Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere. – Einstein
[Being wounded] came effortlessly,
like an comfortable sweater
she put it on easily, too often.
Frayed and worn,
pain became her fate.
[Being changed]is hard, and only
comes by choosing. An old woman or a toddling child,
each must take
a step. It’s faith in the making.
Being wounded or being changed
comes in the choosing.
Today I said no.
I said no to something that might have been sweet and good, something that I would enjoy and that would make me feel good about myself – helping other people. It was something that was even noble. Can I be honest and tell you that I need some things to do that make me feel good about myself? The recent Stations of the Cross exhibit, which I was a part of, was profound for me in that it was a thing that I did, for me.
Today I said no.
No because there are other good things, needs, jobs for me to do. And I have to be careful as an addict, to not feed that need to help others.
Things are going on in my family, screaming out to me, which need resolution and clarity and my time. My children are of the age that they need my daily prayer, daily. My attention, fully. My love and affirmations, honestly. This takes the kind of attention that I haven’t had for them as of yet. My widowed mother living alone needs more of my attention, care and to be blunt she needs errands accomplished. My sisters each deserve my love and attention in a way that I haven’t ever had the courage to give them. My marriage isn’t perfect; it has holes that need patching even though, after eighteen years together, we know it’s for life. We’re in the boat together but we’ve sprung a few leaks. No one’s sinking but we deserve to give the time that a good marriage requires.
So, today I said no – no to something good. So that I could say yes to being a mother, a sister, a daughter, a wife and more than anything I said yes to be a writer.
Today I said yes.
There are people,
good people who toil every day
at work they don’t love and some
days simply endure.
Why do these people, good people do that?
They’re partnered with a creative soul;
a dreamer, someone
who scribbles words one after another, collected into pages
of an idea that is yet to come;
that hears a different drum beat and dance;
who changes others’ trajectory through an image or a song;
who observes life for its beauty and complexity;
who follows an uncomfortable path into the unknown.
These people, good people do
their everyday work because they love a dreamer.
Here’s to the good people whose love’s labor
is a gift to us all.
For Tom and Carol and the other good people.
I should have done the dishes piled up from last night’s dinner which are railing against me and what I believe—that one should always clean up after a meal.
I should have gone through piles of papers collected, hauntingly reminding me of bills due and deadlines I’ve likely forgotten.
I should have made an appointment to fix my daughter’s knee, which has hurt on and off for months. She will ask when she gets home: did you make the appointment Mama? Did you? When will you? Why didn’t you?
I am bursting with the awareness, the stinging tang of understanding.
Of how I have lived with it for so long – like Naomi in the book of Ruth in the Old Testament – bitter.
The awareness tastes sharp and severe on my tongue.
I sat in Taizé prayer today at the monastery — soaking in the echoing songs, the verse, the smells and comportment of the faithful gray-haired women sitting around me. For the first time I was hearing the story of the founding of the Taizé Community in France; learning of this tradition of repetition, listening and meditating, as we waited for the Lord.
But then, we were given time to pray. It was remarkable. I don’t know about you but I don’t pray – not much. At least not well. I am certainly no “warrior” of prayer. Martin Luther King Jr. said “To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.” Okay, it’s not so much that I don’t pray I suppose, but that I have so many doubts. My conscience won’t allow me to simply tell God what I want or need.
My limited theological understanding and lack of faith simply don’t impress it upon me to pray – not much.
(I realized recently I don’t think I even know what I think about corporate prayer. But that is for another day…)
We were given space, within the service today to pray. So I did.
And so, I let go of my control on my mind and heart. And go it did, racing – Airborne, soaring like so many spirits.
I began collecting my worries like a slightly frantic, manic creature.
I began to set my worries down — like weighty, heavy stones.
I place them there, one after another.
… For a friend, who lives with chronic illness. I want to see her more. I have many regrets.
… For my children and specific things I worry about for each of them, faith, academics, relationships, health, and futures.
… For my 74-year-old mother’s future and all that is involved in her long-term care.
… For my future, for my past, for my days – it’s been two weeks since I really let myself stop, slow, truly listen.
