Book Write-Up: Good and Angry, by David Powlison

David Powlison.  Good and Angry: Redeeming Anger, Irritation, Complaining, and Bitterness.  Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2016.  See here to purchase the book.

David Powlison is the executive director of the Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation, and he edits the Journal of Biblical Counseling.  He has an M.Div. from Westminster Theological Seminary and a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania.

As the title of the book indicates, Powlison addresses the topic of anger in Good and Angry: Redeeming Anger, Irritation, Complaining, and Bitterness.  Part of his agenda is to encourage people to use their anger in constructive ways, especially when that anger is directed towards injustice.  Powlison talks about the importance of confronting people who have made us justly angry, in order to persuade them tactfully not to hurt others.

But Powlison also offers strategies on how to deal with anger that arises from things simply not going as we wish.  For Powlison, recognizing and identifying the roots of our anger, placing our desires in a proper perspective, and appreciating God’s mercy, sovereignty, and benevolence are all strategies for alleviating anger.  Powlison believes that prayer is significant in this process.

Another issue that is discussed in the book is whether anger at God is justified.  Powlison criticizes ranting against God or forgiving God, for Powlison regards God as righteous, and human beings as flawed.  Powlison disagrees with those who claim that the Psalms justify ranting against God, for he maintains that they indicate a desire for God’s righteous intervention and presence, not an anti-God attitude.

Powlison includes anecdotes in this book.  He is honest about his own shortcomings and describes his own experiences with anger.  He refers to people he has known who were angry: one story that comes to mind is the one about the lady who was angry about things that occurred a long time ago, and they were still fresh in her mind, as if they had occurred yesterday!  Powlison also draws from books that he has read, both fiction and non-fiction.

The Bible looms large in Powlison’s book, as he finds helpful biblical insights about anger and how to deal with it.

In terms of the book’s positives, the author’s honesty gave his discussion credibility.  Powlison is talking about an issue with which he has struggled, and he is offering insights for others who struggle.  The anecdotes were helpful.  And the book manifested an tone of acceptance towards where people were.  Powlison encouraged readers to identify BWAs—-“But what about”s—-which are areas in which they disagreed with the author, or wondered if or how his discussion would address certain issues.

Powlison also offered a specific way to cope with anger in a scenario: you are caught up in  unexpected traffic and will be late for your doctor’s appointment, your business meeting, or lunch with an estranged friend.  How can you cope in that situation?  Powlison provides questions to ask that deal with identifying insecurities and reflecting on the consequences of anger.  Psalm 23 plays a significant role in his advice, as does showing concern for others.

As one who struggles socially, Powlison’s discussion about people who are angry because they lack social skills resonated with me: Powlison said that it is not a sin to lack wit!  He encouraged people to care more about God’s opinion of them than their own or other people’s opinion.  There may be wisdom to that.  At the same time, there are people who can read the Bible and feel condemned by it.  There are also Christians who accuse introverted people of lacking love, and that can negatively shape an introverted person’s view of what God thinks about him or her!

In terms of the book’s negatives, the book could have been more specific about how to do interpersonal confrontation.  Powlison should have provided scenarios about how to confront someone in a tactful, humble manner.  Powlison also appeared rather critical of attempting to insulate oneself from anger through distance, or by watching television.  In my opinion, distraction can be a useful way to get one’s mind off of the things that make one angry!  And, as far as Scripture was concerned, the book perhaps would have been better had it wrestled with Jesus’ statements about God not forgiving us if we do not forgive others.

Overall, though, the book offers wisdom.  Powlison writes from a Christian perspective, but a lot of what he says reminds me of Buddhism, or the twelve steps of twelve-step groups.  Like Buddhism, Powlison recognizes the role of our desires in making us unhappy.  And the fourth step encourages those in recovery to make a list of people towards whom one is bitter, and to identify what exactly those people threatened: one’s self-esteem, livelihood, security, etc.?  Many people have been helped by twelve step programs, and that is something that, in my mind, gives Powlison’s advice credence: that similar advice has worked.

I received a complimentary review copy of this book through Cross Focused Reviews, in exchange for an honest review.

Movie Write-Up: Ragamuffin (2014)

I watched the 2014 movie, Ragamuffin, a couple of nights ago.  Ragamuffin tells the story of award-winning Christian Contemporary musician Rich Mullins.  It goes from his childhood, through his success and the time that he spent on a Native American reservation, up to his tragic death in an automobile accident in 1997.

I was familiar with Rich Mullins’ music before I was familiar with Rich Mullins himself.  If you attend an evangelical event of praise and worship, you will probably sing at least one Rich Mullins song, and maybe more.  The songs that I particularly remember are “Step by Step” and “Awesome God.”

Rich did a concert at my undergraduate institution in the 1990s, and I went to that.  We sang “Awesome God.”  He did his simulated “rain” trick, in which people in the audience simulated the sound of rain by snapping their fingers and slapping their thighs.  What was ironic was that it actually did rain after that!  Someone told me that Rich Mullins’ response to that was, “Yeah, that was awesome, wasn’t it?”  He sounded to me like a nice guy, not the sort of celebrity who puts on airs.

Rich Mullins did not just sing at the concert, but he also shared his reflections about faith and life while he was playing the piano.  He was honest and funny.  I remember him sharing about how he can develop his own worldview of how life is, and then the Bible comes along and unravels it!  He referred to that verse in Psalm 137 in which the Psalmist blesses those who dash babies’ heads on rocks.  (The Psalmist is wishing that this might occur to Babylonian babies, since the Babylonians had done the same thing to the Israelites.)  “Imagine sharing that at a pro-life meeting!”, Rich said.

Later, listening to the radio, I gained more insight into how Rich Mullins did not just talk the talk, but walked the walk.  Rich donated most of his money to charity.  He also lived on a poor Native American reservation, teaching music there and helping people out.  It was sad that he died in that automobile accident in 1997, at the young age of 42.

The movie, Ragamuffin, looks into the side of Rich Mullins that I did not know about.  Yes, he was friendly, open, and approachable.  But he was also very lonely, to the point of being needy.  He had friends, but he felt hurt when a friend went somewhere without telling him.  He was what people in Alcoholics Anonymous would call “restless, irritable, and discontent.”  And, speaking of that, there were seasons in which he drank a lot, even when he was a Christian celebrity.  He had unresolved issues with his father, since the two of them did not get along.  He and his college girlfriend also broke up, but he still loved her and did not marry after that.

Rich was not easy to work with because he wanted to do things his way, rather than conforming to the Christian music business’s expectations.  People thought his songs were too brooding and that his running commentary at his concerts was too controversial.  (The songs that I knew never struck me as particularly deep and brooding, but some of his songs apparently were.)  His business superiors tried to appeal to the “toys” that Rich got to buy to get him to conform, but it got to the point where those things did not matter to Rich anymore.  As one of his managers said, “Someone who doesn’t want anything is a dangerous person.”  But Rich was searching for something: authenticity, healing, and fulfillment.

He did not spend all of his time feeling sorry for himself and having an existential crisis, however.  He sought out mentors.  One mentor was the father of his college roommate, a likable, humble fellow, and a strong Christian.  Another was Brennan Manning, a preacher, author, and  recovering alcoholic.  Manning popularized the term “Ragamuffin” (someone who realizes he needs God’s mercy) and taught Rich that God loved him as he was, not as he should be.  Rich also served people at the Native American reservation, and his own brokenness helped him to minister to others at his concerts.  For example, he played and sang the song, “Hold me Jesus, I’m shaking like a leaf.”

Rich obviously did not have everything together.  Perhaps that is what made him accepting, honest, and open with others.

His brother is in the movie, playing the DJ who interviews Rich Mullins.  I thought that the DJ looked like Rich but realized that he couldn’t be him because Rich died about a decade ago.  But it was Rich’s brother Dave.

I found this movie worth watching.  It is a bit long: two hours and seventeen minutes.  But it was an interesting look at the man.  I am still sad that he died.

