Daily Reflections
September 3
BUILDING A NEW LIFE, p.255
We feel a man is unthinking when he says sobriety is enough.
-Alcoholics Anonymous, p.82
When I reflect on Step Nine, I see that physical sobriety must be enough for me. I need to remember the hopelessness I felt before I found sobriety, and how I was willing to go to any lengths for it. Physical sobriety is not enough for those around me, however, since I must see that God’s gift is used to build a new life for my family and loved ones. Just as importantly, I must be available to help others who want the A.A. way of life. I ask God to help me share the gift of sobriety so that its benefit may be shown to those I know and love.
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
September 3
A.A. Thought For The Day
“Offer new prospects friendship and fellowship. Tell them that if they want to get well you will do anything to help. Burn the idea into the consciousness of new prospects that they can get well, regardless of anyone else. Job or no job, spouse or no spouse, they cannot stop drinking as long as they place dependence on other people ahead of dependence on God. Let no alcoholic say they cannot recover unless they have their family back. This just isn’t so. Their recovery is not dependent upon other people. It is dependent on their own relationship with God.” Can I recognize all excuses made by a prospect?
Meditation For The Day
The spiritual life depends upon the unseen. To live the spiritual life you must believe in the unseen. Try not to loose the consciousness of God’s spirit in you and in others. As a child in its mother’s arms, stay sheltered in the understanding and love of God. God will relieve you of the weight of worry and care, misery and depression, want and woe, faintness and heartache, if you will let Him. Lift up your eyes from earth’s troubles and view the glory of the unseen God. Each day try to see more good in people, more of the unseen in the seen.
Prayer For The Day
I pray that I may rest and abide in the presence of the unseen God. I pray that I may leave my burdens in His care.
Walk In Dry Places
September 3
What is Possible?
Spiritual Power.
With God, all things are possible, goes an old saying. Yet most of us haven’t seen any evidence of doing the impossible.
But through our program, we have truly accomplished things that we had considered nearly impossible at one time. No human power could have relieved our alcoholism, we read in the AA Big Book. How many more conditions are we accepting because no human power ….. particularly ours… can relieve them?
As we grow in sobriety, we should continuously reinforce our belief that God is living and working in our lives. The impossible problems we’ll need to work on will have roots in our own habits and feelings, but even if one of these deeply rooted problems has gone on for years, we need not despair of finding an answer.
If we persist in prayer and in turning the problem over to our Higher power, and answer must come. It is never too late to find the changes we need and deserve.
Even if I haven’t solved all my problems, I’ll take the position today that correct solutions exist in the mind of God. I’ll be open to signs that changes are coming.
Each Day a New Beginning
September 3
… satisfaction is a lowly thing, how pure a thing is joy.
—Marianne Moore
Our perfectionism generally dashes all hopes of self-satisfaction. But the program is here to show us that we can make progress. We can learn to believe that we are doing any task as well as we need to do it, at this time. Our job is the effort. The outcome is part of a larger plan, one that involves more than ourselves.
We’ll find joy when we find acceptance of ourselves and our efforts and the belief that we are spiritual beings whose lives do have purpose and direction.
The wisdom that accompanies spiritual growth offers us security, that which we have sought along many avenues. And when we feel secure, we can trust that the challenges confronting us are purposeful and to our advantage.
One day at a time, one small prayer at a time, moves us even closer to spiritual security. We can look with glad anticipation at our many responsibilities and activities today. They are our opportunities for spiritual security. We can trust our growing inner resources by simply asking for guidance and waiting patiently. It will find us.
I must exercise my prayers if I want the spiritual security where I can find joy. I will ask for guidance with every activity today.
Xtra Thoughts
September 3
I will take time today to stop and give a gift to someone needy, smile at a stranger or help a small child. I will take the time to do at least one thing that I usually find myself too busy to do, and I will inwardly smile at myself, taking the time to experience the feelings of my own kindness.
–Ruth Fishel
For us, if we neglect those who are still sick, there is unremitting danger to our own lives and sanity.
