Daily Reflections
September 7
“OUR SIDE OF THE STREET”
We are there to sweep off our side of the street, realizing that nothing worth while can be accomplished until we do so, never trying to tell him what he should do. His faults are not discussed. We stick to our own.
-ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, pp. 77-78
I made amends to my dad after I quit drinking. My words fell on deaf ears since I had blamed him for my troubles. Several months later I made amends to my dad again. This time I wrote a letter in which I did not blame him nor mention his faults. It worked, and at last I understood! My side of the street is all that I’m responsible for and–thanks to God and A.A.– it’s clean for today.
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Twenty-Four Hours A Day
September 7
A.A. Thought For The Day
Another of the mottoes of A.A. is “Easy Does It.” This means that we just go along in A.A. doing the best we can and not getting steamed up over problems that are in A.A. or outside of it. We alcoholics are emotional people and we have gone to excess in almost everything we have done. We have not been moderate in many things. We have not known how to relax. Faith in a Higher Power can help us to learn to take it easy. We are not running the world. I am only one among many. We are resolved to live normal, regular lives. From our A.A. experience we learn that “easy does it.” Have I learned to take it easy?
Meditation For The Day
“The eternal God is thy refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms.” Sheltering arms express the loving protection of God’s spirit. Human beings, in their troubles and difficulties need nothing so much as a refuge, a place to relax where they can lay down their burdens and get relief from cares. Say to yourself: “God is my refuge.” Say it until its truth sinks into your very soul. Say it until you know it and are sure of it. Nothing can seriously upset you or make you afraid, if God is truly your refuge.
Prayer For The Day
I pray that I may go each day to God as a refuge until fear goes and peace and security come. I pray that I may feel deeply secure in the Haven of His spirit.
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As Bill Sees It
September 7
God’s Gifts, p.249
We see that the sun never sets upon A.A.’s Fellowship; that more than three hundred and fifty thousand of us have now recovered from our malady; that we have everywhere begun to transcend the formidable barriers of race, creed, and nationality. This assurance that so many of us have been able to meet our responsibilities for sobriety and for growth and effectiveness in the troubled world where we live, will surely fill us with the deepest joy and satisfaction.
But, as a people who have nearly always learned the hard way, we shall certainly not congratulate ourselves. We shall perceive these assets to be God’s gift, which have been in part matched by an increasing willingness on our part to find and do His will for us.
Grapevine, July 1965
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Walk In Dry Places
September 7
A New approach to Freedom
Staying Sober
Most of us discover that we’ve had mixed-up ideas about the nature of freedom. Real freedom is not simply doing exactly as one pleases; privileges would be the correct term for that. And desirable as political freedom is, it cannot give us what we’re really seeking.
We should approach freedom by recognizing that we’re really seeking release from the bondage of self. This self-concern can be one of the worst tyrannies humans face. As we are released from the bondage of self, we learn that our choices begin to multiply. We make wise decisions instead of being driven to certain actions. We are truly free.
Today I’ll enjoy a freedom that is available to anybody who seeks it wholeheartedly. I’ll know it as the freedom only God can offer.
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Keep It Simple
September 7
A lair needs a good memory.
—Quintilian
Many of us wasted a lot of energy trying to keep track of whom we had told what. For example, we’d tell our boss one story and our family another. Then we’d work hard to make sure they never met.
How wonderful to be done with that way of life! We now have a life based on honestly. We can now be ourselves where we go.
Our program tell us that to get sober, we must live a life of strict honesty. Honesty is our rule to get and stay sober. Life is much more simple this way. We can relax and think of the happy details of life.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me to live honestly. Being honest brings me closer to You. Help me become closer to You.
Action for the Day: Today, I’ll read the first three pages of Chapter Five in Alcoholics Anonymous (Third Edition). Here, I’ll learn why honesty is so important to my recovery.
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Each Day a New Beginning
September 7
Remember your good memories, but live for today and keep the memories behind you.
