03/20

DAILY PONDERABLES

Together WE Trudge The Road OF Happy Destiny

Daily Reflections

LOVE AND TOLERANCE

Love and tolerance of others is our code.

ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 84

I have found that I have to forgive others in all situations to maintain any real spiritual progress. The vital importance of forgiving may not be obvious to me at first sight, but my studies tell me that every great spiritual teacher has insisted strongly upon it.

I must forgive injuries, not just in words or as a matter of form, but in my heart. I do this not for the other persons' sake, but for my own sake. Resentment, anger, or a desire to see someone punished, are things that rot my soul. Such things fasten my troubles to me with chains. They tie me to other problems that have nothing to do with my original problem.

From the book Daily Reflections

Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought for the Day

When we were drinking, we used to worry about the future. Worry is terrible mental punishment. What's going to become of me? Where will I end up? In the gutter or the sanitarium? We can see ourselves slipping, getting worse and worse, and we wonder what the finish will be. Sometimes we get so discouraged in thinking about the future that we toy with the idea of suicide. In A.A., have I stopped worrying about the future?

Meditation for the Day

Functioning on a material plane alone takes me away from God. I must also try to function on a spiritual plane. Functioning on a spiritual plane as well as on a material plane will make life what it should be. All material activities are valueless in themselves alone. But all activities, seemingly trivial or of seemingly great moment, are all alike if directed by God's guidance. I must try to obey God as I would expect a faithful, willing servant to carry out directions.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that the flow of God's spirit may come to me through many channels. I pray that I may function on a spiritual plane as well as on a material plane.

From the book Twenty-Four Hours a Day

NA - Just for Today

Higher Power

Page 82

"Most of us have no trouble admitting that addiction had become a destructive force in our lives. Our best efforts resulted in ever greater destruction and despair. At some point, we realized that we needed the help of some Power greater than our addiction."

Basic Text, p. 24

Most of us know without a doubt that our lives have been filled with destruction. Learning that we have a disease called addiction helps us understand the source or cause of this destruction. We can recognize addiction as a power that has worked devastation in our lives. When we take the First Step, we admit that the destructive force of addiction is bigger than we are. We are powerless over it.

At this point, our only hope is to find some Power greater than the force of our addiction-a Power bent on preserving life, not ending it. We don't have to understand it or even name it; we only have to believe that there could be such a Higher Power. The belief that a benevolent Power greater than our addiction just might exist gives us enough hope to stay clean, a day at a time.

Just for Today: I believe in the possibility of some Power that's bigger than my addiction.

From the book Just for Today

Thought for Today

"Keep praying, but be thankful that God's answers are wiser than your prayers!"

--William Culbertson

When you are all wrapped up in yourself, you make a damn small package.

~ John Bichelmeyer (thanks Stu K.)

God through you and me

Ego is fear of lack of control, control is illusional, a dangerous foe. To live in this world, in AA is to find, that patience and love and tolerance, Kind.

When I am disturbed it is inside of me, a mirror provided by you that I see. The defects I ask my God to please take, not to be perfect and not to be fake.

Love is a word but resonates feeling, to throw it around and not mean it is stealing. Learning to love one another is hard, the past is surrendered to heal the deep scars.

To open the soul to another brings fear, that disease in my mind, the alcohol near. Trust in another is acceptance and brave, to not be discounted for the lives it will save.

Surrender the defects of character now, the Universe will answer the questions of how. The Spirit is not to be found in the drink, nor using the ego to ponder and think.

Make the amends of those who I've harmed and not to expect forgiveness or charm. To clean my side of the street is the goal. To release and admit those, deepens love in my soul.

To learn unconditional love through the steps the rooms of my fellows, who have laughed, learned and have wept. This bond that the program provides is Divine, there exists no coincidence, only God provides signs...

Signs.......Through you!

Ginny A.

Choose again.

Pretend that you are enlightened.

Pretend that you are loved by God.

Pretend that you are perfect just the way you are.

Take a deep breath now and PRETEND THAT IS TRUE.

Then everything will make sense.

When you pretend something that is true, then you immediately become that Truth.

First the energy of God descends upon the Earth, then it pretends whatever it wants

to be, then it ascends back to its source. You are God pretending to be whatever you

are right now. Do you understand what this means? You have allowed yourself to descend,

but by pretending to be less than what you are, you have not ascended back to God.

-- Thomas, Indigo Child (thanks Bill C.)

Buddha/Zen Thoughts

There is really nothing you must be and there is nothing you must do. There is really nothing you must have and there is nothing you must know. There is really nothing you must become. However, it helps to understand that fire burns, and when it rains, the earth gets wet.

-Zen saying

There are many paths that lead to the summit of one and the same mountain; their differences will be the more apparent the lower down we are, but they vanish at the peak; each will naturally take the one that starts from the point at which he finds himself; he who goes round about the mountain looking for another is not climbing.

Ananda Coomaraswamy (thanks Henry C.)

Native American

"You have wandered away from your teachings. You must concentrate on your spiritual teachings...Don't be sidetracked."

--Henry Quick Bear, LAKOTA

Why are the Elders always telling us to know The culture and listen to the teachings? When We go off track, why do the Elders say, return to the teachings? The teachings tell us how to live in harmony with the Laws and principles of the Great Spirit. Living means Life – a good life, a happy life. Many of us have grown up without the teachings and the culture, that is why we don't know how to live. To improve on relationships, to treat our children with honor and to respect our Elders, we need to live by the old teachings again.

Great Spirit, today, show me how to live.

Keep It Simple

You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years of trying to get other people interested in you.

--- Dale Carnegie

We wanted friends, but our addiction wanted all our attention. We had no time to be close to others.

Well, stand aside, addiction! The program has taught us that others are important. Our purpose is to help others. People have become what’s important to us.

Now we listen to others. We help them do what they want to do, not what we want them to do. We help people instead of use them. Friendship is now a way of life. And another promise of the program becomes a part of us.

Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me to know that I’m here to help others, not just myself. Through others, I find myself.

Action for the Day: Today I’ll help someone the way he or she wants to be helped.

Big Book

Chapter 1 BILL'S STORY (pg 7 & top 8)

My brother-in-law is a physician, and through his kindness and that of my mother I was placed in a nationally-known hospital for the mental and physical rehabilitation of alcoholics. Under the so-called belladonna treatment my brain cleared. Hydrotherapy and mild exercise helped much. Best of all, I met a kind doctor who explained that though certainly selfish and foolish, I had been seriously ill, bodily and mentally.

It relieved me somewhat to learn that in alcoholics the will is amazingly weakened when it comes to combating liquor, though if often remains strong in other respects. My incredible behavior in the face of a desperate desire to stop was explained. Understanding myself now, I fared forth in high hope. For three or four months the goose hung high. I went to town regularly and even made a little money. Surely this was the answer-self-knowledge.

But it was not, for the frightful day came when I drank once more. The curve of my declining moral and bodily health fell off like a ski-jump. After a time I returned to the hospital. This was the finish, the curtain, it seemed to me. My weary and despairing wife was informed that it would all end with heart failure during delirium tremens, or I would develop a wet brain, perhaps within a year. She would soon have to give me over to the undertaker of the asylum.

They did not need to tell me. I knew, and almost welcomed the idea. It was a devastating blow to my pride. I, who had thought so well of myself and my abilities, of my capacity to surmount obstacles, was cornered at last. Now I was to plunge into the dark, joining that endless procession of sots who had gone on before. I thought of my poor wife. There had been much happiness after all. What would I not give to make amends. But that was over now.