Readings for each day of the week

Alcoholics Anonymous, pages 86 to 88; Step Eleven, morning

Friday

On awakening let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead. We consider our plans for the day. Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives. Under these conditions we can employ our mental faculties with assurance, for after all God gave us brains to use. Our thought-life will be placed on a much higher plane when our thinking is cleared of wrong motives.

Saturday

In thinking about our day we may face indecision. We may not be able to determine which course to take. Here we ask God for inspiration, an intuitive thought or a decision. We relax and take it easy. We don’t struggle. We are often surprised how the right answers come after we have tried this for a while. What used to be the hunch or the occasional inspiration gradually becomes a working part of the mind. Being still inexperienced and having just made conscious contact with God, it is not probable that we are going to be inspired at all times. We might pay for this presumption in all sorts of absurd actions and ideas. Nevertheless, we find that our thinking will, as time passes, be more and more on the plane of inspiration. We come to rely upon it.

Sunday

We usually conclude the period of meditation with a prayer that we be shown all through the day what our next step is to be, that we be given whatever we need to take care of such problems. We ask especially for freedom from self-will, and are careful to make no request for ourselves only. We may ask for ourselves, however, if others will be helped. We are careful never to pray for our own selfish ends. Many of us have wasted a lot of time doing that and it doesn’t work. You can easily see why.

Monday

If circumstances warrant, we ask our wives or friends to join us in morning meditation. If we belong to a religious denomination which requires a definite morning devotion, we attend to that also. If not members of religious bodies, we sometimes select and memorize a few set prayers which emphasize the principles we have been discussing.

Tuesday

There are many helpful books also. Suggestions about these may be obtained from one’s priest, minister, or rabbi. Be quick to see where religious people are right. Make use of what they offer.

Wednesday

As we go through the day we pause, when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the right thought or action. We constantly remind ourselves we are no longer running the show, humbly saying to ourselves many times each day “Thy will be done.” We are then in much less danger of excitement, fear, anger, worry, self-pity, or foolish decisions.

Thursday

We become much more efficient. We do not tire so easily, for we are not burning up energy foolishly as we did when we were trying to arrange life to suit ourselves.

It works—it really does.

We alcoholics are undisciplined. So we let God discipline us in the simple way we have just outlined.

Calendar readings

01 July 2021

The royal road to progress in spiritual understanding is to solve definite problems by prayer.

Every time that you heal any condition, however small, by prayer, you gain an increase in spiritual understanding. One definite healing will teach you more about spiritual truth than hours of discussion or reading.

Emmet Fox

02 July 2021

God protects you in the storm, not from the storm.

Anonymous

03 July 2021

I greet The Indwelling Intender.
Today’s ‘Pay Forward’ gift is: Our Father’s Intention. ‘It is in our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light’ (Taylor Benson). I notice when I am into my dark side: I am on the defensive, looking for what is wrong in whomever or whatever. I found myself of late wandering around in the darkest night; an important time to turn to the Light and return to Love. I reach for the Light switch within using prayer, meditation, and affirmations. I’m focusing my attention on our Father’s intention. Spiritually, I’m active; turning to prayer, meditation, and contemplation often, with an expecting faith. I’m proactive in Alcoholics Anonymous, expecting more from the Programme, acting on what I am given. I expect more of myself, by giving of myself. Allowing others to be, whoever and however, our Father intends. I look for the good in everyone and everything, knowing our Father is Present within all. I am not wasting my life on the meaningless, worries, and nonsense. Our Father is directing me in a way I can currently hear, understand and follow. I am quick to accept and surrender whatever, to our Father. As soon the dark side shows up, I turn to the Divine Light. I am committed to staying focused on our Father’s intention during my wakeful hours and not doze off in the middle of my life. Like a Prodigal Son, I’ve returned Home to our Father, and I am a willing worker in His Fields. Thy Love, Thy Will be done.

