Readings for each day of the week
Alcoholics Anonymous, pages 86 to 88; Step Eleven, morning
Friday
On awakening let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead. We consider our plans for the day. Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives. Under these conditions we can employ our mental faculties with assurance, for after all God gave us brains to use. Our thought-life will be placed on a much higher plane when our thinking is cleared of wrong motives.
Saturday
In thinking about our day we may face indecision. We may not be able to determine which course to take. Here we ask God for inspiration, an intuitive thought or a decision. We relax and take it easy. We don’t struggle. We are often surprised how the right answers come after we have tried this for a while. What used to be the hunch or the occasional inspiration gradually becomes a working part of the mind. Being still inexperienced and having just made conscious contact with God, it is not probable that we are going to be inspired at all times. We might pay for this presumption in all sorts of absurd actions and ideas. Nevertheless, we find that our thinking will, as time passes, be more and more on the plane of inspiration. We come to rely upon it.
Sunday
We usually conclude the period of meditation with a prayer that we be shown all through the day what our next step is to be, that we be given whatever we need to take care of such problems. We ask especially for freedom from self-will, and are careful to make no request for ourselves only. We may ask for ourselves, however, if others will be helped. We are careful never to pray for our own selfish ends. Many of us have wasted a lot of time doing that and it doesn’t work. You can easily see why.
Monday
If circumstances warrant, we ask our wives or friends to join us in morning meditation. If we belong to a religious denomination which requires a definite morning devotion, we attend to that also. If not members of religious bodies, we sometimes select and memorize a few set prayers which emphasize the principles we have been discussing.
Tuesday
There are many helpful books also. Suggestions about these may be obtained from one’s priest, minister, or rabbi. Be quick to see where religious people are right. Make use of what they offer.
Wednesday
As we go through the day we pause, when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the right thought or action. We constantly remind ourselves we are no longer running the show, humbly saying to ourselves many times each day “Thy will be done.” We are then in much less danger of excitement, fear, anger, worry, self-pity, or foolish decisions.
Thursday
We become much more efficient. We do not tire so easily, for we are not burning up energy foolishly as we did when we were trying to arrange life to suit ourselves.
It works—it really does.
We alcoholics are undisciplined. So we let God discipline us in the simple way we have just outlined.
Calendar readings
01 July 2026
I mean, the more a man was in the Devil’s power, the less he would be aware of it, on the principle that a man is still fairly sober as long as he knows he’s drunk. It is the people who are fully awake and trying hard to be good who would be most aware of the Devil.
C. S. Lewis, Answers to Questions on Christianity
02 July 2026
Who are the people who have really benefited you? They are never the ones who think they do, but those who are like the stars or the lilies, with no notion of the prig about them.
Oswald Chambers
03 July 2026
You find men complaining about the times they live in, saying that the times of our parents were good. What if they could be taken back to the times of their parents, and should then complain? The past times that you think were good are good because they are not yours here and now.
From a sermon by St Augustine
04 July 2026
Never allow anything to remain which is making the dis-peace.
Oswald Chambers
05 July 2026
I call to him at dawn, when Nature smiles,
But he does not hear,
For excess has laden his drugged eyes with sick slumber.
Kahlil Gibran
06 July 2026
In the same way, the Devil doesn’t want you to believe in the Devil. If devils exist, their first aim is to give you an anaesthetic—to put you off your guard. Only if that fails, do you become aware of them.
C. S. Lewis, Answers to Questions on Christianity
07 July 2026
The first element of repentance: As Isaiah says, “Tell your sins, and you will be acquitted.”
St John Chrysostom
08 July 2026
The second element of repentance: To forget the harm done to us by our enemies, to master our anger, to forgive the sins of those who are slaves together with us. As much as we do this, so much will our own sins against the Lord be forgiven.
St John Chrysostom
09 July 2026
Beware of allowing self-consciousness to continue because by slow degrees it will awaken self-pity, and self-pity is satanic.