Wikipedia’s article about Rich Mullins may give you more insight about Rich and his significance.  The article links to some articles that suggest that Rich, soon before his death, was thinking of converting to Catholicism.  (That stands out to me because I remember a Catholic friend telling me that he liked Catholic liturgy rather than “Awesome God.”)  See also wikipedia’s article about Brennan Manning.

The Unborn, Alcohol and Scripture, and the Afterlife

My church’s Sunday School class is going through the United Methodist Church’s Social Principles.  We had a lot of good discussions last Sunday: about pay disparity between men and women, alcohol, eugenics, the unborn, rights and responsibilities, the afterlife, and the list goes on.  In this post, I will concentrate on three topics: the unborn, alcohol and Scripture as a guide, and the afterlife.

1.  We did not have an extensive discussion on abortion, per se, but we did get into issues regarding the unborn.  The pastor has a Ph.D. in genetics from Yale, and she was addressing some of what the Social Principles have to say about genetics.  Although she is politically progressive, she was expressing concern about the unborn.  She was saying that certain fertility procedures result in the creation of numerous unused embryos, and she was questioning whether that was right.  She also told us a story about Saudi couples who wanted to see their child inside of the woman’s womb, and their real reason for doing so was to determine if the child was a female, and to abort the child if that was the case.

After the pastor left the class to prepare for the church service, we stayed behind and continued the discussion (or, actually, I just listened).  One lady, who was raised in a conservative Catholic home and has an ambivalent attitude towards her Catholic upbringing (i.e., her attitude is negative, but she still seems to embrace some of its ideas), appeared to be saying that life begins at conception.  Another lady, who is a progressive activist, said that, if that is the case, then society should care about the well-being and provision of the unborn, just as it cares about children after birth.  A man in the group then said that the reason that the unborn do not have rights is that such rights conflict with women’s rights—-or, rather, the unborn’s rights are being undermined in the name of women’s rights.  His comment was rather controversial among the women in the group, including (it seemed to me) his wife!

I was wondering if it really was the case that the unborn have no rights at all in the United States.  I am aware that abortion is legal, but my understanding was that society still had some concern for the unborn: there are calls for prenatal care in health care policies, and I thought that there were legal penalties for harming a fetus—-if a mother drank and had a child who had fetal alcohol syndrome, for example, or if a man harms a woman and ends up harming her fetus as well.  I later did a search online, and the issue of fetal rights does appear to be rather complex, as far as the law is concerned (see here and here).

When the pastor made that point about embryos, my thought was: “Well, what would be the big deal?  If the embryo is just a blob of tissue, does it matter if there are a lot of them that are unused?”  But even progressive people can believe that human embryos have some special human significance—-that they are more than blobs of tissue.  I recall an online discussion that I had a while back about abortion.  A progressive was saying that she was against abortion personally, but that she still was pro-choice.  I asked her why she was against abortion personally, and she replied that she thinks that, in many cases, abortion is the easy way out—-that there should be some gravity in the decision on whether or not to abort.  Many would say that there already is gravity—-that abortion is not a decision that is made lightly.

I could go on to detail my annoyances with Christian right-wing pro-lifers, particularly the types who proclaim that liberal Democrats are not true Christians because of their abortion stance.  (No one in the group espoused this view, fortunately.)  Personally, I am not satisfied with either side: I believe that the unborn are more than blobs of tissue, but I also think that laws against abortion are too inflexible and can place the health and economic livelihoods of women at risk.  Anyway, I don’t want to write myself into a pit, so let’s move onto the next item.

2.  On alcohol, the Social Principles gave a nod to the traditional Methodist belief in abstinence, but they went on to say that, if people decided to drink, then they should drink responsibly, and with Scripture as a guide.  The pastor thought that the part about Scripture being a guide on alcohol was a bit laughable.  “What Scripture is supposed to be the guide?,” she asked.  “Jesus turning barrels of water into wine?”

That part in the Social Principles stood out to me, too.  Initially, I thought that Scripture could be a guide.  The Bible does condemn drunkenness (I Corinthians 6:10), and the Book of Proverbs depicts negative consequences of drinking too much.  As I reflected on my life, however, I realized that those passages did not exactly convict me in the days when I was drinking.  I assumed that they were talking about something different from what I was doing, that they were not talking about me going out and getting drunk, but rather concerned people who drank all day, or who got into fights as a result of drinking.

It is interesting to me that, overall, the Social Principles do not quote biblical proof-texts for their position.  They refer to Ezekiel 34:4 in arguing for a universal right to health care, but I cannot think of too many other instances like that.  For example, the section on divorce was reasonable, I thought, but it did not interact with biblical passages about divorce.  That is a refreshing contrast to some things I have seen on the Christian right: I remember one magazine quoting biblical proof-texts to argue that God supports President Reagan’s Star Wars program!  I am not in favor of that extreme, but I am curious as to why Scripture does not play a prevalent role in the Social Principles.  Are they trying to avoid simplistic proof-texting?  Do they believe that applying Scripture as a guide is complex?  Maybe their authors would say that they are drawing from the principles of Scripture, even if, as a general policy, they are not quoting explicit texts.

3.  Someone in the group referred to the section of the Social Principles about suicide.  While the section discourages suicide, it states that “A Christian perspective on suicide begins with an affirmation of faith that nothing, including suicide, separates us from the love of God (Romans 8:38-39).”  (Okay, there is another reference to Scripture in the Social Principles!)  The ex-Catholic lady then said that, according to Catholicism, people who commit suicide go to hell.  The reasoning for that position, in my understanding, is that suicide is murder, a mortal sin, and a person who commits that sin cannot repent of it and receive forgiveness because he or she has died.  Both the ex-Catholic lady and the lady who referred to the section on suicide preferred what the United Methodist Church’s Social Principles had to say about the subject.

The lady who referred to the section, however, then said something that took me aback.  She said that nothing can separate us from the love of God, but that we can separate ourselves from the love of God.  She probably meant that we can separate ourselves from God’s love by not believing in him, for she went on to say that we should not worry about the soul of a non-believing friend or loved one who died, for that person may have accepted Jesus before dying.  Impending death, she said, can put people in a spiritual state of mind.  I was a bit surprised to see United Methodists wrestling with this question.  I realize that there are conservative United Methodists, but my understanding was that this particular church had recently gone through Rob Bell’s Love Wins, which some say is universalist, and which supposedly argues against the idea that people will go to hell if they fail to accept Jesus in this life (not that Bell would say that spiritual decisions in this life are unimportant).  I’m wondering how people in the church processed the book (which, to be honest, I myself have not read).

The Opposite of Love Is...Indifference?

I’m reading a biography of Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk and a prolific author.  The book is Michael Mott’s The Seven Mountains of Thomas Merton.  On page 316, Mott quotes the following from one of Merton’s books, Thoughts in Solitude:

“Those who do not love, hate.  In the spiritual life there is no such thing as an indifference to love or hate.  That is why tepidity (which seems to be indifferent) is so detestable.  It is hate disguised as love.”

Similarly, pastor and author John MacArthur, Jr. says this here:

“Do you honestly care about other believers or are you cold, uncaring, and indifferent? Do you have a desire to reach out and meet their needs? Those who don’t care are spiritually dead, characterized by an ongoing hatred. In our sophisticated age, that is manifested not so much in vitriolic hostility as in an utterly self-centered approach to life. People who continually focus on themselves and couldn’t care less what happens to anyone else are of their father the devil, who ‘was a murderer from the beginning’ (John 8:44). As believers, however, ‘we know love by this, that [Christ] laid down His life for us’ quite the opposite of the devil’s murderous character. Therefore, ‘We ought to lay down our lives for the brethren’ (1 John 3:16).”

These passages remind me of the cliche that “the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference.”  I’ve seen TV shows about this.  A son hates his mother, and his mother actually thinks that’s a good thing, because the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference.  If he hates, that shows he still cares.

