The Bus-Stop

The Bus-Stop

I did something this past weekend that I never in a million years would have thought I would do.  I went to a Christian retreat.  I mentioned before that I had been taking a class on Christianity and it was essentially a Bible class.  I attended because I know precious little about the Christian faith and I was questioning my former indifference to something I don't truly understand.
I have thoroughly enjoyed the class, which is now coming to a close and the retreat was a bit like the graduation weekend.  I wasn't sure that I would attend the weekend when I started the class, but I made a decision early on to go all-in and I am so very glad that I did.
The retreat was held near Lancaster, PA and was on a beautiful campus grounds.  I had thought we would be at a hotel where reservations had been set aside, a bit like attending a convention, but no, this was an entire complex dedicated to such Christian Retreats...  As naive as I am I did not even know that such places existed.
Check-in was Friday night followed by the first sermon.  After the sermon we had time to mingle and discuss what we had just heard.  Saturday morning saw breakfast and another sermon followed by a guided discussion and break, another sermon followed by worship.  I wasn't sure what "worship" meant exactly, but assumed it was time set aside for quite prayer and reflection.  I was wrong but I will get back to that in a moment.  We had lunch and some free time before the final sermon and discussion followed by testimonials and a parting group photo.
The people surrounding me were all so blatantly happy and seemingly at peace.  Everyone I met was very kind and treated me with respect and with honest love and care.  These people all believed so strongly in something I still wrestle to accept.  They are so steadfast in their faith and I almost envy their surety.  They had me very comfortable up until the "worship" portion of the day.
During this timeframe, we all got in small circles and began to pray.  People were praying loudly for one another and this particular group of Christians practiced the "laying of hands" where the person being prayed for was encircled and everyone put their hands on them.  This was so foreign to me and I will admit I was really uncomfortable.  I saw many people in tears from the sheer intensity of the situation.  Now, I am an emotional person and I cry very easily so I was surprised that I did not feel anything but discomfort when it came time for me to be prayed for.  The Pastor came over when he caught me with my head up and eyes open looking around the room.  I felt like a naughty child caught with her hand in the cookie jar.  He came over at that point and asked if he could pray for me.  I was embarrassed but said yes.
He put his hand on my shoulder and proceeded to tell me what he saw as my struggles.  He mentioned several things that resonated with me and all of them fit my current situation in life.  He talked about my concerns for my kids and how he saw me in a maze struggling to find a way out, among other things.  I was so pre-occupied with my discomfort that it wasn't until later that I realized this man does not know me at all... So how did he know I had children?  It gave me chills and pause to think deeply about the experience.
Let me share a quote from Penn Jillette, of the magician duo, Penn and Teller that the pastor read to us during one of the first of the lessons of the class I took.  Penn Jillete is a devout atheist.
"I've always said that I don't respect people who don't proselytize.  I don't respect that at all.  If you believe that there is a heaven and a hell, and people could be going to hell or not getting eternal life, and you think that it's not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward - and atheists who think people should'g proselytize and who say just leave me alone and keep your religion to yourself - how much do you have to hate someone to NOT proselytize?  How much do you have to hate somebody to believe everlasting life is possible and not tell them that?  I mean, if I believed, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that a truck is coming at you, and you don't believe that the truck was bearing down on you, there is a certain point where I tackle you."
I ended the week end still not seeing the bus, but feeling as though these people cared and loved me, a stranger, enough to try and tackle me.  It is a powerful thing to have perfect strangers pray so ardently for you, believing they are helping someone they don't know.  I am still unclear on what I believe about Jesus and God, but I am very glad I went and met these beautiful people.  Perhaps this just isn't my bus-stop.