Oswald Chambers
10 July 2026
Would you like to know the third element of repentance? It is prayer: fervent prayer, sincere and focused prayer, prayer coming from the depths of the heart.
St John Chrysostom
11 July 2026
Which of the religions of the world gives to its followers the greatest happiness? While it lasts, the religion of worshipping oneself is the best.
C. S. Lewis, Answers to Questions on Christianity
12 July 2026
I call for him with the voice of knowledge
And the song of Wisdom.
He does not hearken,
For Substance has enticed him into the dungeon
Of selfishness, where avarice dwells.
Kahlil Gibran
13 July 2026
If someone acts with modesty and humility, that path is no less effective as a way to deprive sin of its substance. Look at the tax collector, who had no good deeds to speak of. In place of good deeds he offered humility, and the huge burden of his sins fell away.
St John Chrysostom
14 July 2026
Leave others alone and ask the Lord to give you God-consciousness, and He will poise you until the completeness is absolute.
Oswald Chambers
15 July 2026
I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity. I am certain there must be a patent American article on the market which will suit you far better, but I can’t give any advice on it.
C. S. Lewis, Answers to Questions on Christianity
16 July 2026
Patience was not designed to see results. The truest patience is that which goes on waiting while seeing no results.
Dom Hubert van Zeller, And So To God
17 July 2026
LORD, my heart is not haughty, Nor mine eyes lofty: Neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me.
Psalm 131:1
18 July 2026
I beguile him at eventide, when Silence rules
And the flowers sleep.
But he responds not,
For his fear over what the morrow will bring shadows his thoughts.
Kahlil Gibran
19 July 2026
Whatever you’re stirring: remember, at some point, you’ll have to lick the spoon.
Anonymous
20 July 2026
The complete life is the life of a child. When I am consciously conscious, there is something wrong. It is the sick man who knows what health is.
Oswald Chambers
21 July 2026
Pause ... Pray ... Proceed
Anonymous
22 July 2026
There is nothing wrong with looking for signs of a better future, but we want to have everything settled at once. We want God to do what we would do if we were God.
Dom Hubert van Zeller
23 July 2026
All that is needful is to train our minds to overlook all little senseless aims, and to remember that our goal is God.
A Course In Miracles, Lesson 258
24 July 2026
Flattery is like formaldehyde. It is to be sniffed, not swallowed.
Wednesday Addams
25 July 2026
If we try to overcome self-consciousness by any commonsense method, we will develop it tremendously. God says, “Come unto Me and I will give you rest,” i.e., God-consciousness will take the place of self-consciousness.
Oswald Chambers
26 July 2026
Honesty is great until it ruins everything.
Chalked onto the pavement
27 July 2026
Grace Over Drama = GOD
Anonymous
28 July 2026
The gold-hoarder walked in his palace park and with him walked his troubles.
Kahlil Gibran, Yesterday and Today
29 July 2026
Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
Proverbs 3:5
30 July 2026
God’s memory is hidden in our minds, obscured but by our pointless little goals which offer nothing, and do not exist.
A Course In Miracles, Lesson 258
31 July 2026
Be not wise in your own eyes.
Proverbs 3:7
01 August 2026
We want to know now that we have chosen the kind of life he has appointed us to lead; we want to know now that the decisions which we are making are the ones that will lead to him and not back again, as so often before, to self. But we have to fall back on faith and hope—this is the only thing we can be sure of.
Dom Hubert van Zeller, And So To God
02 August 2026
Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well.
Proverbs 5:15
03 August 2026
He said aloud, “Yesterday I was grazing my sheep in the green valley, enjoying my existence, sounding my flute, and holding my head high. Today I am a prisoner of greed. Gold leads into gold, then into restlessness and finally into crushing misery.”
Kahlil Gibran, Yesterday and Today
04 August 2026
Whoever belittles his neighbour lacks sense, but a man of understanding remains silent.
Proverbs 11:12
05 August 2026
Shall we continue to allow God’s grace to shine in unawareness, while the toys and trinkets of the world are sought instead?
