Throwback Thursday history link - some background on Ernie G., AA #4: ERNIE G (aainthedesert.org)
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Thoughts for the week: December 26 These meditations can teach us how to relax. We can be of service to other people in a small way, at least. And we can be happy while doing it. We should not worry too much about people we cannot help. We can make it a habit to leave the outcome of things we cannot do to the Higher Power. We can go along through life doing the best we can, but without a feeling of urgency or strain. We can enjoy all the good things and the beauty of life, but at the same time depend deeply on God. 24 Hours a Day December 27 Training Your Thoughts Thought is the real causative force in life, and there is no other. You cannot have one kind of mind and another environment. You cannot change your environment while leaving your mind unchanged. This is the real key to life; if you change your mind your conditions must change too - your body must change; your home must change; the color-tone of your whole life must change. This may be called the Great Cosmic Law. The pract
Big Book topics for discussion, meditation or to share with sponsees, from our literature study guide website at AABookClub.org. (For background on the origin of these topics, click here: aabookclub.org/aa_bookclub/topics.html ): Dubious Luxury If we were to live, we had to be free of anger. The grouch and the brainstorm were not for us. They may be the dubious luxury of normal men, but for alcoholics these things are poison. We turned back to the list, for it held the key to the future. We were prepared to look at it from an entirely different angle. We began to see that the world and its people really dominated us. In that state, the wrong-doing of others, fancied or real, had power to actually kill. How could we escape? We saw that these resentments must be mastered, but how? We could not wish them away any more than alcohol. This was our course: We realized that the people who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick. Though we did not like their symptoms and the way these distu
Thoughts for the week: December 19 We may consider the material world as the clay which the artist works with, to make of it something beautiful or ugly. We need not fear material things, which are neither good nor bad in the moral sesnse. There seems to be no active force for evil - outside of human beings themselves. Humans alone can have either evil intentions - resentments, malevolence, hate, and revenge - or good intentions - love and goodwill. They can make something ugly or something beautiful out of the clay of their lives. 24 Hours a Day December 20 Life Is Like That You form certain beliefs, for one reason or another - and then you have to live with them. When you were growing up, well-meaning people told you many negative things by way of warning, thereby implanting fears and these fears are with you today, consciously or subconsciously. Other problems you brought here with you when you were born. You meet your fears dramatized. The things that we fear in our hearts have
Thoughts for the week: December 12 Love and fear cannot dwell together. By their very nature, they cannot exist side by side. Fear is a very strong force. And therefore a weak and vacillating love can soon be routed by fear. But a strong love, a love that trusts in God, is sure eventually to conquer fear. The only sure way to dispel fear is to have the love of God more and more in your heart and soul. 24 Hours a Day December 13 Practice Makes Real The only part of our religion that is real is the part we practice in our daily lives. Ideals that we do not act out in practice are mere abstract theories. Actually, such pretended ideals are a serious detriment, because they drug the soul. Around the Year with Emmet Fox (Excerpt) December 16 Life is not a search for happiness. Happiness is a by-product of living the right kind of life, of doing the right thing. Do not search for happiness, search for right living and happiness will be your reward. Life is sometimes a march of duty duri
Thoughts for the week: December 6 If your intuitive nature is well developed, you will seldom need to use formal statements [in prayer]. This is excellent - for who will trouble to climb a ladder when he is strong enough to leap over the wall? However, many people lose the ability to receive intuitional messages when worried or frightened. Then the ladder will probably be their salvation. Nevertheless, it must not be overlooked that very many people do all their praying with formal statements of Truth, but not through repeating affirmations like a parrot. Those who work like a parrot inevitably make the parrot's demonstration - they remain in a cage. Of a good prayer who used the same phrases may times it was said by a friend: "He constantly used the old affirmations, but he stuffs them with fresh feeling every time." Around the Year with Emmet Fox (Excerpt) December 8 Four Don'ts Don't hurry. You are going to live forever - somewhere. In fact, you are in eter