—Jodi K. Elliott
The stuff of our memories comprises who we have become. Each recollection is akin to an ingredient in a simmering pot of stew. The full flavor of our lives is enhanced by each additional experience, whether it is painful or joyful.
Our experiences have a way of dovetailing, of grouping themselves, perhaps even tailoring themselves, to provide us the best advantage. So human is our tendency to linger in thought on past times that we fail to take advantage, to be fully present in the moment, which is assuredly making a necessary contribution to the total panorama of our lives.
Who are we to judge the value of any single experience? It’s how all experiences have mingled, that we must trust. We can be certain in retrospect, that those situations that created the most inner turmoil also offered us the most as growing, developing women.
The experiences offered today, in the 24 hours ahead, are significant because they are unique. I will cherish them for the addition they are making to my total person.
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Alcoholics Anonymous
September 7
He Sold Himself Short
But he found there was a Higher Power that had more faith in him than he had to himself. Thus, A.A. was born in Chicago.
All of this changed when I went to college. I had to adapt to new associations and associates, and it seemed to be the smart thing to drink and smoke. I confined drinking to weekends, and drank normally in college and for several years thereafter.
p. 258
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Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions
September 7
Tradition One – “Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon A.A. Unity.”
Those who look closely soon have the key to this strange paradox. The A.A. member has to conform to the principles of recovery. His life actually depends upon obedience to spiritual principles. If he deviates too far, the penalty is sure and swift; he sickens and dies. At first he goes along because he must, but later he discovers a way of life he really wants to live. Moreover, he finds he cannot keep this priceless gift unless he gives it away. Neither he nor anybody else can survive unless he carries the A.A. message. The moment this Twelfth Step work forms a group, another discovery is made – that most individuals cannot recover unless there is a group. Realization dawns that he is but a small part of a great whole; that no personal sacrifice is too great for preservation of the Fellowship. He learns that the clamor of desires and ambitions within him must be silenced whenever these could damage the group. It becomes plain that the group must survive or the individual will not.
p. 130
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Xtra Thoughts
September 7
Criticism, like rain, should be gentle enough to nourish one’s growth without destroying one’s roots.
–Cited in The Best of BITS & PIECES
When upon life’s billows you are tempest tossed, When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost, Count your many blessings, name them one by one, And it will surprise you what God has done.
–unknown
“Whatever you are trying to avoid won’t go away until you confront it.”
–Anonymous
Serenity isn’t freedom from the storm, it is peace within the storm.
–unknown
“We learn the magical lesson that making the most of what we have turns it into more.”
–Codependent No More
Inner peace should not be determined by outward experiences.
–unknown
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Father Leo’s Daily Meditation
September 7
WORK
“Without work all life goes rotten.”
– Albert Camus
A spiritual discovery that I have made is that I work in order to be, not simply to exist. To work is human. Work opens the door to the meaning of life, and it stops life from being boring and dull. Work is creative. When I was drinking, I did not have this understanding of work and so it became a burden, something I had to get through, something I had to do for money or security. I missed the creative dynamic of work and how it could enable me to feel good about myself.
In recovery I work, create and grow not only in my job, but also in my leisure hours. Indeed the distinction between the two often overlaps because the program I take into the office is the same program I take into the party or disco.
Today God is to be found in everything.
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Bible Scriptures
September 7
“Happy are those…whose hope is in the Lord their God.”
-Psalm 146:5
“Then he said to them all: ‘If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.’”
-Luke 9:23
“I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.”
-Philippians 4:13
“Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.”
-Revelation 22:1-2
Let everyone be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God.
-James 1:19-20
“To You, O LORD, I lift up my soul.”
-Psalm 25:1
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Daily Inspiration
September 7
The way to freedom is the belief that we have the ability to choose. Lord, help me make good choices and never be blinded by the false idea that I am a victim of circumstances.
The more difficult your burden, the stronger you are after you overcome it. Lord, bless me as You bring me to everlasting life.