A Course In Miracles, Lesson 258
06 August 2026
“Yesterday I was like a singing bird, soaring freely here and there in the fields. Today I am a slave to fickle wealth, society’s rules, and city’s customs, and purchased friends, pleasing the people by conforming to the strange and narrow laws of man. I was born to be free and enjoy the bounty of life, but I find myself like a beast of burden so heavily laden with gold that his back is breaking.”
Kahlil Gibran, Yesterday and Today
07 August 2026
The lesson, as of course is the lesson of all the saints, is patient acceptance of the situation. Not only acceptance of the here-and-now as commonly preached, but of the past and of the future. Kierkegaard’s: “I have only one will,” covers everything. It is willing acceptance of everything except sin, it is one will with God’s. It desires never to will anything but God’s will which is now one’s own.
Dom Hubert van Zeller, And So To God
08 August 2026
For verily it is not deep words that make a man holy and upright; it is a good life which maketh a man dear to God.
Thomas à Kempis
09 August 2026
A man who is kind benefits himself, but a cruel man hurts himself.
Proverbs 11:17
10 August 2026
“Forgive me, my Judge! I did not know that riches would put my life in fragments and lead me into the dungeons of harshness and stupidity. What I thought was glory is naught but an eternal inferno.”
Kahlil Gibran, Yesterday and Today
11 August 2026
What sets AA head and shoulders above other attempts to reverse the disease of alcoholism, however, is in its immensely successful efforts to literally alter the relationship of the alcoholic to his or her world—in effect, to provide a different perception of the same environment. The most baffling characteristic of alcoholism—both to the alcoholic and to those who must deal with him—is the paradox in which the conflict of sober reality eventually always become untenable, leading to the return to alcohol and/or drugs for relief.
Clancy I, Preface to A New Pair of Glasses
12 August 2026
If thou knewest the whole Bible, and the sayings of all the philosophers, what should all this profit thee without the love and grace of God?
Thomas à Kempis
13 August 2026
One gives freely, yet grows all the richer; another withholds what he should give and only suffers want.
Proverbs 11:24
14 August 2026
He gathered himself wearily and walked slowly toward the palace, sighing and repeating, “Is this what people call wealth? Is this the god I am serving and worshipping? Is this what I seek of the earth? Why can I not trade it for one particle of contentment? Who would sell me one beautiful thought for a ton of gold? Who would give me one moment of love for a handful of gems? Who would grant me an eye that can see others’ hearts, and take all my coffers in barter?”
Kahlil Gibran, Yesterday and Today
15 August 2026
Theology is a great thing; so is a man’s creed; but God is greater than either, and the next greatest thing is my relationship to Him.
Oswald Chambers
16 August 2026
Whoever brings blessing will be enriched, and one who waters will himself be watered.
Proverbs 11:25
17 August 2026
If our first parents had had the sense to wait, God would have given them something better than what they took. But their impatience brought them fear as well as guilt, and fear in one form or another leads to almost all our human ills.
Dom Hubert van Zeller, And So To God
18 August 2026
That is the highest wisdom, to cast the world behind us, and to reach forward to the heavenly kingdom.
Thomas à Kempis
19 August 2026
He entered his palace saying, “Everything in life is good; even gold, for it teaches a lesson. Money is like a stringed instrument; he who does not know how to use it properly will hear only discordant music. Money is like love; it kills slowly and painfully the one who withholds it, and it enlivens the other who turns it upon his fellow man.”
Kahlil Gibran, Yesterday and Today
20 August 2026
One reads volumes on the works of God, when five minutes of drastic obedience would make things as clear as a sunbeam. We say, “I suppose I shall understand these things someday!” when we can understand them now. It is not study that does it, but obedience. The tiniest fragment of obedience, and heaven opens, and the profoundest truths of God are yours straight away.
Oswald Chambers
21 August 2026
The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice.
Proverbs 12:15
22 August 2026
Humanity is the spirit of the Supreme Being on earth, and that Supreme Being preaches love and good-will.
