Daily Reflections
March 9
SURRENDERING SELF-WILL
Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 34
No matter how much one wishes to try, exactly how can one turn his own will and his own life over to the care of whatever God he thinks there is? In my search for the answer to this question, I became aware of the wisdom with which it was written: that this is a two-part Step. I could see many times where I should have died, or at least been injured, during my previous style of living, and it never happened. Someone, or something, was looking after me. I choose to believe my life has always been in God’s care. He alone controls the number of days I will be granted until physical death. The matter of will (self-will or God’s will) is the more difficult part of the Step for me. It is only when I have experienced enough emotional pain, through failed attempts to fix myself, that I become willing to surrender to God’s will for my life. Surrender is like the calm after the storm. When my will is in line with God’s will for me, there is peace within.
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Twenty-Four Hours A Day
March 9
A.A. Thought For The Day
If we had absolute faith in the power of God to keep us from drinking and if we turned our drink problem entirely over to God without reservations, we wouldn’t have to do anything more about it. We’d be free from drink once and for all. But since our faith is apt to be weak, we have to strengthen and build up this faith. We do this in several ways. One way is by going to meetings and listening to others tell how they have found all the strength they need to overcome drink. Is my faith being strengthened by this personal witness of other alcoholics?
Meditation For The Day
It is the quality of my life that determines its value. In order to judge the value of a man’s life, we must set up a standard. The most valuable life is one of honesty, purity, unselfishness, and love. All men’s lives must be judged by this standard in order to determine their value to the world. By this standard, most of the so-called heroes of history were not great men. “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, if he loseth his own soul?”
Prayer For The Day
I pray that I may be honest, pure, unselfish and loving. I pray that I may make the quality of my life good by these standards.
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As Bill Sees It
March 9
Renew Your Effort, p. 68
“Though I know how hurt and sorry you must be after this slip, please do not worry about a temporary loss of your inner peace. As calmly as you can, just renew your effort in the A.A. program, especially those parts of it which have to do with meditation and self-analysis.
“Could I also suggest that you look at excessive guilt for what it is? Nothing but a sort of reverse pride. A decent regret for what has happened is fine. But guilt–no.
“Indeed, the slip could well have been brought about by unreasonable feelings of guilt because of other moral failures, so called. Surely, you ought to look into this possibility. Even here you should not blame yourself for failure; you can be penalized only for refusing to try for better things.”
Letter, 1958
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Walk in Dry Places
March 9
The Best outcome is just and equitable.
Principle over personality.
Looking ahead to this day, I may face a possible conflict with another person over a certain issue. How should I respond to this?
If I’m to follow my principles, I should hold to the idea of seeking the best outcome for everybody concerned. It may be very harmful to look at these conflicts as a case of winning or losing. If I seem to win when I’m wrong, I will lose in the long run. If I seem to lose even when I’m right, I can know that there’s just resolution of everything in time. I will always win, however, if I keep my thinking straight and take care to avoid resentment and bitterness.
It’s not surprising that the world is beset by conflicts. Millions of people have conditioned themselves to selfish ways of thinking and behaving that are bound to cause such conflicts. Much harm is done by people who are absolutely sure they are right at all times.
As human beings, we cannot expect to be excluded from these conflicts simply because we have a Twelve Step program. We do, however, have a means of dealing with such conflicts effectively when we respond according to principle. This makes us privileged people in a way, but it is good to know that any person can have the same privileges by following the right principles.
Unpleasant as any conflict may seem, it does give me an opportunity to learn and to grow. I will seek to benefit from any such conflict today.
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Keep It Simple
March 9
You’ve got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your grandfather was.
–Irish Proverb
Each of us has been given recovery. Now it’s up to each of us what we do with it. At times, we’ll work hard to grow quickly. At other times, our growth will be slower. This is okay. We’re not in a race. Our pace is not important. What is important is that we’re always working on our recovery.
