Some mornings the day looks like a whole meal you’re supposed to finish before lunch. The calls, the inbox, the list that grew overnight. You stare at it and wonder where to even start.
Here’s what Sunday’s readings kept telling me: you don’t eat it all at once. You take a bite.
Start at the kitchen table
My Daily Reprieve email on October 11 opened with Dr. Bob, one of the co-founders of AA, writing in September 1948:
“Alcoholics Anonymous was nurtured in its early days around a kitchen table … True, we have progressed materially to better furniture and more comfortable surroundings. Yet the kitchen table must ever be appropriate for us. It is the perfect symbol of simplicity.”
I love that image. Nobody at a kitchen table is giving a keynote. It’s coffee, a few people, an honest conversation. Things get worked out one plate at a time.
We tend to overbuild things, our plans, our worries, our idea of what a good day has to look like. The kitchen table pulls us back down to size. Sit down. Deal with what’s in front of you.
A good day doesn’t have to be a big one
That same morning my encouragement verse was Micah 6:8: “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8, ESV)
Read it again and notice what isn’t on the list. Fix everything. Get it all done today. Be impressive. None of that is there.
Do justice. Love kindness. Walk humbly. Those are bite-sized. You can do every one of them in the next ten minutes, in a phone call, at a red light, in how you answer the person who’s frustrating you.
The note under the verse put it plainly: a good day doesn’t have to be a big one. Do the next right thing, be kind where you can, and stay humble before God.
Slow down long enough to taste it
There was another line in the Daily Reprieve that stuck with me:
“We overlook so many joys, so many hidden treasures, when we hurry from place to place, person to person, experience to experience, with little attention anywhere. All that matters passes before us now, at this moment. And assuredly, we will not pass this way again.”
Taking a bite isn’t only about making the big stuff manageable. It’s also about actually tasting what’s in front of you. When we gulp the day down, we miss most of it. The conversation we half heard. The person who needed two more minutes. The quiet that was right there.
Service is a bite, too
Marian Wright Edelman, quoted in the same email, said: “Service is the rent we pay to be living. It is the very purpose of life and not something you do in your spare time.”
That one challenges me. It’s easy to file service under “someday, when things calm down.” But rent comes due every month. Service shows up in small pieces, every day. A call to someone who’s struggling. Showing up for a newcomer. Doing the thing nobody will thank you for.
The “Twenty-Four Hour,” reading that day asked, “How good a sponsor am I?” and whether we stay with people or decide our job is done once they’ve been told. You don’t answer that with one big gesture. You answer it a bite at a time, by checking in again.
The part that’s mine to chew
The “Day At A Time,” reflection talked about saying the Serenity Prayer and really thinking about each phrase, so we can tell the difference between what we can change and what we can’t. Then it asked: “Do I see that most improvements in my life will come from changing my own attitudes and actions?”
That’s the bite that matters most. I can’t swallow other people’s choices, or the economy, or the whole week. I can work on my own attitude and my next action.
Irving Berlin, also in that email, called attitudes “a secret power working twenty-four hours a day, for good or bad.” Twenty-four hours. Funny how often that number shows up in recovery. Nobody is asking us to handle a lifetime. Just today. Just this next piece.
So, take a bite out of it
Here’s what I’m trying to practice this week:
- Pick the next right thing, not the whole list. One call, one email, one honest conversation.
- Do one act of kindness on purpose. Not because it fits the schedule. Because it’s the rent.
- Slow down for one moment a day. Actually notice it. It won’t come this way again.
- Check my attitude before I check my phone. That’s the part that’s mine.
The day will still look like too much sometimes. That’s fine. Sit down at the kitchen table, say a prayer, and take a bite.
What’s the one bite you’re taking today?
Dan 🙂
Life is GOOOOOD!!!
Reflection note: I wrote this from my own daily readings. Quotes belong to their original authors and sources (Your Daily Reprieve, October 11, 2026, and Micah 6:8, ESV). I used AI to help organize it and reviewed it before posting.