A UNIVERSAL SEARCH

Good Morning!!! God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change; Courage to change the things I can; and Wisdom to know the difference. Thy will, not mine, be done. *~*~*~*~*^Daily Reflections^*~*~*~*~* November 24, 2023 A UNIVERSAL SEARCH Be quick to see where religious people are right. Make use of what they offer. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 87 I do not claim to have all the answers in spiritual matters, any more than I claim to have all the answers about alcoholism. There are others who are also engaged in a spiritual search. If I keep an open mind about what others have to say, I have much to gain. My sobriety is greatly enriched, and my practice of the Eleventh Step more fruitful, when I use both the literature and practices of my Judeo-Christian tradition, and the resources of other religions. Thus, I receive support from many sources in staying away from the first drink. ********************************************** Tell the Public? "A.A.'s of worldly prominence sometimes say, `If I tell the public that I am in Alcoholics Anonymous, then that will bring in many others.' Thus, they express the belief that our anonymity Tradition is wrong -- at least for them. "They forget that, during their drinking days, prestige and the achievement of worldly ambition were their principal aims. They do not realize that, by breaking anonymity, they are unconsciously pursuing those old and perilous illusions once more. They forget that the keeping of one's anonymity often means a sacrifice of one's desire for power, prestige, and money. They do not see that if these strivings became general in A.A., the course of our whole history would be changed; that we would be sowing the seeds of our own destruction as a society. "Yet I can happily report that while many of us are tempted – and I have been one – few of us in America actually break our anonymity at the public-media level." LETTER, 1958 As Bill Sees It, P. 198 ********************************************* WHY WORRY? David Dorton Around the Year with Emmet Fox Nothing is really worth worrying about. Nothing is really worth getting angry or hurt or bitter about. Positively nothing is worth losing your peace of mind over. These important truths follow logically upon the following fact: You are going to live forever—somewhere. This means that there is plenty of time to get things right again if they have gone wrong. No matter what mistake you may have made, enough prayer will overtake it and cancel it. If those you love seem to be acting foolishly, you can help them with prayer to be wiser, and, meanwhile, if they suffer, it means that kindly nature is teaching them a lesson that they need to learn. But suppose something awful should happen? Well, what then? Suppose you lost everything and landed in the poorhouse. What then? Think what a wonderful demonstration you could make there, and you would probably learn several valuable lessons there, and, anyway, it would be quite interesting. Suppose the whole universe blew up. What then? When the dust settles, God will still be in business and you will be alive somewhere, ready to carry on. “Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee: He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved” Psalm 55:22 David Dorton This one hits the nail on the head. Back in 2009, we lost our entire net-worth; 3200 sq. ft. custom-built home, investments, etc. The only thing we walk away with was our dogs, vehicles, clothes and furniture. We went and rented a house we had sold to someone back in 2005 and he seemed to fail to make the payments on it the entire time we had lived there (@ 1 year). The bank came and foreclosed it and forced us to another place that wound up costing me $700 more per month than that one did. Stayed the course, never lost faith. Many times, I thought I would never be able to regain what once was, but this is the second time in my life that something has happened and we had to start over. July 3rd this year, even thinking that my credit was shot, we closed on a house (now our home) and have once again begun to rebuild what once was. Something I like to say is when you continually have to give someone a piece of your mind when angered; sooner or later you will have no peace of mind left. Joe McFadden Whenever I experience calamity, difficulty, disaster; I am always reminded of EF saying it is the sure result of wrong thinking. All economic, social, and personal trouble can be traced back to selfishness of the sense man. When spiritual thinking takes control of mind substance, all trouble of every kind dissolves into thin air. ******* Grapevine quote of the day "The best university for me – the best school, the best teaching – was in analyzing mistakes that I'd made and problems I created because of these mistakes. Not my successes." Warsaw, Poland, October 1996 "A Smiling Man, A Happy Man," AA Around the World