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> From: NewParadigmFund@aol.com
> Date: January 12, 2012 9:41:12 AM EST
> To: perowan@gmail.com, skovaleski@hunton.com, tjd@larashullmay.com, cjtfarrell@gmail.com, duplessisfamily@hotmail.com, peter.judge@cox.net, icelandfish@msn.com, nick_yacoub@yahoo.com, azizasis@yahoo.com, gregtafe@yahoo.com, dshapiro@umw.edu, chriskennemer@gmail.com, jeff@motternmasonry.com, implantfellow@yahoo.com, burnettejosh@ymail.com, tesfaiy@retrievalsystems.com, ronstevens@sunamericasupply.com, tatrump@yahoo.com, c2s993@gmail.com, rplatt@gmail.com
> Subject: Fwd: Today, Jan 12, 2012
>

> Subj: Today, Jan 12, 2012
>
> January 12: Grattitude–type ‘o? Don’t think so.
> This is January, the 1st month of the year;
> • The 1st Tradition: Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon A.A. unity.
> • The 1st Step: We admitted we were powerless over alcohol--that our lives had become unmanageable.
> • The 1st Promise: If we are painstaking about this phase [Steps 8 & 9] of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through.
> __________________
>
> Thought for the Day
> The longer we’re in A.A., the more natural this way of life seems. Our old drinking lives were a very unnatural way of living. Our present sober lives are the most natural way we could possibly live. During the early years of our drinking, our lives weren’t so different from the lives of a lot of other people. But as we gradually became problem drinkers, our lives became more and more unnatural. Do I realize now that the things I did were far from natural?
>
> Meditation for the Day
> I will say thank you to God for everything, even the seeming trials and worries. I will strive to be grateful and humble. My whole attitude toward the Higher Power will be one of gratitude. I will be glad for the things I have received. I will pass on what God reveals to me. I believe that more truths will flow in, as I go along in the new way of life.
>
> Prayer for the Day
> I pray that I may be grateful for the things I have received and do not deserve. I pray that this gratitude will make me truly humble.
>
> Source: Twenty-Four Hours a Day, Richmond Walker, Copyright © 1975, Hazeldon Foundation, printed in the USA. Editor’s note: This book was compiled by Richmond Walker (1892–1965) of the Group at Daytona Beach, Florida. I get the text from the following website: http://www.anonymityone.com/h24/0403EN.htm Note 4 numbers after “h24/”: the first two are the day of the month and the second two are the month. Example: To get daily reading for December 21st, you would change the URL to http://www.anonymityone.com/h24/2112EN.htm
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> Gratitude Keeps Us Current
> That it will never come again is
> what makes life so sweet.
>
> –Emily Dickinson
>
>
> Last night I watched my daughter Ana, whom we recently adopted from China, lie on the bed in an ecstatic trance of bottle-sucking. Her eyes closed, her rosebud mouth pursed, her exquisitely long fingers curled around the plastic bottle, she gave herself over to the experience. She wasn’t obsessing on past wounds, although perhaps she had a right to. Neglected for over a year, when we got her she had second-degree burns on her buttocks from lying in urine. Nor was she worrying about where future bottles might come from, although she had a right to do that also. Abandoned on Christmas evening on a cold street until someone heard her newborn cries, she had been fed only watered-down milk and seemed to be starving the first few weeks we fed her.
> Rather, she was so focused on appreciating the warm milk as it went down her throat that everything else, past and future, simply disappeared. As I looked at her, I realized that this total and complete absorption in the present moment is available to us all when we choose to let gratitude wash over us uninhibitedly.
> But many of us have been taught not to give ourselves over so fully to something or someone. As a child, I believed that you couldn’t let yourself become totally immersed in an experience, because something bad might be happening as your attention is diverted. My parents used to say that as a child they never saw me asleep; I always had one eye open, alert to disaster.
> But if Ana, who has suffered so much in her very short life, can give herself over to the joy of completely appreciating her bottle, can’t I allow myself in the moment to fully appreciate the sweet peas on my des, the wonder of being able to think and read and write?
> As I allow myself to open to the fullness of gratitude, the past and future fade away and I become more alive in the present moment. That’s because gratitude is, for the most part, about the here and now. While we can be thankful for past blessings and hope for future ones, when we experience a sense of gratefulness, we are usually contemplating some present circumstance. We are away from all that we or others did or failed to do in the past, or what we hope for or worry about in the future, and we find ourselves placed squarely in this precious moment, this experience that will never happen again.
>
> From: Attitudes of gratitude -How to Give and Receive Joy Every Day of Your Life, M.J. Ryan, Barnes & Noble Books, New York, 1999, page 33