The reason that the Thomas Merton quote stood out to me is that, lately, I have been rather indifferent towards certain people and have considered that to be a good thing.  At least I am not seething in resentment against them!  At least indifference allows me to have a certain peace of mind!  I can think about certain people from my past and be happy that I do not have to see them anymore, and just let them go their way, while I go mine.  Why should I beat myself up for not having benevolence in my heart towards them?  Actually, when would I be better able to meet their needs were I to encounter them or to be asked by them for help: when I am seething against them, or when I have a placid indifference?  Probably the latter, unless I am called upon to make a great sacrifice.

The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous says that the way to cure a grudge against a person is to pray for him or her.  More than one person has testified that this approach works.  Essentially, over a period of time, you pray for the person and wish for him or her the things that you desire for yourself.  This approach is not placid indifference towards the other person but is an attempt to cultivate some benevolence in one’s heart, to humanize the other person, if you will.  At the same time, I doubt that the Big Book is expecting the person with the grudge to think about that other person all of the time.  What we’re talking about here, it seems to me, is a method to cure resentment, which can drive an alcoholic to drink.

Personally, I find indifference to be a step up from hatred.  Yet, I do not want to be at a place where I am totally callous towards others and self-absorbed.  Benevolence towards those I dislike, however, is too saintly for me.  For that, I need divine grace, and that is something for me to pray for.  In the meantime, as I do that, I will celebrate whatever placid feelings I have.  Maybe I can remind myself that God loves me and those I dislike, and that can cultivate a greater love in my heart.

Movie Write-Up: Grace Unplugged

I watched a Christian movie a few days ago: Grace Unplugged, which came out in 2013.  Although the movie is Christian, Lionsgate Films and Roadside Attractions released it, and they release a lot of secular movies.

The movie is about an 18-year-old girl named Grace Trey, whose father, Johnny Trey, used to be a rock star.  Johnny was known as a one-hit wonder, and he left the secular music industry when he became a born-again Christian.  Now, he and his daughter perform at their church, and also at other churches.  The two of them clash quite a bit.

When Johnny’s former agent, Frank “Mossy” Martin, comes into town and tells Johnny that his one hit is becoming famous again, Mossy invites Johnny back into the secular music industry.  Johnny declines Mossy’s offer, but Grace runs away from home, meets with Mossy, and becomes a success in her own right by performing her father’s hit.  Her father tells her that she is not ready for the secular music business, and she struggles to define the role of faith in her life.  She bumps into a nice Christian intern, Quentin, who befriends her and encourages her to make the Christian faith her own.  After Grace experiences a few professional bumps, Mossy tells her that she will be making her own album with songs that others have written for her.  When she objects that one of the songs depicts a one-night stand and goes against her values, she leaves the secular music industry and goes back home.  She remains a professional musician, however, along with her father.

The movie was not earthshakingly good, but is was all right to watch.  It shows how hard it is in certain settings to stand by one’s values, especially when they are unconventional.  In once scene, Grace and some higher-ups in the secular music industry are toasting with champagne, and Grace drinks it to fit in with the crowd.  I myself have no religious objections to drinking, but I do not drink because I am a recovering alcoholic, and I wonder what I would have done in Gracie’s situation: would I go along with the crowd, or would I just not drink from the glass while not being obvious about it?  I have to respect the Hollywood celebrities—-and there are many—-who are in Alcoholics Anonymous and may have to find ways to be social and fit in at drinking functions, without actually drinking.

Some of the actors in Grace Unplugged were familiar to me.  James Denton played Johnny Trey, and I know James Denton as Mike Delfino on Desperate Housewives.  I always liked Mike.  And I learned that Quentin was played by Michael Welch, who has been in some of the Twilight movies, but whom I know from the series Joan of Arcadia.  He played Joan’s nerdy little brother, who brought a scientific dimension to the show, and who also made a good point that there is a distinction between facts and the interpretation of them.

I read Christianity Today‘s negative review of the movie, and I have two thoughts about that.  First, the review tells about a host of a screening of the movie who scolded evangelicals for going to see The Hunger Games rather than Grace Unplugged, pleading with them to go in masses to the opening night of the latter movie.  I really did not like this, for a variety of reasons.  I get sick of evangelical leaders bossing around other evangelicals as if they’re children, or pressuring them to see a movie they may not want to see just because they are supposed to root for Team Evangelical.  While my opinion of Grace Unplugged was not as low that that of Christianity Today‘s review, I still laud Christianity Today for not being afraid to question Team Evangelical!

Second, I liked what the Christianity Today review said about the music manager in the movie, Frank “Mossy”: “Kevin Pollak sidesteps the film’s biggest potential landmine by making Frank a grown up, rather than a predator.”  I actually appreciated that, myself.  Mossy was not a Christian, and he did not share some of Grace’s values, but he was a good and a dependable agent, who knew how the secular music game was played.

Book Write-Up: Breaking Free, by Kevin W. Shorter

Kevin W. Shorter.  Breaking Free: How to Be Completely Free from Any Addiction.  Kevin Shorter, 2014.  See here for Amazon’s page about it.

Breaking Free contains Kevin Shorter’s suggestions on dealing with addiction.  Shorter writes from an evangelical Christian perspective, and he says that his own addiction was pornography.  Shorter’s suggestions include recognizing God’s love, allowing God to shape one’s perspective about one’s experiences and other people, looking at the root causes of addiction to find healing, doing service work to get out of oneself, and being in a non-judgmental group where one can share openly.  I would say that Shorter’s suggestions overlap with those of Alcoholics Anonymous, only Shorter’s perspective is evangelical Christian.

In my opinion, the greatest asset to Shorter’s book is his interpretation of I John.  I John is a book of the Bible that has long troubled me, since it seems to assert that people who sin repeatedly or who fail to love others are not truly saved.  Shorter offers another perspective: that addiction to a sin is not a sign that one is not saved at all, but rather is an indication that one has failed to shine God’s love into a certain area of one’s life.  I do not know if that is what I John originally meant, but I do find Shorter’s interpretation to be a constructive way of looking at the Christian life.

There were areas in which I may have differed from Shorter, but I could understand and appreciate his rationale.  First, I personally am not dogmatic about when God speaks to me.  But I can appreciate Shorter’s point that, with God’s help and the help of a mature human being, we may need to look at the negative experiences of our life and place them within a more positive narrative, or that we should look for the positive in ourselves and other people.  Second, I tend to shy away from small groups, but I can understand why many find them helpful.  I appreciated that Shorter mentioned the challenges of finding non-judgmental friends and a support system.

In some cases, I found myself wishing that Shorter gave specific examples.  Shorter mentioned service work as a way for one to get outside of oneself and thereby lessen alienation and depression.  In my opinion, he should have listed examples of service work that one can do.

Shorter’s book had grammatical mistakes, but, overall, they did not detract from the book’s readability or clarity.

The author of the book asked me to write a review.  That did not influence the review’s content.

The Holiday Blues

A thought has occurred to me more than once: according to my recollections, I had the “holiday blues” more often after I quit drinking, than I did before.  I wonder why that was.  Isn’t sobriety, after all, supposed to entail an improvement?

“You didn’t feel the holiday blues back then because before you were drunk,” someone may answer.  Well, that is not exactly true.  One year on Thanksgiving and Christmas, I worked on writing papers all day, without feeling the least bit depressed.  On other pre-sobriety Thanksgivings and Christmases when I was alone, I drank some, but not a whole lot.  I look back on my pre-sobriety holidays alone, and they are a blur to me, whereas I actually remember each sobriety holiday alone.  These pre-sobriety holidays just came, and they went.  I enjoyed the time off from school.  Sometimes, I went to see a movie.  If I have any negative recollection of them, it was that I was often disappointed that I could not find anything open on those days.  But I figured that this was how the holidays were, and they would soon be over.

After my sobriety date, when I spent the holidays alone, I felt very depressed.  It was like I was consciously trying to make myself happy, since I was supposed to be happy on the holidays, and I was failing miserably.  One year was not that bad because I went to a few meetings, but in doing so I was consciously beating off the holiday blues.  I don’t remember doing that prior to my sobriety.
I don’t deal with holiday blues nowadays because I am not alone.  It’s just interesting to me that my pre-sobriety holidays alone were better than my sobriety holidays alone.  I wonder why that was.  Maybe it was because, in sobriety, I was starting to encounter people who wrestled with the holiday blues, so I was more aware of them.  Also, I had started blogging, so maybe thinking and reflecting too much made me unhappy.  I don’t know.  I will say one other thing, though: I have more good days in general in sobriety than I did before sobriety.

