Daily Reflections
September 1
WILLINGNESS TO GROW
If more gifts are to be received, our awakening has to go on.
-As Bill Sees It, p.8
Sobriety fills the painful “hole in the soul” that my alcoholism created. Often I feel so physically well that I believe my work is done. However, joy is not just the absence of pain; it is the gift of continued spiritual awakening. Joy comes from ongoing and active study, as well as application of the principles of recovery in my everyday life, and from sharing that experience with others. My Higher Power presents many opportunities for deeper spiritual awakening. I need only to bring into my recovery the willingness to grow. Today I am ready to grow.
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Twenty-Four Hours A Day
September 1
A.A. Thought For The Day
Be careful not to brand new prospects as alcoholics. Let them draw their own conclusion. But talk to them about the hopelessness of alcoholism. Tell them exactly what happened to you and how you recovered. Stress the spiritual feature freely. If they are agnostics or atheists, make it emphatic that they do not have to agree with your concept of God. They can choose any concept they like, provided it makes sense to them. The main thing is that they be willing to believe in a power greater than themselves and that they live by spiritual principles.” Do I hold back too much in speaking of the spiritual principles of the program?
Meditation For The Day
“I will never leave or forsake thee.” Down through the centuries, thousands have believed in God’s constancy, untiringness, and unfailing love. God has love. Then forever you are sure of His love. God has power. Then forever you are sure, in every difficulty and temptation, of His strength. God has patience. Then always there is One who can never tire. God has understanding. Then always you will understand and be understood. Unless you want Him to go, God will never leave you. He is always ready with power.
Prayer For The Day
I pray that I may feel that God’s love will never fail. I pray that I may have confidence in His unfailing power.
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As Bill Sees It
September 1
Morning Thoughts, p.243
On awakening, let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead. We ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity and from dishonest or self-seeking motives. Free of these, we can employ our mental faculties with assurance, for God gave us brains to use. Our thought-life will be on a higher plane when our thinking begins to be cleared of wrong motives.
If we have determined which of two courses to take, we ask God for inspiration, an intuitive thought, or a decision. Then we relax and take it easy, and we are often surprised how the right answers come after we have tried this for a while.
We usually conclude our meditation with a prayer that we be shown all through the day what our next step is to be, asking especially for freedom from damaging self-will.
Alcoholics Anonymous, pp. 86-87
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Walk In Dry Places
September 1
Are we victimizing ourselves?
Finding the New Happiness
Some believe that people create their own trouble by attracting the wrong conditions and people in their lives. This may not be entirely true, but we can find that some element of it was at work with us.
Time and time again during our drinking, we set ourselves up for abuse and rejection, though our motives seemed right. Why did we do this? Supposedly to punish ourselves, the theory has it.
If this is true, then we should now call a halt to the process immediately. If we’ve emerged from the terrors of alcoholism, we’ve had all the punishment anybody needs.
We can change our bad patterns by looking carefully at the people and situations we seem to attract. Without resentment or condemnation, we can part company with any problems these have been bringing us. We can start building new relationships and attracting better conditions that will be immensely successful in terms of happiness and well-being.
I’ll remember today that in the new life I’m seeking, there’s no need for punishment. I will not go out of my way to attract people or conditions that create problems in my life.
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Keep It Simple
September 1
Made direct amends to such people wherever possible …
—First half of Step Nine
In our illness, we harmed people. In Step Nine, we are to make amends. Making amends is about asking people we have harmed what we need to do to set things right. But making amends is more than saying, “I’m sorry.” If you ran a store and someone had stolen five dollars, you wouldn’t want them to just say, ”I’m sorry.” You’d want the person to pay back the money. The same is true with amends.
Many people we’ve harmed ask only that we don’t repeat our mistakes. Respect their wishes. Step Nine has healed many wounds. Step Nine allows us to grow up. Step Nine help us regain faith in ourselves. Remember, the best amend we make to all is to stay sober.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, give me courage. Help me face the trouble caused by my disease. Make me ready to help other heals from the harm I’ve caused.
Action for the Day: Today, I’ll pray that those I’ve harmed will heal. I will be responsible for my actions.
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Each Day a New Beginning
September 1
Success can only be measured in terms of distance traveled.
—Mavis Gallant
We are forever moving from one experience to another, one challenge to another, and one relationship to another. Our ability to handle confidently all encounters is a gift of the program, and one that accompanies us throughout every day, providing we humbly express gratitude for it. Success is ours when we are grateful.
