DAILY PONDERABLES
Together WE Trudge The Road OF Happy Destiny
Daily Reflections
A "LIMITLESS LODE"
Like a gaunt prospector, belt drawn in over the last ounce of food, our pick struck gold. Joy at our release from a lifetime of frustrations knew no bounds. Father feels he has struck something better than gold. For a time he may try to hug the new treasure to himself. He may not see at once that he has barely scratched a limitless lode which will pay dividends only if he mines it for the rest of his life and insists on giving away the entire product.
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, pp. 128-29
When I talk with a newcomer to A.A., my past looks me straight in the face. I see the pain in those hopeful eyes, I extend my hand, and then the miracle happens: I become healed. My problems vanish as I reach out to this trembling soul.
From the book Daily Reflections
© Copyright 1990 by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
A.A. Thought for the Day
Step Eight is, "Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all." Step Nine is, "Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others." Making restitution for the wrongs we have done is often very difficult. It hurts our pride. But the rewards are great. When we go to a person and say we are sorry, the reaction we get is almost invariably good. It takes courage to make the plunge, but the results more than justify it. A load is off your chest and often art enemy has been turned into a friend. Have I done my best to make all the restitution possible?
Meditation for the Day
There should be joy in living the spiritual life. A faith without joy is not entirely genuine. If you are not happier as a result of your faith, there is probably something wrong with it. Faith in God should bring you a deep feeling of happiness and security, no matter what happens on the surface of your life. Each new day is another opportunity to serve God and improve your relationships with other people. This should bring joy. Life should be abundant and outreaching. It should be glowing and outgoing, in ever widening circles.
Prayer for the Day
I pray that my horizons may grow ever wide. I pray that I may keep reaching out for more service and companionship.
From the book Twenty-Four Hours a Day
© Copyright 1975 by Hazelden Foundation
NA - Just for Today
Keeping The Gift
"Life takes on a new meaning when we open ourselves to this gift."
Basic Text, p.102
Neglecting our recovery is like neglecting any other gift we've been given. Suppose someone gave you a new car. Would you let it sit in the driveway until the tires rotted? Would you just drive it, ignoring routine maintenance, until it expired on the road? Of course not! You would go to great lengths to maintain the condition of such a valuable gift.
Recovery is also a gift, and we have to care for it if we want to keep it. While our recovery doesn't come with an extended warranty, there is a routine maintenance schedule. This maintenance includes regular meeting attendance and various forms of service. We'll have to do some daily cleaning - our Tenth Step - and, once in a while, a major Fourth Step overhaul will be required. But if we maintain the gift of recovery, thanking the Giver each day, it will continue.
The gift of recovery is one that grows with the giving. Unless we give it away, we can't keep it. But in sharing our recovery with others, we come to value it all the more.
Just for today: My recovery is a gift, and I want to keep it. I'll do the required maintenance, and I'll share my recovery with others.
From the book Just for Today
© Copyright 1991-2013 by Narcotics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
Thought for Today
An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.
~Mahatma Gandhi
"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." Albert Einstein
Hurt people, hurt people. Anonymous
We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses. ~ Carl Jung (thanks John G.)
“The number one way to relieve pain is to forgive.”
“Distilled Spirits,” Hermosa Beach, California, February 1998, AA Grapevine
Buddha/Zen Thoughts
As human beings we have good qualities as well as bad ones. Now, anger, attachment, jealousy, hatred, are the bad side; these are the real enemy… The true troublemaker is inside.
-His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Native American
"I think the spiritual values come first and everything else follows."
--Leonard George, Chief Councilor
To properly develop, the human being needs to learn the guiding principles. It is from these principles that we make our decisions. Spiritual values are the guiding principles given to us by the Great Spirit. He says if we live by these spiritual values, the results we experience will be good. These spiritual values will develop and guide the human being by helping us to think right. Right thinking will improve our choices and decisions. Doing this will bring good consequences.
Great Spirit, teach me values first.
Keep It Simple
One Day at a Time. Program slogan
This slogan means we are to take with us only the joys and problems of the present day.
We don’t carry with us the mistakes of the days gone by. We have no room for them. We are to work at loving others today. Just today.
It’s crazy for us to think we can handle more than one day at a time. During our illness, we lived everywhere but in the here and now. We looked to the future or punished ourselves with our past. One Day at a Time teaches us to go easy. It teaches us to focus on what really means anything to us: the here and now.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me turn the slogans of my programs into a way of life. Help me to live life moment by moment, One Day at a Time.