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A Day At A Time
September 7
Reflection For The Day
“If you’re not alright the way you are,” it’s been said, “it takes a lot of effort to get better. Realize you’re alright the way you are, and you’ll get better naturally.” Sometimes we find ourselves in a situation so difficult that it seems insoluble. The more we think about it, the more we get on our own backs for our imagined inadequacy to overcome the situation — and we sink into depression. That’s the moment to recall a single phrase, slogan, or bit of philosophy, saying it over and over until it replaces thoughts of the tormenting problem — which , in the final analysis will take care of itself. Do I sometimes forget that the thorns have roses?
Today I Pray
May I see that God gives us patterns so that we can take comfort in opposites — day follows night; silence follows din; s love follows loneliness; release follows suffering. If I am ineffectual, may I realize it and try to do something constructive. If I am insensitive, may my friends confront me into greater sensitivity.
Today I Will Remember
Clouds have linings. Problems have endings.
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One Day At A Time
September 7
HONESTY
“If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it.”
-Marcus Aurelius
Honesty of all sorts is important, but honesty with ourselves is foundational. With everything that was in me, I resisted the notion that I had an eating disorder. Everybody else had a problem with my eating, not me. But when I finally faced the painful truth, I began the journey to freedom, from not merely overeating, but from all the underlying bondage that had caused me to stuff my feelings.
The same thing happened when I acknowledged that my relationship with God was in need of correction. Sure, my whole life was a mess, but that had to be God’s fault, right? I had to own up to the fact that God did not fail me; I had failed myself. I had to be open and receptive to His way. What power comes from honesty! I used to be afraid of truth, but truth is becoming my friend.
One day at a time …
Today I will not let myself hide from truth simply to be comfortable; I will use truth as a tool for freedom.
~ Deborah H.
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Elder’s Meditation of the Day
September 7
“Education is the new weapon of Indian people.”
–Eddie Box, SOUTHERN UTE
People have the ability to adapt. In these modern times we must get educated so the people don’t lose. We need lawyers, doctors, nurses, foresters, scientists, educators, carpenters, welders.
These skills are needed to help the people. While we are learning, we need to remember to keep the culture, learn the dances, sing the songs, learn the language and maintain the Red Road for future generations.
Great Spirit, let my education never lack the meaning and value of spirituality.
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Journey To The Heart
September 7
Let Your Creativity Blossom
Allow your creativity to blossom. For too long you have held back. For too long you have limited your natural creative leanings and talents. Maybe someone told you you couldn’t create or being creative wasn’t worthwhile. Maybe you started telling yourself that.
You are creative. You have a creative self within that wants to play, wants to be let loose, wants to create. Set that part of you free! Let yourself play– with life, with work, with projects.
Make a list of all the negative things you believe about your creative abilities– what you think, what you’ve been told, and what you tell yourself. Then burn it. Now make a new list of all the things that are true, or that you believe could be true, or that you want to be true. Let go of all the blocks. Write down that you are creative, that you can create, and that you’re connected to the creative force of the universe.
When you find your connection to creativity, the entire universe will come alive for you. It will help you, guide you, inspire you. You will find yourself imagining something, then being lead right down a path that will help you create it. When you don’t know what to do next, you can listen to your heart and let God and the universe guide you.
Creativity is the inherent nature of the world, the universe. The universe creates. And the universe needs your help in creating. Creating brings you into harmony with the universe, God, yourself, and the rhythm of life.
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Today’s Gift
September 7
The sun’s the life giver … I talk to it like you would to a god.
—Peter Firth
Having a Power greater than ourselves to believe in is like knowing the sun is in the sky. There are days when the sun shines with a brilliance that lights up everything around us – tree branches, snowflakes, and the faces of our friends. When a seed is planted, it is the sun’s warmth that invites it out of the ground to grow into a fruit or flower. The sun is the center the earth rotates around. The sun gives warmth and light to the earth, sometimes in ways we don’t always notice.
There are days we do not see the sun – it is obscured by thick clouds. Yet even on these days, we know the sun’s rays still reach the earth and nourish her.
