Ash Wednesday

I am very excited about going to church this morning and getting my ashes. I don't know exactly why I love Ash Wednesday so much, but I do.
At 9:30 I have to give two presentations - annual reports of committees I chair. I have recommendations from both of the committees and I pray that I can present them in such a way to convince the powers that be that we need to take action. Most likely I will not be able to do this though. I have been through this enough times to realize that I will be asked to go back to my committees and do more study, get more facts, etc. I hate to go back and tell them I was not successful. They never see it as my lack of success though. Thank God for the wonderfully supportive people with whom I work.

Tonight my new (but not newest) sponsee will come over and we will start our journey through the big book. I hope she will follow through with all twelve steps and the whole book. It usually takes close to a year. It is a wonderful process and it will be good for me.

Thanks to that bearded gentleman from the Big Sky Country for sharing this with me - back in the day when it seemed no one else could help. The day I beat up a clown. Yes, I really beat up a clown, and he weighed 300 lbs. Sitting around a table at an AA clubhouse, he called me a name I could not accept. I had close to 5 years of sobriety then, but I went into a rage blackout and attacked the clown. My friend pulled me off the clown, and unfortunately, I broke my friend's watch - and I hurt the 300 lb. clown. And surprisingly, the Club threw the clown out, but not me, which really shocked me. Was I ready to do a First Step on a more profound level that day? Yeah. And did God see fit to put my friend in my life to take my through the big book in a way I had never been before? (Even though I had been through the steps several times before then.) Yeah. I really credit that experience, as awful as it was, for saving my life. And yes, the clown did make amends to me, and I made amends to him, and when we see each other at meetings or funerals today, we warmly hug each other. There IS recovery in Alcoholics Anonymous.

So today, instead of being an angry lunatic hanging out at an AA clubhouse, I am on my way to church, then I will head off to my office, give a couple of presentations, and then at the end of the day I will head home - meet a newly sober woman in AA and share what my friend shared with me. Wow! I LOVE sobriety!

AND I got an e-mail from my son today!

"Faith is more than our greatest gift; its sharing with others is our greatest responsibility. May we of AA continually seek the wisdom and the willingness by which we may well fulfill that immense trust which the Giver of all perfect gifts has placed in our hands." -- As Bill Sees It, p. 13