We’re all part of a fellowship, a caring group. We’re one of many. But we’re each important. Each of us will have a special way to work our programs through our readings, friends, meetings, and what we know of how life works. each of us puts together a miracle of recovery. We than take our miracle and share it with others, so they can build their miracle.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me work at growing. Help me be a person who is an important part of a group.
Action for the Day: Today, I’ll work at seeing myself as very important. I’ll remind myself that other’s recovery also depends on my recovery. I am needed.
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Each Day a New Beginning
March 9
I want to get you excited about who you are, what you are, what you have, and what can still be for you. I want to inspire you to see that you can go far beyond where you are right now.
–Virginia Satir
Deciding to recover was our first step. That decision meant we did want to go beyond where we were. We did want something better for ourselves. And at times, in fleeting moments, we have been excited about who we are and our prospects for a better life.
The excitement and the inspiration come and go; they are seldom stationary. We can actively create the excitement and the inspiration. We need not wait for them to come to us. That’s one of the choices we have as human beings, as women.
Passively waiting for “the good life” is past behavior. Each day, this day, we can set our sights on reaching a goal–we can take a step, or two, toward that goal. Progress is there for the making–achievement is there for the taking.
Whatever our hearts’ pure desires, we can move toward that goal. We are what we need to be. We have what we need to move ahead.
Today, I will let my excitement for life’s possibilities spur me on.
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Alcoholics Anonymous
March 9
HE LIVED ONLY TO DRINK
– “I had been preached to, analyzed, cursed, and counseled, but no one had ever said, ‘I identify with what’s going on with you. It happened to me and this is what I did about it.'”
The following year I began my career as a teacher. My first job was at a college fifty miles from my hometown. Before the school year ended, I had been asked to resign because of my drinking. Within that short space of time, drinking had become an accepted way of life. I loved booze. I loved people who drank and the places where they drank. At that time in my life, although I had lost my first job and embarrassed my family, it never occurred to me that alcohol could be a problem. From that first night at the bar a year earlier, I had made a profound decision that was to direct my life for many years to come: Alcohol was my friend and I would follow it to the ends of the earth.
pp. 447-448
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Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions
March 9
Step Two – “Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”
Sometimes A.A. comes harder to those who have lost or rejected faith than to those who never had any faith at all, for they think they have tried faith and found it wanting. They have tried the way of faith and the way of no faith. Since both ways have proved bitterly disappointing, they have concluded there is no place whatever for them to go. The roadblocks of indifference, fancied self-sufficiency, prejudice, and defiance often prove more solid and formidable for these people than any erected by the unconvinced agnostic or even the militant atheist. Religion says the existence of God can be proved; the agnostic says it can’t be proved; and the atheist claims proof of the nonexistence of God. Obviously, the dilemma of the wanderer from faith is that of profound confusion. He thinks himself lost to the comfort of any
conviction at all. He cannot attain in even a small degree the assurance of the believer, the agnostic, or the atheist. He is the bewildered one.
p. 28
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Xtra Thoughts
March 9
Speaking without thinking is shooting without aiming.
–French Proverb
Help your brother across the stream and you’ll find yourself on the other side.
–Unknown
“You can tell more about a person by what he says about others than you can by what others say about him.”
–Leo Aikman
Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.
–Leo Buscaglia
Smile, it is the key that fits the lock of everybody’s heart.
–Anthony J. D’Angelo
Make the most of your life by choosing to enjoy everything you do.
–Unknown
God, help me open my heart to the full potential of every moment in my life.
–Melody Beattie
“We aren’t bodies at all; who we are is the love inside us, and it is that love alone that determines our value. When our minds are filled with light, there is no room for darkness.”
–Marianne Williamson
Whether our sins are known or not, God offers us forgiveness.
–Charles P. Axe
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Father Leo’s Daily Meditation
March 9
GREED
“Not he who has little, but he who wishes more, is poor.”
