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 October 2021
Feel hopeless & abandoned, like you’re going mad? Don’t worry. Let us reassure you that everything you’re feeling is completely justified and proves you have fully comprehended the true severity of your situation. Be proud of your keen insights.
Scarfolk Council Citizens Advice
Everyone became resigned to the certainty that I would have to be shut up somewhere, or would stumble along to a miserable end. How dark it is before the dawn! In reality that was the beginning of my last debauch. I was soon to be catapulted into what I like to call the fourth dimension of existence. I was to know happiness, peace, and usefulness, in a way of life that is incredibly more wonderful as time passes.
Page 8, Big Book
02 October 2021
Enlightenment, or Nirvana, is nothing other than the state beyond all obstacles, in the same way that from the peak of a very high mountain one always sees the sun. Nirvana is not a paradise or some special place of happiness, but is in fact the condition beyond all dualistic concepts, including those of happiness and suffering. When all our obstacles have been overcome, and we find ourselves in a state of total presence, the wisdom of enlightenment manifests spontaneously without limits, just like the infinite rays of the sun. The clouds have dissolved, and the sun is finally free to shine once again.
Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche
03 October 2021
When I have trouble listening, I usually find out it is because I am doing all the talking.
Anne Wilson Schaef
04 October 2021
When we are in an unhealthy condition either physically or emotionally, we always look for thrills in life. In our physical life this leads to our efforts to counterfeit the work of the Holy Spirit; in our emotional life it leads to obsessions and to the destruction of our morality; and in our spiritual life, if we insist on pursuing only thrills, it will result in the destruction of our spirituality.
Oswald Chambers
05 October 2021
Do you have even the slightest reliance on anything or anyone other than God? Is there a remnant of reliance left on any natural quality within you, or on any particular set of circumstances? Are you relying on yourself in any manner whatsoever regarding a new proposal or plan which God has placed before you? Will you examine yourself by asking these probing questions?
Oswald Chambers
06 October 2021
For thousands of years we have been demanding more than our share of security, prestige, and romance. When we seemed to be succeeding, we drank to dream still greater dreams. When we were frustrated, even in part, we drank for oblivion. Never was there enough of what we thought we wanted. In all these strivings, so many of them well-intentioned, our crippling handicap had been our lack of humility. We had lacked the perspective to see that character-building and spiritual values had to come first, and that material satisfactions were not the purpose of living. Quite characteristically, we had gone all out in confusing the ends with the means. Instead of regarding the satisfaction of our material desires as the means by which we could live and function as human beings, we had taken these satisfactions to be the final end and aim of life.
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions
07 October 2021
Do as God’s Voice directs. And if It asks a thing of you which seems impossible, remember Who it is that asks, and who would make denial. Then consider this; which is more likely to be right? The Voice that speaks for the Creator of all things, Who knows all things exactly as they are, or a distorted image of yourself, confused, bewildered, inconsistent and unsure of everything? Let not its voice direct you. Hear instead a certain Voice, which tells you of a function given you by your Creator Who remembers you, and urges that you now remember Him.
ACIM (Lesson 186)
08 October 2021
“I do not respond well when someone tries to impose their will on me; why have I tried to impose my will on those around me? There is only one person I am responsible for, and that is me. There is only one person who can make my life as full as possible—that, too, is me.”
Courage to Change, August 1
09 October 2021
And do not his actions make each of them wish to retaliate, snatching all they can get out of the show?
Big Book, page 61
10 October 2021
I was finally accountable for my own recovery. I was responsible for taking the action. One of my favourite games had always been making it someone else’s job to see that I got my work done. That game was over.
Big Book, page 518
11 October 2021
Every faculty you have, your power of thinking or of moving your limbs from moment to moment, is given you by God. If you devoted every moment of your whole life exclusively to His service you could not give Him anything that was not in a sense His own already. So that when we talk of a man doing anything for God or giving anything to God, I will tell you what it is really like. It is like a small child going to its father and saying, “Daddy, give me sixpence to buy you a birthday present.” Of course, the father does, and he is pleased with the child’s present. It is all very nice and proper, but only an idiot would think that the father is sixpence to the good on the transaction.
