Episode 180 -- January 3, 2022

Meditation Monday: Face and Embrace Today

The selections for this Meditation Monday are early January entries from three of our most popular resources: Today's Gift, A Day at a Time, and The Promise of a New Day. These brief meditations are gathered around the theme of today and meant to help you focus on, face, and embrace all the gifts this day offers.

Today's Gift

To affect the quality of the day,
that is the highest of arts.
—Henry David Thoreau

We are the sculptors of our day. We can mold it creatively into a wonderful masterpiece. We control the amount of moisture we mix into our clay. We pound it, shape it, stroke it, love it. Others can offer suggestions, and we gain new perspectives from their advice, but it is finally our own creation. Our knife may occasionally slip, or our mixture of earth may be too dry. Any great artist suffers temporary setbacks. Besides, imperfections in art often make it all the more interesting.

How creative can I be in my life today?

A Day at a Time

Reflection for the Day
"Vision is, I think, the ability to make good estimates," wrote Bill W., the cofounder of Alcoholics Anonymous. "Some might feel this sort of striving to be heresy against 'One day at a time.' But that valuable principle really refers to our mental and emotional lives, and means chiefly that we are not foolishly to repine over the past nor wishfully daydream about the future." Can I believe that "A day has a hundred pockets when one has much to put in them"?

Today I Pray
I pray that the bright colors of this day may not be blurred by muted vagaries of the future or dulled by storm-gray remnants from the past. I pray that my Higher Power will help me to choose my actions and concerns out of the wealth of busyness that each day offers.

Today I Will Remember
I will not lose for today, if I choose for today.

The Promise of a New Day

Here we are, one body of precise weight and measure, attached by invisible but actual forces to this square of earth, which is what we know at this moment, and all we know. It is also all we have to know.
—Marya Hornbacher

Isn't it amazing how some people contrive to live in the present? They seem not to worry about the future; they seem not to regret the past. "Two days I can't do anything about," runs the saying, "yesterday and tomorrow."

We love to fantasize about the past and the future: What if Napoleon had died in infancy? Where would I travel in a time machine? But we get into trouble when we forget that "the past" and "the future" are inventions; the only reality is the present. Yes, past events contribute to our now; yes, the present will help to determine the future. But we can't do anything about them; the past and the future are out of our reach.

It seems, oddly enough, that it's people with a strong faith who are best able to live in the present moment. Faith doesn't have to mean believing in a higher power. Enjoyment of the present, care for the quality of life: these are a kind of reverence, a kind of faith in life itself. The present is valuable, this faith tells us: it is all we have.

Let me swim in the present, reverential and unafraid. Let me be sustained by the water of life.

Hazelden meditation books offer a brief reading for every day of the year. Today's selection from Today's Gift is from January 7, the meditation from A Day at a Time is from January 5, and the meditation from The Promise of a New Day is from January 4.

About the Author:
Contributing writers for Today's Gift include Antiga, Paul Bjorklund, Cecil Carle, Liane Cordes, Paula Culp, Emilio DeGrazia, Karen Casey Elliott, Jeanne Engelmann, Patricia Hoolihan, Bonnie-Jean Kimball, Joe Klaas, Roseann Lloyd, Peter McDonald, Beth Milligan, Ann Monson, Pat O'Donnell, and Cynthia Orange.
A Day at a Time was written anonymously
The Promise of a New Day was written by Karen Casey and Martha Vanceburg

Today's Gift © 1985, 1991 by Hazelden Foundation
A Day at a Time © 1989 by Hazelden Foundation
The Promise of a New Day © 1983, 1991 by Hazelden Foundation
All rights reserved