[bluidkiti]

April 22

Daily Reflections

NEW SOIL . . . NEW ROOTS

Moments of perception can build into a lifetime of
spiritual serenity, as I have excellent reason to know.
Roots of reality, supplanting the neurotic underbrush,
will hold fast despite the high winds of the forces which
would destroy us, or which we would use to destroy ourselves.
AS BILL SEES IT, p. 173

I came to A.A. green--a seedling quivering with exposed
taproots. It was for survival but it was a beginning. I
stretched, developed, twisted, but with the help of others,
my spirit eventually burst up from the roots. I was free.
I acted, withered, went inside, prayed, acted again,
understood anew, as one moment of perception struck. Up
from my roots, spirit-arms lengthened into strong, green
shoots: high-springing servants stepping skyward.
Here on earth God unconditionally continues the legacy of
higher love. My A.A. life put me "on a different footing
. . . [my] roots grasped a new soil."
(Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 12).

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Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought For The Day

People believe in A.A. when they see it work. An actual
demonstration is what convinces them. What they read in
books, what they hear people say doesn't always convince
them. But when they see a real honest-to-goodness change
take place in a person, a change from a drunkard to a sober,
useful citizen, that's something they can believe because
they can see it. There's really only one thing that proves
to me that A.A. works. Have I seen the change in people who
come into A.A.?

Meditation For The Day

Divine control and unquestioning obedience to God are the
only conditions necessary for a spiritual life. Divine
control means absolute faith and trust in God, a belief
that God is the Divine Principle in the universe and that
He is the intelligence and the Love that controls the
universe. Unquestioning obedience to God means living each
day the way you believe God wants you to live, constantly
seeking the guidance of God in every situation and being
willing to do the right thing at all times.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may always be under Divine Control and always
practice unquestioning obedience to God. I pray that I may
be always ready to serve Him.

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As Bill Sees It

To Be Fair-Minded, p. 113

Too often, I think, we have deprecated and even derided projects of our
friends in the field of alcoholism just because we do not always see eye
to eye with them.

We should very seriously ask ourselves how many alcoholics have gone
on drinking simply because we have failed to cooperate in good spirit
with these many agencies--whether they be good, bad, or indifferent.
No alcoholics should go mad or die merely because he did not come
straight to A.A. at the beginning.

<< << << >> >> >>

Our first objective will be the development of self-restraint. This
carries a top-priority rating. When we speak or act hastily or rashly,
the ability to be fair-minded and tolerant evaporates on the spot.

1. Grapevine, July 1963
2. 12 & 12, p. 91

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Walk in Dry Places

Faking it, and then making it.
Finding the Spirit of the Thing.
We're sometimes advised to "fake it until you make it." But how can anything false really lead us to recovery? Aren't we told that this is an honest program?
We're not being dishonest by pushing ourselves to become actively involved in AA. The self-help movements have told us for years that we have to form an image of what we want to be in order to reach our goals. We are forming an image that corresponds to the sober people we want to be. We are actually rehearsing sober living and working to accept a picture of sobriety in our heart of hearts.
There's also much to be said for "faking it" enough to attend meetings and try to benefit from association with people….. even those we don't like. This puts us in line for the change we really need.
A lot of members say that they "white-knuckled it" during the first months or years of sobriety. If this worked to bring recovery, it had to be the right approach.
Even if there is rebellion within, today I'll talk and act like the sober person I want to be.

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Keep It Simple

One meets his destiny often on the road one takes to avoid it.---French proverb
None of us, perhaps, ever thought we'd end up in recovery. But we were working at joining recovery years before we got here! Maybe recovery was our fate from the day we first took a drink or a pill. Others around us could see the writing on the wall, but we couldn't. We were to busy trying to avoid the pain. Alcoholism and other drug abuse have to do with us trying to find spiritual wholeness--- the kind of spiritual wholeness we're finding now. . .in recovery. So, let's welcome recovery into our lives. We have found our spiritual home.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, I got lost because I acted like I knew the way to a good life. You lead the way. Thank-you for putting me on the right track.
Action for the Day: Today, I'll think about why it's my fate to be in recovery. I will list ways that I try to avoid my fate.

