Thursday, November 22, 2012
The Message Down Under - Anderson, South Carolina 8-13-12
I wonder about what I’ve just done, committing to chopping out months of my familiar life and exporting it to a land unknown to me. A time-worn truism says we don’t value something until we no longer have it. Planning a long journey to the other side of the world is as much mental as physical. Hopefully this one will be especially spiritual in nature. The world isn’t in compelling need of more tourists; it desperately needs more pilgrims and students.
While out at sunrise today, walking a couple of miles with my camera, I saw several of my favorite people in the world. Not so long after, I had opportunity to reach into an old man’s soul and offer him Hope in a hopeless circumstance. A thought crossed my awareness – these are the kinds of encounters making a place truly home. Hours later on the other side of town I had similar encounters. Then I thought of an old man ten thousand miles from here who needs to have Hope offered in a hopeless circumstance, a man I’ve never met. Going is the next right thing for me.
It occurs to me I will have a better arriving there if I have a better leaving from here. Leaving here in harmony with those who people my own world will allow me harmony with those who live beyond the sunset. Having a state of contentment better prepares me for the learning before me in a distant land. Pragmatic stuff ... do I really want to forego the entire happy autumn/holiday season this year to journey to a distant land I’ve never visited? Do I want to give up the twenty phone calls a day I receive? Having my own space to do in as I wish? Let my mail collect for months? Wonder if the pipes will freeze during winter? I’m reminded of an inspirational poster declaring, “One must leave the safety of the harbor if he wants to get anywhere,” leave the safety of the familiar. Going is the next right thing for me.
It’s presumptuous to think I have anything new of value to tell an old man I’ve never met, never even talked to. Perhaps the value derives from going to any lengths to deliver the message down under. It’s certainly easier to fire off an e-mail or make a phone call. You don’t propose on the phone. You don’t give prognoses by e-mail. Some things require suiting up and showing up, hand delivering the message. I’m not fully clear on the message, trusting it will clarify in route, having nothing but time for this to occur.
This dear old man just buried his centenarian father yesterday in another far distant land. Despite his perilous condition he managed eight hours of flight with his wife and daughter to say farewell to a very old soul. What can I possibly have to say or do to a family of four generations? From my perspective, not a thing. We are told faith is the substance of things not yet seen. Going is the next right thing for me.
Three years ago British Airways asked me to write down why it’s better to meet face-to-face than fire off e-mail or make phone calls, why it’s better to suit up and show up. The obvious intent was to create rationale for filling very expensive business and first-class seats on airplanes. My three hundred fifty four words in three untitled paragraphs must have struck a chord somewhere in a London blue glass office tower. I was summoned shortly, by e-mail, to London in one of those first class seats and then told I could go anywhere on earth at no expense after a couple of days of meetings. I can only hope and pray this face-to-face encounter down under will produce a far more eternal result than even the one in London.
I wonder what I will miss in going. I wonder what I would miss by not going. A still small voice says staying is good while reiterating that going is far better. Today I was told emphatically by a long-time friend every conception and idea I have of this distant land I’m going to will be exceeded. I’m instantly reminded of the promise, “Eyes have not seen, ears have not heard, the hearts of men have not even imagined the things I have prepared for you.” My imagination runs wild. All in good time; anticipation is nearly as delicious as reality.
Someday I’m going to have the ultimate face-to-face encounter, far beyond the reach of jet travel. I can only hope upon arrival I will hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant, dinner will soon be served.” Going is the next right thing for me.
Think I will go out and mow the grass at last light.
Blessings,
Craig C. Johnson
The Light of the World - Anderson, South Carolina 8-3-12
Tom Friedman has written several sobering books on cultural impacts deriving from changing technology. He notes our rapidly increasing dependency on devices and machines requiring reliable electric power. Phones, digital cameras, computers, television, Wi-Fi networks, cell phone towers, and data services all require consistent power sources. Commodities of the near future are likely to be intellectual and digital in nature as much as anything. Digital content is quickly become a source of vast wealth, for those with access to the grid. Even refrigeration and hot water generally require reliable power access.
In his landmark, The World is Flat, Friedman observes a great barrier to hundreds of millions entering the world community is lack of access to power. Three hundred million people in India alone have no access whatever to electricity, not even having a single light bulb in their homes. This scenario is repeated throughout the world. Prosperity and quality of life is directly linked to power access.
We have just witnessed how fragile access to power is. In mere minutes the world went dark for 670 million Indians, or ten percent of the world’s population. Cities across eight states with sweltering climates of 115 degrees were instantly without fans, air conditioning, trains, lights, and refrigeration. Millions of people came scurrying out of the ground when electric subways systems seized up. Hundreds of millions will never have the ‘luxury’ of a power failure. Three hundred million never had power to begin with and most would not have noticed this failure. Two days later the rest of the world has forgotten this dark reality, caught up in the brilliance of Olympic competition.
The most I’ve ever been inconvenienced by lack of power has derived from ice storms leaving me in the dark for five days. Still I had access to firewood, clean water, and have always been able to find nearby sources of refrigeration and phone service. Most importantly, I knew the inconvenience would soon pass; crews were working 24/7 to turn the lights back on. Many millions will never see the lights come on.
In 1970 I made my first journey around the world, taking no devices with me requiring any kind of power. My most recent voyage found me going through a major energy-management checklist prior to departure. Several digital cameras, primary and secondary battery packs and chargers for same. Voltage reduction transformers. Mains adaptor plugs for several nations. Lap top computer, power supply, and surge protector for same. Back-up external hard drive, power supply and adaptor. Cell phone, associated charger and adaptor. Electric razor, power cord and voltage adaptor. Multi-jack cord with surge protection for all these devices. A mound of assorted USB and Ethernet cables. Suitcase for the whole mess. I find myself asking hotels and ships how many power outlets are available.
As living standards become increasingly dependent on reliable sources of electricity, shear demand on power grids places all of us at increasing risk for power failures. One of my greatest concerns while on long journeys is that consistent power is supplied to my several freezers. More than once I’ve returned to find complete losses of my frozen food stores. I now make it standard practice to put indicator ice cubes in my freezers and to ask people to monitor my house for power losses.
As we live progressively more complex secular lives at ever-increasing speed we risk power failures of a very different kind, with far greater consequences. It has become too easy for many of us to get caught up in the tantalizing gadgetry of modern consumer culture, forgetting the essentials of what brings true meaning to our lives, of what empowers in ways mattering most. Extensive studies reveal much of Western civilization is caught in an epidemic of existential angst. Depression, anxiety, panic disorder, insomnia, and a variety of mental disorders plague a vast number of us.
Europe which has long been regarded as having the best social safety nets and standards of living in the world struggles immensely with this angst. The journal European Neuropsychopharmacology published results of a comprehensive study of 500 million citizens in twenty-seven European nations, suggesting 38% of them struggle with some form of mental illness, 165 million people. The World Health Organization reports nine of the ten nations with highest rates of suicide are European. There appears to be a disconnect taking place. Nations offering abundant personal and social safety and high standards of living are seeing mental illness as their number one health challenge. Could this be due to eroding spiritual and religious life in Europe? As Europe plunges into a regional financial abyss with some nations reporting unemployment at depression levels, will this huge health challenge extend into millions more lives?
In regular journeys to Europe I see evidence of increasing secularization and nearly complete loss of mainstream religious/spiritual life. In the United States, similar trends are gaining strength. A 2008 poll indicated only 9% of Americans thought religion the most important thing in their lives. 62% put family and money at the top of their lists. A recent Pew survey found doubt in God doubling in less than five years among younger citizens.
Similar findings are being found here with regard to mental illness and existential angst. Simply put, people are finding fewer reasons to get out of bed in the morning and once they do, life can be a gray haze of meaninglessness, a lack of calling or purpose.
Millions worldwide have escaped the meaningless of life with alcohol and drugs, only to fall into a pit of despair and darkness beyond articulation. The violence and economic costs associated with abuse and trafficking represent some of the greatest challenges for many nations. It’s been long known the way of escape from this darkness is the same one many nations have been jettisoning wholesale – the practice of spiritual principles in our lives leading to meaningful happy lives independent of power grid failures.
For those successfully emerging from the abyss of addictions, they’ve discovered, “What we really have is a daily reprieved contingent on our spiritual condition. Every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God’s will into all our activities. ‘How can I best serve Thee – Thy will (not mine) be done.’ ” They understand a life apart from God is often fatal, when “we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit.” Millions have been liberated from the darkness of addiction by placing their lives in God’s hands, finding great purpose and meaning. Many have been liberated from the attendant scourges of mental illness. It can be so for the hundreds of millions who are trapped in the darkness of addiction to material secular consumer living, power, lust, or a thousand other things.
Sometimes the greatest spiritual and emotional darkness is found in those very places with the most reliable power grids. There’s an unlimited supply of uninterruptable Power. One just has to plug into the right Source.
Jesus said, "For a brief time still, the light is among you. Walk by the light you have so darkness doesn't destroy you. If you walk in darkness, you don't know where you're going. As you have the light, believe in the light. Then the light will be within you, and shining through your lives. You'll be children of light." MSG
Blessings,
Craig C. Johnson
In his landmark, The World is Flat, Friedman observes a great barrier to hundreds of millions entering the world community is lack of access to power. Three hundred million people in India alone have no access whatever to electricity, not even having a single light bulb in their homes. This scenario is repeated throughout the world. Prosperity and quality of life is directly linked to power access.
We have just witnessed how fragile access to power is. In mere minutes the world went dark for 670 million Indians, or ten percent of the world’s population. Cities across eight states with sweltering climates of 115 degrees were instantly without fans, air conditioning, trains, lights, and refrigeration. Millions of people came scurrying out of the ground when electric subways systems seized up. Hundreds of millions will never have the ‘luxury’ of a power failure. Three hundred million never had power to begin with and most would not have noticed this failure. Two days later the rest of the world has forgotten this dark reality, caught up in the brilliance of Olympic competition.
The most I’ve ever been inconvenienced by lack of power has derived from ice storms leaving me in the dark for five days. Still I had access to firewood, clean water, and have always been able to find nearby sources of refrigeration and phone service. Most importantly, I knew the inconvenience would soon pass; crews were working 24/7 to turn the lights back on. Many millions will never see the lights come on.
In 1970 I made my first journey around the world, taking no devices with me requiring any kind of power. My most recent voyage found me going through a major energy-management checklist prior to departure. Several digital cameras, primary and secondary battery packs and chargers for same. Voltage reduction transformers. Mains adaptor plugs for several nations. Lap top computer, power supply, and surge protector for same. Back-up external hard drive, power supply and adaptor. Cell phone, associated charger and adaptor. Electric razor, power cord and voltage adaptor. Multi-jack cord with surge protection for all these devices. A mound of assorted USB and Ethernet cables. Suitcase for the whole mess. I find myself asking hotels and ships how many power outlets are available.
As living standards become increasingly dependent on reliable sources of electricity, shear demand on power grids places all of us at increasing risk for power failures. One of my greatest concerns while on long journeys is that consistent power is supplied to my several freezers. More than once I’ve returned to find complete losses of my frozen food stores. I now make it standard practice to put indicator ice cubes in my freezers and to ask people to monitor my house for power losses.
As we live progressively more complex secular lives at ever-increasing speed we risk power failures of a very different kind, with far greater consequences. It has become too easy for many of us to get caught up in the tantalizing gadgetry of modern consumer culture, forgetting the essentials of what brings true meaning to our lives, of what empowers in ways mattering most. Extensive studies reveal much of Western civilization is caught in an epidemic of existential angst. Depression, anxiety, panic disorder, insomnia, and a variety of mental disorders plague a vast number of us.
Europe which has long been regarded as having the best social safety nets and standards of living in the world struggles immensely with this angst. The journal European Neuropsychopharmacology published results of a comprehensive study of 500 million citizens in twenty-seven European nations, suggesting 38% of them struggle with some form of mental illness, 165 million people. The World Health Organization reports nine of the ten nations with highest rates of suicide are European. There appears to be a disconnect taking place. Nations offering abundant personal and social safety and high standards of living are seeing mental illness as their number one health challenge. Could this be due to eroding spiritual and religious life in Europe? As Europe plunges into a regional financial abyss with some nations reporting unemployment at depression levels, will this huge health challenge extend into millions more lives?
In regular journeys to Europe I see evidence of increasing secularization and nearly complete loss of mainstream religious/spiritual life. In the United States, similar trends are gaining strength. A 2008 poll indicated only 9% of Americans thought religion the most important thing in their lives. 62% put family and money at the top of their lists. A recent Pew survey found doubt in God doubling in less than five years among younger citizens.
Similar findings are being found here with regard to mental illness and existential angst. Simply put, people are finding fewer reasons to get out of bed in the morning and once they do, life can be a gray haze of meaninglessness, a lack of calling or purpose.
Millions worldwide have escaped the meaningless of life with alcohol and drugs, only to fall into a pit of despair and darkness beyond articulation. The violence and economic costs associated with abuse and trafficking represent some of the greatest challenges for many nations. It’s been long known the way of escape from this darkness is the same one many nations have been jettisoning wholesale – the practice of spiritual principles in our lives leading to meaningful happy lives independent of power grid failures.
For those successfully emerging from the abyss of addictions, they’ve discovered, “What we really have is a daily reprieved contingent on our spiritual condition. Every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God’s will into all our activities. ‘How can I best serve Thee – Thy will (not mine) be done.’ ” They understand a life apart from God is often fatal, when “we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit.” Millions have been liberated from the darkness of addiction by placing their lives in God’s hands, finding great purpose and meaning. Many have been liberated from the attendant scourges of mental illness. It can be so for the hundreds of millions who are trapped in the darkness of addiction to material secular consumer living, power, lust, or a thousand other things.
Sometimes the greatest spiritual and emotional darkness is found in those very places with the most reliable power grids. There’s an unlimited supply of uninterruptable Power. One just has to plug into the right Source.
Jesus said, "For a brief time still, the light is among you. Walk by the light you have so darkness doesn't destroy you. If you walk in darkness, you don't know where you're going. As you have the light, believe in the light. Then the light will be within you, and shining through your lives. You'll be children of light." MSG
Blessings,
Craig C. Johnson
The Truly Epic - Anderson, South Carolina 8-2-12
Years ago in a profound dark night of the soul I often had conversations with a dear friend about what we would do when we came out on the other side, if we came out, when the immense spiritual and emotional pain we were immersed in would finally go out like the receding tide. We pointedly remarked that the epic for us would not be getting on airplanes, going to Africa and saving thousands of orphans from miserable death. We merely wanted to go to the grocery story without the demons of panic, anxiety and agoraphobia on our backs. For us it would be truly epic to merely traverse an entire day without fear.
Even in the immense darkness enclosing me I was able to discern God had provided this friend to share my struggles with. He was dealing with the exact same struggles; he was just enough further on his path to recovery to give me immense hope there could be light at the end of the tunnel and it wouldn’t be a train. In recovery work we often speak of how sharing a problem, of telling on ourselves, results in the problem being half solved. This certainly proved to be so in my experience. That a huge robust man nearly seven feet tall could be mowed down by emotional crisis in seconds and then begin a convincing recovery with God’s help was in my tiny dark world truly epic. Being able to tell on myself to someone with understanding was immensely cathartic, and therapeutic.
Then we got well. The tide did go out, very slowly. We both found solid refuge in God, delivered from the on-going scourges of panic, anxiety, and agoraphobia. As we got better, living more in life’s challenges rather than life’s problems, we became able to handle bigger things. I could again wash clothes, prepare meals, and even stay alone at night in my house, the truly epic. For a long season, such activities were out of reach.
Then the day came when I actually bought an airline ticket and put it on my refrigerator door as an icon of my progress. For years I was unable to travel and would often sit wistfully at the window and gaze at jet contrails, wondering how it was possible for people to ride above the clouds. I wondered even more intensely how was it I once was able to do so with impunity. That I could again sit at a computer and print an airline boarding card was a huge marker for the success of my spiritual and emotional recovery, the truly epic. At one time I could not conceive of driving ten miles to see one of my favorite plays directed by a dear friend, despite my fifteen years of theater work and a free ticket.
I made it through that tentative return to air travel successfully with only a few spots of emotional turbulence. I called my gentle giant when I hit emotional shears and he talked and prayed me through them. I landed safely at the far end and again at this end. I felt as if I completed the Iron Man triathlon in record time.
