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 January 2024
How To Avoid Playing God (An Early AA Pamphlet)
(1) Offer no advice unless it is asked for.
(2) Listen to other people’s dreams and help them in the way they wish to be helped.
02 January 2024
How To Avoid Playing God (An Early AA Pamphlet)
(3) Encourage them to find their own strength.
(4) Reserve judgement—AT ALL TIMES.
03 January 2024
How To Avoid Playing God (An Early AA Pamphlet)
(5) Admit that you don’t know all the answers.
(6) Build confidence in the other person until their own judgement becomes clear.
04 January 2024
How To Avoid Playing God (An Early AA Pamphlet)
(7) Have faith in the overall rightness of God’s purpose in this world and the next.
(8) Dwell on what is right instead of what is wrong.
05 January 2024
How To Avoid Playing God (An Early AA Pamphlet)
(9) Realise the core of Divine Being in each person. Respect it.
(10) Never discount the other person’s good intentions.
06 January 2024
Be it also remembered that these diversities among men are as nothing in comparison with the attributes in which they agree, and it is this which constitutes their essential equality. All [persons] have the same rational nature, and the same power of conscience, and all are equally made for indefinite improvement of these divine faculties, and for the happiness to be found in their virtuous use.
W. E. Channing, Slavery
07 January 2024
Nothing outside you will fix you unless you’re waiting for an organ.
Anne Lamott
08 January 2024
Our common welfare comes first. With my wife, as much as I cared for her, and she was so good, sometimes I didn’t like her, I didn’t like the way she looked, I didn’t like the way she talked, I didn’t wanna hear anything about tennis, and so I would lie to her. She would say, ‘Are you OK’, and I’d say, ‘I’m really tired, I’m going upstairs.’ If she followed me upstairs, I’d go in the bathroom and lock the door. I did this because I would realise within an hour or so that [my mood] had nothing to do with her. I therefore learned to treat [the people I was in close] relationships with as I would a third party. I do that in some of my AA meetings I go to. Sometimes, I don’t like what’s going on, but I’m not gonna do anything that disturbs them.
Interview with Jim W on Sober Speak
09 January 2024
[I went to an AA group in a strange town] and I came to learn that that town had two [opposing factions in AA], and the meeting I was in was vigorously taking the other faction’s inventory. And so, as [the meeting] wound down, the chairman said, ‘Would Jim from San Antonio like to say something?’ And I said, ‘I sure would.’ I said, ‘You know, in our group, we find it’s better to take our own inventory.’ There was a moment of silence, and then the whole room erupted. You never heard such language in your life; I mean I was called things I didn’t know existed. I wasn’t sure if I was gonna get out of there alive. I went and asked this guy, ‘Are you still gonna take me to the hotel?’ He said, ‘Yes, I’m a man of integrity, but don’t open your mouth. I don’t wanna hear nothing you’ve got to say.’ I said, ‘OK.’
So anyway, I decided, if you ever see me in someone else’s group, you will not hear any criticism. None. I will not say anything.
Interview with Jim W on Sober Speak
10 January 2024
Do you take pride in your hurt? Does it make you seem large and tragic? Well, think about it. Maybe you’re playing a part on a great stage with only yourself as audience.
John Steinbeck
11 January 2024
it’s up to you to determine how you want to see the world that you see
it’s your perception that’s determining how you see
and then the way you see things determines how you feel
so your feelings are coming from your perceptions
they’re not coming from the situation or circumstance that you think is upsetting you or even making you happy
so whether you think you’re feeling great right now
you’re feeling great now really because of the way you’re seeing things
if you feel horrible right now
you’re feeling horrible because of the way that you see things
none of these events or physical events in your life are causing the way that you feel
Transcribed from a class by Earl Purdy
12 January 2024
Put down the binoculars and pick up a mirror.
Anonymous
13 January 2024
you are causing the way that you feel by the meaning that you’re giving to the events that are happening in your life right now
that is one of the most important things to recognise if you want to stop seeing yourself as a victim
which means you’re not a victim of the way you see things
so if I say I’m not a victim of the world I see
I’m not a victim of the way I see things
because who is determining the way that I see things?
guess what?
just me
just me
so at some point you have to stop blaming your mother and you have to stop blaming your father and you have to stop blaming your childhood and you have to stop blaming the people around you for how you’re feeling
because you’re the one that’s giving every single solitary thing in your life the meaning that it has for you
Transcribed from a class by Earl Purdy
14 January 2024
‘In the mornin’, we’ll pack him up some food and send him on his way.’