Giving Oneself Permission to Be Happy

Over the past year or so, I have told myself something to keep myself from drinking.  There are seasons in my life in which I have to tell myself this more than once.

The deal is this.  There are things in my life that I am unhappy about.  Perhaps they can be fixed, perhaps they cannot, or perhaps I do not have the will or the discipline to fix them.  I don’t know.  The thing is, why do I feel like drinking when those problems are foremost on my mind?  Because I want to feel happy.  Drinking will not fix those problems.  And, even though it may give me a buzz and that will make me slightly happy, I will crave more and more alcohol.  Drinking, for me, was like a bottomless pit: the vast quantities of alcohol could not fill the hole in my heart.  (I know, that sounds rather cheesy, like dialogue from the Ten Commandments!  But it’s an apt metaphor.)

So what do I tell myself to discourage me from drinking, or at least to lessen that desire to drink?  I tell myself this: If I am willing to drink to be happy, even though my problems are there and unresolved, then why can’t I just choose to be happy without drinking, notwithstanding my unresolved problems?

You see, I have to give myself permission to be happy, because, deep down, there is a part of me that says I should not be.  If, say, I am unpopular, a voice tells me that I should not try to be content with that but should try to solve the problem.  If I am happy in the midst of my unpopularity, I am in denial, or I am fooling myself by telling myself that I am happy when I really am not, that little voice tells me.  The message that infiltrates my mind is that my problems have to be fully resolved before I can be happy, that I cannot be happy if something is wrong, with myself or the world around me.

There is a place, in my opinion, for trying to change one’s situation.  A person once used a simile to describe to me recovery from alcoholism.  Suppose I’m in a dark closet, which had lots of boxes on the floor on which I keep tripping.  Quitting drinking is like the light in the closet going on.  But the boxes are still there, and working the twelve steps (preferably with a sponsor)—-doing the hard work of self-analysis, making amends, and reaching out to others—-is like moving those boxes so that I do not trip anymore.

I guess what I am trying to sell to myself is that I can be happy, even though the boxes are still there!  People can probably stand in line and tell me that I am fooling myself.  They may have a point, but I still don’t think that I have to be negative because I am not perfect, or because things do not go as I would like.  I am tired of fighting battles with people in my own mind.  There are so many things out there in life to enjoy.  I give myself permission to be happy, against any voice that tells me I am wrong to do so.

Does God Only Hear Christians' Prayers?

I was watching some sermons yesterday.  The first one was by Joel Osteen.  The second was by Kenneth Copeland.  And the third was by Charles Stanley.

I liked the first two sermons.  The third, however, troubled me immensely.  Charles Stanley’s sermon was about solving problems through prayer, and Stanley said at least three times that prayer will not work for those who have not accepted Jesus Christ.  Yes, God is unconditionally loving, Stanley was saying, but God will not overlook sin, pride, and rebellion.  The promises of God are for the children of God, Stanley affirmed.  How can one call God “Father,” while rejecting God’s very own son?

I am not sure what to say about this.  It has a ring of truth to it.  Yeah, I have a hard time envisioning God overlooking my sins.  And, if Jesus is God’s son, God would love and value him and presumably would not honor the prayers of those who reject him.  Or would he?  I can also picture God meeting people where they are, even if they have not quite crossed the threshold into Christianity.  But is God in the business of maintaining long-standing relationships with non-Christians?  If so, why believe in Jesus Christ, if one can have a relationship with God apart from him?

But there is a part of me that does not think that what Charles Stanley is saying is true.  For one, how do I know that Jesus is God’s son?  He could have been an apocalyptic prophet who was wrong about the imminence of the apocalypse!  Even if Christian apologetic arguments that Jesus rose from the dead hold water, I don’t think that solves everything, for there is still so much subjectivity in how people portray, conceptualize, and see Jesus.  “Jesus is authoritative because he rose from the dead,” a Christian apologist might say.  Okay, but which Jesus are we talking about?  In my experience, even conservative Christians downplay or ignore the parts of Scripture that do not agree with their image of Jesus.

Second, it seems to me that people can experience the supernatural outside of a Christian context.  Non-Christians in AA say that they do.  A professor once told me of God’s answers to the prayers of a devout Jewish person.  There are Muslims who have a similar testimony about themselves.  People seek guidance from tarot cards and get messages that sound as wise and reasonable as the answers that Christians claim to receive from God through prayer.  A conservative Christian may attribute that to Satan.  But do we really want to go down that route?  If Satan can do positive spiritual things for people, then how can Christians argue for Christianity by appealing to their positive spiritual experiences?  Could not a Jewish person attribute Christianity to God sending a deceptive false prophet to test his people’s faithfulness, as some Jews argue (Deuteronomy 13:1-3)?

I’ve made these sorts of points before on this blog, and they have been in my mind over the past seven years, or so.  Still, I am not satisfied.  Granted, I can say that God works in the lives of non-Christians.  But that is me looking at others.  What I wonder is if God listens to my prayers.  To be honest, I do not know.  I have long felt that God does not know my address.  Conservative Christians can easily prey on that.  They may say that God does not hear my prayers because I do not fit their definition of a Christian.  They may tell me that I should accept Christ as my Savior and/or Lord (depending on if they believe in Lordship salvation), then I will feel God.  Then I will see results.

For one, will I necessarily?  Charles Stanley was encouraging and advising Christians who believe that God was not listening to them.  Granted, he said that we want to know Jesus beyond Jesus being our Lord and Savior—-that we want to experience God in our day-to-day lives.  But my impression is that there are a number of Christians who do not think that they are doing so, and that is one reason that Charles Stanley preached that sermon.  A number of Christians do, but a number don’t.

Second, I said the sinner’s prayer years ago.  I was baptized.  People who act as if the sinner’s prayer is the end-all-be-all should address how people can say it, yet see no spiritual results.  Did these people say the sinner’s prayer and not truly mean it?  How can one get to the point where he or she means it?  I’ve been watching Christian movies, and Christian characters say that all people have to do to have God in their lives is to ask God.  Really?  Is that all?  Why, then, are there people who push the Jesus button, and nothing happens?  Why are there people who say the sinner’s prayer and later drift away from the faith, or even deliberately walk away from it?  Some Christians say those people did not experience God.  If that is the case, why didn’t they experience God?

I felt alienated from God when I was a conservative Christian, and also today.  I drank a lot when I was a conservative Christian, some of it for spiritual and religious reasons, and some of it for other reasons.  In any case, I was self-medicating to feel at peace, for I was not feeling that peace through Christianity.  I cannot say that I feel completely at peace today, but at least today I do not feel that I am ignoring or contorting facts to fit a preconceived theology.  I wish that I could say that I am more tolerant today than I was as a conservative Christian, but that is not exactly the case: now I demonize conservative Christians rather than liberals!

I can look back at my time as a conservative Christian and say that there were times when I felt emotional ecstasy as I prayed and read my Bible.  I felt that the Holy Spirit was illuminating the Bible for me.  Nowadays, I look back at the interpretations of Scripture that I believed were Spirit-led, and I am very reluctant to say that they were God’s authoritative interpretation of the biblical text.  They look to me in retrospect like my own biased readings.  I can say the same about some of the “Spirit-led” interpretations of Scripture by other Christians.  Some of them base their interpretations on an English translation, and their interpretations disagree with the Greek.  Are their interpretations from God?  Well, I cannot thoroughly dismiss that—-the Christian God, after all, supposedly used the Septuagint, which disagrees with the Hebrew text in places.  But I also would not bet money on it.

Anyway, those are my ramblings for the day.  Trollish comments will not be published.  I will define what is trollish.  I also probably will not get to the comments until tomorrow morning.  On my blogger blog, that means that they will not be published until then.  On my WordPress blog, that means that they will appear on my blog if you have commented here before, but, if this is your first time commenting, you will have to wait to see your comment appear.

