Another Daily Reading: Touchstones

We all carry it within us: supreme strength, the fullness of wisdom, unquenchable joy. It is never thwarted and cannot be destroyed. But it is hidden deep, which is what makes life a problem.
Huston Smith

How does a man lose touch with his strength, his wisdom, his joy? Perhaps it is in the nature of humanity. Our most profound qualities are hidden deep. They never go away, but we cannot always find them. There may be nothing wrong with ourselves as men when we lose touch. It doesn’t have to mean that we are “bad guys” for getting depressed or for feeling inadequate. Who doesn’t have that problem? It is the nature of life that we sometimes feel this way. This program helps us unearth the resources hidden within us.

When we cannot find those reassuring feelings of strength and wisdom and joy, we may think they are gone forever. We even doubt we ever had them or could have them again. But they are still there. They cannot be destroyed. And when we regain contact we know they have been with us all along.

I will have faith that the innermost places in me can never be destroyed.

From Touchstones: A Book of Daily Meditations for Men 

Daily Readings….

Meditation for the Day

Be calm, be true, be quiet. Do not get emotionally upset by anything that happens around you. Feel a deep, inner security in the goodness and purpose in the universe. Be true to your highest ideals. Do not let yourself slip back into the old ways of reacting. Stick to your spiritual guns. Be calm always. Do not talk back or defend yourself too much against accusation, whether false or true. Accept criticism as well as you accept praise. Only God can judge the real you.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may not be upset by the judgment of others. I pray that I may let God be the judge of the real me.

From Twenty-Four Hours a Day © 1975 by Hazelden Foundation

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Experiment

Experiment. Try something new. Try stepping out.

We have been held back too long. We have held ourselves back too long.

As children, many of us were deprived of the right to experiment. Many of us are depriving ourselves of the right to experiment and learn as adults.

Now is the time to experiment. It is an important part of recovery. Let yourself try things. Let yourself try something new. Yes, you will make mistakes. But from those mistakes, you can learn what your values are.

Some things we just won’t like. That’s good. Then we’ll know a little more about who we are and what we don’t like.

Some things we will like, they will work with our values. They will work with who we are, and we will discover something important and life enriching.

There is a quiet time in recovery, a time to stand still and heal, a time to give ourselves a cooling off time. This is a time of introspection and healing. It is an important time. We deal with our issues.

There also comes a time when it is equally important to experiment, to begin to test the water.

Recovery does not equal abstention from life. Recovery means learning to live and learning to live fully. Recovery means exploration, investigation, and experimentation.

Recovery means being done with the rigid, shame-based rules from the past, and formulating healthy values based on self-love, love for others, and living in harmony with this world.

Experiment. Try something new. Maybe you won’t like it. Maybe you’ll make a mistake. But maybe you will like it, and maybe you’ll discover something you love.

Today, I will give myself permission to experiment in life. I will stop rigidly holding myself back, and I will jump in when jumping in feels right. God, help me let go of my need to deprive myself of being alive.

From The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie ©1990, Hazelden Foundation.

There Comes a Time….

For forty-three years, I have been a classroom teacher in some sort or fashion. I spent twenty-nine years as a full-time teacher, most of which were in middle school classrooms. For the past fourteen years, since my retirement in 2010, I’ve been substitute teaching and filling in for teachers on an interim basis. There have been more than twenty of those interim posts. This past week, I’ve decided that it’s time for me to leave the classroom, at least for these interim positions. It’s definitely not an easy choice, but I know it’s time to say good-bye.

A Look at the Headlines for Today…

Michigan GOP legislator posted about ‘illegal invaders’ at Detroit airport. It was Gonzaga’s March Madness team.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/28/politics/fact-check-matt-maddock-invaders-gonzaga-madness-detroit/index.html

Louis Gossett Jr., Oscar-winning star of ‘An Officer and a Gentleman,’ dead at 87

https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/29/entertainment/louis-gossett-jr-death/index.html

CDC alerts doctors to watch for rare, serious bacterial infection appearing with unusual symptoms

https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/28/health/cdc-alert-bacterial-infection/index.html