Trey's Days No. 17

"Think about the last time you were stressed out – I mean really stressed out – I mean 'I have four papers due on Monday and I washed a red shirt with the whites and I’ve been stuck on the tarmac at Logan for two hours for no discernible reason' stressed out. What did your friends do? They took you for coffee or for ice cream or, perhaps, for coffee ice cream. They told you to take a couple deep breaths. They told you to focus on breathing. Everything will be alright, they said. They knew that breathing, like God’s presence, is a constant in our lives. They knew that we don’t have to focus on constant things in order for those constant things to continue happening. But they also knew that when we do focus on those constant things, we often find peace – peace and new beginnings." The Rev. Adam Thomas

Once when I was in a real crisis, my therapist Anna took me on a little spiritual journey that began with the words "I want you to become aware of your breathing." That commenced a little trip to a place inside myself that I'll call my conscious contact with God. It's always been there and does not depend on my awareness. Each time I remember Anna's words in that still quiet place, it re-emerges, unchanged by time and neglect. And each time I renew my conscious contact with it, its nourishing power, its salving balm is just as sweet as it was the first time. My God is like that. Unchanging, not dependent on me, ever salving, calming, saving.

The story of "Jacob's Ladder" to which the Adam Thomas piece refers, begins with a dream. Many stories in Scripture begin with dreams. Like dreams, our unconscious and the synchronistic nature of things, always lie just beneath the surface of our conscious busyness, and when we get stressed out, frantic, afraid, tired, they are there to remind us, "I want you to become aware of your breathing." And when we return, in an instant it reappears, that connection with something greater than self, greater than circumstances, greater than the world, greater than death. Yes, greater than death! That clear clean cool well of pure spiritual awareness that is our God is waiting for us, and all we have to do is breathe. Amen.

Now check out Adam Thomas' blog for a slightly more coherent hint of what I'm talking about.

http://wherethewind.com/2011/07/18/the-autonomic-spiritual-system/

Trey's Days No. 16

Betty Ford and Julia Hagerman: a legacy of recovery

by Trey Merritt on Tuesday, July 12, 2011 at 7:49am

"I'm having an eclipse of my own!" The living room was completely dark. I wouldn't have known she was there except for the orange glow coming from the tip of her Kent. "C'mon granny, we're going outside to see the lunar eclipse!" Her reply was startling to me as a young child, but now I understand it completely.

Betty Ford died on July 8th, and left a legacy of recovery. When I was growing up in the era of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, our family didn't talk about addiction or alcoholism. It was a dirty little secret, like being gay, or having a mental illness. There were lots of dirty little secrets that families suffered with in silence, or more likely, with whispers.

"Your grandmother is an alcoholic. She's had too much to drink. She doesn't mean what she's saying and she won't remember it tomorrow." My mother knew enough to tell me as a child that Granny's behavior had a cause. Her rants, her ramblings, her nonsensical goings on came after an afternoon of drinking Scotch and smoking cigarettes, a daily event that began with an oh so gentile, "I believe I'll have a highball. Would anyone else like one?" That highball was followed by a succession of "patches" which consisted of an ice cube or two and a splash of Scotch. Her glasses were etched with pink elephants. Her stories were of things that happened long ago, or never.

"I wish you could have known my mother before she got like this. She used to be a lot of fun." We had gone to the coast for the day. We had family in Pass Christian, and the beach was not far away from my grandparents' South Mississippi home. Granny had not gone with us that day, preferring to stay home and drink and visit with the maid, which is how she spent every day. Upon returning at dark thirty, we found my grandmother, walking in circles in the kitchen, the floor covered with smudges of blood and broken glass. One more patch was too many and the pink elephants had shattered all over the floor. Too drunk to clean up her mess, she had walked around in broken glass for who knows how long. My mother spent the rest of the evening picking glass out of her feet. "I wish you could have know my mother before she got like this."

No one ever suggested to my grandmother that she might have a problem with alcohol. Betty Ford hadn't sobered up yet, hadn't founded her famous hospital. AA had been around for decades, but in that small Mississippi town such things were far far away, or at least not mentioned. It was Betty Ford who changed all that. What Bill W. had started in 1935, Mrs. Ford took public in the 1980s. Suddenly it was not only okay to get help, it seemed like addicts and alcoholics were coming out of the woodwork, their disease to expose. Recovery happened. As a society we started to get well together.

So when it came time for my family's disease to manifest itself in me, help was everywhere. At work, at my church, at school, in the grocery store, on facebook, everywhere I go, there are people who walk the walk of recovery with me, and we see each other getting better, we listen to each other's stories and hear ourselves there. We see a fellowship growing up around us like a miracle we never could have imagined while in our disease.

So rest in peace Betty and Julia, and thank you a million times thank you for your legacy of disease and recovery. Things will never be the same for those of us who get a second chance, and we can never repay the gift you have left us. May we ever have the Grace to keep passing it on.

Trey's Days No. 15

Life is Good

I read an article about a dude who hiked the Appalachian Trial from way down south to way up north, and realized there that all his big thoughts crystallized into "warm dry place to sleep, food to eat." My Appalachian Trial at the moment is many sheet pans of cookie dough, great bowls of strawberry bread batter, and many repetitions of attempting the best brownie recipe ever (if you haven't tried the Boulevard brownies, you must!). I didn't go to school to scoop cookies and attempt to perfect brownies. I went to school to think big thoughts and write about them for people who critique big thoughts and writing about them. But somewhere in the third attempt to make the brownies, in the reading of an Appalachian Trial tale, in the bone tiredness of working all night, comes my crystallization.

I recently was temporarily kicked off Facebook pending an investigation of an allegation of abuse. It was resolved in my favor, for which I am very grateful. I didn't realized how much I would miss my Facebook friends, our little interactions here, the sites I see and read here. The human community if so great. The love we share with each other is powerful, nourishing and life giving. Yes, I know, it's on-line, and it's Facebook, but it's also human. We touch each other with our little words, our posts, our poems, our pictures of our lives unfolding, and somewhere in there is a crystallization of love between real human beings, connected, even if it is with computers.

Just as I was coming back to Facebook there was an article from "elephantjournal" by a guy who is a Buddhist meditation teacher, about how Jesus is God, and like seeing a wave in the ocean, if you've seen him you've seen the Father. And so it is with us. The article is about Buddhism, meditation and the Bodhisattva way, but it says something powerful too about who Jesus is. He's God! And we, through the magic of the human connection can see God through His fearless giving. And this coming from a dude who is not a Christian! And there too, a crystallization! I realized how much I love Jesus and His Church while I was sitting on a cushion meditating with some Buddhist friends. I thought I was getting away for a while, only to realize I was always moving toward Home. We all are always moving toward Home, no matter how far away we may feel now. Trust that!

Whether we're hiking the Appalachian Trial, making cookies, sitting on a Buddhist meditation cushion, kneeling in an Episcopal Church, rocking out to heavy metal or drinking beer by the pool, we're all being called Home by a God who loves us, and after all the big thoughts and complicated words are thought and said, it's all crystallizing down to a warm dry place to sleep, some food to eat, and a loving human community to be a part of. For that I am very grateful. Life is Good! Amen.