PG AND STEVE E AND CHERYL CHRISTMAS TREE

O CHRISTMAS TREE--

YOUR REFLECTION 

IS IN THE IMAGE OF YOURSELF

CHRISTMAS 
AND GRATITUDE

Years ago, a guy in AA handed me a card, and he said "Here is your Gratitude List!"

There was nothing on either side of the card, so I told him that.

He said, "Good!  All you have to do is fill in all that blank space!"

So much gratitude we talk about during this triumviral holiday season. Only this morning the chair person announced: "Today's topic--and I can hear groaning already--is on Gratitude." Those were his exact words.

My first thought was "You said 'Groaning'? WTF? After 'not drinking', gratitude is what keeps me ALIVE!!"  

If I am not grateful, Who do I think got me sober, and keeps me sober? Me? You? AA? Answer: None of the above. It is GOD Who does all this for me-- through you Peeps and practicing the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.  That's how it's done, where it is AT, folks. For ME--nowhere else. It is the only thing that worked--and continually works.

So, for everything I might declare Gratitude for, SOBRIETY is Numero Uno, because without it, I have nothing. I would have been  either in JAIL,a Mental Institution, or under the ground...and maybe for those reasons is whence comes my JOY at being alive.

Happiness is for me Acceptance of almost everything, Willingness to change most everything, and Gratitude to my God, for all he has given me.  This gratitude is not a simple "feeling of being grateful". It is more like "feeling of DOING grateful". Gratitude is an action word. I must show others what I used to be like, what happened to me, and what I am like now. Perfection is the goal. Great amounts of IMPERFECTION is the reality. And so I can only strive to get better, BE better, and serve better my fellows, you Peeps, and whoever I may be fortunate enough today to MEET.

Dammmm, I sure got on the soapbox! But I'm NOT sorry! See? It's working already!

I wish you all the Peace for which the Christmas celebration implies. I wish you my LOVE and a Merry (means HAPPY!) Christmas week...and after. Thank you--all my Peeps--SO much for being here. Blessings.

fill your heart 

with art

--manon doyle

(Do yourself a favor and 

drop by to visit her HERE!)

 A month ago I happened on a blog manondoyle and right in front of me were the words "...whoever sends me an email request, will receive a handful of my business cards. The cards are very pretty with copies of original artwork by Manon Doyle. I have changed information on my new business cards, and so have lots of old cards to give away." (Not exact words.)

So Peeps, if you know me--When something is FREE! God must have a hand in that--or Congress--grin. And only a few days after I received this really nice gift in the mail, from the artist Manon. I thanked her, then got so busy with music that I only returned to her blog once or twice.

Yesterday we received by snail-mail a most beautiful Christmas card (Heading Picture), guess who did the graphics. And I did not even remember her name. I felt like the guy in the crowd witnessing Jesus perform miracles of welcoming peeps back from the dead...and the fellow "...didn't even know His Name." (I made that up--grin!)

Anyway, I went back to Manon Doyle's blog, and her web pages, and found there treasures of stuff--that's right, "STUFF". What attracted me though, was her art, worked mostly in mixed media, and her commentaries, succinct and appropriate, with humor and truth. Can't ask for much more.

Manon's blog is a welcoming, pleasant, peaceful, spiritual, and fun place to be. Take it from me.


After all those--yes, MANY--years I hid behind my drinking, later my violin playing, I am finally discovering this whole (new to me) world of art and poetry. Thank you again, MD!


You sober Peeps, stay SOBER with me today?
LOVE someone with me today?
Find that "heavenly" PEACE, today?
Yessssss!