TODAY'S STEVE STUFF

Just how does this thing work? GOOD!

Q. Say, how does this AA program work?
A. Good!

Q. What the heck do you do, since you don't drink?
A. Everything else!


We bought a brand new Toyota RAV 4 yesterday, will pick up today. It has this GPS screen to die for. Then I got to thinking, $28,000 for a GPS, which we have not needed ever before yesterday? (Will they throw in a sun roof, just what "cancer-skin" Steve has always wished for?)

I'm going to a couple AA meetings this morning, it is the best way I know to start my day. Prayer Girl is going with me--her once-a-year foray into early morning AA.

The Peeps there know I'm married, but some of them will think I'm bringing a biker girl friend. So we'll introduce to those who are new.

Today is my favorite of favorites from GOD CALLING, May 16...I marked it 28 years ago. To capsulate this day's message:

"Never weary in prayer. When one day man sees how marvelously his prayer has been answered, then he will deeply, so deeply, regret that he prayed so little.

Prayer changes all. Prayer re-creates. Prayer is irresistible. So pray, literally without ceasing.

Pray until you almost cease to pray, because trust has become so rock-like, and then pray on because it has become so much a habit that you cannot resist it.

And always pray until Prayer merges into Praise. That is the only note on which true prayer should end. It is the Love and Laughter of your attitude towards man interpreted in the Pray and Praise of your attitude towards God"

Later today, I get to play violin at mass. Beautiful Day! Thank you AA. thank you bloggers, thank You God!

Peace, and Love,
Steve E

SUNDAY...IS GOD CALLING?

HAPPY MOTHERS' DAY TO ALL MOTHERS,
ESPECIALLY BROKEN-HEARTED ONES.
I CRY WITH YOU TODAY.

When I came into Alcoholics Anonymous, one of the early miracles--aside from sobriety--of which I became aware was being given the "unauthorized" book, Hazelden's "24 Hours a Day". Mary called me aside one night and handed this to me in June 1974. (Three years later she died drunk.) The format included then, as now, a thought, a meditation, and a prayer. I have read it daily, through today (over 35 years).

Ten years after, in 1984, a sister-in-law gave me a book "God Calling", by A.J. Russell, a retelling of Two Listeners, girls in England to whom God 'talked' every day. No matter, the meditation in our "24 Hours A Day" book is nearly always taken from the daily offering in God Calling.

I kept wondering--for ten MORE years--when reading one or the other, "Where have I heard that before?" -grin! Finally I realized, one was borrowing from the other. These two books, both of them "non-Conference-Approved", have been a huge part of my spiritual program in sobriety. The following is GOD CALLING entry for May 9.....it befits a Mother's Day blog.

HARMONY WITHIN

Follow My Guidance. Be afraid to venture on your own as a child fears to leave its mother's side. Doubt of your own wisdom, and reliance on Mine, will teach you humility.

Humility is not the belittling of the self. It is forgetting the self. Nay more, forgetting the self, because you are remembering Me.

You must not expect to live in a world where all is harmony. You must not expect to live where others are in unbroken accord with you. It is your task to maintain your own heart peace in adverse circumstances. Harmony is always yours when you strain your ear to catch Heaven's music.

Doubt always your own power or wisdom to put things right, ask Me to right all as you leave it to Me, and go on your way loving and laughing. I am wisdom. Only My wisdom can rightly decide anything - settle any problem. So rely on Me. All is well.

Remember, bloggers, LOVE is the bottom line--and love, like so many others--is an 'action' word.

In LOVE and Service,
Sincerely,
Steve E

A special link HERE to the writings of "Pat--A Child Lost", a blog written in 2004. It is neither humorous nor happy, but sad (and lengthy!) but I felt it worthy to be promulgated in this fashion. OK, Peeps? Thank you for understanding!