‘What way?’
‘That’s a tomorrow problem.’
The Rings of Power (S01E02)
15 January 2024
Once you realise you’re cuckoo, you’re half way out of the clock.
Anonymous
16 January 2024
people usually actively resist anything they hear that’s opposite to what they believe
usually when people hear things that’re completely different from what they believe
they go
that’s hard to believe
and they resist it
so new means different
so if a person says
I’m ready to get a new way of looking at my life and I’m ready to get a new way of looking at my relationships
they’re saying I want to hear something different from what I’m telling myself
I’m ready to hear something new
that means I’m ready to hear something different
Transcribed from a class by Earl Purdy
17 January 2024
Nori: ‘I didn’t go looking for this.’
Brandy: ‘But you’re not turning away.’
Nori: ‘Because I can’t.’
Brandy: ‘Because you won’t.’
The Rings of Power (S01E02)
18 January 2024
Chad: Raccaccoonie taught me so much! I ... I didn’t even know how to boil an egg, and he taught me how to spin it on a spatula. I’m useless alone.
Evelyn: We’re all useless alone. It’s a good thing you’re not alone.
Everything Everywhere All At Once
19 January 2024
so, when someone tells me that they haven’t been getting the results of the course in miracles
quite frankly I don’t really believe they’ve been using it and applying it
because I’ve never seen a person applying this material consistently who did not start to experience more of the peace and the awakening that it’s talking about
what happens with the course in miracles a lot is this:
sometimes, when you first look at it, it looks like English, but when you read it, you don’t know what the hell you just got through reading
so what happens next is that the temptation is
not to read it
but that’s just like saying
I don’t know how to bake a cake
I just got the recipe book for how to bake a cake
and I’m expecting the cake
but I haven’t read the recipe
not only have I not read the recipe
I haven’t even gotten the ingredients that the recipe says I need to get
but yet I’m looking for things to change
I’m looking for things to turn out the way that I want them to be
Transcribed from a class by Earl Purdy
20 January 2024
Nothing comes from outside your mind. Usually we think of our mind as receiving impressions and experiences from outside, but that is not a true understanding of our mind. The true understanding is that the mind includes everything; when you think something comes from outside it means only that something appears in your mind. Nothing outside yourself can cause any trouble. You yourself make the waves in your mind. If you leave your mind as it is, it will become calm. This mind is called big mind.
Shunryu Suzuki
21 January 2024
Arondir: ‘I must follow the passage. The other direction.’
Bronwyn: ‘You don’t know what’s down there.’
Arondir: ‘That is the reason I must go.’
The Rings of Power (S01E02)
22 January 2024
the [higher power] is telling me what to do
it’s telling me what to do and it’s telling me what to say
that’s why I always suggest to people
if you really want to go to a higher level of consciousness
stop teaching yourself and start trying to learn from something that’s more intelligent than you and it’s greater than you but it’s also within you
I’ll say that again
the most important thing that a conscious being wants to do
is to live by its guidance
by getting direction
just like when you’re using the GPS
you’re following it because it’s guiding you to the destination you want to go to
but you don’t know how to get there
so you just trust that the GPS does
and you just follow the guidance
you don’t pull over to the side of the road and say
explain to me why I should make a left turn three blocks from here
and where did that street come from?
who’s it named after?
what kind of pavement does it have?
you don’t analyse it
you just follow it
so people make their whole spiritual path hard because they think that it means they have to use their own wisdom in terms of deciding what to do or what not to do
and the course is saying that
you just have to follow the guidance that you’re given
Transcribed from a class by Earl Purdy
23 January 2024
Богу молись, а к берегу гребись.
Pray to God, but row for shore.
Russian proverb
24 January 2024
‘Look, Elf. You didn’t cause my suffering and you can’t fix it. No matter how strong your will. Or your pride. So let it lie.’
The Rings of Power (S01E02)
25 January 2024
if I say I’m going to be in a partnership with the person
I’m saying I am willing to experience the results of that person’s thinking with them
if you’re hooking up with somebody just because their body looks good but they’re a psycho then you’re probably gonna have to experience the drama that you’re going to go through as a result of dealing with a mind that’s insecure and jealous
so you get to some point that you ask yourself
is my desire to get this body
more important to me than the sanity and the mind and the thinking of the person that I’m going to be with who has this body
Earl Purdy
26 January 2024
My three-year-old said she wanted to be an astronaut, and I said she had to study hard, go to college, learn a lot of science, and take a physical fitness test, and she shrugged and said, ‘That’s just four things.’ So she’s basically a nonchalant motivational speaker.
