Anderson, South Carolina
For several years I took a foreign policy class moderated by Matthew, a fellow once living a spectacularly interesting life. Having served in the CIA, the Foreign Service, and a number of Department of Defense positions, our leader was in a position to bring rather enlightening perspectives to a number of thorny and vexing foreign policy issues. Most of those in class had interesting lives of their own as ex-pat CEOs and intellectual stimulation in these sessions could provide a real rush.
I saw Matthew in the gym recently and asked him what he was doing these days, not having seen him in many months. Looking a bit forlorn he told me he was doing nothing and “just waiting for the big dirt.” Dumbfounded, I asked for clarification. Could this vibrant man with an exemplary career, no money problems, good physical health, and a beautiful wife be waiting to die? I thought only people in bad health, intense pain, lonely, with lots of problems, and confined to institutions would anticipate the day someone shoveled dirt onto their coffins. I wondered why Matthew was even in the gym. A large motivator for my going to the gym is being around people who are excited about life and actively promoting its quality.
Perhaps there are greater existential questions arising from Matthew’s answer. Is there any real purpose or satisfaction in life after we have stopped producing earned income? Are we nothing more than fodder for those still seeking profit at our expense? Do we simply wait for the Grim Reaper to clock us out? In the American culture one certainly does wonder.
A vast highly profitable industry has arisen out of creating increasingly structured environments where people bored to death wait for … well, death. Adults-only living, retirement living, senior living, independent living, assisted living, skilled nursing, and even long-term hospitalization options have sprouted overnight like mushrooms during a damp spring night. These allow one to have a structured expensive wait for the big dirt. Even there the profit potential is large; profit margins in the funeral industry are staggering.
Millions pay vast endowments to buy their way into the safety and predictability of structured institutional environments. After giving up their life estates they pay draconian monthly assessments for little of nothing – a couple of sheetrock rooms and institutional meals in a cafeteria. Institutional care operators don’t give back endowments at death. If any assets remain, these will be sopped up by the undertaker. Is this becoming an end-point of American economy, high performance employees working stressful careers, making too much money, just to ultimately give it all to funeral parlors and their institutional waiting rooms?
At the lower end of the economy tens of millions are trapped in economic quicksand by alcoholism and addictions. Others driven by profit motives have recently found a fountain of profit. Unqualified individuals are buying houses in marginal neighborhoods for back taxes at courthouse auctions, renting rooms by the week and calling their enterprises Recovery Houses. From conversation with individuals in these houses, more resentment than recovery is being generated. Buying a house for $900 in back taxes and then renting it by the room for $100 a week to people who are truly powerless over their lives is nothing short of hitting pay dirt in a big way. Spending $900 one time and gaining cash flow of $2,400 a month from six desperate women in a ghetto dump is certainly not in keeping with the spirit of the recovery message. Imagine owning eight of these houses. Do the math. It’s better than dealing dope, and perfectly legal. One is capitalizing on vast profits to be had from filling up institutional living arrangements with those desperate for predictability and structure, be they opulent church-operated ones with endowments of $500,000 and $6,000 monthly rent or tax-defaulted houses in the ‘hood for $100 a week, per room.
Home for many has become an evanescent, even ephemeral construct of the imagination. Multi-generational extended families living on family farms for a century or more have given way to isolated nuclear families living in suburban houses. As solitary nuclear families prove themselves ever more fragile, more than half of them shatter, leaving millions looking for places to live. Life challenges lead many to use psychotropic drugs, alcohol, and illicit drugs, leading to even more familial failures. The end point is millions of us desperately seeking safe places to lay our heads at night, places to have a sense of belonging and community. Alas, opulent senior care facilities and recovery houses in the ‘hood simply cannot offer the sense of history, place, security, and belonging deriving from multi-generational extended living arrangements in large houses extending across many decades.
While having dinner in a grand dining room near Inverness, I wondered about those dining here prior to my showing up at the table. For eight hundred years one family has been living in this wondrous place in the north of Scotland. The table at which I enjoyed my repast has been in place for five centuries. Portraits of twenty generations hung on walls around me. Regrettably, the present castle owner is the last survivor in her family lineage and this history and sense of place is about to go away, a tragic sign of the times. As families shrink, break up, and disperse, clapboard houses on the farm and castles alike will fall into ruin, taking with them their legacies of history, place, security, and belonging.
Do we really want the social landscape we are creating for ourselves here in the Western World? Perhaps waiting for the big dirt is understandable if there’s little to look forward to other than domiciliary care in some sort of facility, be it an opulent church-operated one with an endowment of $500,000 and $6,000 monthly rent or a tax-defaulted house in the ‘hood for $100 a week.
There’s another choice, one on the other side of the big dirt, one grander than pay dirt in the hood, one giving us reason to move beyond our social malaise and austere institutional models of community. It’s possible to live in the big house with extended family. The choice is ours.
Let not your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
The Most Wanted List 8-21-11
Mt Pleasant, Pennsylvania
Growing up we are taught important life values; who to hate, who to love, groups to exclude from our lives, groups worthy of our membership. Primal needs of humans to belong have been increasingly corrupted by large forces at work in highly competitive fragmented societies. Assurance of belonging has provoked thousands to join street gangs, crime syndicates, Hell’s Angels, white supremacy groups, ad infinitum. The predictability and sense of personal security deriving from childhood in intact extended families have become frightening scarce resources. We become desperate to belong to groups larger than ourselves, offering prestige, security, options for personal validation. Some offer nothing but illusions.
In Los Angeles County there existed the so-called Blue Book, a social register not unlike the Who’s Who of America. Inclusion in this tome was tantamount to the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, assuring readers of the economic, social, and moral integrity of those so included. Throughout my childhood school years, gaining inclusion in this hallowed volume was a driving force for my mother, despite four marriages, alcoholism, and drug addiction. Even from my limited childhood perspective I could not fathom how our shattered little family with closets full of skeletons could gain the Blue Book Seal of Approval, not that it mattered to me. I was too busy just trying to survive and find my own sense of belonging. Half a century later it still eludes me. Alcoholic wandering and moving twenty times by age fifteen does not promote putting down roots, joining groups, learning to build life-long friendships.
Second grade provided my first craving for inclusion in groups larger than ourselves, offering prestige, security, options for personal validation. Elected Student Council members, class reps, and the like were given color-coded scarves to wear, monikers offering unbounded prestige and status on the grounds of George Ellery Hale Elementary School. Class Safety Officer was considered a bogus job no one wanted but it offered the incumbent one of those sacred scarves, a navy blue one. I was all over it. I had a chance at a Seal of Approval. I proved to be a legend only in my own mind, never gaining any hoped-for social capital from my position.
Even temporary groups offered an illusion of prestige, security, options for personal validation. On February 14 elementary schools conducted fiendish popularity contests. Students had an hour late in the day during which they traded Valentine’s Cards. Intuitive compassionate parents made sure their little darlings took cards for everyone in the class. There must not be too many of them. Some of us ended up with rather small piles of cards, mostly little ones about the size of a business card. Some in the class ended up with piles of large specialty cards, enough to stock a card shop. We all knew who got the Seal of Approval. Still, I hoped even one of those small cards of mine was a willful mindful act on the part of the giver, not just psychic damage control by a benevolent parent.. I never knew. Perhaps it’s why I always keep greetings cards sent to me.
One of the junior high schools I attended afforded great prestige to marching band members. On game days members wore black and orange uniforms all day, an ultimate symbol of status and acceptance. How I craved the opportunity to play in that band and belong, to have prestige, security, options for personal validation. Alas, I never got a chance. Household finances got soaked in alcohol and we ended up in an apartment in another school district.
Perhaps the most challenging group member induction in all childhood was that of picking sides for athletic events. Even knowing in advance the two most popular boys in class would go to every effort to avoid picking me for their team did little to lessen the pain of exclusion. Being a socially marginalized student finding refuge in the library during recess, Physical Education was a dreadful rite of exclusion, especially on rainy days when team picking for indoor games was more likely. Predictably, I was always last.