Prison

Prison

I recently got a text from someone I know from AA.  She told me that she was set to go on a prison Committment and needed another person to go with her and would I consider it.  I thought about it and said that I would.  Later in the month she told me that she would not be able to go but that she would put me in touch with another woman who had been doing it for a while.
I contacted this lady and we agreed to meet in the parking lot of a Dunkin Donuts near the prison and go onto the grounds together in one car.  It was dark when I got there and I was getting more and more uncomfortable with my decision to do this.  I had to go into a women's prison with someone I didn't know whom I was meeting in a darkened Dunkin Donuts parking lot... Um... Perhaps not my most thought-out decision.
To my immense relief the lady who pulled up was a petite, grandmotherly type who chatted happily away as we drove the short distance to the gates of the prison compound.  We had to hand over our drivers licenses and were then waved through to the parking lot.  As we headed for a space, I was unnerved by the site of a number of German Shepard guard dogs in runs along the perimeter topped by barbed wire.  The dogs were running the length of the enclosure and barking angrily as we got out of the car.  For some reason this made me think of World War II.
We entered the building and went through a series of checkpoints and searches.  We were not to wear jewelry or open- toed shoes or layers, they even took my elastic hair band.  They found our names on the approved list and we signed in at the last checkpoint and metal detector and were waved down a long corridor with a metal cage-like door at the intersection of two corridors.  There was a metal door at each opening of the hallway making four in all.  It was at this point that I realized that we were not in fact in a women's prison but a co-ed facility.  We were behind this metal door barrier and to our left were a line of male prisoners behind another metal barrier.  I assumed at this point that they would open the door for the prisoners and let them pass closing the next barrier behind them before opening our barrier to let us through, this keeping us separated...  That was not what happened.  They opened both and we were in this small space pretty much together. It was at this point that I noticed that we had no escort and I was starting to sweat.
We made it down the corridor going straight and the men crossed the other way.  We stood in front of a locked door on the left hand side of a long corridor and looked up into a camera waiting for the door to be opened.  We stood there for a solid three or four minutes waiting.  All the while my companion chatted amiably about a nut shop she knew of near where I now worked and how she loved their gift baskets.  She talked away while I eyed yet more male prisoners passing behind us on their way to another section of the prison.  I have not been that uncomfortable in quite some time... Not since passing out condoms under a bridge in North Philadelphia to a community of homeless heroin-addicted men during my practicum.
Finally a female guard opened the door from the other side and escorted us to a room labeled "classroom".  The room was not very large, but had a table at the head of the rom with two chairs and stacks of chairs around the perimeter.  Women started filing in and they were of all shapes, sizes, ages and colors, many of them tattooed.  Again I was really uncomfortable as the guard had left us alone at this point while the women installed the chairs and made a tight circle which included the two of us.
The petite grandmotherly type started the meeting and asked me to speak given that she had been there many times before and her story had been told often.  I nervously began knowing that I come from a privileged background and I was guessing that many of the women in there probably did not.  Nonetheless I told them about my life and the things I believed played into my becoming an alcoholic and about my struggles with trauma, the death of Liam, Frank's cancer bypass surgery and then alcoholism.  I talked to them about my journey into recovery so far and a number of women were crying by the time I was finished which I had not at all expected.
We opened the floor for them to ask questions or just share what they were struggling with.  There were a number of women who had lost children who spoke of how the depression that followed had driven them to use.  There were a number of women who faced leaving prison with little or no support to lean on.  There were a number of women who had experienced the same sort of sexual trauma as I have.  There were a number of women who wanted to know how I had found a way to forgive.  And at the end a very sad, bedraggled woman who was missing several teeth raised her hand with tears running down her cheeks who said in a really quiet voice, "I'm supposed to leave here soon.  I don't want to go.  I'm safe in here and I won't use.  When I leave I have nowhere to go and I just know that I will use again.  I just don't want to leave."  My heart broke.
I realized that even though I was uncomfortable in the setting, that these were just women after all.  They were just women who had had many obstacles in their lives and, who, like me, had made bad decisions.  They were just women and regardless of our different backgrounds we share a common problem.  I was uncomfortable, yes... But will I go back?.. You bet.

The Tsunami

The Tsunami

I have seen many people come out of rehab and expect everything to go back to the way it was.  They think that they have conquered their drinking or drugging and that life will fall back into place.  This is seldom, if ever, the case.
For starters, they have not conquered their addiction, we none of us have.  Even if you have been sober twenty years you haven't conquered addiction... You have merely tamed it for the time being.  If you stop doing the things that keep you sober you will fall right back down the same rabbit hole you clawed your way out of before.  If you stop being honest, if you stop going to meetings, if you are not in fit spiritual condition, you have shown your Achilles Heel.  When an addict becomes complacent and lets down their guard, they are ripe for the picking and the lies addiction tells us become louder in our minds and before they know it they are right back in the slag heap.
Nothing can go back to the way it was, nor should it.  If things go back to the way they were, then the addict and their families are living a delusion.  If the environment that helped create the addiction and the dysfunction is revisited then the problems will simply re-root and start creeping through the family like ivy climbing up the face of a stone building.
Addiction is like a tsunami that crashes upon the shore of a home, it floods and destroys.  When the water recedes there is debris and destruction.  Structures have been torn down and foundations have been rocked.  You can't live among the destruction, it isn't safe and nothing will hold up.  The answer is to clear away the debris and rebuild.  The structures have to be sturdier, built to tsunami grade code.
When I came out of rehab the first time, I tried to live among the muck and muddy depths of what alcoholism had done to myself, my relationships, my husband, my kids and my self-esteem.  It did not work, the whole thing fell apart again.  After my second stint in rehab we all seemed to know we would have to take life back down to the studs and re-build, slowly, steadily and with careful resolve.
I could not clear away my debris until I had done the steps.  Then, and only then could I pick up a hammer and start helping our situation by tapping and molding our new landscape.

