DAILY PONDERABLES - Together WE Trudge The Road OF Happy Destiny - Daily Reflections "MYSTERIOUS PARADOXES" Sunday, 23 February 2014

DAILY PONDERABLES - Together WE Trudge The Road OF Happy Destiny - Daily Reflections "MYSTERIOUS PARADOXES" Sunday, 23 February 2014
Such is the paradox of A.A. regeneration: strength arising out of complete defeat and weakness, the loss of one's old life as a condition for finding a new one.--A. A. COMES OF AGE, page 46
What glorious mysteries paradoxes are! They do not compute, yet when recognized and accepted, they reaffirm something in the universe beyond human logic. When I face a fear, I am given courage; when I support a brother or sister, my capacity to love myself is increased; when I accept pain as part of the growing experience of life, I realize a greater happiness; when I look at my dark side, I am brought into new light; when I accept my vulnerabilities and surrender to a Higher Power, I am graced with unforeseen strength. I stumbled through the doors of A.A. in disgrace, expecting nothing from life, and I have been give hope and dignity. Miraculously, the only way to keep the gifts of the program is to pass them on.--From the book Daily Reflections © Copyright 1990 by Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
Twenty-Four Hours A Day
A.A. Thought for the Day
Besides our jobs, our families, our friends, and our sobriety, we have something else that many of us found through A.A. That's faith in a Power greater than ourselves, to which we can turn for help: faith in that Divine Principle in the universe which we call God and which is on our side as long as we do the right thing. There have been many days in the past when, if we had taken an inventory, we'd have found ourselves very much in the red, without sobriety, and therefore without jobs, families, friends, or faith in God. We now have these things because we're sober. Do I make one resolution every day of my life to stay sober? 
Meditation for the Day
Love the busy life. It is a joy filled life. Take your fill of joy in the spring. Live outdoors whenever possible. Sun and air are nature's great healing forces. That inward joy changes poisoned blood into a pure, healthy, life giving flow. But never forget that the real healing of the spirit comes from within, from the close, loving contact of your spirit with God's spirit. Keep in close communion with God's spirit day by day. 
Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may learn to live the abundant life. I pray that I may enjoy a close contact with God this day and be glad in it.--From the book Twenty-Four Hours a Day © Copyright 1975 by Hazelden Foundation
NA - Just for Today
Messages and messengers--Page 55
"Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities."--Tradition Twelve
The Twelfth Tradition reminds us of the importance of putting "principles before personalities." In recovery meetings, this might be paraphrased, "don't shoot the messenger!." We often get the message confused with the messenger, and negate what someone shares at a meeting because we have personality conflicts with the person speaking. 
If we are having problems with what certain people have to share at meetings, we might want to seek the guidance of our sponsor. Our sponsor can help us concentrate on what's being said rather than who's saying it. Our sponsor can also help us address the resentments that may be keeping us from acknowledging the value of some particular person's recovery experience. It is surprising how much more we can get out of meetings when we allow ourselves to do as our Twelfth Tradition suggests, focusing on recovery principles rather than personalities.
Just for Today: I will practice the principle of anonymity in today's NA meeting. I will focus on the message of recovery, not the personality of the messenger.--From the book Just for Today © Copyright 1991-2013 by Narcotics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
Thought for Today
"If a problem has no solution, it may not be a problem, but a fact - not to be solved, but to be coped with over time."--Shimon Peres
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.--William Shakespeare - Hamlet (thanks Tim D.)
Buddha/Zen Thoughts
How much of your life do you spend looking forward to being somewhere else?--Matthew Flickstein, "Journey to the Center"
Native American
"We've got to learn what's going on today in the world, and we've got to get an education so we can survive."--Jimmy Jackson, OJIBWA
Indian people have the ability to adapt. In these modern times, we Native people must walk two roads. We must get educated so our people don't lose. We need lawyers, doctors, nurses, foresters, scientists, educators, carpenters, welders. These skills are needed to help the people. While we are learning we need to remember to keep our culture, learn our dances, sing our songs, learn to speak our own language and maintain our culture for future generations.
Great Spirit, let my education never lack the meaning and value of Indian spirituality. 
Keep It Simple
Hitch your wagon to a star.--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Millions of people are sober and have peace of mind through the Twelve Steps. Like the stars, the Steps are always there. At times, clouds block our view of the stars, but we know they are still there. Let's view the Twelve Steps the same way.
It is said that the stars are the gate to heaven, that we pass through their beauty to get ready to enter heaven. The Twelve Steps are the gate to spirituality here on earth. We travel through their beauty on our way to a spiritual awakening. Hitch your wagon to the Steps, and get ready for the ride of a lifetime.
