Daily Reflections
September 5
EMOTIONAL BALANCE
Made direct amends to such people wherever possible.
-TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS , p. 83
When I survey my drinking days, I recall many people whom my life touched casually, but whose days I troubled through my anger and sarcasm. These people are untraceable, and direct amends to them are not possible. The only amends I can make to those untraceable individuals, the only “changes for the better” I can offer, are indirect amends made to other people, whose paths briefly cross mine. Courtesy and kindness, regularly practiced, help me to live in emotional balance, at peace with myself.
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Twenty-Four Hours A Day
September 5
A.A. Thought For The Day
One of the mottoes of A.A. is “First Things First.” This means that we should always keep in mind that alcohol is our number-one problem. We must never let any other problem, whether of family, business, friends, or anything else, take precedence in our minds over our alcoholic problem. As we go along in A.A., we learn to recognize the things that may upset us emotionally. When we find ourselves getting upset over something, we must realize that it’s a luxury we alcoholics can’t afford. Anything that makes us forget our number-one problem is dangerous to us. Am I keeping sobriety in first place in my mind?
Meditation For The Day
Spiritual progress is the law of your being. Try to see around you more and more of beauty and truth, knowledge and power. Today try to be stronger, braver, more loving as a result of what you did yesterday. This law of spiritual progress gives meaning and purpose to your life. Always expect better things ahead. You can accomplish much good through the strength of God’s spirit in you. Never be too discouraged. The world is sure to get better, in spite of setbacks of war, hate, and greed. Be part of the cure of the world’s ills, rather than part of the disease.
Prayer For The Day
I pray that I may keep progressing in the better life. I pray that I may be a part of the forces for good in the world.
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As Bill Sees It
September 5
Have You Experimented?, p.247
“Since open-mindedness and experimentation are supposed to be the indispensable attributes of our ‘scientific’ civilization, it seems strange that so many scientists are reluctant to try out personally the hypothesis that God came first and man afterward. They prefer to believe that man is the chance product of evolution; that God, the Creator, does not exist.
“I can only report that I have experimented with both concepts and that, in my case, the God concept has proved to be a better basis for living than the man-centered one.
“Nevertheless, I would be the first to defend your right to think as you will. I simply ask this question: ‘In your own life, have you ever really tried to think and act as though there might be a God? Have you experimented?’”
Letter, 1950
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Walk In Dry Places
September 5
Battles we’ve won or lost.
Achievements.
Even the continuous sobriety we’re enjoying is no shield from traps we seem to set for ourselves. At times, we can find ourselves in the foolish game of continuing to fight battles we’ve won or lost.
One losing battle is the attempt to win the approval of someone who has always disliked us. That person may be gone, but we still fight….and lose….. the same battle when we find ourselves in a similar situation.
We also may have won some battles without knowing it. This can happen when we’ve set our goals unrealistically high. We may be fairly
successful in our work, for example, but still feel that we have failed because a high goal we set eluded us. That goal, however, may have been all but impossible to attain, and while we mourn our perceived failure, we ignore the successes we many have achieved in the meantime. Consequently, we should never let any of these battles interfere with our plan for sobriety. We must stay sober at all costs.
This day, I’ll not strive to impress people who may always disapprove of me. I will also accept my successes even if they fall short of my highest dreams.
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Keep It Simple
September 5
I have never seen a greater monster or miracle than myself.
—Montaigne
We know we’ve hurt people. We’ve heard our family cry out from pain we’ve caused them. Because of alcohol and other drugs, we acted like monsters.
But we now live surrounded with love. We now work to make this world better. Recovery is a miracle. The rebirth of our spirit is our miracle.
It’s no wonder we love life the way we do! We’ve been given a second chance. Our joy is overflowing. Our Higher Power must love us very much.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me with the monster that lives within me. I pray it will never again be let out.
Action for the Day: Today, I’ll see myself as a miracle. I’ll be grateful for my new life.
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Each Day a New Beginning
September 5
Pity is the deadliest feeling that can be offered to a woman.
—Vicki Baum
We must move forward with confidence, trusting that the strength we need will be given us, having faith in our visions to guide us. Problems need not daunt us. Rather, they can spur us on to more creative activity. They challenge our capabilities. They insist that we not stand still.
Pity from others fosters inaction, and passivity invites death of the soul. Instead, our will to live is quickened through others’ encouragement. All else dampens the will. Pity feeds the self-pity that rings the death knell.
We can give strokes wherever we are today and know that we are helping someone live. And each time we reach out to encourage another, we are breathing new life into ourselves, new life that holds at bay the self-pity that may appear at any moment.