The Final Days 3

On page 104 of The Final Days, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein say:

"Nixon's inability to handle more than one drink was well known to his intimates.  During campaigns he had wisely chosen not to touch alcohol.  But now, on too many afternoons, he started sipping in his office with [his friend Bebe] Rebozo.  On the mornings after, the President arrived in his office late, sometimes not until noon.  [Chief of Staff Alexander] Haig was worried that the press would learn about it, and he ordered that the time the President left his residence to go to work no longer be recorded."

If this is accurate, then I can identify with Nixon here: he was going through a hard time, and he tried to self-medicate by drinking alcohol with his friend.  But Woodward and Bernstein say that there was a downside to this: that drinking was hindering Nixon from doing his job.  Now, people may debate about whether or not Nixon was hindered in doing his job during Watergate.  Nixon argues that he was accomplishing stuff, especially in the field of foreign policy, and that his political critics were upset about this.  Anthony Summers in The Arrogance of Power, by contrast, argues that Nixon was dropping the ball, on some things.

During the time when I was drinking, I got things done.  I read a lot, especially when I was eating dinner and sipping my beers.  I wrote papers.  But there were times when I drank, and I would wake up late, with a hangover.  Ever since I quit drinking, I don't have to put up with that.  And that makes me happy.

Drinking Christians, Tee-Totaling Christians, and Being Understanding

I was recently reading Richard Beck’s post, Drinking Christians, and that made me think about the different stances towards alcohol that I have encountered among Christians over the course of my life.

I grew up in an Armstrongite offshoot, and it was pro-drinking.  Some liked to call the Feast of Tabernacles (which the church observed every year) “The Feast of Booze.”  You may recall Deuteronomy 14:26, which states: “And thou shalt bestow that money for whatsoever thy soul lusteth after, for oxen, or for sheep, or for wine, or for strong drink, or for whatsoever thy soul desireth: and thou shalt eat there before the LORD thy God, and thou shalt rejoice, thou, and thine household” (KJV).


Was I aware of any tee-totaling Christians?  Well, on some level, yes.  There were some Baptists and Pentecostals on my Dad’s side of the family, and we were aware that they frowned on drinking.  In response to their sentiments, my Dad one time explained to me how their biblical exegesis was rather inconsistent: that they applauded the biblical passages that criticized drinking alcohol in excess, while interpreting the wine in the pro-drinking passages as grape juice.  My Dad said that the biblical position is moderation.  I also knew some tee-totaling Christians in a high school Christian group that I was in, as someone talked about the challenges of being pressured to drink at parties.  And a Christian teacher of mine presented the “grape juice” interpretation to his biology class.  (How we got onto that topic, I have no idea!)

As an undergraduate in college, it seemed as if tee-totaling was practically considered a doctrine of Christianity.  The Christians I knew did not drink.  When a person became a Christian, one practice that went out the door for that person was drinking alcohol.  This tee-totaling stance was not questioned that often, as far as I could see, but, on the rare occasions that it was, the wine that Jesus drank was said to be grape juice.  Meanwhile, I was attending a Seventh-Day Adventist church, which was tee-totaling, and one of the elders there testified about how God delivered him from alcoholism.

At two of the graduate schools that I attended, I sometimes came across the tee-totaling position.  I was attending an independent Seventh-Day Adventist church, and it was anti-drinking.  At the Intervarsity that I attended, however, the topic of drinking rarely came up.  There was one time when a lady in the group criticized the hypocrisy of Christians she knew who went to the school’s drinking parties.  Also, one of the members called me up and asked me if I wanted to have a beer with him (which was nice of him).  But, otherwise, I didn’t hear about drinking in the group.

At another graduate school that I attended, there were a lot of evangelical Christians.  Some of them did not drink, but they were tolerant of those who did.  And some of them liked to brag about their drinking exploits.  I’ve seen the same sort of attitude on some Christian blogs that I read.  “Oh, I love to discuss theology over a nice brew!”  What usually goes through my mind is, “Okay, you drink, I get it.”

At the church that I attend now, the topic of drinking rarely comes up.  Well, it did once, when one guy in the church’s Bible study group remarked that he drank before he became a Christian, but now he doesn’t.  And there was another time when an elderly gentleman who sits in front of me said that he used to be on the beer-wagon, but now he’s on the water-wagon.  And someone else said to me that he sympathizes with people in Alaska who drink because they’re so depressed on those cold, dark days.  But, other than that, the topic of drinking does not come up!

In terms of Richard Beck’s post, I think that it gave me a fresh perspective on passages in the New Testament about not offending the weaker brother (not that I like that term, but I’ll use it now because I can’t think of another term to use at the moment).  I used to hate those passages.  They seemed to imply to me that I should let some judgmental Christian get on his or her high horse and dictate to me how I live my life.  I thought that tee-totaling Christians should realize that there are different perspectives about issues, such as drinking and going to the movies, and that it is the height of arrogance for them to presume that all Christians must live according to their demands, just so they’re not offended.

But Beck told a story about a young couple who came out of a lifestyle of heavy drinking, and, now that they were Christians, they were looking forward to a party without alcohol.  But alcohol was served at the party.  Beck exhorts people to remember those who are in that sort of situation: “Church in a bar isn’t always a good idea when there are people struggling with alcoholism. I spend some time mentoring men struggling with addictions. I can’t imagine inviting them to church in a bar or for theological talk over microbrews.”
I think what’s important is for people on all sides of the issue to be understanding about where people are.

Conrad Black's Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full 32

On page 1011 of Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full, Conrad Black states: "The real problem had been the endless smearing of the president, the war of a thousand cuts over taxes, Cambodia, CREEP financing, dirty tricks, home improvements, aides making belligerent noises and then plea bargaining and having religious conversions (Magruder became a Presbyterian minister)."

I did not know that Watergate conspirator Jeb Magruder became a Presbyterian minister.  I was familiar with Chuck Colson's conversion, but not that of Magruder.  But, according to this article, Magruder in 1981 got an M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary, and he wrote a book in the late 1970's entitled From From Power to Peace, which is about his re-commitment to the Christian faith after the Watergate scandal.  Senator Mark Hatfield, a liberal Republican and a devout evangelical Christian, wrote the foreword to the book.  Why did Magruder become religious after the scandal?  Was it because the moral absolutism of Christianity especially resonated with him after a path of moral ambiguity in the world of politics had led him to disaster?  (I don't know for sure if Magruder himself conceptualized his involvement in Watergate that way, since I have not read his books.)  Was he looking for the peace that Christianity offered in the midst of his troubling times?

I thought about something that I read about Michael Deaver in Lou Cannon's excellent book, President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime.  Deaver was a high-ranking official on President Ronald Reagan's White House staff.  Deaver himself had a sort of rebirth, if you will.  On pages 517-518, Cannon states:

"Deaver's behavior, within the White House and with the media, gave him a reputation for arrogance that undoubtedly contributed to his fall.  Many in the White House complained about Dever's high-handedness, and some of these complainers apparently became sources for the unfavorable stories about Deaver after he left the White House.  These stories and Deaver's greed and determination to build a big-time lobbying business while Reagan was still in office led to a congressional inquiry into his lobbying activities, the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate charges of influence peddling, and Deaver's eventual conviction on perjury charges.  In my own dealings with Deaver near the end of his White House service I sometimes found him furtive and troubled, and wondered if he was ill.  But I had no clue as to the toll being taken by the first lady's obsession with astrology and Deaver's alcoholism.  Like others who had known him as a calmer, happier Mike Deaver in Sacramento, I ascribed his behavior to the poison of White House power and thought his position had gone to his head.  Three years after Bitburg, Deaver told me that the difficulty of the deception in which he was engaged had imposed an inner strain that 'I probably don't even know about yet.'  Since then, with much help from his faith, his wife, and Alcoholics Anonymous, Deaver has courageously struggled to repair his damaged life."