Prayer for the Day: I pray to remember that the Steps keep me sober. I pray that I will follow where the Steps take me.
Action For the Day: I'll look at the stars tonight. I'll think of them as symbols of my life touched by the Twelve Steps.
Big Book
"Selfishness—self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of
our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. Sometimes they hurt us, seemingly without provocation, but we invariably find that at some time in the past we have made decisions based on self which later placed us in a position to be hurt."--Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th Edition, How It Works, page 62
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Thief of Love Grapevine June 1986 (thanks Ronny H)
I grew up in a lake resort town north of big, bad Chicago. Our house was as good as anyone's and better than some. When you walked in the front door, you saw the bathroom. It was a mark of distinction. No hiding that bathroom down the hall for us.
In our town, there were three churches and seventy-three taverns. In the basement of the church I went to was the seventy-fourth tavern. We had a bar, a juke box, draft beer, and slot machines. We had fish fries caught from a cold lake and served hot for one dollar. From the age of six, I knew which beer belly at the bar was likely to hand a cute little kid a nickel to play the slot machines, and it was likely to be the same one who lost his false teeth throwing up later on.
I learned about life on my parents' knees as they hung out on the bar stools. Lots of it was fun. At my favorite bar, a place called "Hello Folks," a red-faced, red-haired, boisterous lady played the piano and everybody sang and my parents were happy. They drank shots and beers and my father swept the ladies around doing the polka and my mother was the prettiest one there and everybody packed up all their cares and woes and took them to "Hello Folks" every night.
Somehow, it began to change. The man who gave me the most nickels died and after his funeral everybody got drunk because that's the way he would have wanted it. The jolly lady who played happy music cried into the glass on her piano because she had loved him. My parents began to argue, first with words, then with fists. Another baby was born and she wouldn't stop crying at night and my mother wouldn't wake up to take care of her. My parents were passed-out drunk while the house got colder and the nights got longer and the baby cried harder.
I was ashamed of our house now. It was a mess when I got home from school and my mother told me to clean it up before my father got home, and when my father got home he looked at my work, but he didn't look at me. At twelve years old I was held responsible for the havoc created by four younger children and, by God, I had better get the job done and keep my mouth shut, or else. Once I stamped my foot and yelled, "Unfair!" Once.
I missed my loving parents. They didn't look at me anymore. They avoided me or glared. Once upon a time, I was a feast to their eyes, and when they gazed at me it was like sunshine enveloping me and I felt wrapped in their arms. I was bursting with love at those moments; at six, I knew I could move mountains.
When I was old enough to drink, I did my folks one better. I arrived at the lakeside taverns courtesy of boyfriends with brand new rip-snorting powerboats. In the winter, it was by snowmobile or ice skates and I always had a wonderful time. No shots and beers for me. I drank like a lady. I drank martinis. Lots of them. If I got home at five in the morning, I'd merely say, "Hello Folks."
Three husbands and seven children later, I was still drinking martinis. I drank them until 4:30 in the morning the day my youngest daughter was born. By three years old, she was begging me to stop fighting with her daddy. Before she was ten, I didn't want her to look at me anymore because I didn't want her to see what I was doing. I was killing the joy of life, killing her love, and killing myself. She was too young to understand that I needed those martinis to fill the empty, hungry, gnawing void. It was later that I realized I was using alcohol to replace the love that was stolen from me by alcohol in the first place. The first few drinks gave me back a touch of that sunlight, and I wanted that so much I paid the price of the blackness and cold that inevitably followed. I would lie on the floor by my bed and cry in anguish while my daughter listened, and the look on her face was a mirror image of my own face at the same age.
I tried to stop for her sake, but I couldn't stop for anything or anybody, until one morning when I got up with a pounding head, exhausted and depleted from the previous night's drinking. Bent and aching and sick to my stomach, lackluster, weeping outside and inside, beaten and alone with my clutching devils that gave me no rest, I had a vivid, terrifying thought. "What if she turns out like me, as I and two of my brothers and sisters turned out like our parents? How long can alcohol keep a family whipped?"
I went to Alcoholics Anonymous and I shared at my first and second meetings. I saw the love I'd been missing in the eyes of those people. I felt something I can only describe as a wave of love sweeping over me, and I was relieved of my obsession to drink.
For five months, I have felt the arms of love around me, and I know I need never again let alcohol--cunning, baffling, and oh so powerful--steal any more love from me or my folks.--H. H. in Costa Mesa, California
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If you're not enjoying your sobriety it's your own damn fault!
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