C. S. Lewis
12 October 2021
God is home; it is we who have gone out for a walk.
Meister Eckhart
13 October 2021
Killer whale training
Killer whales are trained by rewarding them for what they do well but leaving what they do badly silently unacknowledged. Treat everyone this way.
Anonymous
14 October 2021
Somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, before you open your eyes, give your first thought to God, asking Him to place you in a position of neutrality, safe and protected. Then, with the gift of an open / blank mind (tabula rasa), see what comes across your spiritual radar.
Anonymous
15 October 2021
New old ideas
They’re not ‘old ideas’ if they’re currently driving you. Usually fear drives us and becomes the chief activator of our defects of character. But self-reliance fails us. When we learn to go deeper within ourselves to our source (God), we begin to receive glimpses of his Love (our true nature), and then we will have an opportunity to make new choices in our life to be led by Love, creating unity rather than being driven by fear and ego, suffering the attendant consequences of separation, conflict, and strife. God loves us—really, really loves us—and is waiting for us to make a new decision to engage in creative, constructive imagination well beyond the confines of our mere rational minds.
Anonymous
16 October 2021
“We’ve got some bad news for you. It was bad news for us, and it will probably be bad news for you. Whether you quit six days, months, or years, if you go out and take a drink or two, you’ll end up in this hospital tied down, just like you have been in these past six months. You are an alcoholic.” As far as I know that was the first time I had ever paid any attention to that word. I figured I was just a drunk. And they said, “No, you have a disease, and it doesn’t make any difference how long you do without it, after a drink or two you’ll end up just like you are now.” That certainly was real disheartening news, at the time. The next question they asked was, “You can quit twenty-four hours, can’t you?” I said, “Sure, yes, anybody can do that, for twenty-four hours.” They said, “That’s what we’re talking about. Just twenty-four hours at a time.” That sure did take a load off of my mind. Every time I’d start thinking about drinking, I would think of the long, dry years ahead without having a drink; but this idea of twenty-four hours, that it was up to me from then on, was a lot of help.
Alcoholic Anonymous Number Three
17 October 2021
Therapist: You saw the red flags, though, right?
Me: I thought it was a carnival.
Anonymous
18 October 2021
I believe it would be good to tell the story of my life. Doing so will give me the opportunity to remember that I must be grateful to God and to those members of Alcoholics Anonymous who knew A.A. before me. Telling my story reminds me that I could go back to where I was if I forget the wonderful things that have been given to me or forget that God is the guide who keeps me on this path.
Gratitude In Action
19 October 2021
Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there, shining.
Anne Lamott
20 October 2021
As I look back on it now, I did everything wrong, but at least I was thinking of somebody else instead of myself. ... One of the most fundamental things I have learned is to pass on our message to other alcoholics. That means I must think more about others than about myself.
Gratitude In Action
21 October 2021
“Don’t be sad, little sister,” he said. “You got a Dad in heaven. You got a great, big Dad who cares for you.”
I frowned and rubbed my hands together. “Bigger than Lisa’s dad?” I asked. “Bigger than anybody?” I knew he was talking about God.
My Mr T. doll looked right into my eyes. “Bigger than Mr T. himself, Susie. Bigger than the whole world.”
My Mr T. Doll—Mr T. and Me, Charlotte Graeber
22 October 2021
I want to keep this life of peace, serenity, and tranquillity that I have found. ... I shall keep all that, and I won’t have to drink, if I remember one simple thing: to keep my hand in the hand of God.
Gratitude In Action
23 October 2021
Knowledge cannot belong to only one person or country. It belongs to all. The world grows wise only when wisdom is shared.
Season of the Sandstorm, The Magic Tree House
24 October 2021
I get my greatest thrill of accomplishment from the knowledge that I have played a part in the new happiness achieved by countless others like myself. ... The fact that I can work again and earn my living is important but secondary.