Kahlil Gibran, A Poet’s Voice
23 August 2026
The vexation of a fool is known at once, but the prudent ignores an insult.
Proverbs 12:16
24 August 2026
Thou art my brother because you are a human, and we both are sons of one Holy Spirit; we are equal and made of the same earth.
Kahlil Gibran, A Poet’s Voice
25 August 2026
Whoever guards his mouth preserves his life; he who opens wide his lips comes to ruin.
Proverbs 13:3
26 August 2026
I’m fine, Billy. I just have a slight problem adjusting to change.
Ally McBeal
27 August 2026
You may shed my blood and burn my body, but you cannot kill or hurt my spirit.
Kahlil Gibran, A Poet’s Voice
28 August 2026
Impatience with our neighbour leads to impatience with others of our fellow men and women, but impatience with God can lead only to more impatience with God. Which in turn leads to impatience with the circumstances of our lives. Only by waiting and taking willingly from God’s hands whatever he sends us can we find true peace. Not to do this makes only for restlessness, insecurity, fear, lack of detachment, the ever-nagging sense of being short-changed.
Dom Hubert van Zeller, And So To God
29 August 2026
Many things there are to know which profiteth little or nothing to the soul. And foolish out of measure is he who attendeth upon other things rather than those which serve to his soul’s health.
Thomas à Kempis
30 August 2026
A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.
Proverbs 15:1
31 August 2026
You may tie my hands with chains and my feet with shackles, and put me in the dark prison, but who shall not enslave my thinking, for it is free, like the breeze in the spacious sky.
Kahlil Gibran, A Poet’s Voice
01 September 2026
The only answer to all fear is trust in God’s wisdom, providence, love. And even then we go on fearing.
Dom Hubert van Zeller, And So To God
02 September 2026
Selfishness, my brother, is the cause of blind superiority, and superiority creates clanship, and clanship creates authority, which leads to discord and subjugation.
Kahlil Gibran, A Poet’s Voice
03 September 2026
A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls.
Proverbs 25:28
04 September 2026
To account nothing of one’s self, and to think always kindly and highly of others, this is great and perfect wisdom.
Thomas à Kempis
05 September 2026
It is not man’s task to weigh the motives of his fellow. For that is the work of heaven and not an occupation for flesh and blood.
Alter Rebbe
06 September 2026
To the fearful, St Augustine’s words can be of help: “Leave the past to the mercy of God, the future to the providence of God, the present to the love of God.”
Dom Hubert van Zeller, And So To God
07 September 2026
As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.
Proverbs 26:11
08 September 2026
For a person cannot prevent an unholy thought from presenting itself to his mind, and one should push it away from his heart, as smoke is driven away.
Alter Rebbe
09 September 2026
A good author (whose name I have forgotten) asks somewhere, ‘Have we never risen from our knees in haste for fear God’s will should become too unmistakable if we prayed longer?’
C. S. Lewis, A Slip of the Tongue
10 September 2026
The slothful man saith, There is a lion in the way; a lion is in the streets.
Proverbs 26:13
11 September 2026
Even shouldest thou see thy neighbour sin openly or grievously, yet thou oughtest not to reckon thyself better than he, for thou knowest not how long thou shalt keep thine integrity. All of us are weak and frail; hold thou no man more frail than thyself.
Thomas à Kempis
12 September 2026
… it is not so much of our time and so much of our attention that God demands; it is not even all our time and all our attention: it is our selves.
C. S. Lewis, A Slip of the Tongue
13 September 2026
He that passeth by, and meddleth with strife belonging not to him, is like one that taketh a dog by the ears.
Proverbs 26:17
14 September 2026
... it is only in direct living communication with God that my soul can be strong.
Andrew Murray, Daily Fellowship with God
15 September 2026
We know that God—what we attempt to refer to when we use the word God—is always bigger than anything we can know about God and deeper than any experience that we have of the Divine.
