Ahhhh--MIRACLES: SEEN and UNSEEN

POLLY--AND "K"

Recovering Alcoholic, teacher, cookie maker, speaker...

Polly was the speaker at the "cookie" meeting last night. (See "Polly" blog)
http://steveroni.blogspot.com/2008_07_16_archive.html and I got to tell you that her story revealed to the crowd of about 150-200 people, that she indeed is a real alcoholic. And the humility she showed me was inspiring. You know, I believe the way to express humility in a talk, is to not use the word. In fact, maybe that's something I learned last night, "don't talk humility--live it".

When Polly gives me (and many others) an hour of her time, and displays the courage to stand there and more or less bare her soul, it is a gift, presented "as the gentle rain from heaven, dropped upon the place beneath"...dropped upon a room full of recovering alcoholics. Thank you, Polly, for your gift. Your talk was as good as your cookies, believe me!

God has truly been working in Polly's life in convincing and powerful ways--and she is willing to let all know that it is HE, not she, who is boss in her life today.

Each time I hear someone speak about their "last drink" or the day that "the game was over" or that "I surrendered", it gives me those feverish chills, which only a "God-thing" can produce. And to hear Polly talk about "that moment" brought tears to my eyes--and still does this morning. (Had deleted this paragraph, but just decided to put it back in--Polly won't mind!)

I myself often 'preach', that God does 'talk' to me, but only through other people. Of course, then I gotta listen! Well, He 'talked' last night, and I listened.

Looking about twenty years younger than her real age, Polly is a school teacher, and I cannot envision anyone in her class receiving less than an "A" grade. Recently, a seventeen-year-old girl "K." stayed with us over-night, and Anna and I had the privilege, the honor, of introducing her to my morning group. Polly sat next to "K" and I now know that God was sitting there also. And I know WHY! Read on:

Yesterday "K", who lives in Norfolk, called us in Naples to say that at an AA meeting she met her TEACHER! "K" (and the teacher?) was shocked. "K"'s question was how could she face her teacher ("K is a high school senior). So naturally, Anna counseled "K" on the phone, to ask her teacher to be her sponsor. Don't you know, I can feel God's presence all over the place today, and it's only 6 AM.

And so, I've missed my 6 o'clock meeting...but there IS one just following, so I hope I can just sit and listen, and maybe learn something again today. If only I can keep my mouth shut! Thirty-four years ago they told me to "Take the cotton out of your ears...etc." and somewhere along the way, I forgot how to do that.

Thank you R., for asking your bestest friend Polly to speak. And thank you, Matthew, for traveling back to Naples to receive your thirty-year chip!

THE WORDS...OR THE MESSAGE?

Said a traveler to one of the disciples, "I have traveled a great distance to listen to the Master, but I find his words quite ordinary."
"Don't listen to his words. Listen to his message."

"How does one do that?"

"Take hold of a sentence that he says. Shake it well till all the words drop off. What is left will set your heart on fire."

© Anthony de Mello, SJ


At a meeting yesterday morning sat a young girl (well, to me, "young" is well under 40! or 50?)...whom I'll call "N", sober three weeks, and learning, yes, learning. Well, she had sat through almost the whole hour, and it was your (how--and why--DO they say it?) "garden-variety" AA meeting, ya know what I mean?

And then, in voce pianissimo, N. spoke slowly...deliberately...thoughtfully. I cannot quote, but her words said to me something like this: "You know, I've been wrestling with the "God" thing, and someone recently said to me, "God could and would, if He were sought...NOT CAUGHT".

Momentarily, her eyes and mine "caught" each other's, and my face reddened. I remembered that line. It was posted in one of my earlier blogs--and N. has been reading them, along with this "astute blogger group" -grin- of which I feel a member, of sorts--another grin.

Immediately I felt something like a powerful swoosh of God's grace, having flowed through myself, out to N., and felt also the graces flowing back to me. How seldom am I honored in that fashion--to know that God has worked through me, and alllowed me to SEE and HEAR the result within a few days!

God is so good, actually He IS goodness Itself! He is not only within reach, He is WITHIN each of us, and it is that which I LOVE in each of us. He demands this. And it will not be otherwise.

N. spoke more, with succinctness. In my opinion, she gave us--as a group--so much more than we had given to her during the hour. Truly I believe, and pray, that N. is on her way to "catching" God, but you know--I think He has caught HER! She showed an understanding of spiritual principles far beyond where three mere weeks of meetings, Steps, reading, and sponsor guidance might lead.