Women Suffer Too
25 October 2021
To have a comeback, you have to have a setback.
Mr T.
26 October 2021
Father says grace, which delays my attack on the buckwheat cakes and sausage.
Our Southern Friend
27 October 2021
You might not have the things you want, but if you check carefully, you got all you need.
Mr T.
28 October 2021
I am in church. Father is delivering his sermon. A wasp is crawling up the back of the lady in front of me. I wonder if it will reach her neck. Shucks! It has flown away. At last! The message has been delivered.
Our Southern Friend
29 October 2021
You pity the fool because you don’t want to beat up a fool! You know, pity is between sorrow and mercy. See, if you pity him, you know, you won’t have to beat him up. So that’s why I say fools, you gotta give another chance because they don’t know no better. That’s why I pity them!
Mr T.
30 October 2021
Then he asks me if I believe in a power greater than myself, whether I call that power God, Allah, Confucius, Prime Cause, Divine Mind, or any other name. I told him that I believe in electricity and other forces of nature, but as for a God, if there is one, He has never done anything for me. Then he asks me if I am willing to right all the wrongs I have ever done to anyone, no matter how wrong I thought the others were. Am I willing to be honest with myself about myself and tell someone about myself, and am I willing to think of other people, of their needs instead of myself, in order to get rid of the drink problem?
“I’ll do anything,” I reply.
“Then all of your troubles are over,” says the man and leaves the room.
Our Southern Friend
31 October 2021
I get up every morning and say, ‘Father, give me strength today, not strength so I can lift 500 pounds, but give me strength, Lord, so when I speak, my words might motivate, might inspire somebody, Lord, when they see me, let them see you. When they hear me, Lord, let them hear you. In your holy name I pray.’
Mr T.
01 November 2021
“I must ask you a question,” I say to the man. “How does prayer fit into this thing?”
“Well,” he answers, “you’ve probably tried praying like I have. When you’ve been in a jam, you’ve said, God, please do this or that,’ and if it turned out your way that was the last of it, and, if it didn’t, you’ve said ‘There isn’t any God’ or ‘He doesn’t do anything for me.’ Is that right?”
“Yes,” I reply.
“That isn’t the way,” he continued. “The thing I do is to say ‘God, here I am and here are all my troubles. I’ve made a mess of things and can’t do anything about it. You take me, and all my troubles, and do anything you want with me.’ Does that answer your question?”
“Yes, it does,” I answer.
Our Southern Friend
02 November 2021
It would be most wicked of us to say, “We will not have the heavenly treasure which exists in earthen vessels. If God will give us the heavenly treasure out of his own hand, but not through the earthen vessel, we will have it; but we think we are too wise, too heavenly minded, too spiritual altogether to care for jewels when they are placed in earthen pots. We will not hear anybody, and we will not read anything except the book itself, neither will we accept any light, except that which comes in through a crack in our own roof. We will not see by another man’s candle, we would sooner remain in the dark.” Brethren, do not let us fall into such folly. Let the light come from God, and though a child shall bring it, we will joyfully accept it.
Charles H. Spurgeon
03 November 2021
I learn more of that foundation stone of character, which is honesty. I learn that when we act upon the highest conception of honesty that is given us, our sense of honesty becomes more acute. I learn that honesty is truth and that truth shall make us free!
Our Southern Friend
04 November 2021
If thou has made some difficulties for thyself, if thou art such a fool as to be tying knots and wanting to get them untied before thou wilt believe in God, then I have nothing to say to thee, except it were, beware lest thou dost tie a knot that shall destroy thy soul; but if thou be troubled with an honest objection, I say to thee now, in God’s name, “Ask of God.” You need not wait till you get home, you need not stay till you have left that seat, but now, silently, in your soul, breathe the prayer, “O God, teach thou me: save my soul this day; end the doubtful strife; answer these questions; bring me, as an humble seeker, to lie before thy mercy, and to receive pardon.” Let him ask—that is all—let him ask.
