August 29th

DAILY PONDERABLES

Together WE Trudge The Road OF Happy Destiny

Daily Reflections

I CHOOSE ANONYMITY

We are sure that humility, expressed by anonymity, is the greatest safeguard that Alcoholics Anonymous can ever have.

TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 187

Since there are no rules in A.A. I place myself where I want to be, and so I choose anonymity. I want my God to use me, humbly, as one of His tools in this program. Sacrifice is the art of giving of myself freely, allowing humility to replace my ego. With sobriety, I suppress the urge to cry out to the world, "I am a member of A.A." and I experience inner joy and peace. I let people see the changes in me and hope they will ask what happened to me. I place the principles of spirituality ahead of judging, fault-finding, and criticism. I want love and caring in my group, so I can grow.

From the book Daily Reflections

Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought for the Day

"We cannot get along without prayer and meditation. On awakening, let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead. We consider our plans for the day. Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking. Our thought lives will be placed on a much higher plane when we start the day with prayer and meditation. We conclude this period of meditation with a prayer that we will be shown through the day what our next step is to be. The basis of all our prayers is: Thy will be done in me and through me today." Am I sincere in my desire to do God's will today?

Meditation for the Day

Breathe in the inspiration of goodness and truth. It is the spirit of honesty, purity, unselfishness, and love. It is readily available if we are willing to accept it wholeheartedly. God has given us two things---His spirit and the power of choice---to accept or not, as we will. We have the gift of free will. When we choose the path of selfishness and geed and pride, we are refusing to accept God's spirit. When we choose the path of love and service, we accept God's spirit and it flows into us and makes all things new.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may choose the right way. I pray that I may try to follow it to the end.

From the book Twenty-Four Hours a Day

NA - Just for Today

Don't look back

Page 251

"The steps offer "a big change from a life dominated by guilt and remorse. Our futures are changed because we don't have to avoid those who we have harmed. As a result... we receive a new freedom that can end isolation.""

Basic Text, p.39

Many of us come to Narcotics Anonymous full of regrets about our past. Our steps help us begin to resolve those regrets. We examine our lives, admit our wrongs, make amends for them, and sincerely try to change our behavior. In doing so, we find a joyous sense of freedom.

No longer must we deny or regret our past. Once we've made our amends, what's done is truly over and gone. From that point on, where we come from ceases to be the most important thing about us. It's where we are going that counts.

In NA, we begin to look forward. True, we live and stay clean just for today. But we find that we can begin to set goals, dream dreams, and look ahead to the joys a life in recovery has to offer. Looking forward keeps us centered in where we are going, not remorseful or regretful about our past. After all, it is hard to move forward if we are looking back.

Just for Today: The steps have freed me from regrets over my past. Today, I look forward to my new life in recovery

From the book Just for Today

Thought for Today

See with your heart not with your

eyes, for beauty lies everywhere.

The mind reasons, the heart knows.

I cast a shadow today because of this man

By Tad H.

Millions who ordinarily would not mix

Find gratitude living this man’s fix

A gift for all sadly too many nix

Through the program I have grown

Comforted knowing I am not alone

With the spiritual foundation of not being known

A design for living in God’s good graces

Basements full of smiling faces

Of those who actually take the paces

I trudge the Road of Happy Destiny

T’was circumstance not virtue you see

That put the grim jest to rest instead of me.

I have a shadow today because of this man

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We secure our friends not by accepting favors but by doing them.

~Thucydides

"Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant?"

~Henry David Thoreau (thanks Stu C.)

Buddha/Zen Thoughts

The nobility of the ancients was no more than purity and serenity; what need for bushels of emblems?

-Zen proverb

Native American

"The devastated earth, the air, water, the extinct species of mankind, animalkind, and plantkind, the drugs, suicides, family separations - these are all the result of false ceremonies."

--Barney Bush, SHAWNEE

All life is a ceremony. Every act is a ceremony creating a result in our lives. Every ceremony we do always brings results to our lives. If we do bad medicine to others, we do bad medicine to ourselves. If we keep on doing bad ceremonies, we will eventually destroy ourselves. Any time we live our lives out of harmony, we are doing bad ceremonies. Any time we treat anything with disrespect whether it is another human being or a plant or an animal, we are performing bad ceremonies. These ceremonies not only have an effect on ourselves but will simultaneously affect everything. We need to use our power well, only do good ceremonies.

My Creator, teach me only good ceremonies. Teach me ceremonies that accomplish good for all the people. Good ceremonies cause good results. Teach me ceremonies that are helpful.

Keep It Simple

This day I choose to spend in perfect peace. --- A Course in Miracles

Today, let’s be gentle and kind. Lets talk to ourselves with love and respect. Let’s be gentle with others too.

Today, let’s be clear in how we think, speak, and act. And if we start to get mixed up, let’s stop thinking and listen for our Higher Power’s voice.

Today, we know that we have just a small job to do. It is to live today with love in our heart. We can’t take care of every problem in the world. But we make our actions today part of the answer instead of the part of the problem. Let's Keep It Simple.

Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me find Your calmness and peace in my heart today.

Action for the Day: Do I believe that peace starts with me? Today, I’ll listen to the simple voice of peace inside of me. And I’ll Keep It Simple.

TWELVE STEPS

and

TWELVE TRADITIONS

Step Two(pgs 31-33)

Now let’s take the guy full of faith, but still reeking of alcohol. He believes he is devout. His religious observance is scrupulous. He’s sure he still believes in God, but suspects that God doesn’t believe in him. He takes pledges and more pledges. Following each, he not only drinks again, but acts worse than the last time. Valiantly he tries to fight alcohol, imploring God’s help, but the help doesn’t come. What, then, can be the matter?

To clergymen, doctors, friends, and families, the alcoholic who means well and tries hard is a heartbreaking riddle. To most A.A.’s, he is not. There are too many of us who have been just like him, and have found the riddle’s answer. This answer has to do with the quality of faith rather than its quantity. This has been our blind spot. We supposed we had humility when really we hadn’t. We supposed we had been serious about religious practices when, upon honest appraisal, we found we had been only superficial. Or, going to the other extreme, we had wallowed in emotionalism and had mistaken it for true religious feeling. In both cases, we had been asking something for nothing. The fact was we really hadn’t cleaned house so that the grace of God could enter us and expel the obsession. In no deep or meaningful sense had we ever taken stock of ourselves, made amends to those we had harmed, or freely given to any other human being without any demand for reward. We had not even prayed rightly. We had always said, “Grant me my wishes” instead of “Thy will be done.” The love of God and man we understood not at all. Therefore we remained self-deceived, and so incapable of receiving enough grace to restore us to sanity.

Few indeed are the practicing alcoholics who have any idea how irrational they are, or seeing their irrationality, can bear to face it. Some will be willing to term themselves “problem drinkers,” but cannot endure the suggestion that they are in fact mentally ill. They are abetted in this blindness by a world which does not understand the difference between sane drinking and alcoholism. “Sanity” is defined as “soundness of mind.” Yet no alcoholic, soberly analyzing his destructive behavior, whether the destruction fell on the dining-room furniture or his own moral fiber, can claim “soundness of mind” for himself.

Therefore, Step Two is the rallying point for all of us. Whether agnostic, atheist, or former believer, we can stand together on this Step. True humility and an open mind can lead us to faith, and every A.A. meeting is an assurance that God will restore us to sanity if we rightly relate ourselves to Him.