Brimming with Gratitude

WITHOUT RESERVATION

When brimming with gratitude, one’s heartbeat must surely result in outgoing love…

AS BILL SEES IT, p. 37


While practicing service to others, if my successes give rise to grandiosity, I must reflect on what brought me to this point. What has been given joyfully, with love, must be passed on without reservation and without expectation. For as I grow, I find that no matter how much I give with love, I receive much more in spirit.

DAILY REFLECTIONS, p. 279
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   In my early twenties I had a profound spiritual experience that led me to become a Pentecostal Christian with an emphasis on evangelism. In other words, we were encouraged from the pulpit and by peer pressure to go out and “preach the gospel” to “sinners” wherever we went. I found the experience and the pressure to be a source of much anxiety because; #1, I wasn’t doing it of my own volition and, #2, I was sharing a dogma, much of which I had no experience with and thus, I didn’t really believe in. Naturally, after a few years of this I burned out and went back to drinking.

   The emphasis on service in AA sometimes takes on the same cloak of pretension for the newcomer. Without developing a spiritual backbone, the poor soul has little to offer, no matter how profound hers or his spiritual experience. There is a huge difference between a spiritual experience and developing a relationship with one’s God. If I met someone one time at a bus stop and shared a few opinions or details about each other, I wouldn’t be able to tell anyone else much about the person after the brief encounter. Why should it not be any different with sharing the program? The most important aspect, often overlooked, is that we do best when we stick to our experience and share what we know from personal experience and of our own volition. I can share the joy of service for myself but it isn’t wise or frugal to compel others: as another Bill, ole Bill Shakespeare, is quoted; “Shoemaker, stick to thy last… better to do one thing completely well than many badly.”


   Once the  newcomer acquires only a little gratitude and spiritual experience he/she is "brimming with gratitude," and has a heartbeat that must surely result in outgoing love.

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