Bookmarks – May – The Interplay’s The Thing

The Interplay’s The Thing

What’s life without its challenges, huh?

 Earlier this year, Lori F., our delegate, called to tell me that the World Service Organization (WSO) doesn’t want anyone quoting passages from any of the Conference-Approved Literature (CAL) that could be accessed by the public, especially online. We can reference a short segment, but only with permission from the WSO. It all has to do with copyrights.

That was a new one on me. Previously, I thought I could quote excepts—with attribution—from whatever book I was writing about for the monthly Bookmarks/Literature/Forum column we have under the News section of pa-al-anon.org.

I’ve always tried to incorporate my own experience, strength and hope into the monthly columns, along with quoting appropriate CAL excerpts. That quoting ended with the March column. 

After Lori and I talked, frankly, I was not only floored, but concerned. How was I going to write about CAL without getting into the literature?!

Enter Higher Power.

Still clueless as to what to do, I went to my home group meeting. On the first Monday of the month, we have a Step meeting. April is the fourth month so we talked about Step Four: “Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.”

 For the meeting, we used the spiral-bound Reaching for Personal Freedom (P-92).

 Using the section on Step Four, members of our group shared their fear at the prospect of beginning a moral inventory, and their joy in finding greater self-esteem after completing the step. Along with the sharings, I found the section from Reaching for Personal Freedom just the boost I need to begin my Fourth Step. Again.

So with “spring cleaning” as my backdrop, that’s what I wrote about for the April column.

With her typical sense of fun, my sponsor often calls her Higher Power “a rascal.” I always chuckle at that, but I also find that the word conjures up a sense of play that I sometimes sense when I just turn it all over to my Higher Power. A sense that, if I just trust, my Higher Power will present or inspire something that is better than my finite little brain could ever have foreseen or developed by itself.

It all begins with prayer. I hope to share the fruits of such interplay with you in future literature columns.

Thanks for letting me share!