Daily Reprieve

From Courage to Change of Sep 14:

Living with alcoholism taught me that it was best not to hope for anything. The lessons were too painful — I would get excited about something, only to have my hopes shattered. As time passed and hope diminished, I fell deeper into despair. Eventually I shut down my feelings and refused to care or to hope for anything at all.

Through Al-Anon’s Twelve Steps, I am discovering a spirituality that allows me to believe that there is every reason to hope. With my Higher Power’s help, regardless of my circumstances, I can feel fully alive in the moment and enjoy this feeling. The painful lessons of a lifetime are not unlearned overnight, but Al-Anon is helping me to learn that it is safe to feel, to hope, even to dream.

Today’s Reminder

It is risky to care — I may be disappointed. But in trying to protect myself from pain, I could cut myself off from the many delights that life has to offer. I will live more fully today.

“Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.” ~ Samuel Ullman

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NOTE: Samuel Ullman (1840–1924) was an American businessman, poet, humanitarian, and religious leader best remembered for his poem “Youth.”

Early Life

• He was born in Hechingen, Germany, in 1840.
• At the age of 11, he immigrated with his family to the United States, settling in Mississippi.
• Samuel Ullman’s father, Jacob Ullman, operated a butcher shop in Port Gibson, Mississippi when the family settled there in 1851. Young Samuel assisted him each morning delivering orders before school and later helped purchase cattle for the business
• When the Civil War broke out, Ullman, then in his early 20s, served in the Confederate Army. He was part of a local Mississippi unit.
• Samuel Ullman wed Emma Mayer on May 24, 1867, in Natchez, Mississippi. They had a total of eight children. However, of these, six survived to adulthood, meaning two sadly passed away in early childhood

Career and Contributions

• Ullman became a successful businessman in Birmingham, Alabama, after moving there in 1884.
• He was deeply involved in civic life: he served on the Birmingham Board of Education, championed racial equality in education, and was active in religious and community causes.
• As a lay leader in Temple Emanu-El (a Reform Jewish congregation), he was respected for his moral vision and emphasis on human dignity.
• Jewish Leadership
  Ullman was raised in a Jewish family and carried his faith with him through his moves from Germany to Mississippi and later to Birmingham, Alabama.
  In Birmingham, he became a founding member of Temple Emanu-El (a Reform Jewish congregation). His leadership there was notable, as he worked to help establish Jewish religious life in what was still a very young and rapidly growing city.
  He also served as a lay leader, meaning he often led prayers, gave talks, and carried responsibilities when professional rabbis were unavailable.
  
  Service to the Community
  Ullman emphasized that religious duty was not confined to ritual, but extended to civic responsibility.
  He served on the Birmingham Board of Education and worked to promote racial justice and better schooling for African Americans at a time when this was rare. His religious values deeply influenced this advocacy, seeing education as a spiritual responsibility.
  
  Philosophy of Faith
  In his writings and speeches, Ullman often connected faith with youthfulness of spirit, stressing inner renewal and moral courage as religious acts.
  His famous poem Youth embodies this perspective: living with openness, hope, and vitality was for him not just personal philosophy, but a religious ethic.
  
  Practical Duties
  He helped guide Jewish worship and community structure at Temple Emanu-El.
  He lived by example, showing that religious duty extended to the way one treated others—through kindness, justice, and an unflagging commitment to growth.

His Poem “Youth”

• Ullman is most famous for writing the poem “Youth,” which he composed later in life.
• The poem emphasizes that youth is not defined by age but by attitude, imagination, and ideals.
• It gained international fame largely because General Douglas MacArthur often quoted it and kept a framed copy in his office in Tokyo after World War II.
• The poem became especially popular in Japan, where it continues to be read as an inspirational text.

Legacy

His life embodied service, cross-cultural respect, and the blending of business success with moral and civic duty.

In Birmingham, the Samuel Ullman Museum (part of the University of Alabama at Birmingham) preserves his legacy.

Youth by Samuel Ullman

Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.

Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity of the appetite, for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of sixty more than a body of twenty. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals.

Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust.

Whether sixty or sixteen, there is in every human being’s heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing child-like appetite of what’s next, and the joy of the game of living. In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless station; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from men and from the Infinite, so long are you young.

When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at twenty, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch the waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at eighty.

END OF NOTE—————————————

When the lips are gone, the smile turns irrepressible.
When the orbs sink into the raven’s gut, the gaze remains ever watchful.
The oxygen tent is torn away, and nature’s breath flows unhindered.

Emptiness lingers—
the footprint of that wandering ghost we call freedom,
passing through walls of illusion without training wheels.

And in its wake,
hope rises, resurrecting life anew.

Living with alcoholism taught me that hope could feel like a trap. Each time I reached for it, I seemed to be punished: expectations raised, then crushed. So I trained myself not to hope at all. It felt safer to numb, safer to shut down, safer to live in a barren landscape than to risk the disappointment of a shattered dream. Yet beneath that silence, despair kept spreading roots.

The Twelve Steps have been my invitation back to hope. Not the fragile, conditional hope that depends on someone else’s behavior or on life bending to my demands — but the grounded hope that comes from turning my will and my life over to a Higher Power. With help, I’ve learned that it is safe to feel again, safe to open the heart a crack wider, safe to let the light in. Hope does not mean I will get everything I want; it means I can trust that whatever comes, I will not face it alone.

Yes, there is risk in caring. To love, to hope, to dream means stepping into vulnerability, and vulnerability always carries the possibility of pain. But pain is not the enemy — disconnection is. When I cut myself off to avoid being hurt, I also cut myself off from joy, laughter, intimacy, and the unexpected gifts life places along the way. Hope is not a guarantee against suffering, but it is the doorway into living fully

Today I can choose to treat each act of hope as a spiritual exercise:

• When I allow myself to hope, I practice courage.
• When I risk caring, I practice connection.
• When I dream, I practice co-creating a life with my Higher Power.

1. Spiritual Honesty: I name my fear of disappointment.
2. Resilience: I let myself hope anyway.
3. Curiosity of the Soul: What possibilities open when I refuse despair?
4. Empathy and Compassion: Others fear hope too — my journey can reassure them.
5. Discipline in Reflection: Each day I test where I’ve hidden from hope, and I try again.
6. Courage to Be Seen: I confess that I want more from life — and that is holy.
7. Creative Insight: Hope is not fragile glass, it is a living seed — buried, yes, but insistent on breaking through.