Anderson, South Carolina
A curious quirk of human nature is often observed; one making us frustrated utopians hopeful. When a group of otherwise diverse and dissimilar people are placed in harm’s way, an esprit des corps, a powerful group-wide camaraderie often takes over, charging group dynamics with a wondrous sense of co-operation and fidelity. Striking examples of life-boat effects abound during foreign occupations. Heroic and often legendary risk taking by French Resistance workers and Dutch non-Jews during World War II were staggering in their selflessness. Thousands of Jews survived because of selfless risk taking by total strangers. During the Great Depression one often saw communal forms of generosity; individuals taking it upon themselves to offer food and shelter to wandering desperate job seekers. Jeopardy of single individuals provokes legendary solitary acts of heroism. Impossible rescues are made. Rescuers wade into situations knowing their own deaths are certain, willing to embrace it to save another.
In the recovery world, the most revered inspirational writing is known as The Big Book. In it the phenomenon of dissimilar people coming together to face common peril head on is described in most endearing fashion. We are people who normally would not mix. But there exists among us a fellowship, a friendliness, and an understanding which is indescribably wonderful. We are like the passengers of a great liner the moment after rescue from shipwreck when camaraderie, joyousness, and democracy pervade the vessel from steerage to Captain’s table. Unlike the feelings of the ship’s passengers, however, our joy in escape from disaster does not subside as we go our individual ways. The feeling of having shared in a common peril is one element in the powerful cement which binds us.
This life-boat effect is considered by many in recovery to be the glue holding the unity of recovery in place. The first tradition in all twelve-step recovery groups reminds us personal recovery depends on group unity. Principles must come before personality. If group unity fails and chaos causes people to falter in their recovery, lives can be lost. For those in struggles with alcohol or drugs, this unity is critical, no less than for those organizing a desert island after shipwreck. There is an emerging goodness in people when faced with dire life-threatening circumstances; welfare of others becomes a powerful motivator of our own behavior.
I went into my church recently for a funeral; greeting those inside. A mute parishioner looked at me with a face suggesting bewilderment as to why cockroaches would be out scurrying in daylight rather than hiding behind the cabinets until nightfall. In the receiving line following the service, another grimace of similar proportion met me. Neither of these people would speak with me. In my recovery work, I visit meeting rooms in different countries and find indescribably wonderful friendliness. I wonder why it’s so conspicuously absent in a church I’ve been in for decades. In sacred Christian scriptures willingness to lay down one’s life for a friend is held up as example of love’s highest expression in human experience. It’s not often one is called to make such demonstrations of love yet we do occasionally hear of such. I wonder why greetings from long-time acquaintances at funerals seem to be too much to ask for.
A long time friend, Janice, describes the abuse of loyalty in her life. One of Janice’s girlfriends informed her she would henceforth have to choose between inviting her or a third girlfriend to group activities. Janice was coerced into taking sides, being forced to choose which of these two very good friends would earn her loyalty. Divided loyalty resulting from such ultimatums eventually caused loss of group unity and erosion of numerous once-vibrant friendships; the group faded away. It’s this kind of disruption recovery groups cannot afford. None of these women needed the social group to keep their lives on track. If this dynamic had occurred in a recovery room, people would have found excuses to relapse and the consequences could have been catastrophic.
Debra has a daughter dealing with terminal cancer. Recently this daughter took an ambulance to the hospital to be evaluated for a possible stroke. Debra had extensive surgery the day prior and was herself an in-patient dealing with post-op complications. I spent that day with Debra before, during, and after her surgery, talking with anesthesiologists and surgeons as needed, trying to be helpful. I found my decade-long friendship with Debra important at times of great personal challenge and thought this to be true for her as well. Her daughter refused to remain at the hospital for evaluation and insisted I take her home against medical advice. My refusal to do something I knew inherently dangerous caused much indignation on the part of the daughter, whom I left at the hospital. She took a cab home to an empty house. She was later determined to have had a stroke. I was astounded to find that despite being present to the mother for her surgery and then refusing to put her daughter at risk by taking her away from the hospital against medical advice, my long-standing friendships with both of them imploded. A divided loyalty cropped up and I was ‘put out’ of the group.
I can’t but wonder about the nature of loyalty in America today. Has obsession with individualism and self fulfillment brought us to a place where loyalty is to self and little else? Have we brought high school pettiness into our adult social groups, demanding our friends take sides? Do we as church members now set aside our vision for being on a shared spiritual journey and allow egoic aspects of our personalities to come before principles, shunning those in receiving lines, even refusing to “Pass the Peace”? Do we set aside long-standing history and commitment when someone doesn’t do as we expect, even when it’s in her best interest? Will we continue to discard our spouses by the millions when they don’t do as we want them to do? Will we continue to abandon our houses and neighborhoods because we find it financially expedient to do so?
Is it possible for us to practice ethical moral behavior, putting principles before personalities; doing the next right thing, thinking about what is good for the group rather than what is good for ourselves? None other than the father of modern psychiatry, Carl Jung, would suggest it’s possible. Some “have had what are called vital spiritual experiences. To me these occurrences are phenomenon. They appear to be in the nature of huge emotional displacements and rearrangements. Ideas, emotions, and attitudes which were once the guiding forces of these men are suddenly cast to one side, and a completely new set of conceptions and motives begin to dominate them.”
Will we seek a closer relationship with God and His vital spiritual experiences with the same ardor we exhibit when camping out for three days after Thanksgiving to buy some new consumer toy at the neighborhood big box retailer? God is everything or He is nothing. Either He is or He isn’t. What’s our choice to be?
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Bar the Door 5-16-11
Anderson, South Carolina
There’s a large digital media provider here using the sound byte, “Let it all in” as its advertising snare, promoting itself as capable of providing the highest speed fiber-optic Internet access, the most diverse forms of cable programming content, ad infinitum. Sixty-second advertisements on television suggest this corporate monolith is capable of injecting far more into my life than I need or want.
A rather sobering book was written some years ago by a psychiatrist struggling with extreme bi-polar disorder. In An Unquiet Mind, Kay Jamison provides rather sobering, and sometimes disquieting, images of life when her mind is careening out of control, when thought storms overwhelm her, leaving her in a heap of emotional wreckage. She describes progressive processes leaving her fearing what the future holds for her. For Jamison, not having the capacity to stop letting it all in is often devastating to her. She fears it will eventually cost her life itself.
We live in a culture some say has become bi-polar; oscillating through extremes of emotions, multiphasic in its nature, over-energized, with many people in emotional overwhelm from exposure to increasing magnitudes and complexity of experience. There’s vast evidence to suggest American culture’s in a progressive addictive cycle requiring ever more intense stimulation, entertainment, and experience to achieve the affective buzz we are lead to believe we need to have happy lives. Long after addiction has stopped feeling good, many of us continue to bludgeon ourselves with vast amounts of digital negativity, often creating emotional overwhelm. Daily, I encounter people who describe lives careening out of control. It’s not a comforting thing when funeral home staff know who I am because I visit their facilities so often, saying farewell to the legions who never learned how to stop letting it all in.
A stunning number of people around me are trying to keep the edges of their lives from fraying by taking a bewildering array of anti-psychotics, anti-depressants, anxiolytics, mood stabilizers, alpha blockers, beta blockers, anti-histaminics, somnolytics, hypnotics, and analgesics. At one time I was on eighteen of these myself. Caught up in the gears and cogs of machine psychiatry I was thrust into a nightmare even worse than Jamison describes in An Unquiet Mind.
At some point years ago a still small voice managed to get a word edgewise into the noise of my mind, suggesting ways to wake up and have a life again. The white coats declared years ago I would never wake up from my nightmare, even suggesting I find some kind of group home to live in, a place where I might be allowed to make crafts a couple afternoons a week, if I behaved and was compliant. I wasn’t compliant and made a four-year bid to find ways to turn off the noise. Over time I was discharged from several psychiatric practices for non-compliance; demanding to know who I was without these toxic and insanely profitable pharmaceuticals. Even my family physician sent me packing because I would not take his pills.
It made no sense for me to continue living in American culture with its deafening input and noise, a place with little peace and serenity, while taking a couple dozen psychotropic tablets and capsules each long tormented day. A way was given to me to find serenity. During four years my ‘need’ for medications fell away. From eighteen psychotropic monsters, I now take only vitamins, fish oil, and a few minerals. Physicians are stunned when I tell them I take nothing ‘real.’ No longer tormented by a constellation of side-effects, and abject life-threatening misery, the possibility of regaining life, of being granted pardon from affective imprisonment was at hand.
Through the wisdom of twelve step recovery it was granted to me to find ways to peace and serenity, even to emotional sobriety. In recovery we are told “What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition.” Recovery teaches a form of spiritual and emotional hygiene never taught to me in the hallowed halls of five medical schools or within the time-encrusted walls of European bible colleges. Those on recovery journeys can learn how to turn off chaos raging in their minds. The sublime gift of untroubled sleep, denied to me for years by psychotropic nightmares, was returned to me. The vast wonder of sound sleep during a Sunday afternoon nap was given back.
We learn how to embrace solitude, serenity, and true peace. We learn how to embrace as a way of life this anonymous imperative, “Turn out all thoughts of doubt and fear and resentment. Never tolerate them if you can help it. Bar the windows and doors of your mind against them, as you would bar your home against a thief who would steal in to take away your treasures. What greater treasures can you have than faith and courage and love? All these are stolen from you by doubt and fear and resentment. Face each day with peace and hope. They are results of true faith in God. Faith gives you a feeling of protection and safety that you can get in no other way.”