We can serve one another best, never by commiserating with sadness’s, but by celebrating life’s challenges. They offer the opportunities necessary to our continued growth.
Someone needs a word of encouragement from me. I will brighten her vision of the future.
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Alcoholics Anonymous
September 5
The Man Who Mastered Fear
He spent eighteen years in running away, and then found he didn’t have to run. So he started A.A. in Detroit.
It is undoubtedly too soon for me to say how much of a success I shall be as a husband in time to come. I do feel, though, that the fact that I finally grew up to a point where I could even tackle such a job is the apex of the story of a man who spent eighteen years running away from life.
p. 257
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Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions
September 5
Tradition One – “Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon A.A. Unity.”
“Does this mean,” some will anxiously ask, “that in A.A. the individual doesn’t count for much? Is he to be dominated by his group and swallowed up in it?” We may certainly answer this question with a loud “No!” We believe there isn’t a fellowship on earth which lavishes more devoted care upon its individual members; surely there is none which more jealously guards the individual’s right to think, talk, and act as he wishes. No A.A. can compel another to do anything; nobody can be punished or expelled. Our Twelve Steps to recovery are suggestions; the Twelve Traditions which guarantee A.A.’s unity contain not a single “Don’t.” They repeatedly say “We ought . . .” but never “You must!”
p. 129
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Xtra Thoughts
September 5
I asked God for strength, that I might achieve…
I was made weak, that I might learn humbly to obey.
I asked for health, that I might do greater things…
I was given infirmity, that I might do better things.
I asked for riches, that I might be happy…
I was given poverty, that I might be wise.
I asked for power, that I might have the praise of men…
I was given weakness, that I might feel the need for God.
I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life…
I got nothing that I asked for, but everything I hoped for.
Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered.
I am among all men, richly blessed.
–This prayer was found on an unidentified Civil War soldier
SMILES
A SMILE COSTS NOTHING, but gives much. It enriches those who receive, without making poorer those who give. It takes but a moment, but the memory of it sometimes lasts forever. None is so rich or mighty that he can get along without it, and none is so poor but he can be made rich by it.
A smile creates happiness in the home, fosters goodwill in business, and is the countersign of friendship. It brings rest to the weary, cheer to the discouraged, sunshine to the sad, and it is natures’ best antidote for trouble. Yet it cannot be bought, begged, borrowed or stolen, for it is something that it is of no value to anyone until it is given away.
–Anonymous
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Father Leo’s Daily Meditation
September 5
NATURE
“All are but parts of one stupendous whole. Whose body nature is and God the soul.”
– Alexander Pope
I belong to this world, this mighty universe — but more importantly, it belongs to me. I have a responsibility in this world and to this world. No longer can I abrogate my responsibility. God created and is creating through me. What I say, what I do, how I feel is important. I am important. I am terrific — because God made me and works through me.
Sometimes I feel the oneness. I stand on a mountain top and look at the rolling hills beyond and I feel noble. The birds sing, the streams murmur and I feel a tremendous sense of joy.
But I also feel the pain of the world. The people suffering, the pointlessness of man’s violence and the injustice of prejudice. All this I feel, too.
Spirituality involves this mixture, the paradox of my being an angel in the dust!
Thank You for including me in Your design for life. I tremble at the responsibility You have shared with me.
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Bible Scriptures
September 5
“Do not gloat over me, my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will rise. Though I sit in darkness, the LORD will be my light.”
-Micah 7:8
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
-Galatians 5:1
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
-Galatians 5:22-23
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Daily Inspiration
September 5
To be completely at peace, avoid hurting anyone for any reason. Lord, I will act with kindness and when others are hurtful to me, I will focus on Your presence within them to give me courage to respond gently.
If we spend time thanking God for the good things in our lives, we won’t have time to do so much complaining. Thank You, Lord, for the gift of life and the many things that bring me joy.
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A Day At A Time
September 5
Reflection For The Day
We’re often told that alcoholics and other addictive persons are perfectionists, impatient about any shortcomings — especially our own. We tend to set impossible goals for ourselves, struggling fiercely to reach our unattainable ideals. Then, of course — since no person could possibly meet the extremely high standards we demand of ourselves — we find ourselves falling short. Discouragement and depression set in; we angrily punish ourselves for being less than superhuman. The next time around, rather than setting more realistic goals, we set them even higher. And we fall farther, then punish ourselves more severely. Isn’t it about time I stopped setting unattainable goals for myself?
Today I Pray
May God temper my own image of myself as a super-person. May I settle for less than perfection from myself, as well las from others. For only God is perfect, and I am limited by being human.