Charles H. Spurgeon (adapted)
05 November 2021
This was when I really took my first good look at myself. My loneliness was worse than it had ever been before, for now even my own kind had turned against me. This time it really hurt, more than any hangover ever had. My brilliant agnosticism vanished, and I saw for the first time that those who really believed, or at least honestly tried to find a Power greater than themselves, were much more composed and contented than I had ever been, and they seemed to have a degree of happiness I had never known.
The Vicious Cycle
06 November 2021
You know who really stresses me out?
Me.
It’s me.
I stress me out.
Anonymous
07 November 2021
When I started to tell the boys how we did it in New York and all about the spiritual part of the program, I found they would not believe me unless I was practising what I preached. Then I found that as I gave in to this spiritual or personality change, I was getting a little more serenity. In telling newcomers how to change their lives and attitudes, all of a sudden I found I was doing a little changing myself. I had been too self-sufficient to write a moral inventory, but I discovered in pointing out to the new man his wrong attitudes and actions that I was really taking my own inventory, and that if I expected him to change, I would have to work on myself too.
The Vicious Cycle
08 November 2021
Salvation is undoing in the sense that it does nothing, failing to support the world of dreams and malice. Thus it lets illusions go. By not supporting them, it merely lets them quietly go down to dust.
A Course In Miracles
09 November 2021
But I found that after I got to North Carolina, it wasn’t any different. The state was different, but I wasn’t.
Jim’s Story
10 November 2021
I give my life to God to guide today.
Father, I give You all my thoughts today. I would have none of mine. In place of them, give me Your Own. I give You all my acts as well, that I may do Your Will instead of seeking goals which cannot be obtained, and wasting time in vain imaginings. Today I come to You. I will step back and merely follow You. Be You the Guide, and I the follower who questions not the wisdom of the Infinite, nor Love whose tenderness I cannot comprehend, but which is yet Your perfect gift to me.
A Course In Miracles
11 November 2021
Spring came. I went for my first walk. Half a block from the house, I tried to turn the corner. Fear froze me in my tracks, but the instant I turned back toward home, this paralyzing fear left me. This was the beginning of an unending series of such experiences. I told our family doctor—an understanding man who gave hours of his time trying to help me—about this experience. He told me that it was imperative that I walk around the entire block, cost me what it might in mental agony. I carried out his instructions. When I reached a point directly back of our house, where I could have cut through a friend’s garden, I was almost overpowered by the desire to get home, but I made the whole journey. Probably only a few readers of this story will be able, from personal experiences of their own, to understand the exhilaration and sense of accomplishment I felt after finishing this seemingly simple assignment.
The Man Who Mastered Fear
12 November 2021
I have a kingdom I must rule. At times, it does not seem I am its king at all. It seems to triumph over me, and tell me what to think, and what to do and feel. And yet it has been given me to serve whatever purpose I perceive in it. My mind can only serve. Today I give its service to the Holy Spirit to employ as He sees fit. I thus direct my mind, which I alone can rule. And thus I set it free to do the Will of God.
A Course In Miracles
13 November 2021
The next day he turned me over to a couple who, although neither was an alcoholic, knew Dr. Bob and were willing to drive me to Akron where they would turn me over to his care. The only stipulation they made was this: I had to make the decision myself. What decision? The choice was limited. To go north into the empty pine country and shoot myself, or to go south in the faint hope that a bunch of strangers might help me with my drinking problem.
The Man Who Mastered Fear
14 November 2021
At times I feel certain I am right while not knowing the reason. When the eclipse of 1919 confirmed my intuition, I was not in the least surprised. In fact, I would have been astonished had it turned out otherwise. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. It is, strictly speaking, a real factor in scientific research.