Al Kohallek

04 July 2021

‘In all of our affairs’

That one statement implies a lot. During personal inventory and prayer and meditation, I am awakened to the great reality that my Higher Power wants me to live in harmony with all who surround me. One of the big mistakes in the fellowship is the suggestion that it’s best to ‘stick with the winners’. That is too selective for someone like me and leads to a spirit of elitism (a trait I personally cannot afford). I need to maintain eye-to-eye-level connections with all around me, even those who I think I am opposed to.

Anonymous

05 July 2021

My quest for personal peace does not mean I am to turn an indifferent eye to the troubles around me; on I the contrary, I am supposed to shed light upon wrong. It is how I go about this that makes the difference. When I pick and choose which spiritual principles to practise in my life, I am playing God. The good truly is the enemy of the best, here. I cannot play the good Samaritan for some and apathetically turn away from the least of my brothers or sisters.

Anonymous

06 July 2021

Black Elk believed that the Creator taught that this healing power comes in and through a person, first to make us what we should be, then flowing through us and out to others as if we are a hollow bone. Pray to be that hollow bone today.

Sharyl White Hawk

07 July 2021

For me an alcoholic, a spiritual awakening is where I discover some part of the truth.

Don P.

08 July 2021

One of the key concepts of A.A. in the 1940’s: Get the newcomer to Step Twelve as quickly as possible, so he or she can experience the life-changing spiritual awakening that occurs as the direct result of taking the Steps. Assure the newcomer that our programme of recovery will relieve his or her alcoholism. Show the newcomer that the process is simple and straightforward and that it really works.

Earl T, founder of A.A. in Chicago ‘wished that every A.A. could have the benefit of this type of sponsorship today’. In his story, ‘He Sold Himself Short’ (p. 287 in 2nd and 3rd editions and p. 258 in 4th edition), he explains how he was taken through the Steps.

Dr Bob and the Good Oldtimers

09 July 2021

If they want a solution, you can’t say anything wrong. If they don’t, you can’t say anything right.

Wimbledon Maureen

10 July 2021

I am the place where God shines through. He and I are one, not two. I need not worry, fret, or plan. He wants me where and as I am. And if I be relaxed and free, He will carry out His plan through me.

Anonymous

11 July 2021

If it isn’t good, it isn’t God.

Ed M

12 July 2021

Some people say they have a choice, today. I’m glad I don’t have a choice. If it’s up to me, one day I’ll choose to drink. No. I’ll take grace, contingent on the maintenance of my spiritual condition, thank you. ... Left to my own devices, I would drink, so I decided to put my drinking problem in the hands of another. I put my drinking problem in the hands of God. He’s not thirsty.

Grady O’H

13 July 2021

If you’re not sure what to do, do three things:

Try your best, stay positive, and be nice to everyone.

Bryan Skavnak

14 July 2021

“Each day, whatever I am doing, I am always praying and thinking of God.”

–Thomas Yellowtail, CROW

Have you ever tried going through your day and carrying on a conversation with the Creator? Many of our Elders live in prayer. They talk to the Creator like the Creator is their best friend. It is easiest to do this if we pray in the morning and ask the Great Spirit to direct our thinking. When the Creator is involved in guiding our lives, we will have less stress, anxiety, and tension. Maybe this is something we would like to try today. ‘Oh, Creator, look at the Sun, how beautiful you have made it. Oh, look at this child, isn’t she just beautiful! Well, Creator, I’m not sure how I should do this task, what do you think? This person is starting to irritate me; I need your help to redirect my thinking. Thanks for returning me to a peaceful mind.’ Remember, the Creator also has a sense of humour.

Grandfather, Grandmother, let me walk in prayer.

