today's readings

Daily Reflections

". . .OF ALL PERSONS WE HAD HARMED"

"...and became willing to make amends to them all." TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 77

One of the key words in the Eighth Step is the word all. I am not free to select a few names for the list and to disregard others. It is a list of all persons I have harmed. I can see immediately that this Step entails forgiveness because if I'm not willing to forgive someone, there is little chance I will place his name on the list. Before I placed the first name on my list, I said a little prayer: "I forgive anyone and everyone who has ever harmed me at any time and under any circumstances." It is well for me to contemplate a small, but very significant, two-letter word every time the Lord's Prayer is said. The word is as. I ask, "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." In this case, as means, "in the same manner." I am asking to be forgiven in the same manner that I forgive others. As I say this portion of the prayer, if I am harboring hatred or resentment, I am inviting more resentment, when I should be calling on the spirit of forgiveness.

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Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought For The Day

"We have an allergy to alcohol. The action of alcohol on chronic alcoholics is a manifestation of an allergy. We allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all. We cannot be reconciled to a life without alcohol, unless we can experience an entire psychic change. Once this psychic change has occurred, we who seemed doomed, we who had so many problems that we despaired of ever solving them, find ourselves able to control our desire for alcohol." Have I had a psychic change?

Meditation For The Day

Ask God in daily prayer to give you the strength to change. When you ask God to change you, you must at the same time fully trust Him. If you do not fully trust Him, God may answer your prayer as a rescuer does that of a drowning person who is putting up too much of a struggle. The rescuer must first render the person still more helpless, until he or she is wholly at the rescuer's mercy. just so must we be wholly at God's mercy before we can be rescued.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may be daily willing to be changed. I pray that I may put myself wholly at the mercy of God.

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As Bill Sees It

God Will Not Desert Us, p. 221

"Word comes to me that you are making a magnificent stand in adversity--this adversity being the state of your health. It gives me a chance to express my gratitude for your recovery in A.A. and especially for the demonstration of its principles you are now so inspiringly giving to us all.

"You will be glad to know that A.A.'s have an almost unfailing record in this respect. This, I think, is because we are so aware that God will not desert us when the chips are down; indeed, He did not when we were drinking. And so it should be with the remainder of life.

"Certainly, He does not plan to save us from all troubles and adversity. Nor, in the end, does He save us from so-called death--since this is but an opening of a door into a new life, where we shall dwell among His many mansions. Touching these things I know you have a most confident faith."

Letter, 1966

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Walk In Dry Places

Confidence In the next phase. Assurance "God has carried me this far. I will not be let down now." These are brave words of recovering people who find themselves facing new doubts and fears. There's nothing unrealistic about this attitude. Those of us in 12 Step programs and beneficiaries of a miraculous chain of events that brought our movement into being. Our responsibility is to continue carrying the message by proving how the program works. It's our success in dealing with life's problems that eventually attracts others to our fellow ship. The best proof of how our spiritual program works is showing how our Higher Power continues to solve problems in our lives. We don't always know what the next phase in our lies will bring. We can only know that with God, all sorts of wonderful things continue to be possible. Though I can't see around the corner, I'll know today that my Higher Power will guide me smoothly and safely through the next phase.

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Keep It Simple

If there is no wind, row.---Latin proverb At times, staying sober will be easy; at other times, it will be hard. But we must do what is needed to stay sober. Having a hard week? Go to extra meetings. Feeling alone? Call a friend and ask if you can get together. Feel like drinking? Go to a safe place until the urge passes. We have no choice. We must row when there's no wind. If not, we'll fall back into our addiction. If we work hard, we'll stay sober. Plus we'll grow as spiritual people. Hard times test us and make better people. But this will only happen if we keep our Higher Power and our program close to our heart. Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me remember that I grow during hard times. I pray that I'll accept and use what You've given me each day. Action for the Day: Today, I'll list five things I learned from my program in hard times.

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Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition

Jim's Story

This physician, one of the earliest members of A.A.'s first black group, tells of how freedom came as he worked among his people.

At this time I wasn't working. Vi was taking care of me, and I was devoting all my time to the building of that group. I worked at that alone for six months. I just gathered up this and that alcoholic, because, in the back of my mind, I wanted to save all the world. I had found this new "something," and I wanted to give it to everyone who had a problem. We didn't save the world, but we did manage to help some individuals. That's my story of what A.A. has done for me.

p. 245

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Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

Step Twelve - "Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs."

When we had taken the opposite tack and had insisted, like infants ourselves, that people protect and take care of us or that the world owed us a living, then the result had been equally unfortunate. This often caused the people we had loved most to push us aside or perhaps desert us entirely. Our disillusionment had been hard to bear. We couldn't imagine people acting that way toward us. We had failed to see that though adult in years we were still behaving childishly, trying to turn everybody--friends, wives, husbands, even the world itself--into protective parents. We had refused to learn the very hard lesson that overdependence upon people is unsuccessful because all people are fallible, and even the best of them will sometimes let us down, especially when our demands for attention become unreasonable.

p. 115

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You can't fly a kite unless you go against the wind and have a weight to keep it from turning somersaults. The same with man. No man will succeed unless he is ready to face and overcome difficulties and is prepared to assume responsibilities. --William J. H. Boetcker

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain - and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving. --Dale Carnegie

Never assume you know who I am or what I'm doing, ask me a question instead. --Carol Neilson

Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content. --Helen Keller

"I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God's hands, that I still possess." --unknown

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Father Leo's Daily Meditation

ACCEPTANCE

"The man who has become a thinking being feels a compulsion to give to every creature the same reverence for life that he gives to his own." -- Albert Schweitzer

Today I accept people. Even the people with who I do not agree, I accept. My freedom is dependent upon my attitude towards others. My respect is rooted in the respect I give to others. God is to be found in my neighbor!

Nowhere is this more true for me as a religious person than in my attitude to people of other creeds --- and those who have none! The spiritual life that unites me to God and the world requires not only acceptance of "difference" but my personal need for it.

But more than this; even those who hurt, abuse and destroy need to be accepted from within my spiritual self --- because something of their life exists in mine. In this accepting love is the daily healing of my disease.

May my acceptance of the tyrant lead to the forgiveness of the self.

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Whatever you do or say; let it be as a representative of the Lord Jesus. Colossians 3:17

"Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight." Proverbs 3:5-6

"The LORD will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail." Isaiah 58:11

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Daily Inspiration

A thoughtful gesture can accomplish so much and can even be the beginning of a miracle. Lord, help me to warm the heart of just one person today.

Keep your feet firmly planted in your faith and your eyes raised to the heavens. Lord, You are my strength, my encouragement and my source of all that is good.