Today I Will Remember
I am not God; I am only human.
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One Day At A Time
September 5
SERVICE
“The world is full of willing people; some willing to work … the rest willing to let them.”
-Robert Frost
There is a time when we first come into program when we need to just sit back and receive. We come in a desperate state, empty of love and acceptance, with nothing to guide us and no place to go. We learn to feel our emptiness and to accept resting on others and being supported.
Then we begin to “get it.” The tingling excitement of hope is aroused in us. A source of power to live is discovered inside of ourselves.
At that point, a change must take place if we are to continue our success. While we will always remain a receiver, we must move into the ring of the givers. It requires a new role of courage and boldness to take this step. Fear of what to say, how to sound, and quality of performance must be overcome. This is called Step Twelve.
One Day at a Time …
God, grant me the courage to take Step Twelve, however imperfectly, to grow in my ability to share what I have so generously been given.
~ Mary Clare
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Elder’s Meditation of the Day
September 5
“Decisions that have been made for the last couple of centuries have been decisions made without the presence of a real God….from the vision, not of God, but of money.”
–Tom Porter, MOHAWK
As we view the world today, it’s easy to see the people are off track. We are no longer living in harmony. Focusing on the material only leads us from the path of the Creator.
We must now pray for ourselves and the people in a pitiful way. We must be humble and ask the Great Spirit to intervene because if we don’t, our children will continue to have troubles. They are acting out our behavior as adults.
Today is a good time to start. We need to get the spiritual way back into our lives. We need to focus on the spiritual.
My Creator, help me to focus on the spiritual way.
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Journey to the Heart
September 5
The Path Is One of Joy
I attended a church service at the Sanctuario de Chimayo in New Mexico. The church and its sacred healing ground had touched and healed me before. Today I came looking not for a miracle, but just a touch of its healing power to help me on my way. Instead, I found another miracle. The miracle of joy.When I entered the church, I noticed how glum and somber I became. I noticed how seriously, almost sadly, I approached much of spiritual growth. I believed that spirituality asked– required– this of me. If I was doing it properly, I would be demonstrating what a grim affair it was.
After the service, I stopped at the church’s gift shop and purchased some mementos to bring the energy of this holy place home with me– items to remind me of the spiritual powers available to us in everyday life, no matter where we are. I also visited another gift shop near the church. There I bought a string of chili peppers called holy chills. Then I brought all my gifts back to the priest to bless: a wooden cross for the wall, a rosary for my daughter, one that glows in the dark so she’ll know God’s there, a small bag of sacred earth from the church grounds to remind me of the healing powers in this universe, a small jar of holy water to remind me that all of the journey is sacred, and a string of holy chilis to help me remember to smile.
The path does not have to be such a grim affair. Let go of the heaviness in your heart and soul. Sometimes the best way to demonstrate your faith is by learning to enjoy life.
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Today’s Gift
September 5
Take care of yourself my darling And I’ll take care of me Live your loneliness knowing That we can both be free.
—Mary Lee George
Loneliness is something inside us. It’s not caused by other people’s behavior, though what others do may let us know we are feeling lonely. We have all experienced being alone and really enjoying it- walking by the river or singing a song we like. Feeling lonely is when we feel like nobody cares about us or wants to be with us.
Sometimes we need to give ourselves permission to feel lonely and know that we are okay no matter what we are feeling. Other times it may be wise to check with others if our feelings are true. We can ask our mother if she cares about us or ask a friend if he wants to play, and be open to the answer. When we feel lonely, we often ignore what others do or say that doesn’t agree with what we believe to be true. The important thing to remember is that we are okay no matter what choice we make.
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The Language of Letting Go
September 5
Step Ten
Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
–Step Ten of Al Anon
Once we have worked our way to this Step, we can maintain and increase our self-esteem by regularly working Step Ten.
This Step incorporates the process we have gone through in Steps Four through Nine. We do not work this Step to punish ourselves or to hold ourselves under a constantly critical and demeaning microscope. We do it to maintain self-esteem and harmony in our relationship with others and ourselves. We do it to stay on track.
When an issue or problem emerges and needs our attention, identify it and openly discuss it with at least one safe person and God. Accept it. Become willing to let go of it. Ask God to take it from us. Have a change of heart by the willingness to make whatever amend is called for – to do what is necessary to take care of ourselves. Take an appropriate action to resolve the matter. Then let go of the guilt and shame.
This is a simple formula for taking care of ourselves. This is how we change. This is how we become changed. This is the process for healing and health. This is the process for achieving self-responsibility and self esteem.