… For my days, yes I worry so about my days. I worry about being wasteful. I worry about being useless. I worry about not helping others enough. I worry that my life is a waste.
And there it was. The awareness.
I have puzzled out what the book of Ruth means. Which character in the tiny book that I relate to, Naomi – bitter, Boaz – faithful, Ruth – Bold. Oh, there it is so crystal clear.
I am bitterness. Sure, I’ve come a long way. I have had some healing.
God has loved me through my addiction and through my fear of failure and through my bitterness.
I have believed {I am so bitter that} God has forgotten me and there is no longer any purpose for my life. I have tried to do the things in front of me – certainly the obvious one motherhood, the creative work of writing and photography, but deep, deep down I have felt abandoned by God.
There it is.
Aching, reaching, grasping for some deeper purpose to my life and surely knowing all the while, that this time of dearth, of learning was and is important. Just like Naomi, who said “call me Mara (which means bitter),” I have been bitter.
I sit with the weighty knowledge, almost crushed, but not. Still wondering what God intends to do. Jeremiah 29:11 says; “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.”
I do believe that. I do even as I taste bitter. As I sit and wonder and pray.
I learned today this type of listening is called kenotic listening. It is characterized by reverencing what is sacred in someone else. So often, when interacting with each other, we dwell on all their faults. Their failings, their annoying bits and pieces, even how they disappoint us or let us down. A kenotic listener affirms the good in others.
I don’t find it hard to confess that dissatisfaction comes easily to me, along with the admission that my life has disappointed me. Disillusionment too, as my life is not what I thought it would be. I can admit this is true. Well, that’s not exactly right – I had no plan. No grand scheme. I didn’t have any idea what I would do with my life as a youngster. One thing I knew. From that moment when I was swiftly rescued, “healed” in an only God could have done it miraculous sort of way.
This was lesson three.
God has many that the church does not have, and the church has many that God does not have. ~ Augustine
Even though it is totally embarrassing to be labeled an “evangelical” Christian today, mostly because of the politicization of organized religion and because there are so many crazies on the religious right. (I know. I’m not helping by saying that.)
But seriously, it’s plain mortifying to be considered “evangelical” most days especially if you turn on cable television whether it’s MSNBC or Fox “news.”
Still I have been attending mine for more than ten years and have good reasons to stay at my evangelical church.
Sojourners Magazine does a good job of describing the type of evangelical Christian that I consider myself to be. I care about racial and social justice, the environment, human rights, having a consistent life ethic and trying to be a peacemaker. I do not always succeed.
The truth is there is no perfect church.
But I think there is an ignorance and arrogance to think that you do not need a church home.
I’ve already written once at least, that I can remember, about what I love about my church. It’s here, titled I Like My Church. They Don’t Tell Me What to Think. But Rachel Held Evans the author of Evolving in Monkeytown is discussing why she left the church and why she has returned. In a response to this, I replied. I’ve expanded it here.
Why I stay in church?
These are not in any order but how they toppled out of my brain.
Everything I write about the spiritual life here on my blog, and I do all the time, it is because of what I am learning, how I am being challenged to grow and develop, because of these things.
This is why, I regularly thank God for my church even though there is no perfect church including mine. Why are you at your church? Or why not?
April 2, 2011
“Evolution or Creation: A False Dichotomy?“ :: Jeff Hardin Series: Science and Faith Conference – April 2011
April 2, 2011
“Faith-Based Approaches to Environmental Ethics“ :: Rick LindrothSeries: Science and Faith Conference – April 2011
April 2, 2011
“Myths in the History of Science and Religion“ :: Ron NumbersSeries: Science and Faith Conference – April 2011
April 2, 2011
“Interpreting the Bible’s Creation Stories“ :: Tim MackieSeries: Science and Faith Conference – April 2011
October 10, 2009
“The Lost World of Genesis One – Part 1“ :: Dr. John WaltonSeries: The Lost World of Genesis One
October 10, 2009
“The Lost World of Genesis One – Part 2“ :: Dr. John WaltonSeries: The Lost World of Genesis One
I’ve been uneasy and perturbed. I am a Slow Learner. I know that an edgy, even grumpy unsettled spirit inside me usually means that there’s business to attend to and something to be learned. I am drawn down into a Place of Reckoning. I am learning in the place of Love where God begins to change and shape me into Someone Other Than Me.
