05/04

DAILY PONDERABLES

Together WE Trudge The Road OF Happy Destiny

Daily Reflections

"ENTIRELY HONEST"

We must be entirely honest with somebody if we expect to live long or happily in this world.

ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, pp. 73-74

Honesty, like all virtues, is to be shared. It began after I shared ". . . [my] whole life's story with someone . . ." in order to find my place in the Fellowship. Later I shared my life in order to help the newcomer find his place with us. This sharing helps me to learn honesty in all my dealings and to know that God's plan for me comes true through honest openness and willingness.

From the book Daily Reflections

Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought for the Day

When I was drinking, I always tried to build myself up. I used to tell tall stories about myself. I told them so often that I half believe some of them now, even though I know they aren't true. I used to hang around the lowbrow barrooms so I could feel superior to the other customers. The reason I always tried to build myself up was that I knew deep down in my heart that I really didn't amount to anything. It was a kind of defense against my feeling of inferiority. Do I still build myself up?

Meditation for the Day

God thought about the universe and brought it into being. His thought brought me into being. I must think God's thought after Him. I must often keep my mind occupied with thoughts about God and meditate on the way He wants me to live. I must train my mind constantly in quiet times of communion with God. It is the work of a lifetime to develop to full stature spiritually. This is what I am on earth for. it gives meaning to my life.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may think God's thoughts after Him. I pray that I may live as he wants me to live.

From the book Twenty-Four Hours a Day

NA - Just for Today

"What about the newcomer?"

Page 130

"Each group has but one primary purpose - to carry the message to the addict who still suffers."

Tradition Five

Our home group means a lot to us. After all, where would we be without our favorite NA meeting? Our group sometimes sponsors picnics or other activities. Often, home group members get together to see a movie or go bowling. We have all made good friendships through our home group, and we wouldn't trade that warmth for the world.

But sometimes we must take inventory of what our group is doing to fulfill its primary purpose-to carry the message to the still-suffering addict. Sometimes when we go to our meetings, we know almost everyone and get caught up in the laughter and fun. But what about the newcomer? Have we remembered to reach out to the new people who may be sitting by themselves, lonely and frightened? Do we remember to welcome those visiting our group?

The love found in the rooms of Narcotics Anonymous helps us recover from addiction. But once we have gotten clean, we must remember to give to others what was so freely given to us. We need to reach out to the addict who still suffers. After all, "the newcomer is the most important person at any meeting."

Just for Today: I'm grateful for the warm fellowship I've found in my home group. I will reach out my hand to the still-suffering addict, offering that same fellowship to others.

From the book Just for Today

Thought for Today

The beginning is always today.

~Mary Wollstonecraft

"Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."

~Viktor E. Frankl

"Don't look for peace.

Don't look for any other state than the one you are in now; otherwise, you will set up inner conflict and unconscious resistance.

Forgive yourself for not being at peace.

The moment you completely accept your non-peace, your non-peace becomes transmuted into peace.

Anything you accept fully will get you there, will take you into peace.

This is the miracle of surrender."

~Eckhart Tolle (thanks Stephen A.)

Buddha/Zen Thoughts

The Root delusions

From Vasubhandu's Treasury of Metaphysics

The six subtle and extensive delusions

Of [samsaric] existence are:

Attachment, anger, pride

ignorance, wrong views, and doubt

That is there are six root delusions

Native American

The whole religion is like a preparation. It's a preparation for going to

the Good Land or to the place of your ancestors. We all have to go through

it. We all know this.

-- -- Horace Axtell, NEZ PERCE

There are two Worlds that exist. The Seen World and the Unseen World.

Sometimes these worlds are called the Physical World and the Spiritual

World. The Elders say, when it is time to go to the other side, our

relatives will appear a few days before to help us enter the Spirit World.

This is a happy place; the hunting is good; the place of the Grandfathers,

the Creator, the Great Spirit, God, is a joyful place.

Grandfathers, today, let me look forward to the Spirit World. Bless all my

Relations.

Walk in Dry Places

Accepting Equal Treatment

Growing Spiritually

One of our AA friends was a district judge in a northern community. On his way to speak at our meeting, he was given a speeding ticket by a state policeman.

"Didn't you tell him you are a judge?" we wanted to know. Smiling sheepishly, he shook his head. It occurred to us, then, that acceptance of the speeding ticket without argument was also an exercise in principles for him. First, he was accepting the same laws he administered to others. Additionally, accepting the ticket was a working of the Tenth Step---". . . and when we were wrong promptly admitted it." Finally, he realized that the ticket may have been a disguised blessing to help him correct a tendency to speed.

As recovering alcoholic, we always function better when we accept such principles in our own lives. Every person is special, yet as part of the human race in general, we must accept the same treatment that is given to others. We can grow spiritually when we accept such equality without resentment or demands for special treatment.

As a human being, I know that today I'm subject to all the things that can happen to human beings. I will not demand or expect privileges that are not available on an equal basis to others.

Big Book

Chapter 4 We Agnostics (pg 54 & top 55)

We found, too, that we had been worshippers. What a state of mental goose-flesh that used to bring on! Had we not variously worshipped people, sentiment, things, money, and ourselves? And then, with a better motive, had we not worshipfully beheld the sunset, the sea, or a flower? Who of us had not loved something or somebody? How much did these feelings, these loves, these worships, have to do with pure reason? Little or nothing, we saw at last. Were not these things the tissue out of which our lives were constructed? Did not these feelings, after all, determine the course of our existence? It was impossible to say we had no capacity for faith, or love, or worship. In one form or another we had been living by faith and little else.

Imagine life without faith! Were nothing left but pure reason, it wouldn't be life. But we believed in life-of course we did. We could not prove life in the sense that you can prove a straight line is the shortest distance between two points, yet, there it was. Could we still say the whole thing was nothing but a mass of electrons, created out of nothing, meaning nothing, whirling on to a destiny of nothingness? Or course we couldn't. The electrons themselves seemed more intelligent than that. At least, so the chemist said.

Hence, we saw that reason isn't everything. Neither is reason, as most of us use it, entirely dependable, thought it emanate from our best minds. What about people who proved that man could never fly? Yet we had been seeing another kind of flight, a spiritual liberation from this world, people who rose above their problems. They said God made these things possible, and we only smiled. We had seen spiritual release, but liked to tell ourselves it wasn't true.