In recovery, emotional sobriety and serenity is the Holy Grail. For those having lived through the most abject tortures of emotional and chemical chaos, serenity is more precious than the Crown Jewels. Those glittering wondrous geologic wonders don’t compare to the gift of sound sleep. How badly do we really want serenity? I was challenged my first day in the recovery world with “If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it – then you are ready to take certain steps … Half measures availed us nothing.” Serenity for me was worth taking any steps in the world.
In addition to the twelve steps of recovery I added some of my own. I had phone service in my house disconnected; later my Internet service went by the boards. There’s no TV in my world except that forced on me by the ubiquitous screens in the gym. News magazines and newspapers don’t clutter my world, and more importantly their negatively doesn’t muddle my mind. I’m fastidious about the books I read. The only thing required to disconnect from the chaos washing over our land is to turn off my five year old cell phone. I come home to my house after a busy day and I feel like I am on spiritual retreat.
I don’t have to “let it all in.” In fact, my life depends on my not doing so.
There’s a large digital media provider here using the sound byte, “Let it all in” as its advertising snare, promoting itself as capable of providing the highest speed fiber-optic Internet access, the most diverse forms of cable programming content, ad infinitum. Sixty-second advertisements on television suggest this corporate monolith is capable of injecting far more into my life than I need or want.
A rather sobering book was written some years ago by a psychiatrist struggling with extreme bi-polar disorder. In An Unquiet Mind, Kay Jamison provides rather sobering, and sometimes disquieting, images of life when her mind is careening out of control, when thought storms overwhelm her, leaving her in a heap of emotional wreckage. She describes progressive processes leaving her fearing what the future holds for her. For Jamison, not having the capacity to stop letting it all in is often devastating to her. She fears it will eventually cost her life itself.
We live in a culture some say has become bi-polar; oscillating through extremes of emotions, multiphasic in its nature, over-energized, with many people in emotional overwhelm from exposure to increasing magnitudes and complexity of experience. There’s vast evidence to suggest American culture’s in a progressive addictive cycle requiring ever more intense stimulation, entertainment, and experience to achieve the affective buzz we are lead to believe we need to have happy lives. Long after addiction has stopped feeling good, many of us continue to bludgeon ourselves with vast amounts of digital negativity, often creating emotional overwhelm. Daily, I encounter people who describe lives careening out of control. It’s not a comforting thing when funeral home staff know who I am because I visit their facilities so often, saying farewell to the legions who never learned how to stop letting it all in.
A stunning number of people around me are trying to keep the edges of their lives from fraying by taking a bewildering array of anti-psychotics, anti-depressants, anxiolytics, mood stabilizers, alpha blockers, beta blockers, anti-histaminics, somnolytics, hypnotics, and analgesics. At one time I was on eighteen of these myself. Caught up in the gears and cogs of machine psychiatry I was thrust into a nightmare even worse than Jamison describes in An Unquiet Mind.
At some point years ago a still small voice managed to get a word edgewise into the noise of my mind, suggesting ways to wake up and have a life again. The white coats declared years ago I would never wake up from my nightmare, even suggesting I find some kind of group home to live in, a place where I might be allowed to make crafts a couple afternoons a week, if I behaved and was compliant. I wasn’t compliant and made a four-year bid to find ways to turn off the noise. Over time I was discharged from several psychiatric practices for non-compliance; demanding to know who I was without these toxic and insanely profitable pharmaceuticals. Even my family physician sent me packing because I would not take his pills.
It made no sense for me to continue living in American culture with its deafening input and noise, a place with little peace and serenity, while taking a couple dozen psychotropic tablets and capsules each long tormented day. A way was given to me to find serenity. During four years my ‘need’ for medications fell away. From eighteen psychotropic monsters, I now take only vitamins, fish oil, and a few minerals. Physicians are stunned when I tell them I take nothing ‘real.’ No longer tormented by a constellation of side-effects, and abject life-threatening misery, the possibility of regaining life, of being granted pardon from affective imprisonment was at hand.
Through the wisdom of twelve step recovery it was granted to me to find ways to peace and serenity, even to emotional sobriety. In recovery we are told “What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition.” Recovery teaches a form of spiritual and emotional hygiene never taught to me in the hallowed halls of five medical schools or within the time-encrusted walls of European bible colleges. Those on recovery journeys can learn how to turn off chaos raging in their minds. The sublime gift of untroubled sleep, denied to me for years by psychotropic nightmares, was returned to me. The vast wonder of sound sleep during a Sunday afternoon nap was given back.
We learn how to embrace solitude, serenity, and true peace. We learn how to embrace as a way of life this anonymous imperative, “Turn out all thoughts of doubt and fear and resentment. Never tolerate them if you can help it. Bar the windows and doors of your mind against them, as you would bar your home against a thief who would steal in to take away your treasures. What greater treasures can you have than faith and courage and love? All these are stolen from you by doubt and fear and resentment. Face each day with peace and hope. They are results of true faith in God. Faith gives you a feeling of protection and safety that you can get in no other way.”
In recovery, emotional sobriety and serenity is the Holy Grail. For those having lived through the most abject tortures of emotional and chemical chaos, serenity is more precious than the Crown Jewels. Those glittering wondrous geologic wonders don’t compare to the gift of sound sleep. How badly do we really want serenity? I was challenged my first day in the recovery world with “If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it – then you are ready to take certain steps … Half measures availed us nothing.” Serenity for me was worth taking any steps in the world.
In addition to the twelve steps of recovery I added some of my own. I had phone service in my house disconnected; later my Internet service went by the boards. There’s no TV in my world except that forced on me by the ubiquitous screens in the gym. News magazines and newspapers don’t clutter my world, and more importantly their negatively doesn’t muddle my mind. I’m fastidious about the books I read. The only thing required to disconnect from the chaos washing over our land is to turn off my five year old cell phone. I come home to my house after a busy day and I feel like I am on spiritual retreat.
I don’t have to “let it all in.” In fact, my life depends on my not doing so.
Slowing Down to Impulse Speed 5-11-11
Anderson, South Carolina
In the realm of physics, in the world of science fiction in particular, the Holy Grail has always been achievement of greater-than-light-speed travel. Conventional Newtonian physics tells us nothing can go faster than the velocity of light. Quantum physics offers a bit of hope there might be ways around this supposed limit. After all, at one time it was believed heavier-than-air flight was impossible and airplanes would disintegrate if they travelled faster than sound. Heavier-than-air flight and supersonic flight are so mundane as to barely deserve comment. Those of us who fantasize, lost in epic sci-fi novels hope this might one day be true of light-speed travel, anticipating faster-than-light warp drive might become reality, allowing us to explore wonders of our universe.
Computer graphics gurus creating sci-fi fantasy generally depict light-speed travel or warp drive as taking place in starless voids. Throughout the legendary Star Trek series stars and galaxies were shown disappearing in a blur when spacecraft made the jump to warp drive; re-appearing only when ships dropped out of warp drive and resumed normal travel at ‘impulse’ speeds well below that of light’s 186,000 miles per second. In between there’s no visual awareness of the universe, only faith and hope one has set course properly. Screen writers might have been onto more emotional and spiritual truth than intended.
Recently while under general anesthesia there was nothing but apparent blackness and a sense of bare milliseconds having elapsed. How could a roomful of busy people be doing all these things to me while I jumped across time? As soon as I made the time jump into anesthesia the world disappeared only to reappear immediately when I came back out of the time jump anesthesia offers. The anesthesiologist was barely mid-sentence before I went under, before I suddenly heard my dear friend, Gloria speaking to me. I had successfully made it across the void in no time. It’s in that jump we are able to avoid much pain and anxiety. At one time anesthesia was inconceivable, now too an ordinary phenomenon of life. My first thought coming out of anesthesia was thinking how wondrous it would be for long-haul jet travel; make the stars disappear and wake me up on the far end; no need to risk experiencing turbulence en route.
Both screen writers and anesthesiologists gave me a useful metaphor. Can living too fast cause us to lose our view of the stars, to lose our experience of life at large? Can frantic over-filled competitive living cast us into a strange form of warp-drive anesthesia that causes us to miss out on what matters?
Recently a number of readers have commented affirmatively on my imperatives about frantic over-driven living, yet asking them to make even one-word comments or click the ‘Like’ button so I know they’ve been reading often elicits the response, “I’m in a hurry” or “I don’t have time.” How can one live so frantically as to not have a free block of time spanning ten seconds?
At our church social hour today a fellow commented on seeing one of my recent writings in cyberspace and not having time to read it. He hurried off to the next ten-second fragment of his life before I could even respond. During the social hour I overheard no less than a dozen people making time-oriented comments; about time elapsing too fast or there not being enough of it. Were they in some sort of warp-drive anesthesia? Will the important things in life transpire before they wake up? A dear friend quipped; “my son was two years old and then he was suddenly thirty-six. What happened?” One fellow repeatedly declared an urgent need to leave the church and visit his mother’s grave, as it was Mother’s Day. I can’t but wonder if she is not living a better way of life. She isn’t going anywhere; not in the least bit of a hurry.
One of the grand benefits of recovery work is learning to make daily evaluation of our use of time. Does our activity help others to find experience, strength, and hope in their struggles? Does our way of living encourage others to let off the gas and slow down, perhaps doing the one next right thing, rather than dissipating life marking out to-do lists of things that really don’t matter much?
I wonder if frantic living is not a form of self-medicating anesthesia, one that allows us to avoid some sorts of introspection or self-examination, yet causing us to miss out on much that is beautiful and significant. Even if I could get an anesthesiologist to knock me out for a sixteen-hour flight, I might miss the wonders of seeing arctic ice fields at sunrise and electromagnetic wonders of shimmering aurora borealis. I might miss making a new friend sitting next to me.