Someone on Twitter
27 January 2024
‘Do you know why a ship floats and a stone cannot?’
‘Because the stone sees only downward.’
‘The darkness of the water is vast and irresistible. The ship feels the darkness as well, striving moment by moment to master her and pull her under. But the ship has a secret. For unlike the stone, her gaze is not downward but up. Fixed upon the light that guides her, whispering of grander things than darkness ever knew. But sometimes the lights shine just as brightly reflected in the water as they do in the sky. It’s hard to say which way is up and which way is down.’
‘How am I to know which lights to follow?’
‘Sometimes we cannot know until we have touched the darkness.’
The Rings of Power (S01E01)
28 January 2024
Nori: There’s head-sense, Poppy, and there’s heart-sense.
Poppy: There’s common sense and then there’s nonsense.
The Rings of Power (S01E03)
29 January 2024
Waiting for the sky to fall is going to cause more bother than the sky actually falling, which it isn’t.
American Gods
30 January 2024
Бог не выдаст; свинья не съест.
God’s not going to abandon you; the pig’s not going to eat you.
Russian proverb
31 January 2024
The moment you catch yourself thinking a negative thought, you should reject it instantly. Do not stop to say “goodbye” to the error but immediately switch your attention to the Presence of God. Indeed, we may say that, when error presents itself to consciousness, the first five seconds are golden.
Emmet Fox
01 February 2024
Rabbi Pinchas of Koretz taught that every person possesses one valuable trait that cannot be found in anyone else.
Recounted by Levi Welton
02 February 2024
Galadriel: What cannot be known hollows the mind. Fill it not with guesswork.
The Rings of Power (S01E07)
03 February 2024
One time a father complained to the Baal Shem Tov that his son had forsaken God. “Rabbi, what shall I do,” he asked. “Love him more than ever.”
04 February 2024
На Бога надейся, а сам не плошай.
Trust God, but watch your step.
Russian proverb
05 February 2024
The giver is only a channel for the gifts he has received from God. He cannot hoard or withhold them without blocking the channel.
One Day At A Time In Al-Anon (October 14)
06 February 2024
Galadriel: It darkens the heart, to call dark deeds “good.” It gives place for evil to thrive inside us. Every war is fought both without and within. Of that, every soldier must be mindful. Even I. Even you.
The Rings of Power (S01E07)
07 February 2024
It’s not the water you’re in that drowns you. It’s the water you inhale.
Anonymous
08 February 2024
Churchill tells of the British General Tudor, who commanded a division of the British Fifth Army, which faced the great German assault in March 1918. The odds were heavily against him, but General Tudor knew how to meet an apparently immovable and undefeatable obstacle. His method was simply. He merely stood and let the obstacle break on him, and he, in turn, broke the obstacle. Here is what Churchill said about General Tudor: ... “The impression I had of Tudor was of an iron peg, hammered into the frozen ground, immovable.”
Norman Vincent Peale
09 February 2024
If my name is not in the sentence, it doesn’t concern me.
Anonymous Al-Anon
10 February 2024
Reb Simcha Bunim of Peshischa taught that every person has to have two pockets and carry a separate note in each. In one pocket, “the universe was created for me,” and in the other pocket, “I am mere dust and ashes.”
Recounted by Levi Welton
11 February 2024
What’s an outside issue? Anything outside your relationship with God.
Anonymous Al-Anon
12 February 2024
Often, the path to nullifying the self is through focusing on the other, as the Alter Rebbe told a student who was complaining about his financial troubles, “You are speaking about what you need, but you have not given a thought to what you are needed for.”
Recounted by Levi Welton
13 February 2024
Nie mój cyrk, nie moje małpy
Not my circus, not my monkeys
Polish idiom
14 February 2024
If I can get my head around God, either God is too small, or my head is too big.
Anonymous Al-Anon
15 February 2024
The Baal Shem Tov once said, “The source of all sadness is pride, since the proud person thinks he is entitled to everything.” He taught that even the simplest soul can bond to the Infinite Creator with joy, song, and dance.
Recounted by Levi Welton
16 February 2024
I did not cross that bitter ocean ... Only to drown now.