Action for the Day: Today, I’ll practice living in the present. When I find myself living in the past or in the future, I’ll bring myself back to today.
TWELVE STEPS
and
TWELVE TRADITIONS
Step Eight (pgs 80-82)
While the purpose of making restitution to others is paramount, it is equally necessary that we extricate from an examination of our personal relations every bit of information about ourselves and our fundamental difficulties that we can. Since defective relations with other human beings have nearly always been the immediate cause of our woes, including our alcoholism, no field of investigation could yield more satisfying and valuable rewards than this one. Calm, thoughtful reflection upon personal relations can deepen our insight. We can go far beyond those things which were superficially wrong with us, to see those flaws which were basic, flaws which sometimes were responsible for the whole pattern of our lives. Thoroughness, we have found, will pay—and pay handsomely.
We might next ask ourselves what we mean when we say that we have “harmed” other people. What kinds of “harm” do people do one another, anyway? To define the word “harm” in a practical way, we might call it the result of instincts in collision, which cause physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual damage to people. If our tempers are consistently bad, we arouse anger in others. If we lie or cheat, we deprive others not only of their worldly goods, but of their emotional security and peace of mind. We really issue them an invitation to become contemptuous and vengeful. If our sex conduct is selfish, we may excite jealousy, misery, and a strong desire to retaliate in kind.
Such gross misbehavior is not by any means a full catalogue of the harms we do. Let us think of some of the subtler ones which can sometimes be quite as damaging. Suppose that in our family lives we happen to be miserly, irresponsible, callous, or cold. Suppose that we are irritable, critical, impatient, and humorless. Suppose we lavish attention upon one member of the family and neglect the others. What happens when we try to dominate the whole family, either by a rule of iron or by a constant outpouring of minute directions for just how their lives should be lived from hour to hour? What happens when we wallow in depression, self-pity oozing from every pore, and inflict that upon those about us? Such a roster of harms done others—the kind that make daily living with us as practicing alcoholics difficult and often unbearable—could be extended almost indefinitely. When we take such personality traits as these into shop, office, and the society of our fellows, they can do damage almost as extensive as that we have caused at home.
Having carefully surveyed this whole area of human relations, and having decided exactly what personality traits in us injured and disturbed others, we can now commence to ransack memory for the people to whom we have given offense. To put a finger on the nearby and most deeply damaged ones shouldn’t be hard to do. Then, as year by year we walk back through our lives as far as memory will reach, we shall be bound to construct a long list of people who have, to some extent or other, been affected. We should, of course, ponder and weigh each instance carefully. We shall want to hold ourselves to the course of admitting the things we have done, meanwhile forgiving the wrongs done us, real or fancied. We should avoid extreme judgments, both of ourselves and of others involved. We must not exaggerate our defects or theirs. A quiet, objective view will be our steadfast aim.
Whenever our pencil falters, we can fortify and cheer ourselves by remembering what A.A. experience in this Step has meant to others. It is the beginning of the end of isolation from our fellows and from God.
Big Book
"One of the many doctors who had the opportunity of reading this
book in manuscript form told us that the use of sweets was often
helpful, of course depending upon a doctor's advice. He thought all
alcoholics should constantly have chocolate available for its quick
energy value at times of fatigue. He added that occasionally in the
night a vague craving arose which would be satisfied by candy. Many
of us have noticed a tendency to eat sweets and have found this
practice beneficial."
~Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, The Family Afterward, pg. 133~
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Earth Angels (thanks Angie M.)
If angels really come to earth and take on human form,
I think they fill a body that withstands the cold with warm.
Sometimes they even stumble, just to let you know they’re real,
They open up their heart to you and tell you how they feel.
And when the days are long and bleak and nothing’s going right
They fill the gap and show you just how they got through that plight.
Don’t look for wings above all things, they always keep them hidden,
For if you knew who you’re talkin’ to, you might just change your livin’.
The way to spot an angel here is not by how they look,
It’s not the way they hold their head or even read The Book,
The way to spot an angel is that time you’re up a creek;
Your faith is slipping, your heart is weary and things are looking bleak.
They look into your heart and know the pain that’s lying there,
They comfort you, they hold your hand and say a simple prayer.
So next time God puts in your path a child of His in need,
Pick up the slack, speak words of Truth and bravely take the lead
Look inside and you might find some wings just waiting there
They look like love, they feel like hope, I think I’ll use this pair.
Angie M.
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