In spiritual recovery we learn deeply we cannot accomplish very many things alone; it really does take a circle of caring compassionate friends to accomplish many things. I was only able to risk getting back on an airplane five years ago with the great encouragement and send off of my circle. Every one of them knew getting through a day without shared support was often problematic. Many people do successfully get on airplanes without send-offs and circles of support, but for those who have been to unspeakable emotional and spiritual hell, merely getting on one can be an ultimate challenge, our four-minute mile.
In the years since, I’ve been on countless airplanes, traversing at least a dozen time-zones many times. I’ve been granted first-class travel to any place on earth. The circle around me has deepened and I now bask in friendships of a stature previously unknown to me. None of those planes have taken me to anyplace as satisfying and wondrous as those quiet ones on back porches where we sit in companionable silence and enjoy the gathering aromas of BBQ while thunderstorm convections bring welcome relief to a sultry southern night. We remember whence we came, and bask in the wonder of the present.
As I face the near-term prospects of extended travels taking me as far as the Gold Coast of Australia, the Maritimes of Canada, a transcontinental road trip, I again wonder about what constitutes the truly epic. Is the ability to again cover my refrigerator door with first-class flight coupons epic? Attractive? Yes? Epic? No. I have to take a moral and fearless inventory of why I feel compelled to cover my life with assorted coupons and admission tickets.
In my meditation this morning I was challenged with this imperative. “Today, I will accept where I am as the ideal place for me to be. If I am in-between, I will strive for the faith that this place is not without purpose, that it is moving me towards something good.” I can state emphatically that my present place is a very good one, for me.
We speak of living lives of attraction rather than ones of promotion. We believe spiritual transformation can be incited in others still in their darkness if they see lives being lived well, believable lives within their reach. For a season I’ve been caught up in increasingly misguided ideas of what is truly epic. Coming out of a dark night of the soul and a few good investments have allowed me to travel the world and do whatever I want. I developed a misguided idea of what my ‘new normal should look like. Despairing people just coming out of prison, alcoholism, and addiction are not going to relate to my first-class world junkets. The heroin addict crying yesterday because she cannot afford cigarettes to blunt her intense cravings for more heroin is not a bit interested in my eight-week junket across the South Pacific. She just might be more interested in my making the journey fifty feet to take down the avalanche of trash piling up behind our meeting rooms, a legacy of strangers who’ve decided dumping on a place where alcoholics and addicts find experience, strength and hope is okay. My efforts to provide her with a clean, safe and attractive place to come each day might be nearly epic. It will actually require finding trucks, helpers, lifts, and grinders.
The truly epic is being content where we are. The truly epic is driving three miles to a dear friend’s house, sitting in companionable silence, watching the fireflies ignite in late dusk while the cicadas sing the chorus.
Blessings,
Craig C. Johnson
Even in the immense darkness enclosing me I was able to discern God had provided this friend to share my struggles with. He was dealing with the exact same struggles; he was just enough further on his path to recovery to give me immense hope there could be light at the end of the tunnel and it wouldn’t be a train. In recovery work we often speak of how sharing a problem, of telling on ourselves, results in the problem being half solved. This certainly proved to be so in my experience. That a huge robust man nearly seven feet tall could be mowed down by emotional crisis in seconds and then begin a convincing recovery with God’s help was in my tiny dark world truly epic. Being able to tell on myself to someone with understanding was immensely cathartic, and therapeutic.
Then we got well. The tide did go out, very slowly. We both found solid refuge in God, delivered from the on-going scourges of panic, anxiety, and agoraphobia. As we got better, living more in life’s challenges rather than life’s problems, we became able to handle bigger things. I could again wash clothes, prepare meals, and even stay alone at night in my house, the truly epic. For a long season, such activities were out of reach.
Then the day came when I actually bought an airline ticket and put it on my refrigerator door as an icon of my progress. For years I was unable to travel and would often sit wistfully at the window and gaze at jet contrails, wondering how it was possible for people to ride above the clouds. I wondered even more intensely how was it I once was able to do so with impunity. That I could again sit at a computer and print an airline boarding card was a huge marker for the success of my spiritual and emotional recovery, the truly epic. At one time I could not conceive of driving ten miles to see one of my favorite plays directed by a dear friend, despite my fifteen years of theater work and a free ticket.
I made it through that tentative return to air travel successfully with only a few spots of emotional turbulence. I called my gentle giant when I hit emotional shears and he talked and prayed me through them. I landed safely at the far end and again at this end. I felt as if I completed the Iron Man triathlon in record time.
In spiritual recovery we learn deeply we cannot accomplish very many things alone; it really does take a circle of caring compassionate friends to accomplish many things. I was only able to risk getting back on an airplane five years ago with the great encouragement and send off of my circle. Every one of them knew getting through a day without shared support was often problematic. Many people do successfully get on airplanes without send-offs and circles of support, but for those who have been to unspeakable emotional and spiritual hell, merely getting on one can be an ultimate challenge, our four-minute mile.
In the years since, I’ve been on countless airplanes, traversing at least a dozen time-zones many times. I’ve been granted first-class travel to any place on earth. The circle around me has deepened and I now bask in friendships of a stature previously unknown to me. None of those planes have taken me to anyplace as satisfying and wondrous as those quiet ones on back porches where we sit in companionable silence and enjoy the gathering aromas of BBQ while thunderstorm convections bring welcome relief to a sultry southern night. We remember whence we came, and bask in the wonder of the present.
As I face the near-term prospects of extended travels taking me as far as the Gold Coast of Australia, the Maritimes of Canada, a transcontinental road trip, I again wonder about what constitutes the truly epic. Is the ability to again cover my refrigerator door with first-class flight coupons epic? Attractive? Yes? Epic? No. I have to take a moral and fearless inventory of why I feel compelled to cover my life with assorted coupons and admission tickets.
In my meditation this morning I was challenged with this imperative. “Today, I will accept where I am as the ideal place for me to be. If I am in-between, I will strive for the faith that this place is not without purpose, that it is moving me towards something good.” I can state emphatically that my present place is a very good one, for me.
We speak of living lives of attraction rather than ones of promotion. We believe spiritual transformation can be incited in others still in their darkness if they see lives being lived well, believable lives within their reach. For a season I’ve been caught up in increasingly misguided ideas of what is truly epic. Coming out of a dark night of the soul and a few good investments have allowed me to travel the world and do whatever I want. I developed a misguided idea of what my ‘new normal should look like. Despairing people just coming out of prison, alcoholism, and addiction are not going to relate to my first-class world junkets. The heroin addict crying yesterday because she cannot afford cigarettes to blunt her intense cravings for more heroin is not a bit interested in my eight-week junket across the South Pacific. She just might be more interested in my making the journey fifty feet to take down the avalanche of trash piling up behind our meeting rooms, a legacy of strangers who’ve decided dumping on a place where alcoholics and addicts find experience, strength and hope is okay. My efforts to provide her with a clean, safe and attractive place to come each day might be nearly epic. It will actually require finding trucks, helpers, lifts, and grinders.
The truly epic is being content where we are. The truly epic is driving three miles to a dear friend’s house, sitting in companionable silence, watching the fireflies ignite in late dusk while the cicadas sing the chorus.
Blessings,
Craig C. Johnson
Silly Ideas - Barriers to the Kingdom - London, England 6-18-12
Recently the Pew Research Center released a 164-page report containing compelling evidence suggesting younger generations are drifting away from God - in large numbers. In statistical terms the secularization of youth might be called a landslide. In only three years the number of young people saying they ever doubt the existence of God has doubled. In demographic terms this is huge. The 164 pages fill in all the details I omit here in my six lines.
Ominous to me was the observation that fundamentalists are turning off young people in large numbers. One observer suggests, “Younger folks are simply more likely to figure that, if their religion is teaching them things that they believe to be silly … then their religion must be silly, too."
At one time religion taught a cosmology in which the sun circled the earth. Galileo and Copernicus nearly lost their heads because they found this belief silly. Countless others were burned at the stake for not buying into silly ideas. Jan Hus, a beloved priest, was burned at the stake in 1415 because he jeopardized institutional advancement and power by challenging ethical abuses in the Church. Not buying into silly ideas got him killed.
Not so long ago many fundamentalists believed the Human Immune Deficiency virus was custom built by God to smite homosexuals. Some still do. It didn’t matter that early on virtually all AIDS cases were transmitted between heterosexual adults and probably emerged from a simian population in Uganda along the Kinshasa Highway.
A few weeks ago I was in London’s Westminster Cathedral where I sat through Evensong, then stayed on for Holy Eucharist. After receiving the Host I turned away from the minister and walked about five feet away to give prayers of gratitude before taking the Host, standing out of line, looking at the Host in gratitude, thanking God for safety on my long voyage and carrying me through dark seasons of life into my present golden season. My revere was broken when I felt pounding on my back with urgent demands that I instantly consume the wafer. Half an hour later after Mass was over the same minister came to me and told me I was condemned to hell for taking Eucharist as a non-Catholic. I have no idea why it was decided I was non-Catholic. It didn’t matter the Paulist Fathers had told me years ago I could take the Eucharist. Was I suddenly an infidel to be fearful of, one of ‘them’? Is it silly for me to think I had a right to participate in that mass?
Is it a silly idea to believe the Lord actually died and gave His life so that the world should not perish and at the same time condemn most of us infidels for daring to take the sacrament, the very sacrament intended as a reminder of the global inclusive nature of His sacrifice? Six hundred years ago my independent thinking would have seen me put to death. In the present era it just got me put out.
Recently I paid $11 to roam around Kings Chapel in Cambridge. Included was the right to take interior pictures without flash. Setting up a tripod I captured some wide-angle panoramas of the grand fan-vaulted ceiling and oceans of luminous stained glass. Shortly a verger came to me and insisted I not use a tripod, stating the building was copyrighted and the good images of the inside were being sold. I complied and simply boosted my camera to ISO 3200, getting splendid images without a tripod. Privately I was thankful I had a camera with a really good sensor. Later in bright sun while taking a hand-held image of the grass in the south quad I was again chased down by the same Verger, being reminded to not use my tripod, despite it lying folded up on the ground.
Is it a silly idea to believe I was suddenly a risk to the financial future of this six-hundred year old Anglican community by taking pictures of grass, someone to be fearful of, one of ‘them’? Is it silly to think something like Kings Chapel is a world treasure to be shared, even on a tripod? When I later saw this same frowning verger minding the gate at Evensong, I kept on walking, instead finding a most hospitable Buddhist on the street to talk with. Perhaps it was a silly idea for me to believe I could have a numinous experience in there, as a threat to the place.
Westminster Abbey is perhaps one of the greatest architectural icons in the Western World. For nearly fourteen hundred years it’s been a venue where much of British history has been crafted. For $26 tourists are allowed to walk around and gawk at history and the 611 tombs contained therein. I once was in love with this place, having attended as many as five services during Holy Week. Then I became a threat to its keepers.
Having taken a good friend there for Morning Prayer and then Holy Eucharist, I committed the unpardonable sin of taking a non-flash non-tripod photo of the rose window in the north transept in the half-hour interval between these two services. A Verger saw me do it and he came shrieking across the vast once-numinous space offering up nothing short of a Deuteronomic scale curse upon me. Humiliation was included at no extra cost and I was certain I would be remanded to the custody of the Metropolitan Police and my cameras reduced to rubble. I left the place shaking like a leaf.
As I was leaving, the Verger and two of his colleagues were spinning contrails across that vast nave chasing down other witless threats to the future of the Anglican Church. Have I suddenly become a risk to the financial future and integrity of the Protestant Realm as well? The official web site for this venue states a fear of what inappropriate things we nefarious photographers might do with pictures of the place. Is it a silly idea to really believe an ordinary tourist is going to do something despicable with an image of the Abbey that he could not also do with one of a million scannable paper images in a million history and travel books? With Photoshop all things are possible to those who believe. My last two times in London it’s taken everything in me just to walk by the Abbey; there are always stern-looking vergers milling about the gates. Perhaps it’s a silly idea to believe I could experience the numinous in there again.
Last week I had the audacity as an Episcopalian to wander down to Lambeth Palace. I learned it was more than presumptuous to think I could walk over the bridge, just show up, and see the Anglican/Episcopal equivalent of the Vatican. No one wanted to tell me exactly how to get into the place. Staff at several locations on site claimed to not even know where the public entry was. Eventually I learned for $12 I would be allowed to see part of the gardens. For another $20.25 I would be allowed into one room to see an exhibition of old prayer books and hymnals. If I wanted to see the Palace I would have to apply on-line for a ticket on a commercial ticket site (Ticket Master). I was told the first available ticket would be in October. I didn’t bother to ask how much it would be. I never did figure out where the front door was; it was probably behind the vast tower gate that occasionally opened, quickly letting high-end cars in and out. Perhaps it was a very silly idea to think I could visit the place I’ve made offerings to for a lifetime. I did get to use the café toilet without paying.
There’s a mega-church in my home town boasting tens of thousands of members. Each time I’ve visited I’ve had a subliminal sense of increasing fear there. I was refused admission one Sunday because I would not submit to a physical search. We left. I was clearly one of ‘them’ to be afraid of. The friend with me during that incident has not been in a church since. Was it a really silly idea to think I could take struggling addicts to church and be admitted without a physical search?
Another time I invited a friend from out-of- state to visit for the evening service. After driving 260 miles we had the auditorium door closed in our faces just as we started to enter. Institutional policy says late-comers don’t happen in this church. Was it a silly idea to think a place talking about Jesus would admit weary travelers, even if they are five seconds late? The last time I went I was with three men in recovery. One was highly insulted during the vetting process applied to us before the service. He left post haste. One of the others made the mistake of leaving the service to use the restroom. No latecomers and no toilets during services. Was it really silly for me go back three times, inviting struggling individuals, only to have them humiliated?
Christian scriptures describe a broad way to destruction and a narrow way to salvation. I can’t but wonder if ecclesiastical apparatus in its various forms is not often itself causative of much of this destruction. Perhaps the dissonance and cacophony of those afraid of losing power, prestige, or money, or being targeted in some fashion is so loud and distracting as to keep most of us from ever finding the narrow way, acting as barriers to the Kingdom.
Is it a silly idea to think God really did send his son so that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life? Is it a silly idea to think that merely asking God to guide me every day, every moment, to do the next right thing is enough? I guess it depends on who you ask?
A disgruntled ex-church member stated in a forum discussing collapsing church attendance: "The world is trying to find God but they can't because the church is in the way! … Jesus Christ did not come to bring a religion or a church. He came to bring the Kingdom of God to the earth. People are not looking for a good church--they are looking for the Kingdom!!! And the church is not the Kingdom--that's why folks are leaving!!!” If this sentiment is gaining ground across the Western world, it might well explain the rapid secularization taking place, why people feel there are barriers between them and the Kingdom.
If my experience of church attitudes is even remotely typical for others, it’s little wonder the younger generations are voting with their feet. The Pew study cites fundamentalist thinking of any flavor as being off-putting. It might explain why for the first time in my adult life, my church attendance has become sporadic at an age when church members should be comfortably settled in for their remaining years. We’ve already seen the complete secularization of Europe and the Pew study suggests America is fast on its way. One church growth professional reported in 2008 overall regular church attendance in America has declined to 18.7%. I can’t but wonder if it’s a really silly idea to think I will find community and acceptance in those very institutions hog-tied by their own entrenched ideas and fears, places seeing me as some kind of threat.
Paradoxically I’m suddenly feeling younger and even closer to God than ever. I just pray my sentence of condemnation isn’t enforced. I don’t tolerate heat very well.
Blessings,
Craig C. Johnson
Ominous to me was the observation that fundamentalists are turning off young people in large numbers. One observer suggests, “Younger folks are simply more likely to figure that, if their religion is teaching them things that they believe to be silly … then their religion must be silly, too."
At one time religion taught a cosmology in which the sun circled the earth. Galileo and Copernicus nearly lost their heads because they found this belief silly. Countless others were burned at the stake for not buying into silly ideas. Jan Hus, a beloved priest, was burned at the stake in 1415 because he jeopardized institutional advancement and power by challenging ethical abuses in the Church. Not buying into silly ideas got him killed.