Sometimes I become upset with myself for not paying more attention to the news, local, national, and world. Guess I tune in the wrong newscasts, or read the wrong papers, because I get "All the news that's unfit to print". I have become just SO HAPPY with Alcoholics Anonymous, you people, and God's gifts, which He has entrusted to me for giving to others, as I have received.

WOW! Me is really on that soapbox again. Well, I'll step off it, and go read someone else's blog, and maybe, just maybe, I'll become humble enough to learn something today....maybe even before 8 AM!
Steve E.

More later: ...and yes! I DID learn more , and I was forced to be humble, humble enough to accept reality, humble enough to accept certain things I cannot change, humble enough to know the world does NOT revolve around ME!
Thank You, my God...and AA people!

NUMBER 71 OF "48 STUPID THINGS"

WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS.......

PRAY! IT WORKS!

Ummm, I suppose writing two blogs in a day could be compared to 'Double-Dipping', but I'd rather think of it as FOLLOW-UP. Yeah, right!

In a comment, Mary C let me know that St Anthony was "The Man" (to ask for help in finding lost stuff). Well, I'm here to tell y'all, "Yep! It works--if ya work it, that is" -grin.

Since early 1990's I have NEVER used a backup--for re-installing, that is. In fact, all I had then was either big floppies (I mean BIG!) or--finally--a tape backup system. But, never had NEED for that biz. Until jjjesterday (that's Spanish!). So I prayed to St A. for help, and I gotta tell you HONESTLY (one day I'll write about honesty!), I walked right into the cabinet where I had placed a 250GB external HD with a complete backup on it. Only two weeks old, yet I had literally forgotten all about it...WOW! Thank you St Anthony, and you-know-who-somewhere-in-Colorado-GRIN!

So, wanted you to know that St A did not give me the new password, but gave me the .ddb file, covering the time from ten years ago until July 15, 2008, which worked, using the old PWD. Tomorrow's blog will be another "GOD" story, whose inspiration came from this morning's 8AM meeting.
Steve E.

NUMBER 70 OF "48 STUPID THINGS"

WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS...PRAY

Why not BEFORE all else fails?

Probably the following--lost password--will be #70 on my list of 48 Stupid Things I've Done in Sobriety:

Omigosh, I had written several blogs ahead (Alcoholic? Me?) in a database program, and, naturally I put a password on the whole thing. That was to 'protect' all of this ultra-sensitive, top-level, eyes-only trash springing from my mind. All these highly-secret documents would have, in a matter of a few days, of course, appeared on "steveroni" for the whole world to read (Ha!)...

Bottom line: I forgot the new password, it was just something I had read at that moment--a long word--with the spelling changed a bit. Woe is me, my whole life was recorded in that ddb file, which I began in 1996.

Oh well! Ya win some, ya lose some. Know when to hold, when to fold.

Does anyone remember to whom we pray to "find" a lost password. Is it st Anthony? As usual, when I need help, I exhaust all earthly possibilities, then, as a last resort, I pray for whatever. "When all else fails...pray". What a mantra! When, if I had prayed to begin, I'd have saved all that time and anxiety.

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.
--pg 89, GOD CALLING ...A.J. Russell (Also in 24-Hr Book, May 16 - Hazeldon)

So that's it for today, so far--it's only 4:30AM here in Naples. Lots more awaits. Thank you, God! Let us all LIVE AND LOVE AS FULLY AS WE CAN...WITH GREAT JOY!
Steve E.

ANOTHER CONFESSION? HOLY "YOU-KNOW-WHAT!"-

GOD COULD AND WOULD...AND DID!

If it were not for people, places, and things...I'd be OK. --Steve E.

Some little (Ha! Little?) situation has been bothering me for months, and I've hesitated--well, procrastinated--talking about it, to ANYONE. (Little voice says, "Sponsor, sponsor, sponsor!) To me, it is a BIG character defect. Those few friends who have detected my recent uneasiness--and the reasons for it--call me "meshuga", Hebrew for "crazy". This morning I heard the word, in reference to me, "meshugana", Yiddish, for "a crazy man". Now, it's not every day I get called crazy, even though you all probably hear that a lot -BIG grin-.

Back to "serious" now: I'm a "praying" type of guy, believe in it, trust in it (prayer, that is). But I've been drifting away from that, devouring everything I hear at all these meetings, except what I do not wish to hear. "Steveroni's will be done on earth?" Well, I've been getting sicker and tireder. Been hearing those words for thirty-four years, thinking they could NEVER apply to moi, after all this sobriety.

Sobriety? What a word! Forward to the First Edition of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous (It's also in all the other editions...may you find it now -grin-.) BEGINS: "We, of Alcoholics Anonymous, are more than one hundred men and women who have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body."