An anonymous writer declares “God can work through you better when you are not hurrying. Go very slowly, very quietly, from one duty to the next, taking time to rest and pray between. Do not be too busy. Take everything in order. Venture often into the rest of God and you will find peace. All work that results from resting with God is good work … Know that you can do good things through God who rests you and gives you strength.”
One can argue the merits of general anesthesia to render the surgical traveller insensate to all that is going on about him for uncertain hours. I was more than happy to make the journey in less than a second; waking up delighted the journey was over. It’s much harder to argue the virtues of frantic busyness that causes us to become lost in starless voids of anxiety, emptiness of soul, and despair. Frantic busyness and over commitment in life causes us to lose focus on where we are going, even why. Elaine St. James declares, “The speed of life on the fast track permeates every area of our lives. Hurrying becomes a habit. Even after we’ve simplified many of our daily routines, if we’re still surrounded by fast-moving people and phones that never stop ringing, slowing down can take a major effort.”
We can only hope it will not take general anesthesia or the long-lasting repose of my friend’s mother to break bad habits of hurrying through life, to bring us down to impulse speed. If we slow down we just might be able to see the wonders of the universe come back into focus, perhaps for the first time.
In the realm of physics, in the world of science fiction in particular, the Holy Grail has always been achievement of greater-than-light-speed travel. Conventional Newtonian physics tells us nothing can go faster than the velocity of light. Quantum physics offers a bit of hope there might be ways around this supposed limit. After all, at one time it was believed heavier-than-air flight was impossible and airplanes would disintegrate if they travelled faster than sound. Heavier-than-air flight and supersonic flight are so mundane as to barely deserve comment. Those of us who fantasize, lost in epic sci-fi novels hope this might one day be true of light-speed travel, anticipating faster-than-light warp drive might become reality, allowing us to explore wonders of our universe.
Computer graphics gurus creating sci-fi fantasy generally depict light-speed travel or warp drive as taking place in starless voids. Throughout the legendary Star Trek series stars and galaxies were shown disappearing in a blur when spacecraft made the jump to warp drive; re-appearing only when ships dropped out of warp drive and resumed normal travel at ‘impulse’ speeds well below that of light’s 186,000 miles per second. In between there’s no visual awareness of the universe, only faith and hope one has set course properly. Screen writers might have been onto more emotional and spiritual truth than intended.
Recently while under general anesthesia there was nothing but apparent blackness and a sense of bare milliseconds having elapsed. How could a roomful of busy people be doing all these things to me while I jumped across time? As soon as I made the time jump into anesthesia the world disappeared only to reappear immediately when I came back out of the time jump anesthesia offers. The anesthesiologist was barely mid-sentence before I went under, before I suddenly heard my dear friend, Gloria speaking to me. I had successfully made it across the void in no time. It’s in that jump we are able to avoid much pain and anxiety. At one time anesthesia was inconceivable, now too an ordinary phenomenon of life. My first thought coming out of anesthesia was thinking how wondrous it would be for long-haul jet travel; make the stars disappear and wake me up on the far end; no need to risk experiencing turbulence en route.
Both screen writers and anesthesiologists gave me a useful metaphor. Can living too fast cause us to lose our view of the stars, to lose our experience of life at large? Can frantic over-filled competitive living cast us into a strange form of warp-drive anesthesia that causes us to miss out on what matters?
Recently a number of readers have commented affirmatively on my imperatives about frantic over-driven living, yet asking them to make even one-word comments or click the ‘Like’ button so I know they’ve been reading often elicits the response, “I’m in a hurry” or “I don’t have time.” How can one live so frantically as to not have a free block of time spanning ten seconds?
At our church social hour today a fellow commented on seeing one of my recent writings in cyberspace and not having time to read it. He hurried off to the next ten-second fragment of his life before I could even respond. During the social hour I overheard no less than a dozen people making time-oriented comments; about time elapsing too fast or there not being enough of it. Were they in some sort of warp-drive anesthesia? Will the important things in life transpire before they wake up? A dear friend quipped; “my son was two years old and then he was suddenly thirty-six. What happened?” One fellow repeatedly declared an urgent need to leave the church and visit his mother’s grave, as it was Mother’s Day. I can’t but wonder if she is not living a better way of life. She isn’t going anywhere; not in the least bit of a hurry.
One of the grand benefits of recovery work is learning to make daily evaluation of our use of time. Does our activity help others to find experience, strength, and hope in their struggles? Does our way of living encourage others to let off the gas and slow down, perhaps doing the one next right thing, rather than dissipating life marking out to-do lists of things that really don’t matter much?
I wonder if frantic living is not a form of self-medicating anesthesia, one that allows us to avoid some sorts of introspection or self-examination, yet causing us to miss out on much that is beautiful and significant. Even if I could get an anesthesiologist to knock me out for a sixteen-hour flight, I might miss the wonders of seeing arctic ice fields at sunrise and electromagnetic wonders of shimmering aurora borealis. I might miss making a new friend sitting next to me.
An anonymous writer declares “God can work through you better when you are not hurrying. Go very slowly, very quietly, from one duty to the next, taking time to rest and pray between. Do not be too busy. Take everything in order. Venture often into the rest of God and you will find peace. All work that results from resting with God is good work … Know that you can do good things through God who rests you and gives you strength.”
One can argue the merits of general anesthesia to render the surgical traveller insensate to all that is going on about him for uncertain hours. I was more than happy to make the journey in less than a second; waking up delighted the journey was over. It’s much harder to argue the virtues of frantic busyness that causes us to become lost in starless voids of anxiety, emptiness of soul, and despair. Frantic busyness and over commitment in life causes us to lose focus on where we are going, even why. Elaine St. James declares, “The speed of life on the fast track permeates every area of our lives. Hurrying becomes a habit. Even after we’ve simplified many of our daily routines, if we’re still surrounded by fast-moving people and phones that never stop ringing, slowing down can take a major effort.”
We can only hope it will not take general anesthesia or the long-lasting repose of my friend’s mother to break bad habits of hurrying through life, to bring us down to impulse speed. If we slow down we just might be able to see the wonders of the universe come back into focus, perhaps for the first time.
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Dare to Say No 5-7-11
Anderson, South Carolina
While working in the professional world it became a status symbol to defer commitment to doing something or being someplace until a consult with a two-inch-thick daily planner was made. A strong unspoken message circulated – important people are profoundly busy, lacking in white space in their lives, over committed, often double booked. I was never especially important in my professional life, never having one of those $75 Day-At-A-Time planners; never getting past one of those little free monthly bi-folds that stuff in one’s pocket.
Our culture of frantic busyness reinforces the message those with time on their hands are of marginal utility and value to the workplace or culture at large. An oft-quoted quip is “if you want something done, ask a busy person to do it.” Perhaps busy people are often busy simply because they don’t know how to say ‘No’. Certainly this is true in my case. I can cite a constellation of pathological emotional reasons as to why I say ‘Yes’ without thinking and cannot bear to say ‘No’ even with much thought.
“We experience our days as filled with things to finish, letters to write, calls to make, and appointments to keep. Our lives often seem like over-packed suitcases bursting at the seams. In fact, we are almost always aware of being behind schedule. There is a nagging sense that there are unfinished tasks, unfulfilled promises, unrealized proposals. There is always something else we should have remembered, done, or said. There are always people we did not speak to, write to, or visit. Thus, although we are very busy, we also have a lingering feeling of never really fulfilling our obligations.” None other than the Catholic contemplative Henri Nouwen struggled with this forty years ago in the very environment that should have facilitated a humane spacious way of living. What chance do I have?
The result in my case is habitually overpromising and under delivering; even the most trivial of promises go unfulfilled. Failing to call someone as promised, not performing a minor repair or maintenance chore for a cancer patient living across the street, not helping an elderly caregiver with her yard; these bits of unfinished business chip away at my credibility and my serenity. Need I even comment on the condition of my inner spiritual practices and disciplines? From everything I can tell Nouwen managed to hang onto his inner practices and left behind hundreds of spiritual imperatives for those of us devoid of inner practice and white space in our lives.
A dear friend of mine keeps lists, list of lists, mind-numbing numbers of things to be done. Recently she decided to generate a list of things to do in her yard. Last time I saw her yard a few days ago it looked pristine and magnificent in spring finery. I never saw her yard list but she tells me it has no less than fifty things on it, categorized in sub-groups. I can’t image what’s on this list but I do know that despite the onset of a fairly miserable head cold, she has pushed on in her yard to fulfill some of these unspecified tasks. I can’t but wonder if she really smells the roses while working among them; there’s always the next thing to be done.
I have a number of friends who’ve become preoccupied with doing countless things to make money; often flying to far flung places for business seminars, reading books on making money, going to networking groups, ad infinitum. They consume their time and resources attempting to make money, with little success. A culture of frantic busyness does not suggest the merits of dropping back, checking one’s option and throwing a single well-placed pass to an open receiver down field. A fine book written twenty years ago suggests focusing on the one thing we do really well, practicing that craft until we’re better at it than anyone else. The supposition of Do What You Love, The Money Will Follow is if we do something we love really really well, others will pay us handsomely for it. Yet, single mindedness is a difficult path to follow in an Attention-Deficit-Afflicted culture where picture-in-picture participation is normative.
Technology overwhelms me with options, many of them wondrous and good. The reality is I don’t need to attempt to fill a seat at every good performance done in this region of the world. I don’t need to visit every magnificent place on earth, frenetically gaming for free airline tickets to paradise. The insane reality is I often try doing so. Recently I made a frantic effort to visit six houses on a garden tour before attending an evening concert in a distant city, wanting to photograph all of them. I came home from my whirlwind efforts and the best image I saw all day was staring at me from my kitchen window. The best photograph I made in days was on my side of the fence. There was a spiritual imperative for me in that image about slowing down and smelling the roses.