Not so long ago many fundamentalists believed the Human Immune Deficiency virus was custom built by God to smite homosexuals. Some still do. It didn’t matter that early on virtually all AIDS cases were transmitted between heterosexual adults and probably emerged from a simian population in Uganda along the Kinshasa Highway.
A few weeks ago I was in London’s Westminster Cathedral where I sat through Evensong, then stayed on for Holy Eucharist. After receiving the Host I turned away from the minister and walked about five feet away to give prayers of gratitude before taking the Host, standing out of line, looking at the Host in gratitude, thanking God for safety on my long voyage and carrying me through dark seasons of life into my present golden season. My revere was broken when I felt pounding on my back with urgent demands that I instantly consume the wafer. Half an hour later after Mass was over the same minister came to me and told me I was condemned to hell for taking Eucharist as a non-Catholic. I have no idea why it was decided I was non-Catholic. It didn’t matter the Paulist Fathers had told me years ago I could take the Eucharist. Was I suddenly an infidel to be fearful of, one of ‘them’? Is it silly for me to think I had a right to participate in that mass?
Is it a silly idea to believe the Lord actually died and gave His life so that the world should not perish and at the same time condemn most of us infidels for daring to take the sacrament, the very sacrament intended as a reminder of the global inclusive nature of His sacrifice? Six hundred years ago my independent thinking would have seen me put to death. In the present era it just got me put out.
Recently I paid $11 to roam around Kings Chapel in Cambridge. Included was the right to take interior pictures without flash. Setting up a tripod I captured some wide-angle panoramas of the grand fan-vaulted ceiling and oceans of luminous stained glass. Shortly a verger came to me and insisted I not use a tripod, stating the building was copyrighted and the good images of the inside were being sold. I complied and simply boosted my camera to ISO 3200, getting splendid images without a tripod. Privately I was thankful I had a camera with a really good sensor. Later in bright sun while taking a hand-held image of the grass in the south quad I was again chased down by the same Verger, being reminded to not use my tripod, despite it lying folded up on the ground.
Is it a silly idea to believe I was suddenly a risk to the financial future of this six-hundred year old Anglican community by taking pictures of grass, someone to be fearful of, one of ‘them’? Is it silly to think something like Kings Chapel is a world treasure to be shared, even on a tripod? When I later saw this same frowning verger minding the gate at Evensong, I kept on walking, instead finding a most hospitable Buddhist on the street to talk with. Perhaps it was a silly idea for me to believe I could have a numinous experience in there, as a threat to the place.
Westminster Abbey is perhaps one of the greatest architectural icons in the Western World. For nearly fourteen hundred years it’s been a venue where much of British history has been crafted. For $26 tourists are allowed to walk around and gawk at history and the 611 tombs contained therein. I once was in love with this place, having attended as many as five services during Holy Week. Then I became a threat to its keepers.
Having taken a good friend there for Morning Prayer and then Holy Eucharist, I committed the unpardonable sin of taking a non-flash non-tripod photo of the rose window in the north transept in the half-hour interval between these two services. A Verger saw me do it and he came shrieking across the vast once-numinous space offering up nothing short of a Deuteronomic scale curse upon me. Humiliation was included at no extra cost and I was certain I would be remanded to the custody of the Metropolitan Police and my cameras reduced to rubble. I left the place shaking like a leaf.
As I was leaving, the Verger and two of his colleagues were spinning contrails across that vast nave chasing down other witless threats to the future of the Anglican Church. Have I suddenly become a risk to the financial future and integrity of the Protestant Realm as well? The official web site for this venue states a fear of what inappropriate things we nefarious photographers might do with pictures of the place. Is it a silly idea to really believe an ordinary tourist is going to do something despicable with an image of the Abbey that he could not also do with one of a million scannable paper images in a million history and travel books? With Photoshop all things are possible to those who believe. My last two times in London it’s taken everything in me just to walk by the Abbey; there are always stern-looking vergers milling about the gates. Perhaps it’s a silly idea to believe I could experience the numinous in there again.
Last week I had the audacity as an Episcopalian to wander down to Lambeth Palace. I learned it was more than presumptuous to think I could walk over the bridge, just show up, and see the Anglican/Episcopal equivalent of the Vatican. No one wanted to tell me exactly how to get into the place. Staff at several locations on site claimed to not even know where the public entry was. Eventually I learned for $12 I would be allowed to see part of the gardens. For another $20.25 I would be allowed into one room to see an exhibition of old prayer books and hymnals. If I wanted to see the Palace I would have to apply on-line for a ticket on a commercial ticket site (Ticket Master). I was told the first available ticket would be in October. I didn’t bother to ask how much it would be. I never did figure out where the front door was; it was probably behind the vast tower gate that occasionally opened, quickly letting high-end cars in and out. Perhaps it was a very silly idea to think I could visit the place I’ve made offerings to for a lifetime. I did get to use the café toilet without paying.
There’s a mega-church in my home town boasting tens of thousands of members. Each time I’ve visited I’ve had a subliminal sense of increasing fear there. I was refused admission one Sunday because I would not submit to a physical search. We left. I was clearly one of ‘them’ to be afraid of. The friend with me during that incident has not been in a church since. Was it a really silly idea to think I could take struggling addicts to church and be admitted without a physical search?
Another time I invited a friend from out-of- state to visit for the evening service. After driving 260 miles we had the auditorium door closed in our faces just as we started to enter. Institutional policy says late-comers don’t happen in this church. Was it a silly idea to think a place talking about Jesus would admit weary travelers, even if they are five seconds late? The last time I went I was with three men in recovery. One was highly insulted during the vetting process applied to us before the service. He left post haste. One of the others made the mistake of leaving the service to use the restroom. No latecomers and no toilets during services. Was it really silly for me go back three times, inviting struggling individuals, only to have them humiliated?
Christian scriptures describe a broad way to destruction and a narrow way to salvation. I can’t but wonder if ecclesiastical apparatus in its various forms is not often itself causative of much of this destruction. Perhaps the dissonance and cacophony of those afraid of losing power, prestige, or money, or being targeted in some fashion is so loud and distracting as to keep most of us from ever finding the narrow way, acting as barriers to the Kingdom.
Is it a silly idea to think God really did send his son so that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life? Is it a silly idea to think that merely asking God to guide me every day, every moment, to do the next right thing is enough? I guess it depends on who you ask?
A disgruntled ex-church member stated in a forum discussing collapsing church attendance: "The world is trying to find God but they can't because the church is in the way! … Jesus Christ did not come to bring a religion or a church. He came to bring the Kingdom of God to the earth. People are not looking for a good church--they are looking for the Kingdom!!! And the church is not the Kingdom--that's why folks are leaving!!!” If this sentiment is gaining ground across the Western world, it might well explain the rapid secularization taking place, why people feel there are barriers between them and the Kingdom.
If my experience of church attitudes is even remotely typical for others, it’s little wonder the younger generations are voting with their feet. The Pew study cites fundamentalist thinking of any flavor as being off-putting. It might explain why for the first time in my adult life, my church attendance has become sporadic at an age when church members should be comfortably settled in for their remaining years. We’ve already seen the complete secularization of Europe and the Pew study suggests America is fast on its way. One church growth professional reported in 2008 overall regular church attendance in America has declined to 18.7%. I can’t but wonder if it’s a really silly idea to think I will find community and acceptance in those very institutions hog-tied by their own entrenched ideas and fears, places seeing me as some kind of threat.
Paradoxically I’m suddenly feeling younger and even closer to God than ever. I just pray my sentence of condemnation isn’t enforced. I don’t tolerate heat very well.
Blessings,
Craig C. Johnson
A Serpent in Paradise Anderson, South Carolina 6-16-12
One of the questions long stuck in my brains is, “Why was there a snake in the garden of Eden?” Why would a place by definition created perfect have a fatal flaw in it, one consigning Holy Paradise to a long-term future of weeds, painful childbirth, chaos, and death? For centuries theologians have argued endlessly about why a benevolent Creator would put the ultimate beguiling poison pill in Nirvana. It was only a couple of days before humans were running around ashamed of their nakedness, blaming others for their woes. Religious wars have been de rigueur ever since.
Throughout history hundreds of religious sects, both Eastern and Western, have claimed special knowledge of holy truth. Countless manuscripts and books have been written throughout time and ascribed the status of inspired holy text; given down as inerrant voice from Heaven. Millions of adherents have followed teachings of diverse gurus, prophets, and those claiming to be Deity itself. Alas, many of these teachings contain strong seasonings of exclusivity to them – creating polarities of ‘us versus you’, ‘we versus them’.
Throughout my university years I was involved with proselytic campus religious groups with stated missions to convert everyone else to their way of thinking; embracing their tenets of doctrines. It was mentally exhaustive to journey to Daytona Beach during spring break and endlessly pass out religious tracks in attempts to garner subscription to my way of thinking, a way of thinking and belief I was all too unsure of for myself.
It’s been my good fortune to visit the best available vestiges of paradise in an ostensibly sin-fallen weed-infested acrimonious world. Just before I went overseas last month, two missionaries loaded with books and scriptures came to my door. Rather than flicking them off as fleas, proclaiming my busyness in preparing for my journey to Paradise, I let them start on their spiel.
Holding up a magazine one of them asked if I had ever seen it.
“Many times”, I stated.
“What did you think of it?” the one holding a small child asked.
I declared it was like many others, claiming special knowledge of holy truth; one believing other ways of spiritual practice and belief are false. Instantly they declared this one to be different because the present earth would not be burned up in the end-time scenarios promised by other groups!
I proceeded to tell them it could not matter less to me in any way, shape, or form whether this planet got burned up in a Revelation end-time scenario or not. The only thing mattering to me is the next right thing; asking God to show me what the next right thing to do is, for the next five minutes. I explained how my thoughts on theology and dogma had greatly simplified since studying these in excruciating detail decades ago in Europe.
If I can merely chain together a sequence of ‘next right things’ then my life will have no regrets and it will have been maximally useful to God and those around me. It won’t matter which of the amillennialist, pre-tribulation, post tribulation, or eternal security pundits are right. Mattering even less is if I’m Catholic, Protestant, or some other species of belief. God, what is the next right thing for me to do? They left without ever opening their books, asking only if they could quote me. I told them to have at it; it wasn’t original with me.
The Genesis story tells us Adam and Eve got in trouble because they believed the snake’s promise of being able to gain special knowledge about stuff only God is supposed to know about. They were afraid of losing something or not getting something without this knowledge. Their quest for special knowledge or enlightenment didn’t work out so well. In the garden fear suddenly came upon Adam and Eve and God found them hiding in the bushes. If you believe the story, soon weeds began to grow and everything else started to die except the weeds. Weeds don’t die.
If I believe God makes Himself known to all of those who seek Him, I don’t have to be driven by a fear I’m going to miss out on something because I don’t have special knowledge. Even Christian scripture declares, “They are without excuse because He has made Himself known through the handiwork of His creation.” I don’t have to run to the nearest religious sect or buy the magazines brought to my door. I don’t have to change your thinking. Evidence is hard-coded into Creation suggesting something far more benevolent is at work than a God with his finger on the smite key, waiting to burn up the planet.
Perhaps the real serpent in the Garden was fear, fear of losing something or not getting something we wanted. In recovery work we learn quickly fear of losing something or not getting something we want drives most of our other fears and the ensuing self-destructive behavior. As we say in recovery, “This short word somehow touches about every aspect of our lives. It was an evil and corroding thread; the fabric of our existence was shot through with it. It set in motion trains of circumstances which brought us misfortune we felt we didn't deserve. … We think fear ought to be classed with stealing. It seems to cause more trouble.”
Personal liberation comes when we let God take the serpent of fear out of the gardens of our lives. Bill Wilson, as one of the co-founders of Alcoholics Anonymous., declared as will millions of others, “The practice of AA's Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions in our personal lives also brought incredible releases from fear of every description, despite the wide prevalence of formidable personal problems. When fear did persist, we knew it for what it was, and under God's grace we became able to handle it. We began to see each adversity as a God-given opportunity to develop the kind of courage which is born of humility, rather than of bravado. Thus we were enabled to accept ourselves, our circumstances, and our fellows. Under God's grace we even found that we could die with decency, dignity and faith, knowing that "the Father doeth the works."
We now find ourselves headed to a paradise free of the great serpent. It’s an equal-opportunity destination for those wanting to live fearless lives. It doesn’t matter if you believe the world gets torched in the end or not.
“Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.
Blessings,
Craig C. Johnson
Throughout history hundreds of religious sects, both Eastern and Western, have claimed special knowledge of holy truth. Countless manuscripts and books have been written throughout time and ascribed the status of inspired holy text; given down as inerrant voice from Heaven. Millions of adherents have followed teachings of diverse gurus, prophets, and those claiming to be Deity itself. Alas, many of these teachings contain strong seasonings of exclusivity to them – creating polarities of ‘us versus you’, ‘we versus them’.
Throughout my university years I was involved with proselytic campus religious groups with stated missions to convert everyone else to their way of thinking; embracing their tenets of doctrines. It was mentally exhaustive to journey to Daytona Beach during spring break and endlessly pass out religious tracks in attempts to garner subscription to my way of thinking, a way of thinking and belief I was all too unsure of for myself.
It’s been my good fortune to visit the best available vestiges of paradise in an ostensibly sin-fallen weed-infested acrimonious world. Just before I went overseas last month, two missionaries loaded with books and scriptures came to my door. Rather than flicking them off as fleas, proclaiming my busyness in preparing for my journey to Paradise, I let them start on their spiel.
Holding up a magazine one of them asked if I had ever seen it.
“Many times”, I stated.
“What did you think of it?” the one holding a small child asked.
I declared it was like many others, claiming special knowledge of holy truth; one believing other ways of spiritual practice and belief are false. Instantly they declared this one to be different because the present earth would not be burned up in the end-time scenarios promised by other groups!
I proceeded to tell them it could not matter less to me in any way, shape, or form whether this planet got burned up in a Revelation end-time scenario or not. The only thing mattering to me is the next right thing; asking God to show me what the next right thing to do is, for the next five minutes. I explained how my thoughts on theology and dogma had greatly simplified since studying these in excruciating detail decades ago in Europe.
If I can merely chain together a sequence of ‘next right things’ then my life will have no regrets and it will have been maximally useful to God and those around me. It won’t matter which of the amillennialist, pre-tribulation, post tribulation, or eternal security pundits are right. Mattering even less is if I’m Catholic, Protestant, or some other species of belief. God, what is the next right thing for me to do? They left without ever opening their books, asking only if they could quote me. I told them to have at it; it wasn’t original with me.
The Genesis story tells us Adam and Eve got in trouble because they believed the snake’s promise of being able to gain special knowledge about stuff only God is supposed to know about. They were afraid of losing something or not getting something without this knowledge. Their quest for special knowledge or enlightenment didn’t work out so well. In the garden fear suddenly came upon Adam and Eve and God found them hiding in the bushes. If you believe the story, soon weeds began to grow and everything else started to die except the weeds. Weeds don’t die.
If I believe God makes Himself known to all of those who seek Him, I don’t have to be driven by a fear I’m going to miss out on something because I don’t have special knowledge. Even Christian scripture declares, “They are without excuse because He has made Himself known through the handiwork of His creation.” I don’t have to run to the nearest religious sect or buy the magazines brought to my door. I don’t have to change your thinking. Evidence is hard-coded into Creation suggesting something far more benevolent is at work than a God with his finger on the smite key, waiting to burn up the planet.
Perhaps the real serpent in the Garden was fear, fear of losing something or not getting something we wanted. In recovery work we learn quickly fear of losing something or not getting something we want drives most of our other fears and the ensuing self-destructive behavior. As we say in recovery, “This short word somehow touches about every aspect of our lives. It was an evil and corroding thread; the fabric of our existence was shot through with it. It set in motion trains of circumstances which brought us misfortune we felt we didn't deserve. … We think fear ought to be classed with stealing. It seems to cause more trouble.”
Personal liberation comes when we let God take the serpent of fear out of the gardens of our lives. Bill Wilson, as one of the co-founders of Alcoholics Anonymous., declared as will millions of others, “The practice of AA's Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions in our personal lives also brought incredible releases from fear of every description, despite the wide prevalence of formidable personal problems. When fear did persist, we knew it for what it was, and under God's grace we became able to handle it. We began to see each adversity as a God-given opportunity to develop the kind of courage which is born of humility, rather than of bravado. Thus we were enabled to accept ourselves, our circumstances, and our fellows. Under God's grace we even found that we could die with decency, dignity and faith, knowing that "the Father doeth the works."