God nourishes and warms our lives the same way the sun does the earth. Some days we easily see the presence of such a power in our lives, and other days we cannot see past the clouds. But God gives our lives a light-filled center and nourishes us even on quiet cloudy days.
How is God present in my life right now?
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The Language of Letting Go
September 7
Powerless over Others
Stop making excuses for other people.
Stop making excuses for ourselves.
While it is our goal to develop compassion and achieve forgiveness, acceptance, and love, it is also our goal to accept reality and hold people accountable for their behavior. We can also hold ourselves accountable for our own behavior and, at the same time, have compassion and understanding for ourselves.
When we claim powerlessness, we are not claiming irresponsibility. We have no power to control others, what they do, what they did, or what they might do. We’re stating that we are willing to end an ineffective life based on willpower and control. And we’re beginning a spiritual, mental, and emotional journey in which we take responsibility for ourselves.
We are not victims. We are not helpless. Accepting powerlessness when that is appropriate enables us to begin owning our true power to take care of ourselves.
Today, I will avoid making excuses for my own or someone else’s behavior. I will let consequences and responsibility fall where they belong.
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Touchstones Meditations For Men
September 7
Friendship and community are, first of all, inner qualities.
—Henri J. M. Nouwen
Many of us mistakenly search outside ourselves for answers. We feel small inside and not very powerful. Many of us men have tried to change our lives by affecting the people around us. Naturally, when we think of making friends, we assume we would start by getting a friend. But such beginnings often don’t lead very far.
Friendship begins as an inward attitude or feeling before it is expressed outwardly. Perhaps we could first notice whom we feel friendly toward. Whom do we admire? Whom do we feel an affinity with? Let that friendliness exist within, and it will begin to express itself. Are we grasping for acceptance or response? Let us remain with our own goodwill and not return to old attempts to get someone else to change. Friendship exists as a feeling of admiration, of love, of fellowship, without demand. And when we are another man’s friends, let us accept his friendship and enjoy it without trying to change it or him.
Today, I will simply notice my friendly feelings toward others.
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Daily TAO
September 7
REVERENCE
An ocean of ink in a single drop,
Trembling at the tip of my brush,
Poised above stark white paper,
A universe waits for existence.
Everything we do should be imbued with reverence, and so one would think that we should begin with this concept. But no. Reverence only comes with experience and care. Only when we tire of our excesses can there be esteem.
Those of us who contemplate our world soon come to have a great sense of wonder. The perfection of the stars, the beauty of mountains and streams, the invigorating quality of clean ocean air fill us with feelings of celebration. In our own small way, we must create and bring order to our lives each day. We must be responsible, and at the same time express the wonder of all that we know as human.
A painter poises above blank paper. It is not the painting to come that is as important as that single moment when all things still lie in a state of potential. Will something ugly or beautiful be created? The stately determination to make something worthy of the materials and the moment is reverence.
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Daily Zen
September 7
If you want to
Spread the Buddha’s teachings
First let them
Illumine
Your own heart.
– Rengetsu (1791-1875)
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Food For Thought
September 7
I Am a Compulsive Overeater
The one fact, which I need to remember constantly, is that I am a compulsive overeater. If I forget it, I will eventually break my abstinence. There is no way that I can eat “normally,” like most other people. I either eat according to my OA plan or I eat very abnormally, according to my compulsion.
Because I am a compulsive overeater, I do not take tastes of this or that, and I do not have snacks. I have found from sad experience that this kind of uncontrolled eating is impossible for me to handle. I know that I need to plan every day the three measured meals, which I will eat.
Because of the new life that OA has given to me, I am grateful for my disease. Without it, I would not have found the measure of peace and serenity, which comes to me every day as I work the program.
May I remember I am a compulsive overeater.
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Faiths Checkbook
September 7
The Reach of Almighty Grace
It shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God.
-Hosea 1:10
Sovereign grace can make strangers into sons, and the Lord here declares His purpose to deal thus with rebels and make them know what He has done. Beloved reader, the Lord has done this in my case; has He done the like for you? Then let us join hands and hearts in praising His adorable name.