We are not standing still. No matter how uneventful our lives may seem, we are traveling toward our destiny, and all the thrills and tears, joys and sorrows, are contributing to the success of our trip. Every day, every step, we are succeeding.
We can reflect on yesterday, better yet, on last week or even last year. What were our problems? It’s doubtful we can even remember them. We have put distance between them and us. They were handled in some manner. We have succeeded in getting free of them. We have succeeded in moving beyond them.
How far we have come! And we will keep right on traveling forward. As long as we rely on the program, we are assured of success.
I can do whatever I need to do, today, with success, when I humbly accept the program’s gifts.
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Alcoholics Anonymous
GUTTER BRAVADO – Alone and unemployable, he was given two options by the court, get help or go to jail, and his journey toward teachability began.
Still very impatient, I wanted the whole deal right away. That’s why I related so well to the story about a wide-eyed new person and an old-timer, envying his accomplishments and many years of sobriety, the old-timer slapped down his hand like a gavel and said’ “I’ll trade you even! My thirty years for your thirty days–right now!” He knew what the newcomer had yet to find out: that true happiness is found in the journey, not the destination.
pp. 510-511
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Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions
Step Eleven – “Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.”
As the day goes on, we can pause where situations must be met and decisions made, and renew the simple request: “Thy will, not mine, be done.” If at these points our emotional disturbance happens to be great, we will more surely keep our balance, provided we remember, and repeat to ourselves, a particular prayer or phrase that has appealed to us in our reading or meditation. Just saying it over and over will often enable us to clear a channel choked up with anger, fear, frustration, or misunderstanding, and permit us to return to the surest help of all–our search for God’s will, not our own, in the moment of stress. At these critical moments, if we remind ourselves that “it is better to comfort than to be comforted, to understand than to be understood, to love than to be loved,” we will be following the intent of Step Eleven.
pp. 102-103
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Xtra Thoughts
September 1
God brings peace to me, all I need do is ask.
–Shelley
The peace that I feel in my life is growing richer every day. As I continue to walk on my spiritual path to recovery, I let myself be guided by truth and love. Conflict is leaving, making more and more room for charity, serenity and usefulness.
–Ruth Fishel
Treat every person with kindness and respect, even those who are rude to you. Remember that you show compassion to others not because of who they are, but because of who you are.
–Andrew T. Somers
Today I know my Higher Power is guiding me through the changes I choose to make in my life. I have all the energy I need today to make these changes as easily and effortless as I wish.
–Ruth Fishel
Today, I will stop forcing things to happen. Instead, I will allow things to happen naturally. If I catch myself trying to force events or control people, I will stop and figure out a way to detach.
–Melody Beattie
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Father Leo’s Daily Meditation
September 1
OPTIMISM
“Optimism is a kind of heart stimulant — the digitalis of failure.”
– Elbert Hubbard
Today I am an optimist. I believe in life, and more importantly, I believe in me. I know that God cares and this brings me hope.
But when I was drinking I had a negative and destructive attitude in all areas of life; nothing pleased me, people were not to be trusted, everybody had a price, God seemed to be “out for lunch” and life had lost its meaning. I was a sad man. I was a lonely man. I was an angry man.
When I was told to put down the drink and follow some new directions, I halfheartedly agreed. I met people who laughed, shared their pain and lived in the realistic “now”. I began to listen. Slowly I changed. Peace was within my grasp.
Today I wonder at my halfhearted risk that started it all — and thank God.
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Bible Scriptures
September 1
Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be shaken but endures forever.
-Psalm 125:1
Wait on the LORD; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the LORD!”
-Psalm 27:14
“Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content.”
-Philippians 4:11
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Daily Inspiration
September 1
Get outside of yourself and be outgoing for others. Lord, help me to act in a heartwarming manner so that Your presence in me lights an entire room.
Are you too busy wishing away your day to get what you really want? Lord, help me set goals and find the means to achieve what is important to me.
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A Day At A Time
September 1
Reflection For The Day
Based on their collective experience, The Program’s founders suggested a prayer to be said when taking the Third Step – and making a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. “God, I offer myself to Thee, to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy power, Thy Love, and Thy way of life. May I do Thy will always!” Have I abandoned myself to God as I understood Him?