It usually requires time. And when finally my ego shrinks down to a normal size, I am ready to start. This time I shakily verbalized it to Tom.
Bless him, my Tom has my rhythms down. He knows when I need an ear, when I want (need or don’t need) advice, and the instances that I must simply talk (out loud.) Introverts will know what I mean. We introverts talk all the time, right? It is just in our heads, which is sometimes unproductive, unhelpful or unclear.
Gideon was the most unlikely of people to lead the people of Israel and perhaps ironically, his name means “Destroyer,” “Mighty warrior,” or “Feller (of trees).” His story read in chapters 6 to 8 of the Book of Judges in the Hebrew Bible was not one of a giant faith, in my opinion. Really his faith was immature; he was often testing and always questioning God’s power, before he would act. He had a “do this for me and I will do x for you” attitude.
That’s me. I suppose what most convicted me by thinking about Gideon’s story is the obvious ways that I’ve flailed about, unsure and doubting myself every step of the way over the last few years. I have made some messes and done some stupid shit. Recently (the last two years especially) I’ve been angry and unsatisfied, especially wanting “clarity about my career.” I have asked for it, even demanding it. [As if God cares, really what I do. Okay, he cares some but ultimately, this is only measured against who I am and how I treat others. How do I love? Do I serve the needs of those who are powerless among us? ]
How very ungrateful I have been.
My heart lurches. I know ingratitude when it sneers at me.
Fact is the Strong Independent Me believes deeply that women should have a job. (Everyone should have a “job” men and women, young people, old people … I fundamentally believe in the idea that everyone should contribute to the community, everyone is obligated to this.)
It is especially important to me that women have careers and “represent.” Do you know what I mean? I live with a lot of guilt, even shame that I don’t have a career right now. Or even simply a job. Just a job. Any job.
And this is how it goes in my head. Beyond the value to the community, a job earns “Respect.” Respect would make me feel validated and valuable and valued. A job where I go to a different place (than my home) and do “things.” If I am most honest, things that will build me up and help others recognize my value. Then bring home a paycheck for all the same reasons.
I’m a writer.
I know with certainty that I would write even if I never got paid or published because I have been a writer for as long as I can remember and it is who I am. The same goes for my photography — I live and breathe the pulse of life through a lens. I put word by word, ideas together as an offering.
But as I toil in relative obscurity, Ego Me leaps out saying that this won’t do. Who cares if you are an essayist or poet, who cares if you are writing here on this blog if no one knows and applauds? Bingo! That’s the crux. Validate me world! Say what you think of me please.
A friend got mad at something I said. Mad because I said that art is useless. I know that is not true. And I don’t even believe it, but the voices in my head tell me otherwise.
That’s crazy, and besides, in God’s framing of things it shouldn’t matter. I have to know my value is legit no matter what I do.
And I have (to learn) to believe that creating art is not useless.
And so for now at least, I will write.
And what I felt most convicted about from the sermon this week was my infantile attitude and my lack of gratitude for this life that I have. Shame on me. My anxiety comes out of this place. My fear comes directly from that spigot, gushing, flowing, spilling all over me in ugly incomprehensible ways.
Gideon tested God on more than one occasion. He never complained, but he didn’t believe.
Do you flail about in an infantile way demanding that God meet all your needs as if you deserve to be happy, fulfilled and useful?
Have you learned the slow path to contentment and spiritual maturity that involves a way of relaxing into Him, both by trusting and by stepping out into an unknown future looming ahead?
May it be so.
P.S. As I mentioned, this has a part two. It is found here.
I don’t find it hard to confess that dissatisfaction comes easily to me, along with the admission that my life has disappointed me. Disillusionment too, as my life is not what I thought it would be. I can admit this is true.
Well, that’s not exactly right – I had no plan. No grand scheme. I didn’t have any idea what I would do with my life as a youngster.
One thing I knew.
From that moment when I was swiftly rescued, “healed” in an only God could have done it miraculous sort of way. As I grew up, I was told the stories over and over.