I now use a thick padded leather day planner with my initials in gold. A credit card company wants me to experience the illusion of self-importance and was willing to send me the $75 planner for $2.98. The tacit message is self-important people tend to spend more money on credit and generate more revenue for credit card companies, companies not the least bit interested in my serenity or ability to fulfill even my most trivial of promises. There certainly is merit in using planners to organize one’s life. For those of us with travel obligations and lecture commitments, it makes sense to know where and when we are supposed to be to fulfill our promises. It’s not the responsibility of credit card issuers or day-planner publishers to make sure I am prudent with the use of my time and serenity; it’s my responsibility to find balance in the center of maelstroms of good things wishing to dissipate my time, energy, and finance.
We are told Jesus was busy, serving up meals to thousands, preaching to legions of people following him wherever he went, healing hundreds. He found it necessary to pull away and go off into the wilderness to pray. As Nouwen points out in one of his imperatives, Jesus is not telling us to become cloistered monks in a silent monastery, rather he is suggesting “Jesus wants us to move from the ‘many things’ to the ‘one necessary thing.’ We each have to decide what that is. Perhaps for me in the near-term it’s learning to say ‘No’ and looking out my own kitchen window.
Blessings,
Craig C. Johnson
While working in the professional world it became a status symbol to defer commitment to doing something or being someplace until a consult with a two-inch-thick daily planner was made. A strong unspoken message circulated – important people are profoundly busy, lacking in white space in their lives, over committed, often double booked. I was never especially important in my professional life, never having one of those $75 Day-At-A-Time planners; never getting past one of those little free monthly bi-folds that stuff in one’s pocket.
Our culture of frantic busyness reinforces the message those with time on their hands are of marginal utility and value to the workplace or culture at large. An oft-quoted quip is “if you want something done, ask a busy person to do it.” Perhaps busy people are often busy simply because they don’t know how to say ‘No’. Certainly this is true in my case. I can cite a constellation of pathological emotional reasons as to why I say ‘Yes’ without thinking and cannot bear to say ‘No’ even with much thought.
“We experience our days as filled with things to finish, letters to write, calls to make, and appointments to keep. Our lives often seem like over-packed suitcases bursting at the seams. In fact, we are almost always aware of being behind schedule. There is a nagging sense that there are unfinished tasks, unfulfilled promises, unrealized proposals. There is always something else we should have remembered, done, or said. There are always people we did not speak to, write to, or visit. Thus, although we are very busy, we also have a lingering feeling of never really fulfilling our obligations.” None other than the Catholic contemplative Henri Nouwen struggled with this forty years ago in the very environment that should have facilitated a humane spacious way of living. What chance do I have?
The result in my case is habitually overpromising and under delivering; even the most trivial of promises go unfulfilled. Failing to call someone as promised, not performing a minor repair or maintenance chore for a cancer patient living across the street, not helping an elderly caregiver with her yard; these bits of unfinished business chip away at my credibility and my serenity. Need I even comment on the condition of my inner spiritual practices and disciplines? From everything I can tell Nouwen managed to hang onto his inner practices and left behind hundreds of spiritual imperatives for those of us devoid of inner practice and white space in our lives.
A dear friend of mine keeps lists, list of lists, mind-numbing numbers of things to be done. Recently she decided to generate a list of things to do in her yard. Last time I saw her yard a few days ago it looked pristine and magnificent in spring finery. I never saw her yard list but she tells me it has no less than fifty things on it, categorized in sub-groups. I can’t image what’s on this list but I do know that despite the onset of a fairly miserable head cold, she has pushed on in her yard to fulfill some of these unspecified tasks. I can’t but wonder if she really smells the roses while working among them; there’s always the next thing to be done.
I have a number of friends who’ve become preoccupied with doing countless things to make money; often flying to far flung places for business seminars, reading books on making money, going to networking groups, ad infinitum. They consume their time and resources attempting to make money, with little success. A culture of frantic busyness does not suggest the merits of dropping back, checking one’s option and throwing a single well-placed pass to an open receiver down field. A fine book written twenty years ago suggests focusing on the one thing we do really well, practicing that craft until we’re better at it than anyone else. The supposition of Do What You Love, The Money Will Follow is if we do something we love really really well, others will pay us handsomely for it. Yet, single mindedness is a difficult path to follow in an Attention-Deficit-Afflicted culture where picture-in-picture participation is normative.
Technology overwhelms me with options, many of them wondrous and good. The reality is I don’t need to attempt to fill a seat at every good performance done in this region of the world. I don’t need to visit every magnificent place on earth, frenetically gaming for free airline tickets to paradise. The insane reality is I often try doing so. Recently I made a frantic effort to visit six houses on a garden tour before attending an evening concert in a distant city, wanting to photograph all of them. I came home from my whirlwind efforts and the best image I saw all day was staring at me from my kitchen window. The best photograph I made in days was on my side of the fence. There was a spiritual imperative for me in that image about slowing down and smelling the roses.
I now use a thick padded leather day planner with my initials in gold. A credit card company wants me to experience the illusion of self-importance and was willing to send me the $75 planner for $2.98. The tacit message is self-important people tend to spend more money on credit and generate more revenue for credit card companies, companies not the least bit interested in my serenity or ability to fulfill even my most trivial of promises. There certainly is merit in using planners to organize one’s life. For those of us with travel obligations and lecture commitments, it makes sense to know where and when we are supposed to be to fulfill our promises. It’s not the responsibility of credit card issuers or day-planner publishers to make sure I am prudent with the use of my time and serenity; it’s my responsibility to find balance in the center of maelstroms of good things wishing to dissipate my time, energy, and finance.
We are told Jesus was busy, serving up meals to thousands, preaching to legions of people following him wherever he went, healing hundreds. He found it necessary to pull away and go off into the wilderness to pray. As Nouwen points out in one of his imperatives, Jesus is not telling us to become cloistered monks in a silent monastery, rather he is suggesting “Jesus wants us to move from the ‘many things’ to the ‘one necessary thing.’ We each have to decide what that is. Perhaps for me in the near-term it’s learning to say ‘No’ and looking out my own kitchen window.
Blessings,
Craig C. Johnson
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
What Is My Address? 5-2-11
Anderson, South Carolina
Recently I found myself on several occasions sleeping on hard cold floors in airport terminals; giving me a powerful tutorial in the realities of homelessness. Even simple chores such as going to the toilet proved challenging. Foreign airports are highly attentive to unattended baggage, gathering it up and taking it away to be destroyed; hence a journey to the far side of the terminal to use the facilities requires one to haul his pallet and all other belongings with him. Homelessness consumes a lot of energy at many levels, even when experienced for only a couple of days.
In recent decades extended travel has become readily accessible to the masses, making it possible to be everywhere except home. Some of us have fallen into the trap of using our travel experiences as some sort of moniker of success. We put up web sites containing thousands of images of the world, yet we scarcely know what home looks like. We achieve some sort of iconic status for having been everywhere. Our admirers envy our opportunities to see beyond the last range of mountains.
The beloved late Catholic priest Henri Nouwen described our worry-filled lives as fragmented. “The many things to do, to think about, to plan for, the many people to remember, to visit, or to talk with, the many causes to attack, or defend, all these pull us apart and make us lose our Center. Worrying causes us to be all over the place, but seldom at home.”
I think Henri was reading my mail. For one having lived in fifty-eight places, for one having been in fifty nations, some repeatedly, I’ve been literally all over the place. I do struggle with a sense of homelessness, even when not sleeping on airport floors. Nouwen goes on to say, “One way to express the spiritual crisis of our time is to say that most of us have an address but cannot be found there. We know where we belong, but we keep being pulled away in many directions, as if we were still homeless. All these other things keep demanding our attention. They lead us so far from home that we eventually forget our true address.”
Circumstances have dictated that most of my extended travel be done solo, not often finding others willing to make the journey with me, even when I offer free first class air to them. If I’m truly honest, I must say these journeys can be exquisitely lonely. Being alone in foreign lands without language skills or knowledge of cultural rules only exacerbates the experience of always having an empty chair across the table. Cameras make good travel companions for only a short season. Yet, I return to my physical address and struggle with much the same thing Nouwen describes, “the many things to do, to think about, to plan for, the many people to remember, to visit, or to talk with, the many causes to attack, or defend.” I find myself chasing my tail without even leaving my house, which so often doesn’t feel like home.
Orbits, Travelocity, Travelzoo and frequent flyer miles make it nearly effortless to sling myself to the far side of the world in my attempts to find a sense of belonging and purpose. Alas, there is no geographic cure for unsettled souls. I can indeed go to China for two weeks for a few hundred dollars but the odds are against me finding belonging, purpose, or home. Nouwen suggests Jesus is the only one who can respond to this “condition of being filled yet unfulfilled, very busy yet unconnected, all over the place yet never at home. He wants to bring us to the place where we belong. But his call to live a spiritual life can only be heard when we are willing honestly to confess our own homelessness and worrying existence and recognize its fragmenting effect on our daily life.”
Nouwen keeps reading my mail. “While our minds and hearts are filled with many things, and we wonder how we can live up to the expectations imposed upon us by ourselves and others, we have a deep sense of unfulfillment. While busy with and worried about many things, we seldom feel truly satisfied, at peace, or at home. A gnawing sense of being unfulfilled underlies our filled lives.”
Just last week I finished a project of many months, preparing all the exhibit materials for a new history museum in another city. A thousand well-dressed celebrants showed up at the dedication, important people spoke for several hours; media people were all over this event. Hundreds of articles were spawned on the Internet. I didn’t know a soul there except the curator who hired my services. It was all over in seconds, it seemed. That’s it? Six days later I find Nouwen’s gnawing sense all over me once again.