During the last year of high school millions of us went through expensive and desperate rituals to gain acceptance into a very different kind of club; prestigious universities promising stellar education leading to glamorous high-paying careers. Even forty years later I’ve no idea how it was I was admitted to the most expensive school in America on full scholarship, one offering the world. Strangely, I never felt admitted into the culture of this ultra-competitive school, where classmates were potential enemies who might steal my place in medical school by doing better than me in organic chemistry.
During the last year of university hundreds of thousands of us went through even more expensive and frantic rituals to gain acceptance into a very different kind of club; prestigious medical schools promising stellar education leading to glamorous high-paying careers. Even thirty years later I’ve no idea how it was I was admitted to a prestigious medical school in America on full scholarship, one offering the world. Strangely, I never felt admitted into the culture of this ultra-competitive school, where classmates were potential enemies who might steal my place on top of the class-weighted pass-fail cut-point. Every exam offered opportunity to view a list of my enemies under glass, seeing the weighted scores of those who might cause me to flunk out and default on my scholarships.
Primal needs of humans to belong have been increasingly corrupted by large forces at work in highly competitive fragmented societies. Long past elementary school, junior high school, university, and medical school I still have a craving for inclusion in groups larger than ourselves, offering prestige, security, options for personal validation. Gated communities, high rise condominiums with armed guards and valets, board memberships, presidencies; none of these moved me closer to a sense of belonging.
Social Registers, Student Councils, Valentine’s Lists, Marching Band, Team Rosters, The Class of 1975, The Medical Class of 1991, Board Presidencies. Invitation Lists. Important lists. Will they matter when our civilization has been forgotten, when our lists have devolved into dust to be sifted by archeologists yet unborn for a hundred centuries? Do they matter now?
For practitioners of Anglican or Episcopal variants of the Christian faith, a prayer of thanksgiving is often offered after Rite II Holy Eucharist. Included is the possibility for inclusion in groups larger than ourselves, offering prestige, security, options for personal validation. “We thank you for feeding us … and for assuring us in these holy mysteries that we are living members of the Body of your son, and heirs of your eternal kingdom.” I still have a craving. Have I finally found myself wanted on the Most Wanted List after all these years?
“He who overcomes shall thus be clothed in white garments; and I will not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father, and before His angels.”
I might even get to wear the ultimate white coat.
Growing up we are taught important life values; who to hate, who to love, groups to exclude from our lives, groups worthy of our membership. Primal needs of humans to belong have been increasingly corrupted by large forces at work in highly competitive fragmented societies. Assurance of belonging has provoked thousands to join street gangs, crime syndicates, Hell’s Angels, white supremacy groups, ad infinitum. The predictability and sense of personal security deriving from childhood in intact extended families have become frightening scarce resources. We become desperate to belong to groups larger than ourselves, offering prestige, security, options for personal validation. Some offer nothing but illusions.
In Los Angeles County there existed the so-called Blue Book, a social register not unlike the Who’s Who of America. Inclusion in this tome was tantamount to the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, assuring readers of the economic, social, and moral integrity of those so included. Throughout my childhood school years, gaining inclusion in this hallowed volume was a driving force for my mother, despite four marriages, alcoholism, and drug addiction. Even from my limited childhood perspective I could not fathom how our shattered little family with closets full of skeletons could gain the Blue Book Seal of Approval, not that it mattered to me. I was too busy just trying to survive and find my own sense of belonging. Half a century later it still eludes me. Alcoholic wandering and moving twenty times by age fifteen does not promote putting down roots, joining groups, learning to build life-long friendships.
Second grade provided my first craving for inclusion in groups larger than ourselves, offering prestige, security, options for personal validation. Elected Student Council members, class reps, and the like were given color-coded scarves to wear, monikers offering unbounded prestige and status on the grounds of George Ellery Hale Elementary School. Class Safety Officer was considered a bogus job no one wanted but it offered the incumbent one of those sacred scarves, a navy blue one. I was all over it. I had a chance at a Seal of Approval. I proved to be a legend only in my own mind, never gaining any hoped-for social capital from my position.
Even temporary groups offered an illusion of prestige, security, options for personal validation. On February 14 elementary schools conducted fiendish popularity contests. Students had an hour late in the day during which they traded Valentine’s Cards. Intuitive compassionate parents made sure their little darlings took cards for everyone in the class. There must not be too many of them. Some of us ended up with rather small piles of cards, mostly little ones about the size of a business card. Some in the class ended up with piles of large specialty cards, enough to stock a card shop. We all knew who got the Seal of Approval. Still, I hoped even one of those small cards of mine was a willful mindful act on the part of the giver, not just psychic damage control by a benevolent parent.. I never knew. Perhaps it’s why I always keep greetings cards sent to me.
One of the junior high schools I attended afforded great prestige to marching band members. On game days members wore black and orange uniforms all day, an ultimate symbol of status and acceptance. How I craved the opportunity to play in that band and belong, to have prestige, security, options for personal validation. Alas, I never got a chance. Household finances got soaked in alcohol and we ended up in an apartment in another school district.
Perhaps the most challenging group member induction in all childhood was that of picking sides for athletic events. Even knowing in advance the two most popular boys in class would go to every effort to avoid picking me for their team did little to lessen the pain of exclusion. Being a socially marginalized student finding refuge in the library during recess, Physical Education was a dreadful rite of exclusion, especially on rainy days when team picking for indoor games was more likely. Predictably, I was always last.
During the last year of high school millions of us went through expensive and desperate rituals to gain acceptance into a very different kind of club; prestigious universities promising stellar education leading to glamorous high-paying careers. Even forty years later I’ve no idea how it was I was admitted to the most expensive school in America on full scholarship, one offering the world. Strangely, I never felt admitted into the culture of this ultra-competitive school, where classmates were potential enemies who might steal my place in medical school by doing better than me in organic chemistry.
During the last year of university hundreds of thousands of us went through even more expensive and frantic rituals to gain acceptance into a very different kind of club; prestigious medical schools promising stellar education leading to glamorous high-paying careers. Even thirty years later I’ve no idea how it was I was admitted to a prestigious medical school in America on full scholarship, one offering the world. Strangely, I never felt admitted into the culture of this ultra-competitive school, where classmates were potential enemies who might steal my place on top of the class-weighted pass-fail cut-point. Every exam offered opportunity to view a list of my enemies under glass, seeing the weighted scores of those who might cause me to flunk out and default on my scholarships.
Primal needs of humans to belong have been increasingly corrupted by large forces at work in highly competitive fragmented societies. Long past elementary school, junior high school, university, and medical school I still have a craving for inclusion in groups larger than ourselves, offering prestige, security, options for personal validation. Gated communities, high rise condominiums with armed guards and valets, board memberships, presidencies; none of these moved me closer to a sense of belonging.
Social Registers, Student Councils, Valentine’s Lists, Marching Band, Team Rosters, The Class of 1975, The Medical Class of 1991, Board Presidencies. Invitation Lists. Important lists. Will they matter when our civilization has been forgotten, when our lists have devolved into dust to be sifted by archeologists yet unborn for a hundred centuries? Do they matter now?
For practitioners of Anglican or Episcopal variants of the Christian faith, a prayer of thanksgiving is often offered after Rite II Holy Eucharist. Included is the possibility for inclusion in groups larger than ourselves, offering prestige, security, options for personal validation. “We thank you for feeding us … and for assuring us in these holy mysteries that we are living members of the Body of your son, and heirs of your eternal kingdom.” I still have a craving. Have I finally found myself wanted on the Most Wanted List after all these years?
“He who overcomes shall thus be clothed in white garments; and I will not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father, and before His angels.”
I might even get to wear the ultimate white coat.
