Stop Trying to Control Others

Morning Sun, Spa Creek Maryland 2015

 This article has been moved: http://lettinggoandholdingtight.com/358-2/

Summer Reading Thus Far

I fell off the pink weather cloud. It was bound to happen.  As the weather warmed, tornados arrived. The gut-wrenching images from Granbury, TX were a foretaste of worse ones sweeping across Moore, Oklahoma – where the tornado was among the strongest. (Deadliest Tornados in USA) When the pictures of the storms’ paths revealed their power to lift houses from their slabs, crush school buildings and toss pick-ups, I wondered at our hope of huddling in an interior powder room, that such a shelter could keep us.

Providentially, I recently had finished reading a biography of Anne Bradstreet. She enjoyed, and lost various shelters that I recognized – an education, prosperity, adventure, marriage and children. And she suffered terrible losses through “storms” – fomented by religious and political upheaval, long separations from loved ones, physical afflictions, disasters, fire, and death.  And she committed her thoughts and prayers to paper, wrestling with God  – in verse – as forcefully as Jacob wrestled with that angel, laying bare her faith, frustration and fears.  (Genesis 32:22-32)

Finally, she left her children a biographical account of how she came to be who she was. She was candid about her character defects; dispassionate, describing her afflictions, and crisp in connecting all the points in biography so that even a child understands and can apply her words – rejoicing in faith, and walking through doubts and disappointments. Reading her poetry is time well spent, set in the context of her biography.

Another book that offered some shelter was one I finished almost in one reading: Sober Mercies – A Memoir – How Love Caught Up With a Christian Drunk. The author, Heather Kopp, is also a writer, and like Anne Bradstreet, a Christian – and is as candid about her troubles as Anne Bradstreet – but in prose. It is a quick read -- Well-written and no-whining – Her autobiography is composed with enough hindsight to be winsome, and enough courage to be oh so helpful to one who is also recovering, or thinking about putting the bottle down.

And she tackles prayer – pointing out that maybe coming to believe in God, as we understand Him – might be more honestly confessed as trusting a God we don’t really understand. Her growing understanding of prayer, God, and trust shone a light into cobwebs that are plugging up my own prayers.

Finally, I just finished The Whole Five Feet: What the Great Books Taught Me About Life, Death, and Pretty Much Everything Else.  I came to this lovely book serendipitously; I bought Whatever Happened to Sophie Wilder? (Recommended by Marvin Olasky in WORLD magazine) And I was looking at other books by Christopher Beha.

The author celebrates learning, living and love – in the midst of tears, and simple pleasures. Describing what he thought about some of the writers in this collection is artfully woven into vignettes he describes of his family, health, and writing.  His recollections of a year devoted to reading through the Harvard Classics reminded me how much I missed in university! He left me with an impression of being on a “grand tour” of all that has been wonderful in western civilization with a gentle soul and friend. He made me reconsider why I keep writing, and that learning is never over as long as we are willing to read and think about what politicians, philosophers, poets, explorers and dreamers have written.

So Simple a Child Could Do It

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Unfortunately, Doug and I have no [little] children readily available, and returning to one’s second childhood doesn’t count when changing the water filter on the refridge.

Now, I have done this once or twice before – and I understood the instructions. But I must have been slightly off center when I shoved the canister of chemicals to remove the chemicals in Dallas’ water supply – for the filter only went so far and no further. Then the cap popped off. Doug reattached the cap, but even he could not wiggle or cajole the mechanism.  Thankfully, a grown-up plumber is on his way.

What’s the connection to my gardening lessons?

Often I need a fresh filter, purifying my attitudes, words, and deeds, for I am doing the wrong thing – or saying something poorly – or feeling toxic. Fretting is the most noxious of my emotions that can distort what I want to do or say.  Fretting proliferates when I am hungry, angry, lonely or tired, and ignore the acronym, HALT! 

Do not become hungry, angry lonely or tired. (AA Slogans)

I’ve known these instructions for decades, but I can still get jammed up and as impossible to budge as that filtration cylinder. So, I must call for help.

