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 2024

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
be open channels

... we will receive everything we need to awaken.

Al Kohallek

02 October 2024

The Buddha said all suffering comes from desire. To restate that in Course terms, all suffering comes from the desire to exist and not be held accountable for it. It’s my suffering that allows me to fulfil that second part of the wish. You are responsible for my suffering. Whether the ‘you’ is the so-called natural law of the body, or the unnatural, unloving, unkind things you do to me. That is why we fill our lives with people who are rejecting, abandoning, unfaithful, betraying, abusive, victimisers.

Kenneth Wapnick, Jesus: Wakening to Resurrection

03 October 2024

Han bar nederlaget utan självmedlidande och framgången utan självbeundran. Om han visste sig ha betalat den yttersta skärven, var det honom likgiltigt hur andra bedömde resultatet.

He bore defeat without self-pity and success without self-admiration. If he knew he had ‘paid the uttermost farthing’, he was indifferent as to how others assessed the result.

Dag Hammarskjöld, Vägmärken (‘Road Signs’)

04 October 2024

Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?

Matthew 6:25

05 October 2024

Lady Grantham: “You are quite wonderful the way you see room for improvement wherever you look. I never knew such reforming zeal.”
Mrs Crawley: “I take that as a compliment.”
Lady Grantham: “I must’ve said it wrong.”

Downton Abbey

06 October 2024

As I’ve often stated,
It’s intolerable being tolerated.

Henrik, A Little Night Music, Stephen Sondheim

07 October 2024

Though I’ve been born, I’ve never been!
How can I wait around for later?
I’ll be ninety on my deathbed
And the late, or, rather, later, Henrik Egerman.
Doesn’t anything begin?

Henrik, A Little Night Music, Stephen Sondheim

08 October 2024

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

John 15:13

09 October 2024

Come l’Eden, prima del “ta ta ta”
Come prima quando tutto era unito
Mentre ora cammino in questo mondo proibito
Quando il cielo era infinito
Quando c’era la festa e non serviva l’invito

Like Eden, before the fall
As before, when everything was unified
Whilst now I walk in this forbidden world
When the sky was infinite
When there was a celebration, and no one needed an invitation

Rancore, Eden

10 October 2024

Det som ger livet värde kan du nå—och förlora. Men aldrig äga.

What gives life value you can achieve—and lose. But never own.

Dag Hammarskjöld, Vägmärken (‘Road Signs’)

11 October 2024

But you must understand that no one ever gives anything to another properly and really without keeping it.

The Princess and the Goblin, George MacDonald

12 October 2024

In King Lear there is a man who is such a minor character that Shakespeare has not given him even a name: he is merely “First Servant”. All the characters around him—Regan, Cornwall, and Edmund—have fine long-term plans. They think they know how the story is going to end, and they are quite wrong. The servant has no such delusions. He has no notion how the play is going to go. But he understands the present scene. He sees an abomination (the blinding of old Gloucester) taking place. He will not stand it. His sword is out and pointed at his master’s breast in a moment: then Regan stabs him dead from behind. That is his whole part: eight lines all told. But if it were real life and not a play, that is the part it would be best to have acted.

C. S. Lewis

13 October 2024

It’s all about the mission.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

14 October 2024

At a time when people were generally decrying the Japanese bombardment of Shanghai, I met Karl Kraus struggling over one of his famous comma problems. He said something like: ‘I know that everything is futile when the house is burning. But I have to do this, as long as it is at all possible; for if those who were supposed to look after commas had always made sure they were in the right place, Shanghai would not be burning’.

Ernst Křenek: On Karl Kraus

15 October 2024

The quest of the Inner Ring will break your hearts unless you break it. But if you break it, a surprising result will follow. If in your working hours you make the work your end, you will presently find yourself all unawares inside the only circle in your profession that really matters. You will be one of the sound craftsmen, and other sound craftsmen will know it. This group of craftsmen will by no means coincide with the Inner Ring or the Important People or the People in the Know. It will not shape that professional policy or work up that professional influence which fights for the profession as a whole against the public: nor will it lead to those periodic scandals and crises which the Inner Ring produces. But it will do those things which that profession exists to do and will in the long run be responsible for all the respect which that profession in fact enjoys and which the speeches and advertisements cannot maintain.

C. S. Lewis, The Inner Ring

16 October 2024

Not daring to look behind her, she rushed straight out of the gate and up the mountain. It was foolish indeed—thus to run farther and farther from all who could help her, as if she had been seeking a fit spot for the goblin creature to eat her in his leisure; but that is the way fear serves us: it always sides with the thing we are afraid of.