They did not say "We have recovered from alcoholism!" Why can I not remember that fact? I am, and will always be, an ALCOHOLIC. I'm a person with an incurable disease. Exactly how my disease has "flowered" during the past couple years, I cannot write, because it comes under the realm of "hurting them or others", which we strive to avoid.

Bottom line for today is, I SAW the miracle take place. I could see it in the eyes of a human being. God allowed me to witness the working of His Infinite Power, flooding through another person, to remove from me MY difficulties. And that is so that one day I may help another to do the same. And that is SO COOL!

How often have I counseled others in regard to their program, their praying, their improprieties, their "meshuga" (craziness!), and yet, over what of these have I ever become a master? Well, as of now, I'm still learning to see the point, to become "willing to grow along spiritual lines."

Following quote (message to me this morning?) is excerpted from today's entry in GOD CALLING, from "Two Listeners", edited by A.J. Russell:

JULY 28, 2008:
"You wonder sometimes why you are permitted to make mistakes in your choices when you sought so truly to do My Will in those matters.

To that I say it was no mistake.... All your lessons cannot be learned without difficulty, and this was needed to teach you a lesson. Not to him who walks on, with no obstacles in his way, but to him that overcomes is the promise given."

I pray that God blesses ALL who have had a part in my sobriety, and I don't even have to know who you are. Thank YOU!
Steve E.

(Discovered that somone close...was praying HARD for me...)

A STORY

YEP--ANOTHER "STORY" FROM STEVERONI...UGHHH!

When we eat out with old folks, seems like all they can talk about is the "place they ate yesterday." Or maybe that steak they had on June 14 1946--"Boyoboy, they shooer don't make 'em like thet any mower...". And sometimes that's ALL they talk about--is FOOD! It gives my warped sense of humor a shot of adrenalin--hey, I'm a "senior citizen", so I can write about this.

It's akin to saying, at a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, "Hey, remember what so-and-so said at that meeting fourteen years ago in that Clubhouse in Ohio?"

Well, I've ALWAYS enjoyed being the 'observer'. Maybe that let me off the hook from thinking, from participating, who knows? I am NOT now (sometimes?) "The Analyzer". One day I felt like I had become the other guy, the 'observed'...paranoia? That's MY guess. Wow! So sick.

Reminds me of the joke, "Oh! Did I hurt your feelings? I'll call the ambulance!"

Another STORY begins:
By choice, I've been a "people-watcher" for many years. As a retired--again, by a BAD choice--symphony violinist, I began a "career" as a violin-playing bartender. It was no easy thing to be always seeing--or sensing--the slightest whim of desire of any one of the sixty customers (all mine, no waitresses, etc!). No cigarette went unlit in "my" bar (It was actually Nick's bar, The Captain's Cabin in Naples, FL). No glass stayed sitting on the bar, empty. Every ash tray was kept clean, as if the patrons had just climbed onto the stool. AND, I made a lot of money. AND I had two heart attacks--before age 32. AND I ran a lot. AND I worked very hard. AND I drank very much. AND I ate very little. AND I was very good. AND along with filling the beer coolers, pouring the booze, mixing the "fancies", cutting the fruit, washing the glasses, I PLAYED THE VIOLIN. While I was playing, I entertained with jokes and introduced people to each other who I had judged, hand-picked to be of like minds, always myself mindful of what else was going on. Stopping fights was, thank God, a seldom necessity, but settling quarrels was an often occurrence.

During my five drunken years there (1966-1971), at least four couples became married, as a direct result of my introductions..well, maybe God's intros. As a result of those same introductions, many more developed VERY close living arrangements, either short or long-term. It was "that kind of place", but always full of mostly nice, happy people.

Except for ME! At the same time I was giving these customers the best service they'd ever experienced in a small neighborhood bar (like CHEERS...really), I constantly harbored the thought that they were "The Enemy"! You see, fear and paranoia had finally taken great hold of me, and however much I drank, I could not rid myself of those two devils.

God, although He was in me I now know, was never in my thoughts during those years. Finally--one day several years later--when I tried to "find" Him, he was nowhere to BE found. I had no clue that one day I'd read in our Big Book, that ..."God could and would if He were SOUGHT!" (not "caught", as my sponsor told me).

So, in March 1974, when I walked shakily up three steps to the church at Trinity-By-The-Cove, to my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, I REALLY would rather have died and gone to hell right at that moment. But God had other plans. My (hopefully!) final drink had happened at five minutes until midnight, the night before. And I was truly 'a mess of pottage, a gallon of White Port (daily maintenance)--going, and almost gone'...'But the Master came, and my old acquaintances still cannot quite understand the worth of a soul...the change that is wrought...By the Touch of the Master's Hand'.