Turning to The Daily Walk Bible reading for today, June 8, five psalms are suggested, Psalms 37 through 41. The sum is number my blessings and my days. “Instead of worrying about things we cannot change, David exhorts us to concentrate on attitudes we can change.” (TDWB, page 592) 

Here goes:

·      I have a helpful hubby – who is not afraid of a cranky appliance, or wife.

·      We have a plumber who is willing to come today.

·      We have a refrigerator!

·      I have a program whose principles work when I work them. 

·      I have a higher power who listens to my cries. (Psalm 40:1-5)

I wonder what is keeping that plumber . . .

 An Update: The plumber arrived -- and used a large wrench to disengage the canister, which I inserted slightly skewed.  A costly tutorial, but I am grateful.

New Ways of Saying Old Things –Part I

  . . . I have a problem with religion or anything that says, “We have all the answers,” because there’s no such thing as “the answers.” We’re complex. We change our minds on issues all the time. Religion leaves no room for human complexity. (Daniel Radcliffe, aka Harry Potter, Parade, January 8, 2012.)

In my twenties, I wanted to have answers – answers to racism, poverty, and war. I seriously thought my generation could and would end all the pain.  So much for not knowing what God said about man and his complexities. (See Ecclesiastes, or Proverbs 30.)

Religion seemed impotent – having  no answers to human complexities I saw: the riots and Vietnam war – or the fall-out from “Free-love.”  Of  course I couldn’t say for sure how irrelevant it was, for I rarely attended any church. But when I did, I heard an Episcopal priest in Union South Carolina, a former IBM executive who had recently been ordained, speak of preparing for life after life.  That’s all I heard. 

Human complexity, meet death. 

Slowly, I came to grips with my mortality. Having read Dante, I knew about Hell and Purgatory. Was there no “Get Out of Jail” card?  Which religion offered the best price for such a card?

I attended the Episcopal Church again – even though its search of relevancy drove me nuts. Who in their right mind thought the General Confession needed a contemporary rendition?

A General Confession.

¶ To be said by the whole Congregation. after the Minister, all kneeling.

ALMIGHTY and most merciful Father; We have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And we have done those things which we ought not to have done; And there is no health in us. But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders. Spare thou those, O God, who confess their faults. Restore thou those who are penitent; According to thy promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesus our Lord. And grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake; That we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life, To the glory of thy holy Name. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer 1928)

What I needed to hear in plain language was The Declaration of Absolution, or Remission of Sins.

So, I wandered on – looking for a connection to religion and my life. But keeping it all to myself, lest I demonstrate ignorance on matters that never seemed to bother all those complex people in my life.

Because of family issues, I wound up in Al-Anon, and there met folks for whom a higher power was real, and operated quite apart from organized religion. This higher power, the god of their understanding, had no trouble sorting out the complex problems these folks faced. My new friends suggested I borrow their higher power until I found one for myself. 

Later I screwed up the courage to go to Bible Study Fellowship, looking for answers to questions my “complex” life generated. I still wanted to know what would happen after death – and how could I help our son avoid the snares into which I stumbled as a young person: drugs, sex and rock & roll. The Bible had the same answer the program did: I can’t, God can.

Maybe that kind of simplicity answer exasperates Mr. Radcliffe? It annoyed me when I did my first Fourth Step.  It still bothers me. But like Peter, where else could I go, but to God? (John 6:68)

 Solomon and Agur  -- (Ecclesiastes and Proverbs 30 and 31) -- didn’t pretend they had all the answers. But they had a few -- their simplicity explained many of the complex issues of the 1960’s, and a few of the personal issues that upset my family:

  “ . . . If you play the fool and exalt yourself,
               or if you plan evil,
                           clap your hand over your mouth!
For as churning cream produces butter,
               and as twisting the nose produces blood,
                           so stirring up anger produces strife.”  (Proverbs 30:32-33)

• ·      Whenever a man talks loudly against religion,-always suspect that it is not his reason, but his passions which have got the better of his creed.--- Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy.
• ·      Most people are bothered by those passages in scriptures which they cannot understand. But for me, I always notice that the passages in scripture which trouble me the most are those that I do understand. (Mark Twain)

Artwork  by Jim Sutton

Prohibition: A Window into American Current Events?