The Rings of Power (S01E08)
17 February 2024
Therapist: Part of this journey requires us going to uncomfortable places emotionally.
Wednesday: I don’t travel well.
Wednesday
18 February 2024
Rabbi Yechiel Michel of Zlotchov said, “There are two things it is forbidden to worry about: that which it is possible to fix, and that which it is impossible to fix. What is possible to fix—fix it, and why worry? What is impossible to fix—how will worrying help?”
Recounted by Levi Welton
19 February 2024
Though there are instances when, after sobriety has been attained, severe emotional or mental disturbances may require medical attention, most AAs would do better to work the Steps harder and more frequently if they want to get rid of symptoms of depression, anxiety, fear, hostility, apathy, and so on.
Paul Martin, Have We Forgotten Dr Bob’s Request?
20 February 2024
Hardly anyone has been told the following truth: In order to be genuinely happy, there is one and only one thing you need to do—get deprogrammed and get rid of those attachments. When people stumble upon this self-evident truth, they become terrified at the thought of the pain involved in dropping their attachments. But the process is not a painful one at all. On the contrary, getting rid of attachments is a perfectly delightful task, that is, if the instrument you use to rid yourself of them is not willpower or renunciation, but sight. All you need to do is open your eyes and see that you do not really need the object of your attachment at all—that you were programmed, brainwashed into thinking that you could not be happy or you could not live without that particular person or thing.
Anthony de Mello, Stop Fixing Yourself (p. 18)
21 February 2024
CHOOSE ONCE AGAIN
If we are willing to open our eyes, unplug our ears, open our hands to both receiving and giving, let our emotions flow in loving energy, and be open channels, we will receive everything we need to awaken. We will find the way and the power to ‘seek God, clean house, and help others’. We do not change the divine laws when we plant corn instead of wheat, but we do exercise our power of choice. We can choose, but it is God who creates. So, we choose and leave the results to our Higher Power.
Jim W
22 February 2024
For oft-recurring sickness the same [medicine] may be prescribed by the most skilful physician without blame. No one scolds the contractor for mending rough roads again and again with stones from the same quarry. The wind which has borne us once into the haven is not despised for blowing often from the same quarter, for it may do us good service yet again.
Charles H. Spurgeon, Sermon No. 547
23 February 2024
“Absolute surrender to God is the one thing.” The words struck me as never before. And that man began to tell how, in the workers with whom he had to deal, he finds that if they are sound on that point, even though they be backward, they are willing to be taught and helped, and they always improve; whereas others who are not sound there very often go back and leave the work. The condition for obtaining God’s full blessing is absolute surrender to Him.
Andrew Murray, Absolute Surrender
24 February 2024
Today I would behold my brother sinless. This Your Will for me, for so will I behold my sinlessness.
A Course In Miracles, Lesson 334
25 February 2024
THE DRUG: GUILT AND PUNISHMENT
The drug of choice for so many otherwise loving, good people is guilt and punishment. It is suggested that we set aside all guilt and punishment for others and ourselves. Guilt and punishment are much like alcohol and other drugs. They give us the illusion that we have done something about the problem; however, we may have a temporary fix at best when in truth nothing has changed at the root of our problems, our personal ‘reality’.
We will repeat the same problems until there is real healing. We are asked to seek correction, not guilt and punishment. Remember this: we cannot have an open mind or a new or higher understanding when we are judging. Judging is a form of projecting our old personal ‘reality,’ not Reality with a capital ‘R’.
Jim W
26 February 2024
The Twelve Steps are deceptively simple but provide limitless spiritual growth for anyone with the patience to stay the course. However, the timetable is generally far slower than we believe it should be. That’s why so many members of Alcoholics Anonymous wander into various kinds of groups that promise spiritual enlightenment or psychological fixes on a fast track. It’s a promise such groups rarely, if ever, keep.
Paul Martin, It Works For Me, around his 60th AA anniversary
27 February 2024
Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over.
Luke 6:38
28 February 2024
What should I do?
What is practical. What is possible. What is simple.
Tom W
29 February 2024
God is not interested in my ability, nor my inabilities, but only my availability!
Al Kohallek
Tom W01 March 2024
There are even people who dread to challenge and lose a pet theory, ideology, or belief they are attached to. Do you want to know how to measure the degree of rigidity and deadness attachments cause? Observe the amount of pain you experience when you lose a cherished idea, person, or thing. The pain and the grief betray your clinging, do they not? That is why, when life bursts in to shatter your illusions, you experience so much pain. An attachment, by its very nature, makes you vulnerable to emotional turmoil and is always threatening to shatter your peace.
