04/28

DAILY PONDERABLES

Together WE Trudge The Road OF Happy Destiny

Daily Reflections

TWO "MAGNIFICENT STANDARDS"

All A.A. progress can be reckoned in terms of just two words: humility and responsibility. Our whole spiritual development can be accurately measured by our degree of adherence to these magnificent standards.

AS BILL SEES IT, p. 271

To acknowledge and respect the views, accomplishments and prerogatives of others and to accept being wrong shows me the way of humility. To practice the principles of A.A. in all my affairs guides me to be responsible. Honoring these precepts gives credence to Tradition Four---and to all other Traditions of the Fellowship. Alcoholics Anonymous has evolved a philosophy of life full of valid motivations, rich in highly relevant principles and ethical values, a view of life which can be extended beyond the confines of the alcoholic population. To honor these precepts I need only to pray, and care for my fellow man as if each one were my brother.

From the book Daily Reflections

Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought for the Day

We're so glad to be free from liquor that we do something about it. We get into action. We come to meetings regularly. We go out and try to help other alcoholics. We pass on the good news whenever we get a chance. In a spirit of thankfulness to God, we get into action. The A.A. program is simple. Submit yourself to God, find release from liquor, and get into action. Do these things and keep doing them and you're all set for the rest of your life. Have I got into action?

Meditation for the Day

God's eternal quest must be the tracking down of souls. You should join Him in His quest. Through briars, through waste places, through glades, up mountain heights, down into valleys. God leads you. But ever with His leadership goes your helping hand. Glorious to follow where the Leader goes. You are seeking lost sheep. You are bringing the good news into places where it has not been known before. You may not know which soul you will help, but you can leave all results to God. just go with Him in His eternal quest for souls.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may follow God in His eternal quest for souls. I pray that I may offer God my helping hand.

From the book Twenty-Four Hours a Day

NA - Just for Today

Who really gets better?

Page 122

"We can also use the steps to improve our attitudes. Our best thinking got us into trouble. We recognize the need for change."

Basic Text, p. 55

When new in recovery, most of us had at least one person we just couldn't stand. We thought that person was the rudest, most obnoxious person in the program. We knew there was something we could do, some principle of recovery we could practice to get over the way we felt about this person-but what? We asked our sponsor for guidance. We were probably assured, with an amused smile, that if we just kept coming back, we'd see the person get better That made sense to us. We believed that the steps of NA worked in the lives of everyone. If they could work for us, they could work for this horrible person, too.

Time passed, and at some point we noticed that the person didn't seem as rude or obnoxious as before. In fact, he or she had become downright tolerable, maybe even likeable. We got a pleasant jolt as we realized who had really gotten better. Because we had kept coming back, because we had kept working the steps, our perception of this person had changed. The person who'd plagued us had become "tolerable" because we'd developed some tolerance; he or she had become "likeable" because we'd developed the ability to love.

So who really gets better? We do! As we practice the program, we gain a whole new outlook on those around us by gaining a new outlook on ourselves.

Just for Today: As I get better, so will others. Today, I will practice tolerance and try to love those I meet.

From the book Just for Today

Thought for Today

"It is only possible to live happily ever after on a day-to-day basis."

--Margaret Bonnano

The Highest Rank You’ll Ever Attain in AA is Sober.

(Heard at The Wesley Chapel Group, FL) [thanks Vince T.]

Praying

It doesn't have to be

the blue iris, it could be

weeds in a vacant lot, or a few

small stones; just

pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don't try

to make them elaborate, this isn't

a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which

another voice may speak

~ Mary Oliver

What is it about me when I can't let the hurt go away

When I won't release to God what only He can heal, His healing I delay

Why pick up those burdens again after laying them at his feet

Complete submission is the only way to find the serenity that I seek

And yet I take up the fight again which exists solely within myself

Only through surrender and acceptance can I find eternal wealth

Peace is found by filling this moment with truly seeking God's will

Only then is the storm calmed, only then is all my world still

Mark W

Buddha/Zen Thoughts

Less desire means less pain

Native American

"Indians living close to nature and nature's ruler are not living in darkness."

--Walking Buffalo, STONEY

There are many Indian people who are living according to nature and according to ceremony and culture. They may not have a lot of material things, but that doesn't mean they are not successful. What is success anyway? Can success be measured by material things? What is it we are really chasing anyway? The Elders say that what everyone really wants is to be happy and have a peaceful mind. Material things by themselves do not bring happiness and peace of mind. Only spiritual things bring happiness. When we live a spiritual life we will not have darkness. Instead, we will be happy.

Great Spirit, today, let me walk the Red Road.

Keep It Simple

Unless I accept my faults I will most certainly doubt my virtues. --- Hugh Prather

Before recovery, we saw only a blurry picture of ourselves, like we were looking through an out-of-focus camera lens. We couldn't see the good in ourselves because we wouldn't look close enough.

Step Four helps us look more closely. We see a picture of ourselves, with our good points and our faults. We don't like everything we see. But we can't change until we accept ourselves as we are.

Then we can start getting ready to change.

Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me see the good in me and love myself.

Action for the Day: Today, I'll make a list of four of my good points and four of my faults. Am I getting to have my Higher Power remove these defects of character?

Big Book

Chapter 4 We Agnostics (pg 48 & top 49)

The reader may still ask why he should believe in a Power greater than himself. We think there are good reasons. Let us have a look at some of them. The practical individual of today is a stickler for facts and results. Nevertheless, the twentieth century readily accepts theories of all kinds, provided they are firmly grounded in fact. We have numerous theories, for example, about electricity. Everybody believes them without a murmur of doubt. Why this ready acceptance? Simply because it is impossible to explain what we see, feel, direct, and use, without a reasonable assumption as a starting point.

Everybody nowadays, believes in scores of assumptions for which there is good evidence, but no perfect visual proof. And does not science demonstrate that visual proof is the weakest proof? It is being constantly revealed, as mankind studies the material world, that outward appearances are not inward reality at all. To illustrate: The prosaic steel girder is a mass of electrons whirling around each other at incredible speed. These tiny bodies are governed by precise laws, and these laws hold true throughout the material world, Science tells us so. We have no reason to doubt it. When, however, the perfectly logical assumption is suggested that underneath the material world and life as we see it, there is an All Powerful, Guiding, Creative Intelligence, right there our perverse streak comes to the surface and we laboriously set out to convince ourselves it isn't so. We read wordy books and indulge in windy arguments, thinking we believe this universe needs no God to explain it. Were our contentions true, it would follow that life originated out of nothing, means nothing, and proceeds nowhere.