Paul Coutinho. Just as You Are: Opening Your Life to the Infinite Love of God
16 September 2026
A blessing to pray for: that self-interest, which cannot be dropped entirely, never paralyse the ability to see oneself as one truly is, with humour and insight, wherein lies our only hope.
Dag Hammarskjöld, Vägmärken (‘Road Signs’)
[To post but not to read out:]
En nåd att bedja om: att egenintresset—det ofrånkomliga—aldrig skall förlama den humorfyllda, igenkännande självsyn som ensam kan rädda situationen.
17 September 2026
If I were to tell you that your life is already perfect, whole, and complete just as it is, you would think I was crazy. Nobody believes his or her life is perfect. And yet there is something within each of us that basically knows we are boundless, limitless. We are caught in the contradiction of finding life a rather perplexing puzzle which causes us a lot of misery, and at the same time being dimly aware of the boundless, limitless nature of life.
Charlotte Joko Beck, Everyday Zen: Love and Work
18 September 2026
God will be infinitely merciful to our repeated failures; I know no promise that He will accept a deliberate compromise.
C. S. Lewis, A Slip of the Tongue
19 September 2026
The manna of one day was corrupt when the next day came. I must every day have fresh grace from heaven, and I obtain it only in direct waiting upon God Himself.
Andrew Murray, Daily Fellowship with God
20 September 2026
A fool gives full vent to his spirit, but a wise man quietly holds it back.
Proverbs 29:11
21 September 2026
So what are you looking for—God? You are in God. What are you looking for—the Divine? You are in the Divine. We’re all living in this Divine atmosphere, breathing this Divine love, and everything is vibrating and pulsing with the Divine life.
Paul Coutinho. Just as You Are: Opening Your Life to the Infinite Love of God
22 September 2026
For God claims all, because He is love and must bless. He cannot bless us unless He has us. When we try to keep within us an area that is our own, we try to keep an area of death. Therefore, in love, He claims all. There’s no bargaining with Him.
C. S. Lewis, A Slip of the Tongue
23 September 2026
Let your first act in your devotion be a setting yourself still before God. In prayer, or worship, everything depends upon God taking the chief place.
Andrew Murray, Daily Fellowship with God
24 September 2026
There are many people in the world who feel that if only they had a bigger car, a nicer house, better vacations, a more understanding boss, or a more interesting partner, then their life would work. We all go through that one. Slowly we wear out most of our “if onlys.” “If only I had this, or that, then my life would work.”
Charlotte Joko Beck, Everyday Zen: Love and Work
25 September 2026
One is never deceived—one deceives oneself.
[To post but not to read out:]
Man wird nie betrogen, man betriegt sich selbst.
Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre
26 September 2026
Alice was a little startled by seeing the Cheshire-Cat sitting on a bough of a tree a few yards off. The Cat only grinned when it saw her. “Cheshire-Puss,” began Alice, rather timidly, “would you please tell me which way I ought to go from here?” “In that direction,” the Cat said, waving the right paw ‘round, “lives a Hatter; and in that direction,” waving the other paw, “lives a March Hare. Visit either you like; they’re both mad.” “But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked. “Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat; “we’re all mad here.”
Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
27 September 2026
God is near. God is love, longing to communicate Himself to me.
Andrew Murray, Daily Fellowship with God
28 September 2026
Seest thou a man that is hasty in his words? There is more hope of a fool than of him.
Proverbs 29:20
29 September 2026
Finally, in looking for the thing outside of ourselves that we hope is going to complete us, we turn to a spiritual discipline. Unfortunately we tend to bring into this new search the same orientation as before. Most people who come to the Zen Center don’t think a Cadillac will do it, but they think that enlightenment will. Now they’ve got a new cookie, a new “if only.”
Charlotte Joko Beck, Everyday Zen: Love and Work
30 September 2026
It is not enough to know—one must also apply; it is not enough to want—one must also do.
Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre
[To post but not to read out:]
Es ist nicht genug, zu wissen, man muß auch anwenden; es ist nicht genug, zu wollen, man muß auch tun.
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