The Alphabet List of Gratitude

When I was little my older brothers teased me mercilessly and were excessively cruel as children can be when in cahoots.  It was like, if they were separate and alone, each one was okay but when together it seemed they sprouted devil horns and egged each other on.  I begged, cried, pleaded, and fought back with words or physically defended myself but to no avail.  The feelings of hopelessness, dejection, rejection and  failure welled up in me.  And there was nothing I could do about it.  If I told my mom she would take their side or once in a while when she felt like it, she'd get onto them but behind her back they'd threatened to get me back later...and they followed through.  One of the things I heard from Ray and Rudy was how stupid I was because they knew the alphabet and knew how to read and write and I didn't.  I was still at home and not even in kindergarten yet.  I remember begging my mom to please teach me the alphabet and so sometimes, even though she was busy cleaning house or with the palote (rolling pin) making a huge pile of tortillas, she'd tear a piece of paper from a brown grocery bag and with a cast-down nub of a pencil without an eraser, she'd show me the sticks used to draw "A", etc.  I thank her for that.  Even though she's long dead now, I still hold the memory dear and close to my heart of her trying to teach me so my brothers would stop using my ignorance as a weapon against me.

Intelligence, or how "smart" we were was greatly prized and so I set out to prove how smart I was to my brothers but again to no avail because what I didn't know was due to lack of experience.  They were older than me and had the experiences of reading, going to school, having opportunities for growth I didn't have.  No matter how hard I tried...I failed.  I grieved this and internalized this as a clear sign that I really was stupid, stupider than-----every body else.  So I hid this by trying to act like I was smarter.  So I hid behind "intelligence".  Like the Big Book of "Alcoholics Anonymous", page 12, "...the icy intellectual mountain in whose shadow I had lived and shivered many years".

The god of intellect was a very cold, lifeless substitute and I know where my best thinking took me...to the rooms of the 12 STEPs where I found the greatest treasure of all my life.  I found my way back to my Higher Power that I choose to call GOD.  And I learned that my intelligence is compatible with GOD as long as I put GOD first.  Bill W. wrote about this on page 30, "Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions".

I automatically put GOD first when I remember to make a gratitude list.  One idea I learned was to use the alphabet as a tool to list gratitude, page 60, "As We Understood".  You see, it's not I'm so smart anymore or depending on me for all the answers to life's problems and perplexities...it's that I'm learning to keep an open mind, a honest heart, and a willingness to read the literature, go to meetings, pray, help others help me, etc.  It's all good.

Dear Sweet Higher Power, thank YOU for all YOU Are-Be-Do.  I love YOU and thank YOU for loving me.  YOU are the Center of All and the Source.  Please continue to help me stay on this pathway of the Sunlight of the Spirit.  Love, Carol xoxox