15 July 2021

Si elle le suit, il la fuit
Si elle le fuit, il la suit
C’est ainsi, c’est inscrit

[If she pursues him, he runs away from her
If she runs away from him, he pursues her
That’s how it is; it is written in stone]

Ben Onono, Tatouage Bleu

I’ve got those “God-why-don’t-you-love-me-oh-you-do-I’ll-see-you-later” blues,
That “Long-as-you-ignore-me-you’re-the-only-thing-that-matters” feeling,
That “If-I’m-good-enough-for-you-you’re-not-good-enough”
and, “Thank-you-for-the-present-but-what’s-wrong-with-It?” stuff,
Those “Don’t-come-any-closer-’cause-you-know-how-much-I-love-you” feelings,
Those “Tell-me-that-you-love-me-oh-you-did-I-gotta-run-now” blues.

Stephen Sondheim, Buddy’s Blues

16 July 2021

Worldly affairs are all deceptive;
So I seek the truth Divine.
Excitements and distractions are illusions;
So I meditate on the non-dual Truth.
Companions and servants are deceptive;
So I remain in solitude.
Money and possessions are also deceptive;
So if I have them, I give them away.
Things in the outer world are all illusion;
The Inner Mind is that which I observe.
Wandering thoughts are all deceptive;
So I only tread the path of wisdom.
Deceptive are the teachings of expedient truth;
The final truth is that on which I meditate.
Books written in black ink are all misleading;
I only meditate on the pith-instructions of the whispered lineage.
Words and sayings, too, are but illusion;
At ease, I rest my mind in the effortless state.
Birth and death are both illusions;
I observe but the truth of no-arising.
The common mind is in every way misleading;
And so I practise how to animate awareness.
The Mind-holding Practice is misleading and deceptive;
And so I rest in the realm of reality.

– Milarepa

from the book “The Hundred Thousand Songs Of Milarepa”
translated by Garma C. C. Chang

17 July 2021

I greet The Indwelling Keys To The Kingdom.

Today’s ‘Pay Forward’ gift is: Dismantling Our False Self. Saint Anthony of Egypt, the fourth-century father of Christian monasticism, provides a paradigm for dismantling the false self by means of both active confrontation and passive purification (prayer and meditation). ‘... exemplifies the positive way of dismantling the false self by practising unconditional love: selfishness cannot survive in the climate of continuous self-giving’. Confronting our false self likely feels like interior warfare, and, in fact, it is. Our defects centre within, not outside, where we can blame and ‘explain’ our problems. Faith and action (practising AA’s spiritual principles of prayer and meditation in all my affairs) work for me. If I didn’t know better I would think Saint Anthony plagiarised AA’s spiritual principles, for sure, Steps Eleven and Twelve.

Al Kohallek

18 July 2021

‘The joy of living is the theme of AA’s Twelfth Step, and action is the key word. Here we turn outward toward our fellow alcoholics who are still in distress. Here we experience the kind of giving that asks no rewards. Here we begin to practise all Twelve Steps of the programme in our daily lives so that we and those about us may find emotional sobriety. When the Twelfth Step is seen in its full implication, it is really talking about the kind of love that has no price tag on it.’

Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

19 July 2021

A human being is capable of depression, otherwise there would be no capacity for exaltation. Depression is apt to turn us away from the ordinary commonplace things of God’s creation, but whenever God comes, the inspiration is to do the most natural simple things – the things we would never have imagined God was in, and as we do them we find He is there. The inspiration which comes to us in this way is an initiative against depression; we have to do the next thing and do it in the inspiration of God. If we do a thing in order to overcome depression, we deepen the depression; but if the Spirit of God makes us feel intuitively that we must do the thing, and we do it, the depression is gone. Immediately we arise and obey, we enter on a higher plane of life.

Oswald Chambers

20 July 2021

Mais le temps, mon ami, pour moi, c’est de l’amour
C’est rire, c’est chanter, tant que dure le jour
C’est aimer chaque nuit que le seigneur a faite
Le temps, c’est de l’amour, vivre, c’est une fête

[But time, my friend, for me, it’s love,
It’s laughing, it’s singing, all the day long,
It’s loving each night that the Lord has made,
Time, it’s love; life, it’s a celebration.]