Anthony de Mello, Stop Fixing Yourself (p. 15)
02 March 2024
ME AND MY SHADOW
What most of us see is our own little reflection in that limiting mirror of our personal ‘reality’, hearing the hum of our little voice as that ‘reality’. This image we see and the sounds we hear are so familiar, so habitual that we often think and feel that ‘this’ is Reality. At best it is but a shadow of our Higher Self.
Jim W
03 March 2024
You know in daily life what absolute surrender is. You know that everything has to be given up to its special, definite object and service. I have a pen in my pocket, and that pen is absolutely surrendered to the one work of writing, and that pen must be absolutely surrendered to my hand if I am to write properly with it. If another holds it partly, I cannot write properly.
Andrew Murray, Absolute Surrender
04 March 2024
I can’t expect to live on the food I ate ten years ago, or on last year’s water or last month’s air. I need to eat, drink water, and breathe regularly in order to live. The exercise I took five years ago doesn’t make me healthy today. The same holds true for the Steps.
Paul Martin, I’ve Done the Twelve Steps—Now What?
05 March 2024
Who shall climb the mountain of the Lord?
Who shall stand in his holy place?
The man with clean hands and pure heart,
Who desires not worthless things.
Psalm 23 (Grail translation, Psalm 24 in the Hebrew numbering)
06 March 2024
“How do you solve a problem like Maria?”
Rogers and Hammerstein
“If I try to govern another person’s life, I will fail. When I fix my thoughts on improving my own, I can count on the help of my Higher Power.”
One Day At A Time In Al-Anon
07 March 2024
WATCH OUT FOR TERMITES
Watch out for the termites, the little day-in day-out stuff. This is a real present danger. These little guys undermine the foundation of every relationship. Termites destroy more property than all the fires, floods, wind, and hail, and so it is with relationships. We are forced to do something about the ‘big’ problems or run away. With the little stuff we don’t have to do anything straight away, or it does not seem important enough to deal with. In one way or another, we often stuff these problems down and pretend they are not there. One termite doesn’t matter, but when they build up in numbers, watch out. It is best to deal with all problems ASAP.
Jim W
08 March 2024
Today I give myself unstintingly to Life. I unloose the wellsprings of my being and make a complete deliverance of the self to Life. This I do spontaneously and with joy, withholding nothing. I will not do this with any hope of reward, but in the glad joy for the opportunity to increase my own livingness. Everything that I have belongs to the world. Giving, I will receive the world back into my own consciousness.
Ernest Holmes, 365 Science of Mind
09 March 2024
Who is responsible for the programming? Not you. It isn’t really you who decided even such basics as your wants, desires, and so-called needs, your values, your tastes, and your attitudes. It was your parents, your society, your culture, your religion, and your past experiences that fed the operating instructions into your computer. Now, however old you are or wherever you go, your computer goes along with you and is active and operating at each conscious moment of the day. It is imperiously insisting that its demands be met by life, by people, and by you. If the demands are met, the computer allows you to be peaceful and happy. If they are not met, even though it is no fault of yours, the computer generates negative emotions that cause you to suffer.
Anthony de Mello, Stop Fixing Yourself (p. 12)
10 March 2024
(To his dog) Either do your business or stop sniffing the damn grass.
Justin Elliott (from The Archers)
11 March 2024
In the first two or three years, I did as thorough a job as possible with One through Nine and then attempted to subsist on Ten, Eleven, and Twelve. In 1963, I ran into the view that there was continuing benefit in persistent work with all the Twelve Steps. On the theory that it couldn’t hurt to try, I went back to the first Steps and started over. I wrote out a new Fourth Step and followed it with another Fifth Step.
It turned out that there was a vast difference between a periodic written inventory and a Tenth Step spot check. While the results of a renewed Fifth Step were not as dramatic as those of the first one, years before, it swiftly became apparent that it was extremely helpful to keep opening up completely with other human beings. In my experience, the most helpful Fifth Steps have always been those taken with another AA who’s working hard at this part of the programme. He’s helpful because he speaks from fresh, growing experience.
Paul Martin, I’ve Done the Twelve Steps—Now What?
