Basin of heavenly tears,
Tilted from lunar pull
Jostling its shore.
I love these mountains,
Stark rock outcroppings,
Sculpted by the oceans,
Lifted at some unknown time,
Isolated in a field of vetch,
Cleaved by silver falls.
A sentinel owl regards me unblinkingly,
And beyond, alpine forests form a cadence
To a distant moon.
The earth is overrun by investigators and engineers. The wilderness is made vulgar with the noise of tourists. We don’t need their thermometers and saws. We don’t need bridges and monuments. In the context of Tao, this is to violate the earth with human ambition and to crawl over the landscape like flies over fresh fruit. Instead we should simply walk through this mysterious world without being a burden to it.
Daily Zen
September 21
This is work that is alive,
Effervescent, free, liberated,
Gloriously enlightened, true,
And great.
Do you think it can be attained
By people who shut the door
And sit quietly with blank minds?
– Liu I-Ming