WEST COAST NEWS STAND'S

DAILY

MEDITATIONS

June 21, 2014

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June 21, 2014

Daily MeditationsJust For TodayDaily ReflectionsTwenty-Four Hours A DayAs Bill Sees ItWalk In Dry PlacesKeep It SimpleEach Day a New BeginningAlcoholics Anonymous - Fourth EditionTwelve Steps and Twelve TraditionsFather Leo's Daily MeditationTHIRD STEP PRAYER Used by Dr. BobTHIRD STEP PRAYER Used by Clarence SnyderPrayer of Abandonment

Just For Today, New Levels Of Honesty

“We have been experts at self-deception and rationalization.” Basic Text, p. 27

When we come to our first meeting and hear that we must be honest, we may think, “Well now, that shouldn’t be too difficult. All I have to do is stop lying.” To some of us, this comes easily. We no longer have to lie to our

employers about our absence from work. We no longer have to lie to our families about where we were the night before. By not using drugs anymore, we find we have less to lie about. Some of us may have difficulty even with this kind of honesty, but at least learning not to lie is simple – you just don’t do it, no matter what. With courage, determined practice, the support of our fellow NA members, and the help of our Higher Power,

most of us eventually succeed at this kind of honesty.

Honesty, though, means more than just not lying. The kind of honesty that is truly indispensable in recovery is self-honesty, which is neither easy nor simple to achieve. In our addiction, we created a storm of self-deception and rationalization, a whirlwind of lies in which the small, quiet voice of self-honesty could not be heard. To

become honest with ourselves, we first must stop lying to ourselves. In our Eleventh Step meditations, we must become quiet. Then, in the resulting stillness, we must listen for truth. When we become silent, self-honesty

will be there for us to find.

Just for today: I will be quiet and still, listening for the voice of truth within myself. I will honor the truth I find.

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Daily Reflections

FEAR AND FAITH

The achievement of freedom from fear is a lifetimeundertaking, one that can never be wholly completed.When under heavy attack, acute illness, or in othercondition of insecurity, we shall all react to this

emotion - well or badly, as the case may be. Only theself-deceived will claim perfect freedom from fear.

AS BILL SEES IT, p. 263

Fear has caused suffering when I could have had morefaith. There are times when fear suddenly tears me apart,just when I'm experiencing feelings of joy, happiness

and a lightness of heart. Faith--and a feeling ofself-worth toward a Higher Power -helps me enduretragedy and ecstasy. When I choose to give all of my

fears over to my Higher Power, I will be free.

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Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought For The Day

Intelligent faith in that Power greater than ourselves canbe counted on to stabilize our emotions. It has an

incomparable capacity to help us look at life in balancedperspective. We look up, around, and away from ourselves,and we see that nine out of ten things that at the moment

upset us will shortly disappear. Problems solve themselves,criticism and unkindness vanish as though they had never

been. Have I got the proper perspective toward life?

Meditation For The Day

A truly spiritual man or woman would like to have a serenemind. The only way to keep calm in this troubled world is tohave a serene mind. The calm and sane mind sees spiritual

things as the true realities and material things as onlytemporary and fleeting. That sort of mind you can never obtainby reasoning, because your reasoning powers are limited byspace and time. That kind of a mind you can never obtain byreading, because other minds are also limited in the same way.You can only have that mind by an act of faith, by making the

venture of belief.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may have a calm and sane mind. I pray that I maylook up, around, and away from myself.

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As Bill Sees It

This Matter of Honesty, p. 172

"Only God can fully know what absolute honesty is. Therefore, each of us has toconceive what this great ideal may be--to the best of our ability.

"Fallible as we all are, and will be in this life, it would be presumption to suppose thatwe could ever really achieve absolute honesty. The best we can do is to strive for a

better quality of honesty.

"Sometimes we need to place love ahead of indiscriminate 'factual honesty.' Wecannot, under the guise of 'perfect honesty,' cruelly and unnecessarily hurt others.

Always one must ask, 'What is the best and most loving thing I can do?'"

Letter, 1966

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Walk In Dry Places

Remember the Golden KeyLiving in the Spirit

Whenever trouble arises, the first thing to do is to turn it over to our Higher Power. We can take all necessary practical steps to solve a problem, but we don't need to decide what the answer may be. Do this, and you'll soon

be out of your difficulty.This is essentially the formula of the Gold Key as taught by Emmet Fox. It is also the core idea os Steps three and Eleven. It is a manner of living one's life iwht the constant knowledge that a Higher Power is always part of

it.We should also condition ourselves to believe that our Higher Power has been with us all along and will

continue to show us the way. Nothing depends on our being "spiritual" or "saintly" or perfect in behavior. With all our shortcomings, we are and ever will be children of God.

My Higher Power is always with me today, supplying whatever I need for the accomplishment of any good purpose.