We now find ourselves headed to a paradise free of the great serpent. It’s an equal-opportunity destination for those wanting to live fearless lives. It doesn’t matter if you believe the world gets torched in the end or not.
“Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.
Blessings,
Craig C. Johnson
Imaginations of Romance Anderson, South Carolina 4-23-12
A discomfiting experience is watching what happens on Christmas morning after the season of Advent has run its course. For weeks children have been hyper vigilant to the appearance of new gifts under the brilliant tree of possibilities. Curiosity, imagination, and colorful gift wrap keep children utterly mesmerized with visions of bliss. This rapt attention and focus for weeks suddenly sublimates into shredding frenzies manifesting as Attention Deficit Disorder at its worst. How many times have I seen children rip apart those beautiful metallic holographic papers, only to drop unwrapped boxes to the floor, not even bothering to open them; moving on to the next hypnotic gift wrap. Grandiose imagination has given way to reality.
For a Christmas junkie keeping Christmas trees up all year, the metaphor seems apt for my own life. Every time I see a woman up close or even at a distance across the fitness floor in the gym, I find myself being the little kid at Christmas, wondering what lies beneath the colorful wrapper, not in so much a voyeuristic way as in a much broader one. Grandiose imagination runs amok. Will I suddenly find the person who is going to make my life work; giving me purpose, discipline, motivation, social confidence, guidance, and those much needed pep talks at the exact moment of maximum demoralization after something important to me has imploded?
Eighteen months ago I nearly sold all my positions in life, thinking another person could meet all my needs. I was willing to consider selling my house, casting aside my history, taking inordinate risk. In the intervening months I’ve learned more fully my true deeper needs can only be met by conscious contact with God as a result of a vital spiritual experience. There’s no possibility of another person doing for me only what God can do for me. As long as I believe another person can fulfill all my secret dreams I’m going to be wasting energy, frantically tearing open every life within reach of me. The only assured result for such behavior is leaving behind a wake of emotional trauma in many lives, and gaining for myself increasing social isolation, loneliness, and brooding self doubt.
In the recovery journey we learn ever more deeply only God can meet our deepest needs. After five and a half years on the recovery journey and having nearly torn my life out by the tracks in a romantic fugue a year and a half ago, I still struggle with the object of my faith. Do I really believe God is my true source, or do I still believe one of those beauties in the gym is going to take me to Nirvana? Worse yet, do I believe I can be a knight in shining armor to one of our new arrivals in recovery who has utterly destroyed her life with addictions? Am I to be the savior to one who has no job, no car, no home, and nothing to eat because she gave it all to the crack dealer? There’s sometimes an overwhelming urge in us spiritually unregenerate people to be the big deal strolling into another’s life, saving her from every form of poverty. I see this urge in myself and I see it in others almost daily.
In counseling sessions I hear this with astounding frequency. An intellectually gifted young man with every possible option open to him just related to me his three suicide attempts after his girl friend of ninety days overdosed on heroin and died on his birthday. One wonders just what a struggling heroin addict can do to give one purpose, discipline, motivation, social confidence, guidance, and those much needed pep talks at the exact moment of maximum demoralization after something important has imploded? The young heroin addict could not meet this young man’s needs in any way. She could not meet her own needs and never let God do so. It cost her life itself. The man relating this scenario to me is still unsure, even after being willing to cash out his own life. She imploded. He was not even successful at taking his own life.
When we put all our faith and belief in the ability of another human being to meet our own deep needs, the results are often catastrophic. Rarely does a week pass I don’t observe men and women newly released from prison and rehab facilities falling into each other’s arms and beds, giving up the disciplines and accountability of recovery. They move into shabby apartments or trailers, unemployed, without transportation. They stop coming to meetings and cease doing the recovery work which would bring them to the all-important realization that only God can meet their deepest needs. The incredible gift of sobriety is so often exchanged for the possibilities of romance. Funeral directors here are too often the direct beneficiaries to these ill-advised imaginations of romance.
Melody Beatty has been endowed with a great ability to speak into the hearts of those struggling with addictions and the ill-founded belief another being can meet their needs. In her The Language of Letting Go she implores us to consider “Our happiness is not a present someone else holds in his or her hands. Our well-being is not held by another to be given or withheld at whim. If we reach out and try to force someone to give us what we believe he or she holds, we will be disappointed. We will discover that it is an illusion. The person didn’t hold it. He or she never shall. That beautifully wrapped box with the ribbon on it that we believed contained our happiness … it’s an illusion.”
Henri Nouwen wrote many of his best sellers from the ground of his personal struggles with affective angst and feeling isolated from so many people, this despite being beloved by millions. It was a severe learning for him to come to understand only God could meet his deepest needs. In his The Inner Voice of Love he wrote “A split between divinity and humanity has taken place in you. With your divinely endowed center you know God’s will, God’s way, God’s love. But your humanity is cut off from that. Your many human needs for affection, attention, and consolation are living apart from your divine sacred space. Your call is to let these two parts of yourself come together again. You have to gradually move from crying outward – crying for people who you think can fulfill your needs – to crying inward to the place where you can let yourself be held and carried by God, who has become incarnate in the humanity of those who love you in community. No one person can fulfill all your needs. But the community can truly hold you.”
How often it is we see people leave community, thinking another can meet all his or her needs. So often we see them descend into the abysses of depression, anxiety, addiction, the basement of the undertaker. It was only yesterday I sat with unnumbered thousands in one of the fastest growing churches in the Western Hemisphere, listening to the preacher exhort us men strongly to ‘pursue’ women. Reading easily between the lines one easily came away with the idea an all-out pursuit of women was going to gain us a trophy capable of meeting all our needs. The preacher paused to exhort the thousands of women present to not give any consideration to a man who did not offer to pay for her dinner. He specifically chided men who would suggest Dutch treat for a first encounter, writing them off as unviable candidates for Godly women. It’s a still small voice telling us God is our true Source. I didn’t hear it yesterday among the cacophony of thousands.
An astoundingly insightful message is found buried in one of the books used by many in recovery. “Either we insist on dominating the people we know, or we depend on them far too much. If we lean too heavily on people, they will sooner or later fail us, for they are human, too, and cannot possibly meet our incessant demands. In this way our insecurity grows and festers. When we habitually try to manipulate others to our own willful desires, they revolt, and resist us heavily. Then we develop hurt feelings, a sense of persecution, and a desire to retaliate. As we redouble our efforts at control, and continue to fail, our suffering becomes acute and constant.”
In an era in which popular culture teaches romance is the answer to all my needs and wants and conservative preachers in vast mega churches tell me to pursue women, to chase them down with meal tickets, it’s difficult to find the true source Who can make my life work; giving me purpose, discipline, motivation, social confidence, guidance, and those much needed pep talks at the exact moment of maximum demoralization after something important to me has imploded.
As Jesus did, it’s sometimes important to go off into the wilderness for a creative absence and figure out just where we are hanging our hat. It’s tough to hear His quiet whisper in the ‘grab-it-all” secular culture we live in. We might just even learn the greatest Gift came wrapped in a crown of honey-locust thorns and welts raised by a Roman cat-o-nine tails.
“I know the thoughts I have for you, thoughts for good not for evil, plans that will give you hope and a future.”
Blessings,
Craig c. Johnson
For a Christmas junkie keeping Christmas trees up all year, the metaphor seems apt for my own life. Every time I see a woman up close or even at a distance across the fitness floor in the gym, I find myself being the little kid at Christmas, wondering what lies beneath the colorful wrapper, not in so much a voyeuristic way as in a much broader one. Grandiose imagination runs amok. Will I suddenly find the person who is going to make my life work; giving me purpose, discipline, motivation, social confidence, guidance, and those much needed pep talks at the exact moment of maximum demoralization after something important to me has imploded?
Eighteen months ago I nearly sold all my positions in life, thinking another person could meet all my needs. I was willing to consider selling my house, casting aside my history, taking inordinate risk. In the intervening months I’ve learned more fully my true deeper needs can only be met by conscious contact with God as a result of a vital spiritual experience. There’s no possibility of another person doing for me only what God can do for me. As long as I believe another person can fulfill all my secret dreams I’m going to be wasting energy, frantically tearing open every life within reach of me. The only assured result for such behavior is leaving behind a wake of emotional trauma in many lives, and gaining for myself increasing social isolation, loneliness, and brooding self doubt.
In the recovery journey we learn ever more deeply only God can meet our deepest needs. After five and a half years on the recovery journey and having nearly torn my life out by the tracks in a romantic fugue a year and a half ago, I still struggle with the object of my faith. Do I really believe God is my true source, or do I still believe one of those beauties in the gym is going to take me to Nirvana? Worse yet, do I believe I can be a knight in shining armor to one of our new arrivals in recovery who has utterly destroyed her life with addictions? Am I to be the savior to one who has no job, no car, no home, and nothing to eat because she gave it all to the crack dealer? There’s sometimes an overwhelming urge in us spiritually unregenerate people to be the big deal strolling into another’s life, saving her from every form of poverty. I see this urge in myself and I see it in others almost daily.
In counseling sessions I hear this with astounding frequency. An intellectually gifted young man with every possible option open to him just related to me his three suicide attempts after his girl friend of ninety days overdosed on heroin and died on his birthday. One wonders just what a struggling heroin addict can do to give one purpose, discipline, motivation, social confidence, guidance, and those much needed pep talks at the exact moment of maximum demoralization after something important has imploded? The young heroin addict could not meet this young man’s needs in any way. She could not meet her own needs and never let God do so. It cost her life itself. The man relating this scenario to me is still unsure, even after being willing to cash out his own life. She imploded. He was not even successful at taking his own life.
When we put all our faith and belief in the ability of another human being to meet our own deep needs, the results are often catastrophic. Rarely does a week pass I don’t observe men and women newly released from prison and rehab facilities falling into each other’s arms and beds, giving up the disciplines and accountability of recovery. They move into shabby apartments or trailers, unemployed, without transportation. They stop coming to meetings and cease doing the recovery work which would bring them to the all-important realization that only God can meet their deepest needs. The incredible gift of sobriety is so often exchanged for the possibilities of romance. Funeral directors here are too often the direct beneficiaries to these ill-advised imaginations of romance.
Melody Beatty has been endowed with a great ability to speak into the hearts of those struggling with addictions and the ill-founded belief another being can meet their needs. In her The Language of Letting Go she implores us to consider “Our happiness is not a present someone else holds in his or her hands. Our well-being is not held by another to be given or withheld at whim. If we reach out and try to force someone to give us what we believe he or she holds, we will be disappointed. We will discover that it is an illusion. The person didn’t hold it. He or she never shall. That beautifully wrapped box with the ribbon on it that we believed contained our happiness … it’s an illusion.”
Henri Nouwen wrote many of his best sellers from the ground of his personal struggles with affective angst and feeling isolated from so many people, this despite being beloved by millions. It was a severe learning for him to come to understand only God could meet his deepest needs. In his The Inner Voice of Love he wrote “A split between divinity and humanity has taken place in you. With your divinely endowed center you know God’s will, God’s way, God’s love. But your humanity is cut off from that. Your many human needs for affection, attention, and consolation are living apart from your divine sacred space. Your call is to let these two parts of yourself come together again. You have to gradually move from crying outward – crying for people who you think can fulfill your needs – to crying inward to the place where you can let yourself be held and carried by God, who has become incarnate in the humanity of those who love you in community. No one person can fulfill all your needs. But the community can truly hold you.”
How often it is we see people leave community, thinking another can meet all his or her needs. So often we see them descend into the abysses of depression, anxiety, addiction, the basement of the undertaker. It was only yesterday I sat with unnumbered thousands in one of the fastest growing churches in the Western Hemisphere, listening to the preacher exhort us men strongly to ‘pursue’ women. Reading easily between the lines one easily came away with the idea an all-out pursuit of women was going to gain us a trophy capable of meeting all our needs. The preacher paused to exhort the thousands of women present to not give any consideration to a man who did not offer to pay for her dinner. He specifically chided men who would suggest Dutch treat for a first encounter, writing them off as unviable candidates for Godly women. It’s a still small voice telling us God is our true Source. I didn’t hear it yesterday among the cacophony of thousands.
An astoundingly insightful message is found buried in one of the books used by many in recovery. “Either we insist on dominating the people we know, or we depend on them far too much. If we lean too heavily on people, they will sooner or later fail us, for they are human, too, and cannot possibly meet our incessant demands. In this way our insecurity grows and festers. When we habitually try to manipulate others to our own willful desires, they revolt, and resist us heavily. Then we develop hurt feelings, a sense of persecution, and a desire to retaliate. As we redouble our efforts at control, and continue to fail, our suffering becomes acute and constant.”
In an era in which popular culture teaches romance is the answer to all my needs and wants and conservative preachers in vast mega churches tell me to pursue women, to chase them down with meal tickets, it’s difficult to find the true source Who can make my life work; giving me purpose, discipline, motivation, social confidence, guidance, and those much needed pep talks at the exact moment of maximum demoralization after something important to me has imploded.
As Jesus did, it’s sometimes important to go off into the wilderness for a creative absence and figure out just where we are hanging our hat. It’s tough to hear His quiet whisper in the ‘grab-it-all” secular culture we live in. We might just even learn the greatest Gift came wrapped in a crown of honey-locust thorns and welts raised by a Roman cat-o-nine tails.
“I know the thoughts I have for you, thoughts for good not for evil, plans that will give you hope and a future.”
Blessings,
Craig c. Johnson
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Conscious Living, Pain Included 3-21-12
Anderson, South Carolina
Research neurologists have some of the most interesting jobs in the world. They are able to study the most complex piece of machinery found in the universe – the central nervous system of Homo sapiens. Having been through the challenges of neurosciences and clinical neurology in medical school I had opportunity to learn firsthand of the astounding capabilities of this automated system, one requiring no oversight on our part. I think we would all agree we’d go nuts if we had to think about dilating our pupils when going into a dark room, of down shifting olfactory sensitivity upon entering a musty basement. Worse would be having to consciously shift blood flow to regulate core body temperature. Tormenting would be staying awake, remembering to draw our next breath. The list goes on endlessly. In First Year basic sciences we studied normal operating procedures for this neurologic wonder keeping us alive and happy. In Second Year we developed a staggering appreciation for this by observing catastrophic consequences arising when any of a hundred nervous system failures occur. British neurologist Oliver Sacks became a bestselling author of the highest order with his The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and The Anthropologist from Mars. He took many amazing literary journeys into the world of neurologic disease and the astounding ability of patients to adapt to their daunting deficits.
We’re so often obsessed with avoiding pain in all its forms, leading many of us to high levels of anxiety and addiction. The late Paul Brandt made huge contributions to the advancement of medicine in his lifework with patients suffering from leprosy. As an orthopedic surgeon working in India for forty years he developed amazing tendon grafting procedures, enabling patients to regain use of hands and feet destroyed by the progression of leprosy. He made the astounding discovering that the entire progression of leprosy and its hideous disfigurement derives from a single cause – the inability to feel pain. It became clear pain functions in ways we never dreamed of. When the organism causing leprosy takes up residence in nerve cells, cells lose the ability to transmit pain signals. With the absence of these signals, patients lose awareness of cuts, nicks, burns, strains, and accumulated insults to fingers, toes, ears, noses, ad infinitum. Resulting infection and trauma causes the erosion and loss of appendages. Brand went on to write a hauntingly beautiful book called Pain: The Gift Nobody Wants. I had the good fortune to meet him in a Medical Society meeting after his compelling lecture on the blessings of pain.