Jacques Demy / Michel Legrand, De Delphine A Lancien, Les Demoiselles de Rochefort

Scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Zqcb0zLgvM

We’re on God’s amusement park planet.

Don P.

21 July 2021

You don’t have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.

Anonymous

22 July 2021

To be afraid is to have more faith in evil than in God.

Emmet Fox

23 July 2021

All problems can be reduced to one problem: conscious separation from God.
All solutions can be reduced to one solution: conscious contact with God.

Chuck C

24 July 2021

Our very first problem is to accept our present circumstances as they are, ourselves as we are, and the people about us as they are.

Bill W

25 July 2021

You can have a self-centred life and suffer the consequences; or you can have a God-centred life and suffer the consequences.

Chuck C

26 July 2021

God not only expects me to do His will, but He is in me to do it.

Oswald Chambers

27 July 2021

If we have God’s assurance behind us, the most amazing strength becomes ours, and we learn to sing, glorifying Him even in the ordinary days and ways of life.

Oswald Chambers

28 July 2021

The root of all difficulties is a lack of the sense of the Presence of God.

Emmet Fox

29 July 2021

All of our problems reside in the first three dimensions. Our solution resides in the fourth.

Jay S

30 July 2021

To live a life alone with God does not mean that we live it apart from everyone else.

Oswald Chambers

31 July 2021

The only people with whom you should try to get even with are the ones who have helped you.

Mae Maloo

01 August 2021

If you have no time for prayer and meditation, you will have lots of time for sickness and trouble.

Emmet Fox

02 August 2021

Elder’s Meditation of the Day

‘The basis of knowledge is fire, rock, water, and green. But when that power was given to man, he used it to twist his own mind. Tunkashila gave man just one drop of that wisdom.’

–Wallace Black Elk, LAKOTA

All of Nature has the wisdom to follow the Natural Laws. All of Nature knows how to live in harmony and use this wisdom in a good way, with exception of the human being. Often we misuse this wisdom. Wisdom always remains with those who use it in the proper way. Nature has used this wisdom well, so now we need to go to Her so we humans can relearn and change our lives. May we start doing this today, before it is too late.

Creator, let me be open to the lessons that Nature can teach me.

03 August 2021

Io sono come un pianoforte con un tasto rotto /
L’accordo dissonante di un’orchestra di ubriachi /
... /
I matti sono punti di domanda senza frase /
Migliaia di astronavi che non tornano alla base /

I am like a piano with a broken key /
The dissonant chord of a drunken orchestra /
... /
The insane are question marks without sentences /
Millions of spaceships that are not returning home

Simone Christicchi, Ti regalerò una rosa

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

04 August 2021

To understand selflessness, you need to understand that everything that exists is contained in two groups called the two truths: conventional and ultimate. The phenomena that we see and observe around us can go from good to bad, or bad to good, depending on various causes and conditions. Many phenomena cannot be said to be inherently good or bad; they are better or worse, tall or short, beautiful or ugly, only by comparison, not by way of their own nature. Their value is relative. From this you can see that there is a discrepancy between the way things appear and how they actually are. For instance, something may—in terms of how it appears—look good, but, due to its inner nature being different, it can turn bad once it is affected by conditions. Food that looks so good in a restaurant may not sit so well in your stomach. This is a clear sign of a discrepancy between appearance and reality.

These phenomena themselves are called conventional truths: they are known by consciousness that goes no further than appearances. But the same objects have an inner mode of being, called an ultimate truth, that allows for the changes brought about by conditions. A wise consciousness, not satisfied with mere appearances, analyzes to find whether objects inherently exist as they seem to do but discovers their absence of inherent existence. It finds an emptiness of inherent existence beyond appearances.

14th Dalai Lama

05 August 2021

Native American Code of Ethics

~1. Rise with the sun to pray. Pray alone. Pray often. The Great Spirit will listen, if you only speak.