Being Demoted to One’s Level of Competence 8-17-11
Anderson, South Carolina
Exploring one’s true powerlessness can be disconcerting. One can perhaps embrace the idea he’s not cut out to be Emperor of the world, but embracing powerlessness over things most people seem to handle with facility is a different matter. After six decades I lack relational skills most ten year olds have readily acquired.
Happily, I’m not in a dark night of the soul but I am in an introspective place, one which facilitates exploring one’s powerlessness. Last Saturday a memorial service was held for a friend of many years. During the course of the service and reception following it became evident there was something not working for me. Despite knowing half the people in the church, some for twenty years, I’d never been in the homes of any of these people who treat me like the Prodigal son in public spaces, but never invite me into their lives. Conversations made it obvious these people have extensive interactions with each other, traveling, buying vacation properties together, socializing in each other’s homes. I don’t even know where they live.
If this was an isolated episode it would be easy to discount it and stop cogitating about my deficiencies, but it’s not. In my own church of fifteen years I’ve had nearly the same history, and so it was dozens of times in as many states. I don’t know where most live and have never been admitted into their lives. As at the funeral venue, these people have extensive interactions with each other, traveling, buying vacation properties together, socializing in each other’s homes. I simply go home alone and eat at the kitchen counter and try finding travel options for single people. Even my offer to provide a free first-class ticket for a companion to enjoy world-wide travel met with deafening silence. Going around the world first class, alone, is not quite as glamorous as one might think, but it does beat standing at the kitchen counter.
Lawrence Peters wrote his satirical The Peter Principle as a tongue-in-cheek description of how it is we are promoted to our own level of incompetence. His small work became a management classic. Given enough time, all organizations will be populated with people working one level above their level of competence. He articulated how it is so many things go wrong throughout the world; his satirical writing style kept the text from being a downer.
I found the text especially pertinent to my own circumstances. I wonder if merely being born can constitute a promotion to one’s level of incompetency from the get-go. Many ten year olds prove their competence at sand box, making friends, developing well-placed loyalties, even inspiring and motivating others. I never did figure any of this out, and five decades past sandbox I still find a film of bewilderment over my understanding of how other people seem to make relational stuff so easy and natural. I remain mystified.
Figuring academic knowledge might clear up my early-onset dimness, I went off for a comprehensive dual masters program in management and systems engineering, even taking a residency in management. Something must not have adhered in my teachable moments. Three decades later, despite my prestigious education, I’ve never successfully managed a soul in my professional life and many would be quick to declare my incompetence spills over into my social life as well.
Peter suggests the world might be a far more efficient and productive place if we could just figure out what our highest level of competence is and decline the promotion that would find us biting off more than one can chew. But what does one do when merely being born might be one promotion too many? In recovery we learn to stay right-size with God’s help, bringing our reckless ego into line and down-sizing it.
For certain, I’ve never qualified for a corner office or promotion to Emperor of the world despite acquiring exemplary academic credentials and field experience. What I’ve learned in recent years by working in recovery is that by accepting Gods’ plan for my life I can accept I will never successfully manage people, that perhaps he has something else for me to be doing. We are told “We no longer strive to dominate or rule those about us in order to gain self-importance. We no longer seek fame and honor in order to be praised.” We learn there’s serenity and acceptance to be found in being average, in being ordinary. “Still more wonderful is the feeling that we do not have to be specially distinguished among our fellows in order to be useful or profoundly happy. Not many of us can be leaders of prominence, nor do we wish to be.”
Acceptance of our lot in life is the answer to all that ails us. Our value does not come from our stations in life. “In God’s sight all human beings are important, the proof that love freely given surely brings a full return, the certainty that we are no longer isolated and living alone in self-constructed prisons, the surety that we need no longer be square pegs in round holes but can fit and belong in God’s scheme of things – these are the permanent and legitimate satisfactions of right living for which no amount of pomp and circumstance, no heap of material possessions, could possibly be substitutes.”
I’m told in ancient sacred writings “I know the thoughts I have for you, thoughts for good, not for evil, plans that will give you hope and a future.” Perhaps God’s plan for me will include remedial work to learn competence at sand box, making friends, developing well-placed loyalties, even inspiring and motivating others. For me, being demoted a level to my level of competence would be a challenge, but with God all things are possible.
Exploring one’s true powerlessness can be disconcerting. One can perhaps embrace the idea he’s not cut out to be Emperor of the world, but embracing powerlessness over things most people seem to handle with facility is a different matter. After six decades I lack relational skills most ten year olds have readily acquired.
Happily, I’m not in a dark night of the soul but I am in an introspective place, one which facilitates exploring one’s powerlessness. Last Saturday a memorial service was held for a friend of many years. During the course of the service and reception following it became evident there was something not working for me. Despite knowing half the people in the church, some for twenty years, I’d never been in the homes of any of these people who treat me like the Prodigal son in public spaces, but never invite me into their lives. Conversations made it obvious these people have extensive interactions with each other, traveling, buying vacation properties together, socializing in each other’s homes. I don’t even know where they live.
If this was an isolated episode it would be easy to discount it and stop cogitating about my deficiencies, but it’s not. In my own church of fifteen years I’ve had nearly the same history, and so it was dozens of times in as many states. I don’t know where most live and have never been admitted into their lives. As at the funeral venue, these people have extensive interactions with each other, traveling, buying vacation properties together, socializing in each other’s homes. I simply go home alone and eat at the kitchen counter and try finding travel options for single people. Even my offer to provide a free first-class ticket for a companion to enjoy world-wide travel met with deafening silence. Going around the world first class, alone, is not quite as glamorous as one might think, but it does beat standing at the kitchen counter.
Lawrence Peters wrote his satirical The Peter Principle as a tongue-in-cheek description of how it is we are promoted to our own level of incompetence. His small work became a management classic. Given enough time, all organizations will be populated with people working one level above their level of competence. He articulated how it is so many things go wrong throughout the world; his satirical writing style kept the text from being a downer.
I found the text especially pertinent to my own circumstances. I wonder if merely being born can constitute a promotion to one’s level of incompetency from the get-go. Many ten year olds prove their competence at sand box, making friends, developing well-placed loyalties, even inspiring and motivating others. I never did figure any of this out, and five decades past sandbox I still find a film of bewilderment over my understanding of how other people seem to make relational stuff so easy and natural. I remain mystified.
Figuring academic knowledge might clear up my early-onset dimness, I went off for a comprehensive dual masters program in management and systems engineering, even taking a residency in management. Something must not have adhered in my teachable moments. Three decades later, despite my prestigious education, I’ve never successfully managed a soul in my professional life and many would be quick to declare my incompetence spills over into my social life as well.
Peter suggests the world might be a far more efficient and productive place if we could just figure out what our highest level of competence is and decline the promotion that would find us biting off more than one can chew. But what does one do when merely being born might be one promotion too many? In recovery we learn to stay right-size with God’s help, bringing our reckless ego into line and down-sizing it.
For certain, I’ve never qualified for a corner office or promotion to Emperor of the world despite acquiring exemplary academic credentials and field experience. What I’ve learned in recent years by working in recovery is that by accepting Gods’ plan for my life I can accept I will never successfully manage people, that perhaps he has something else for me to be doing. We are told “We no longer strive to dominate or rule those about us in order to gain self-importance. We no longer seek fame and honor in order to be praised.” We learn there’s serenity and acceptance to be found in being average, in being ordinary. “Still more wonderful is the feeling that we do not have to be specially distinguished among our fellows in order to be useful or profoundly happy. Not many of us can be leaders of prominence, nor do we wish to be.”
Acceptance of our lot in life is the answer to all that ails us. Our value does not come from our stations in life. “In God’s sight all human beings are important, the proof that love freely given surely brings a full return, the certainty that we are no longer isolated and living alone in self-constructed prisons, the surety that we need no longer be square pegs in round holes but can fit and belong in God’s scheme of things – these are the permanent and legitimate satisfactions of right living for which no amount of pomp and circumstance, no heap of material possessions, could possibly be substitutes.”