Today I pray
I praise my Higher Power for my freedom to find my own understanding of God. May my life be God’s whether i think of Him as a Father whose hand and spirit I can touch with an upward reach of my own, or as a universal Spirit that I can merge with as the hard outlines of my “self”begin to melt, or as a core of Divine and absolute goodness inside myself. May I know Him well, whether I find Him within me, without me or in all things everywhere.
Today I Will Remember
I thank God, as I understand Him, for my understanding of Him.
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One More Day
September 1
Spirituality is like a bird: if you hold on to it tightly, it chokes, and if you hold it loosely, it escapes.
– Israel Salanter Lipkin
Being spiritual does not necessarily mean being religious. Instead, it can be an awakening of our deepest personal sense of caring about other people, as well as an awakening of our appreciation of the joy, symmetry, and balance of nature.
The spirituality we strive for and which comforts us best is based on our finding a similar balance within ourselves. When we possessively clutch our faith and expect all that we demand, our spirituality is weakened. Yet, if we expect nothing of it, it might seem to disappear. Our spiritual lives are strengthened as we find that precious balance between expectant trust in our Higher Power and responsible reliance on ourselves.
I am striving to find fullness and balance in my days. Certain experiences change the balance, but I can find it again.
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One Day At A Time
September 1
SELF-KNOWLEDGE
“The world we have created is a product of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”
–Albert Einstein
The world I created before finding the Twelve Steps of recovery was a world in which I had no responsibility. Everything bad in my life was someone else’s fault: my parents’, my husband’s, society’s, and, when there was no one else to blame, it was God’s fault.
As I worked Step 4, I learned that I had been a part of all of these things for which I blamed others. I learned that I had defects of character that kept me from taking part in my life. As I recognized these defects, I asked my Higher Power to remove them, and that gradually happened.
One of the things I had tried to do for many years was bury my feelings of grief and pain. I seemed to have managed that fairly well, but in doing so, I had also buried all the other emotion. I no longer took enjoyment in anything. My child’s smile evoked no feeling and I felt no pride in anything I did. I felt none of the love that others gave to me. As I started dealing with the painful feelings, the positive emotions emerged as well.
The promise the Big Book speaks of became true for me: I no longer regretted the past nor wished to shut the door on it. I was able to feel my hurt and grief. Now I am also able to feel love and happiness. I have learned how to change my thinking through the process of working these wonderful Steps.
One Day at a Time …
I do a daily 10th, 11th and 12th Step and am reminded that it is my responsibility to listen to my Higher Power and do my part in creating the world around me.
~ Nancy
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Elder’s Meditation of the Day
September 1
“Everyone has a song. God gives us each a song. That’s how we know who we are. Our song tells us who we are.”
–Charlie Knight, UTE
As we start to walk the Red Road and as we develop ourselves as Warriors, a song will come to us. This song is given to each of us from the Great Spirit. Whenever we sing this song, we will receive courage and strength not only for ourselves but if we sing this song for others, it will also help them. The song will give us power and make us feel really good. The song will make us see life in a sacred way. If you don’t have your song yet, ask the Creator in prayer if He will give you your song. With the song comes a responsibility – the responsibility to act and conduct oneself as a Warrior according to your song.
Oh my Creator, let me live my song. Let my song honor Your way of life. Let me sing my song each day. At the end of today, let my song tell people who I am. I am a beautiful child of the Creator.
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Journey To The Heart
September 1
Make It a Labor of Love
The mirror was framed with a ceramic octopus. It had the sweetest, most peaceful energy. It made me smile when I saw it. “Do you like it?’ my friend asked. “Arnold made it.” That’s when I knew why it was so delightful. It’s energy– delightful, joyous, and sweet– was Arnold’s energy.
The things we create have energy. A meal we cook. A task we perform, no matter how big or small. What we do contains our energy– the emotional energy and attitude we put into it. Have you ever cooked a meal when you felt angry and disrupted, hurried and harried? Have you noticed the difference when you cooked that meal in a loving frame of mind? Merely doing the job isn’t always enough. We need to do the job with our best energy, our most positive emotional and mental attitude.
Take time before you begin a task to become conscious of the energy you want to put into it, the energy you want that task to have and reflect to yourself and others. Make conscious, deliberate choices. The larger the task, the more time you may want to spend developing your ideas about it. On particularly significant projects, you may want to spend time visualizing and writing down your ideas, so you can focus that energy into your work. Experiment with this idea. See how it comes to life as you do your daily tasks. See how much better the people around you feel when you do your tasks in love. See how much more joy and pleasure work brings to you.
