As a younger lad, I often felt nature, God to be quite insensitive-even cruel! Then I realized watching a program one day I was once again reminded, God thinks of everything, so why would this be any different.? Shock is one of the ways in which God shows mercy amidst theBixby day-to-day trappings if life -survival out in the bush! However, there are other things going on in the world I don’t understand:

•Things only God Himself can understand

•Things man himself is responsible for and God is waiting on to change

•Things satan has a hand in

•Things I personally can and should act upon -butt have yet to!

Quite often, emotion seemed to have a mind of their own. We like, and dislike people, seemingly without a choice in the matter – scam-artists and phobics appear to have a clearer understanding of this than the rest of us. Men, and women who put on the charm in order to get what they want seems to be an issue for some as well.

•Title credited to Jonathan Cain/Steve Perry/Neal Schon (1986 song of same name).

Some great family movies I thought you might enjoy include:

•Marney (1963) Alfred Hitchcock

•Three Wishes (1995) Patrick Green/Elizabeth Anderson

•Andre (1994) Harry Goodridge/Lew Dietz (George T. Miller -Director/Dana Baratta – screenplay).

I’ve often thought 🤔, “God doesn’t get nearly enough credit for His song writing!”

•You Light up My Life (Joseph Brooks)

•Love Is The Answer (Todd Rundgren)

•I’m Yoyr Captain/Closer to Home (Mark Farner)

°Calypso (John Denver)

•Carry On Wayward Son (Kansas)

•Wildfire/What’s Forever For (Michael Martin Murphey)

This evening I was watching the movie “The Greatest Story Ever Told” by George B. Steven’s. And I’m simply amazed at how people think they can outwit God or that they are more powerful or above God. When they tried to kill the baby Jesus and Bethlehem…. Or people people trying to discredit Jesus Jesus by insinuating His affair or marriage to Mary Magdalene!* My 1st thought is that if God did anything, He did it for the right reasons -and who are we to stand in judgment!. My 2nd thought is, who are we of limited knowledge, understanding, and moral standing, to presume to understand God’s ways, let alone stand in judgement of them! Human-beings!!!

*Even though I have it on good authority that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were never married/intimately involved -what would be so wrong about having a bunch of baby Jesus is running around in the world today?

•Title taken from the movie “The Greatest Story Ever Told” by George B Stevens (1965).

People sometimes ask “Why do bad things happen to good people?” “I don’t know. Why do good things happen to bad people?” My initial thought 🤔: “Maybe the people we think are good -aren’t so good; and maybe the people we think are bad -aren’t so bad”. Or 🤔, maybe we’ve simply gotten God all wrong (Conversations with God).

I remember coming to a and early on, two things stood out: We often seem to get around the around the entire room right at the top of the hour: I was hitting a lot of meetings early on and I would hear quite often, the same things in meetings in succession.

•Title is an excerpt from the movie “Rocky lll” (written by Sylvester Stallone).

I told a friend of mine one day “I’m 56 years old and I’ve been dealing with alcoholism for 57 years”. He looked at me rather puzzled. I went on to explain, “Well if you include the time spent in my mother’s belly…” Suddenly, the color in his face seemed to return.☺

I’m always amazed at people who walk around -acting as if God doesn’t exist!! As if God isn’t watching! “You may not think God is watching out for you (or me) – not only is God watching out for us,, He’s constantly keeping an eye on us as well!”

Given the life we led as alcoholics and addicts: Is it any wonder God was nowhere in sight? How could one believe in a God who cares, when I was so busy destroying myself?When my life was filled with whore houses, nut houses, and crack houses (as my friend Carter used to say). Is it any wonder -most of us loathed the idea of an all-powerful, punishing God given our histories? Well answer me this -if God is an old punishing God, then why are so many bad people running the Earth unpunished? With you and I haven’t done so many wrongs to other people -WHY ARE WE STILL HERE (many of us unscated)?

My sponsor Granville…. I had an issue with a guy in a meeting many years ago who had a tendency to scoff at his fellow alcoholic -this gentleman, I believe, was also being sponsored by grandvo at the time – I used to tell Grandville, “We didn’t all grow up in a cornfield in Nebraska!”. His response, “Richard, if you worked through the steps and don’t have any compassion for your fellow human being, you missed something!”

I remember bitching the Grandville one time about a cashier at Walmart -Granville calmly pointed out to me the type of people this young lady probably had to deal with on a daily basis! 🤭

•Title credited to Sir Paul McCartney -from his 1970 song of the same title.

The 2nd greatest compliment I can pay a person is to say –You-re a good man!”

The greatest compliment I can pay a person -“I hope to see you in Heaven!” (1st of all, heaven is a very long time! 2nd of all, I don’t even say that with regards to my father – who never seemed particularly interested in spending time with me). 😏

For some alcoholics, the hardest thing in the world -is to do the next right thing. And the 2nd hardest thing – to (sit and) do nothing!

Never give an alcoholic too much time to think!