Daily Reflections · October 21
Nothing Grows in the Dark
The good in us needs light to grow: a line Bill W. wrote to lead into meditation, read today as a lesson in Step Ten.
Today’s reading
The reading for October 21 in Daily Reflections, AA’s book of short readings by members. Its passage comes from As Bill Sees It, page 10.
This page doesn’t reprint it. Read it free at aa.org, then come back for the asks.
Read it at aa.orgYour screen will stay on while Chairing is showing.
Themes and asks
-
There’s good in you
The passage takes it for granted that there’s good in everyone, even in people at their worst, and that the work is helping it grow rather than making it from nothing. Early on, that can be the hardest part to believe.
- When did you first believe there was something in you worth growing?
- Who saw it in you before you did?
-
Not always wrong
The member who wrote today’s reflection noticed one small word in Step Ten, the “and” in “and when we were wrong.” If we admit our wrongs when we’re wrong, we aren’t wrong all the time. The writer found that reassuring, and a help in accepting themselves.
- Looking back over a day, do you lean toward beating yourself up, or toward explaining yourself?
- What did you get right this week that you haven’t given yourself credit for?
-
Sooner, not later
Step Ten asks us to admit a wrong promptly. Read beside today’s title, that suggests something to think about: a wrong left unsaid can grow in the dark too.
- What has waiting to admit you were wrong cost you?
- Is there something you could set right today instead of tomorrow?
-
More than not drinking
The writer credits steady work on Step Ten with changes that reach well past the drink. Staying sober is the floor, not the ceiling.
- Where has your recovery reached lately, beyond not drinking?
- Where hasn’t it reached yet?
Behind the words
Written for Step Eleven
Today’s reading cites As Bill Sees It, but the line is older. Bill W. wrote it for the Twelve and Twelve, AA’s 1953 book of essays on the Steps and Traditions, near the start of his essay on Step Eleven, about prayer and meditation.
It comes soon after he calls looking hard at ourselves “only a step,” one we’ll want to go beyond. A sentence after the passage comes the line today’s title seems to come from: “nothing much can grow in the dark.” Meditation, he wrote, is “our step out into the sun.” The essay goes on to print the prayer known as the Prayer of St. Francis as a way into it.
In 1967 the line went into The A.A. Way of Life, a book of short readings drawn from Bill’s writings and letters. When Bill died in January 1971, AA’s newsletter Box 4-5-9 was already calling it As Bill Sees It, and said it gathered, a reading at a time, much of the help he had given other alcoholics in “thousands of visits and a vast correspondence.”
In 1987 AA’s General Service Conference asked for a book of daily reflections, written from members’ own sharing on the Steps and Traditions, Bill’s included. The 1990 Conference approved it. The member who wrote October 21’s took a line Bill had written leading into meditation, and read it as a lesson in Step Ten.
More on how Bill wrote the Twelve and Twelve: Wit’s End, in Suggestions Only.
How the line got here
- 1953Twelve Steps and Twelve TraditionsIn Bill W.’s essay on Step Eleven, where he turns from looking at ourselves to meditation.
- 1967The A.A. Way of LifeShort readings from Bill’s writings and letters, later called As Bill Sees It. The reading cites its page 10.
- 1990Daily ReflectionsA member’s reflection on the line becomes the reading for October 21.
- Todayaa.orgThe day’s reading, free to read every day. October 21’s
Threads
Each one opens the calendar with its days lit up.
Sources
- Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. AA Grapevine and Alcoholics Anonymous Publishing, 1953. The essay on Step Eleven.
- Alcoholics Anonymous. Works Publishing, 1939. “How It Works,” for the wording of Step Ten.
- Box 4-5-9, January 1971, the Bill W. memorial issue · GSO
- Arthur S., A Narrative Timeline of AA History, 2009 version. The entry for 1967.
- AA World Services, Advisory Actions of the General Service Conference of Alcoholics Anonymous, 1951–2022, as posted by Area 8 (1986 to 1990).
- As Bill Sees It. AA World Services, 1967, first published as The A.A. Way of Life. Page 10, which the reading cites.
- Daily Reflections. AA World Services, 1990. October 21 and AA’s description of the book · aa.org
Something wrong here? A date, a name, a quotation? Let me know
Daily Reflections is AA’s book of readings for every day of the year, each written by a member about a favorite passage from AA’s literature. A Daily Reprieve gives each day questions to sit with and the story behind its words.