There is honor in all work, in all tasks, but take it one step further. Make what you do a labor of love. Then your work will truly touch and change the world in the way you desire. The work you do, whatever your chosen field, will be work that heals.
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Today’s Gift
September 1
Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark.
—Sir Rabindranath Tagore
In the darkness of early morning, the bird outside the window begins to sing. Soon the eastern sky turns pink. The bird continues singing until the first yellow rays warm its soft wings. Then it flies away, not returning to the window until the next morning.
We can learn from the small bird how to have faith. We don’t need to wait for something we want before having faith we’ll get it. We can begin to show our faith by celebrating the things we usually take for granted. After all, when we take something for granted, isn’t that a selfish form of faith? We can start by singing a song to celebrate the new day. A day that will warm our hearts and shed light on our actions. Like the bird’s faith in the sunrise, we need only to have faith that God meant each day to enrich our lives.
What faith can I celebrate right now?
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The Language of Letting Go
September 1
Patience
Sometimes we get what we want right away. At other times, we wonder if our desires will ever be fulfilled.
We will be fulfilled in the best way possible and as quickly as possible. But some things take time. Sometimes, we have lessons to learn first, lessons that prepare us so we can accept the good we deserve. Things are being worked out in us, and in others. Blocks in us are being removed. A solid foundation is being laid.
Be patient, Relax and trust. Let go. Then, let go some more. Good things are planned for us. We will receive them at the first available moment. We will have all our heart longs for. Relax and trust.
Today, I will identify what I want and need; then, I’ll be willing to let go of it. I will devote my energy to living my life today, so I may master my lessons as quickly as possible. I will trust that what I want and need is coming to me. I will let go of my need to control the details.
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Touchstones Meditations For Men
September 1
If you wish to make an apple pie truly from scratch, you must first invent the universe.
—Carl Sagan
Everything is given to us. Our lives came forth with no plan on our part. We have no lease on life and no control, ultimately, over any possession. In the addictive and codependent families most of us came from, we learned something else. We learned a lonely arrogance that said, “I should be self sufficient. I have earned everything that ever came to me.” Deep down we probably knew how untrue that was, and we felt great self-doubt.
The cure we learn in this program for our lonely arrogance is a miracle and a blessing. We accept that we are part of a larger whole. Now it dawns on us – all of our friends and relatives share this basic powerlessness. We are all pilgrims. We are all guests. We are all stewards of creation. We can be close, and we must help one another because everyone is equally vulnerable.
I am grateful to my Higher Power today for the life, which has been given me. I pray for greater understanding of my responsibilities.
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Daily TAO
September 1
FARMERS
Plain country folk with rounded bodies,
Skin turning to bronze in the valley heat.
Why talk to them about Tao?
They eat when they are hungry,
They sleep when they are sleepy.
Even a sage with infinite permutations
Could not match their simplicity.
Do you want to know about simplicity? Go live with farmers. Their
daily activities are coordinated with the seasons, they are close to the
earth, and they do not spend their time figuring out how to attain
status. They are honest and plain. They make no distinction between who
they are as individuals and who they are as farmers.
Those of us who live in cities would be hard pressed to equal the
farmer in simplicity. Simplicity, after all, is what Tao most
celebrates. Who needs to know all the digits of pi? Who needs to
engineer a new monetary policy? Who needs to strive for political
office? None of these things is necessary to be a human being.
Give up unnecessary things.
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Food For Thought
September 1
Twenty-Four Hours a Day
We practice the OA principles in all our affairs, twenty-four hours a day. Ours is not a diet program but a way of life. When we were eating compulsively, food occupied the central place in our lives every day. Abstinence replaces food as our prime concern, and maintaining abstinence means working the program.
When we do this, we are amazed at how well the day goes. Our work is easier and more productive. We spend less time and energy hassling with ourselves and other people. Best of all, we do not always have to be right. Being able to admit mistakes delivers us from egocentricity.
Being straight with ourselves enables us to be straight with others, and they in turn respond more positively. We are less concerned that everyone likes us and more concerned about growth in the program. By placing principles before personalities, we get less snarled up in confused, game playing relationships.
May You be foremost in my mind, twenty-four hours a day.
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Daily Zen
September 1
Hanging scroll
Lovely display—
Just as in days of old,
Might this not be a future
Autumn moon,
This white chrysanthemum flower!