The next time we do something that bothers us, the next time we feel off track or off course, we don’t have to waste our time or energy feeling ashamed. We can take a Tenth Step. Let the process happen. And move on with our life.
God, help me make this Step and other Steps a habitual way of responding to life and my issues. Help me know that I am free to live, to allow myself to fully experiment with and experience life. If I get off course, or if an issue arises that demands my attention, help me deal with it by using the Tenth Step.
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More Language Of Letting Go
September 5
Look at your attachments
A friend called me one day. His shiny new car was in the garage for repairs again. “I should have gotten a truck, something practical, that would start ever day and get me to work,” he said. “If ever, ever I start screaming that I have to have something and can’t live without it, start screaming back to me until I stop.”
What’s attached to your self-esteem?
Some people attach their cars to their worth. Other people can feel good about themselves only if they’re involved in a romantic relationship. Some people need a home in a certain neighborhood. Some people tie their self-esteem to future events. If I could only achieve this, then I’d be complete.
Take a moment. Look at your life. Is your self-worth attached to certain conditions?
We say we want others to love us unconditionally, but the problem is, that’s not often the way we love ourselves. We say we need money in the bank, a Mercedes, or a Gucci bag first.
Is there a certain level of success you’ve been striving to attain? Are you telling yourself you have to have it to be complete? Maybe it’s someone’s approval that you’re holding out for.
There’s an easy way to see what we’ve become overly attached to. We can ask ourselves this: What is the thing in my life that I can’t let go of and release? What makes me craziest?
Don’t be hard on yourself. We all want and need daily necessities, such as cars, jobs, and money. And having someone to love is a delightful part of being human.
But that’s a different issue than telling ourselves we can’t be happy without these persons or things. Help yourself to a healthy dose of completeness and letting go. Tell yourself that you’re complete and can be happy, just as you are. Let go of your attachment to whatever you’re clinging to. It may or may not come back to you. But if it does, you can more happily enjoy it knowing you don’t need it to be complete.
God, help me let go of my unhealthy attachments.
Activity: What are you holding on to, telling yourself you can’t live without it? Is there a person who you fear will go away? Is there a job or a particular level of success you’ve attached yourself to? Is there a level of finances that you’re waiting to have before you let yourself feel complete? Do an inventory of your life. Discern what you’ve convinced yourself you need to be complete. Now, transfer these people or things to a list in your journal. Make the title of that list “people and things I need to release and detach from my self-esteem.” You can still have these people or things in your life, but your goal here is to get clear on your motives for wanting them in your life.
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Touchstones Meditations For Men
September 5
It is as important to cultivate your silence power, as it is your word power.
—William James
We bless ourselves with renewal and healing when we retreat from the world for a few private moments of silence. The power we cultivate in silence isn’t generated by us; that power comes to us. We can do this by deliberately withdrawing from all distractions. Then we quiet our inner selves by concentrating on deep relaxation, thinking about a brief reading, or by praying.
Most of us already have a personal island of renewal that we have turned to many times in the past for serenity and strength. We can use it and turn to it daily. This natural pattern is necessary for a strong and healthy life. It builds our relationship with our Higher Power and ourselves. In our problems with self-esteem, we often label as worthless the quiet, subtle things we do, but these very things are essential to build our strength and self esteem.
I will take time for silence to receive the power it gives in my life.
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Daily TAO
September 5
RECEPTIVITY
I want to make myself an empty room:
Quiet whitewashed walls with slant sunshine
And a fresh breeze through open windows.
Some days are extremely fluid, and all possible courses of action are equally attractive. Rather than do something arbitrary, it is far better to empty oneself completely. Then the more subtle currents of life may be felt. One should avoid the mistake of random action.
Arbitrary action will most likely be out of accord with the times. It is artificial, a structure that we impose from our own thought. Such movements are invariably stilted and wooden; they do not have the fresh perfection of the natural.
We do not have enough peace. Yet peace will never be attained by perpetual action. Stirred water never has the chance to settle clear. A tree buffeted by winds can never grow straight. Give up all unnecessary activity. Give up all arbitrary actions. Make yourself receptive. The peace that you seek shall be quickly at hand.
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Food For Thought
September 5
Sponsors
Most of us never outgrow our need for a sponsor. Someone who has had similar experiences can give us the understanding, which we require in order to continue to grow in the program. A sponsor who maintains current, clean abstinence and who seriously works the program is someone who inspires us to follow. We could not control our disease by ourselves. As we recover, we continue to need help.
With a food sponsor, we can discuss our particular menus and problems. When we make a mistake, we need to share it with another person in order to profit from it and put it behind us. A program sponsor gives us encouragement and insight as we work the steps. When we are maintaining our desired weight, a maintenance sponsor helps us make any necessary adjustments. Sponsorship is one of the most important OA tools, and we are foolish if we do not take advantage of it. Alone, we are powerless over food.
