Bitterness imprisons life: love releases it. Bitterness paralyzes life; love empowers it. Bitterness sours life; love sweetens it. Bitterness sickens life; love heals it. Bitterness blinds life; love anoints its eyes. Harry Fosdick Been thinking about the burden of bitterness and resentment lately…watching people I care about stumble under the crushing weight of woundedness. Over …
To love is to be vulnerable
To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love any thing and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure at keeping it intact you must give it to no one’s, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies or luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up …
AA wisdom
Live and let live Tolerance, a fundamental value in AA, means that we acknowledge our personal shortcomings while letting others have their own. We focus on our similarities with other people rather than resenting our differences. I was sent a link today to a page of wisdom sayings that are commonly used in Alcoholics Anonymous. …
The Cookie Lady
Sometimes, you just watch something that looks sweet and feels great to see…and it reminds a person to be generous, walk humbly, and remember the big picture. I was at a high school boys basketball game on the weekend. Sweaty adolescents with too much testosterone scrapping it out to win. Played hard. Each team wanted …
A Hand Up
Sometimes small drops acts of grace start a trickle, or maybe even a flood of action. That’s a good thing. The button that opens the door to the gas tank on my car stopped working last week. One of those wierd moments of frustration where the car was working fine, the gas tank was working …
Control Your Own Drawbridge
You must decide for yourself to whom and when you give access to your interior life. For years you have permitted others to walk in and out of your life according to their needs and desires. Thus you were no longer master in your own house, and you felt increasingly used. So, too, you quickly …
Alcohol Breaks the Connection
Meaningful conversation when under the influence of alcohol is not productive…in many cases, actually destructive. That’s a no-brainer, right? And yet, I’ve sat in many a session people attempt to work things out while sloshed: A wife will be angry about her husband’s flirting with another at a social, and on their arrival home, there …
Motivated by Mercy
What game do you want to play? “Who’s right” or “Let’s make life more wonderful?” Are you choosing thoughts about who is right and who is wrong and spending valuable time and energy analyzing, judging, blaming and criticizing? …Focus on your and your… [loved one’s] needs. With this refocus, you can spend your valuable time …
Little Things Create Big Feelings
“What is it about little things that make for big feelings?” This question was asked by Stuart McLean on Vinyl Cafe during the annual “Arthur Awards” broadcast, where ordinary people do something kind and generous for someone…and it has a huge impact on people. For example, one person finds a suitcase by the side of …
Oh, what a feeling!
I’ve learned that people will forget what you said; people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. Maya Angelou This is me…at Christmas…being silly…holding my new rice bag on my head…a gift from my mom…to a daughter with chronically cold feet. Ahhh.