Albert Einstein, Cosmic Religion and Other Opinions and Aphorisms
15 November 2021
Dr. Bob dwelt at length on how prayer had given him release, time and time again, from the nearly overpowering compulsion to take a drink. It was he who convinced me, because his own conviction was so real, that a Power greater than myself could help me in the crises of life and that the means of communicating with this Power was simple prayer.
The Man Who Mastered Fear
16 November 2021
I choose now not to resist ‘not’-love, there is no ‘not’-love. The only opposite love has is apathy, which is a lie. We may pretend we lack interest in love, but that is a cover for our fear of love.
Al Kohallek
17 November 2021
Finally, and I shall never know how much later it was, one clear thought came to me: Try prayer. You can’t lose, and maybe God will help you —just maybe, mind you. Having no one else to turn to, I was willing to give Him a chance, although with considerable doubt. I got down on my knees for the first time in thirty years. The prayer I said was simple. It went something like this: “God, for eighteen years I have been unable to handle this problem. Please let me turn it over to you.” Immediately a great feeling of peace descended upon me, intermingled with a feeling of being suffused with a quiet strength. I lay down on the bed and slept like a child. An hour later I awoke to a new world. Nothing had changed and yet everything had changed. The scales had dropped from my eyes, and I could see life in its proper perspective. I had tried to be the center of my own little world, whereas God was the center of a vast universe of which I was perhaps an essential, but a very tiny, part.
The Man Who Mastered Fear
18 November 2021
Many of us thought the opposite of love was hate; it is not. Hate, anger, and resentments are illusory attempts to punish and get revenge on others. These mental and emotional acts, thoughts, and feelings that withhold love never leave the sender until the sender returns to love and forgiveness. ‘Perfect love cast out all fear.’
Al Kohallek
19 November 2021
The A.A. program showed me the way to come down to earth, start from the bottom, and work up. This represents another great change for me. In the long ago past I used to start at the top as president or treasurer and end up with the sheriff breathing down my neck.
The Man Who Mastered Fear
20 November 2021
Using our imagination in union with God’s will, we are co-creators; if imagination is used in our personal ‘realities’, we make up illusions.
Al Kohallek
21 November 2021
Fear has never again ruled my life since that day in September 1938, when I found that a Power greater than myself could not only restore me to sanity but could keep me both sober and sane. Never in sixteen years have I dodged anything because I was afraid of it. I have faced life instead of running away from it. ... Some of the things that used to stop me in my tracks from fear still make me nervous in the anticipation of their doing, but once I kick myself into doing them, nervousness disappears and I enjoy myself.
The Man Who Mastered Fear
22 November 2021
‘… any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer it or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.’
The Greatest Thing in the World, Henry Drummond
23 November 2021
I was at a beautifully set dinner table. I was in a perfectly happy frame of mind. I had been in A.A. a year, and the last thing in my mind was a drink. There was a glass of sherry at my place. I was seized with an almost uncontrollable desire to reach out for it. I shut my eyes and asked for help. In fifteen seconds or less, the feeling passed.
The Man Who Mastered Fear
24 November 2021
Everything you’re trying to reach—by taking the long way round—you could have right now, this moment. If you’d only stop thwarting your own attempts. If you’d only let go of the past, entrust the future to Providence, and guide the present toward reverence and justice.
Meditations, Marcus Aurelius
25 November 2021
There have also been numerous times when I have thought about taking a drink. Such thinking usually began with thoughts of the pleasant drinking of my youth. I learned early in my A.A. life that I could not afford to fondle such thoughts, as you might fondle a pet, because this particular pet could grow into a monster. Instead, I quickly substitute one or another vivid scene from the nightmare of my later drinking.
The Man Who Mastered Fear
26 November 2021
Don’t let anything deter you: other people’s misbehavior, your own misperceptions, What People Will Say, or the feelings of the body that covers you (let the affected part take care of those). And if, when it’s time to depart, you shunt everything aside except your mind and the divinity within … if it isn’t ceasing to live that you’re afraid of but never beginning to live properly … then you’ll be worthy of the world that made you.
