05/01

DAILY PONDERABLES

Together WE Trudge The Road OF Happy Destiny

Daily Reflections

HEALING HEART AND MIND

Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 55

Since it is true that God comes to me through people, I can see that by keeping people at a distance I also keep God at a distance. God is nearer to me than I think and I can experience Him by loving people and allowing people to love me. But I can neither love nor be loved if I allow my secrets to get in the way.

It's the side of myself that I refuse to look at that rules me. I must be willing to look at the dark side in order to heal my mind and heart because that is the road to freedom. I must walk into darkness to find the light and walk into fear and to find peace.

By revealing my secrets---and thereby ridding myself of guilt---I can actually change my thinking; by altering my thinking, I can change myself. My thoughts create my future. What I will be tomorrow is determined by what I think today.

From the book Daily Reflections

Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought for the Day

The A.A. program is one of charity because the real meaning of the word charity is to care enough about other people to really want to help them. To get the full benefit of the program, we must try to help other alcoholics. We may try to help somebody and think we have failed, but the seed we have planted may bear fruit some time. We never know the results even a word of ours might have. But the main thing is to have charity for others, a real desire to help them, whether we succeed or not. Do I have real charity?

Meditation for the Day

All material things, the universe, the world, even our bodies, may be Eternal Thought expressed in time and space. The more the physicists and astronomers reduce matter, the more it becomes a mathematical formula, which is thought. In the final analysis, matter is thought. When Eternal Thought expresses itself within the framework of space and time, it becomes matter. Our thoughts, within the box of space and time, cannot know anything firsthand, except material things. But we can deduce that outside the box of space and time is Eternal Thought, which we can call God.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may be a true expression of Eternal Thought. I pray that God's thoughts may work through my thoughts.

From the book Twenty-Four Hours a Day

NA - Just for Today

Self-Worth And Service

"Being involved in service makes me feel worthwhile."

Basic Text, p. 212

When most of us arrived in Narcotics Anonymous, we had very little self-worth left to salvage. Many members say that they began to develop self-esteem through being of service early in their recovery. Something just short of a miracle occurs when we begin to have a positive impact on others' lives through our service efforts.

Most of us don't have a lot of experience, strength, or hope to share at thirty days clean. In fact, some members will tell us in no uncertain terms that what we can do best is listen. But at thirty days, we do offer something to that addict just coming into the rooms of NA, struggling to get twenty-four hours clean. The very newest NA member, the one with only the desire to stop using and none of the tools, can hardly imagine anyone staying clean for a year, or two years, or ten. But he or she can relate to those people with thirty days clean, picking up a keytag with a look of pride and disbelief emblazoned on their faces.

Service is something that is our unique gift—something that no one can take away from us. We give, and we get. Through service, many of us start on the sometimes long road back to becoming productive members of society.

Just for today: I will be grateful for the opportunity to be of service.

From the book Just for Today

Thought for Today

Inner Peace

The feeling that cannot come from any person, place or thing. It is not in the world or of the world. It cannot be purchased, given or taken away.

I can’t get this from approval of another person, gratification of anyone or anything. It must come from within.

I must acquire this gift from within myself before I can truly love myself; love life and truly love other people.

I cannot be dependent on attachments or demands of others to feel Peace; True Love; Love of myself; for who I am, and what I am.

Emotional Peace that is dependent on anyone or anything is a false or worldly expectation. These feelings are not true Peace, but barriers to real Peace.

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I must divorce myself from selfish, self-centered and self-seeking motives and actions before I can acquire Inner Peace.

Gary C.

The proud man counts his newspaper clippings, the humble man his blessings. ~ Fulton Sheen

Buddha/Zen Thoughts

As long as there is a lack of the inner discipline that brings calmness of mind, no matter what external facilities or conditions you have, they will never give you the feeling of joy and happiness that you are seeking. On the other hand, if you possess this inner quality of calmness of mind, a degree of stability within, then even if you lack various external facilities that you would normally consider necessary for happiness, it is still possible to live a happy and joyful life.

-His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Native American

"All living creatures and all plants derive their life from the sun. If it were not for the sun, there would be darkness and nothing could grow—the earth would be without life."

--Okute, TETON SIOUX

This is why we call the sun, Father Sun. Father Sun shines life on Mother Earth and from this Father and Mother all life forms exist and continue to reproduce. The Sun shines on all; it is not selective. We should not allow anything to block the Sun from shining on the Earth. We must not pollute the air because the pollutants block the light of life to the Earth. If the Earth cannot receive this light, then life will start to be affected. We must live in harmony with the Sun and Earth. Otherwise, we are harming ourselves.

My Creator, give me the wisdom to live in harmony with all things.

Keep It Simple

Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. Step Five

Step Five can be scary. we're to take the wrongs we listed in our Fourth Step and share them with God, ourselves, and another person. We may look for an easier, softer way. But Step Five stops us.

We're to share the exact nature of our wrong. Why? So we can take a load off ourselves. So we won't use again. By totally sharing our past wrongs, we can belong once more. We can heal. We start to forgive ourselves. We become more humble. When you share your Fifth Step, holding nothing back. You deserve the peace this Step will bring you.

Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, give me courage to tell it all. Give me courage to admit just how wrong I had become.

Action for the Day: Step Five teaches me that sharing is important. I will find a friend and share my wrongs with that friend. I will hold nothing back.

Big Book

Chapter 4 We Agnostics (pg 51 & top 52)

This world of ours has made more material progress in the last century than in all the millenniums which went before. Almost everyone knows the reason. Students of ancient history tell us that the intellect of men in those days was equal to the best of today. Yet in ancient times, material progress was painfully slow. The spirit of modern scientific inquiry, research and invention was almost unknown. In the realm of the material, men's minds were fettered by superstition, tradition, and all sort of fixed ideas. Some of the contemporaries of Columbus thought a round earth preposterous. Others came near putting Galileo to death for his astronomical heresies.

We asked ourselves this: Are not some of us just as biased and unreasonable about the realm of the spirit as were the ancients about the realm of the material? Even in the present century, American newspapers were afraid to print an account of the Wright brothers' first successful flight at Kittyhawk. Had not all efforts at flight failed before? Did not Professor Langley's flying machine go to the bottom of the Potomac River? Was it not true that the best mathematical minds had proved man could never fly? Had not people said God had reserved this privilege to the birds? Only thirty years later the conquest of the air was almost an old story and airplane travel was in full swing.