Daily Reprieve

Courage to Change of Jun 5:

The Third Step talks about placing my will and my life in the care of a Higher Power. For me, this Power is a presence that loves me as I am, that accepts me with compassion on the bad days as well as the good. Once I have accepted that the destructive presence of another’s alcoholism has affected my life, I need the benevolent influence of a Power untouched by this disease. What I do in turning over my will and my life is to become receptive to guidance; I become willing to accept the care of a Power greater than myself.

I think of this care as a source of love and support that surrounds me in my daily life. I do not need to earn it or to work for it; I need only be receptive to it. I continue to have a will to exercise and a life to live, but I do so bathed in a light of love and understanding.

Today’s Reminder

When I open my heart to a Power that fills me with love and acceptance, I can begin to extend those qualities to others. I may not do it perfectly or even consistently, but I can recognize my progress one day at a time.

“God’s gifts put man’s best dreams to shame.”

~ Elizabeth Barret Browning

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I did not seek a Power “untouched by this disease.” There is a natural cruelty to a Higher Power that only officiates the big, infinite reality of life. I looked for a power intimately acquainted with my own suffering. I looked for a Power that embraced my individual life. Is it possible that when the words, “it is not good for the man to be alone,” were written, this Higher Power was letting us all know that It was lonely.

“I believe the universe wants to be noticed. I think the universe is improbably biased toward the consciousness, that it rewards intelligence in part because the universe enjoys its elegance being observed. And who am I, living in the middle of history, to tell the universe that it-or my observation of it-is temporary?”

~ John Green, the Fault in Our Stars

It is this intimate Higher Power that I seek, and that I trust to care about me and mine.

Elizabeth Barret Browning began writing poetry under the protective umbrella of her father’s massive slave-owning business in Jamaica. She sacrificed that protection for the intimate love of a fellow poet. He had fallen in love with her through her writing. The marriage of Elizabeth and Robert Browning brought an end to her affiliation with her Father’s individual-crushing dominance and a new poetry arose from the intimacy of the married couple as they moved from England to Italy.

For me, the ultimate god-gift is genuine, intimate care that hungers for my reciprocation. No more distance. I seek an exclusive relationship with a Higher Power that hungers for the same. The paradox is that when I have such a reality in my life, I want to share it with others. I suppose the Infinite One can have an exclusive relationship with everyone and there is no risk of losing my own private intimacy.

Be prospered.

Courage to Change of Jun 4:

The Second Step is about possibility, about hope. With this Step, we come to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. We are asked to open our minds to the possibility that help is available. Perhaps there is a source of assistance that can do for us what we have been unable to do for ourselves. We don’t have to believe that it will happen, only that it could.

This little bit of hope, this chink in the armor of despair, is enough to show that we are willing to move in the direction of healing. Once we recognize that the possibility of help exists, it seems worthwhile to explore a relationship with a Higher Power. A little willingness can go a long way toward making hope and faith an ongoing part of our lives. In the hands of a Higher Power, sanity and serenity become realistic hopes.

Today’s Reminder

Our literature speaks of the possibility of finding contentment and even happiness through recover in Al-Anon. Today I will take the Second Step in that process and open my mind to hope.

“Finding inner strength is looking beyond the visible and focusing life’s search on the unseen.”

~ As We Understood . . .

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As a young man, I never understood why hope was considered a virtue. The word feels like a synonym for wishful thinking. It seemed to be an excuse to daydream about better days ahead. Wasn’t hope an admission of abdication?

Then I witnessed the ignition of hope in my own life and in the lives of others in these rooms devoted to personal recovery. This is what I now know about the capacity for hope. It is a trained response to those times in life when the wolves are at the door. It is for the time when retreat and surrender will only invite further destruction, a shrinking brain, a tragic end. Surrounded by the confident assertion of impossibility, hope garners intelligence, builds networks, and remembers the place where life spirits are forged. Hope sharpens my senses to a course of action in the midst of the overwhelming clamor of fear. Isn’t hope the first step in the hero’s journey?

“What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end…”

~ Friedrich Nietzsche

UNLESS the God of my understanding builds my home, it is futility for me to build in isolation. I ask the Infinite One to build through me.

UNLESS the God of my understanding guards the city of my birth, no security system will keep it safe. I ask the Complete Entity of the Universe to keep safe that which is important in my life.

It is futility for me to get up early, go to bed late, and eat the bread of anxious toil, for the God of my understanding gives blessings to me even when I am sleeping. I ask for the loving embrace of the Spirit to help me pause, relax, take it easy, and to listen.

Behold, my new life is a heritage and a gift from the God of my understanding. Gomu causes the womb of my soul to bring forth a reward. I shall not close the door on it but will learn to pack it all into the stream of life. I ask you to relieve me of the fears that come with this mortal body.

Like the precision strikes of a warrior’s arrows, so are the works of the God of my understanding from within me. I am blessed with a full quiver of new life because of my connection with Gomu. Help me to walk the narrow path of my own individuation that gives permission to others to do the same.

I will not stand in my isolating selfishness, and when I meet my adversaries at the city gate of my mirror, I will not be ashamed. I will address my true wrongs, make amends, and forsake debilitating shame. Help me, Gomu, to be useful through this process.

Speaking for me, I will look expectantly to You, God of my understanding, and with confidence in You I will keep watch;

I will take this confident expectation with me today and wait for the God of my recovery of the true Self.

I know that You will hear me.

Do not rejoice over me when I suffer the tragedies of life, O my enemy!

Though I fall, I will rise;

Though I sit in the darkness of distress, the Spirit of Gomu shall be a light for me.

So be it and so say we all.