— Seneca (4 B. C. — A. D. 65)
In my recovery I must still deal with that compulsive side of my nature that always wants more.
I forget to be grateful for what I have. I ruin relationships because I have a code of behavior that I expect from others but not myself! I miss the fun of the moment because I am preoccupied with what I am missing elsewhere. I miss the comfort of my own home as I fantasize about country mansions owned by millionaires. Always I want more — and yet in my own experience more has always been less.
Today I work hard on a spiritual program of gratitude. I have a checklist of things I need to be grateful for; I work on my disease of greed by talking about it.
Thank You for that part of me that must remain “poor”.
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Bible Scriptures
March 9
“Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted to the earth!”
Psalms 46:10
God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.
1 John 1:5
Accept one another, just as Christ also accepted us to the glory of God.
Romans 15:7
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Daily Inspiration
March 9
We all need time for ourselves and time to be with our friends in order to be joyful. Lord, help me to balance my day and renew my spirit.
Keep yourself young in spirit always by thinking new thoughts and getting rid of old habits. Lord, may my spirit never become frail and my abilities never become barren.
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A Day At A Time
March 9
Reflection For The Day
We learn in The Program and its Twelve Steps that as we grow spiritually, we find that our old attitudes toward our instinctual drives need to undergo drastic revisions. Our demands for emotional security and wealth,for personal prestige and power, all have to be tempered and redirected. We learn that the full satisfaction of these demands cannot be the sole end and aim of our lives. But when we’re willing to place spiritual growth first — then and only then do we have a real chance to grow in healthy awareness and mature love. Am I willing to place spiritual growth first?
Today I Pray
May my development as a spiritual person temper my habitual hankerings for materil security. May I understand that the only real security in life is spiritual. If I have faith in my Higher Power, these revisions in my attitudes will follow. May I grow first in spiritual awareness.
Today I Will Remember
Value the life of the spirit.
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One More Day
March 9
Don’t waste today regretting yesterday instead of making a memory for tomorrow.
— Laura Palmer
Our youthful dreams were filled with grand expectations of our impact on the world. Some of those goals were reached; many were not.
Now, it’s easier to accept that not all our plans will come to pass. In accepting that, we are able to set new goals that better reflect our dreams and ideals today. For a while it may seem as though we are “just surviving,” but we can have more.
At our stage of life we are capable of making mature decisions, of setting more realistic goals. Each day we can reflect upon our accomplishments and upon the joy of family, friends, and job. Finally, we can feel comfortable with ourselves, and we can look forward to our tomorrows.
Yesterday is gone and unchangeable, but today is real and is mine to use.
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One Day At A Time
March 9
~ THE ITSY BITSY SPIDER ~
“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
–Frank Herbert, Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear, Dune
Recently in our meeting room we had a new ‘member’. He was HUGE – well, we thought so, but who are we to judge? He was hairy, well maybe we’re not perfect…He strode into the room like he owned the place. Well certainly he had as much right to be there as we all did.
We shrieked. Maybe it was those 8 hairy legs, maybe it’s because he ran towards us like a streak of lightening, who knows.
Whatever he must have thought watching us giants leaping around the room we can only guess. He certainly seemed far more scared of us than we of him. It got me thinking of the insanity of some fears. After all what could this fragile little hairy thing do to me? He didn’t have 8 giant slippers to hit ME on the head. I was the one with the power, yet, through my fear I was giving HIM the power he really didn’t have. Instead of using the Power to give myself more confidence and behave rationally, I was wasting it away, GIVING it away. So many times I seem to repeat this same pattern. Of course some fears are rational, but most aren’t.
This program gives ME the freedom to ask my Higher Power to take away my shortcomings. To relax and step back and make a fresh start. I need never be afraid again of irrational things, not if I truly work the program.
Itsy Bitsy Spider scuttled out of the meeting in rather a hurry that night. Was he trying to avoid participating in the 7th Tradition? Or did he have a genuine rational fear?
Maybe he was quite simply restored to sanity.
