My Creative Absence 2-11-12

Anderson, South Carolina

For decades I’ve been haunted by a dynamic I often have with other people. People upon first encounter with me wax enthusiastic about my sudden arrival in their lives. It seems I suddenly have new best friends. Almost invariably, as with the phases of the moon, a sudden waning takes place. Platinum enthusiasm gives way to dark indifference. This has happened so many times in church, workplaces, travel groups, even recovery rooms, so as to give me reason to seek professional counsel about the matter. Alas, I’ve never gained clarity on the obvious to others, but blind to me, defects of character that yields this reaction from uncounted people.

One of the great strengths of recovery communities is a strong ethos that includes non-judgment. For those who’ve torn the tracks out of their lives with drugs and alcohol, spawning immense collateral damage in the lives of those who love them most, there’s little room for the pot calling the kettle black. My five-year journey in recovery has indeed revealed a luxurious lack of such judgment, yet I find the very same dynamic of relational waxing and waning I find in wider society.

In the recovery world sponsorship is a relationship in which someone with years of consecutive experience provides experience, strength, and hope to newcomers. This precious relationship is often an admixture of coach, mentor, friend, drill instructor, even therapist. I’ve often had newcomers in the enthusiasm of their new-found sobriety seek me out to participate in a sponsorship role with them. Alas, I’ve consistently found them soon drifting away. Some have predictable catastrophic relapses and are lost to recovery and sobriety altogether. Yet, others staying true to the program drift away from me as well, sowing seeds of self-doubt about unseen character defects in my own life.

Recently this dynamic has been so clear as to have me wondering about my role in the recovery community, an admittedly very needy one with many challenging relational dynamics. In recent weeks it’s been necessary to summon police, set up severe boundaries around my life, even taking out one of my published phone lines. Even so, a self-assessment of my role in the community seems to have merit at present. There’s no better place to begin such a process than in my chapel at first light.

The beloved inspirational writer Henri Nouwen struggled greatly with the same sense of belonging, of perhaps being a square peg in a round hole in his own community. Like me, Henri Nouwen found himself in a very needy place with many challenging relational dynamics. His intense work with mentally challenged individuals living in community has many parallels to those in daily recovery from alcoholism and drug addiction. Reading Nouwen’s musings on the pain of uncertain place in community has long been helpful to me. He and I share the same angst. Even as one of the most successful spiritual writers of the twentieth century with vast demand for his presence at retreats and universities, he often struggled with finding his fit in community.

In the past few days I’ve been wondering about the specifics of my role in the community. Should I focus more on being of unseen service, taking care of group finances, buying supplies, keeping up the building, doing the necessary tasks of maintaining the infrastructure of a small fragile place where two thousand alcoholics and addicts visit each month? Should I leave it to others to be sponsors, to provide all the touchy feely relational dimensions which seem to elude me? So often I find myself in our facility alone, cleaning the floors, refilling sugar pots and coffee canisters, taking inventory of supplies, making up bank deposits, ad infinitum. It’s often a very lonely experience, having the building suddenly evacuated, being left alone in sudden silence as others go off for a bite to eat, or whatever it is newly clean and sober people in recovery go do after meetings. Almost daily someone asks me, “you locking up?” More often people are just gone. One of the dynamics of anonymous recovery communities is the reluctance to admit members into our private lives. People I’ve known for years often remain cardboard cutouts, giving little knowledge of their larger lives outside recovery. This only adds to a strange sort of alienation for me. Members freely talk about their last major relapse and how the shame felt, but I don’t know what kind of work they do or where they went on vacation.

Reading Nouwen’s words today gave me a very different spin on my role in community. During a dark night of the soul Nouwen adopted the practice of writing imperatives to himself. These found their way into print after his death, becoming an instant best seller. One of these entitled””Claim Your Unique Presence in Your community” offers a compelling concept. Perhaps my community does not need me as a constant presence. Perhaps it needs my creative absence. There are things I need in my life the recovery community is unable to give me. Henri tells me “This does not mean you are selfish, abnormal, or unfit for community life. It means that your way of being present to your people necessitates personal nurturing of a special kind. Do not be afraid to ask for these things. Doing so allows you to be faithful to your vocation and to feel safe. It is a service to those for whom you want to be a source of hope and a life-giving presence.”

Perhaps there are things I’m much better at than sponsoring people and going out with them and making small talk at the local diners, things like cleaning the floors, refilling sugar pots and coffee canisters, taking inventory of supplies, making up bank deposits, locking the door. In the recovery world we speak often of acceptance, of believing things are as they are supposed to be in God’s world. I might be doing exactly what I am supposed to be doing, just a bit too much of it.

For years I’ve tended to over-responsibility with respect to the fragile world of recovery. I’ve been rightly accused by members of being the service-work wonder, doing too much. I can’t get people clean and sober and, even more certainly, I can’t keep them that way. Perhaps the best thing in the world for all of us is for me to simply walk from my responsibilities. But only for a season.