George MacDonald, The Princess and the Goblin

17 October 2024

På mina villkor. Att leva under det tecknet är att köpa kunskap om livslinjen—till priset av ensamhet.

‘On my terms’. Living in accordance with this motto means buying certainty about the path ahead—at the price of loneliness.

Dag Hammarskjöld, Vägmärken (‘Road Signs’)

18 October 2024

Chez nous autres hommes que voyons-nous? Adoration exclusive et aveugle du moi, dédain pour autrui, mépris du devoir, sensualisme, imprévoyance. Chez les abeilles au contraire, nous voyons abnégation, dévouement au bien commun poussé jusqu’à l’héroïsme, zèle, prévoyance, sobriété, amour incomparable du travail.

What do we see in man? Exclusive and blind adoration of self, contempt for others, neglect of obligation, sensualism, recklessness. By contrast, what do we see in bees? Self-denial, devotion to the common good of heroic proportions, zeal, foresight, moderation, and unparalleled love of work.

Abbé Chervat, a 19th-century French priest and beekeeper

19 October 2024

The big temptation in the world is always to try to change the form. Later on, also, we may look at Lesson 71, “Only God’s plan for salvation will work,” ... which ... very, very specifically addresses the issue of “if only.” If only this person were different, if only my life were different, if only my body were different, if only my job were different, if only my place of living were different, if only my president were different, if only my prime minister were different, if only the weather were different, if only God were different. If only this were different, that were different—then I’d be happy.

Kenneth Wapnick, Life: A Required Course

20 October 2024

Now, Curdie!’ she cried, ‘won’t you believe what I told you about my grandmother and her thread?’
For she had felt all the time that Curdie was not believing what she told him.
‘There!—don’t you see it shining on before us?’ she added.
‘I don’t see anything,’ persisted Curdie.
‘Then you must believe without seeing,’ said the princess; ‘for you can’t deny it has brought us out of the mountain.’

George MacDonald, The Princess and the Goblin

21 October 2024

On the level of the mind, which is the only thing that exists, I’m responsible for how I feel. I’m not responsible for what my eyes see. I am responsible for what my mind does with what my eyes see. When [the Course] says in the line people like to quote, “I am responsible for what I see”—it’s not what I see with my eyes; it’s the way I see it. Do I see it as an expression of the ego’s separate interests? Or do I see it as the Holy Spirit’s way of teaching me shared interests?

Kenneth Wapnick, The World: A Bad Idea

22 October 2024

From The Inner Ring by C. S. Lewis:

Once the first novelty is worn off, the members of this circle will be no more interesting than your old friends. Why should they be? You were not looking for virtue or kindness or loyalty or humour or learning or wit or any of the things that can really be enjoyed. You merely wanted to be “in.” And that is a pleasure that cannot last. As soon as your new associates have been staled to you by custom, you will be looking for another Ring. The rainbow’s end will still be ahead of you. The old ring will now be only the drab background for your endeavour to enter the new one.

23 October 2024

Det finns bara en väg ut ur den dunstiga, snåriga djungel där kampen föres om ära och makt och förmåner—bland snärjande hinder som du själv skapat. Och den är: att acceptera döden.

There is only one way out of the misty, tangled jungle where the battle is fought for honour and power and privileges—amongst the obstacles which trip you but which you yourself created. And it is this: to accept death.

Dag Hammarskjöld, Vägmärken (‘Road Signs’)

24 October 2024

And if in your spare time you consort simply with the people you like, you will again find that you have come unawares to a real inside: that you are indeed snug and safe at the centre of something which, seen from without, would look exactly like an Inner Ring. But the difference is that the secrecy is accidental, and its exclusiveness a by-product, and no one was led thither by the lure of the esoteric: for it is only four or five people who like one another, meeting to do things that they like. This is friendship. Aristotle placed it among the virtues. It causes perhaps half of all the happiness in the world, and no Inner Ring can ever have it.

C. S. Lewis, The Inner Ring

25 October 2024

He was anxious to strike, and indeed striking was just what he felt in the mood for, while the iron was hot and before reflection set in to suggest to him that there were a great many possible ways of dealing with this situation.

Iris Murdoch, The Flight From The Enchanter

26 October 2024

‘I’ve brought Curdie, grandmother. He wouldn’t believe what I told him and so I’ve brought him.’
‘Yes—I see him. He is a good boy, Curdie, and a brave boy. Aren’t you glad you’ve got him out?’
‘Yes, grandmother. But it wasn’t very good of him not to believe me when I was telling him the truth.’
‘People must believe what they can, and those who believe more must not be hard upon those who believe less. I doubt if you would have believed it all yourself if you hadn’t seen some of it.’