I’m told in ancient sacred writings “I know the thoughts I have for you, thoughts for good, not for evil, plans that will give you hope and a future.” Perhaps God’s plan for me will include remedial work to learn competence at sand box, making friends, developing well-placed loyalties, even inspiring and motivating others. For me, being demoted a level to my level of competence would be a challenge, but with God all things are possible.
On Romance 8-13-11
Anderson, South Carolina
Not so long ago I wondered if it was possible to love someone too much, often awaking with a visceral craving to be in another’s presence. This intoxication over-rode most everything in my world. It mattered little what I did as long as I did it with this one in my life. Experiencing an effervescent state, all life was wondrous, magical, shimmering with possibility.
In short order I found myself re-orienting the entirety of my life, considered leaving town, selling my house, restructuring my finances, giving up the history I’ve built here, thinking another individual had keys to the Emerald City of Oz. Under the influence, I found myself willing to consider financial and relational risks inconceivable but weeks previously. Most sobering was believing God was absolutely in the middle of this upheaval in my world. Having seen people around me experience this same upheaval, making premature journeys to the altar, I wondered what could drive them to such abrupt life decisions, risking all they’d known. So it was recently for me. I found myself wanting to take my beloved, forsake all, go the courthouse, skip the pomp and circumstances, say “I do”, and go off living happily ever after in an ill-defined nirvana. I watched others do this in my family of origin, only to end up in lifelong patterns of repeated failure.
Eros is a curious phenomenon to me. The depth of affectational and motivational change it can produce is simply staggering to me. While under its influence I found myself willing to consider decisions assuring the complete transformation of my life, but into what? Many people have often told me “You have a great life.” I wonder now what exactly I thought I was about to trade it in for.
We are taught from our first breath finding perfect romantic love will fulfill every longing and desire we can experience. Pop culture, great writers, composers, playwrights, and painters give more ‘air time’ to the idea of finding complete fulfillment in another human being than perhaps any subject. Family court often gives a clarifying image of another reality.
As one always struggling with a sense of belonging in family, church, and the larger culture, it was quite stunning to suddenly feel admitted to the family of humanity at a new level for the first time ever. The prospect of marrying into a widow’s large family was captivating for one raised in a fragmented and isolated alcoholic household that never put down roots. Having attended the same university as my dearest, I had a wondrous sense of recapturing long-forgotten history from earlier years. In my initial romantic fugue, the idea my thoughts and beliefs would be valued and embraced was empowering to me in ways new. Was I about to really have an advocate, a champion of my own? Be a respected elder in a large family? Reality bit.
Studies have shown adults under the influence of marijuana and other substances believe they are producing museum-grade art. While intoxicated, given brushes and paint, inebriated artisans produce what they believed to be very high-quality original work. When detoxed they are astounded to see their less-than-stellar realities produced in altered states.
While intoxicated with being ‘in-love’ I came to believe our relationship was going to be an example to the world of how to do it exactly right. The divorce rate in America would plunge because people were finally going to see how to get it right. I had the idea the family I was to marry into was going to be astounded by my arrival, even bowing down in my presence with thanksgiving for the spiritual stature and maturity I was bringing into their midst. I discovered my own baggage was still on the dock and would likely keep me from making unfettered relational journeys down any road.
In recovery one of the primary goals of twelve step work is re-sizing our egos. Those struggling with addictions and alcoholism experience out-of-control ego issues. Substances in their early course confer a confidence and robustness of affect contributing greatly to their widespread abuse. Crack cocaine addicts tell me the sense of empowerment and sexual capacity in the early stages is inconceivable. Trying to recapture a fleeting false empowerment leads them to destructive efforts to regain that first high, lost forever in the massive casualties of addiction.
As recovery literature affirms, we believed we were ten feet tall and bullet proof. As we crashed and burned we came to discover we were anything but, coming to the realization we were powerless and unable to manage our own lives. Attempts to ‘manage’ the lives of others in this large extended family with my erudite writing were quickly rebuffed. Calling to task one who had caused me some potential legal grief, I expected a contrite apology and a correction in her behavior. I was blown off. Alas, my ideas about honesty and ethics don’t hold water in an increasingly secular culture, and I only received further confirmation of this. I’m truly powerless over people, places, and things.
Stunning to me is how often I have seen apparently sane sober people go onto Internet dating sites, shop, and meet another promising the keys to the city, only to have their lives destroyed by deception, financial ruin, relational issues with family, and the very kinds of dishonesty I recently called one to task about. Not a few are the individuals I have seen who gave up fine jobs, splendid histories, and a sense of belonging, to embark on a new journey down the yellow brick road, only to find themselves in dark forests with all manner of evil beasts. For many of these travelers there wasn’t a good witch of the West to show them the way back to Kansas. The City of Oz was never found.
Regularly I encounter people struggling with profound loneliness, who despite repeated violent divorces, still believe the only solution to their affective angst is to keep searching, looking for the one who can deliver them from this scourge. Dysfunction, chaotic relationships, and risk of catastrophic life experiences are viewed as better than being alone. I find no small number of people who opt for psychotropic drugs to numb the pain of being on a solo journey in life. Many find consequences of psychotropic drugs even more nefarious and elect to get off the yellow brick road altogether, terminating their lives with violent impulse. This past week three individuals in my world elected suicide, rather than finding their way clear of the dark trees in life.
I’ve recently been going through the experience of detoxing from my inebriated eros state, coming to realize the art work I have been producing is rather poor. I’ve not been building the relationship which will become the topic of morning talk shows. As the experience of being in love fades, reality comes into sharper focus for me. Family issues, financial concerns, medical challenges, my inability to accept others for who they are, and my own lack of life focus have shown me to be standing in dark shadows wondering how it was I managed to get myself into such a place, with its hidden risks.
I cannot but be bewildered, realizing something seeming so real and solid was little more than evanescent ephemeral wisps in my affective state. I wonder a lot now about just how one goes about building a successful marriage. I suddenly feel totally ignorant on the subject. I nearly succeeded in dragging another into the vacuum of my knowledge, at her great peril.
Our one saving redemption proved to be a nearly simultaneous loss of that wondrous affective state song writers love to write about. We suffered through surprisingly little emotional injury at the demise of something once so overwhelming to both of us. We sort of stand around now in bewilderment asking, “What happened?” What was that?
Half a century ago Erich Fromm wrote his immensely successful The Art of Loving, articulating love in the Western experience. He describes our desperate bid to ‘belong to the herd’, to achieve union, to avoid the acute anxiety which derives from separation. Separation is seen as a great existential evil, one to be avoided at all costs. Fromm posits alcoholism, drug addiction, compulsive sexualism, and suicide are symptoms of failure of herd conformity. We grasp onto those people we believe can deliver us from this acute anxiety of separation. Did I do this very thing thinking another could empower me to suddenly feel admitted to the family of humanity at a new level for the first time ever? Probably.
The need to be included, to belong, cannot be overstated. Failure to Thrive is a recognized condition in infants and young children who die despite being kept clean, well fed, warm, and safe. Children who are not touched with affection or nurtured died despite their biological needs being completely fulfilled. As adults, we may not die directly for our lack of belonging but the intense affective pain of separateness drives millions to find relief in the murky world of addictions. Anyone who has been shunned or excluded by a group knows the intensity of being removed from the herd. Family black sheep know this well. Social nerds know this. Alcoholics know it. I know it.
Even half a century ago Fromm described a growing dysfunction of herd conformity; it’s becoming increasingly difficult to stay in the herd. Many writers since have articulated on the profound depression, anxiety, rage, and social pathology becoming endemic because so many of us are feeling left out of our families, work places, social groups, neighborhoods, even places of worship.
Finding individuals of the opposite sex with similar feelings, we seek salvation in each other, often ending up with little more than the annihilation that occurs when matter and anti-matter collide. This annihilation energizes a vast legal system profiting from damage control. In cultures with increasing inability to include individuals within the herd, unbounded expectations on romantic partners to fully compensate for group failure is a near-certain script for divorce and further exacerbation of Fromm’s acute separateness.