– Rengetsu (1791-1875)
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Faiths Checkbook
September 1
Abiding in Obedience, in Love
If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love.
-John 15:10
These things cannot be parted—abiding in obedience and abiding in the love of Jesus. A life under the rule of Christ can alone prove that we are the objects of our Lord’s delight. We must keep our Lord’s command if we would bask in His love. If we live in sin we cannot live in the love of Christ. Without the holiness which pleases God we cannot please Jesus. He who cares nothing for holiness knows nothing of the love of Jesus.
Conscious enjoyment of our Lord’s love is a delicate thing. It is far more sensitive to sin and holiness than mercury is to cold and heat. When we are tender of heart and careful in thought, lip, and life to honor our Lord Jesus, then we receive tokens of His love without number. If we desire to perpetuate such bliss we must perpetuate holiness. The Lord Jesus will not hide His face from us unless we hide our face from Him. Sin makes the cloud which darkens our Sun: if we will be watchfully obedient and completely consecrated we may walk in the light, as God is in the light, and have as sure an abiding in the love of Jesus as Jesus has in the love of the Father. Here is a sweet promise with a solemn “if,” Lord, let me have this “if” in my hand; for as a key it opens this casket.
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This Mornings Reading
September 1
“Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory.”
—Psalm 73:24
THE Psalmist felt his need of divine guidance. He had just been discovering the foolishness of his own heart, and lest he should be constantly led astray by it, he resolved that God’s counsel should henceforth guide him. A sense of our own folly is a great step towards being wise, when it leads us to rely on the wisdom of the Lord. The blind man leans on his friend’s arm and reaches home in safety, and so would we give ourselves up implicitly to divine guidance, nothing doubting; assured that though we cannot see, it is always safe to trust the All-seeing God. “Thou shalt,” is a blessed expression of confidence. He was sure that the Lord would not decline the condescending task. There is a word for thee, O believer; rest thou in it. Be assured that thy God will be thy counsellor and friend; He shall guide thee; He will direct all thy ways. In His written Word thou hast this assurance in part fulfilled, for holy Scripture is His counsel to thee. Happy are we to have God’s Word always to guide us! What were the mariner without his compass? And what were the Christian without the Bible? This is the unerring chart, the map in which every shoal is described, and all the channels from the quicksands of destruction to the haven of salvation mapped and marked by one who knows all the way. Blessed be Thou, O God, that we may trust Thee to guide us now, and guide us even to the end! After this guidance through life, the Psalmist anticipates a divine reception at last—”and afterward receive me to glory.” What a thought for thee, believer! God Himself will receive thee to glory—thee! Wandering, erring, straying, yet He will bring thee safe at last to glory! This is thy portion; live on it this day, and if perplexities should surround thee, go in the strength of this text straight to the throne.
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This Evenings Reading
September 1
“Trust in Him at all times.”
—Psalm 62:8
FAITH is as much the rule of temporal as of spiritual life; we ought to have faith in God for our earthly affairs as well as for our heavenly business. It is only as we learn to trust in God for the supply of all our daily need that we shall live above the world. We are not to be idle, that would show we did not trust in God, who worketh hitherto, but in the devil, who is the father of idleness. We are not to be imprudent or rash; that were to trust chance, and not the living God, who is a God of economy and order. Acting in all prudence and uprightness, we are to rely simply and entirely upon the Lord at all times.
Let me commend to you a life of trust in God in temporal things. Trusting in God, you will not be compelled to mourn because you have used sinful means to grow rich. Serve God with integrity, and if you achieve no success, at least no sin will lie upon your conscience. Trusting God, you will not be guilty of self-contradiction. He who trusts in craft, sails this way to-day, and that way the next, like a vessel tossed about by the fickle wind; but he that trusteth in the Lord is like a vessel propelled by steam, she cuts through the waves, defies the wind, and makes one bright silvery straightforward track to her destined haven. Be you a man with living principles within; never bow to the varying customs of worldly wisdom. Walk in your path of integrity with steadfast steps, and show that you are invincibly strong in the strength which confidence in God alone can confer. Thus you will be delivered from carking care, you will not be troubled with evil tidings, your heart will be fixed, trusting in the Lord. How pleasant to float along the stream of providence! There is no more blessed way of living than a life of dependence upon a covenant-keeping God. We have no care, for He careth for us; we have no troubles, because we cast our burdens upon the Lord.