A fellow I met thirteen years ago is an accomplished musician and music therapist. This gentle soul has become one of Oliver Sacks wunderkind, overcoming massive neurologic deficits inflicted by the inexorable advance of Parkinson’s Disease. Parkinson’s involves the malfunction and death of vital nerve cells in the brain. Parkinson's primarily affects neurons in the substantia nigra, an automated center in the brain. Some of these dying neurons produce dopamine, a chemical sending messages to brain regions controlling movement and coordination. As PD progresses, the amount of dopamine produced in the brain decreases, leaving a person unable to control movement normally. Catastrophic consequences ensue. Steve lost the ability to play his flute. He also gained the ability to play his flute for the first time again. Listening to him play a couple of days ago I knew he had overcome. He discovered he could retrain his embouchure, utilizing the plastic adaptive nature of his remaining neurons. He also rode his bike 4,224 miles across the country with three climbs above 10,000 feet, solo with no support following him, pulling a hundred pounds of gear on a trailer. He is doing things most people have no conception of. In two weeks he is going to ride to the Pacific Ocean once again from Edisto Beach in South Carolina, traversing the Cascade Mountains – again solo with no support team. He’s taught me things I never learned in medical school.
In the post-war era there was an explosion of books on positive thinking. A run-away best seller for more than half a century was Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking. Its publication brought much criticism and some of Peale’s closest colleagues distanced themselves from him. Seven million copies and sixty years later, Peale appears to have had the last word. Countless other books have emulated Peale’s work. Much recovery literature dating from the late 1930s offers similar advice about ‘staying in solution’ rather than dwelling in problems. For the millions of people struggling daily with massive neurologic deficits or the extreme challenges of thousands of disorders we studied in Second Year General Pathology and Neuroscience, positive thinking, conscious thinking has been transformative.
A dear friend of mine has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s for five years. Her response has been to make daily journeys to the university swimming pool and to travel extensively. No one told Paula she could not climb pyramids with us all summer in torrid tropical heat. In the years since diagnosis, Paula has climbed just about everything the Mayans ever built and is slated to do it again this summer. She just returned this week from a sixty-day wandering in the Yucatan and Mexican Highlands, still making music every day.
What’s clear is Steve’s a musician, a long distance cyclist of the ilk of Lance Armstrong, a compassionate therapist, not a victim of Parkinson’s. As he states, “Steve has Parkinson’s, but Parkinson’s doesn’t have Steve.” I introduced Paula to Steve a couple days ago. I think the two will have a lot to share with each other. My guess is they won’t talk about Parkinson’s as much as tell stories about their most recent climbs to the summits of conscious living.
Those with leprosy, facing the emotional pain of disfigurement and social isolation learn to embrace pain as a blessing. Those with Sacks’ wide array of neurologic torments engage their pain with often miraculous results. Those with Parkinson’s learn to turn progressive shortcomings into transcendent experiences. As leprosy patients wish they could have, Steve and Paula embrace their pain. At the top of his climb to Loveland Pass at 11,990 feet, Steve’s pain and discouragement had fallen on the wayside. His Parkinson’s grimace gave way to the elation of conscious living – even with its pain. At the top of the steep climb up the pyramid known locally as el Templo de Las Manos Rojas in Yaxha, Guatemala, Paula had forgotten her limitations and pain. Her Parkinson’s grimace gave way to the elation of conscious living – even with its pain.
Thought in the mind hath made us. What we are
By thought we wrought and built. If a man's mind
Hath evil thoughts, pain comes on him as comes
The wheel the ox behind . . . If one endure in purity
of thought joy follows him as his own shadow - sure.
Cherish your visions. Cherish your ideals.
Cherish the music that stirs in your heart,
the beauty that forms in your mind,
the loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts,
for out of them will grow all delightful conditions,
all heavenly environment, of these,
if you but remain true to them your world will at last be built. - James Allen
Research neurologists have some of the most interesting jobs in the world. They are able to study the most complex piece of machinery found in the universe – the central nervous system of Homo sapiens. Having been through the challenges of neurosciences and clinical neurology in medical school I had opportunity to learn firsthand of the astounding capabilities of this automated system, one requiring no oversight on our part. I think we would all agree we’d go nuts if we had to think about dilating our pupils when going into a dark room, of down shifting olfactory sensitivity upon entering a musty basement. Worse would be having to consciously shift blood flow to regulate core body temperature. Tormenting would be staying awake, remembering to draw our next breath. The list goes on endlessly. In First Year basic sciences we studied normal operating procedures for this neurologic wonder keeping us alive and happy. In Second Year we developed a staggering appreciation for this by observing catastrophic consequences arising when any of a hundred nervous system failures occur. British neurologist Oliver Sacks became a bestselling author of the highest order with his The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and The Anthropologist from Mars. He took many amazing literary journeys into the world of neurologic disease and the astounding ability of patients to adapt to their daunting deficits.
We’re so often obsessed with avoiding pain in all its forms, leading many of us to high levels of anxiety and addiction. The late Paul Brandt made huge contributions to the advancement of medicine in his lifework with patients suffering from leprosy. As an orthopedic surgeon working in India for forty years he developed amazing tendon grafting procedures, enabling patients to regain use of hands and feet destroyed by the progression of leprosy. He made the astounding discovering that the entire progression of leprosy and its hideous disfigurement derives from a single cause – the inability to feel pain. It became clear pain functions in ways we never dreamed of. When the organism causing leprosy takes up residence in nerve cells, cells lose the ability to transmit pain signals. With the absence of these signals, patients lose awareness of cuts, nicks, burns, strains, and accumulated insults to fingers, toes, ears, noses, ad infinitum. Resulting infection and trauma causes the erosion and loss of appendages. Brand went on to write a hauntingly beautiful book called Pain: The Gift Nobody Wants. I had the good fortune to meet him in a Medical Society meeting after his compelling lecture on the blessings of pain.
A fellow I met thirteen years ago is an accomplished musician and music therapist. This gentle soul has become one of Oliver Sacks wunderkind, overcoming massive neurologic deficits inflicted by the inexorable advance of Parkinson’s Disease. Parkinson’s involves the malfunction and death of vital nerve cells in the brain. Parkinson's primarily affects neurons in the substantia nigra, an automated center in the brain. Some of these dying neurons produce dopamine, a chemical sending messages to brain regions controlling movement and coordination. As PD progresses, the amount of dopamine produced in the brain decreases, leaving a person unable to control movement normally. Catastrophic consequences ensue. Steve lost the ability to play his flute. He also gained the ability to play his flute for the first time again. Listening to him play a couple of days ago I knew he had overcome. He discovered he could retrain his embouchure, utilizing the plastic adaptive nature of his remaining neurons. He also rode his bike 4,224 miles across the country with three climbs above 10,000 feet, solo with no support following him, pulling a hundred pounds of gear on a trailer. He is doing things most people have no conception of. In two weeks he is going to ride to the Pacific Ocean once again from Edisto Beach in South Carolina, traversing the Cascade Mountains – again solo with no support team. He’s taught me things I never learned in medical school.
In the post-war era there was an explosion of books on positive thinking. A run-away best seller for more than half a century was Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking. Its publication brought much criticism and some of Peale’s closest colleagues distanced themselves from him. Seven million copies and sixty years later, Peale appears to have had the last word. Countless other books have emulated Peale’s work. Much recovery literature dating from the late 1930s offers similar advice about ‘staying in solution’ rather than dwelling in problems. For the millions of people struggling daily with massive neurologic deficits or the extreme challenges of thousands of disorders we studied in Second Year General Pathology and Neuroscience, positive thinking, conscious thinking has been transformative.
A dear friend of mine has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s for five years. Her response has been to make daily journeys to the university swimming pool and to travel extensively. No one told Paula she could not climb pyramids with us all summer in torrid tropical heat. In the years since diagnosis, Paula has climbed just about everything the Mayans ever built and is slated to do it again this summer. She just returned this week from a sixty-day wandering in the Yucatan and Mexican Highlands, still making music every day.
What’s clear is Steve’s a musician, a long distance cyclist of the ilk of Lance Armstrong, a compassionate therapist, not a victim of Parkinson’s. As he states, “Steve has Parkinson’s, but Parkinson’s doesn’t have Steve.” I introduced Paula to Steve a couple days ago. I think the two will have a lot to share with each other. My guess is they won’t talk about Parkinson’s as much as tell stories about their most recent climbs to the summits of conscious living.
Those with leprosy, facing the emotional pain of disfigurement and social isolation learn to embrace pain as a blessing. Those with Sacks’ wide array of neurologic torments engage their pain with often miraculous results. Those with Parkinson’s learn to turn progressive shortcomings into transcendent experiences. As leprosy patients wish they could have, Steve and Paula embrace their pain. At the top of his climb to Loveland Pass at 11,990 feet, Steve’s pain and discouragement had fallen on the wayside. His Parkinson’s grimace gave way to the elation of conscious living – even with its pain. At the top of the steep climb up the pyramid known locally as el Templo de Las Manos Rojas in Yaxha, Guatemala, Paula had forgotten her limitations and pain. Her Parkinson’s grimace gave way to the elation of conscious living – even with its pain.
Thought in the mind hath made us. What we are
By thought we wrought and built. If a man's mind
Hath evil thoughts, pain comes on him as comes
The wheel the ox behind . . . If one endure in purity
of thought joy follows him as his own shadow - sure.
Cherish your visions. Cherish your ideals.
Cherish the music that stirs in your heart,
the beauty that forms in your mind,
the loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts,
for out of them will grow all delightful conditions,
all heavenly environment, of these,
if you but remain true to them your world will at last be built. - James Allen
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Standing in Line 2-27-12
Columbia, South Carolina
While in a distant city for a series of meetings I had opportunity to meet a volunteer involved with a feeding ministry, one offering free meals to about three hundred and fifty of Columbia’s destitute on Sunday mornings. I was invited to show up in the morning to see the program underway; even to eat with ‘them.’ Intentionally waiting towards the end of the appointed serving hours, I drove six miles to the cathedral offering hot breakfast. Expecting to find a mostly empty venue where I could easily park, go in and get a bite to eat, and then go next door to the elegant cathedral for a Sunday service, I instead found hundreds of men on site, lined up out the door waiting to get a ticket for a free meal.
In a nano-second I discovered my ego had not yet been right-sized despite working with destitute alcoholics and addicts daily for more than five years. There was no way I was going to stand in that line with ‘them.’ In a fraction of a second, my sense of haughty superiority and privilege was revealed in full measure. Sitting there in my car I looked for excuses to not get out, to get in line, to be among the people; legitimate excuses were found wanting. I even considered just skipping the whole matter, starting the car and driving the three hours home. Fooling with my phone, doing a bit of reading, being self-important, squirming, I finally got out and walked over, hoping to not have to stand outside in that line and be seen. It mattered little that I was in a city new to me and knew no one whatever. Ego and the tyranny of people’s opinion are hard taskmasters.
My wait in line was brief as the serving process was rather efficient. Sitting at a round table with a group of men from the street and a nearby shelter, I was given a lesson in humility by these august teachers. They clearly described needing to be given an opportunity to learn how to fish, not to just be given a hot plate of it and sent on their way. These men expressed powerful motivation to gain employment. One of them had a clear vision for empowering other men on the mysteries of setting up free e-mail accounts and applying on line for jobs using public library computers. One made the acerbic observation that a good number of people driving around town were only one or two paychecks away from joining the group in the soup line. These men were thinking about ways to empower and help each other to stay clean and sober, to gain jobs, to break out of their dependencies. In front of me they admitted worrying about their inclinations to spend what money they get a hold of on cheap hotels, crack, alcohol, and women; owned their need for accountability. I was worrying about what strangers might think of me if they saw me standing in this soup line with my Sunday go-to-meeting clothes on.
In recovery we’re taught clearly the only way to live successfully is to be totally honest with ourselves, to work a thorough program, avoiding half measures, to trust God entirely. In a moment of self-honesty, while listening to these teachers I quickly realized much of my life motivation has been nothing short of insipid. In front of me, a stranger, these men were owning out loud their fundamental character flaws and weaknesses. Hiding alone in my car, I was afraid a stranger might wonder why the well-dressed guy was standing in the soup line.
I have to be honest in admitting some relief at much of the crowd of ‘them’ clearing out, the hired police going back to where hired police come from, the fresh cut flowers being put back on the tables in preparation for the well-heeled and educated of Columbia who would come into the great hall for their coffee and cookies between services. I also have to admit in many respects the crystalline transparency of these men with doctorates in survival made it much easier being with them than a building full of well-dressed people wanting to be self-important, people just like me.
"My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. For if a man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and there also comes in a poor man in dirty clothes, and you pay special attention to the one who is wearing the fine clothes, and say, “You sit here in a good place,” and you say to the poor man, “You stand over there, or sit down by my footstool,” have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil motives? Listen, my beloved brethren: did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Is it not the rich who oppress you and personally drag you into court? Do they not blaspheme the fair name by which you have been called? If, however, you are fulfilling the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.”
It’s often stated, “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” Sometimes a table full of them shows up. I can only pray I might be ready for what they have to say to me. As it is, I have no recollection whatever of what was said from the magnificent highly-polished pulpit by any of the five officiating priests in their embroidered vestments. I remember exactly what several barely-articulate destitute men spoke into my life with great clarity. I took notes during their lecture.
While in a distant city for a series of meetings I had opportunity to meet a volunteer involved with a feeding ministry, one offering free meals to about three hundred and fifty of Columbia’s destitute on Sunday mornings. I was invited to show up in the morning to see the program underway; even to eat with ‘them.’ Intentionally waiting towards the end of the appointed serving hours, I drove six miles to the cathedral offering hot breakfast. Expecting to find a mostly empty venue where I could easily park, go in and get a bite to eat, and then go next door to the elegant cathedral for a Sunday service, I instead found hundreds of men on site, lined up out the door waiting to get a ticket for a free meal.
In a nano-second I discovered my ego had not yet been right-sized despite working with destitute alcoholics and addicts daily for more than five years. There was no way I was going to stand in that line with ‘them.’ In a fraction of a second, my sense of haughty superiority and privilege was revealed in full measure. Sitting there in my car I looked for excuses to not get out, to get in line, to be among the people; legitimate excuses were found wanting. I even considered just skipping the whole matter, starting the car and driving the three hours home. Fooling with my phone, doing a bit of reading, being self-important, squirming, I finally got out and walked over, hoping to not have to stand outside in that line and be seen. It mattered little that I was in a city new to me and knew no one whatever. Ego and the tyranny of people’s opinion are hard taskmasters.
My wait in line was brief as the serving process was rather efficient. Sitting at a round table with a group of men from the street and a nearby shelter, I was given a lesson in humility by these august teachers. They clearly described needing to be given an opportunity to learn how to fish, not to just be given a hot plate of it and sent on their way. These men expressed powerful motivation to gain employment. One of them had a clear vision for empowering other men on the mysteries of setting up free e-mail accounts and applying on line for jobs using public library computers. One made the acerbic observation that a good number of people driving around town were only one or two paychecks away from joining the group in the soup line. These men were thinking about ways to empower and help each other to stay clean and sober, to gain jobs, to break out of their dependencies. In front of me they admitted worrying about their inclinations to spend what money they get a hold of on cheap hotels, crack, alcohol, and women; owned their need for accountability. I was worrying about what strangers might think of me if they saw me standing in this soup line with my Sunday go-to-meeting clothes on.
In recovery we’re taught clearly the only way to live successfully is to be totally honest with ourselves, to work a thorough program, avoiding half measures, to trust God entirely. In a moment of self-honesty, while listening to these teachers I quickly realized much of my life motivation has been nothing short of insipid. In front of me, a stranger, these men were owning out loud their fundamental character flaws and weaknesses. Hiding alone in my car, I was afraid a stranger might wonder why the well-dressed guy was standing in the soup line.
I have to be honest in admitting some relief at much of the crowd of ‘them’ clearing out, the hired police going back to where hired police come from, the fresh cut flowers being put back on the tables in preparation for the well-heeled and educated of Columbia who would come into the great hall for their coffee and cookies between services. I also have to admit in many respects the crystalline transparency of these men with doctorates in survival made it much easier being with them than a building full of well-dressed people wanting to be self-important, people just like me.
"My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. For if a man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and there also comes in a poor man in dirty clothes, and you pay special attention to the one who is wearing the fine clothes, and say, “You sit here in a good place,” and you say to the poor man, “You stand over there, or sit down by my footstool,” have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil motives? Listen, my beloved brethren: did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Is it not the rich who oppress you and personally drag you into court? Do they not blaspheme the fair name by which you have been called? If, however, you are fulfilling the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.”
It’s often stated, “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” Sometimes a table full of them shows up. I can only pray I might be ready for what they have to say to me. As it is, I have no recollection whatever of what was said from the magnificent highly-polished pulpit by any of the five officiating priests in their embroidered vestments. I remember exactly what several barely-articulate destitute men spoke into my life with great clarity. I took notes during their lecture.