Thousands of years ago we lived in far smaller social landscapes where inclusion was far easier, the angst of anonymity much less. Strangers were a rarity. Even so, contemporary writers of ancient times recognized we already had long standing struggles with issues of belonging, of feeling we are really loveable. Wise sages suggested the love of God was the only real cure, the only thing that could take away our acute pain of separateness. Saul of Tarsus came to this realization on his Damascus Road experience and suggested:
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Perhaps this is enough for me and I no longer have to wander around in the dark forest afraid of the goblins of loneliness, isolation and despair. Finding true belonging in God’s love alone I can begin anew, experiencing an effervescent state, all of life wondrous, magical, shimmering with possibility.
Not so long ago I wondered if it was possible to love someone too much, often awaking with a visceral craving to be in another’s presence. This intoxication over-rode most everything in my world. It mattered little what I did as long as I did it with this one in my life. Experiencing an effervescent state, all life was wondrous, magical, shimmering with possibility.
In short order I found myself re-orienting the entirety of my life, considered leaving town, selling my house, restructuring my finances, giving up the history I’ve built here, thinking another individual had keys to the Emerald City of Oz. Under the influence, I found myself willing to consider financial and relational risks inconceivable but weeks previously. Most sobering was believing God was absolutely in the middle of this upheaval in my world. Having seen people around me experience this same upheaval, making premature journeys to the altar, I wondered what could drive them to such abrupt life decisions, risking all they’d known. So it was recently for me. I found myself wanting to take my beloved, forsake all, go the courthouse, skip the pomp and circumstances, say “I do”, and go off living happily ever after in an ill-defined nirvana. I watched others do this in my family of origin, only to end up in lifelong patterns of repeated failure.
Eros is a curious phenomenon to me. The depth of affectational and motivational change it can produce is simply staggering to me. While under its influence I found myself willing to consider decisions assuring the complete transformation of my life, but into what? Many people have often told me “You have a great life.” I wonder now what exactly I thought I was about to trade it in for.
We are taught from our first breath finding perfect romantic love will fulfill every longing and desire we can experience. Pop culture, great writers, composers, playwrights, and painters give more ‘air time’ to the idea of finding complete fulfillment in another human being than perhaps any subject. Family court often gives a clarifying image of another reality.
As one always struggling with a sense of belonging in family, church, and the larger culture, it was quite stunning to suddenly feel admitted to the family of humanity at a new level for the first time ever. The prospect of marrying into a widow’s large family was captivating for one raised in a fragmented and isolated alcoholic household that never put down roots. Having attended the same university as my dearest, I had a wondrous sense of recapturing long-forgotten history from earlier years. In my initial romantic fugue, the idea my thoughts and beliefs would be valued and embraced was empowering to me in ways new. Was I about to really have an advocate, a champion of my own? Be a respected elder in a large family? Reality bit.
Studies have shown adults under the influence of marijuana and other substances believe they are producing museum-grade art. While intoxicated, given brushes and paint, inebriated artisans produce what they believed to be very high-quality original work. When detoxed they are astounded to see their less-than-stellar realities produced in altered states.
While intoxicated with being ‘in-love’ I came to believe our relationship was going to be an example to the world of how to do it exactly right. The divorce rate in America would plunge because people were finally going to see how to get it right. I had the idea the family I was to marry into was going to be astounded by my arrival, even bowing down in my presence with thanksgiving for the spiritual stature and maturity I was bringing into their midst. I discovered my own baggage was still on the dock and would likely keep me from making unfettered relational journeys down any road.
In recovery one of the primary goals of twelve step work is re-sizing our egos. Those struggling with addictions and alcoholism experience out-of-control ego issues. Substances in their early course confer a confidence and robustness of affect contributing greatly to their widespread abuse. Crack cocaine addicts tell me the sense of empowerment and sexual capacity in the early stages is inconceivable. Trying to recapture a fleeting false empowerment leads them to destructive efforts to regain that first high, lost forever in the massive casualties of addiction.
As recovery literature affirms, we believed we were ten feet tall and bullet proof. As we crashed and burned we came to discover we were anything but, coming to the realization we were powerless and unable to manage our own lives. Attempts to ‘manage’ the lives of others in this large extended family with my erudite writing were quickly rebuffed. Calling to task one who had caused me some potential legal grief, I expected a contrite apology and a correction in her behavior. I was blown off. Alas, my ideas about honesty and ethics don’t hold water in an increasingly secular culture, and I only received further confirmation of this. I’m truly powerless over people, places, and things.
Stunning to me is how often I have seen apparently sane sober people go onto Internet dating sites, shop, and meet another promising the keys to the city, only to have their lives destroyed by deception, financial ruin, relational issues with family, and the very kinds of dishonesty I recently called one to task about. Not a few are the individuals I have seen who gave up fine jobs, splendid histories, and a sense of belonging, to embark on a new journey down the yellow brick road, only to find themselves in dark forests with all manner of evil beasts. For many of these travelers there wasn’t a good witch of the West to show them the way back to Kansas. The City of Oz was never found.
Regularly I encounter people struggling with profound loneliness, who despite repeated violent divorces, still believe the only solution to their affective angst is to keep searching, looking for the one who can deliver them from this scourge. Dysfunction, chaotic relationships, and risk of catastrophic life experiences are viewed as better than being alone. I find no small number of people who opt for psychotropic drugs to numb the pain of being on a solo journey in life. Many find consequences of psychotropic drugs even more nefarious and elect to get off the yellow brick road altogether, terminating their lives with violent impulse. This past week three individuals in my world elected suicide, rather than finding their way clear of the dark trees in life.
I’ve recently been going through the experience of detoxing from my inebriated eros state, coming to realize the art work I have been producing is rather poor. I’ve not been building the relationship which will become the topic of morning talk shows. As the experience of being in love fades, reality comes into sharper focus for me. Family issues, financial concerns, medical challenges, my inability to accept others for who they are, and my own lack of life focus have shown me to be standing in dark shadows wondering how it was I managed to get myself into such a place, with its hidden risks.
I cannot but be bewildered, realizing something seeming so real and solid was little more than evanescent ephemeral wisps in my affective state. I wonder a lot now about just how one goes about building a successful marriage. I suddenly feel totally ignorant on the subject. I nearly succeeded in dragging another into the vacuum of my knowledge, at her great peril.
Our one saving redemption proved to be a nearly simultaneous loss of that wondrous affective state song writers love to write about. We suffered through surprisingly little emotional injury at the demise of something once so overwhelming to both of us. We sort of stand around now in bewilderment asking, “What happened?” What was that?
Half a century ago Erich Fromm wrote his immensely successful The Art of Loving, articulating love in the Western experience. He describes our desperate bid to ‘belong to the herd’, to achieve union, to avoid the acute anxiety which derives from separation. Separation is seen as a great existential evil, one to be avoided at all costs. Fromm posits alcoholism, drug addiction, compulsive sexualism, and suicide are symptoms of failure of herd conformity. We grasp onto those people we believe can deliver us from this acute anxiety of separation. Did I do this very thing thinking another could empower me to suddenly feel admitted to the family of humanity at a new level for the first time ever? Probably.
The need to be included, to belong, cannot be overstated. Failure to Thrive is a recognized condition in infants and young children who die despite being kept clean, well fed, warm, and safe. Children who are not touched with affection or nurtured died despite their biological needs being completely fulfilled. As adults, we may not die directly for our lack of belonging but the intense affective pain of separateness drives millions to find relief in the murky world of addictions. Anyone who has been shunned or excluded by a group knows the intensity of being removed from the herd. Family black sheep know this well. Social nerds know this. Alcoholics know it. I know it.