Last night we joined 1,000 folks who also paid to see a film clip of the new PBS documentary on Prohibition by Ken Burns, many of whom enjoyed adult beverages from a cash bar.  We were at the Belo Mansion,  currently the home of the Dallas Bar Association. 

Whatever Mr. Burns’ overall point, the clip that we saw showed clearly that amending the U.S. Constitution can’t always   solve a social problem  -- but may spawn many more.

However bad alcohol abuse is now, it was worse before Prohibition, according to Mr. Burns. Those who sought legislative help were responding to a serious social ill.  However, the confluence of varied interest groups, upset over many issues ranging from temperance, the emancipation of women, immigration, religious intolerance, industrialization and presidential campaigns produced an unwavering lobbying effort that swiftly resulted in the 18^th  amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Alcohol abuse so troubled the nation – from city streets to rural communities  -- that Americans became persuaded that outlawing alcohol would solve the problems its widespread abuse created. Mr. Burns repeatedly used the term “the Fundamentalists” to explain the distorted politics of Prohibition.  But, all proponents of Prohibition either didn’t understand, or overlooked the facts:

o   Alcohol was part of the religious and cultural lives of countless Americans

o   Many failed to understand the legislation. (For example, many thought beer and wine would be exempt.)

So, the good folks who pushed all that legislating and amending had not fully counted the cost of their solutions.  Hmmmmm . . .  

Moreover, the determination to end legal alcohol sale created an incentive for illegal sales, feeding organized crime, which flourished throughout the 1920’s and ’30’s. Mr. Burns also said speakeasies introduced women to public drinking, which previously had been taboo. Until Prohibition, most women avoided salons; Prohibition open the doors of smart speakeasies and jazz.

In his introduction, Mr. Burns cited Shelby Foote, who has said the reason the U.S. split apart was

. . . because we failed to do what we Americans do best: compromise.  We like to think of ourselves as uncompromising people, but our genius is for compromise, and when that broke down, we started killing each other.

Was Mr. Burns inferring the failed politics preceding the Civil War, were like the events leading to Prohibition – and what we face today?   We will have to wait and see – but the upcoming Burns’ documentary on Prohibition indeed will describe another instance of our genius breaking down again. 

Running Aground, Again and Again.

Most people who drink enjoy smooth sailing with their drinks; some who need pain killers seem to control their drug intake. But some of us carry too much ballast; we misread the water depths; misjudge the winds and find ourselves running aground, again. Each time we do a bit more damage. It’s hard for you to watch us wreck ourselves; when we come to, it’s hard to see the damage we’ve done – we can’t figure out how to make things right. So, we have a little something to help us get it together.

Do you know someone who can’t stay straight? Someone who can’t let the chemicals alone, whether it’s a little bitty glass of white wine – that never seems to run dry – to smoking crack cocaine, from taking too many pain pills to downing too many beers, or bourbons? Some seek euphoria. More seek deadness – quieting pain, real or imagined. At some point the drink or the drug is the most important object of affection in their lives; at some point, the substance becomes personal, the only one who understands, comforts, or relieves the pain.

A drug of choice that becomes “human?”

Years ago a friend who did a lot of 12-step work said alcohol (and drug) abuse is the closest many of us get to seeing demon possession.

Wow. That’s dramatic, I thought.

Over the years, I have come to think my friend may have been on to something. Get close to a drunk or drug addict, and you may find the “God-shaped hole” seems filled with a deceiving chemical. Mercifully, God is filling my heart’s holes with Himself – a real and powerful protector against the deceiver His enemy is.

We all know somebody who is abusing chemicals – drugs or alcohol. We sit next to them in church; sometimes they even may be our preachers; we work with them, and car pool to little league with them. Maybe their addiction is not yet full-blown; maybe they haven’t crossed all the lines that define addiction for us.

Not yet, anyway. Pray for them! Given time they will die, become insane, or get sober.

What then can we say or do for the soul, run aground again by life’s storm and demons’ gales? As mad as they make us, as deeply as they hurt us – pray that we remember they are not the enemy. (Ephesians 6:12-13) How then are you and I praying for the souls we know who are caught by chemical addictions? How are we serving them? Would we pray the harder if we knew Satan is literally destroying them? (1 Peter 5:8-9)