On Higher Ground 2-16-12
Anderson, South Carolina
One of the most staggeringly beautiful of phenomenon is found in the center of one of nature’s most terrifying phenomenon. The eye of a hurricane is one of the most peaceful places imaginable. Low barometric pressure and virtual absence of any wind give a sense of tranquility belying the terror in the near distance. Under clear cerulean skies one has unobstructed views of spectacular towering cloud formations making up the inner eyewall of the hurricane’s structure.
In those beautiful clouds peak winds can easily exceed 210 miles per hour. Hurricane Camille raked across Biloxi, MS in 1969 with sustained winds of 205-210 miles per hour. In 1995 Wilma's minimum central pressure reached 882 mb, the lowest pressure ever recorded for an Atlantic tropical cyclone. This storm maintained winds of 175 MPH. When those winds rake across anything constructed by mankind, all is scoured off as so much soap scum.
The Great Galveston Hurricane of 1900 was the most lethal hurricane to ever hit the United States, causing as many as twelve thousand deaths. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 killed as many as eighteen hundred and fifty people, destroying most of a venerable city in the process. Katrina made United States landfall at three different locations, first at the Miami-Dade/Broward county line in Florida, dropping ten to fourteen inches of rain, just after reaching hurricane status. After traversing Florida it strengthened in the Gulf of Mexico making landfall near Buras, Louisiana and again near the Louisiana/Mississippi border as a Category 3 hurricane. Katrina’s highest storm surge of 25 to 28 feet occurred along the Mississippi coast while dropping eight to twelve inches of rain inland from the northern Gulf coast, spawning thirty-three tornadoes.
Theoretical limits of hurricane wind speeds indicate maximum sustained winds are around 200 MPH with peak gusts not much higher, perhaps 215 MPH. On the gas giant Jupiter, sustained winds exceed 1,200 MPH, lasting for years. The staggeringly beautiful phenomenon of Jovian planetary banding and red spotting are the result of intense wind. One can only imagine the scouring effect of a twelve hundred mile per hour blast of liquefied methane and ammonia.
On earth we can take heart in knowing hurricanes have short life cycles and eventually fade away as do dancing dust devils on autumn days. Paying attention to evacuation orders we can move inland to safety. Alas, some of the greatest hazards to life don’t come with evacuation routes and storm shelters. At the center of personal storms there’s no hauntingly beautiful eye where one can take rest or evacuation routes one can follow to safety. One cannot flee cancer by loading up the car and heading inland. Those caught in the utter blackness of alcoholism and addiction have no refuge from the battering consequences of active addiction. Those trapped in affective prisons of mental illness, often consigned to life-long confinement in psychotropic nightmares from the local pharmacy, can’t head to higher ground.
Life happens.
People get cancer. Companies downsize their best employees. Natural disasters destroy our cities. Relationships fail. Spirits break. Individuals taking pain killers for bad backs unwittingly enter into nightmares of iatrogenic drug addiction. Ten percent of American children suffer severe consequences from living with an alcoholic parent. Like many, I was given conventional wisdom, “It won’t get any better, live with it.” Some choose not to.
On Tuesday, a gray bleak day, a thousand of us gathered in the cemetery to take shovels and bury a thirty year old man, prosperous, attractive, well-respected. We watched in tentative silence as cemetery workers set the vault, lowered the coffin, sealed the vault, and handed out shovels. The officiating undertaker described the deceased as one desperately in need of being in control and when he felt his life had spiraled out of control, he saw only one option and took it. He took an escape route that did not lead to higher ground.
I have two long standing friends in dire circumstances now considering death as an option. It’s difficult to convince them hurricanes do eventually lose their strength and calm returns in God’s world. Another friend of mine is dealing with the consequences of his wife taking this same escape route. Fortunately, my friend is discovering a route taking him out of his grief onto Higher Ground.
Our culture is so about being strong, independent, and self-reliant, never letting on to our fears and weaknesses. If these we lost had done as we unceasingly exhort those in recovery to do, share feelings, talk about them, own their fears, they might have had a chance to decompress their pain to manageable levels until they could get a grip on their life circumstances, ones most of us would take on happily. By giving up illusions of control and admitting powerlessness, they might have done the one truly powerful thing that could have saved their lives. I can only pray my friends still above ground will choose the route to Higher Ground and let go.
Is it possible after all one can find evacuation routes away from the vortex of existential crisis, mental illness, addiction, cancer, divorce, unemployment? Five years after being told I had no evacuation route from my own affective cyclonic storms, I’ve found compelling evidence suggesting there’s a way to Higher Ground. My standing on it is all the proof I need. I have numerous friends and family hammered relentlessly by cancer, yet strong in spirit and quality of life, standing on Higher Ground, even if missing a lot of body parts. Another has endured seventy-five surgeries. Downsized friends speak of liberation from the tyranny of corporate culture and the wonder of simplicity. I find great joy working in an institutional kitchen for no pay, sometimes just peeling hard-boiled eggs.
In recovery we learn there’s a calm eye in the storms of our lives, if we but allow it to form around us. By owning our true powerlessness we become powerful in ways unimagined. An anonymous imperative suggests, “I will try to be unruffled, no matter what happens. I will keep my emotions in check, although others about me are letting their go. I will keep calm in the face of disturbance, keep that deep, inner calm throughout the experiences of the day.”
The Apostle Paul exhorts us to “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.”
And He might lead you to Higher Ground. Just ask.
One of the most staggeringly beautiful of phenomenon is found in the center of one of nature’s most terrifying phenomenon. The eye of a hurricane is one of the most peaceful places imaginable. Low barometric pressure and virtual absence of any wind give a sense of tranquility belying the terror in the near distance. Under clear cerulean skies one has unobstructed views of spectacular towering cloud formations making up the inner eyewall of the hurricane’s structure.
In those beautiful clouds peak winds can easily exceed 210 miles per hour. Hurricane Camille raked across Biloxi, MS in 1969 with sustained winds of 205-210 miles per hour. In 1995 Wilma's minimum central pressure reached 882 mb, the lowest pressure ever recorded for an Atlantic tropical cyclone. This storm maintained winds of 175 MPH. When those winds rake across anything constructed by mankind, all is scoured off as so much soap scum.
The Great Galveston Hurricane of 1900 was the most lethal hurricane to ever hit the United States, causing as many as twelve thousand deaths. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 killed as many as eighteen hundred and fifty people, destroying most of a venerable city in the process. Katrina made United States landfall at three different locations, first at the Miami-Dade/Broward county line in Florida, dropping ten to fourteen inches of rain, just after reaching hurricane status. After traversing Florida it strengthened in the Gulf of Mexico making landfall near Buras, Louisiana and again near the Louisiana/Mississippi border as a Category 3 hurricane. Katrina’s highest storm surge of 25 to 28 feet occurred along the Mississippi coast while dropping eight to twelve inches of rain inland from the northern Gulf coast, spawning thirty-three tornadoes.
Theoretical limits of hurricane wind speeds indicate maximum sustained winds are around 200 MPH with peak gusts not much higher, perhaps 215 MPH. On the gas giant Jupiter, sustained winds exceed 1,200 MPH, lasting for years. The staggeringly beautiful phenomenon of Jovian planetary banding and red spotting are the result of intense wind. One can only imagine the scouring effect of a twelve hundred mile per hour blast of liquefied methane and ammonia.
On earth we can take heart in knowing hurricanes have short life cycles and eventually fade away as do dancing dust devils on autumn days. Paying attention to evacuation orders we can move inland to safety. Alas, some of the greatest hazards to life don’t come with evacuation routes and storm shelters. At the center of personal storms there’s no hauntingly beautiful eye where one can take rest or evacuation routes one can follow to safety. One cannot flee cancer by loading up the car and heading inland. Those caught in the utter blackness of alcoholism and addiction have no refuge from the battering consequences of active addiction. Those trapped in affective prisons of mental illness, often consigned to life-long confinement in psychotropic nightmares from the local pharmacy, can’t head to higher ground.
Life happens.
People get cancer. Companies downsize their best employees. Natural disasters destroy our cities. Relationships fail. Spirits break. Individuals taking pain killers for bad backs unwittingly enter into nightmares of iatrogenic drug addiction. Ten percent of American children suffer severe consequences from living with an alcoholic parent. Like many, I was given conventional wisdom, “It won’t get any better, live with it.” Some choose not to.
On Tuesday, a gray bleak day, a thousand of us gathered in the cemetery to take shovels and bury a thirty year old man, prosperous, attractive, well-respected. We watched in tentative silence as cemetery workers set the vault, lowered the coffin, sealed the vault, and handed out shovels. The officiating undertaker described the deceased as one desperately in need of being in control and when he felt his life had spiraled out of control, he saw only one option and took it. He took an escape route that did not lead to higher ground.
I have two long standing friends in dire circumstances now considering death as an option. It’s difficult to convince them hurricanes do eventually lose their strength and calm returns in God’s world. Another friend of mine is dealing with the consequences of his wife taking this same escape route. Fortunately, my friend is discovering a route taking him out of his grief onto Higher Ground.
Our culture is so about being strong, independent, and self-reliant, never letting on to our fears and weaknesses. If these we lost had done as we unceasingly exhort those in recovery to do, share feelings, talk about them, own their fears, they might have had a chance to decompress their pain to manageable levels until they could get a grip on their life circumstances, ones most of us would take on happily. By giving up illusions of control and admitting powerlessness, they might have done the one truly powerful thing that could have saved their lives. I can only pray my friends still above ground will choose the route to Higher Ground and let go.
Is it possible after all one can find evacuation routes away from the vortex of existential crisis, mental illness, addiction, cancer, divorce, unemployment? Five years after being told I had no evacuation route from my own affective cyclonic storms, I’ve found compelling evidence suggesting there’s a way to Higher Ground. My standing on it is all the proof I need. I have numerous friends and family hammered relentlessly by cancer, yet strong in spirit and quality of life, standing on Higher Ground, even if missing a lot of body parts. Another has endured seventy-five surgeries. Downsized friends speak of liberation from the tyranny of corporate culture and the wonder of simplicity. I find great joy working in an institutional kitchen for no pay, sometimes just peeling hard-boiled eggs.
In recovery we learn there’s a calm eye in the storms of our lives, if we but allow it to form around us. By owning our true powerlessness we become powerful in ways unimagined. An anonymous imperative suggests, “I will try to be unruffled, no matter what happens. I will keep my emotions in check, although others about me are letting their go. I will keep calm in the face of disturbance, keep that deep, inner calm throughout the experiences of the day.”
The Apostle Paul exhorts us to “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.”
And He might lead you to Higher Ground. Just ask.
Just Enough is a Feast 2-13-12
Anderson, South Carolina
Circumstances worked out for me to participate in a three-day wedding extravaganza in Torino, Italy. The venue for this grand nuptial banquet was a wondrous sienna brick castle with its moat and draw bridge still intact. One can only wonder at the stories held in mute secrecy by those seven hundred year old walls.
At 3 PM we guests convened with the wedding party under marquees in the bottom of the drained and landscaped moat for assorted spirits and starters, lifting toasts to two lives reaching unity in love. About 4 PM we entered a grand ballroom from another world, decorated with epic battle paintings and inlaid parquet floors, illuminated by grandiose chandeliers, looking like something from the winter palaces of Russia. At 9 PM we slowly staggered out of the banquet hall having gained something on the order of five pounds or more, bloated into absolute misery.
Perhaps an hour or so into the main feast, wondering just how many courses there were to be, it seemed expedient to start writing down exactly what we were eating. It would make the stuff of great party conversation. Various platters of whole flaming things, feathered things, things still recognizable as once living beings, and dozens of side dishes filled out a full fifteen-course spread that effectively bankrupted the bride’s family. During those six hours I often wished we had Styrofoam coolers, dry ice and Tupperware. This one gut-wrenching feast would have fed me in opulence for two weeks. I think our collective post-prandial wretchedness was the equal or greater than the misery experienced during a forty-day religious fast. I nearly had an existential crisis, wondering if there wasn’t some middle ground, a Holy Grail of moderation.
Last night I dined from a plastic tray on a bedside table in a seventh floor hospital room. A dear friend attempting to qualify for lung transplant has spent much of the past year hospitalized. We have occasional dinner dates in Karen’s room and dream of making a road trip to the nearest transplant center; I’m appointed her medical guardian if she’s granted this chance at new life. I stop by the cafeteria to buy dinner, timing my arrival to match her meal service. My friend’s medical condition is such that eating much of anything makes her bloated beyond measure, creating breathless misery. Consequentially her four-ounce yogurt and fruit cocktail containers became my dessert course after I dispatched a vegetable plate and small salad.
Karen’s room faces the helipad, well illuminated with intense red and green landing lights. She commented how it always looks like Christmas when she gazes out the window at night. What an attitude. Someone suffocating with end-stage lung disease, confined for nearly a year, unable to walk to the bathroom, thinks the world looks like Christmas. I sat there thinking how good my vegetable plate tasted to me, enjoying a good friend’s upbeat attitude. I had a fine banquet, one from which I left feeling light of foot and spirit, not bloated with the misery that comes from trying to grasp too much from the world, from life itself. No one was bankrupted paying for this repast; $4.12, tax included.
A family nearly bankrupted itself trying to grasp for too much, pretending financial abundance, only to send guests away in the dark, miserable and burdened down. I had dinner last night in a world that looks like Christmas all year to one who needs the ultimate gift of life – new lungs – something another will offer as a supreme gift in death. No amount of money could buy such a gift. Karen knows that gift will come from the one who invented Christmas. She often dreams of a giant Christmas tree with pink lungs on it.
Sitting in a recovery meeting recently, one of our members was speaking about contentment and acceptance. Out of the mouth of this life-worn man came the most profound thing I’ve heard in a while, ‘enough is a feast.’ It took me a moment to grasp what he had just said; the theological implications offered the makings of several sermons.
Contentment and acceptance are mission-critical aspects of successful long-term sobriety. Without them, resentment fuels emotional pain more than capable of driving one back into catastrophic addiction. This newly-sober alcoholic was in wonder at having found the Holy Grail of moderation, not too much, not too little, enough, the fertile soil of contentment. In between too much and too little, he found by being average of station and resource he could be quite at peace with himself, God, and his world. He had grasped contentment, a prize nearly the equal of new lungs.
The Apostle Paul made a declaration of acceptance and contentment in his own life, one that’s been a foundational imperative for two millennia: rest in contentment, no matter one’s state of affairs. “I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren; I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need.”
Those in recovery often speak of dealing with life on life’s terms. Sometimes we eat in castles. Sometimes we eat on plastic trays. Sometimes health is robust. At other times illness takes our breath away. We learn to turn our lives and will over to the care of God, asking only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. When we let him do the choosing, we get His best. Then we really have reason for the world to look like Christmas every day, no matter what.
Circumstances worked out for me to participate in a three-day wedding extravaganza in Torino, Italy. The venue for this grand nuptial banquet was a wondrous sienna brick castle with its moat and draw bridge still intact. One can only wonder at the stories held in mute secrecy by those seven hundred year old walls.
At 3 PM we guests convened with the wedding party under marquees in the bottom of the drained and landscaped moat for assorted spirits and starters, lifting toasts to two lives reaching unity in love. About 4 PM we entered a grand ballroom from another world, decorated with epic battle paintings and inlaid parquet floors, illuminated by grandiose chandeliers, looking like something from the winter palaces of Russia. At 9 PM we slowly staggered out of the banquet hall having gained something on the order of five pounds or more, bloated into absolute misery.
Perhaps an hour or so into the main feast, wondering just how many courses there were to be, it seemed expedient to start writing down exactly what we were eating. It would make the stuff of great party conversation. Various platters of whole flaming things, feathered things, things still recognizable as once living beings, and dozens of side dishes filled out a full fifteen-course spread that effectively bankrupted the bride’s family. During those six hours I often wished we had Styrofoam coolers, dry ice and Tupperware. This one gut-wrenching feast would have fed me in opulence for two weeks. I think our collective post-prandial wretchedness was the equal or greater than the misery experienced during a forty-day religious fast. I nearly had an existential crisis, wondering if there wasn’t some middle ground, a Holy Grail of moderation.