Even half a century ago Fromm described a growing dysfunction of herd conformity; it’s becoming increasingly difficult to stay in the herd. Many writers since have articulated on the profound depression, anxiety, rage, and social pathology becoming endemic because so many of us are feeling left out of our families, work places, social groups, neighborhoods, even places of worship.
Finding individuals of the opposite sex with similar feelings, we seek salvation in each other, often ending up with little more than the annihilation that occurs when matter and anti-matter collide. This annihilation energizes a vast legal system profiting from damage control. In cultures with increasing inability to include individuals within the herd, unbounded expectations on romantic partners to fully compensate for group failure is a near-certain script for divorce and further exacerbation of Fromm’s acute separateness.
Thousands of years ago we lived in far smaller social landscapes where inclusion was far easier, the angst of anonymity much less. Strangers were a rarity. Even so, contemporary writers of ancient times recognized we already had long standing struggles with issues of belonging, of feeling we are really loveable. Wise sages suggested the love of God was the only real cure, the only thing that could take away our acute pain of separateness. Saul of Tarsus came to this realization on his Damascus Road experience and suggested:
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Perhaps this is enough for me and I no longer have to wander around in the dark forest afraid of the goblins of loneliness, isolation and despair. Finding true belonging in God’s love alone I can begin anew, experiencing an effervescent state, all of life wondrous, magical, shimmering with possibility.
Finding our True Strength 8-7-11
Anderson, South Carolina
Working with those in recovery from alcoholism and addictions allows an unusual perspective, not unlike that experienced by clergy and physicians. Battered by traumas and losses attendant with addiction, once-highly-functioning adults wash up onto the shores of our recovery programs powerless to manage even the smallest affairs of their truncated lives. Having been beaten down by the rigors of addiction, these individuals often seem nearly devoid of defended egos. In their pain and desperation they’ve become teachable, respectful, willing to try something new, free of argument, perhaps lacking in good judgment.
Foundational to all successful recovery is a belief one must admit to complete powerlessness over people, places, things, and of course the offending agent of addiction; be it alcohol, drugs, sex, gambling, ad infinitum. Recovery workers as well as priests and physicians can’t but help note the profound emotional accessibility existing in ‘new arrivals.’ Patients in the midst of medical crisis are inclined to be compliant and teachable. Parishioners in spiritual crisis imbue their priests with great power, open to their every word.
Addicts and alcoholics newly arrived in recovery are often free of defended ego, pilgrims frequently emotionally accessible in ways not usually seen in stronger higher-functioning individuals. Intense authentic and honest communication and affective expression can be nothing short of intoxicating, nearly hypnotic for those they reach out to. Their powerlessness can be most attractive, even in a secular culture worshipping power and fame.
Those in healing professions often find themselves taken in by this hypnotic state, ending up in relationships with patients and clients far beyond appropriate boundaries of professional conduct. It’s no different in recovery work. In twelve step programs references are often made to ‘thirteenth stepping.’ Vulnerable individuals newly arrived in recovery are at high risk for falling into premature and inappropriate relationships with those claiming extended sobriety and clean time. Large numbers of romances, marriages, and children arise in recovery rooms. The number of romances and marriages occurring between patients in detox and rehab facilities is daunting, often with catastrophic results. There’s an often alluring emotional accessibility present in those beaten down by addictions and alcoholism. Those caught up in alcoholism and addiction will quickly confess drinking and using were embraced because of how it made them feel. The feelings one can get from feeling needed, loved, cared for, and reassured can be fully as powerful.
A suggestion often made to newcomers in recovery is to avoid making major decisions during year one of recovery, especially romantic ones. In recovery we often hear strategies to avoid the ‘stinking thinking’ which often precedes relapse. A failed or dysfunctional romance must be one of the most fertile soils for ‘stinking thinking’ on earth. We strongly remind members that “sobriety comes first, everything else will follow.” No premature or inappropriate romance is worth risking a hard-won beachhead in sobriety.
In my five-year journey it’s been my personal experience to have fallen sway to the intoxication of being needed, respected, cared for, even treated a bit as an oracle. This affective hypnosis has more than once started me into ‘stinking thinking’, imagining that being a strong, ethical, knowledge, able mentor capable of protecting and nurturing a hapless newcomer was a good idea. Alas, I was a giant only in my own mind. Somewhere the suggestion to avoid romance in the rooms took root years ago in my psyche and I have no regrets, having gone no further than the original twelve steps. Picking ‘low hanging fruit’ in recovery rooms must be one of the crassest uncivil things one could think of doing.
We were created social beings with strong needs for validation, affirmation, reassurance, and belonging. When our lives have unraveled, these needs become acute. Shining knights on white horses easily capture our attention. Even for those not caught up in alcoholism or addition, living lives devoid of purpose or meaning can set them up to seek solutions where they are not to be found. When we seek Divine guidance in our lives we are able to find solutions to our deepest needs in the appropriate places.
Paradoxically, learning to live in a powerless state, dependent on God, can be the most powerful thing we will ever do. Culture tells us we must learn to show only our powerful, strong, confident, controlled, independent personality. It’s when we learn to reveal our needy, frightened, doubting, angry aspects we can really gain a sense of power operating in our lives. Showing our soft side paradoxically will allow us to build lasting relationships, feeling closer to others who will feel far closer to us. It helps us grow in self-esteem and self-acceptance. It works both ways.
Times without number I’ve felt ‘emotionally ‘safer’ with new arrivals still tenderized by their nightmare journeys into addiction. As they have gained affective strength and ego reasserts itself, this sense of safety often dissipates. Anger, ego, and boundary issues often re-emerge unless newcomers are guided into a humble dependency on God in all aspects of their lives, staying mindful of their true powerlessness.
The revered Henri Nouwen gained his place in history by developing a system of thought in which those of us in the healing professions learned true power comes from revealing our own weaknesses first. Patients and clients were not asked to do anything healers had not already done first – own their own weaknesses and powerlessness. In his best-selling Wounded Healer Nouwen broken down conventions of power for those wearing white coats and collars. In recovery we who’ve been landed for some time reveal our own powerlessness and how we came to find places of power. We share our experience, strength and hope with those who so often arrive hopeless.
We find our true strength when we learn to handle our powerlessness appropriately. That strength does not come from white knights on great steeds or from being needed by those who have reached maximum vulnerability in their life journeys.
We continue on a journey of learning; that we were powerless to manage the affairs of our lives, that God could do something about our powerlessness, and that by turning the affairs of our lives over to His care, we could find a form of powerful living previously unknown to us, even to trusting Him in the matters of our deepest desires, a true connection to those around us and a connection to our Creator.
“He has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.’ Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may dwell in me.”
Working with those in recovery from alcoholism and addictions allows an unusual perspective, not unlike that experienced by clergy and physicians. Battered by traumas and losses attendant with addiction, once-highly-functioning adults wash up onto the shores of our recovery programs powerless to manage even the smallest affairs of their truncated lives. Having been beaten down by the rigors of addiction, these individuals often seem nearly devoid of defended egos. In their pain and desperation they’ve become teachable, respectful, willing to try something new, free of argument, perhaps lacking in good judgment.
Foundational to all successful recovery is a belief one must admit to complete powerlessness over people, places, things, and of course the offending agent of addiction; be it alcohol, drugs, sex, gambling, ad infinitum. Recovery workers as well as priests and physicians can’t but help note the profound emotional accessibility existing in ‘new arrivals.’ Patients in the midst of medical crisis are inclined to be compliant and teachable. Parishioners in spiritual crisis imbue their priests with great power, open to their every word.
Addicts and alcoholics newly arrived in recovery are often free of defended ego, pilgrims frequently emotionally accessible in ways not usually seen in stronger higher-functioning individuals. Intense authentic and honest communication and affective expression can be nothing short of intoxicating, nearly hypnotic for those they reach out to. Their powerlessness can be most attractive, even in a secular culture worshipping power and fame.