One Day at a Time …
I will not be afraid … I will not empower anything to cause me to be fearful.
~ Marlene
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Elder’s Meditation of the Day March 9
“In the life of the Indian there was only one inevitable duty, the duty of prayer, the daily recognition of the Unseen and Eternal. His daily devotions were more necessary to him than daily food.”
–Charles A. Eastman (Ohiyesa), SANTEE SIOUX
The most important habit one can develop is the daily act of prayer. Prayer is our eyes, our ears, our feelings, our success, our guidance, our life, our duty, our goal. There really is only prayer and meditation. We can only help others through prayer. We can only help ourselves through prayer. You can never become an Elder unless you pray. You can never stay an Elder unless you pray. You never get wisdom unless you pray. You never understand unless you pray.
Great Spirit, today, teach me to pray.
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Journey to the Heart
March 9
Let Your Visions Guide You
Visions are different from dreams. A vision is a picture that comes from the soul and comes out through the heart.
A vision is a small glimpse of light that shines and shows us our path. It is a quick flash of something that hasn’t happened yet. It may tell us something about today or ten years from now. Visions occur when our souls look at the map for our lives, get a sense of where we’re going, and tell our hearts how to find that place. The more conscious and clear and direct we are, the more we can tune into and help create the highest vision for our lives.
What do you want? What would feel right? What do you see yourself doing? Be clear and concise, then let it go. Sometimes when we run out of dreams, we have to rely on our visions, these small glimpses of light, to lead the way. Learn to see the visions in your heart. Learn to trust them. Learn to help create them. Allow them to manifest themselves. When the path is dark, learn to be comfortable with these small bursts of light.
Let your visions guide you home.
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Today’s Gift
March 9
There is no such thing as a long piece of work, except one that you dare not start.
—Charles Baudelaire
A big assignment can be scary to face. We may start to think that how we do on the assignment will determine if we’re good or bad people. The more we think about it, the harder that task seems. The key to overcoming our negative feelings is to say to ourselves that we are capable of finishing our projects. We must say it over and over until we start believing it’s true. Then we can attack the assignment with vitality and positive energy we didn’t know we had.
We can make up our minds to do our best and accept that from ourselves. We say Edison was a genius, but our light bulbs still burn out regularly. Even Einstein was wrong once in a while, and he knew it, but that didn’t stop him from trying.
When we feel afraid to start something because it seems too big a job, let’s stop and think what the first step would be, and do each small step in its own time.
What can I start that I’ve been putting off?
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The Language of Letting Go
March 9
Taking Care of Ourselves
We cannot simultaneously set a boundary and take care of another person’s feelings. It’s impossible; the two acts contradict.
What a tremendous asset to have compassion for others! How difficult that same quality can make it to set boundaries!
It’s good to care about other people and their feelings; it’s essential to care about ourselves too. Sometimes, to take good care of ourselves, we need to make a choice.
Some of us live with a deeply ingrained message from our family, or from church, about never hurting other people’s feelings. We can replace that message with a new one; one that says it’s not okay to hurt ourselves. Sometimes, when we take care of ourselves, others will react with hurt feelings.
That’s okay. We will learn, grow, and benefit by the experience; they will too. The most powerful and positive impact we can have on other people is accomplished by taking responsibility for ourselves, and allows others to be responsible for themselves.
Caring works. Caretaking doesn’t. We can learn to walk the line between the two.
Today, I will set the limits I need to set. I will let go of my need to take care of other peoples feelings and instead take care of my own. I will give myself permission to take care of myself, knowing its the best thing I can do for others and myself.
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More Language Of Letting Go
March 9
Know your limits
While it’s good to be compassionate, we can become overly compassionate,too. Don’t work so hard at not judging other people that you forget to pay attention to what you don’t like.
“I know what it feels like to be abandoned and left. I don’t like the feeling, so I’m not going to leave my boyfriend,” Clara says. She’s living with a man who abuses her, emotionally and physically.