Last night I dined from a plastic tray on a bedside table in a seventh floor hospital room. A dear friend attempting to qualify for lung transplant has spent much of the past year hospitalized. We have occasional dinner dates in Karen’s room and dream of making a road trip to the nearest transplant center; I’m appointed her medical guardian if she’s granted this chance at new life. I stop by the cafeteria to buy dinner, timing my arrival to match her meal service. My friend’s medical condition is such that eating much of anything makes her bloated beyond measure, creating breathless misery. Consequentially her four-ounce yogurt and fruit cocktail containers became my dessert course after I dispatched a vegetable plate and small salad.
Karen’s room faces the helipad, well illuminated with intense red and green landing lights. She commented how it always looks like Christmas when she gazes out the window at night. What an attitude. Someone suffocating with end-stage lung disease, confined for nearly a year, unable to walk to the bathroom, thinks the world looks like Christmas. I sat there thinking how good my vegetable plate tasted to me, enjoying a good friend’s upbeat attitude. I had a fine banquet, one from which I left feeling light of foot and spirit, not bloated with the misery that comes from trying to grasp too much from the world, from life itself. No one was bankrupted paying for this repast; $4.12, tax included.
A family nearly bankrupted itself trying to grasp for too much, pretending financial abundance, only to send guests away in the dark, miserable and burdened down. I had dinner last night in a world that looks like Christmas all year to one who needs the ultimate gift of life – new lungs – something another will offer as a supreme gift in death. No amount of money could buy such a gift. Karen knows that gift will come from the one who invented Christmas. She often dreams of a giant Christmas tree with pink lungs on it.
Sitting in a recovery meeting recently, one of our members was speaking about contentment and acceptance. Out of the mouth of this life-worn man came the most profound thing I’ve heard in a while, ‘enough is a feast.’ It took me a moment to grasp what he had just said; the theological implications offered the makings of several sermons.
Contentment and acceptance are mission-critical aspects of successful long-term sobriety. Without them, resentment fuels emotional pain more than capable of driving one back into catastrophic addiction. This newly-sober alcoholic was in wonder at having found the Holy Grail of moderation, not too much, not too little, enough, the fertile soil of contentment. In between too much and too little, he found by being average of station and resource he could be quite at peace with himself, God, and his world. He had grasped contentment, a prize nearly the equal of new lungs.
The Apostle Paul made a declaration of acceptance and contentment in his own life, one that’s been a foundational imperative for two millennia: rest in contentment, no matter one’s state of affairs. “I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren; I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need.”
Those in recovery often speak of dealing with life on life’s terms. Sometimes we eat in castles. Sometimes we eat on plastic trays. Sometimes health is robust. At other times illness takes our breath away. We learn to turn our lives and will over to the care of God, asking only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. When we let him do the choosing, we get His best. Then we really have reason for the world to look like Christmas every day, no matter what.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
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.
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.
Turning Either to the Left or Right 2-8-12
Anderson, South Carolina
On Sunday, June 28, 1914, a driver made a wrong turn into a dead-end side street in Sarajevo. At approximately 10:45 am, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were killed by an assassin working for the Black Hand. His assassination in Sarajevo precipitated Austria-Hungary's declaration of war against Serbia. This caused the Central Powers (including Germany, Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire, and Austria-Hungary) and the allies of Serbia to declare war on each other, starting World War I. When the smoke cleared four and a half years later, 16,543,868 military and civilian deaths were recorded. 21,228,813 military wounded were recorded for twenty-two nations.
In recovery meetings alcoholics and drug addicts often quip about making wrong turns, ending up in liquor stores or crack houses. Tragically for many, the quips turn into catastrophic repeated realties. Recently a man I was working with made a left turn onto Gossett Street, driving to the scrap metal yard at the end of the road. There he was paid $400 from an automated ATM in exchange for the title to his perfectly fine car, worth thousands. The scrap metal yard proceeded to grind up the car for scrap metal, with my set of mechanics tools still in the trunk. He proceeded to ‘hire’ a cocaine prostitute and in mere hours destroyed his life, losing his place to live, his car, job, and a loving fellowship of men and women who were highly supportive of him over the previous months. He was confined to a psychiatric lock-up, where he experienced a nightmarish week. He was released only to again make a wrong turn, ending up in a place of incomprehensible demoralization; at the end of yet another crack cocaine run. We had to let him go.
One of our women left an evening recovery meeting several months ago on foot and immediately made a left turn on Murray Avenue to visit one of the conveniently located nearby crack houses. After a quick hard crack run in the house she re-crossed Murray Avenue only to be hit by a car going one direction at high speed. Catapulted across the four-lane roadway, she was run-over by a car going the other direction. Wrong turns produced a catastrophic result for her.
Duke Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were on a humanitarian visit to a war hospital when they died as a result of their driver making an unintentional wrong turn into a dead end street, where an assassin spotted them. Cocaine addicts make intentional wrong turns and shred the fabric of their lives. One destroyed herself in seconds. In one scenario millions died, in two others but one was lost at a time. One cannot overstate consequences coming from making wrong turns, intended or not. Most of us can recall vivid memories of decision points in our lives, points we would pay dearly for the opportunity to revisit with the greater wisdom and knowledge of hindsight. Alas, we have no practice runs at life.
One of the on-going challenges in recovery work is allowing people to make wrong turns in their lives, not getting in the way of their bottoms. We learn quickly we cannot protect people from making wrong turns. No one can protect Archdukes from unintentional turns into blind alleys. No one can protect alcoholics and addicts from liquor stores and crack houses. They must learn to seek defense for themselves against their own demons. Assassins and drug dealers are inclined to get the same macabre results.
We can’t predict where assassins might show up but we can predict with total certainty the results of unmitigated alcoholic drinking and drug use. The insanity of addiction comes from its victims continuing their deadly turns, despite knowledge of near-certain extinction. Since the Armistice in 1918 that brought an end to World War 1, one can estimate somewhere between five and eight million citizens died in the United States alone from alcohol and drug abuse. Yet much of the American entertainment, hospitality, and sports industries are financed by producers of alcohol, a well-known gateway to other drugs. If one were to capture data from the thirty nations involved in World War 1, results would reveal more have died from intentional wrong turns into alcohol and drugs than died in the Great War to end all wars. Nearly a century later we fight an ongoing war with no Armistice in the works.
Last night after enjoying an early evening birthday dinner with thirty friends, I made a right turn onto Calhoun Street, ending up on the university campus. In the recital hall an accomplished pianist and a splendid lyric opera singer provided rapturous renditions of French arias and classical songs. As I sat there, feeling far removed from the nightmarish world of alcoholism and drug abuse, I thought about the turns these two finely synchronized musicians made in their lives. Not picking the easier softer way in life, they spent hours in tedious practice and study, preparing for effective careers as performers and professors. I thought of how they made turns giving affirmation and inspiration to their students, encouraging them to find life down Calhoun Street rather than on the other side of Murray Avenue. How very close these utterly different universes are to one another, yet so far.
As I walked across campus on an unusually warm winter evening, I wondered about turns the young idealistic students about me were going to make, how they would find the right turns to meaningful rewarding lives, avoiding the left turns leading to destruction. How would their decision-making skills work when faced with the inevitable turbulence that comes with life.
In my work with those recovering from alcoholism and addition, I stress the importance of seeking divine guidance in all the affairs of life. Life can be vexing and decision making very difficult, especially when emotions and objectivity have been distorted by addiction. The way alcoholics and addicts can achieve effective defense against the demons of alcohol and drugs is to press hard into the heart of God, seeking Him in all affairs of life, especially in the multitude of life’s decisions, be it to turn right on Calhoun Street and end up in the recital hall or to turn left, crossing Murray Avenue and ending up in death’s den.
The eleventh step in recovery declares “Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.” Eighty years of collective experience by millions in recovery underscore the vast benefits deriving from trusting God about where to make our turns in life. “As we go through the day we pause, when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the right thought or action. We constantly remind ourselves we are no longer running the show, humbly saying to ourselves many times each day, “Thy will be done.” We are then in much less danger of excitement, fear, anger, worry, self-pity, or foolish decisions.”
We just might get across the street safely and enjoy a rapturous song.
On Sunday, June 28, 1914, a driver made a wrong turn into a dead-end side street in Sarajevo. At approximately 10:45 am, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were killed by an assassin working for the Black Hand. His assassination in Sarajevo precipitated Austria-Hungary's declaration of war against Serbia. This caused the Central Powers (including Germany, Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire, and Austria-Hungary) and the allies of Serbia to declare war on each other, starting World War I. When the smoke cleared four and a half years later, 16,543,868 military and civilian deaths were recorded. 21,228,813 military wounded were recorded for twenty-two nations.
In recovery meetings alcoholics and drug addicts often quip about making wrong turns, ending up in liquor stores or crack houses. Tragically for many, the quips turn into catastrophic repeated realties. Recently a man I was working with made a left turn onto Gossett Street, driving to the scrap metal yard at the end of the road. There he was paid $400 from an automated ATM in exchange for the title to his perfectly fine car, worth thousands. The scrap metal yard proceeded to grind up the car for scrap metal, with my set of mechanics tools still in the trunk. He proceeded to ‘hire’ a cocaine prostitute and in mere hours destroyed his life, losing his place to live, his car, job, and a loving fellowship of men and women who were highly supportive of him over the previous months. He was confined to a psychiatric lock-up, where he experienced a nightmarish week. He was released only to again make a wrong turn, ending up in a place of incomprehensible demoralization; at the end of yet another crack cocaine run. We had to let him go.
One of our women left an evening recovery meeting several months ago on foot and immediately made a left turn on Murray Avenue to visit one of the conveniently located nearby crack houses. After a quick hard crack run in the house she re-crossed Murray Avenue only to be hit by a car going one direction at high speed. Catapulted across the four-lane roadway, she was run-over by a car going the other direction. Wrong turns produced a catastrophic result for her.
Duke Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were on a humanitarian visit to a war hospital when they died as a result of their driver making an unintentional wrong turn into a dead end street, where an assassin spotted them. Cocaine addicts make intentional wrong turns and shred the fabric of their lives. One destroyed herself in seconds. In one scenario millions died, in two others but one was lost at a time. One cannot overstate consequences coming from making wrong turns, intended or not. Most of us can recall vivid memories of decision points in our lives, points we would pay dearly for the opportunity to revisit with the greater wisdom and knowledge of hindsight. Alas, we have no practice runs at life.
One of the on-going challenges in recovery work is allowing people to make wrong turns in their lives, not getting in the way of their bottoms. We learn quickly we cannot protect people from making wrong turns. No one can protect Archdukes from unintentional turns into blind alleys. No one can protect alcoholics and addicts from liquor stores and crack houses. They must learn to seek defense for themselves against their own demons. Assassins and drug dealers are inclined to get the same macabre results.
We can’t predict where assassins might show up but we can predict with total certainty the results of unmitigated alcoholic drinking and drug use. The insanity of addiction comes from its victims continuing their deadly turns, despite knowledge of near-certain extinction. Since the Armistice in 1918 that brought an end to World War 1, one can estimate somewhere between five and eight million citizens died in the United States alone from alcohol and drug abuse. Yet much of the American entertainment, hospitality, and sports industries are financed by producers of alcohol, a well-known gateway to other drugs. If one were to capture data from the thirty nations involved in World War 1, results would reveal more have died from intentional wrong turns into alcohol and drugs than died in the Great War to end all wars. Nearly a century later we fight an ongoing war with no Armistice in the works.
Last night after enjoying an early evening birthday dinner with thirty friends, I made a right turn onto Calhoun Street, ending up on the university campus. In the recital hall an accomplished pianist and a splendid lyric opera singer provided rapturous renditions of French arias and classical songs. As I sat there, feeling far removed from the nightmarish world of alcoholism and drug abuse, I thought about the turns these two finely synchronized musicians made in their lives. Not picking the easier softer way in life, they spent hours in tedious practice and study, preparing for effective careers as performers and professors. I thought of how they made turns giving affirmation and inspiration to their students, encouraging them to find life down Calhoun Street rather than on the other side of Murray Avenue. How very close these utterly different universes are to one another, yet so far.
As I walked across campus on an unusually warm winter evening, I wondered about turns the young idealistic students about me were going to make, how they would find the right turns to meaningful rewarding lives, avoiding the left turns leading to destruction. How would their decision-making skills work when faced with the inevitable turbulence that comes with life.
In my work with those recovering from alcoholism and addition, I stress the importance of seeking divine guidance in all the affairs of life. Life can be vexing and decision making very difficult, especially when emotions and objectivity have been distorted by addiction. The way alcoholics and addicts can achieve effective defense against the demons of alcohol and drugs is to press hard into the heart of God, seeking Him in all affairs of life, especially in the multitude of life’s decisions, be it to turn right on Calhoun Street and end up in the recital hall or to turn left, crossing Murray Avenue and ending up in death’s den.
The eleventh step in recovery declares “Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.” Eighty years of collective experience by millions in recovery underscore the vast benefits deriving from trusting God about where to make our turns in life. “As we go through the day we pause, when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the right thought or action. We constantly remind ourselves we are no longer running the show, humbly saying to ourselves many times each day, “Thy will be done.” We are then in much less danger of excitement, fear, anger, worry, self-pity, or foolish decisions.”
We just might get across the street safely and enjoy a rapturous song.
Losing Our Moral Bearing: A Growing Economic Divide 1-25-12
Anderson, South Carolina
Protected by five thousand Swiss soldiers on the ground and restricted airspace, sixteen hundred economic and political leaders, including forty heads of state and government, are enjoying the life of luxury reserved for the gilded class as they converge at eastern Switzerland's upscale Davos resort in Graubünden for their 42nd annual five-day World Economic Forum. The costs of security measures shared by the Forum foundation and Swiss cantonal and national authorities have been frequently criticized in the Swiss national media. The foundation sponsoring the Forum is funded by a thousand member companies, the typical one a global enterprise with more than five billion dollars in turnover, although the latter can vary by industry and region. The majority of these privileged elite control empires worth billions.
Klaus Schwab, host and founder of the World Economic Forum declares "Solving problems in the context of outdated and crumbling models will only dig us deeper into the hole. We are in an era of profound change that urgently requires new ways of thinking instead of more business-as-usual. Capitalism in its current form has no place in the world around us. We have a general morality gap, we are over-leveraged, we have neglected to invest in the future, we have undermined social coherence, and we are in danger of completely losing the confidence of future generations”
This loss of confidence may have already taken place. Last month a New York Times poll found Congress' approval rating fell to an all-time low of 9 percent. Meanwhile, a recent Gallup poll found 11 percent of people found polygamy "morally acceptable." Additionally, 30 percent of Americans expressed approval of pornography. Another poll shows 11 percent of Americans in favor of communism.
Former White House economist Nouriel Roubini reminds us that today we are "back to the inequality of 1929 and the Great Depression." High unemployment and the failure of wages to keep pace with living costs are resulting in widespread unrest against elites. As much of the world struggles with increasing economic inequity and decreasing standards of living, rising discontent is powering waves of revolution. Many governments are toppling in the streets. More ominous for us is the potential toppling of the prevailing model of economics powering Western commerce for centuries – capitalism.
Evidence amasses daily suggesting Western models of industrial capitalism are creating increasing disparity. Many propose the middle class is disappearing from numerous nations. There is objective data to suggest this is becoming true in the United States. Political observers and sociologists find much agreement on the role of the middle class in creating and maintaining political, economic, and social stability. History is replete with staggering examples of national consequences when this role is ignored.
The inequity existing in the United States almost defies description. Robert Creamer, a political strategist, describes this in lucid fashion. In 2009 “the CEO of the average company in the Standard and Poor's Index made $10.5 million. That means that before lunch, on the first workday of the year, he (sometimes she) has made more than the minimum wage workers in his company will make all year. That translates to $5,048 per hour or about 344 times the pay of the typical American worker. Most people would consider a salary of $100,000 per year reasonably good pay. But the average CEO makes that much in the first half-week of the year. And that's nothing compared to some of the kings of Wall Street. In 2007, the top 50 hedge and private equity fund managers averaged $588 million in compensation each -- more than 19,000 times as much as the average U.S. worker."