George MacDonald, The Princess and the Goblin

27 October 2024

Of all the passions, the passion for the Inner Ring is most skilful in making a man who is not yet a very bad man do very bad things. ... The torture allotted to the Danaids in the classical underworld, that of attempting to fill sieves with water, is the symbol not of one vice, but of all vices. It is the very mark of a perverse desire that it seeks what is not to be had. The desire to be inside the invisible line illustrates this rule. As long as you are governed by that desire you will never get what you want. You are trying to peel an onion: if you succeed there will be nothing left. Until you conquer the fear of being an outsider, an outsider you will remain.

C. S. Lewis, The Inner Ring

28 October 2024

Sometimes you’ve got to stand still for a long time before you realise you’re moving too fast.

Benidorm, S07:E06

29 October 2024

Son: I want to go back to New York.
Father: Get used to it.
Son: I don’t wanna live here.
Father: [Later on,] I’m going to explain the difference between a want and a need, and it’s going to blow your mind.

The Good Witch, S01:E01

30 October 2024

Chacun son métier et les vaches seront bien gardées.

If each person pursues their occupation well, the cows will be well looked-after.

French proverb

31 October 2024

‘[...] I did not mean to show myself. Curdie is not yet able to believe some things. Seeing is not believing—it is only seeing. You remember I told you that if Lootie were to see me, she would rub her eyes, forget the half she saw, and call the other half nonsense.’

George MacDonald, The Princess and the Goblin

01 November 2024

I do not have to change you. I do not have to punish you. I do not have to correct your behaviour. I do not have to love you. I do not have to be nice to you. I just see you as the same as I am. That is all I have to do. And when I do that, the love that is inherent in my choosing that [course] will automatically extend through me, and I will say and be loving. I will be comforting. I will say and do whatever it is that will be helpful, because my content now is the lesson of forgiveness, not the lesson of attack.

Kenneth Wapnick, Forgiveness: An Earthly Frame

02 November 2024

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds ...

Philippians 4:6-7

03 November 2024

Son: Oh, wait. I have an idea.
Mother: Hurrah. But run it by Mommy first in case it’s a stinker.

Only Murders in the Building, S03:E07

04 November 2024

When the moment comes for it to depart, even though, according to its understanding of the matter, the bird is quite certain that things are quite good the way they are, and that to travel is thus to let go of what is certain in order to grasp what is uncertain, the obedient bird nonetheless immediately sets forth on the journey.

Kierkegaard

05 November 2024

Simply identifying as a victim is being a victimiser. Because when you identify as a victim, you are pointing a guilty finger at someone and saying, “You did this to me. Look at what you made of me and you stand condemned because of the sick and suffering person that I am.”

Kenneth Wapnick, The Laws of Chaos

06 November 2024

‘But in the meantime you must be content, I say, to be misunderstood for a while. We are all very anxious to be understood, and it is very hard not to be. But there is one thing much more necessary.’
‘What is that, grandmother?’
‘To understand other people.’

George MacDonald, The Princess and the Goblin

07 November 2024

When the bird comes into contact with the harshness of this life, when it is tried with difficulties and opposition, when, every morning, day after day, it finds that its nest has been disturbed: every day, the obedient bird begins its work all over again with the same joy and meticulousness it displayed the first time.

Kierkegaard

08 November 2024

You have to be able to recognise your terror of the inherent nothingness of your existence. You won’t do that unless you begin to have some experiences that there is something else. That’s why the whole structure of the Course is always to give us both ends of the ladder. We’re told in graphic detail the horrors of the ego system. But we’re also given glimpses every once in a while of what’s at the top of the ladder.

There were those two beautiful sections, “The Forgiven World”, and “Where Sin Has Left”, which talks about the beauty of the real world. And then we get even rarer glimpses of Heaven that’s beyond it. But you get both sides in this course so that you’re not giving up the ego’s nothingness to nothing. You’re giving up the ego’s nothingness to itself, which leaves for you the Everything that we are. But that’s why there’s a process. That’s why this is slow and gentle, because we’re so afraid.

Kenneth Wapnick, Ph.D., The Dawning of Consciousness: The End of Oneness

09 November 2024

No earthly pleasures, no kingdoms of this world can benefit me in any way.

St Ignatius of Antioch

10 November 2024

The Lord knows the thoughts of men. He knows they are no more than a breath.

Psalm 94

11 November 2024

When the bird must experience the world’s evil, when the little songbird that sings to the glory of God must put up with a naughty child’s finding amusement in jeering at it in order, if possible, to disturb the solemnity, the bird, despite having been driven off and scared away, is untiring in returning to its love and its old place: the obedient bird submits unconditionally to everything.