–Twelve Steps And Twelve Traditions, p. 151
God, give me the courage and strength to see clearly.
–Melody Beattie
Tell your partner, your children, your parents: “I love you” frequently.
Let them know the difference they make in your life. Miss no opportunities for loving.
–Mary Manin Morrissey
“Never ask a barber if he thinks you need a haircut.”
–Roy Rogers
Father Leo’s Daily Meditation
September 3
SOLITUDE
“One of the greatest necessities in America is to discover creative solitude.”
– Carl Sandburg
I need to be alone. Being alone is not the same as being lonely. I need to be alone with me in order to love me, understand me, hear my needs and plan my day.
Also solitude is a spiritual experience because it enables me to center on what God is doing and creating in my life. Solitude enables me to think and cooperate with His will for me in our world.
As an addict I was always running around being “busy”. Today I rest within myself in order to be more active and creative.
Let me be still so that I can enjoy my world.
One Day At A Time
September 3
SPIRITUAL GROWTH
“I have defined love as the will to extend oneself for the purpose of nurturing one’s own and another’s spiritual growth.”
–Scott Peck
From The Road Less Traveled
In my disease I had this terrible need to control everything and everyone in my path. Like the actor in the AA Big Book, I was forever arranging things the way I thought they should be, only to find that when I was done, I had ripped through the area like a tornado on the plains.
Often I would claim that my actions were done out of a spirit of love. When I didn’t get my way, I would announce to the world that I was not loved and would head for the solitude of my binge foods.
Today as I work my program, I find that by taking the Third Step, I am truly extending myself for not only my own growth, but for those around me as well. When I decide to turn my will and my life over to the God of my understanding, I don’t have to be the director of the world! As I once heard in a meeting, “The position of God is filled. They did not ask for resumes, they did not take applications, there was no ad in the classifieds. So what makes you think you can apply for the job?” By not extending myself into God’s role, I am extending love.
One Day at a Time …
I pray that I may stay out of my Higher Power’s way, and by doing so, extend myself for spiritual growth.
~ Mark Y.
Elder’s Meditation of the Day
September 3
“Once you have achieved this oneness, when you talk, God talks; when you act, God acts.”
–Chuck Ross, LAKOTA
In my innermost self, I know this to be true. I know of this oneness. The more I am free of doubt, jealousy, judgment, selfishness, anger, the closer I am to this oneness.
When I am right with the Creator, nothing can touch me. When I am right with the Creator I always say the right things. When I am right with the Creator, my thoughts are always good. When I am right with the Creator, my actions are always good.
Great Spirit, remove from me those things that block me from You. Allow me this day to experience the oneness.
Daily TAO
September 3
TREE
Did you measure to attain your height?
Did you use geometry to radiate your limbs?
Did you lament storm-torn branches?
Did you inventory your leaves for the sun?
You did none of these things, yet man in his cleverness
Cannot match your perfection.
When will we give up the artificiality of our tiresome lives and cleave instead to what is natural? All the achievements of man are only monuments to overwhelming pride. There has not been a single man-made item that has been a necessary improvement to the earth. Did we need the Great Wall of China? Did we need the pyramids of Egypt? Did we need the Colossus of Rhodes? Did we need mechanization, steam power, electricity, nuclear power, or computer technology? All our achievements have been for the sake of our exclusive comfort and gratification. We have only advanced the mad tangle of supply and demand that we call civilization.
We don’t need all this “sophistication” in order to live with Tao. Our involvement in society blinds us to this fact. We ignore the natural order of our own bodies and minds and close ourselves to the point so that only sex and drugs are stimulating enough. We lament that we are lost and alienated. Ironically, the answers are right nearby. If you just go to the nearest tree and contemplate, you will easily see the secret to natural living.
Daily Zen
September 3
Gem Mountain
It towers
From the beginning
Without a flaw
The rain beats upon it
The wind cuts it
It only shines brighter
To the summit
Lin Hsiang-ru was wrong
Running his errand
To the Ch’in castle.
– Soseki