"QUOTES"
You’re never fully dressed without a smile!–Anon
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DAILY
12 Qualities of Sponsorship
Twelve Qualities of Sponsorship
1. I will not help you to stay and wallow in limbo.
2. I will help you to grow, to become more productive, by
your definition.
3. I will help you become more autonomous, more loving of
yourself, more excited, less sensitive, more free to
become the authority for your own living.
4. I can not give you dreams or "fix you up" simply
because I can not.
5. I can not give you growth, or grow for you. You must
grow for yourself by facing reality, grim as it may be at
times.
6. I can not take away your loneliness or your pain.
7. I can not sense your world for you, evaluate your
goals for you, tell you what is best for your world;
because you have your own world in which you must live.
8. I can not convince you of the necessity to make the
vital decision of choosing the frightening uncertainty of
growing over the safe misery of remaining static.
9. I want to be with you and know you as a rich and
growing friend; yet I can not get close to you when you
choose not to grow.
10. When I begin to care for you out of pity or when I
begin to lose faith in you, then I am inhibiting both for
you and for me.
11. You must know and understand my help is conditional.
I will be with you and "hang in there" with you so long
as I continue to get even the slightest hint that
you are still trying to grow.
12. If you can accept this, then perhaps we can help each
other to become what God meant us to be, mature adults,
leaving childishness forever to the little children
of the world.
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AL-ANON (related)
Many years ago, my sister asked me to take her to an
A.A. meeting. Who me? I could never do that. What if
someone saw me? No, not me, never. I had a nice
job in a big Fortune 500 company.
The company’s policy, I learned, was to fire a
person with a drinking problem as a last resort.
The policy was to seek rehabilitation for employees
via a Twelve Step program.
Knowing the policy gave me courage I didn’t know
I had. The first meeting I took my sister to was
a shock—nothing like I expected. The second
meeting with a different group was the same
experience—loving concern, peaceful, and serene.
I asked the A.A. members how I could get that
for me. I wanted it. I needed it. Their answer was,
"In Al-Anon. It’s the room next door."
I was sure I had caused my sister’s alcohol problem
because I used to tease her until she cried.
The Al-Anon meetings were welcoming, loving, caring,
and simply wonderful. My wife came to two meetings
a week and she liked it so much that she and some of
her Al-Anon friends started a daytime meeting in our home.
With a job promotion, a relocation, and then my wife’s
lengthy illness and untimely death, I drifted away from
the program. Even though I didn’t attend, I believe the
strength I gained from Al-Anon kept me alive through a
very difficult, yet beautiful, time in my life.
After many years, I’m back in Al-Anon. I may be quiet
because I’m embarrassed for being away for so long,
but I love it. For now, just let me give back by being
here listening, really listening, and learning.
When I have courage, I’ll share what has helped me. anon
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ABRAHAM
1. the larger part of me is not upset with me
Isn’t it nice to know that you are invincible and that you are
in competition with no one? And that the only factors that
you ever need to factor in is where you are in relationship
with who you really are? And isn’t it nice to know that every
negative emotion that you ever have, no matter how strong
or slight it is, is because you are for whatever reason, not
letting you be who you really are? Don’t you love knowing
that? And don’t you love knowing that the you that you really
are, that you’re not letting yourself be, is not standing in
judgment of you. Ooo think about that! Let me see Abraham
did I hear that right? So life caused me to become more and
the larger part of me has already become it and is lovingly
calling me home toward it. And I’m not going because I’m
stubborn, and I’ve got other things on my mind.
And because I’ve been telling the story this way for a long
time and it’s hard to let go of, and it’s entertaining too!
(Audience laughter) And you’re saying the larger part
of me is not upset with me with not coming?
And we say no, and when YOU feel that way,
you will have made peace with where you are
and then you’ll go. That was big!
San Diego, CA 03-03-07
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Vernon Howard’s SECRETS OF LIFE
"Remember the phrase, ‘Intelligent emptiness.’"
A Treasury of Trueness, # 1276
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SEEDS FOR THE GARDEN OF YOUR MIND
Buddha/Zen Thoughts
A buddha is one who does not seek.
In seeking this, you turn away from it.
The principle is the principle of
nonseeking; when you seek it, you lose it.
-Pai-chang
~~~~~
Native American
"Wakan Tanka never stops creating."
–Archie Fire Lame Deer, LAKOTA
The Medicine Wheel teaches about change.
It says that which is created will fall apart; that
which is loose, will be used to create new.
In other words, everything on Earth is participating
in a constant change that is being directed by an
order of laws and principles which were originated
by the Great Spirit. We humans are equipped with
natural change abilities. We have the ability to vision;
we can use imagination and imagery; we can change
belief, attitude, habits and expectations. We need to
know ourselves and we need to know how we work
inside to enable us to change naturally.
Great Spirit, teach me to change in harmony.
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A SCATTERING OF SEEDS
A dewdrop on one blade of grass makes oceans moot.
May Opening
May is most
too awfully grand
for this birdsung
treebreezed
dewdazzled
man.
All winter I worked
freeze-dried and
to the world dead
in my closed-up
house
until this annual
now, when May
gives me to
inhale vigor’s gist
from its generous
air.
Today I’ve opened
windows and doors
to let livingness in
and release husks of
flies and moths and
thoughts.
My breathing replete
with May’s mixed balm
of aromatic everyness,
I’ve fallen again fully
open.
Alan Harris
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HUMOR
Arthritis A little old man shuffled slowly into an
ice cream parlor and pulled himself slowly, painfully,
up onto a stool.. After catching his breath, he ordered
a banana split. The waitress asked kindly,
‘Crushed nuts?’ ‘No,’ he replied, ‘Arthritis.’
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