DAILY PONDERABLES
Together WE Trudge The Road OF Happy Destiny
Daily Reflections
PEACE OF MIND
Do we lay the matter before our sponsor or spiritual adviser, earnestly asking God's help and guidance--- meanwhile resolving to do the right thing when it becomes clear, cost what it may?
TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, pp. 86-87
My belief in a Higher Power is an essential part of my work on Step Nine; forgiveness, timing, and right motives are the other ingredients. My willingness to do the Step is a growing experience that opens the door for new and honest relationships with people I have harmed. My responsible action brings me closer to the spiritual principles of the program---love and service. Peace of mind, serenity, and a stronger faith are sure to follow.
From the book Daily Reflections
© Copyright 1990 by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
A.A. Thought for the Day
"How does A.A. grow? Some of us sell A.A. as we go about. Little clusters of twos and threes and fives keep springing up in different communities, through contact with the larger centers. Those of us who travel drop in at other groups as often as we can. This practice enables us to lend a hand to new groups which are springing up all over the land. New groups are being started each month. A.A. is even spreading outside the United States and is slowly becoming world-wide. Thus we grow." Am I doing all I can to spread A.A. wherever I go?
Meditation for the Day
"Lord, we believe. Help Thou our unbelief." This cry of the human heart is an expression of human frailty. It signifies the soul's sincere desire for progress. As a person feels the existence of God and His power, that person believes in Him more and more. At the same time, a person is more conscious of his falling short of absolute trust in God. The soul's progress is an increasing belief, then a cry for more faith, a plea to conquer all unbelief, all lack of trust. We can believe that that cry is heard by God and that prayer is answered in due time. And so our faith grows, little by little, day by day.
Prayer for the Day
I pray that with more power in my life will come more faith. I pray that I may come to trust God more each day.
From the book Twenty-Four Hours a Day
© Copyright 1975 by Hazelden Foundation
NA - Just for Today
Secrets are reservations
Page 268
"Eventually we are shown that we must get honest, or we will use again."
Basic Text, p.85
Everyone has secrets, right? Some of us have little secrets, items that would cause only minor embarrassment if found out. Some of us have big secrets, whole areas of our lives cloaked in thick, murky darkness. Big secrets may represent a more obvious, immediate danger to our recovery. But the little secrets do their own kind of damage, the more insidious perhaps because we think they're "harmless."
Big or little, our secrets represent spiritual territory we are unwilling to surrender to the principles of recovery. The longer we reserve pieces of our lives to be ruled by self-will and the more vigorously we defend our "right" to hold onto them, the more damage we do. Gradually, the unsurrendered territories of our lives tend to expand, taking more and more ground.
Whether the secrets in our lives are big or little, sooner or later they bring us to the same place. We must choose-either we surrender everything to our program, or we will lose our recovery.
Just for Today: I want the kind of recovery that comes from total surrender to the program. Today I will talk with my sponsor and disclose my secrets, big or small.
From the book Just for Today
© Copyright 1991-2013 by Narcotics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
Thought for Today
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.
~Leo Tolstoy
"If you spend your whole life waiting for the storm, you'll never enjoy the sunshine." --Morris West
The intoxication of anger, like that if the grape, shows us to others, but hides us from ourselves.
~John Dryden
Buddha/Zen Thoughts
As a tree with strong uninjured roots, though cut down, grows up again; so, when deep craving is not rooted out, suffering arises again and again.
-Dhammapada
Native American
"Follow the Old One's advice."
--Tom Porter, MOHAWK
The Old One is called by many different names - Grandfather, The Four directions, Father Sky, Mother Earth. We should seek the advice of the Old One to help us build our vision. He will put inside of our mind and heart the vision that we are to follow. This vision is recognizable by the feeling that it has with it. This feeling is hard to describe. It feels "right," it feels calm, it feels joyful, it feels warm, it feels sacred. The Old One has a way of letting us know it really it His advice. Listen carefully!
Grandfather, I'm listening.
Keep It Simple
You must look into people, as well as at them. --- Lord Chesterfield
When we were using alcohol and other drugs, we only looked at people. We treated them like objects. Often, we could only see how they helped us get high, or how they got in our way.
Now we can see others as people. We look into them. We learn about their feelings and thoughts.
We care about them. What a wonderful change! We are fully human again. We can have relationships.
When we look into others, we see life. We see beauty, courage, hope and love. We see bits of ourselves and our Higher Power. What a miracle life is.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me be fully human today. Help me see You in others.
Action for the Day: Today, I’ll look into someone. I’ll do this by having a talk with a friend. And I’ll really listen.
TWELVE STEPS
and
TWELVE TRADITIONS
Step Six (pgs 66-68)
What we must recognize now is that we exult in some of our defects. We really love them. Who, for example, doesn’t like to feel just a little superior to the next fellow, or even quite a lot superior? Isn’t it true that we like to let greed masquerade as ambition? To think of liking lust seems impossible. But how many men and women speak love with their lips, and believe what they say, so that they can hide lust in a dark corner of their minds? And even while staying within conventional bounds, many people have to admit that their imaginary sex excursions are apt to be all dressed up as dreams of romance.
Self-righteous anger also can be very enjoyable. In a perverse way we can actually take satisfaction from the fact that many people annoy us, for it brings a comfortable feeling of superiority. Gossip barbed with our anger, a polite form of murder by character assassination, has its satisfactions for us, too. Here we are not trying to help those we criticize; we are trying to proclaim our own righteousness.
When gluttony is less than ruinous, we have a milder word for that, too; we call it “taking our comfort.” We live in a world riddled with envy. To a greater or less degree, everybody is infected with it. From this defect we must surely get a warped yet definite satisfaction. Else why would we consume such great amounts of time wishing for what we have not, rather than working for it, or angrily looking for attributes we shall never have, instead of adjusting to the fact, and accepting it? And how often we work hard with no better motive than to be secure and slothful later on—only we call that “retiring.” Consider, too, our talents for procrastination, which is really sloth in five syllables. Nearly anyone could submit a good list of such defects as these, and few of us would seriously think of giving them up, at least until they cause us excessive misery.
Some people, of course, may conclude that they are indeed ready to have all such defects taken from them. But even these people, if they construct a list of still milder defects, will be obliged to admit that they prefer to hang on to some of them. Therefore, it seems plain that few of us can quickly or easily become ready to aim at spiritual and moral perfection; we want to settle for only as much perfection as will get us by in life, according, of course, to our various and sundry ideas of what will get us by. So the difference between “the boys and the men” is the difference between striving for a self-determined objective and for the perfect objective which is of God.
Big Book
"Helping others is the foundation stone of your recovery. A kindly
act once in a while isn't enough. You have to act the Good Samaritan
every day, if need be."
~Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, Working With Others, pg. 97~
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