Those People Told Me 1-17-13

Anderson, South Carolina


There have been several dark periods in my life; seasons requiring me to exercise several kinds of faith merely to keep from perishing in some unarticulated calamity; times of inky darkness in which I completely lost my bearings and any ability to keep my wing tips level.

Twenty five years ago it was suggested to me by a neurologist that I had multiple sclerosis. I acted as if my world had imploded. In major respects it did. The end result was my departure from medical school and a radical change in my life trajectory. I faced the daunting prospect of progressive physical disability and dependency. What would I do if I was healthy and of sound mind? I acted as if I still was. I joined a hiking club and frequently traversed sometimes strenuous terrain, even though my hands were so weak as to make turning on faucets or opening bottles difficult. I acted as if I was robust and full of vigor, even when I wasn’t. I applied for a computer engineering job and got it. I was acting as if I remotely believed Someone else could restore me to wholeness.

About fifteen years ago an acquaintance I met on one of those long hikes sent me on another even more arduous journey. Having intense anger because I would not fulfill her inconceivable expectations, nearly losing my house to the fire she set, I found myself cast into a place of profound darkness, confined to a hospital for custodial safety; then finding refuge in a Benedictine retreat in another state. Those responsible for my care and making my decisions suggested I take very seriously the death threats on my life and consider a change of identity and a one-way ticket to another country. The very real prospect of abandoning my friends, life, house, country, and culture because of an ill-defined threat was beyond my assimilation. Ultimately, I acted as if a power greater than myself might actually be the Source of my personal safety. I left the safe anonymity of a distant mountain retreat, tentatively coming back down below to my life here. Over the years I looked over my shoulder less and less. Occasionally, I relaxed into the safe care of Another.

Eight years ago a sequence of events landed me in a distant hospital facing the prospect of major surgery sans insurance and employment. Confinement to a wheelchair was a source of a very different kind of education; lessons in trust and dependency. Worries about medical bills, very real physical limitations, and progressive neurological complications from medications were to send me to a place I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. I ultimately found myself locked up in the hospital I once worked in; in one of those secure places without doorknobs, shoelaces, belts, phones, computers, dignity. The only thing I had was the possibility of believing there might be One who actually could restore me to sanity. I acted as if this might be true. I left that hospital on a cold snowy day in February and went to live on the outside trying to grasp a foundational reality, “I know the thoughts I have for you, thoughts for good, not for evil, plans that will give you hope and a future.” I acted as if it was possible for me to move beyond the hellish quicksand of iatrogenic addiction. Angels were sent along side me to show me the Way out of this nightmare. I was no longer alone in my life struggles. I acted as if I might actually find a sense of belonging. It became reality.

For one having worked in twelve teaching hospitals; having been a keynote presenter in a ballroom filled with eight hundred MD/PhDs, wearing my white coat and radiation badges, possessing a cabinet full of academic publications, teaching in splendid medical facilities on both sides of the Atlantic, having a three room suite with a secretary in my last assignment with very good health insurance, I would never in a million years have chosen my current life trajectory for myself.

For certain, I did not take seventeen years of university training just to roam around on the streets looking for people who need to know there are options for them. Yet, my office is now found on the street. Those people who used to so frighten me have become the love of my life. Those caught in the quagmire of alcoholism and drug addiction have become my greatest teachers, my dearest friends. I never cease to be amazed at the clear-headed wisdom and insight coming from those who have discovered the liberation that comes from trusting in a Power greater than themselves to restore them to sanity. On the streets of a small southern town I’ve learned more about a life of trusting in God than I ever did while studying theology in Europe or wearing a surplice and cassock in a high mass. Sharing the pathway of recovery with those who have found the key to good living is more fulfilling than anything in my prior experience.

In the past I acted as if I was important, as if what I was doing made a profound impact on the lives around me. Most yawned and went about their own business. Who cared if I strutted around medical centers in a white coat being self-important? … Right.

Those people told me, “Any life run on self-will can hardly be a success. On that basis we are almost always in collision with something or somebody, even though our motives are good. Most people try to live by self-propulsion. Each person is like an actor who wants to run the whole show; is forever trying to arrange the lights, the ballet, the scenery and the rest of the players in his own way.” They also told me, “We had to quit playing God. It didn't work. Next, we decided that hereafter in this drama of life, God was going to be our Director. He is the Principal; we are His agents. He is the Father, and we are His children. Most good ideas are simple, and this concept was the keystone of the new and triumphant arch through which we passed to freedom.” On the street? There is this kind of wisdom on the street? It would seem so.

I’ve learned by acting as if God really is in charge of my life results in peace, serenity, and a sense of purpose beyond my fondest dreams. Those people told me, “When we sincerely took such a position, all sorts of remarkable things followed. We had a new Employer. Being all powerful, He provided what we needed, if we kept close to Him and performed His work well. Established on such a footing we became less and less interested in ourselves, our little plans and designs. More and more we became interested in seeing what we could contribute to life. As we felt new power flow in, as we enjoyed peace of mind, as we discovered we could face life successfully, as we became conscious of His presence, we began to lose our fear of today, tomorrow or the hereafter. We were reborn.”

The years of anxiety, panic, paranoia, and akathesia melted away. Some of those people told me, “If I got what I asked for, I would have been short-changed.” They are right. I’ve been granted a quality of life beyond quantifying, a life far beyond that found in my own imaginations.

Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us.

Blessings,

Craig C. Johnson