I was “the peanut baby.” The miracle was something of God, everyone said so. And for whatever reason I began to believe that God had something special planned for me – for my life. Eighteen months old I was choking on a peanut. I should have died. I will have to get my mother to retell the story because even as I ponder it now, there is much I cannot remember. I don’t want to lose the details.
I have no memory of it. In fact I have very few memories of childhood at all.
They are all gone, stuffed somewhere safe. I haven’t in all these years of healing been able to find the key to unlock that precious girl’s life.
My life. My memories.
I’ve been going to the monastery with my mother. Being with my mother is startling and even as I learn to trust her, I am afraid. She’s a blurter. And she has for memory everything, and more, that I don’t. Her brain is iron clad; she is a beast of remembering. And her stories come out at the oddest, least opportune moments; like the shock of ice-cold water.
So much so, that sometimes I cannot bear to be with her, sometimes. I am learning to not be so afraid.
But today her memories were of her childhood. A controlling father “much like your father” she said. “Only mine was around less often, which was perhaps less damaging …” her thoughts trailing off. In my mind, I too found I was wandering back to my dad’s controlling ways. She’s remembering that her dad made her wear ugly shoes, because she was “hard on shoes.” Even though her sisters got any kind they wanted.
Those are sixty year old memories about sensible shoes. Her father long dead and yet still, she remembers it today.
God save me from bitter memories I say, not to her but inside to myself and to the ghosts. Perhaps that’s why I keep them all locked up safe, because I don’t want to be bitter.
Today the speaker at the monastery spoke of stability and the descent into darkness as a way of becoming comfortable with uncertainty; a willingness to explore our pain. Moving down into it and facing it.
No way! I thought immediately. This is simply nuts.
Then I remembered…
all the ways I learned to numb my pain, to forget. And in that moment saw my progress – over time, over years. A decade flashed.
I used to work hard at my job, to do really well and I received tons of praise and it was never enough. I was never happy about it. I was always afraid – of being unmasked, shown for the farce that I was.
The speaker spoke of learning to live deeply in the monotony of life, as do the Benedictines, monks, others – shall l I just say it? The stay-at-home mom’s life was the epitome of mundane to me.
I see now that is was because I was running.
I couldn’t run fast enough from my internal demons. Michael Casey, the Cistercian monk of Tarrawarra Abbey in Australia, says that distraction seeks to avoid and that we need to accept life as it is given to us.
Ten years. More than a decade of running. Looking back I can see progress. My heart was full of self-deception. I couldn’t feel my feelings for many years and I numbed my feelings with alcohol, work, shopping, obsessive busyness, Christian service, action and movement of every kind.
And now I attempt to live in this moment — to see what’s in front of my nose.
The speaker asked: Where do you find sources of stability in direct opposition to the running? What does life look like when you need some stability? How do you know when you’re running? What prompts our perpetual running? What stops it, for you?
I was able to see, today that I have come a long way. There are still moments of grievous disappointment in myself, but I lay that aside knowing that life is a long, long path for which I am only partway there. It felt good, even divine, to gaze backward seeing the timeline of the years to appreciate that I am altered – different – shifting and less flustered and more resolved.
I am able now to go unhurried into the future. And I can now appreciate the dailies of life. I look forward to remembering, when it comes.
The deep monotony is good, in order to simply be.
MHH
Inspired by Stability and Balance in Relationships and Prayer led by Carole Kretschman at the Holy Wisdom Monastery, March 7, 2012
Earth ‘s crammed with heaven…
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes. – Elizabeth Barrett Browning
More than once, in fact
dozens of times in the Big Story of the Torah,
responding to God meant
falling face down on the ground.
Blinding light,
being pregnant with plain old
awe.
Take off your shoes kind of wonderment.
Because you’re on holy ground.
I am so unseeing.
Everything in me,
in my dusty, meager day to day corporeal living
roars something else.
At me. In me. From me. To me.
Lift yourself
up. Rise higher, get
above the next fellow.
Upward mobility. Show
your stuff. Your smarts. Your
talent and creativity.
The world is shouting in my ear.
Then I close the door, and
find within, in
my paltry worship, my measly human love.
All I have is a quickening heartbeat, throwing off
the chasing anxiety.