Even with smart phones, social networks, free air tickets to anywhere on earth, high profile projects to work on, nascent success with my own photographic work, the sense of disconnect can be staggering. Nouwen’s mandate to be honest strikes home. I have a growing list of perhaps a dozen people who have made it clear they would like to connect for a variety of purposes. I’ve never followed up with some of the very individuals who could give me a sense of home, connection, and belonging. These individuals all live within biking distance of my house.
Perhaps it’s time to get off cheap or free travel sites, stay out of the car, get out my old phone and call some of these people and have them tell me a bit about where I really live, or how I ought to.
Recently I found myself on several occasions sleeping on hard cold floors in airport terminals; giving me a powerful tutorial in the realities of homelessness. Even simple chores such as going to the toilet proved challenging. Foreign airports are highly attentive to unattended baggage, gathering it up and taking it away to be destroyed; hence a journey to the far side of the terminal to use the facilities requires one to haul his pallet and all other belongings with him. Homelessness consumes a lot of energy at many levels, even when experienced for only a couple of days.
In recent decades extended travel has become readily accessible to the masses, making it possible to be everywhere except home. Some of us have fallen into the trap of using our travel experiences as some sort of moniker of success. We put up web sites containing thousands of images of the world, yet we scarcely know what home looks like. We achieve some sort of iconic status for having been everywhere. Our admirers envy our opportunities to see beyond the last range of mountains.
The beloved late Catholic priest Henri Nouwen described our worry-filled lives as fragmented. “The many things to do, to think about, to plan for, the many people to remember, to visit, or to talk with, the many causes to attack, or defend, all these pull us apart and make us lose our Center. Worrying causes us to be all over the place, but seldom at home.”
I think Henri was reading my mail. For one having lived in fifty-eight places, for one having been in fifty nations, some repeatedly, I’ve been literally all over the place. I do struggle with a sense of homelessness, even when not sleeping on airport floors. Nouwen goes on to say, “One way to express the spiritual crisis of our time is to say that most of us have an address but cannot be found there. We know where we belong, but we keep being pulled away in many directions, as if we were still homeless. All these other things keep demanding our attention. They lead us so far from home that we eventually forget our true address.”
Circumstances have dictated that most of my extended travel be done solo, not often finding others willing to make the journey with me, even when I offer free first class air to them. If I’m truly honest, I must say these journeys can be exquisitely lonely. Being alone in foreign lands without language skills or knowledge of cultural rules only exacerbates the experience of always having an empty chair across the table. Cameras make good travel companions for only a short season. Yet, I return to my physical address and struggle with much the same thing Nouwen describes, “the many things to do, to think about, to plan for, the many people to remember, to visit, or to talk with, the many causes to attack, or defend.” I find myself chasing my tail without even leaving my house, which so often doesn’t feel like home.
Orbits, Travelocity, Travelzoo and frequent flyer miles make it nearly effortless to sling myself to the far side of the world in my attempts to find a sense of belonging and purpose. Alas, there is no geographic cure for unsettled souls. I can indeed go to China for two weeks for a few hundred dollars but the odds are against me finding belonging, purpose, or home. Nouwen suggests Jesus is the only one who can respond to this “condition of being filled yet unfulfilled, very busy yet unconnected, all over the place yet never at home. He wants to bring us to the place where we belong. But his call to live a spiritual life can only be heard when we are willing honestly to confess our own homelessness and worrying existence and recognize its fragmenting effect on our daily life.”
Nouwen keeps reading my mail. “While our minds and hearts are filled with many things, and we wonder how we can live up to the expectations imposed upon us by ourselves and others, we have a deep sense of unfulfillment. While busy with and worried about many things, we seldom feel truly satisfied, at peace, or at home. A gnawing sense of being unfulfilled underlies our filled lives.”
Just last week I finished a project of many months, preparing all the exhibit materials for a new history museum in another city. A thousand well-dressed celebrants showed up at the dedication, important people spoke for several hours; media people were all over this event. Hundreds of articles were spawned on the Internet. I didn’t know a soul there except the curator who hired my services. It was all over in seconds, it seemed. That’s it? Six days later I find Nouwen’s gnawing sense all over me once again.
Even with smart phones, social networks, free air tickets to anywhere on earth, high profile projects to work on, nascent success with my own photographic work, the sense of disconnect can be staggering. Nouwen’s mandate to be honest strikes home. I have a growing list of perhaps a dozen people who have made it clear they would like to connect for a variety of purposes. I’ve never followed up with some of the very individuals who could give me a sense of home, connection, and belonging. These individuals all live within biking distance of my house.
Perhaps it’s time to get off cheap or free travel sites, stay out of the car, get out my old phone and call some of these people and have them tell me a bit about where I really live, or how I ought to.
More Musings on My Mortality 3-11-11
Anderson, South Carolina
Much of my childhood was lost to macabre imaginations about death; often giving hours to wondering what the last second of life would feel like; the sense of ‘pressure’ that would come with final extinction. I had no shortage of nightmarish dreams depicting my final seconds. A powerful awareness of death often dominated my thoughts, driving away the usual childhood preoccupations of softball, tree houses, go-carts, and girls. Childhood was often bleak in this respect.
When one is born to an alcoholic who is addicted to all manner of psychotropic drugs, there seems to be little room for keeping track of box scores in Little League baseball. Untreated alcoholism in pregnant women results in problematic pregnancies often ending in still birth or premature infant death. I lost no less than ten siblings to Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.
A very strange psychiatric disorder drives some adults, especially mothers, to fulfill an excessive need for attention and validation by taking on a martyr role. By becoming a ‘victim’ of severely ill children, hapless mothers can extract a morose sympathy from those around them, seeking condolences for their station in life taking care of severely ill children. These victims are even seen as super-heroes in our hyper-medicalized culture. Munchhausen’s Syndrome will often drive mothers to create illness in other-wise perfectly healthy children, this illness providing a gateway for the attentions of professional care givers, medical personnel, and especially physicians. A good part of my childhood was spent in physician offices and hospitals, often waiting for biopsy results.
I have known a woman personally for twenty years who spent decades of hard time in the federal penitentiary for killing two of her children by inducing illness in them as an outworking of un-mitigated Munchhausen Syndrome. The disorder is very real and produces a torturous psychological landscape that is hard to conceive unless one has traversed it personally.
Mercifully, over the years, the force and power of life eventually supplanted my early preoccupations and obsession with illness and death, giving way to an enchantment with the stunning physical world around us. With camera in hand, ‘collecting’ the wonders of life on earth, death is most often far away from my consciousness. I’m truly living in the moment, no longer dying in an uncertain future. Working a twelve-step recovery program with alcoholics and addicts has further boosted my ability to live in the moment; life is now often large and wondrous.
Even in a fulfilling life with many grand options, clouds do scud across my sky; leaving cold breezy shadows on the terrain of my consciousness. One of the things I’ve wondered about at times is the affective sensibility I might expect at the loss of siblings and/or their challenges with catastrophic illness. At New Year’s I found myself in a cold wind with the advent of catastrophic cancer in both of my surviving siblings, one of whom is an identical twin. Both of them have undergone extensive surgery and have been forced to quickly develop expert knowledge on several kinds of neoplastic monsters. I feel a bit like a deer caught in the glare of overly bright halogen driving lamps. One of my brothers recently sent me a family tree with causes of death, deepening the depth of my present shadow considerably.
At this point I would much prefer re-creating my lost childhood and staying entranced with the visual enchantment around me. Alas, life does not always give us choices. As a dear friend in recovery is inclined to say, “The universe does not give me a vote in the matter, all I have is a choice in how I respond.” What I presently have to consider is whether I want to again become a professional patient, becoming expert on neoplastic illness, my own case manager, filling my head with possibilities and treatment options.
Having been to medical school and employed in teaching hospitals most of my working life, it’s very easy to fill my head in an instant with morbid possibilities. As a former Munchhausen proxy, it’s even easier to find the worst of these. I have to consider if I even want to continue seeking diagnostic resources, wandering if I really want to give my life back over to the same nightmares to which I lost my childhood. Is death something I really want to make a heroic fight against? Would I prefer to simply embrace the natural course of life and its transition to another form, or do I wish to give all my time, thoughts, and imaginations to becoming a professional patient once again? Been there, done that; even have the T-shirt.
In the present era we have options to consider which were not available until recently. Radiation, chemotherapy, and radical surgery have been treatment options for only a few decades. Because they are available and might extend quality of life significantly does not mean I should blindly embrace them. Perhaps an informed and empowered evaluation of all options is in order. Perhaps doing nothing is valid for some people. One might actually find out what a disease course with only palliative care looks like and decide it’s a better one than one of radical interventions producing a challenging year or two of life as a professional patient. Amazingly, I have known a number of individuals who opted out of radical ‘conventional’ treatment and are alive and well decades later. Some after being told to go home and do their paperwork because conventional options were of no value decided to seek alternatives. They too are doing well decades later.
In a culture that’s made the medical-industrial complex its largest and most profitable economic sector, in a culture that has the world’s highest fear of death, it’s little short of heresy to suggest one consider doing nothing, giving into a natural course of events. I see many around me suffering profoundly with conventional treatment. Working in twelve teaching hospitals gave me no shortage of evidence of how it ends for many.