Conrad Black's Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full 29

On page 912 of Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full, Conrad Black calls Nixon "This most suspicious, morose, generally joyless of men..."  I thought about this characterization as I was reading Don Fulsom's anti-Nixon book, Nixon's Darkest Secrets.  Fulsom talks about the times that Richard Nixon was drunk.  Nixon liked to have drinks with his friend, Bebe Rebozo.  According to Fulsom, there were times when a drunk Nixon would awkwardly hit on women.  Fulsom refers to Nixon ex-aide John Ehrlichman's story in Witness to Power about Nixon hitting on an attractive blonde secretary, whom an editor said was reportedly Shelley Scarney, the future Mrs. Pat Buchanan.  (UPDATE: According to Anthony Summers, Shelley Buchanan said that she did not recall this incident.) On page 199, Fulsom quotes investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, who said that Nixon at a Miami restaurant stopped a nice-looking woman and offered her a White House job.  While I have read elsewhere that Nixon was rather Spartan as a Duke Law School student, Fulsom contends that Nixon even in his younger years had a problem with alcohol.  Fulsom refers to a schoolmate of Nixon's at Whittier College, Philip Blew, who told about a time when Nixon got drunk.  Blew said: "The affair turned into a spree...and we, in effect, had to pour Dick into bed."

I can understand why a "suspicious, morose, generally joyless" person would drink.  (And this is not to suggest that Black would agree with Fulsom's contention that Nixon had a problem with alcohol.)  Life can get pretty drab.  Many would like the sort of life that they see on TV, where romance is often easy, and adventure is commonplace, and they look to alcohol to give them the fun that they want.  Moreover, being unhappy due to resentments can influence people to seek some solace in alcohol, as can being afraid on account of the ups and downs of life.  Alcohol can also give people confidence that they ordinarily may not have.  I remember hearing one recovering alcoholic talk about his observations while people-watching at a local restaurant: guys come in with two left feet, they have a few drinks, and suddenly they're Fred Astaire!  But the recovering alcoholic then went on to ask: Why can't they be Fred Astaire without alcohol?

I can still identify with much of what I said above, and I've not had a drink for six years.  (Yesterday marks the sixth year anniversary of when I quit drinking.)  But I can also see the other side: that sobriety can lead to a quality of life that alcoholism can inhibit.  People who used to spend their time holed up in their rooms drinking become sober and go on to do enjoyable things, such as studying a field of interest, or traveling.  People who used to feel lonely find fellowship in a twelve-step group.  People who used to deal with their resentments and fears by drinking now deal with these things by talking them out with a sponsor, and also by relying on a higher power.  People who could not hold on to a relationship or a job now do both.
The thing is, could such a dream have been realized for somebody like Nixon?  Can it be realized for me, for that matter?  Nixon did enjoyable things: he traveled, he read.  But my impression from reading all of these books about him is that he did not like to share a lot with others.  That being the case, did he really have much of a way to deal with his resentments and his fears?  Speaking for myself, I am often afraid to share my problems because I fear being criticized.  That has happened in the past!  I doubt that I will take a drink anytime soon, since life for me is much more predictable and manageable when I do not drink.  But I wish that I had more joy inside of me.

I'd like to think that Nixon in his later years found more joy.  As I read Monica Crowley's books about her time working for Nixon during the 1990's, I noticed that Nixon even then had his pettiness and resentment, and yet he also seemed to have more fun.  He enjoyed spending time with his grandchildren.  His relationship with his wife, Pat, looked a whole lot better.  He liked opening up his lawn to people on Halloween and joking around with the celebrants.  Did Nixon find some way to feel happy, without relying so much on alcohol?

Leaders 3

A theme that came up more than once in my latest reading of Richard Nixon's Leaders was alcohol.  Here are some stories that Nixon tells:

----Page 143: "[German leader Konrad Adenauer] had other weapons besides the cold steel of logic, however.  When a cabinet meeting grew difficult, he would sometimes suspend debate for a while and pass around a bottle of wine.  After a few glassfuls and some friendly small talk, he would resume the meeting.  The opposition would then be substantially less resolute."

----Page 155: "[Soviet leader Nikita] Khrushchev was then relatively new to power and unfamiliar with the leaders he would be confronting in the free world.  He was clearly intent upon testing Adenauer's mettle.  During one banquet he proposed a seemingly endless series of toasts to see whether the seventy-nine-year-old Adenauer, so intractable at the negotiating table, could be worn down by liquor.  Though he preferred wine to vodka, Adenauer had a stomach as well as a will of iron.  After fifteen toasts he was still both upright and alert----alert enough, in fact, to notice that Khrushchev had been drinking water.  The next morning Adenauer confronted Khrushchev with the tongue-in-cheek suggestion that any man who would do such a thing could not be trusted.  Surprised to find that he had been caught in the act, Khrushchev could only laugh."

Page 188: "The table was laden with every manner of Russian delicacy and soft and hard drinks.  Despite his well-deserved reputation for drinking heavily, Khrushchev only sampled the array of vodka and wine.  He appreciated good food and drink.  But just as his famed temper was always his servant and not his master, his drinking on this occasion was strictly for pleasure and was never permitted to interfere with business.  He was cold sober throughout our long afternoon of talks."

Alcohol can indeed be conducive to camaraderie and socializing in a relaxed manner.  I one time heard a person with Asperger's Syndrome talk about how he did not really fit in with his Irish extended family----until they started to get drunk together.  Then, they could have fun and bond with each other.

But alcohol can also hinder some people from doing the business that they need to do.  Khrushchev did not want to get drunk when negotiating because he wanted for his mind to be alert and sharp during that time.  And, speaking of the negative effects that drinking lots of alcohol can bring, that one person with Asperger's whom I discussed in my above paragraph eventually decided to quit drinking, for he thought that he was degenerating into a sour alcoholic.

I used to drink for a variety of reasons.  I drank socially because I hoped that it would loosen me up in social settings.  Social settings make me nervous.  I tend to clam up within them, which is not particularly attractive to people and which can even draw mockery.  Drinking helped me to loosen up, to relax, and to talk more.  Did that make me more attractive to people?  To some people it did, and to some people it didn't.  One person told me I was fun when I was drinking, which was probably true because I loosened up when I was drunk, whereas when I was not drinking I was more stiff, reserved, formal, and guarded.  But not everyone likes to be around someone who's drunk and who's saying a lot of silly things with bombast.  Come to think of it, I myself don't, particularly.

But I drank even more in solitude.  The reason was that it made me feel better.  I have Asperger's Syndrome, and what that means is that I don't do too well socially.  I have a history of not fitting in and of being rejected by people, and I become resentful when I think back about that.  I also have fear about the future: how will I make a living in the future if I have a hard time getting people to like me?  Drinking was a way for me to self-medicate.  And it got to the point where no amount was enough.  I would go through a six-pack on certain nights and still want more.  I could identify with something that Leo McGarry said on an episode of The West Wing: he kept on drinking because he wanted that feeling to go on!  But waking up with a hangover was no fun.  I think of what Scotty said on that episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation: never get drunk unless you're willing to pay for it the next morning!

I decided to stop drinking, and I have been sober for what I consider to be a respectable number of years----though, regardless of how many years that one is sober, it's always one-day-at-a-time.  What do I do now that I don't drink?  How do I do socially?  How do I cope with my resentments about the past and my fears about the future?  How do I self-medicate?

Socially-speaking, I'm not as nervous now as I used to be when talking with people.  But I still can be rather stiff, formal, and reserved.  I doubt that I would be the life of the party were I to go to a party.  By and large, my policy about a lot of social gatherings that I have to attend is "suit up and show up."  I show up, do my duty, and I leave.  Sometimes, I can end up having enjoyable, interesting conversations with people.  Sometimes, I just want to rush to the door!  I'm just speaking for myself, and there are plenty of people within recovery groups who would tell you that they became more fun----more happy, joyous, and free----when they quit drinking and did the spiritual work on themselves that would help them to stay sober.  That's fine (even though I get rather sick of people bragging about how happy and spiritual they are), but it's just not me.  Come to think of it, though, I do have a little more serenity now that I don't drink.  I'm not the life of the party, but I do have a quiet, flat sort of peace.  One thing I will add: I'm not sure if my social mettle has been truly tested over the past couple of years.  My Mom and her husband accept me, even though I am quiet.  I go to church, and there are plenty of people at the pot-lucks who themselves are quiet, so I don't feel out-of-place being quiet.  That doesn't mean that I feel compelled to throw myself into hyper-social situations, though.