12 March 2024
SIMPLE BUT NOT EASY
Everything is so very simple after we have awakened to the spiritual life and started to live it. It is not easy, but it is simple. Trying to force something to be simple before the awakening can be a problem. Everything is simple when it is simple but not until then.
Jim W
13 March 2024
“Your Majesty, I have bad news and good news.”
“What is the bad news?”
“Our fortress is in shambles, we are out of ammunition, and half the men have deserted. We will never be able to defend ourselves against the barbarians.”
“That’s terrible news! How could there be any good news?”
“There are no barbarians!”
Edwina Ann Doyle
14 March 2024
This little volume (the result of meditation and experience) is not intended as an exhaustive treatise on the much-written-upon subject of the power of thought. It is suggestive rather than explanatory, its object being to stimulate men and women to the discovery and perception of the truth that, “They themselves are makers of themselves,” by virtue of the thoughts that they choose and encourage; that mind is the master-weaver, both of the inner garment of character and the outer garment of circumstance, and that, as they may have hitherto woven in ignorance and pain they may now weave in enlightenment and happiness.
As a Man Thinketh, James Allen
15 March 2024
“You have a traitor there, Aslan,” said the Witch. Of course everyone present knew that she meant Edmund. But Edmund had got past thinking about himself after all he’d been through and after the talk he’d had that morning. He just went on looking at Aslan. It didn’t seem to matter what the Witch said.
C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
16 March 2024
The love of God is a matter of the will and not of the emotions. It means opting for God even when there is no enjoyment of God. It means trying to live up to the principles laid down in the Sermon on the Mount, even when human pressures, current behaviour, accepted standards, considerations of health and, most difficult of all, human prudence point the other way. It means following the still small whisper of conscience which refuses to be silenced when the crowd is shouting for the opposite opinion.
Dom Hubert van Zeller, And So To God
17 March 2024
Wake up! Life is a banquet; the tragedy is that most people are starving to death. It’s like the people who were stuck on a raft off the coast of Brazil, perishing from thirst. They had no idea that the water they were floating on was fresh water. The river was emptying into the sea with such force that it reached into waters a couple of miles out. They had freshwater right where they were—but they had no idea. In the same way, we’re surrounded with joy, happiness, and love, but most people have no idea about it whatsoever. The reason? They’re brainwashed. The reason? They’re hypnotised. They’re asleep. It’s like a stage magician who hypnotises someone so that the person sees what is not there and does not see what is there.
Anthony de Mello, Stop Fixing Yourself (p. 9)
18 March 2024
I wrote out a new Eighth Step and found a number of names that belonged on it. Some had been added since my joining AA; some just had not occurred to me the first time around. I made amends to these people and found increasing freedom within myself. It gradually became clear that the Twelve Steps, all of them, will speak to my condition wherever I am in sobriety. Whether I’ve been sober a year, ten years, twenty years, or longer, they’ll provide a springboard for change and growth. Today, I work regularly and frequently with thorough written inventories and Fifth Steps. The Fourth and Fifth, along with the other Steps, open a door to growing awareness of truth. It begins, I believe, with knowing the truth about myself. Someone has defined the ego as “the sum total of false ideas about myself”. Persistent reworking of the Steps gradually strips away my false ideas of myself. This permits gradual, nearly imperceptible growth in my understanding of the truth about myself, and this, in turn, leads to growing understanding of God and other human beings.
Paul Martin, I’ve Done the Twelve Steps—Now What?
19 March 2024
SAME BEGINNING AND ENDING
We took a look at every important relationship in our life: lover, friends, business, etc. They all seem to begin and end the same way. All began like this: ‘If I believe that you believe in me, we have a deal’. The beginning of the end is like this: ‘I no longer believe that you believe I am special’.
Jim W
20 March 2024
As the plant springs from, and could not be without, the seed, so every act of a man springs from the hidden seeds of thought and could not have appeared without them. This applies equally to those acts called “spontaneous” and “unpremeditated” as to those that are deliberately executed.
As a Man Thinketh, James Allen
21 March 2024
“In our world,” said Eustace, “a star is a huge ball of flaming gas.”
“Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is, but only what it is made of.”
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, C. S. Lewis
22 March 2024
People ask me all the time, what do I need to do to change myself? If you are one of those people, I’ve got a big surprise for you! You don’t have to do anything. In fact, the more you do, the worse it gets. All you have to do is understand. The trouble with most people is that they’re busy trying to fix things in themselves that they really don’t understand. Stop fixing yourself. You’re OK. Don’t interfere. Don’t fix anything. Simply watch. Observe. These things in you that you struggle to fix just need to be understood. If you understood them, they would change.