All I want is a falling face down on the ground, kind of awe.
When was the last time I felt
astonishment in God?
A breathed in, have to close my eyes
star struck, stomach lurching,
take off my shoes, because I’m on holy ground
kind of amazement of my God?
All I want.
When was the last time?
Entering the monastery there is a sense of stepping outside of the line of time — real-time. You have entered into kairos . God time, as Eugene Peterson calls it.
The people I encountered at the Holy Wisdom monastery were kind. You couldn’t tell who was who. They may play a role in the running of the monastery. You don’t know. I shook hands with a middle-aged woman with short salt and pepper hair, in a pristine suit, who did not give me her name, even when I gave her mine. I found it odd and I learned later from my mother that she’s the boss of the place. The Holy Mother? Not being too familiar with the Benedictine traditions, I simply smiled when she did not give her name. I am a “go with the flow” kind of person, but I’ll admit it felt strange.
When you enroll, you are asked your goals or intent for coming. Oh dear, “my mother invited me” isn’t quite right. Reading the luncheon topics is what convinced me to attend; today’s was Bearing with One Another. Next week’s will be Stability and Balance in Relationships and Prayer. It will be five weeks in all during Lent. “Creating space to listen” was my final goal, scribbled quickly on the form, wondering what God might do if I was quiet for that long—listening for him.
I find life is so full of learning of late, that I don’t even have time to apply. That’s nuts. Church attendance, doing, and serving – well, it’s all meaningless if we cannot, do not take in what we’re learning and be transformed by it.
Nevertheless what I heard today could very well change me forever, if I allow it.
Recently I was the recipient of some soul care, which served to do a work of healing in my life that profoundly changed me. A good woman, she is a healing servant by night and doing servant by day. Efficient and skilled though she is in her day-to-day life, she took several hours to listen to me, unknowingly being a part of a life-giving healing.
I brought years of pain, bitterness, misunderstanding, dejection, feelings of rejection and being disregarded. I felt so much pain that when I started to talk I began to weep. Not simple crying mind you.
This was the aching heart of a person stuck in sin.
I couldn’t speak, often. Unperturbed, she listened. She didn’t touch me. She didn’t pray. She didn’t say much of anything, though she had some words to encourage – breathing out with kindheartedness and veracity, both of my sin and of my giftedness. Of my culpability and the tragedy of it all. And as I spoke I knew.
This was a holy moment. We were not alone. This was kairos time. She attended to me and as she did calcified thoughts and feelings came unstuck and God knows how long I’ve carried this pain, some of it over a decade; it began to wash away. It was holy. It was sacred. Monumental. Transformational.
Over and done, by listening.
I learned today this type of listening is called kenotic listening. It is characterized by reverencing what is sacred in someone else. So often, when interacting with each other, we dwell on all their faults. Their failings, their annoying bits and pieces, even how they disappoint us or let us down. A kenotic listener affirms the good in others.
Kenotic listening means giving up our desire to be heard, to pay attention to what the other person needs to say. Creating space for them to speak. Suppressing the urge to jump in with advice or simply interrupt with a differing opinion, or to argue our point. It means being less focused on yourself and what you next want to say. Opening your spirit to what the other person needs and wants.
Taking on patience as a way of life, which is the only way to bear some else’s burden. Yes people are temperamental, argumentative, self-righteous, rude and obnoxious, even stupid sometimes. But we are called to bear with them. Yes, some people can be mean-spirited, arrogant, close minded and selfish. We care called to bear with them. Yes, some people make inconvenient demands on us, yet we are called to bear with them. Some people can be hard to get along with, and yet we are called to bear with them.
Phylo of Alexandria is quoted saying “Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a huge battle.”
“Have compassion for everyone you meet, even if they don’t want it from you. What seems like conceit, bad manners, or cynicism is always a sign of things no ears have heard, no eyes have seen. You do not know what wars are going on down there where the spirit meets the bone.” – Miller Williams
This is it.
I had a festering sore, down deep inside where the spirit meets the bone. I didn’t know how to heal myself. I didn’t always want to heal.
I talked. She listened. It was a sacred holy moment where true church happened – ekklesia.