Heaven and Hell

Heaven and Hell

 

I recently heard that most people who believe in God or consider themselves spiritual believe there is a heaven, but much fewer of those same people believe in hell.  I’m still not sure what I believe in terms of spirituality/religion but as I mentioned a little while ago I am attending a course that introduces me to Christianity.  I figure I can’t turn my back on something I know little about nor understand and the course has been fascinating so far. 

I don’t think I believed in heaven until Liam died.  So convenient right?  I just could not bear to think that he no longer existed at all and I wanted someone so innocent to be in a better place.  I believed it because I needed to.  Now I believe in an afterlife more firmly and for more solid spiritual reasons rather than sheer desperation.

But what would Heaven be like I wonder?  I don’t think it is robed angels with halos sitting on puffy clouds playing harps.  I similarly don’t think God is a white-haired man with a staff.  I also don’t picture hell as depicted in Dante’s Inferno.  I think that if there is an after-life it is likely beyond our imagining, or it could be like the good on earth without the bad or alternately the bad on earth without the good.   I think we catch glimpses of heaven and hell here on earth when we experience joy and despair.  Perhaps Heaven would be like eternal joy and hell would be eternal despair.

Perhaps it is different for each person according to their joy or pain.  When I was in elementary school one of my friends was blind.  She was and is a person full of life and simply differently abled than I am.  I always had fun playing with her and she had such an amazing imagination.  We were in art class once perhaps in second grade or there about and we were supposed to draw a bus.  Now my friend was in the art class as well and asked for the yellow crayon and some others and set about drawing a bus.  I remember thinking, “How does she know what a bus looks like?”  Well she proceeded to draw, feeling along the lines of her crayon marks as she went.  Her drawing looked nothing like my bus but she drew what she knew of buses from how she perceived them through touch and what I guess she must have been told.  She saw it just as clearly as I did in her own way and it strikes me that her drawing was no less accurate.

The class I am taking impresses me with its approachability.  I don’t know that I will end up being a church goer after the course is over, but I will be much more familiar with the Christian concept of God.  Perhaps I will then go on and study Islam, Judaism and Buddhism, who knows.  Just like my friend’s drawing, other people’s perceptions of God or a higher power are no less accurate just because they are not like my own.

What I have found is that I am thinking much more about spirituality, about being good even when no one is watching, about the complexity of our thoughts and spirits and about why we are all here.  Being in spiritual situations and among other spiritual seekers lifts me up and I rise in my mind like a fledgling.  My wings are still weak and I return to earth quickly but I look up, hopeful.  It will take some time but I hope I learn to stay spiritually aloft and remain to slip between the clouds.

 

Toys

Toys

 I think back to high school and wonder why I never got in trouble?  I think I had a healthy sense of fear and respect for authority and I seldom questioned things.  But I also was passionate about theatre and I spent so much time rehearsing and studying that there wasn't much time to get in trouble.  Now this is not to say that I was an angel but given my predilection for alcohol, it could have been much worse.
The thing about being passionate about something is that you want to spend your time doing it and it takes you outside yourself.   When you are an addict, being outside yourself is a better place to be.  As they say in the rooms "my best thinking got me here" so wallowing in my own thoughts too much causes me trouble.
This is essentially what the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous talks about in steps ten and twelve.  "Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty resentment and fear.  When these crop up, we ask God (or higher power) at once to remove them. We discuss with someone immediately and make amends quickly if we have harmed anyone.  Then we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone help."
A friend of mine recently posted a link to a story from the CBS evening news about a boy named Jaden in Savannah Georgia.  Jaden is six.  His father died when he was four and this year his mother passed away in her sleep unexpectedly.  He now lives with his Aunt and though he was grieving he told his Aunt that he was tired of seeing everyone so sad all the time.  He asked his aunt to buy some toys, little trinkets that you might find in a bubble gum machine.  He then asked to be taken downtown where he proceeded to approach strangers who were not smiling and give them a toy and make them smile.  He has done this numerous times and wants to keep going. His goal is to make 33,000 people smile.
Now this is a six-year-old orphan...  I saw this clip and was bawling, but aside from the fact that he is an example of love and acceptance and giving, he unknowingly found a way to assuage his own grief.  He says in the clip that he is still sad that his mom died, but by turning his thoughts to others he is getting outside himself where he found it too painful to be.
What if we all did that?  What if we all set aside our self-seeking motives as much as we could and looked outward to see where we could make a difference?  Like the beat of a butterfly wing... Such  a small gesture he is making but what a beautiful impact.  What if we could all be a little bit more like Jaden, the little boy giving away toys expecting nothing more than a smile in return.