Kierkegaard

12 November 2024

‘Yes, grandmother. I must be fair—for if I’m not fair to other people, I’m not worth being understood myself. I see. So as Curdie can’t help it, I will not be vexed with him, but just wait.’

George MacDonald, The Princess and the Goblin

13 November 2024

One of the difficulties in resisting worldliness is that it does not come under the head of a specific sin. You do not commit worldliness; you grow into it without noticing the effect it is having on your character. You may notice some of its effects: extravagance, or the desire to climb socially, or disdain for those of humbler standing, but unless your prayer life brings light to bear, you do not think about it and feel no guilt. Whoever mentions worldliness in confession? It is like infected air which is unconsciously breathed into the lungs and becomes the source of diseases not hitherto suspected.

Dom Hubert van Zeller

14 November 2024

My desire is to belong to God. Do not, then, hand me back to the world. Do not try to tempt me with material things. Let me attain pure light. Only on my arrival there can I be fully a human being.

St Ignatius of Antioch

15 November 2024

A little girl, aged four, had a nightmare. Crying, she came downstairs to the dining room where her parents were still sitting after dinner. Her mother carried her up to bed and explained about nightmares being scary, but that they meant nothing at all and that the thing to do was to say a little prayer and go to sleep again. “But I did say a little prayer,” the child answered, “and I wasn’t so scared about the nightmare. I was scared because I couldn’t get God back into my head.” “Back” shows here that her head was the normal place for God to be and that the nightmare had seemed to take him away. If that isn’t spirituality, what is?

Dom Hubert van Zeller

16 November 2024

Be useful where thou livest, that they may
Both want, and wish thy pleasing presence still.
Kindness, good parts, great places are the way
To compass this. Find out men’s wants and will,
And meet them there. All worldly joys go less
To the one joy of doing kindnesses.

George Herbert

17 November 2024

Here I should like to remark, for the sake of princes and princesses in general, that it is a low and contemptible thing to refuse to confess a fault, or even an error. If a true princess has done wrong, she is always uneasy until she has had an opportunity of throwing the wrongness away from her by saying: ‘I did it; and I wish I had not; and I am sorry for having done it.’ So you see there is some ground for supposing that Curdie was not a miner only, but a prince as well. Many such instances have been known in the world’s history.

George MacDonald, The Princess and the Goblin

18 November 2024

The Twelve Steps are like the numbers on a clockface. You get to twelve and find yourself back at one. Round and round you go.

Anonymous

19 November 2024

Whatever it is that presses thee, go tell the Father; put the whole matter over into His hand, and so shalt thou be freed from that dividing, perplexing care that the world is full of. When thou art either to do or suffer anything, when thou art about any purpose or business, go tell God of it, and acquaint Him with it; yes, burden Him with it, and thou hast done for matter of caring; no more care, but quiet, sweet, diligence in thy duty, and dependence on Him for the carriage of thy matters. Roll thy cares, and thyself with them, as one burden, all on thy God.

R. Leighton

20 November 2024

Build a little fence of trust
Around today;
Fill the space with loving work
And therein stay.

Look not through the sheltering bars
Upon tomorrow;
God will help thee bear what comes
Of joy or sorrow.

Mary Butts

21 November 2024

Psalm 126 speaks of those who sow with tears, and sometimes this is what we need to do. It means that while we are still hurting, we keep doing the right thing—keep helping others, keep praying, and keep studying God’s Word. As we do, we sow seeds for an eventual harvest. I used to wonder why God wouldn’t give me the ability to solve my own problems or help myself, but at the same time I was hurting, He would give me the ability to help others. Then I learned that He wants us to reach out to others, and when we do, we are sowing seed for our future harvest.

Joyce Meyer

22 November 2024

The Bible says that “weeping endures for a night, but joy comes in the morning” (Psalm 30:5 NKJV). Admittedly, it often takes more than one night for our problems to be solved, but this Psalm teaches us a principle: God always comes through and gives us victory. Your problems will end, and your sorrow will turn to joy.

Joyce Meyer

23 November 2024

You look at a plant and say to yourself: I am a being of which I see only a mirror image, an inessential reflection, while on Earth. The more I turn my gaze to the stars, the more I see the true being up there.

Rudolf Steiner

24 November 2024

Freedom from hate

The alcoholic usually becomes a bundle of resentments. Through the New Way of Life, he comes to understand that his fellow man is beset with difficulties, too. He learns human sympathy and tolerance. He comes to realise that it is the lot of our common humanity to be weak, that this frailty calls for help, not hatred. He learns that it is more fun to create than to destroy. He learns that many of his resentments were inspired by the unworthy motive of debasing others to his own unenviable level.