Spiritually, emotionally and physically I will never be the same.
It was a holy moment, where time was pregnant with what the Holy One intended. I shared all the ugliness of my inner most soul and with no guilt or religiosity, I was loved.
These are thoughts inspired by Trisha Day who spoke at the monastery yesterday. She gave me a name for what happened to me and offered a challenge to be that sort of person – a kenotic listener. To revere what is sacred in others, to know they are fighting a huge battle, often alone. Seek to build up not tear down. Ask myself how I react to others thoughts and ideas? Am I respectful? Do I allow others to annoy me? Do I affirm what is good in them?
Kenosis means an emptying of me, giving up more than getting, and letting go of the need to be heard. Listen well and deeply. Stop myself from offering “sage” wisdom or advice, from jumping in.
Just listen.
Have compassion with everyone you meet.
It’s a high calling; a holy challenge for everyone is suffering in some way, life brings challenge and pain, sometimes unbearable pain.
We can blast. Ignore. Correct. Challenge.
Or we can embrace a holier moment, a holier calling of acceptance, endurance and trust.
MH
Trisha Day is a member of Sunday Assembly at Holy Wisdom Monetary, a Lay Cistercian associated with New Melleray and Mississippi Abbeys near Dubuque, Iowa. She is the author of Inside the School of Charity –Lessons from the monastery.
From listening to a QIdeas talk with Eugene Peterson on the Sabbath.
I must stop trying to be God.
Which means also stop trying to prove myself. Stop with the interminable, frantic burden of finding my place in the world. Yes, there is a dignity to work – any kind of work—even house work. But when we inflate our worth by acting like what we do is everything — it’s something, then we put ourselves above God.
When our “moral sweat” brings our sense of value, it blinds us to God at work and our spiritual eyes are left stinging.
“We want to be like God.” said Eugene Peterson.
Sabbath living is … to show up. Then, shut up.
Knowing that God is doing something, we are to live in response it. Otherwise, it’s only an oppressive ritual. Religious devotion deprived of meaning. Eugene Peterson even asserts that programs sometimes can keep us from finding community in churches.
I’ve reflected for a long time on what it means to be Christian community to one another. Unabashedly knowing that I’ve lived most of my life feeling as if there’s a giant, lonely even gaping hole inside me that I cannot seem to fill up. Family didn’t do it. Work didn’t do it. Creating doesn’t do it. Motherhood didn’t do it. Being married didn’t do it. Drinking really didn’t do it. Being a part of things doesn’t do it. Serving doesn’t do it. There will never be enough friends — the right sort of friends. Work. Hobbies.
Nothing fills it that gaping, God sized hole.
Shutting up and showing up is how God fills that gaping hole inside us. It is the most repeated commandment in the Bible. And ironically Jesus was accused, of all the radical things he did which were many, of not keeping Sabbath well.
“God is working when we are sleeping.” said Eugene Peterson. “We live in a toxic culture that doesn’t understand the need for Sabbath – our world is full of compulsively and insecurity.”
Rarely do we sit, play, see, breathe in slowly, and just be.
Creating active space for nothing,
knowing that when you pray you are not accomplishing.
Learning an awareness that God is doing something and you don’t have a clue what it is—
it is a constant surrendering.
I keep being struck reading the Torah (the first five books of the OT) by when Moses and Aaron are confronted by the failings of the people of Israel – the abject poverty of soul, their errors, constant rebellion and the sinful nature of the people, they fall face down. Moses and Aaron, that is — over and over again. (I wonder how many times it is repeated?)
They fell, face down.
How do we fall face down—letting go—surrendering ourselves? Literally. Figuratively. Moses and Aaron did it over and over again.
I’m starting to think, just possibly, that I’m meant to live with that hole in my heart. Perhaps even, I am supposed to acknowledge it and
let God do the filling up.
Just maybe, he made me that way for a reason, so that I would never okay without him— never totally content — never fully joyful— never imagine that I’m in control—living always humbled by my need for the Holy encounters with him.
It’s living in constant surrender. Face down, a kairos surrender to the Holy One.