I have finished revising and tweaking the children's book I wrote for my kids in an effort to explain the diseases of addiction and mental illness from which I suffer.  I have the endorsement of one of the top 7 rehab facilities in the U.S. who are on board to use the book and a companion coloring and activity book in their children's program and also sell them in their bookstore.  There are costs involved that I simply do not have on my own so I created a Kickstarter campaign to raise the funds.  Please check out my project and back me if you like, if not please share with others.  The more we talk about these problems the less stigma will remain and the better armed our children will be as they grow.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/queenwhosavedherself/the-queen-who-saved-herself

And Now About Religion...

 

And Now About Religion…

 

 

I haven’t written in a while.  I think there are a number of reasons.  One being that life happens and being that I am weak, I got wrapped up in its minutia.  I started to stray from the things that keep me more connected.  I wasn’t going to as many meetings, I haven’t been getting up as early to spend the time I need to in order to remain more in touch with my spiritual side.  It is a dangerous veering to be sure, especially for an alcoholic as it so often leads to relapse. 

But I also have been in a bit more of a listening phase.  I have had my ears open more and my mouth shut more which is necessary from time to time.  I can’t write if I don’t experience, see, feel and hear.

A few things have inspired me to write, one being the presence of the Pope in our fair city and the other is that I am taking a class.  It is a class I never in a million years would have considered taking and even when I signed myself up I had my doubts.  For those who know me well, I doubt you would have thought I would either.  I am taking a course that is designed to introduce me to Christianity.  Essentially I am going to a Bible study class and I love it. 

I did not grow up knowing much about religion.  I am Church of England by birth and I can’t say that my parents ever really emphasized religion at all.  I was born in Saudi Arabia so there were no churches, only Mosques.  My parents did send my brother and I to Sunday School (actually it was called Friday School because the weekends are not Saturday and Sunday in Arabia, they are Thursday and Friday, but that is a different story), but when we reached a certain age we were given the option to sleep in and took it with abandon.  So I knew who Jesus was and I knew a few of the parables but they certainly were never discussed outside of Friday School. 

I was also exposed to the religion of Islam.  I went to school with Muslims and lived among them from birth.  I will tell you there are some things I disagree with in the Islamic faith, but I can say the same for Christianity and Judaism and I do believe that most Muslims, as most Christians and Jews, are good people.  I remember reading on the Facebook page of one of my old friends from Arabia: that most Muslims look at ISIS in the same way that Christians look at the Westboro Baptist Church – they are extremists and do not speak for the entire religion.

This class is fascinating to me.  The stories and the thrust of the lessons have moved me.  If the word religion was something that turned me off before I could simply say that I am having a spiritual or philosophical discussion.  I can’t say that I will end up being a church goer at the end of this, but I can tell you that my mind is opening in ways it never previously would have and for that I am ever grateful.

I can also tell you that I still don’t know where I stand in terms of religion, but I can tell you that I do believe that there is something after death.  I can tell you that in my darkest moments now I no longer feel alone.  I can tell you that I feel as though life here on earth is a pre-cursor to something else.  I don’t know which religion speaks to me more, but I plan to explore more than just Christianity.  It seems to me they all have something important to impart and all speak to living well for the sake of living well even when no one is watching.

So Pope Francis is here in Philly tonight and he makes the Catholic faith so much more approachable than anyone else before him in my eyes.  I am not a Catholic obviously but the man speaks to me as he does to the rest of the world.  My maternal grandmother had a thing against Catholics and Irishmen, so it was six months after marrying Frank that I realized she would have turned in her grave to know that I had married an Irish Catholic – granted not a practicing one, but still!

I have spoken before about praying and how it truly does work.  I can’t say that it works in the way that we as children wish it would.  It doesn’t work in terms of “God please send me a puppy. God please make Jane like me. God please give me a promotion.”  But what it does, when done for the benefit of others is to bring the person praying outside themselves and make them think of others and isn’t that a miracle in and of itself?  To turn our thoughts to someone else, to put aside our own fears and desires and think of another can only mean good things.  To think of others instead of ourselves, to bring peace and mercy and faith into the forefront and the more that happens and is spread, then we lessen the strength of evil and pain and suffering.  It is harder to spend time on things that lead us astray when we are concentrating on the well-being of others.

So where does that leave me?  It leaves me listening to Arethra Franklin sing “Amazing Grace” and waiting to hear what the Pope has to say next.  I love to hear his message because he passes no judgement and loves so completely that is makes my eyes water with joy.  Dermot recently was so happy about something pretty monumental in his little life that he was brought to tears.  He was crying for joy.  The next day he said to me, “Mom, you always say that you are crying because you are happy and I never understood that until now, but I get it.  It is like you have so much happy that it leaks out of your eyes.”  Waiting to hear more of the message that makes my eyes leak with joy.