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Each Day a New Beginning

Our own rough edges become smooth as we help a friend smooth her edges. --Sue Atchley Ebaugh
Focusing on a good point in every person we encounter today will benefit us in untold ways. It will smooth our relations with that person, inviting her to respond kindly also. It will increase our awareness of the goodness all around us. It will help us realize that if everyone around us has positive traits, then we must also have them. But perhaps the greatest benefit of focusing on good points is that it enhances us as women; a healthy, positive attitude must be cultivated. Many of us had little experience with feeling positive before the turning point, recovery.
Recovery is offering us a new lease on life every moment. We are learning new behaviors, and we are learning that with the help of a higher power and one another, all things that are right for us are possible. It is energizing, focusing on the good points of others, knowing that their good points don't detract from our own.
In the past, we may have secretly hated other women's strengths because we felt inferior. We are free from that hate now, if we choose to be. A strength we can each nurture is gratitude for being helped by, and privy to, the strengths of our friends and acquaintances.
Bad points get worse with attention. My good points will gain strength.

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Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition

Chapter 9 - The Family Afterwards

This sort of thing can be avoided. Both father and the family are mistaken, though each side may have some justification. It is of little use to argue and only makes the impasse worse. The family must realize that dad, though marvelously improved, is still convalescing. They should be thankful he is sober and able to be of this world once more. Let them praise his progress. Let them remember that his drinking wrought all kinds of damage that may take long to repair. If they sense these things, they will not take so seriously his periods of crankiness, depression, or apathy, which will disappear when there is tolerance, love, and spiritual understanding.

pp. 126-127

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Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

Step Two - "Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity."

Sometimes A.A. comes harder to those who have lost or rejected faith than to those who never had any faith at all, for they think they have tried faith and found it wanting. They have tried the way of faith and the way of no faith. Since both ways have proved bitterly disappointing, they have concluded there is no place whatever for them to go. The roadblocks of indifference, fancied self-sufficiency, prejudice, and defiance often prove more solid and formidable for these people than any erected by the unconvinced agnostic or even the militant atheist. Religion says the existence of God can be proved; the agnostic says it can't be proved; and the atheist claims proof of the nonexistence of God. Obviously, the dilemma of the wanderer from faith is that of profound confusion. He thinks himself lost to the comfort of any
conviction at all. He cannot attain in even a small degree the assurance of the believer, the agnostic, or the atheist. He is the bewildered one.

p. 28

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"Spiritual growth results from absorbing and digesting truth and
putting it to practice in daily life."
--White Eagle

There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and
lifting people up.
--John Andrew Holmes

"Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only
you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other
people spend it for you."
--Carl Sandburg

>From that place of stillness, the right action will emerge and you will
find your next step. From that place of stillness, you can move into the
present moment. There you will find your power, and there you will
find God.
--Melody Beattie

You don't have to wait for Christmas to give gifts of love and joy.
Give that love to others and yourself. Give it often. Give it freely.
Give it all year round.
--Melody Beattie

When we listen, God speaks and guides.
--Paul K. McAfee

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Father Leo's Daily Meditation

MUSIC

"I have my own particular
sorrows, loves, delights; and
you have yours. But sorrow,
gladness, yearning, hope, love
belong to all of us, in all times
and in all places. Music is the
only means whereby we feel
these emotions in their
universality."
--H. A. Overstreet

A language for the world is music. It unites all peoples, cultures,
religions and backgrounds; it points man beyond himself, while at the
same time breathing through him God's glory. Music makes man
wonder, enables him to dream, allows him to rest in the miracle of
creativity.

Drugs stopped me from appreciating the gift of music. They twisted
and corrupted sounds and made them destructive and coarse. Drugs
took from me so much and left me with a feeling of utter emptiness.

In my recovery I can hear again. My spiritual program incorporates
music, different types of music, the inexhaustible joys of melody. I can
feel in it, through it, with it - another miracle.

Thank You for the gift of music that enables me to grow in my
understanding of self and my need of others.

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"But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know
what your right hand is doing."
Matthew 6:3

"But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man
observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes
away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was."
James 1:22-24

"I know, O Lord, that your judgments are right.... Let your steadfast
love become my comfort.... For your law is my delight."
Psalm 119:75-77

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Daily Inspiration

When you feel the need to tell someone how bad your day has been, tell them how good it's been instead. Lord, help me to highlight the parts of my day that will bring me to a peaceful and joyful place.

There is always a reason why people act as they do. Lord, help me to be more patient and understanding.