“Take my tired body, my confused mind, and my restless soul into your arms, and give me rest, simple quiet rest.” — Henri Nouwen
MHH
After reading Heather’s thoughts last night I read several of the comments from those who had extremely judgmental view of a person’s addiction recovery.
I was left with a hollow feeling inside. I found myself saying that addiction is not a sin. But then, thinking long and hard about it this morning, I realized that although I have never dealt with it there was an element of sin involved in my alcoholism.
I am always helped by talking to my husband Tom. I sought his comfort in the question, “It wasn’t sin, right, that I became an alcoholic? It wasn’t sin, was it? Is it?” He’s one of the least judgmental people I know, so when Tom said “Yes, it is in part it was sin, you had a choice . You cannot discount free will.” I had to listen.
(And then we launched into a wonderful conversation about James 3, our hierarchies of sin and the power of our tongue. “With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers these things ought not to be so.” James 3, ESV)
How is it that I am sober today? My sobriety has taken inner strength of will and conviction. Was it God that has given me the strength to remain sober for three and a half years?
How much of my sobriety was tangled up in my conversion path, my faith walk, the gentle work of the Holy Spirit?
In some ways living free of addiction is a form of conversion, as Alyce M. McKenzie says, a turnaround from bondage to a self-destructive behavior to freedom that comes when we commit ourselves to the power of God.
But honestly I don’t recall some grand transaction, or moment, whereby I asked God to help me become sober and whamo I was healed. No, it was much, much slower. It was through the conviction of the Holy Spirit and a final ultimatum-of-sorts made by my husband converging within twenty-four hours, that I made a choice to finally quit.
But the conviction had been building for some time – though choosing sobriety took years.
I was pretty sure I was addicted to alcohol when my sisters and I attended the family program at Hazeldon at the request of my mom. It was there that I learned for the first time about the illness of addiction, more importantly about the brain pathways of an addict, about codependency, about the hell we create for others by our words and sarcasm, about the strength sometimes to be found in Al Anon and Alcoholics Anonymous. (**I say more about AA below) After meeting with a doctor there, acknowledging my depression and how much and how often I was drinking, she said they could justifiably commit me to the residential program. But I couldn’t do it — couldn’t accept the need to quit totally. Didn’t believe it was that bad. I went home and spent the next five years or so on a slow decline. Not every day at that point. Not drinking to black out, yet. Not even really in that bad of shape, but an alcoholic for sure.
How many nights over the next few years did I go to sleep almost blacked out drunk. Only just able to stumble to bed – falling into the protective down covers, pounding head on the soft accepting pillows, heart aching with the pain of it all. Thinking – praying – crying out to God.
Making promises. Promising that tomorrow would be different. Promising myself that tomorrow I would not buy any wine. Tomorrow I would not drink myself to a disoriented, forgotten, insensible place. Hopeful that tomorrow would be different, only to fall into the same habit, experiencing the same amnesia as I was purchasing more alcohol.
The psychologist and spiritual counselor Gerald May in his book called Addiction and Grace defines addiction as “any compulsive, habitual behavior that limits the freedom of human desire.”
I found myself, day after day, month after month, year after year, for more than five years being fairly certain that I was an addict and yet choosing the same path. I thought I could be a social drinker. I didn’t want to stop, not really, for a long time. Wine and other alcohol was like a lover. I look back now knowing it clearly, seeing it objectively that it was an idol, yes, more important than anything else. Alcohol was my reason for living. I gave it the space and place in my life much more important than my health, or the welfare of my family, or my commitment to God. So, yes, there is an element of choice. And in that free choice it was a sin.
But sadly as Christians we have a hierarchy of sin – infidelity and addiction being at the top. Why? I suppose it doesn’t even matter ultimately. They were my choices, though compelled by the illness in my brain and the broken state of my heart. I made them. I chose.
And where was God? Well, I stopped seeking him. I closed off from him the part of me that was an addict. I cannot fully describe how I lived with myself spiritually in those years except to say that I was numb even while being wracked with guilt. I was self-medicating. I was depressed. I felt hopeless. I turned away from God. This is a poem I wrote at one point in my recovery, titled Days Without God.
she walked away from hope,
traveled the road of unkept promises.
and god was far away.
days without number
she ran down that road,
of fleeting pleasures
and god turned away
unable to see
unable to be with her.
though she can never deny going,
after a time, she turned
and walked back.
she was broken and bleeding.
the moment she turned back
she felt the presence
and then, god forgave.