How do I cope with my resentments about the past and my fears about the future?  This is still a struggle for me, to tell you the truth.  Many within recovery groups find that working with a mentor or a sponsor is helpful.  It can be.  I don't do that as much nowadays, since I'm not really in recovery groups, due to my struggle to fit in at them.  But I did find one time that talking with my pastor really helped me.  I was nervous about a social event that was coming up, which I had to attend, and my pastor gave me encouragement.  It's good when you can find someone who's rooting for you and can give you guidance to hang on to within a tough setting.  Another way that I cope is through prayer and Bible reading, and, the more I feel resentful on a given day, the more I pray and read the Bible.  That doesn't necessarily solve my problems, to tell you the truth, but it does help me to alleviate feelings of resentment or fear that I may have.

Ambrose's Nixon: Ruin and Recovery 9

I have two items for my blog post today on Stephen Ambrose's Nixon: Ruin and Recovery, 1973-1990.  Both of them revolve around Nixon's coping through Watergate.

1.  On page 252, Ambrose gives his opinion about Nixon's drinking:

"Was drinking a problem for Nixon?  There is much conflicting evidence on both sides of the question, enough to make any final judgment impossible.  It is this author's opinion that his drinking was not a problem for Nixon.  That he sometimes drank to excess is clear, but never to the point that he was out of control.  Indeed, it is remarkable how little he relied on drugs or booze to get through such great physical and emotional stress, how much he relied on his own strength."

2.  One way that Nixon coped, according to his daughter Julie, was by watching movies with his family.  Ambrose on page 265 quotes Julie as saying that "lots of times he'll choose a horrible lemon, and we'll be all there making catcalls and saying, 'oh this is terrible.'  My father will say, 'Keep quiet.  Give this show a chance.'  And he will sit through.  Everyone will have snuck out."

Completing The Different Drum

I finished M. Scott Peck's The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace.

My latest reading had a few paradoxes, even if Peck may not classify them as such.  He wants for groups to be inclusive, even politically, for he states that a Democrat seeking to form a group should include Republicans.  Yet, Peck wants for churches to take a bold stand against the arms race, which would probably alienate Republicans.  Peck is insistent that one should not leave a group, claiming that community is fostered when people stick with each other and work out their differences.  Yet, Peck earlier in the book tells the story about how he disappointed his parents by deciding not to continue his enrollment at an exclusive private school, choosing to go instead to another school, where he found genuine acceptance. This brought out the best in him.

I sympathize with Peck's emphasis on the importance of community, for I believe that, when people know each other, empathize with each other, value each other, and are open to learning from each other, things can be better than they would be otherwise.  But I myself would have difficulty participating in a number of communities, to tell you the truth.  Working through my differences with other human beings is sometimes easy for me, and sometimes it's not.  In my younger years, I one time wrote a letter to a leader of a group I was in detailing my problems with him, and he reprimanded me for not telling him about this stuff before----for not telling him at the time of his offensive behavior that he was acting inappropriately.  But it's not easy for me to process on the spot what my problem is with a person or a situation, and then to come up with the words to express my concern.  Moreover, unfortunately, I'm somewhat of a "don't rock the boat" sort of person, so I have an approach that Peck calls "pseudocommunity", which is different from open, honest community.  One reason is that I want for people to like me.  Another is that I fear starting an argument that I won't be able to win, for I want to save face in as many social situations as I can.  Plus, I feel awkward being confrontational.  These are characteristics that I have that are barriers to me achieving real community with others.

I think that leadership in a group is important.  Peck said that he was accused of being a weak leader, and sometimes in the book he seems to indicate that he believes leaders should step back, keep a low profile,  and allow group members to resolve their differences openly and honestly.  But, in my opinion, group leaders are needed to keep the more articulate, glib, and narcissistic members from dominating the discussion and to give everyone a chance to talk.  I get so annoyed when group leaders don't do their job (as I understand it, of course!).  Peck appears to have some sensitivity to this concern, though, for at one point he mentions inviting quieter members into the discussion.  I think that the best way to do group is to do what twelve-step groups do, and what one Asperger's Syndrome support group that I attended did: to allow people to share without interruption, one at a time, within a reasonable time limit.  There are weaknesses to this approach: for example, it's parallel sharing, as opposed to dialogue.  But perhaps we can permit people in their own shares to respond to what other people said, or we can create a situation in which a person shares a problem that he has, then people in the group would share, one at a time, their thoughts on the person's problem.

A Place Where People Can Be

I started M. Scott Peck's The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace.  I'd like to use as my starting-point something that Peck says on page 103, as he describes a hypothetical group that has entered into a state of community:

"When she is finished [speaking] there is a hush.  It goes on a long time.  But it does not seem long.  There is no uneasiness in this silence.  Slowly, out of the silence, another member begins to talk.  He too is speaking very deeply, very personally, about himself.  He is not trying to heal or convert the first person.  He's not even trying to respond to her.  It's not she but he who is the subject.  Yet the other members of the group do not sense he has ignored her.  What they feel is that it is as if he is laying himself down next to her on an altar."

What I've gotten out of Peck so far is that community is a place where people can be and share who they truly are, while finding acceptance.  As Peck notes, this is rare.  But it's beautiful when it does happen.

I wonder how it can happen, though.  That's the topic of this book, for it concerns how we can create community rather than just experiencing it on a hit-and-miss basis.  But I have a hard time envisioning how community can happen, or rather how I can fit into a community.  Don't get me wrong----there have been a number of groups in which I have felt comfortable.  But feeling free to bare my soul before others and to show them who I truly am?  That occurs very, very, very rarely!

I don't entirely blame others for this----their desire to hog the limelight and dominate the discussion, their judgmental put-downs, etc.----for I myself am part of the problem.  I myself can be quite intolerant.  I could identify with one guy Peck mentioned (and appeared to disagree with) who complained that he did not like how people in the group focused on their negative experiences, for he thought that they should share what was positive in their lives as well.  I've felt that way in Asperger's support groups!

Moreover, if people are free to be who they truly are, then that will entail that they will disagree with each other.  Peck is critical of what he calls "Pseudocommunity", in which people try to avoid rocking the boat.  But some people may take it badly when someone disagrees with them, seeing such disagreement as a put-down.  And, while one may say that they should then defend their positions, not everyone is glib or quick at debating. 

Peck says that people in groups should use "I" statements rather than making generalizations.  Rather than saying that divorce in general is bad, Ralph (to use a fictitious example) should say that his own divorce was hard on him.  Someone else may have had a different experience with divorce!  I think that this is an important point: that an essential part of community is recognizing that people are in different places and have had different experiences.  I don't think that this by itself creates intimacy, for I have been in groups in which people were required to use "I" statements, and, while such groups ran smoothly, there wasn't much intimacy among the people.  But perhaps it can set the stage for people to share and thus to become intimate.

To come back to the passage that I quoted at the beginning of this post, I'm the sort of person who would be hurt if someone talked after me without addressing what I had just said.  I'd see that as a rejection, as someone believing that my point was unworthy of consideration.  Why?  Because I'm insecure about whether or not I am accepted in groups.  But it doesn't necessarily have to be that way.  Suppose someone was sharing to place himself on the altar alongside of me----that he wasn't ignoring me, but we were taking turns at sharing who we are, and now it's his turn.  (This is rare in a number of groups.  Twelve Step recovery groups probably approximate it more than others, for many of them prohibit cross-talk and interruptions, but even in those groups there can be cliques and judgmental snark.)  And suppose that I felt accepted in a group, even if someone disagreed with me or ignored what I said.