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Keep It Simple

The future is much like the present, only longer.---Dan QuisenberryIn many way we don't know what the future holds. But in terms of recovery, we know the future holds the

Twelve steps. They will be with us for life.We should never fall into the trap of thinking we "know" the program. We'll never know all the truth and love the Steps hold for us. "Knowing the Steps" is a project we'll never finish. As we change , the Steps change. As

the seasons come and go, the same field or the same tree becomes a different picture.Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, I pray for Your help as I work the Steps and continue my recovery. Help me

discover new treasures.Action for the Day: I will ask long-time members of my program how they keep the program fresh and alive.

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Each Day a New Beginning

There is no such thing as conversation. It is an illusion. There are interesting monologues, that is all. --Rebecca West

How often we want to be heard, to be truly listened to by our spouse, our children, friends and co-workers. And we deserve to be fully attended to. So do the other persons in our lives who come to us to be heard. We let our minds wander in the midst of important messages. And we may miss the very phrase that we need to hear--the

answer to a problem, perhaps. Our minds wander, randomly, looking for a place to light, unconsciously searching for peace, the serenity promised by the Twelve Steps.

Living fully in the present, soaking up all the responses of the life we are immersed in for the moment, is the closest we can get to our higher power, our God. Being there--fully--is conversation with God. How can we

know all that God intends for us to know if we don't take advantage of God's many messages? Every moment of every day offers us information, divine information. Each time we turn our minds away to self-centered

thoughts, we're refusing the chance to grow.As I come together with friends and family today, I will remember to listen for God's message. I will hear what

I need to hear if I will but listen.

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Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition

Chapter 10 - To Employers

After your man has gone along without drinking for a few months, you may be able to make use of his services with other employees who are giving you the alcoholic run-around—provided, of course, they are willing to have a third party in the picture. An alcoholic who has recovered, but holds a relatively unimportant job, can talk to a man with a better position. Being on a radically different basis of life, he will never take advantage of

the situation.

p. 146

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Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

Step Five - "Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs."

All of A.A.'s Twelve Steps ask us to go contrary to our natural desires . . . they all deflate our egos. When it comes to ego deflation, few Steps are harder to take than Five. But scarcely any Step is more necessary to

longtime sobriety and peace of mind than this one.

p. 55

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Father Leo's Daily Meditation

LIES

"The cruelest lies are often told insilence."--Robert Louis Stevenson

In treatment I said that I did not "tell" many lies - and although thiswas not true (hence a lie), it missed the fact that most of my lies were"lies of silence". It was what I did not say that produced theconfusion; the pretended self-confidence that hid the pain and shame;the half-spoken truth that harbored the disease.

Communication is the key to any spiritual relationship and a sicksilence creates the ultimate blasphemy. God created you and me torelate. In the interchange of our ideas is the miracle born. A sick,angry and ego-centered silence is our shouted "no" to God.

O Lord of the paradox, let me see how the lie of silence can be used todestroy my world.

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THIRD STEP PRAYERUsed by Dr. Bob

Dear God,I'm sorry about the mess I've made of my life.

I want to turn away from all the wrong things I've everdone and all the wrong things I've ever been. Please

forgive me for it all.I know You have the power to change my life and

can turn me into a winner. Thank You, God for gettingmy attention long enough to interest me in trying it Your way.

God, please take over the management of my life andeverything about me. I am making this conscious

decision to turn my will and my life over to Your careand am asking You to please take over all parts of my life.

Please, God, move into my heart. However You do itis Your business, but make Yourself real inside me andfill my awful emptiness. Fill me with your love and HolySpirit and make me know Your will for me. And now,

God, help Yourself to me and keep on doing it. I'm notsure I want You to, but do it anyhow.

I rejoice that I am now a part of Your people, that myuncertainty is gone forever, and that You now havecontrol of my will and my life. Thank You and praise

Your name. Amen.

THIRD STEP PRAYERUsed by Clarence Snyder

(Both sponsor and protégé on their knees-)

Sponsor says: God, this is __________, he is coming toYou in all humility to ask You to guide and direct him.__________ realizes that his life is messed up and

unmanageable. __________ is coming to You Lord inall humility to ask to be one of your children – to work

for you, to serve and dedicate his life to you and to turnhis will over that he may be an instrument of your love.

(Protégé repeats after the sponsor):Lord, I ask that you guide and direct me, and that I have

decided to turn my life and will over to you. To serveYou and to dedicate my life to You. I thank you Lord, Ibelieve that if I ask this in prayer, I shall receive what I

have asked for. Thank you God. Amen.

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Prayer of Abandonment

Father, I abandon myself into Your hands; do with me what you will.Whatever You may do, I thank You; I am ready for all, I accept all.

Let only Your will be done in me, and in all Your creatures – I wish no more than this, O Lord.Into your hands I commend my soul; I offer it to You with all the love of my heart,

for I love You, Lord, and so need to give myself, to surrender myself into Your hands, without resefor I love You, Lord, and so need to give myself, to surrender myself into Your hands, without reserve,

and without reserve, and with boundless confidence, for You are my Father.

--Charles de Foucauld

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

SOME OF THESE MEDITATIONS were found on www.recoveryreadings.com

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