For these choices I had to ask my husband’s forgiveness. Someday I will do the same with my children when they are old enough to understand. From the friends who lived beside me and saw the destruction of alcohol in my life, I covet their forgiveness. Family members who saw and lived and wondered and were wounded by me, they too I need forgiveness and grace.
I live with the knowledge of my walking away from God. I live with the knowledge that I did that every day, I chose it. I cling to God now. I relish his forgiveness and I acknowledge my sin. His grace is enough.
To those accusers, the ones that throw out the accusation of “sin!” like Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter, I say this. No matter who we are or what we have done, in Christ we are given a new life of repentance and dignity where there is no place for legalism and guilt. This is a life of grace. Only God knows our hearts. He is there with us, if we cry out to him. But recovery, that is a long difficult walk and by no means something that just happens by surrendering to God. I know this.
But I also know that He walks it with us if we ask him. Look at John 8, Jesus asking where are your accusers? “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”
Do I know how that transaction works, ultimately? Not really, but it is for me now found in the daily choice to be sober. Did Jesus think she’d be free of sin them then on? Nope, not likely and there was parts of her life she had to choose to walk away from. Alcoholics must do this in order to recover.
I cannot cast stones at others, no matter their “sin.” Grace and peace is found in the knowledge that I am not judged either.
“… and I’m still learning how to hack and slash through this beautiful jungle of grace.” Stephen
MH
** I do not work my sobriety with AA (Alcoholics Anonymous). I don’t personally find AA all that helpful, though for a time I was greatly encouraged by attending a weekly meeting with women. I walked into that room and experienced like I never have in my life a level of understanding, empathy and acceptance. No condemnation. We were all alcoholics and other forms of addicts. No pointing of fingers. In a way that the Church doesn’t seem to be able to live out — the idea that we’re all sinners together in this mess of a world. All sinners. All saints. All walking the path together. Why is it that (some) Christians are the most judgmental of all?
I longed for (and still sometimes do) church to be a safe place for me to go and find help with my recovery, but my church at least doesn’t offer anything for addicts. Not sure why when they have divorce-care, and grief-care, and cancer-care among many other kids of “care.” It does feel like they are strangely silent on this. I was helped by an addiction specific counselor, fortunate enough to have it covered by insurance, and spent more than six months in weekly therapy working through many aspects of my addiction as well as learning about the disease’s power.
I am looking to Lent as a way to make space. In our cluttered congested lives we have no space for God. Then we act almost indignant that he won’t speak (I’m talking to myself here.) So often I have an agenda with God and even in the practicing of Lent. I can’t hear what he wants to say.
What if Lent was a way of creating more space for God? While knowing he is preparing us for his death and for his resurrection.
Instead of being ruled by social media. I could read all the day long the blogs and whatnot of people I like and respect. But what if I could make space for God?
Because at the end of the day, if I don’t make space for the Holy One, I will be empty. Bereft. Spiritually limp and disbelieving. I will not have done the simple profound work of inquiring of God what he wants to say. Can it be that simple? That so often I don’t pray. I don’t ask. I stay too busy.
And it feels then, like he’s silent.
But I have a feeling it is simply that I was too distracted to be still enough to listen. To recognize him.
So the giving up of things is good if we allow the Holy One to fill our spaces of fear, regret, pain, selfishness, anger, pride, shame. He wants to take them. He is leading us, to the cross.
There is no room for his Voice. The way I create space is likely giving things up.
Stop looking to others to fill me, inspire me, motivate me.
I want to hear from my maker, so I should let go of all the other voices. If I can bravely crack open that space in my day.
“Let the things of this world fall away so the soul can fall in love with God. God only comes to fill the empty places and kenosis is necessary – to empty the soul to know the filling of God.” –– Ann Voskamp
It isn’t really anything I do, or don’t do, that matters. Not really.
It’s making space for the Holy One. Waiting for his filling up. Asking for his agenda with me.
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.” — Ephesians 2:8,9
Logic & Imagination 