Thank You for sponsors.
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Daily Zen
September 5
Perceive the way and you attain
A point of safety and anchorage.
Enter the way and you attain
The realm of danger and lose your life.
Safety and danger, life and death;
All come from where?
The activity of the great ones is,
When hanging over a cliff
One thousand feet high,
To be able to let go.
Yaahh!
– Sosan Taesa (1520-1604)
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Faiths Checkbook
September 5
With Me Wherever I Am
The Lord will be with you.
-2 Chronicles 20:17
This was a great mercy for Jehoshaphat, for a great multitude had come out against him; and it will be a great mercy for me, for I have great need, and I have no might or wisdom. If the Lord be with me, it matters little who may desert me. If the Lord be with me, I shall conquer in the battle of life, and the greater my trials the more glorious will be my victory. How can I be sure that the Lord is with me?
For certain He is with me if I am with Him. If I trust in His faithfulness, believe His words, and obey His commands, He is assuredly with me. If I am on Satan’s side, God is against me and cannot be otherwise; but if I live to honor God, I may be sure that He will honor me.
I am quite sure that God is with me if Jesus is my sole and only Savior. If I have placed my soul in the hands of God’s only-begotten Son, then I may be sure that the Father will put forth all His power to preserve me, that His Son may not be dishonored.
Oh, for faith to take hold upon the short but sweet text for today! O Lord, fulfill this word to Thy servant! Be with me in the house, in the street, in the field, in the shop, in company, and alone. Be Thou also with all Thy people.
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This Mornings Reading
September 5
“Woe is me, that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar.”
—Psalm 120:5
AS a Christian you have to live in the midst of an ungodly world, and it is of little use for you to cry “Woe is me.” Jesus did not pray O that you should be taken out of the world, and what He did not pray for you need not desire. Better far in the Lord’s strength to meet the difficulty, and glorify Him in it. The enemy is ever on the watch to detect inconsistency in your conduct; be therefore very holy. Remember that the eyes of all are upon you, and that more is expected from you than from other men. Strive to give no occasion for blame. Let your goodness be the only fault they can discover in you. Like Daniel, compel them to say of you, “We shall not find any occasion against this Daniel, except we find it against him concerning the law of his God.” Seek to be useful as well as consistent. Perhaps you think, “If I were in a more favourable position I might serve the Lord’s cause, but I cannot do any good where I am”; but the worse the people are among whom you live, the more need have they of your exertions; if they be crooked, the more necessity that you should set them straight; and if they be perverse, the more need have you to turn their proud hearts to the truth. Where should the physician be but where there are many sick? Where is honour to be won by the soldier but in the hottest fire of the battle? And when weary of the strife and sin that meets you on every hand, consider that all the saints have endured the same trial. They were not carried on beds of down to heaven, and you must not expect to travel more easily than they. They had to hazard their lives unto the death in the high places of the field, and you will not be crowned till you also have endured hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Therefore, “stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong.”
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This Evenings Reading
September 5
“Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea?”
—Job 38:16
SOME things in nature must remain a mystery to the most intelligent and enterprising investigators. Human knowledge has bounds beyond which it cannot pass. Universal knowledge is for God alone. If this be so in the things which are seen and temporal, I may rest assured that it is even more so in matters spiritual and eternal. Why, then, have I been torturing my brain with speculations as to destiny and will, fixed fate, and human responsibility? These deep and dark truths I am no more able to comprehend than to find out the depth which coucheth beneath, from which old ocean draws her watery stores. Why am I so curious to know the reason of my Lord’s providences, the motive of His actions, the design of His visitations? Shall I ever be able to clasp the sun in my fist, and hold the universe in my palm? yet these are as a drop of a bucket compared with the Lord my God. Let me not strive to understand the infinite, but spend my strength in love. What I cannot gain by intellect I can possess by affection, and let that suffice me. I cannot penetrate the heart of the sea, but I can enjoy the healthful breezes which sweep over its bosom, and I can sail over its blue waves with propitious winds. If I could enter the springs of the sea, the feat would serve no useful purpose either to myself or to others, it would not save the sinking bark, or give back the drowned mariner to his weeping wife and children; neither would my solving deep mysteries avail me a single whit, for the least love to God, and the simplest act of obedience to Him, are better than the profoundest knowledge. My Lord, I leave the infinite to Thee, and pray Thee to put far from me such a love for the tree of knowledge as might keep me from the tree of life.