Meditations, Marcus Aurelius
27 November 2021
It was therefore not extraordinary that I should shy away from any serious thought of marriage for a great many years after joining A.A. Here was something requiring a greater willingness to assume responsibility and a larger degree of cooperation and give and take than even business requires of one.
The Man Who Mastered Fear
28 November 2021
God sees all our souls freed from their fleshly containers, stripped clean of their bark, cleansed of their grime. He grasps with his intelligence alone what was poured and channeled from himself into them. If you learn to do the same, you can avoid a great deal of distress. When you see through the flesh that covers you, will you be unsettled by clothing, mansions, celebrity—the painted sets, the costume cupboard?
Meditations, Marcus Aurelius
29 November 2021
This latest part of my life has had a purpose, not in great things accomplished but in daily living. Courage to face each day has replaced the fears and uncertainties of earlier years. Acceptance of things as they are has replaced the old impatient champing at the bit to conquer the world. I have stopped tilting at windmills and, instead, have tried to accomplish the little daily tasks, unimportant in themselves, but tasks that are an integral part of living fully.
He Sold Himself Short
30 November 2021
Your three components: body, breath, mind. Two are yours in trust; to the third alone you have clear title. If you can cut yourself—your mind—free of what other people do and say, of what you’ve said or done, of the things that you’re afraid will happen, the impositions of the body that contains you and the breath within, and what the whirling chaos sweeps in from outside, so that the mind is freed from fate, brought to clarity, and lives life on its own recognizance—doing what’s right, accepting what happens, and speaking the truth—
If you can cut free of impressions that cling to the mind, free of the future and the past—can make yourself, as Empedocles says, “a sphere rejoicing in its perfect stillness,” and concentrate on living what can be lived (which means the present) … then you can spend the time you have left in tranquillity. And in kindness. And at peace with the spirit within you.
Meditations, Marcus Aurelius
01 December 2021
I have been feeling a little bit stressed lately. And I’ve been trying to figure out what to do. I tried to make a to-do list. That did not help. I tried to meditate. It did not work. Someone said I should go to confession. I did not. And people said, ‘well, you should delegate.’ And I tried. It did not last. And then I remembered my tassels. So I’ve just been sorting them for days now. I love them. They never hurt me. And I’ll be here if you need me.
@greedypeasant
‘To Thine Own Self Be True’
AA saying
02 December 2021
Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.
Yoda
03 December 2021
Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be attained only by someone who is detached.
Simone Weil
04 December 2021
When Luke Skywalker first arrives in Yoda’s swamp in The Empire Strikes Back, he thinks he’s in the wrong place. And definitely in the wrong company. Yoda says to him “help you I can” and Luke replies “I don’t think so. I’m looking for a great warrior.” To which Yoda replies, “Oh, great warrior. Wars not make one great.”
05 December 2021
All sins are attempts to fill voids.
Simone Weil
06 December 2021
Always in motion the future is.
Yoda
07 December 2021
Near to his foot an army of ants had made a two-way track across the path. He watched the ants. Each one knows what it is doing, he thought. He looked at the snail. Can it see me? he wondered. Then he felt, how little I know, and how little it is possible to know; and with this thought he experienced a moment of joy.
Flight from the Enchanter, Iris Murdoch
08 December 2021
Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.
Yoda
09 December 2021
In spiritual maturity, the opposite of injustice is not justice, but compassion. Not me against you, not me straightening out the present ill, fighting to gain a just result for myself and others, but compassion, a life that goes against nothing and fulfils everything.
Yoko Beck
10 December 2021
When Yoda moves the X-Wing fighter with his mind, Luke says “I don’t believe it”. Yoda replies, “That is why you fail.”
11 December 2021
All anger is based on judgements, whether of ourselves or others. The idea that our anger must be expressed for us to be healthy is no more than a fantasy. We need to let these judgemental, angry thoughts pass before our witnessing, impersonal self. We gain nothing by expressing them. It is a mistake to suppose that our unexpressed anger hurts us and that we must express it and thereby hurt others.