Perhaps the most empowering thing I can do about my own health is to become willing to let go of it without a fight, knowing that life has its natural end point. Paradoxically, I might then find I have even more strength to make what is then a truly empowered choice to embrace big treatment for a large challenge. I might more easily submit myself to surgery, chemo, and radiation knowing it’s my choice to not do so if I so decide. I don’t have a choice about what life throws at me but I do have a choice about how I respond. In his celebrated Man’s Search for Meaning, Victor Frankl demonstrated the astounding empowerment possible in spite of the most heinous circumstances.
I can only hope my brothers realize they have real choices. So far their medical choices have worked out. They have access to expert knowledge, financial assets, and relational resources out of reach for most. If a time comes when a lack of resources and neoplastic realities make choices more problematic, I can only hope they have already learned how to let go of life without a fight. I can only pray I am learning to do this as I look in the over-bright glare of headlights. It might make my future choices easier, a lot easier.
He will swallow up death for all time, and the Lord God will wipe tears away from all faces, and He will remove the reproach of His people from all the earth; For the Lord has spoken and it will be said in that day, “Behold this is our God for whom we have waited that He might save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited; Let us rejoice and be glad in His salvation.”
Much of my childhood was lost to macabre imaginations about death; often giving hours to wondering what the last second of life would feel like; the sense of ‘pressure’ that would come with final extinction. I had no shortage of nightmarish dreams depicting my final seconds. A powerful awareness of death often dominated my thoughts, driving away the usual childhood preoccupations of softball, tree houses, go-carts, and girls. Childhood was often bleak in this respect.
When one is born to an alcoholic who is addicted to all manner of psychotropic drugs, there seems to be little room for keeping track of box scores in Little League baseball. Untreated alcoholism in pregnant women results in problematic pregnancies often ending in still birth or premature infant death. I lost no less than ten siblings to Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.
A very strange psychiatric disorder drives some adults, especially mothers, to fulfill an excessive need for attention and validation by taking on a martyr role. By becoming a ‘victim’ of severely ill children, hapless mothers can extract a morose sympathy from those around them, seeking condolences for their station in life taking care of severely ill children. These victims are even seen as super-heroes in our hyper-medicalized culture. Munchhausen’s Syndrome will often drive mothers to create illness in other-wise perfectly healthy children, this illness providing a gateway for the attentions of professional care givers, medical personnel, and especially physicians. A good part of my childhood was spent in physician offices and hospitals, often waiting for biopsy results.
I have known a woman personally for twenty years who spent decades of hard time in the federal penitentiary for killing two of her children by inducing illness in them as an outworking of un-mitigated Munchhausen Syndrome. The disorder is very real and produces a torturous psychological landscape that is hard to conceive unless one has traversed it personally.
Mercifully, over the years, the force and power of life eventually supplanted my early preoccupations and obsession with illness and death, giving way to an enchantment with the stunning physical world around us. With camera in hand, ‘collecting’ the wonders of life on earth, death is most often far away from my consciousness. I’m truly living in the moment, no longer dying in an uncertain future. Working a twelve-step recovery program with alcoholics and addicts has further boosted my ability to live in the moment; life is now often large and wondrous.
Even in a fulfilling life with many grand options, clouds do scud across my sky; leaving cold breezy shadows on the terrain of my consciousness. One of the things I’ve wondered about at times is the affective sensibility I might expect at the loss of siblings and/or their challenges with catastrophic illness. At New Year’s I found myself in a cold wind with the advent of catastrophic cancer in both of my surviving siblings, one of whom is an identical twin. Both of them have undergone extensive surgery and have been forced to quickly develop expert knowledge on several kinds of neoplastic monsters. I feel a bit like a deer caught in the glare of overly bright halogen driving lamps. One of my brothers recently sent me a family tree with causes of death, deepening the depth of my present shadow considerably.
At this point I would much prefer re-creating my lost childhood and staying entranced with the visual enchantment around me. Alas, life does not always give us choices. As a dear friend in recovery is inclined to say, “The universe does not give me a vote in the matter, all I have is a choice in how I respond.” What I presently have to consider is whether I want to again become a professional patient, becoming expert on neoplastic illness, my own case manager, filling my head with possibilities and treatment options.
Having been to medical school and employed in teaching hospitals most of my working life, it’s very easy to fill my head in an instant with morbid possibilities. As a former Munchhausen proxy, it’s even easier to find the worst of these. I have to consider if I even want to continue seeking diagnostic resources, wandering if I really want to give my life back over to the same nightmares to which I lost my childhood. Is death something I really want to make a heroic fight against? Would I prefer to simply embrace the natural course of life and its transition to another form, or do I wish to give all my time, thoughts, and imaginations to becoming a professional patient once again? Been there, done that; even have the T-shirt.
In the present era we have options to consider which were not available until recently. Radiation, chemotherapy, and radical surgery have been treatment options for only a few decades. Because they are available and might extend quality of life significantly does not mean I should blindly embrace them. Perhaps an informed and empowered evaluation of all options is in order. Perhaps doing nothing is valid for some people. One might actually find out what a disease course with only palliative care looks like and decide it’s a better one than one of radical interventions producing a challenging year or two of life as a professional patient. Amazingly, I have known a number of individuals who opted out of radical ‘conventional’ treatment and are alive and well decades later. Some after being told to go home and do their paperwork because conventional options were of no value decided to seek alternatives. They too are doing well decades later.
In a culture that’s made the medical-industrial complex its largest and most profitable economic sector, in a culture that has the world’s highest fear of death, it’s little short of heresy to suggest one consider doing nothing, giving into a natural course of events. I see many around me suffering profoundly with conventional treatment. Working in twelve teaching hospitals gave me no shortage of evidence of how it ends for many.
Perhaps the most empowering thing I can do about my own health is to become willing to let go of it without a fight, knowing that life has its natural end point. Paradoxically, I might then find I have even more strength to make what is then a truly empowered choice to embrace big treatment for a large challenge. I might more easily submit myself to surgery, chemo, and radiation knowing it’s my choice to not do so if I so decide. I don’t have a choice about what life throws at me but I do have a choice about how I respond. In his celebrated Man’s Search for Meaning, Victor Frankl demonstrated the astounding empowerment possible in spite of the most heinous circumstances.
I can only hope my brothers realize they have real choices. So far their medical choices have worked out. They have access to expert knowledge, financial assets, and relational resources out of reach for most. If a time comes when a lack of resources and neoplastic realities make choices more problematic, I can only hope they have already learned how to let go of life without a fight. I can only pray I am learning to do this as I look in the over-bright glare of headlights. It might make my future choices easier, a lot easier.
He will swallow up death for all time, and the Lord God will wipe tears away from all faces, and He will remove the reproach of His people from all the earth; For the Lord has spoken and it will be said in that day, “Behold this is our God for whom we have waited that He might save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited; Let us rejoice and be glad in His salvation.”
Shooting Civilization 3-10-11
Anderson, South Carolina
Perhaps one of the most poignant indicators of dis-ease in our world is the number of people who have become placeless, homeless in a macro-sense; citizens who no longer have a homeland. Massive struggles for power and influence have ignited dozens of international wars and civil wars involving at one count one hundred thirteen political jurisdictions. A number of nations are entering their second decade without functioning central governments. For some, piracy and anarchy have replaced any rule of law.
Uncounted millions of people have fled their homelands for the promise of safety on the far side of their borders. Reality for these refuges is often years of abject misery confined to disease-ridden concentration camps. Media and political attention fades; they become the forgotten. Reality for those caught in the snares of refugee camps in Thailand, Sudan, Rwanda, and dozens of other lands is nothing more than a wakeful nightmare.
For decades Mexico was one of the grandest places to visit and work; the highlight of my year was several weeks working in Mexico, its hospitality and serene lifestyle nothing short of overwhelming. Even the poorest of mountain villages offered an abundance of graciousness making me feel like a pauper in my own land. There was always time for friendship, dining, and just flowing with life on the simplest plaza at sunset.
El Paso has become home for the most poignant of refugee groups, dreamers who would make a better world for their people if they did not have to flee. The northern desert states of Mexico once held great economic promise for those who would see their people given opportunity to enter the world of economic choice. Factories, highways, power plants, and other infrastructure promised to provide abundant good paying jobs for millions of Mexicans. In the past five years much of the region has become nothing more than a theater of war, running crimson with the blood of tens of thousands who would dare to make the world a better place; business owners, mayors, political candidates, police officers, even newlyweds. Stunning in this unnamed war are the demographics of victims of senseless violence. Those who have the vision, will, and wherewithal to improve life for millions are the very ones being extirpated. Images of Kristallnacht, Cambodia’s killing fields, the dust of Darfur recur. The collective ‘we’ learns nothing, it seems. Many of Mexico’s best business leaders have fled to the relative safety of El Paso, making desperate bids to operate their companies remotely, convening daily for group support, while facing logistical nightmares.
Not long ago I again experienced the gracious wonder that is Mexico, basking in timeless hospitality, where all were present and accounted for, not caught up in frenetic busyness. There’s perhaps no greater joy than being lost in the mindfulness of timeless hospitality in the Latin world. Alas, places still perceived of as safe mere weeks ago have become theaters of war, driven by inconceivable greed and violence. Two weeks ago our long-standing mission has decided to cancel the medical caravans we made across Mexican deserts for forty-three years, citing untenable security issues. No longer can we take our trucks and deploy field hospitals. Thousands of Mexicans will never have the opportunity to receive life saving and life changing surgery and medicine. It’s a very sobering reality to be forced to capitulate to a measured fear for one’s safety.
Greed has taken the community of mankind to unthinkable places, places where fourteen year old boys, instead of working on their forward pass in soccer and building dreams, are now working as hired guns for drug cartels. Seared into the consciousness of the world is awareness of a boy in Mexico hired to behead the competition in the drug wars which are consuming the dreams of Mexico. At least four victims have lost their heads to this boy, ultimately over money.