“I’m not going to judge her,” Ralph says about his new wife. She’s using cocaine and stealing money from him to get high. “She’s had a hard life, and I haven’t walked in her shoes.”
“I need to be compassionate and non-judgemental with my son,” Robert says about a child who’s driving him to distraction with his manipulations and lies. “He’s had a hard life. His mother died when he was three. And I’m the only person he’s got left.”
You can set boundaries with someone, without judging that person. You can decide that behaviors are inappropriate and hurt you, without condemning that person.
Don’t forget, you have a right to say “ouch.”
We can say whatever with compassion and still take care of ourselves.
God, help me set appropriate limits with the people in my life.
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Touchstones Meditation For Men
March 9
We all wear masks, and the time comes when we cannot remove them without removing some of our own skin.
—Andre Berthiaume
The masks men wear are as varied as those who wear them, but their purpose is quite simple. We wear masks to hide our real faces from those around us and even from ourselves. There are seductive masks, innocent masks, white knight masks, tough guy masks, black sheep masks, lone wolf masks, and many more. Sometimes we want to take on another identity so others won’t see our insecurities. Or we think taking the form of someone else will give us power over others, or they will like us better, or we can escape ourselves.
The cost of wearing a mask is not getting a chance to develop our real personalities. What masks are we attached to? Are we willing to give them up in the interest of our spiritual growth?
May I have the courage to drop my phony masks in order to grow stronger in self-knowledge.
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Daily TAO
March 9
CREATIVITY
Storm breaks into pieces,
Clouds change the horizon.
Revolving of the heavens
Generates all movement.
Without movement, there could be nothing created in this universe. The revolving of the heavens can generate wind, rain, thunder, lightning. The revolving of the earth enables us to have day and night, the very cycle of the weather, the seasons, and the growth of plants. Movement is responsible for creativity.
Followers of Tao value initiative, but mere aggression is not enough. One needs creativity. This can mean the ability to solve problems, to think of unusual strategies, or to compose poetry, music, and painting. In all these cases, one moves in concert with Tao not by blind aping, but by giving intelligent counterpoint and harmony. Creativity does not mean the arbitrary making of something out of our cultural minds. Rather, it is spontaneous movement in tandem with Tao, a movement that will generate life and not misery for others.
One has reached the ultimate levels of creativity when one has mastered skill so thoroughly that it can be forgotten. Look at heaven and earth. Do they think about creating the weather, the seasons, and the cycles of growing? They only go on revolving according to their nature, and the rest is generated without any thought or work on their part. This is truly effortless action and is considered the highest skill that a follower of Tao can attain.
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Daily Zen
March 9
Penniless woodcutter
Managed to get for himself a hut
Hanging on a steep slope
And as boundary mark a jewel,
A jade-green young willow tree.
– Saigyo (1118-1190)
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Food for Thought
March 9
No Ultimate “ah”
When we were overeating, we sought an ultimate experience of satisfaction from food. No matter what kind of food we ate, or how much, we never found that moment of satisfaction, that ultimate “ah.” It was always just ahead, in the next bite.
Have we finally realized that the ultimate “ah” which we looked for in food does not exist? No matter what we eat, or how much, it will always elude us. Whatever we are looking for–happiness, success, peace, and fulfillment–it is not to be found in the refrigerator.
We do not promise that working the OA program will bring instant gratification or constant happiness. What we do know is that through the Twelve Steps we are given positive experiences which we did not have before OA. We are happier, more successful, more at peace, and more fulfilled than we ever were before we found this program.
By realizing that food holds no ultimate “ah,” we can stop destroying ourselves by chasing a rainbow which does not exist.
May I stop searching for happiness where it is not to be found.
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Faith’s Check Book
March 9
Prayer for Peace
And seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pay unto the Lord for it: for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace.
