01.27.08

My favorite passage from our literature:

Service gladly rendered, obligations squarely met, troubles well accepted or solved with God's help, the knowledge that at home or in the world outside we are partners in a common effort, the fact that in God's sight all human beings are important, the proof that love freely given brings a full return, the certainty that we are no longer isolated and alone in self-constructed prisons, the surety that we can fit and belong in God's scheme of things--these are the satisfactions of right living for which no pomp and circumstance, no heap of material possessions, could possibly be substitutes. ~12 & 12, p.124

Today I am grateful...

• that yesterday my sponsor and I finished with the Traditions and are now moving on to the Principles. The first one being Honesty. See the quote below.
• for the call from the gallery owner that said he had sold a painting sight unseen to a collector because he heard 'it was such an important show'
• and that I have been asked to rehang some pieces for the next show (we are hanging them today) and I am adding a couple of new pieces
• that the only jealousies I have ever harbored were in love. Material things, never.
• for the freedoms a sober life offers me

An alcoholic carries an awful load around with them. What a load lying puts on your shoulders! Drinking makes liars out of all of us alcoholics. In order to get all the liquor we want, we have to lie all the time. We have to lie about where we've been and what we've been doing. When you are lying you are only half alive, because of the fear of being found out. When you come into A.A., and get honest with yourself and with other people, that terrible load of lying falls off your shoulders. ~Twenty-Four Hours a Day