Latest / Sober Readings / Living In The Now
Transcript
- Scott Hayes: Welcome back to Sober Readings, everyone. Today is Tuesday, the ninth of June. Let's begin with the Serenity Prayer. God, grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference. From Daily Reflections for June 9, living in the now. First, we try living in the now just in order to stay sober, and it works. Once the idea has become a part of our thinking, we find that living life in a twenty four hour segment is an effective and satisfying way to handle many other matters as well. That's from Living Sober Page seven. One day at a time. To a newcomer, this and other one-liners of AA may seem ridiculous. The passwords of the AA Fellowship can become lifelines in moments of stress. Each day can be like a rose unfurling according to the plan of a power greater than myself. My program should be planted in the right location, just as it will need to be groomed, nourished, and protected from disease. My planting will require patience, and my realizing that some flowers will be more perfect than others. Each stage of the petals unfolding can bring wonder and delight if I do not interfere or let my expectations override my acceptance, and this brings serenity. Today's reading from twenty four hours, June nine, AA Thought for the Day. We finally came to the bottom. We did not have to be financially broke, although many of us were. But we were spiritually bankrupt. We had a soul sickness, a revulsion against ourselves and against our way of living. Life had become impossible for us. We had to end it all or do something about it. Am I glad I did something about it? The meditation for the day. Faith is not seeing but believing. I am in a box of space and time and cannot see spacelessness or eternity. But God is not within the shell of time and space. He is timeless and spaceless. He cannot be fully comprehended by our finite minds. But we must try to make a union between our purposes and the purposes of God. By trying to merge our minds with the mind of God, we A oneness of purpose results. This oneness of purpose puts us in harmony with God in our fellow men. Evil comes from being in disharmony with God, and good comes from being in harmony with Him. And today's prayer for the day. I pray that I may be in harmony with God. I pray that I may get into the stream of goodness in the universe. And for today's final reading I'll read the daily meditation from Touchstone. I believe our concept of romantic love is irrational, impossible to fulfill, and the cause of many broken homes. No human being can maintain that rarefied atmosphere of true love. That was written by Rita May Brown. What the popular media teaches us about marriage and love is poor preparation for the real thing. When we enter a relationship, we may be filled with a feeling of magic. And excitement of new love. But that is not a good basis for a lifelong commitment. Love at first sight is no reason for marriage. Many of us, upon meeting difficulties in our relationships, said to ourselves, Maybe it wasn't true love after all, because now I don't feel in love with my mate anymore. Honesty and learning how to resolve difficulties provide a solid foundation for durable love. Some relationships do not survive the honesty of recovery. Sometimes the development of honest love only begins with recovery. The love that endures, the love of real intimacy, comes when we know the real person. Loyalty to our loved ones may deepen as we deal more and more with reality. As I grow in this program, partnered or single, I become more able to have an enduring love. And today I'm gonna throw in an extra reading because I peeked ahead at Asbil sees it, and the page that we're on relates to the meditation that I just read from Touchstones. So from Asbil sees it, page two nine four, love plus rationality equals growth. It seems to me that the primary object of any human being is to grow as God intended, that being the nature of all growing things. Our search must be for what reality we can find, which includes the best definition and feeling of love that we can acquire. If the capability of loving is in the human being, then it must surely be in his creator. Theology helps me in that many of its concepts cause me to believe that I live in a rational universe under a loving God, and that my own irrationality can be chipped away little by little. This is, I suppose, the process of growth for which we are intended. And that was written in a letter in nineteen fifty-eight. And that brings us to the end of today's readings. I hope you enjoyed the extra reading that I threw in there. And I just wanted to comment on today's daily reflections because it's talking about one day at a time and living in the now and and that is one of the most important concepts for me in sobriety in this program. And I really love the line where it says, my planting will require patience, and my realizing that some flowers will be more perfect than others. And those some flowers could be other people, it could be my emotions, it could be my actions. I'm not perfect. And like they say in the big book, it's progress, not perfection. So I hope you enjoyed today's readings. If you did, do me a huge favor and hit that like button and share this episode. And if you'd like to be a guest reader on the show, I would love to have you. Send me an email at soberreadings with Scott at gmail.com. And if you want to drop a dollar in the virtual donation basket for today's readings, just go to soberreadings.com and click that donate button. And by the way, while you're there at my website, soberreadings.com, if you scroll all the way down to the bottom, you'll see a book there and it's titled, I love you, don't do anything stupid. It's a memoir of addiction and recovery, and that happens to be my memoir. So if you'd like to purchase a copy of that book, just go to my website, sobereadings.com. That link will take you to Amazon, and you can find it there. So thank you so much for listening today. Stay sober, keep reading, and I'll catch you in the next episode. So until then, take care of yourselves and each other. And remember, just for today, don't drink, go to a meeting, and keep coming back. Have a great day. And as my friend Larry says, best day ever.