Please excuse the unauthorized references to the work THE TOUCH OF THE MASTER'S HAND by Myra Brooks Welch

Steve E.

GOD WITH US!

OH GOD!

Hello whoever comes here If your heart is even slightly heavy today, allow Him Who has all power--God--allow Him into your soul, and allow His soothing Grace to overcome any obstacle to your feeling of peacefulness.

Those ancient Greeks had a single word which meant for them both "heart" and "soul". Sort of pronounced (don't laugh, all youse Greeks out there!) "Psookase". At any rate, since my own heart is not heavy today--but I'll just say it is in an unrestful state, I've turned to my favorite God paragraph in our wonderful Big Book. This is in Chapter to the Agnostics, Page 55. You'll find it. I've italicized, and capitalized a bit, forgive me for that license.

"We finally saw, that faith in some kind of God was a part of our make-up, just as much as the feeling we have for a friend. Sometimes we had to search fearlessly but HE WAS THERE. He was as much a fact as we were. We found the Great Reality deep down within us. In the last analysis it is only there that He may be found. It was so with us."

How I love that description, which allows my understanding of God to be totally different from your own. Yet we are talking about the same Entity...and this Entity knows always the needs of each of us. This Entity is listening all through Eternity to each of our momentary cries for help, and with certainty, supplies the answers: meaning (to me!)...read the next Chapter, HOW IT WORKS!
Love Y'all,
Steveroni (rhymes with "macaroni" -grin-), who is really of German descent.

WE'RE TALKIN' LIFE...OR DEATH

A LESSON: REMEMBERING "JIM"

My memory for the following post was triggered by Mary C's Friday blog. I still hesitate to publish this, But "THE COMMITTEE" says--GO:

Ya know, when you have lived in the halls of Alcoholics Anonymous for a good number of years, certain true stories accumulate in the old memory bank. Many of these chronicles are beautifully wonderful (as in "full of wonder") instances of God's gifts. Too many others are tales best forgotten, unless a useful purpose emerges to make them worthy of recall and repetition. The following might be one of those:

Early in my sobriety, I became aware--suddenly--of the seriousness of our disease and the fearful responsibilities we have inherited, and ..."no matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others." (BB Page 84)

One Friday night at a Speaker-type meeting, a brand new guy was at the podium, I do not remember just how many hours and/or days had expired (bad word) since his last drink. However, I and other newbies were anxious to hear his talk, since HE was sober about as long a time (or short a time) as ME! (Identify...remember?).

His deportment was very poor, in the minds of some--well everyone--and he barely audibly introduced himself, really not knowing what else to say to the group of about forty. He grunted and grumbled a few words, nervously laughed in a shallow manner to hide his discomfort, and after three minutes had passed, just stood there all fidgety, almost dumb struck. Another minute or two of nothing (seemed like longer) passed.

Shaking still, a foul odor emanating from his self, he sort of blubbered (like me) and sounded like a idiot (like me). Ya see, I could RELATE AND IDENTIFY (who cares which?) with this poor soul, who vaguely knew what was expected of him, but through those glassy-wet eyes, did NOT see what was happening in the room. The folks were becoming quite impatient, waiting long seconds for the next unrelated word to reach their auditory nerves, as their grumbles and complaints began to reach HIS auditory nerves.

Well, he stumbled out of the room in tears. I guessed that people were waiting for him to soon return, because no one followed him. And me, I just figured it was par for the AA course, ya win some, ya lose some. To quote from someone's (MC!) Friday (yesterday's) blog, "Oh hell, what do I know?"

Well, Jim--I'll call him--never did return that evening. And from what I was allowed to hear, by standing near the clusters of AA people during successive meeting nights, a friend, who opened Jim's front door the morning after his first "AA talk", found a gun lying on the floor--right next to Jim's very cold, very dead, hand.

So sorry and so sad to post this episode of my AA remembrances, I yet (in my own sick mind?) somehow suppose that this IS a part of my E S and H. I'm so certain that God welcomed Jim into Eternal bliss that very day. And I pray that someone--even if only me--learned or relearned a lesson this day.

On The Other Hand..... "Oh hell, what do I know?"

Somewhat Sorrowfully posted, by Steve E.

A "LIGHTER" NOTE? MAYBE!

POLLY'S COOKIES...and "K"....

I spoke at the AA "cookie" meeting last night for about 20 minutes here in Naples, FL...and the cookies were DELICIOUS. Anyway, I lent the folks a bit of my wit, wisdom, and charm -grin- and shared with them a small segment from my great storehouse of knowledge of AA recovery -another HUGE grin-. But this I can truly say...that I had a wonderful time of it, especially munching the cookies. And everyone else was smiling also, at cookie-time...(saying, "Thank God the long-winded 20-minute talking had reached those final words!").