-Jeremiah 29:7
The principle involved in this text would suggest to all of us who are the Lord’s strangers and foreigners that we should be desirous to promote the peace and prosperity of the people among whom we dwell. Specially should our nation and our city be blest by our constant intercession. An earnest prayer for your country and other countries is well becoming in the mouth of every believer. Eagerly let us pray for the great boon of peace, both at home and abroad. If strife should cause bloodshed in out streets, or if foreign battle should slay our brave soldiers, we should all bewail the calamity; let us therefore pray for peace and diligently promote those principles by which the classes at home and the races abroad may be bound together in bonds of amity.
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This Morning’s Meditation
March 9
“Yea, He is altogether lovely.”
—Song of Solomon 5:16.
THE superlative beauty of Jesus is all-attracting; it is not so much to be admired as to be loved. He is more than pleasant and fair, He is lovely. Surely the people of God can fully justify the use of this golden word, for He is the object of their warmest love, a love founded on the intrinsic excellence of His person, the complete perfection of His charms. Look, O disciples of Jesus, to your Master’s lips, and say, “Are they not most sweet?” Do not His words cause your hearts to burn within you as He talks with you by the way? Ye worshippers of Immanuel, look up to His head of much fine gold, and tell me, are not His thoughts precious unto you? Is not your adoration sweetened with affection as ye humbly bow before that countenance which is as Lebanon, excellent as the cedars? Is there not a charm in His every feature, and is not His whole person fragrant with such a savour of His good ointments, that therefore the virgins love Him? Is there one member of His glorious body which is not attractive?—one portion of His person which is not a fresh loadstone to our souls?—one office which is not a strong cord to bind your heart? Our love is not as a seal set upon His heart of love alone; it is fastened upon His arm of power also; nor is there a single part of Him upon which it does not fix itself. We anoint His whole person with the sweet spikenard of our fervent love. His whole life we would imitate; His whole character we would transcribe. In all other beings we see some lack, in Him there is all perfection. The best even of His favoured saints have had blots upon their garments and wrinkles upon their brows; He is nothing but loveliness. All earthly suns have their spots: the fair world itself hath its wilderness; we cannot love the whole of the most lovely thing; but Christ Jesus is gold without alloy-light without darkness—glory without cloud—”Yea, He is altogether lovely.”
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This Evenings Meditation
March 9
“Abide in Me.”
—John 15:4.
COMMUNION with Christ is a certain cure for every ill. Whether it be the wormwood of woe, or the cloying surfeit of earthly delight, close fellowship with the Lord Jesus will take bitterness from the one, and satiety from the other. Live near to Jesus, Christian, and it is matter of secondary importance whether thou livest on the mountain of honour or in the valley of humiliation. Living near to Jesus, thou art covered with the wings of God, and underneath thee are the everlasting arms. Let nothing keep thee from that hallowed intercourse, which is the choice privilege of a soul wedded to THE WELL-BELOVED. Be not content with an interview now and then, but seek always to retain His company, for only in His presence hast thou either comfort or safety. Jesus should not be unto us a friend who calls upon us now and then, but one with whom we walk evermore. Thou hast a difficult road before thee: see, O traveller to heaven, that thou go not without thy guide. Thou hast to pass through the fiery furnace; enter it not unless, like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, thou hast the Son of God to be thy companion. Thou hast to storm the Jericho of thine own corruptions: attempt not the warfare until, like Joshua, thou hast seen the Captain of the Lord’s host, with His sword drawn in His hand. Thou art to meet the Esau of thy many temptations: meet him not until at Jabbok’s brook thou hast laid hold upon the angel, and prevailed. In every case, in every condition, thou wilt need Jesus; but most of all, when the iron gates of death shall open to thee. Keep thou close to thy soul’s Husband, lean thy head upon His bosom, ask to be refreshed with the spiced wine of His pomegranate, and thou shalt be found of Him at the last, without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing. Seeing thou hast lived with Him, and lived in Him here, thou shalt abide with Him for ever.