Amazingly, a surreal industry has arisen in Mexico, construction of elaborate mausoleums for drug lords, runners, and hit men cut down in the mayhem. A glossy monthly magazine known the world over presented an extensive photo essay on the misfortunes of Mexico; presenting photo-evidence of these elaborate cities for the dead. Even in death, thugs are attempting to present evidence of their importance in life, believing he who dies with the most toys wins. Reality says he who dies with the most toys is still dead.
Tragically we have become prisoners of our own egos on both sides of the border. South of the border self-importance is seen as coming from exercising power and influence over ‘turf’, controlling a vast flow of illicit drugs, money, and immigrants to the north. Trappings of the material world, yachts, German cars, grand houses, and now even cities for the dead have thousands of Mexicans scrambling to make veritable fortunes in drug trafficking and extortion. More than thirty thousand have died in what has become a chronic civil war over drugs and money. There’s no evidence of any thought for political or social reform among these combatants. A grand culture and nation are at imminent risk of being lost to the future.
North of the border is the largest concentration of illicit drug users in the solar system. Millions of Americans have become total prisoners to their addictions, willingly destroying their lives and any possibilities for their future. Has America become little more than a concentration camp ourselves, held captive by our own addictions? Illicit drugs represent only the tip of the iceberg of an American penchant for addictive behavior. Alcohol is a legal addiction on which the entertainment, travel, hospitality, and sporting industries are built. Alcohol destroys as many if not more lives than illicit drugs. The collective cost of alcoholism to the American economy is certainly comparable to the catastrophic costs Mexicans are experiencing in their drug war. The true cost of the American ego addiction to ‘bigger’, fueled by over buying up-scale houses, fast cars, breast augmentation, speculative investing, lotteries, even casinos is now manifesting itself in the larger economy.
While Mexicans shoot each other with breath-taking regularity, using American-made fire arms, millions of Americans are routinely shooting up with heroin, cocaine, meth, and most anything else they can get a hold of. Every time I see children taken away from an addicted single mother by state authorities, holes are being shot through any future possibilities for her children.
Does paying $900 for a Super Bowl ticket or paying a now vilified and unemployed comedian $2 million a week for thirty minutes of ‘work’ do anything to bring about economic, political, or social transformation that might give alcoholics or drug addicts any reason to take pause and consider the possibilities of another way of living life? Is our present crop of ‘heroes’ doing anything to challenge the American penchant for addictive behavior? Is it even possible to challenge alcoholics and addicts to seek recovery from addiction when the larger culture is no-less addicted to a wide array of things?
Is it possible a cure for our diverse addictions on both sides of the border actually stems from learning to be content with what we have, to give up our ceaseless striving for more, bigger, more intense, brighter, louder, faster? Has the answer been in front of our noses for twenty centuries? Can we learn of the true wealth and satisfaction coming from simple living with those we love and who love us? Can we learn to live simply so others can simply live – even Mexicans caught in the cross fire of American cravings?
I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every kind of circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
Perhaps one of the most poignant indicators of dis-ease in our world is the number of people who have become placeless, homeless in a macro-sense; citizens who no longer have a homeland. Massive struggles for power and influence have ignited dozens of international wars and civil wars involving at one count one hundred thirteen political jurisdictions. A number of nations are entering their second decade without functioning central governments. For some, piracy and anarchy have replaced any rule of law.
Uncounted millions of people have fled their homelands for the promise of safety on the far side of their borders. Reality for these refuges is often years of abject misery confined to disease-ridden concentration camps. Media and political attention fades; they become the forgotten. Reality for those caught in the snares of refugee camps in Thailand, Sudan, Rwanda, and dozens of other lands is nothing more than a wakeful nightmare.
For decades Mexico was one of the grandest places to visit and work; the highlight of my year was several weeks working in Mexico, its hospitality and serene lifestyle nothing short of overwhelming. Even the poorest of mountain villages offered an abundance of graciousness making me feel like a pauper in my own land. There was always time for friendship, dining, and just flowing with life on the simplest plaza at sunset.
El Paso has become home for the most poignant of refugee groups, dreamers who would make a better world for their people if they did not have to flee. The northern desert states of Mexico once held great economic promise for those who would see their people given opportunity to enter the world of economic choice. Factories, highways, power plants, and other infrastructure promised to provide abundant good paying jobs for millions of Mexicans. In the past five years much of the region has become nothing more than a theater of war, running crimson with the blood of tens of thousands who would dare to make the world a better place; business owners, mayors, political candidates, police officers, even newlyweds. Stunning in this unnamed war are the demographics of victims of senseless violence. Those who have the vision, will, and wherewithal to improve life for millions are the very ones being extirpated. Images of Kristallnacht, Cambodia’s killing fields, the dust of Darfur recur. The collective ‘we’ learns nothing, it seems. Many of Mexico’s best business leaders have fled to the relative safety of El Paso, making desperate bids to operate their companies remotely, convening daily for group support, while facing logistical nightmares.
Not long ago I again experienced the gracious wonder that is Mexico, basking in timeless hospitality, where all were present and accounted for, not caught up in frenetic busyness. There’s perhaps no greater joy than being lost in the mindfulness of timeless hospitality in the Latin world. Alas, places still perceived of as safe mere weeks ago have become theaters of war, driven by inconceivable greed and violence. Two weeks ago our long-standing mission has decided to cancel the medical caravans we made across Mexican deserts for forty-three years, citing untenable security issues. No longer can we take our trucks and deploy field hospitals. Thousands of Mexicans will never have the opportunity to receive life saving and life changing surgery and medicine. It’s a very sobering reality to be forced to capitulate to a measured fear for one’s safety.
Greed has taken the community of mankind to unthinkable places, places where fourteen year old boys, instead of working on their forward pass in soccer and building dreams, are now working as hired guns for drug cartels. Seared into the consciousness of the world is awareness of a boy in Mexico hired to behead the competition in the drug wars which are consuming the dreams of Mexico. At least four victims have lost their heads to this boy, ultimately over money.
Amazingly, a surreal industry has arisen in Mexico, construction of elaborate mausoleums for drug lords, runners, and hit men cut down in the mayhem. A glossy monthly magazine known the world over presented an extensive photo essay on the misfortunes of Mexico; presenting photo-evidence of these elaborate cities for the dead. Even in death, thugs are attempting to present evidence of their importance in life, believing he who dies with the most toys wins. Reality says he who dies with the most toys is still dead.
Tragically we have become prisoners of our own egos on both sides of the border. South of the border self-importance is seen as coming from exercising power and influence over ‘turf’, controlling a vast flow of illicit drugs, money, and immigrants to the north. Trappings of the material world, yachts, German cars, grand houses, and now even cities for the dead have thousands of Mexicans scrambling to make veritable fortunes in drug trafficking and extortion. More than thirty thousand have died in what has become a chronic civil war over drugs and money. There’s no evidence of any thought for political or social reform among these combatants. A grand culture and nation are at imminent risk of being lost to the future.
North of the border is the largest concentration of illicit drug users in the solar system. Millions of Americans have become total prisoners to their addictions, willingly destroying their lives and any possibilities for their future. Has America become little more than a concentration camp ourselves, held captive by our own addictions? Illicit drugs represent only the tip of the iceberg of an American penchant for addictive behavior. Alcohol is a legal addiction on which the entertainment, travel, hospitality, and sporting industries are built. Alcohol destroys as many if not more lives than illicit drugs. The collective cost of alcoholism to the American economy is certainly comparable to the catastrophic costs Mexicans are experiencing in their drug war. The true cost of the American ego addiction to ‘bigger’, fueled by over buying up-scale houses, fast cars, breast augmentation, speculative investing, lotteries, even casinos is now manifesting itself in the larger economy.
While Mexicans shoot each other with breath-taking regularity, using American-made fire arms, millions of Americans are routinely shooting up with heroin, cocaine, meth, and most anything else they can get a hold of. Every time I see children taken away from an addicted single mother by state authorities, holes are being shot through any future possibilities for her children.
Does paying $900 for a Super Bowl ticket or paying a now vilified and unemployed comedian $2 million a week for thirty minutes of ‘work’ do anything to bring about economic, political, or social transformation that might give alcoholics or drug addicts any reason to take pause and consider the possibilities of another way of living life? Is our present crop of ‘heroes’ doing anything to challenge the American penchant for addictive behavior? Is it even possible to challenge alcoholics and addicts to seek recovery from addiction when the larger culture is no-less addicted to a wide array of things?
Is it possible a cure for our diverse addictions on both sides of the border actually stems from learning to be content with what we have, to give up our ceaseless striving for more, bigger, more intense, brighter, louder, faster? Has the answer been in front of our noses for twenty centuries? Can we learn of the true wealth and satisfaction coming from simple living with those we love and who love us? Can we learn to live simply so others can simply live – even Mexicans caught in the cross fire of American cravings?
I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every kind of circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
Commitment - The Empowering of Dreams 3-4-11
Anderson, South Carolina
Fifteen years ago twelve thousand of us sat transfixed in a convention center as Diana Golden described her uphill battle with cancer and downhill victories on Olympic ski slopes. At age twelve she endured amputation of her right leg after bone cancer caused a spontaneous fracture. She went on to earn a degree in English literature while continuing with skiing, eventually winning gold at the Olympic winter games in Calgary. Before retiring from skiing, Diana won thirty gold medals. In 1988 Golden received wide-spread recognition when Ski Racing Magazine and the United States Olympic Committee named her female skier of the year, choosing her ahead of all able-bodied skiers. Diana faced further severe challenges with breast cancer; bilateral radical mastectomies, hysterectomy, eventually dying of cancer at age 38. She found it in herself to fall in love, marry, and live well until her premature death in 2001.