Some of us were so decidedly ungodly that the Lord’s Word most truly said to our conscience and heart, “Ye are not my people.” In the house of God and in our own homes, when we read the Bible, this was the voice of God’s Spirit in our soul, “Ye are not my people.” Truly a sad, condemning voice it was. But now, in the same places, from the same ministry and Scripture, we hear a voice, which saith, “Ye are the sons of the living God.” Can we be grateful enough for this? Is it not wonderful? Does it not give us hope for others? Who is beyond the reach of almighty grace? How can we despair of any, since the Lord has wrought so marvelous a change in us?
He who has kept this one great promise will keep every other; wherefore, let us go forward with songs of adoration and confidence.
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This Mornings Reading
September 7
“And when they could not come nigh unto Him for the press, they uncovered the roof where he was: and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay.”
—Mark 2:4
FAITH is full of inventions. The house was full, a crowd blocked up the door, but faith found a way of getting at the Lord and placing the palsied man before Him. If we cannot get sinners where Jesus is by ordinary methods we must use extraordinary ones. It seems, according to Luke 5:19, that a tiling had to be removed, which would make dust and cause a measure of danger to those below, but where the case is very urgent we must not mind running some risks and shocking some proprieties. Jesus was there to heal, and therefore fall what might, faith ventured all so that her poor paralyzed charge might have his sins forgiven. O that we had more daring faith among us! Cannot we, dear reader, seek it this morning for ourselves and for our fellow-workers, and will we not try to-day to perform some gallant act for the love of souls and the glory of the Lord.
The world is constantly inventing; genius serves all the purposes of human desire: cannot faith invent too, and reach by some new means the outcasts who lie perishing around us? It was the presence of Jesus which excited victorious courage in the four bearers of the palsied man: is not the Lord among us now? Have we seen His face for ourselves this morning? Have we felt His healing power in our own souls? If so, then through door, through window, or through roof, let us, breaking through all impediments, labour to bring poor souls to Jesus. All means are good and decorous when faith and love are truly set on winning souls. If hunger for bread can break through stone walls, surely hunger for souls is not to be hindered in its efforts. O Lord, make us quick to suggest methods of reaching Thy poor sin-sick ones, and bold to carry them out at all hazards.
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This Evenings Reading
September 7
“There is sorrow on the sea; it cannot be quiet.”
—Jeremiah 49:23
LITTLE know we what sorrow may be upon the sea at this moment. We are safe in our quiet chamber, but far away on the salt sea the hurricane may be cruelly seeking for the lives of men. Hear how the death fiends howl among the cordage; how every timber starts as the waves beat like battering rams upon the vessel! God help you, poor drenched and wearied ones! My prayer goes up to the great Lord of sea and land, that He will make the storm a calm, and bring you to your desired haven! Nor ought I to offer prayer alone, I should try to benefit those hardy men who risk their lives so constantly. Have I ever done anything for them? What can I do? How often does the boisterous sea swallow up the mariner! Thousands of corpses lie where pearls lie deep. There is death-sorrow on the sea, which is echoed in the long wail of widows and orphans. The salt of the sea is in many eyes of mothers and wives. Remorseless billows, ye have devoured the love of women, and the stay of households. What a resurrection shall there be from the caverns of the deep when the sea gives up her dead! Till then there will be sorrow on the sea. As if in sympathy with the woes of earth, the sea is for ever fretting along a thousand shores, wailing with a sorrowful cry like her own birds, booming with a hollow crash of unrest, raving with uproarious discontent, chafing with hoarse wrath, or jangling with the voices of ten thousand murmuring pebbles. The roar of the sea may be joyous to a rejoicing spirit, but to the son of sorrow the wide, wide ocean is even more forlorn than the wide, wide world. This is not our rest, and the restless billows tell us so. There is a land where there is no more sea—our faces are steadfastly set towards it; we are going to the place of which the Lord hath spoken. Till then, we cast our sorrows on the Lord who trod the sea of old, and who maketh a way for His people through the depths thereof.