today's readings

May 23

Daily Reflections

SPIRITUAL HEALTH

When the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p 64

It is very difficult for me to come to terms with my spiritual illness because of my great pride, disguised by my material successes and my intellectual power. Intelligence is not incompatible with humility, provided I place humility first. To seek prestige and wealth is the ultimate goal for many in the modern world. To be fashionable and to seem better than I really am is a spiritual illness. To recognize and to admit my weakness is the beginning of good spiritual health. It is a sign of spiritual health to be able to ask God every day to enlighten me, to recognize His will, and to have the strength to execute it. My spiritual health is excellent when I realize that the better I get, the more I discover how much help I need from others.

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Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought For The Day

The Twelfth Step of A.A., working with others, can be subdivided into five parts, five words beginning with the letter C; confidence, confession, conviction, conversion, and continuance. The first thing in trying to help other alcoholics is to get their confidence. We do this by telling them our own experiences with drinking, so that they see that we know what we're talking about. If we share our experiences frankly, they will know that we are sincerely trying to help them. They will realize that they're not alone and that others have had experiences as bad or worse than theirs. This gives them confidence that they can be helped. Do I care enough about other alcoholics to get their confidence?

Meditation For The Day

I fail not so much when tragedy happens as I did before the happening, by all the little things I might have done, but did not do. I must prepare for the future by doing the right thing at the right time now. If a thing should be done, I should deal with that thing today and get it righted with God before I allow myself to undertake any new duty. I should look upon myself as performing God's errands and then coming back to Him to tell Him in quiet communion that the message has been delivered or the task done.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may seek no credit for the results of what I do. I pray that I may leave the outcome of my actions to God.

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As Bill Sees It

A.A.'s School of Life, p. 143

Within A.A., I suppose, we shall always quarrel a good bit. Mostly, I think, about how to do the greatest good for the greatest number of drunks. We shall have our childish spats and snits over small questions of money management and who is going to run our groups for the next six months. Any bunch of growing children (and that is what we are) would hardly be in character if they did less.

These are the growing pains of infancy, and we actually thrive on them. Surmounting such problems, in A.A.'s rather rugged school of life, is a healthy exercise.

A.A. Comes Of Age, p. 233

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Walk in Dry Places

Avoid the paralysis of analysis Practical Spirituality The good news of the Twelve step program is that we have a Higher Power whose presence serves as a source of guidance and understanding as we go through each day. Letting this power work through us is only a matter of will..... God draws as near to us as we wish to draw near to God. As we let our Higher Power work, we remember that no scientific explanation for this process is necessary. We could paralyse your spiritual activity by trying to analyze it, thus bringing about an undesirable "paralysis or analysis."It's also not necessary to win another's endorsement of what we're trying to do.

We must not be influenced by any scorn or ridicule of our efforts. All that's necessary is that we know God in our own lives and stay faithful to our program. We let the presence of God work freely and smoothly as we go about our business.

I'll work today with the comfortable knowledge that God is really doing work through me.

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Keep It Simple

The present will not long endure.---Pindar At certain moments, our best friend is time. Time is a gift given us. Time helps us heal. We need to know that when things are tough, these times will pass, and peace will return. Our Higher Power can be like a parent who comforts a child when there's a storm outside. The parent gently reminds the child the sun will shine again. Tough times come and go. There will be times when life is ugly and very painful. We can't be happy all the time. Remember, our Higher Power is always there. We must have faith in this. A saying often heard in the program is, "This too shall pass."

Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, remind me that things will get better. Even if they get worst for a while, they will get better. Let this be my prayer in hard times.

Action for the Day: Today, I'll list times in my life when I thought I couldn't go on. I'll remember the pain, but I'll also remember how time was my friend.

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Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition

Our Southern Friend

Pioneer A.A., minister's son, and southern farmer, he asked, "Who am I to say there is no God?"

I am in another fellow's room at college. "Freshman," said he to me, "do you ever take a drink?" I hesitated. Father had never directly spoken to me about drinking and he never drank any, so far as I knew. Mother hated liquor and feared a drunken man. Her brother had been a drinker and had died in a state hospital for the insane. But his life was unmentionable, so far as I was concerned. I had never had a drink but I had seen enough merriment in the boys who were drinking to be interested. I would never be like the village drunkard at home. How a lot of people despised him! Just a weakling! "Well," said the older boy, "Do you?" "Once in a while," I lied. I could not let him think I was a sissy.

pp. 208-209

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Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

Step Eight - "Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to makeamends to them all."

When listing the people we have harmed, most of us hit another solid obstacle. We got a pretty severe shock when we realized that we were preparing to make a face-to-face admission of our wretched conduct to those we had hurt. It had been embarrassing enough when in confidence we had admitted these things to God, to ourselves, and to another human being. But the prospect of actually visiting or even writing the people concerned now overwhelmed us, especially when we remembered in what poor favor we stood with most of them. There were cases, too, where we had damaged others who were still happily unaware of being hurt. Why, we cried, shouldn't bygones be bygones? Why do we have to think of these people at all? These were some of the ways in which fear conspired with pride to hinder our making a list of all the people we had harmed.

pp. 78-79

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Upon receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, Mother Teresa said: "What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family." --Cited in BITS & PIECES

Learn to get in touch with silence within yourself, and know that everything in this life has purpose. There are no mistakes, no coincidences, all events are blessings given to us to learn from. --Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

"There's no elevator, you have to take the steps." --unknown

"Yard by yard it's very hard. But inch by inch, it's a cinch." --Anon.

"What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step." --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"If we take care of the inches, we will not have to worry about the miles." --Hartley Coleridge

This is the miracle that happens every time to those who really love; the more they give, the more they possess. --Rainer Maria Rilke

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Father Leo's Daily Meditation

EFFORT

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." --Theodore Roosevelt

Because we are not perfect, we need only do our best. Because our recovery from addiction is an on-going process, we will discover that our best is improving on a daily basis. It is so easy to beat ourselves up emotionally by thinking that our best is not good enough. Even after years of recovery we still hear the old tapes: "People do not want to listen to you." "Is that all that you can do?"

We need to remember that the disease of addiction still lives in our recovery. However, our honest attempts at dealing with a problem or helping another with a problem - provided they are honest attempts -will usually be more than sufficient.

Today I accept my best attempts with gratitude and I am not too proud to seek the advice of another.

God, accept the best that I can offer as an instrument of Your peace.

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He who guards his mouth and his tongue, guards his soul from troubles. Proverbs 21:23

All things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they shall be granted. Mark 11:24

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Daily Inspiration

Instead of overreacting, try under reacting because this response shows wisdom, patience and peace. Lord, help me respond to situations in a manner that allows me to solve problems rather than create more.

Be sensitive to the feelings of others and show the same forgiveness and compassion that the Lord gives to you. Lord, give me the wisdom to know when to speak and when to listen.f