And the "cookie girl" of the night (An anonymous sweetheart named Polly!) gave me a little doggie bag, for home use. Which brings me to the SECOND part of this blog. At home was my sober (23 years) wife, Anna speaking in low toned voice (unusual for her!) to a girl who God had dropped into our laps--well, our HOUSE--for a one-nighter. I'll call her "K" for now. She is from a northern city, age seventeen, passing through Naples, an admitted "person with a drinking problem" and a real darling, intelligent girl with a magnetic personality. And she is a drunk! Also neither Anna nor I had ever met her before. How she arrived at our door, clean and pretty, with bag in hand, is a mystery only God knows whereof. I mean, well, we know a few specifics, but the enigma was for certain a working of God, IMO.

And so, as you all have guessed by now...we enjoyed non-stop, wonderful conversations of learning about each other until the wee hours--eating Polly's (Ummmm!) cookies, with an amount of ice cream thrown into the mix. "K" agreed to my early-hour-up schedule, and so Anna brought her to my 7AM meeting.

As you've also guessed by now, she was surrounded by a gaggle of girls (I had alerted some of them beforehand and at the 6AM meeting!) and we are fairly sure that she enjoyed her FIRST AA meeting. "K" smiled often as only the newcomer--and the old-timer--can do (hiding all the BS which is lurking behind the facade) and I noticed her attentiveness and "saw" her listening to each one who shared on this, our "Step-Day" (Third Step! How wonderful is THAT?). It has GOT to be impressive to a first-day someone, who gets a little silver chip, for first-week, etc., and then witnesses sixty-five people at 7AM on a Friday morning, laughing at themselves one moment, talking the next moment about our life-and-death disease, and in general having a GRAND OLD TIME...but serious, but serious...!

Well that's ALL of us, whether at a meeting, in a living room, in a gutter on the street, or on a huge luxury ocean liner--for a week--with a few hundred AA's, having a ball! "K" found understanding, love, and PEACE in that room this morning, and as I write this about our experiences the past twenty-four hours, it's all I can do...to not cry with happiness. I love you ALL.

Steve E.

Yes, Yes!!! MARY CHRISTINE, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY #24--GOD IS GOOD!

SOME DEEP SH*T HERE??

I laugh. I cry. I love. I enjoy. I relax. Humor is good. Humor gladdens the hearts of humans and spirits alike. Humor pleases even Itself, it's very Source--God--it's Creator. My father said many times to me, "Do everything--even humor--in moderation." (Duh!) He never could figure out the meanings of physical compulsion, mental obsession, (serious) craving--well, neither could I! Ha! He supposed I should achieve a balance between jesting and a certain, sometime seriousness? He supposed I could drink in moderation? He simply could not understand my love of a chaotic life--he was not one of us. Intelligent as Pop was (even though deaf and blind) he and I never meshed like other fathers-and-sons. I just could not "moderate", could not DO things half-way.

These days I occasionally feel myself kind of floating, being sustained on a plateau of sorts, remaining in an habitué of humor, of blissful unawareness of a troubled world--continually engulfed in that happy, confident, peaceful, satisfying place which seems to emanate from funniness.

But wait! Consider: If I'm not being (what maybe I alone consider) funny, I might be giving you a glimpse of who I really am. Could it be that I shun seriousness in fear of uncovering myself to you? Maybe humor has become simply another place for me to hide. Who would ever guess, ever know (or care? -grin-?)

People used to say to me, as a ten-year-old, "You? An introvert? No way. Why, you're always kidding everyone and cracking jokes!" And yet...in my very soul, I was knowing then that all was not well. In the gallery of my heart hung always those ever-present, frightening images of guilt, worthlessness, and dark sadness. In that same heart now is some acknowledgment of the fact that what is...is, what was...was, and what ain't...ain't, and so "who I am" is no longer important to me. The present truth (though REAL truth never can change), although not always now so ugly, is neither always brimming with utter beauty, contentment and serenity. So now I know this about you and me and everyone: NOWHERE ARE MORE HIDING PLACES THAN IN THE HUMAN HEART...I wonder who said that? Not me, not me! Also I'm wondering if any of this might make sense to anyone BUT crazy me? -GRIN- Laugh, and be HAPPY! ....I do! Tomorrow's posting on a lighter note..MAYBE -g-!
--Steve E. 7/24/2008

once again: HAPPY ANNIVERSARY #24, Mary Christine, and many more!