When a presidential candidate is willing to buy and tear down a $3.5 million house and build a $12 million palace in its place, something has gone amuck. Someone who makes $60,000 a day off investments earned from what has been described as ‘vulture capitalism’ might just have a hard time gaining credibility with rank and file voters in the street. “In the eyes of many workers, and especially young people, the business community has lost its moral compass,” trade union leader Sharan Burrow pointed out in opening day debate at the Forum in Davos. "We must redesign the model. We must reset it,” she urged. One can only wonder if a business leader who spent years dissecting corporations can guide a nation back onto a moral high road which includes fair economic opportunity for all.
I just spent a day roaming through the largest house in North America, all 175,000 square feet of it. Does it make moral sense for one individual to build a single house equivalent to one hundred average American houses, just to have a place for his gilded parties? I personally know a good number of people living four to a room in the ghetto, sleeping on small bunks made of two by fours; I see extremes of disparity most every day of my life, the disparity that topples governments and economic systems.
Has our ability to find acceptance and contentment in life been corrupted by our addiction to ‘just a bit more,’ sometimes immensely more. In my daily work with recovering alcoholics and addicts, I’m sometimes bewildered at the intensity of craving some of them experience, but no more so than by anyone believing they merit $588 million for doing essentially nothing but taking risk; no more so than by those willing to use pepper spray on fellow shoppers at a Wal-Mart holiday sale. The market for high-end luxury goods suggests addictions of all sorts are rampant. As drug lords and hedge fund managers accumulate inconceivable wealth I am reminded of the question once posed to the probate lawyer handling the Rockefeller fortune. “How much did Rockefeller leave?” The lawyer replied simply, “All of it.”
“For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?"
Protected by five thousand Swiss soldiers on the ground and restricted airspace, sixteen hundred economic and political leaders, including forty heads of state and government, are enjoying the life of luxury reserved for the gilded class as they converge at eastern Switzerland's upscale Davos resort in Graubünden for their 42nd annual five-day World Economic Forum. The costs of security measures shared by the Forum foundation and Swiss cantonal and national authorities have been frequently criticized in the Swiss national media. The foundation sponsoring the Forum is funded by a thousand member companies, the typical one a global enterprise with more than five billion dollars in turnover, although the latter can vary by industry and region. The majority of these privileged elite control empires worth billions.
Klaus Schwab, host and founder of the World Economic Forum declares "Solving problems in the context of outdated and crumbling models will only dig us deeper into the hole. We are in an era of profound change that urgently requires new ways of thinking instead of more business-as-usual. Capitalism in its current form has no place in the world around us. We have a general morality gap, we are over-leveraged, we have neglected to invest in the future, we have undermined social coherence, and we are in danger of completely losing the confidence of future generations”
This loss of confidence may have already taken place. Last month a New York Times poll found Congress' approval rating fell to an all-time low of 9 percent. Meanwhile, a recent Gallup poll found 11 percent of people found polygamy "morally acceptable." Additionally, 30 percent of Americans expressed approval of pornography. Another poll shows 11 percent of Americans in favor of communism.
Former White House economist Nouriel Roubini reminds us that today we are "back to the inequality of 1929 and the Great Depression." High unemployment and the failure of wages to keep pace with living costs are resulting in widespread unrest against elites. As much of the world struggles with increasing economic inequity and decreasing standards of living, rising discontent is powering waves of revolution. Many governments are toppling in the streets. More ominous for us is the potential toppling of the prevailing model of economics powering Western commerce for centuries – capitalism.
Evidence amasses daily suggesting Western models of industrial capitalism are creating increasing disparity. Many propose the middle class is disappearing from numerous nations. There is objective data to suggest this is becoming true in the United States. Political observers and sociologists find much agreement on the role of the middle class in creating and maintaining political, economic, and social stability. History is replete with staggering examples of national consequences when this role is ignored.
The inequity existing in the United States almost defies description. Robert Creamer, a political strategist, describes this in lucid fashion. In 2009 “the CEO of the average company in the Standard and Poor's Index made $10.5 million. That means that before lunch, on the first workday of the year, he (sometimes she) has made more than the minimum wage workers in his company will make all year. That translates to $5,048 per hour or about 344 times the pay of the typical American worker. Most people would consider a salary of $100,000 per year reasonably good pay. But the average CEO makes that much in the first half-week of the year. And that's nothing compared to some of the kings of Wall Street. In 2007, the top 50 hedge and private equity fund managers averaged $588 million in compensation each -- more than 19,000 times as much as the average U.S. worker."
When a presidential candidate is willing to buy and tear down a $3.5 million house and build a $12 million palace in its place, something has gone amuck. Someone who makes $60,000 a day off investments earned from what has been described as ‘vulture capitalism’ might just have a hard time gaining credibility with rank and file voters in the street. “In the eyes of many workers, and especially young people, the business community has lost its moral compass,” trade union leader Sharan Burrow pointed out in opening day debate at the Forum in Davos. "We must redesign the model. We must reset it,” she urged. One can only wonder if a business leader who spent years dissecting corporations can guide a nation back onto a moral high road which includes fair economic opportunity for all.
I just spent a day roaming through the largest house in North America, all 175,000 square feet of it. Does it make moral sense for one individual to build a single house equivalent to one hundred average American houses, just to have a place for his gilded parties? I personally know a good number of people living four to a room in the ghetto, sleeping on small bunks made of two by fours; I see extremes of disparity most every day of my life, the disparity that topples governments and economic systems.
Has our ability to find acceptance and contentment in life been corrupted by our addiction to ‘just a bit more,’ sometimes immensely more. In my daily work with recovering alcoholics and addicts, I’m sometimes bewildered at the intensity of craving some of them experience, but no more so than by anyone believing they merit $588 million for doing essentially nothing but taking risk; no more so than by those willing to use pepper spray on fellow shoppers at a Wal-Mart holiday sale. The market for high-end luxury goods suggests addictions of all sorts are rampant. As drug lords and hedge fund managers accumulate inconceivable wealth I am reminded of the question once posed to the probate lawyer handling the Rockefeller fortune. “How much did Rockefeller leave?” The lawyer replied simply, “All of it.”
“For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?"
My Epiphany 1-8-12
Anderson South Carolina
For some years I’ve attempted to wrap my head around the idea of Christmas as a spiritual state to which one seeks year round. Part of my efforts to do so include the less common practice of observing the Twelve Days of Christmas, doing readings through Advent, and marking the Epiphany as my observance of True Christmas – archeology aside which suggests Jesus was not born in winter at all. Another practice I’ve enjoyed is leaving all my Christmas decorations in place until at least this time of year and often much longer so as to see them under winter snow. Here on the Epiphany I have fourteen recycled Christmas trees in place whereas my neighbors sent theirs to be land filled ten days ago. This year it seems a good idea to send out cards and letters on the Epiphany instead of the old Roman holiday observed on Dec 25. Importantly, Christmas is extending in my spirit; I did not have that all-powerful sense of Christmas being suddenly over, just a blip on retail cash flow charts.
Going the other direction I put up decorations late in October and have lived in a colorful enchanted space for nearly three months. I suspect others would label me some sort of Christmas eccentric but there are certainly far worse things to be accused of; I do have a rudimentary theology in development to explain my aberrant behavior.
What’s not eccentric is trying to infuse the True Message of the holidays into the lives of those struck by the misfortunes of addiction, alcoholism, and other life adversities such as unemployment, divorce, homelessness, and perhaps worst, existential crisis. Is this all there is? What’s the point?
What had been a carefully compartmentalized chunk of my life for five years seems to have become a calling, a mission; something giving me a powerful sense of purpose and meaning. The pandemic of alcoholism and drug addiction washing over the lives of millions as a tsunami of angst and despair threatens the very foundations of our society. Finding myself a participant in the rebuilding of lives shattered by addictions is rewarding beyond measure. It’s also disheartening beyond measure. Watching a newly emerged life of recovery cut down by relapse is sometimes overwhelming. Journeys to hospitals, nursing homes, and funeral parlors to observe lives of great potential truncated by addiction are sobering, to say the least. Seeing estranged partners rebuild their marriages, regain custody of children, become gainfully employed, gain driver’s licenses, stay out of prison; this offers rewards greater than anything boxed, wrapped, and put under a Christmas tree.
Christmas Eve found me taking several recovering addicts with me to a High Christmas Mass. Watching them have eleventh step encounters with God on the kneelers during the Eucharist was the grandest of Christmas gifts. Following the Mass we indulged in a fine Italian feast prepared by the wife of one of these men, herself recovering from addiction. It’s also proven heartening to have several of them in tow with me at Sunday morning services the last several months, followed by Sunday dinner.
Many years the holidays were reminders of what I did not have. My origins in a broken alcoholic addicted family left a hole, one only filled in recent years by the broken alcoholic addicted men and women who have become part of my life seven days a week. There was no emptiness for me this year in my transit of the holiday season.
Thanksgiving Day proved epic. By my best count one hundred and five of the marginalized of society showed up for a feast lasting some twelve hours. Fifty pounds of turkey, a couple hams, and three dozen side dishes allowed the unwanted to feel wanted and welcomed in a place where they could be reminded liberation from their addictions is just a sincere prayer away. In the recovery message we are clearly told the ownership of one’s powerlessness is the portal by which one finds liberation and strength. “Our admissions of personal powerlessness finally turn out to be the firm bedrock upon which happy and purposeful lives may be built.” There was much to give thanks for in our crowded little meeting rooms.
Each year under the cover of night when no one is in or around our small cinder block building, I complete a covert operation of installing two decorated Christmas trees in the meeting rooms and stringing up lights on the store-front windows, making sure everyone knows Christmas is an all-inclusive event. Christmas Day included a menu of fifty pounds of ham and the appropriate side dishes for the eighty who showed up. For those exiting alcohol abuse, a dozen kinds of pies, cakes, and stollens was de rigueur. In a normal week I put out ten pounds of granulated sugar every three days. Cashiers in Wal-Mart often ask what I plan to do with one hundred pounds of sugar. I tell them I’m sweetening up lives and will be back for another hundred pounds in thirty days. Alcohol reduces to simple sugars and withdrawal from it produces astounding sugar cravings.
New Year’s Day is the most challenging of all for newcomers recently exiting their alcoholism and addictions. American culture and most of its holidays and sporting events are built around the copious consumption of alcohol. We had desperate men seeking refuge with us, afraid of losing their sobriety while watching the holiday bowl games. About seventy joined us on New Year’s Day to enjoy deli sandwiches and an assortment of cakes and pies I had scrounged up. Sadly, some let go of their life rings and were washed back into the hideous despair and darkness of addiction. Others stayed the course and with God’s help traversed the holidays and bowl games successfully. There is little more rewarding than to hold hands with those who observe their first holidays in solid sobriety. The hard part for me is knowing I can do little to protect these men and women, able to do little more than commit them to prayer and the care of God. Paradoxically, this is the most powerful thing I can do for them, and for myself.
Most of my days, including Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, and now the Epiphany include hospital visitation, a million phone calls, hauling those without drivers licenses, chairing meetings, cleaning toilets, taking out the trash, hoping newly-leafed sobriety for these will include an interest in cleaning up after themselves.
It has been a grand year. It seems like a good time to go find a bit of breakfast and enjoy some of the Christmas trees that won’t ever see the landfill.
Blessings and good wishes for Christmas every day.
For some years I’ve attempted to wrap my head around the idea of Christmas as a spiritual state to which one seeks year round. Part of my efforts to do so include the less common practice of observing the Twelve Days of Christmas, doing readings through Advent, and marking the Epiphany as my observance of True Christmas – archeology aside which suggests Jesus was not born in winter at all. Another practice I’ve enjoyed is leaving all my Christmas decorations in place until at least this time of year and often much longer so as to see them under winter snow. Here on the Epiphany I have fourteen recycled Christmas trees in place whereas my neighbors sent theirs to be land filled ten days ago. This year it seems a good idea to send out cards and letters on the Epiphany instead of the old Roman holiday observed on Dec 25. Importantly, Christmas is extending in my spirit; I did not have that all-powerful sense of Christmas being suddenly over, just a blip on retail cash flow charts.
Going the other direction I put up decorations late in October and have lived in a colorful enchanted space for nearly three months. I suspect others would label me some sort of Christmas eccentric but there are certainly far worse things to be accused of; I do have a rudimentary theology in development to explain my aberrant behavior.
What’s not eccentric is trying to infuse the True Message of the holidays into the lives of those struck by the misfortunes of addiction, alcoholism, and other life adversities such as unemployment, divorce, homelessness, and perhaps worst, existential crisis. Is this all there is? What’s the point?
What had been a carefully compartmentalized chunk of my life for five years seems to have become a calling, a mission; something giving me a powerful sense of purpose and meaning. The pandemic of alcoholism and drug addiction washing over the lives of millions as a tsunami of angst and despair threatens the very foundations of our society. Finding myself a participant in the rebuilding of lives shattered by addictions is rewarding beyond measure. It’s also disheartening beyond measure. Watching a newly emerged life of recovery cut down by relapse is sometimes overwhelming. Journeys to hospitals, nursing homes, and funeral parlors to observe lives of great potential truncated by addiction are sobering, to say the least. Seeing estranged partners rebuild their marriages, regain custody of children, become gainfully employed, gain driver’s licenses, stay out of prison; this offers rewards greater than anything boxed, wrapped, and put under a Christmas tree.
Christmas Eve found me taking several recovering addicts with me to a High Christmas Mass. Watching them have eleventh step encounters with God on the kneelers during the Eucharist was the grandest of Christmas gifts. Following the Mass we indulged in a fine Italian feast prepared by the wife of one of these men, herself recovering from addiction. It’s also proven heartening to have several of them in tow with me at Sunday morning services the last several months, followed by Sunday dinner.
Many years the holidays were reminders of what I did not have. My origins in a broken alcoholic addicted family left a hole, one only filled in recent years by the broken alcoholic addicted men and women who have become part of my life seven days a week. There was no emptiness for me this year in my transit of the holiday season.
Thanksgiving Day proved epic. By my best count one hundred and five of the marginalized of society showed up for a feast lasting some twelve hours. Fifty pounds of turkey, a couple hams, and three dozen side dishes allowed the unwanted to feel wanted and welcomed in a place where they could be reminded liberation from their addictions is just a sincere prayer away. In the recovery message we are clearly told the ownership of one’s powerlessness is the portal by which one finds liberation and strength. “Our admissions of personal powerlessness finally turn out to be the firm bedrock upon which happy and purposeful lives may be built.” There was much to give thanks for in our crowded little meeting rooms.
Each year under the cover of night when no one is in or around our small cinder block building, I complete a covert operation of installing two decorated Christmas trees in the meeting rooms and stringing up lights on the store-front windows, making sure everyone knows Christmas is an all-inclusive event. Christmas Day included a menu of fifty pounds of ham and the appropriate side dishes for the eighty who showed up. For those exiting alcohol abuse, a dozen kinds of pies, cakes, and stollens was de rigueur. In a normal week I put out ten pounds of granulated sugar every three days. Cashiers in Wal-Mart often ask what I plan to do with one hundred pounds of sugar. I tell them I’m sweetening up lives and will be back for another hundred pounds in thirty days. Alcohol reduces to simple sugars and withdrawal from it produces astounding sugar cravings.
New Year’s Day is the most challenging of all for newcomers recently exiting their alcoholism and addictions. American culture and most of its holidays and sporting events are built around the copious consumption of alcohol. We had desperate men seeking refuge with us, afraid of losing their sobriety while watching the holiday bowl games. About seventy joined us on New Year’s Day to enjoy deli sandwiches and an assortment of cakes and pies I had scrounged up. Sadly, some let go of their life rings and were washed back into the hideous despair and darkness of addiction. Others stayed the course and with God’s help traversed the holidays and bowl games successfully. There is little more rewarding than to hold hands with those who observe their first holidays in solid sobriety. The hard part for me is knowing I can do little to protect these men and women, able to do little more than commit them to prayer and the care of God. Paradoxically, this is the most powerful thing I can do for them, and for myself.
Most of my days, including Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, and now the Epiphany include hospital visitation, a million phone calls, hauling those without drivers licenses, chairing meetings, cleaning toilets, taking out the trash, hoping newly-leafed sobriety for these will include an interest in cleaning up after themselves.
It has been a grand year. It seems like a good time to go find a bit of breakfast and enjoy some of the Christmas trees that won’t ever see the landfill.
Blessings and good wishes for Christmas every day.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