Continuing the Dialogue

Although I've already finished the book, I'd like to talk in today's post about something in M. Scott Peck's Further Along the Road Less Traveled: The Unending Journey Toward Spiritual Growth.  Peck has a chapter about Alcoholics Anonymous, which he praises because of its spirituality and the way that the sponsorship within it provides informal psychotherapy to people.

On pages 140-141, Peck relates an experience that he had in counseling an alcoholic executive.  The executive told Peck that AA wasn't working for him, for, although he went to AA meetings every other night, he continued to get drunk.  The executive also claimed to understand all of the twelve steps.

Peck probed him on this claim, as Peck said with some surprise that "it usually takes people at least three years to even begin to be able to comprehend" the twelve steps (page 140).  The executive replied that he didn't really understand the part about the higher power, but he at least had a grasp on the First Step, which states, "We admitted we were powerless over alcohol----that our lives had become unmanageable."

The executive understood the First Step to mean, "I've got this kind of biochemical defect in my brain such that whenever I take a drink, the alcohol takes over and I lose my willpower."  That means that he cannot take the first drink.  Once he takes that first drink, he is powerless, for he will then crave and have another drink, then another, then another.

Peck then proposed another way to understand the First Step: perhaps it not only means that an alcoholic is powerless after he takes the first drink, but also before he takes the first drink.  The executive insisted that such was not the case, that he was only powerless after the first drink, and that the choice was his whether or not he would take the first drink.  Peck responded that the executive wasn't behaving that way, however, for the executive was continuing to get drunk.  When the executive kept insisting that it was up to him whether he took the first drink, Peck replied, "Well, have it your way, then."

Peck concludes this story by saying, "The executive had not yet undergone the surrender required to the very first of the twelve steps, much less the remaining eleven."

I didn't particularly care for this story, to tell you the truth.  The reason is that I'd prefer for a therapist to be more nurturing, kinder, and gentler than to end the discussion with "Well, have it your way, then."  I'd feel so alone if a therapist told me that.  Plus, I feel that the discussion gets unnecessarily bogged down in the definition of "powerless".  So the executive does not feel that he is absolutely powerless before the first drink.  So he doesn't define his problem in those exact terms.  Maybe there's still a way to work with him, without being so absolutist.  

After all, the executive is  coming to Peck because he realizes that he has a problem with getting drunk.  Perhaps he and Peck could try to get at the bottom of why the executive feels like drinking----what problems he is going through, what he feels before he takes that first drink, etc.  Maybe he and Peck can talk about whether or not the executive has a sponsor and is working the twelve steps, and if not, why not?  Is the executive reluctant to be honest about himself, or to trust, and, if so, why?  Is there something that the executive deems to be unmanageable that can be made more manageable to him?  I doubt that the executive has the same issues that I do in the exact same way that I have them----such as shyness or struggles in making social contacts, which could create difficulties in terms of getting a sponsor, lining up friends whom one could call when one feels like drinking, reaching out to other alcoholics in fulfilling the Twelfth Step, etc.----since he is, after all, an executive. But he may have challenges that inhibit him from working the program.  In short, I don't think that Peck should have said, "Well, have it your way, then."

Maybe Peck and the executive actually did work on these issues, even though Peck does not talk about that in the book.  After all, there are times when a therapist can say, "Well, have it your way", then come back and try to get to the bottom of things.  Saying something that indicates finality does not always mean finality, on a practical level.  People can resume dialogue or choose to continue it after they seem to have ended it.

Spiritual Experiences: Discipline and Quiet

On page 286 of Circle of Life: Traditional Teachings of Native American Elders, James David Audlin talks about attitudes to avoid when one wants to receive a vision:

"If we decide in our own minds, 'I am never going to have a vision,' or 'I insist on having a vision,' we make it harder to have the vision that the Grandmothers and Grandfathers may want to bring to us.  It's like telling yourself, 'I could never learn to play the piano' or 'I insist on learning to play the piano.'  If you tell yourself either, it becomes much more difficult to learn to play the piano.  Rather, chant[e] ishta, seeing with the heart, is learning to be quiet within and not make presumptions, so the vision, if there is to be one, may come to us.  Gautama Buddha taught well that desire (including anti-desire, or fear) blocks us from progress.  Zen Buddhism in particular teaches us how to be quiet within so the delicate wakan presence of a vision, like the sighting of a rare bird or of an albino deer, such as I once saw in Vermont, is not chased off by our loud desires or fears."

What I get out of the above passage is that sometimes we need to get out of our own way in order to have a spiritual experience.  Does this accord with what I have seen, read, or heard?  I'd say that many have told me that I need to work hard in order to have a spiritual experience.  "Keep seeking the baptism of the Holy Spirit", a Pentecostal once told me.  "You have to do the first eight steps of the twelve step program, then you will have the spiritual experience that Step Nine talks about", people in twelve-step recovery groups are told.  The first century Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria believed that, in many cases, an ecstatic spiritual experience came after rigorous asceticism and contemplation.  And James David Audlin himself, on pages 273-277, quotes a story about someone who fasted from the comforts of modern life (i.e., hamburgers, television, etc.) and repeatedly cried out to the Great Mystery, but he eventually felt great peace when he accepted the wilderness around him and, in turn, felt accepted by it.

I think that having a spiritual experience does require work, discipline, and preparation.  Even James David Audlin says in the passage that I quoted at the beginning of this post that Zen Buddhism has a technique that helps practitioners to become quiet within.  I'm sure that takes discipline!  But it seems to be the case that the spiritual experience comes when we are at a state of quiet and peace, when we're just open----when we're not despairing that we will never have a spiritual experience, on the one hand, and we're not obsessed over having one, on the other hand.  Sometimes, the spiritual experience may come when we're not expecting it.  An old man once told me a story about how he was praying on his tractor and, out of the blue, just started speaking in tongues!  C.S. Lewis at the end of Mere Christianity says that we will find Christ when we look to Him and not to ourselves.

We can take steps to make ourselves receptive, but when, how, and if we have a spiritual experience is the prerogative of God, as the spirit blows wherever it wishes.  But, at the same time, I believe that God loves us, even if we don't have a spiritual experience.  That realization can take off of me the pressure to have one, or the despair at not having one, and perhaps it can put me in the position of enjoying God for God's company and being open, whatever happens.

Ceremony, Structure, and Mindfulness

On pages 211-212 of Circle of Life: Traditional Teachings of Native American Elders, James David Audlin talks about the importance of ceremony:

"Among traditional peoples worldwide, the philosophy is, as one Grandmother put it to me: 'Let everything you do be a ceremony.  Let just the making of your bed in the morning be a ceremony, in this way to mark an ending and a beginning, giving meaning to the day.'  Among observant Muslims and Orthodox Jews there are traditional prayers for just about every act each day----beginning with getting out of bed.  The teaching is that everything we do is, or should be, a little ceremony.  Even such things as urinating and deficating, for instance, are sacred acts if done respectfully, participating in the cycle of life.  Within all the ordinary, washte events of daily life, the wakan is there----as Kabalistic Jews and Sufis know----and it is good for us to remember and respect this presence."

In my opinion, it's good to give days structure.  Granted, there may be some days when you want to sleep in or otherwise let things be----a Sabbath, if you will----but it helps if one, on most days, has a reason to wake up.  There are alcoholics I know or have heard about who let each day become a blur, and it's recommended that, once they sober up, they attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings on a regular basis----even each day or multiple times each day.  Why?  So they can have structure.  For a number of people, their jobs provide them with structure and purpose.  And yet, it is possible for one to feel that one's job does not provide him or her with purpose.  Karl Marx touches on this when he talks about alienation from one's work.

Presently, for me, there are a number of things that provide my days with structure.  There is my weekly church attendance and my attendance at my church's Bible study (when my church is holding a Bible study, of course).  There is my reading and my blogging.  And there is my academic work.  There are plenty of times when I wonder if what I am doing is bearing any fruit, in terms of helping people or helping myself to make contacts.  Yet, my tasks do give each day meaning and structure.

But I don't think that Audlin is just talking about providing each day with structure, for he's also discussing seeing significance in the tasks of everyday life.  This, in my opinion, includes being mindful and grateful for people, places, and things that we often take for granted.