Daily Reflections

EQUAL RIGHTS

    A.A. offered me complete freedom and accepted me into the Fellowship for myself. Membership did not depend on conformity, financial success or education and I am so grateful for that. I often ask myself if I extend the same equality to others or if I deny them the freedom to be different. Today I try to replace my fear and intolerance with faith, patience, love and acceptance. I can bring these strengths to my A.A. group, my home and my office. I make an effort to bring my positive attitude everywhere that I go.

    I have neither the right, nor the responsibility, to judge others. Depending on my attitude I can view newcomers to A.A., family members and friends as menaces or as teachers. When I think of some of my past judgments, it is clear how my self-righteousness caused me spiritual harm.

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Twenty-Four Hours A Day 

A.A. Thought for the Day

In A.A. we learn that since we are alcoholics, we can be uniquely useful people. That is, we can help other alcoholics when perhaps somebody who has not had our experience with drinking could not help them. That makes us uniquely useful. The A.A.’s are a unique group of people because they have taken their own greatest defeat and failure and sickness and used it as a means of helping others. We who have been through the same thing are the ones who can best help other alcoholics. Do I believe that I can be uniquely useful?

Meditation for the Day

I should try to practice the presence of God. I can feel that He is with me and near me, protecting and strengthening me always. In spite of every difficulty, every trial, every failure, the presence of God suffices. just to believe that He is near me brings strength and peace. I should try to live as though God were beside me. I cannot see Him because I was not made with the ability to see Him else there were no room for faith. But I can feel His spirit with me.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may try to practice the presence of God. I pray that by doing so I may never feel alone or helpless again.

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Thought for Today 

“Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn whatever state I am in, therein to be content”
                                                                            — Helen Keller

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Buddha/Zen Thoughts

What is enlightenment?

Coming to understand, coming to realize that you are not the body. You are the light within, not the lamp, but the flame. You are neither body nor mind. Mind belongs to the body, mind is not beyond body, it is part of the body. Minds is also atomic, as body is atomic.

You are neither body nor the mind – then you come to know who you are. And to know who you are is enlightenment….

Enlightened means you have realized who you are.

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Native American

Big Book
Chapter 6 – Into Action (pg. 79)

Maybe we are divorced and have remarried but haven’t kept up the alimony to number one. She is indignant about it and has a warrant out for our arrest. That’s a common form of trouble too.

Although these reparations take innumerable forms, there are some general principles which we find guiding. Reminding ourselves that we have decided to go to any lengths to find a spiritual experience, we ask that we be given strength and direction to do the right thing, no matter what the personal consequences may be. We may lose our position or reputation or face jail, but we are willing. We have to be. We must not shrink at anything.

Usually, however, other people are involved. Therefore, we are not to be the hasty and foolish martyr who would needlessly sacrifice others to save himself from the alcoholic pit. A man we know had remarried. Because of resentment and drinking, he had not paid alimony to his first wife. She was furious. She went to court and got an order for his arrest. He had commenced our way of life, had secured a position, and was getting his head above water. It would have been impressive heroics if he had walked up to the Judge and said, Here I am.

We thought he ought to be willing to do that, if necessary, but if he were in jail he could provide nothing for either family. We suggested he write his first wife admitting his faults and asking forgiveness. He did and also sent a small amount of money. He told her what he would try to do in the future. He said he was perfectly willing to go to jail if she insisted. Of course, she did not, and the whole situation has only since been adjusted. 

KCB,

Patricia