Yoko Beck
12 December 2021
Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice for those who transform into the Force. Mourn them do not. Miss them do not. Attachment leads to jealousy. The shadow of greed, that is.
Yoda
13 December 2021
We have to see that everything we demand (and even get) eventually disappoints us. This discovery is our teacher. It’s why we should be careful with friends who are in trouble, not to give them sympathy by holding out false hopes and reassurances. This kind of sympathy—which is not true compassion—simply delays their learning. In a sense, the best help we can give to anybody is to hasten their disappointment... We help others and ourselves when we begin to see that all of our usual demands are misguided... We’ve worn out everything we can do, and we don’t see what to do next.
Yoko Beck
14 December 2021
God has a plan for you, but that plan is none of your business.
Anonymous
15 December 2021
Every unhappy person I’ve ever seen has been caught in a belief system that holds out some promise, a promise that has not been kept. We want to hold on to our belief systems; but if we do, we suffer.
Yoko Beck
16 December 2021
Perfectionism is avoidance masquerading as quality-control.
Anonymous
17 December 2021
Resistance is futile.
The Borg (Star Trek)
Tolerance for pain may be high, but it is not without limit. Eventually everyone begins to recognize, however dimly, that there must be a better way. As this recognition becomes more firmly established, it becomes a turning point.
A Course In Miracles
... we had but two alternatives: One was to go on to the bitter end, blotting out the consciousness of our intolerable situation as best we could; and the other, to accept spiritual help.
Page 25
18 December 2021
You can do much on behalf of your own healing and that of others if, in a situation calling for help, you think of it this way:
I am here only to be truly helpful. I am here to represent Him Who sent me. I do not have to worry about what to say or what to do, because He Who sent me will direct me. I am content to be wherever He wishes, knowing He goes there with me. I will be healed as I let Him teach me to heal.
ACIM
19 December 2021
Who is there? asks God.
It is I.
Go away, God says...
Who is there? asks God.
It is Thou.
Enter, replies God.
Everyday Zen, Charlotte Joko Beck p. 115
20 December 2021
God knows me, and loves me, and cares for me. I am just as dear to Him as any human being who has ever lived. God has every quality of personality except limitation. He can be to me anything that any human being could be, and infinitely more. In truth and reality, nothing can ever touch me but the direct action of God Himself, and God is Love. There is no problem bigger than God. No difficulty, however seemingly grave, can come into my life which God cannot completely wipe out. God is continually instructing me and inspiring me, and in some good way He will now clearly show me the next important step in my life—and how to take that step. The Will of God for me is peace of mind, true place, happiness, joyous activity, and unbroken progress—I thank God for this.
Around The Year With Emmet Fox
21 December 2021
The door is wide and open, don’t go back to sleep.
Rumi
22 December 2021
Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good, put together, that overwhelm the world.
Desmond Tutu
23 December 2021
Make us gentle, courteous, and forbearing.
Direct our lives so that we may look to the good of others in word and deed.
Bishop Westcott
24 December 2021
Action expresses priorities.
Mahatma Ghandi
Willingness without action is fantasy.
Anonymous
25 December 2021
When you pray, you are not starting the conversation from scratch, just remembering to plug back into a conversation that’s always in progress.
Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith, Anne Lamott
26 December 2021
Another secret is that laughter is carbonated holiness.
Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith, Anne Lamott
27 December 2021
I live by the truth that “No” is a complete sentence.
Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith, Anne Lamott
28 December 2021
I rest as a spiritual act.
Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith, Anne Lamott
29 December 2021
Well, well, well, if it isn’t the consequences of my own actions.
Anonymous
30 December 2021
Everything happens for a reason. Sometimes the reason is that I’m dumb and make bad decisions.
Anonymous
31 December 2021
You can’t control people or the things they do. All you can control is how you respond.
Elizabeth, in Father Christmas is Back (2021 Netflix Christmas Special)
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