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I went to a meeting recently where a guy began his share by saying, “I brought a visual tool today that is the answer to all of your problems.” Then he unfolded a 4-foot banner spelling out the word, “Acceptance.”
Just one problem: It was spelled wrong. He had it spelled as “Accept-E-nce.” I noticed it right away and was aggravated by it. Who makes a banner for the meeting, then makes a proclamation about it to 25 other people, and the word is spelled wrong?
Well, the joke was on me. I spent the meeting ruminating on the misspelling, and I think at least five people shared and said thank you to the guy for the sign. It turns out, acceptance is the answer, no matter how it is spelled.
After the meeting, I was walking to the parking lot with a friend and I pointed out that it was misspelled. The guy I was with chuckled and said he didn’t notice. Then I said something like, “How did you miss that?”
He chuckled again and shrugged his shoulders, and just as I was about to open my mouth to marvel at how this guy could have botched the one word he had to print out, something hit me that still makes me smile: I wasn’t accepting of the misspelling of the word acceptance. I was completely distracted by the letters of the sign and was missing the point of the sign. I wasn’t being very accepting, was I?
It was a good reminder about acceptance… regardless of how it is spelled!
This newsletter is a place of joy and laughter about the deadly serious business of sobriety. So, as I will often do, let me close with a joke:
A newcomer is struggling to get the ketchup out of the jar when the telephone rings. “Would you get that, Jenny?” she asks her 4-year-old.
The child eagerly obeys. “It’s your sponsor,” she informs her mom. Then she goes back to the phone.
“Mommy can’t talk to you right now. She’s hitting the bottle.”
(Credit: AA Grapevine, April 2003, Richard Morris from Golden, Colorado)
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