Those in healing professions often find themselves taken in by this hypnotic state, ending up in relationships with patients and clients far beyond appropriate boundaries of professional conduct. It’s no different in recovery work. In twelve step programs references are often made to ‘thirteenth stepping.’ Vulnerable individuals newly arrived in recovery are at high risk for falling into premature and inappropriate relationships with those claiming extended sobriety and clean time. Large numbers of romances, marriages, and children arise in recovery rooms. The number of romances and marriages occurring between patients in detox and rehab facilities is daunting, often with catastrophic results. There’s an often alluring emotional accessibility present in those beaten down by addictions and alcoholism. Those caught up in alcoholism and addiction will quickly confess drinking and using were embraced because of how it made them feel. The feelings one can get from feeling needed, loved, cared for, and reassured can be fully as powerful.
A suggestion often made to newcomers in recovery is to avoid making major decisions during year one of recovery, especially romantic ones. In recovery we often hear strategies to avoid the ‘stinking thinking’ which often precedes relapse. A failed or dysfunctional romance must be one of the most fertile soils for ‘stinking thinking’ on earth. We strongly remind members that “sobriety comes first, everything else will follow.” No premature or inappropriate romance is worth risking a hard-won beachhead in sobriety.
In my five-year journey it’s been my personal experience to have fallen sway to the intoxication of being needed, respected, cared for, even treated a bit as an oracle. This affective hypnosis has more than once started me into ‘stinking thinking’, imagining that being a strong, ethical, knowledge, able mentor capable of protecting and nurturing a hapless newcomer was a good idea. Alas, I was a giant only in my own mind. Somewhere the suggestion to avoid romance in the rooms took root years ago in my psyche and I have no regrets, having gone no further than the original twelve steps. Picking ‘low hanging fruit’ in recovery rooms must be one of the crassest uncivil things one could think of doing.
We were created social beings with strong needs for validation, affirmation, reassurance, and belonging. When our lives have unraveled, these needs become acute. Shining knights on white horses easily capture our attention. Even for those not caught up in alcoholism or addition, living lives devoid of purpose or meaning can set them up to seek solutions where they are not to be found. When we seek Divine guidance in our lives we are able to find solutions to our deepest needs in the appropriate places.
Paradoxically, learning to live in a powerless state, dependent on God, can be the most powerful thing we will ever do. Culture tells us we must learn to show only our powerful, strong, confident, controlled, independent personality. It’s when we learn to reveal our needy, frightened, doubting, angry aspects we can really gain a sense of power operating in our lives. Showing our soft side paradoxically will allow us to build lasting relationships, feeling closer to others who will feel far closer to us. It helps us grow in self-esteem and self-acceptance. It works both ways.
Times without number I’ve felt ‘emotionally ‘safer’ with new arrivals still tenderized by their nightmare journeys into addiction. As they have gained affective strength and ego reasserts itself, this sense of safety often dissipates. Anger, ego, and boundary issues often re-emerge unless newcomers are guided into a humble dependency on God in all aspects of their lives, staying mindful of their true powerlessness.
The revered Henri Nouwen gained his place in history by developing a system of thought in which those of us in the healing professions learned true power comes from revealing our own weaknesses first. Patients and clients were not asked to do anything healers had not already done first – own their own weaknesses and powerlessness. In his best-selling Wounded Healer Nouwen broken down conventions of power for those wearing white coats and collars. In recovery we who’ve been landed for some time reveal our own powerlessness and how we came to find places of power. We share our experience, strength and hope with those who so often arrive hopeless.
We find our true strength when we learn to handle our powerlessness appropriately. That strength does not come from white knights on great steeds or from being needed by those who have reached maximum vulnerability in their life journeys.
We continue on a journey of learning; that we were powerless to manage the affairs of our lives, that God could do something about our powerlessness, and that by turning the affairs of our lives over to His care, we could find a form of powerful living previously unknown to us, even to trusting Him in the matters of our deepest desires, a true connection to those around us and a connection to our Creator.
“He has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.’ Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may dwell in me.”
You Give Them Something to Eat 8-2-11
Anderson, South Carolina
In her A Natural History of the Senses, Diane Ackermann provides her readers with a luscious literary foray into the human experience of our five senses. Her description of our shared experiences with taste is no exception; leaving us wondering how we ever manage to eat anything mindlessly. Eastern practices of mindfulness often include exercises in eating consciously, savoring flavors, textures, and colors. In a frantic multi-tasking world eating has devolved into snatching bits of fuel while waiting at red lights. The fast food industry understands for many people, eating is something to be done quickly while driving; waiting for food to be prepared is often anathema to the American life style.
In ancient Rome eating vast meals extending over several days was the height of luxury. Emperors spent enormous resources to stage meals of inconceivable opulence. Little changed over the next twenty centuries. The overly corpulent Henry the Eighth was right in line with Romans emperors. The kitchen wing at Hampton Court Palace in London is staggering in scale. Hundreds of workers spent their lives preparing vast spreads consumed by those privileged to manifest gluttony in excess. Whole forests of magnificent oak trees were burned in the great fireplaces of Hampton Court’s kitchens. One’s ability to stage immense meals was a hallmark of ultimate wealth throughout history before the advent of consumer goods allowed wealth to be manifest in other ostentatious ways.
Festival meals remain the centerpiece of most religious traditions. The Passover meal is central to Jewish religious experience. Countless other festivals and feasts fill in the Jewish calendar. Christianity is even more focused on festival meals and the metaphors eating provides. Jesus’ last recorded act with his disciples was the convening of what has become known as the Last Supper. In Eastern churches and all of our Western liturgical churches, Holy Eucharist is the highest sacrament and central to religious practice.
Communion takes metaphors of dining to the highest level. At the completion of Communion, millions offer a thanksgiving prayer which includes “We thank you for feeding us with the spiritual food of the most precious Body and Blood of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ, and for assuring us in these holy mysteries that we are living members of the Body of your Son.” The metaphor is intended to bring us to a place of complete union with the Trinity. The Roman Catholic Church through the doctrine of transubstantiation insures the strength of the imagery by declaring consecrated wine and bread to be the actual body and blood of Jesus.
Critics often make pejorative comments about Christians practicing cannibalism. Ackerman in her extensive chapter on taste reveals history to have been immensely more tolerant of this practice than any of us want to admit. Cannibalism is one of the strongest cultural taboos in the present era. Extensive human sacrifice and cannibalism were mainstream in many cultures of the Old and New Worlds. Those partaking of the sacraments of Eucharist certainly do not perceive themselves as violating such taboos. Dogma and theological thought surrounding Eucharist steer the faithful away from such pejorative views of something embraced by billions. Inarguably, no matter one’s view, sharing meals of any kind carries huge emotional, spiritual, and social significance in the human experience. Little is more intimate in human commerce than the sharing of meals.
The recorded miracles of Jesus during his three years of public ministry most prominently involved the miraculous production of copious amounts of food and drink. In His first public miracle Jesus made one hundred thirty eight gallons of wine for a wedding reception. It was of such high quality as to capture the wonder and attention of the chief steward in a very wealthy household. Other miracles included the feeding of as many as five thousand men plus women and children. Small amounts of snack food ultimately fed countless thousands with as many as twelve large baskets of leftovers being picked from the grass. On one occasion Jesus told hapless fishermen to recast their nets after a fruitless night of labor. The subsequent catch was so vast as to risk the boat capsizing and priceless nets being torn asunder.
In Maslow’s need hierarchy food is our most important primary need. Without food everything else becomes moot. Without adequate food intake, our lives become miserable experience of eking out survival. For hundreds of millions, procurement of adequate food is a 24/7 effort, often ending in failure. Billions more are food insecure; enough to eat is a never a sure thing. Throughout most of history food inequity was a marker of wealth and power. Kings and emperors ate to excess while millions died of starvation. During the Irish potato famine of the 1840s, one third of Ireland’s population succumbed while the republic remained a net exporter of food. Much of the exported food went to the wealthy in England and elsewhere.