Recently while on a stair climber in the gym at 6 AM, I noticed a man hobbling across the fitness floor, using a four-footed cane. Astounded to see him climb onto a vertical stepper, I wondered how it is someone barely able to walk assisted could use a climber. Over the next hour James proceeded to complete a full circuit workout using a variety of machines. Suddenly my pride at getting out of bed to work out at 6 AM seemed pathetic. I was instantly reminded of Diana Golden’s astonishing tenacity and commitment. Conversation with James revealed him to be doing no less than Diana Golden did with her own inspiring life, overcoming radical brain surgery, a catastrophic auto accident, and assorted surgeries. For ten years he could not even speak.
Barry was a minister here in South Carolina, happily married, fulfilling his life calling. He awoke in intensive care from a coma four months after being severely injured in a head-on collision while coming home from church one Sunday morning. Unable to speak or use his hands or legs effectively, he managed to get transport to the gym each day, and walk on the track with assistance. Eventually I was able to understand him and watch him make use of the same machines James uses each day. His commitment to rebuilding his life was nothing short of astounding. Several years ago he and his wife moved to a distant city to embrace a new life chapter.
For those facing the daunting challenge of gaining liberation from the bondages of drug addiction and alcoholism, a challenge made to them at the onset of recovery is “If you want what we have then you must do what we do.” Recovery from addictions or catastrophic illness is the hardest work humankind will ever undertake. Success mandates the seeker want recovery even more than he or she needs it. Diana Golden wanted to ski more than anything in the world. She did the hard things Olympic skiers do to win; not letting the loss of a leg to cancer get in her way. James and Barry didn’t allow catastrophic injury and illness to obstruct their quests for independence and physical fitness, wanting to get up at 5 AM more than wanting to stay in bed. Those wanting sobriety make it the most important thing in their lives.
Those of us visiting the gym daily wonder where most of our members are. Despite having 8,800 members, even on crowded days, no more than a couple hundred people will be found in the building. At many hours there are less than ten of us present. Recently reported national utilization studies reveal eighty percent of fitness memberships are never used. An estimated $14 billion a year is spent on services never utilized. $4 billion is spent annually on home fitness equipment, most of it seeing essentially no use. Further analysis suggests three and a half weeks is the average tenure of fitness facility use in the United States. The average diet resolution lasts a mere seventy two hours. As a nation we are not committed to good health or winning gold.
A mantra in the recovery world is “just keep doing the next right thing.” A succession of ‘next right things’ can lead to clean sober living with its fruits of good health, meaningful relationships, and fulfillment of life purpose. We learn living sober will lead to sober thinking. Thinking sober is not nearly as likely to lead to sober living. Merely thinking about Olympic gold is not likely to yield it. One has to get up in the dark and be at the gym first thing to build, rebuild, and retain the fitness and strength needed to gain aureate rewards. As wondrous as Olympic gold and fame might be, they hardly compare to the wonder coming from regaining the physical ability to ride a bike, to walk, to speak intelligibly, to hold a knife and fork and feed oneself, to think clearly.
I recently spend two hours with a cocaine addict who fails to understand that doing those things we don’t necessarily feel like doing can empower our dreams, giving us a life of nearly unimagined abundance. None of us feel like going to the gym in the dark on a frozen winter morning, but the fruits of our labors are delicious. We go. No one feels like going through the emotional and physical torments of detox, withdrawal, and learning new ways of living. We do it. For several years my friend has said he knows what to do but is not doing it. He wonders why life is not working for him. He doesn’t yet have the incentive or commitment to do things differently than he has done them in the past. We often quip that insanity is doing the same thing, expecting a different result. Diana, James, and Barry quickly learned victory on the slopes and in life requires extraordinary effort. They achieved extraordinary results. It can be so for my friend who has struggled for so many years.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.
In the gym, we focus on the rewards of strength, good health, even Olympic gold. We set aside all those things that would distract us from our goals. We commit ourselves to extraordinary discipline. In recovery we focus on the happy, joyous and free life that is available to those who seek sobriety and good living above all else. We commit ourselves fully to those measures and steps that will rocket us into the fourth dimension of living. We learn in the gym, on the slopes, and in recovery rooms that we seek spiritual progress, not having yet achieved perfection.
Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.
Sometimes we just surprise ourselves, and we end up living out our dreams with the help of those that love us, here on earth and in Heaven above, if we work hard. Remember, Jesus didn’t feel like going to Calvary. He really didn’t but he did so, that we could win eternal gold.
Fifteen years ago twelve thousand of us sat transfixed in a convention center as Diana Golden described her uphill battle with cancer and downhill victories on Olympic ski slopes. At age twelve she endured amputation of her right leg after bone cancer caused a spontaneous fracture. She went on to earn a degree in English literature while continuing with skiing, eventually winning gold at the Olympic winter games in Calgary. Before retiring from skiing, Diana won thirty gold medals. In 1988 Golden received wide-spread recognition when Ski Racing Magazine and the United States Olympic Committee named her female skier of the year, choosing her ahead of all able-bodied skiers. Diana faced further severe challenges with breast cancer; bilateral radical mastectomies, hysterectomy, eventually dying of cancer at age 38. She found it in herself to fall in love, marry, and live well until her premature death in 2001.
Recently while on a stair climber in the gym at 6 AM, I noticed a man hobbling across the fitness floor, using a four-footed cane. Astounded to see him climb onto a vertical stepper, I wondered how it is someone barely able to walk assisted could use a climber. Over the next hour James proceeded to complete a full circuit workout using a variety of machines. Suddenly my pride at getting out of bed to work out at 6 AM seemed pathetic. I was instantly reminded of Diana Golden’s astonishing tenacity and commitment. Conversation with James revealed him to be doing no less than Diana Golden did with her own inspiring life, overcoming radical brain surgery, a catastrophic auto accident, and assorted surgeries. For ten years he could not even speak.
Barry was a minister here in South Carolina, happily married, fulfilling his life calling. He awoke in intensive care from a coma four months after being severely injured in a head-on collision while coming home from church one Sunday morning. Unable to speak or use his hands or legs effectively, he managed to get transport to the gym each day, and walk on the track with assistance. Eventually I was able to understand him and watch him make use of the same machines James uses each day. His commitment to rebuilding his life was nothing short of astounding. Several years ago he and his wife moved to a distant city to embrace a new life chapter.
For those facing the daunting challenge of gaining liberation from the bondages of drug addiction and alcoholism, a challenge made to them at the onset of recovery is “If you want what we have then you must do what we do.” Recovery from addictions or catastrophic illness is the hardest work humankind will ever undertake. Success mandates the seeker want recovery even more than he or she needs it. Diana Golden wanted to ski more than anything in the world. She did the hard things Olympic skiers do to win; not letting the loss of a leg to cancer get in her way. James and Barry didn’t allow catastrophic injury and illness to obstruct their quests for independence and physical fitness, wanting to get up at 5 AM more than wanting to stay in bed. Those wanting sobriety make it the most important thing in their lives.
Those of us visiting the gym daily wonder where most of our members are. Despite having 8,800 members, even on crowded days, no more than a couple hundred people will be found in the building. At many hours there are less than ten of us present. Recently reported national utilization studies reveal eighty percent of fitness memberships are never used. An estimated $14 billion a year is spent on services never utilized. $4 billion is spent annually on home fitness equipment, most of it seeing essentially no use. Further analysis suggests three and a half weeks is the average tenure of fitness facility use in the United States. The average diet resolution lasts a mere seventy two hours. As a nation we are not committed to good health or winning gold.
A mantra in the recovery world is “just keep doing the next right thing.” A succession of ‘next right things’ can lead to clean sober living with its fruits of good health, meaningful relationships, and fulfillment of life purpose. We learn living sober will lead to sober thinking. Thinking sober is not nearly as likely to lead to sober living. Merely thinking about Olympic gold is not likely to yield it. One has to get up in the dark and be at the gym first thing to build, rebuild, and retain the fitness and strength needed to gain aureate rewards. As wondrous as Olympic gold and fame might be, they hardly compare to the wonder coming from regaining the physical ability to ride a bike, to walk, to speak intelligibly, to hold a knife and fork and feed oneself, to think clearly.
I recently spend two hours with a cocaine addict who fails to understand that doing those things we don’t necessarily feel like doing can empower our dreams, giving us a life of nearly unimagined abundance. None of us feel like going to the gym in the dark on a frozen winter morning, but the fruits of our labors are delicious. We go. No one feels like going through the emotional and physical torments of detox, withdrawal, and learning new ways of living. We do it. For several years my friend has said he knows what to do but is not doing it. He wonders why life is not working for him. He doesn’t yet have the incentive or commitment to do things differently than he has done them in the past. We often quip that insanity is doing the same thing, expecting a different result. Diana, James, and Barry quickly learned victory on the slopes and in life requires extraordinary effort. They achieved extraordinary results. It can be so for my friend who has struggled for so many years.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.
In the gym, we focus on the rewards of strength, good health, even Olympic gold. We set aside all those things that would distract us from our goals. We commit ourselves to extraordinary discipline. In recovery we focus on the happy, joyous and free life that is available to those who seek sobriety and good living above all else. We commit ourselves fully to those measures and steps that will rocket us into the fourth dimension of living. We learn in the gym, on the slopes, and in recovery rooms that we seek spiritual progress, not having yet achieved perfection.
Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.
Sometimes we just surprise ourselves, and we end up living out our dreams with the help of those that love us, here on earth and in Heaven above, if we work hard. Remember, Jesus didn’t feel like going to Calvary. He really didn’t but he did so, that we could win eternal gold.
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