Anthony de Mello, Stop Fixing Yourself (p. 6)
23 March 2024
It is no good saying “Lord, Lord” unless we do what God wants.
Dom Hubert van Zeller, And So To God
24 March 2024
It’s sometimes said, and not simply in jest, that if you want to hide something from an AA member, the best place to put it is in the Big Book. Why is it that we’ll carefully read everything else, searching for answers, and overlook the transforming truths in the Big Book? What’s the powerful attraction in these other books and ideas? Possibly it’s because we can discuss them and sound witty, intelligent, and excruciatingly smart. Perhaps we sometimes sell our programme short because it’s hard to believe that anything that simple can have complete answers. I’ve tried the full range of “expanded approaches” and today realise that, time after time, my search for spiritual answers in these other areas has been nothing but an egotistical blind alley.
Paul Martin, I’ve Done the Twelve Steps—Now What?
25 March 2024
Granted the quarrel ... did we fight fair? Or did we not quite unknowingly falsify the whole issue? Did we pretend to be angry about one thing when we knew, or could have known, that our anger had a different and much less presentable cause? Did we pretend to be “hurt” in our sensitive and tender feelings (fine natures like ours are so vulnerable) when envy, ungratified vanity, or thwarted self-will was our real trouble? Such tactics often succeed. The other parties give in. They give in not because they don’t know what is really wrong with us but because they have long known it only too well, and that sleeping dog can be roused, that skeleton brought out of its cupboard, only at the cost of imperilling their whole relationship with us. It needs surgery which they know we will never face. And so we win; by cheating. But the unfairness is very deeply felt. Indeed what is commonly called “sensitiveness” is the most powerful engine of domestic tyranny, sometimes a lifelong tyranny. How we should deal with it in others I am not sure; but we should be merciless to its first appearances in ourselves.
C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms
26 March 2024
“Oh!” said Susan in a different tone. “Look! I wonder—I mean, is it safe?” Lucy looked and saw that Aslan had just breathed on the feet of the stone giant. “It’s all right!” shouted Aslan joyously. “Once the feet are put right, all the rest of him will follow.”
C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
27 March 2024
Rousseau continued to nurse his paranoid suspicions until he had detected an intricate international conspiracy to defame him, one headed by none other than David Hume. Rousseau then writes a thirty-eight page tightly spaced letter setting out his accusations minutely, including, most damningly of all, that ‘Hume had stared at him in an unsettling manner’. ‘To substantiate these charges Rousseau produced no evidence beyond his own gut feelings, which, typically, he was sure must be right.’
Adam Smith then counsels Hume to ignore him, counsel which he, Hume, himself ignores: ‘By endeavouring to unmask before the public this hypocritical pedant, you run the risk of disturbing the tranquillity of your whole life. By letting him alone he cannot give you a fortnight’s uneasiness. To write against him is, you may depend on it, the very thing he wishes you to do.’
Dennis C. Rasmussen, The Infidel and the Professor
28 March 2024
Man is a growth by law, and not a creation by artifice, and cause and effect are as absolute and undeviating in the hidden realm of thought as in the world of visible and material things. A noble and Godlike character is not a thing of favour or chance but is the natural result of continued effort in right thinking, the effect of long-cherished association with Godlike thoughts. An ignoble and bestial character, by the same process, is the result of the continued harbouring of grovelling thoughts.
As a Man Thinketh, James Allen
29 March 2024
Think of the numberless persons and things that so excited you in the past. What happened? In every single instance, they ended up causing you suffering or boredom—did they not? It is absolutely essential that you understand this because, until you do, there is no question of your ever finding the Kingdom of Joy.
Anthony de Mello, Stop Fixing Yourself (p. 4)
30 March 2024
“Of course,” said Aslan. “And now! Those who can’t keep up—that is, children, dwarfs, and small animals—must ride on the backs of those who can—that is, lions, centaurs, unicorns, horses, giants, and eagles. Those who are good with their noses must come in front with us lions to smell out where the battle is. Look lively and sort yourselves.”
C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
31 March 2024
In commercial societies, people undergo nearly endless toil and anxiety in the pursuit of frivolous material goods that provide only fleeting satisfaction.
Dennis C. Rasmussen, quoting Adam Smith
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