The US Department of Agriculture spent millions to conduct a multi-year Food Loss Study to assess food use and waste in America. The findings were rather astounding. More than half the food produced in America is never consumed by humans or animals. Fourteen percent of wasted food is discarded in unopened containers still within date. Six million pounds of hot prepared food is discarded every day by restaurants. Food waste is the single largest component of municipal solid waste facilities. These thirty four million tons of waste would feed 100 million people in perpetuity. Often this food is put into dumpsters and laced with ammonia so as to prevent food insecure individuals from making use of it. The value of food lost in America is estimated at $100 billion annually.
Perhaps the most flagrant waste of food is seen on cruise ships competing much as did the ancient emperors and kings to outdo each other. Obesity is an American epidemic putting health and public finance at grave risk in coming years. Strangely, in a land awash in too much food, many are dying from overeating while millions more stand in line at public pantries hoping to gain food security.
Daniel Quinn wrote his best selling Ishmael series to highlight many of the inequities and resultant insecurities modern cultures find themselves confronting. He describes a civilization where “Takers” extract many of the resources leaving the majority of individuals without enough to sustain meaningful quality of life. Haunting descriptions were given of the incredible power consolidated when people figure out how to control food chains. Putting an economic lock and key on the food chain has made a small number of Takers amazingly wealthy while leaving billions of people economically and food insecure.
As far back as twenty centuries people were beginning to show callous disregard for food welfare. Even Jesus’ disciples were not concerned about food for those sitting at His feet; asking Him to send everyone away to buy themselves something to eat. He told the disciples “You give them something to eat.” ‘Them’ was five thousand men plus women and children. The well-known account in Matthew’s gospel includes the detail of twelve baskets of scraps being left over. Perhaps Jesus’ imperative “You give them something to eat” is one we need to take to heart in an era of rampant food waste and food insecurity.
Is what we do with the food in our refrigerators and restaurants perhaps more indicative of our commitment to sacramental living than what we do with the wine and wafers in our pretty silver and gold chalices, ciboriums, and patens?
In her A Natural History of the Senses, Diane Ackermann provides her readers with a luscious literary foray into the human experience of our five senses. Her description of our shared experiences with taste is no exception; leaving us wondering how we ever manage to eat anything mindlessly. Eastern practices of mindfulness often include exercises in eating consciously, savoring flavors, textures, and colors. In a frantic multi-tasking world eating has devolved into snatching bits of fuel while waiting at red lights. The fast food industry understands for many people, eating is something to be done quickly while driving; waiting for food to be prepared is often anathema to the American life style.
In ancient Rome eating vast meals extending over several days was the height of luxury. Emperors spent enormous resources to stage meals of inconceivable opulence. Little changed over the next twenty centuries. The overly corpulent Henry the Eighth was right in line with Romans emperors. The kitchen wing at Hampton Court Palace in London is staggering in scale. Hundreds of workers spent their lives preparing vast spreads consumed by those privileged to manifest gluttony in excess. Whole forests of magnificent oak trees were burned in the great fireplaces of Hampton Court’s kitchens. One’s ability to stage immense meals was a hallmark of ultimate wealth throughout history before the advent of consumer goods allowed wealth to be manifest in other ostentatious ways.
Festival meals remain the centerpiece of most religious traditions. The Passover meal is central to Jewish religious experience. Countless other festivals and feasts fill in the Jewish calendar. Christianity is even more focused on festival meals and the metaphors eating provides. Jesus’ last recorded act with his disciples was the convening of what has become known as the Last Supper. In Eastern churches and all of our Western liturgical churches, Holy Eucharist is the highest sacrament and central to religious practice.
Communion takes metaphors of dining to the highest level. At the completion of Communion, millions offer a thanksgiving prayer which includes “We thank you for feeding us with the spiritual food of the most precious Body and Blood of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ, and for assuring us in these holy mysteries that we are living members of the Body of your Son.” The metaphor is intended to bring us to a place of complete union with the Trinity. The Roman Catholic Church through the doctrine of transubstantiation insures the strength of the imagery by declaring consecrated wine and bread to be the actual body and blood of Jesus.
Critics often make pejorative comments about Christians practicing cannibalism. Ackerman in her extensive chapter on taste reveals history to have been immensely more tolerant of this practice than any of us want to admit. Cannibalism is one of the strongest cultural taboos in the present era. Extensive human sacrifice and cannibalism were mainstream in many cultures of the Old and New Worlds. Those partaking of the sacraments of Eucharist certainly do not perceive themselves as violating such taboos. Dogma and theological thought surrounding Eucharist steer the faithful away from such pejorative views of something embraced by billions. Inarguably, no matter one’s view, sharing meals of any kind carries huge emotional, spiritual, and social significance in the human experience. Little is more intimate in human commerce than the sharing of meals.
The recorded miracles of Jesus during his three years of public ministry most prominently involved the miraculous production of copious amounts of food and drink. In His first public miracle Jesus made one hundred thirty eight gallons of wine for a wedding reception. It was of such high quality as to capture the wonder and attention of the chief steward in a very wealthy household. Other miracles included the feeding of as many as five thousand men plus women and children. Small amounts of snack food ultimately fed countless thousands with as many as twelve large baskets of leftovers being picked from the grass. On one occasion Jesus told hapless fishermen to recast their nets after a fruitless night of labor. The subsequent catch was so vast as to risk the boat capsizing and priceless nets being torn asunder.
In Maslow’s need hierarchy food is our most important primary need. Without food everything else becomes moot. Without adequate food intake, our lives become miserable experience of eking out survival. For hundreds of millions, procurement of adequate food is a 24/7 effort, often ending in failure. Billions more are food insecure; enough to eat is a never a sure thing. Throughout most of history food inequity was a marker of wealth and power. Kings and emperors ate to excess while millions died of starvation. During the Irish potato famine of the 1840s, one third of Ireland’s population succumbed while the republic remained a net exporter of food. Much of the exported food went to the wealthy in England and elsewhere.
The US Department of Agriculture spent millions to conduct a multi-year Food Loss Study to assess food use and waste in America. The findings were rather astounding. More than half the food produced in America is never consumed by humans or animals. Fourteen percent of wasted food is discarded in unopened containers still within date. Six million pounds of hot prepared food is discarded every day by restaurants. Food waste is the single largest component of municipal solid waste facilities. These thirty four million tons of waste would feed 100 million people in perpetuity. Often this food is put into dumpsters and laced with ammonia so as to prevent food insecure individuals from making use of it. The value of food lost in America is estimated at $100 billion annually.
Perhaps the most flagrant waste of food is seen on cruise ships competing much as did the ancient emperors and kings to outdo each other. Obesity is an American epidemic putting health and public finance at grave risk in coming years. Strangely, in a land awash in too much food, many are dying from overeating while millions more stand in line at public pantries hoping to gain food security.
Daniel Quinn wrote his best selling Ishmael series to highlight many of the inequities and resultant insecurities modern cultures find themselves confronting. He describes a civilization where “Takers” extract many of the resources leaving the majority of individuals without enough to sustain meaningful quality of life. Haunting descriptions were given of the incredible power consolidated when people figure out how to control food chains. Putting an economic lock and key on the food chain has made a small number of Takers amazingly wealthy while leaving billions of people economically and food insecure.
As far back as twenty centuries people were beginning to show callous disregard for food welfare. Even Jesus’ disciples were not concerned about food for those sitting at His feet; asking Him to send everyone away to buy themselves something to eat. He told the disciples “You give them something to eat.” ‘Them’ was five thousand men plus women and children. The well-known account in Matthew’s gospel includes the detail of twelve baskets of scraps being left over. Perhaps Jesus’ imperative “You give them something to eat” is one we need to take to heart in an era of rampant food waste and food insecurity.
Is what we do with the food in our refrigerators and restaurants perhaps more indicative of our commitment to sacramental living than what we do with the wine and wafers in our pretty silver and gold chalices, ciboriums, and patens?
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