New Families Anonymous Meeting in Ypsilanti Michigan

We are excited to announce that a new Families Anonymous group is meeting Thursday nights from 7 - 8 PM at Holy Trinity Catholic Student Parish at Eastern Michigan University. Follow the link to the FA website meeting locator for more information. http://www.familiesanonymous.org/

Apostolic Farming in a City

Our good friends at Madonna House just published an e-version of my article that appeared in the July-August issue of Restoration, their print newspaper. For the e-version follow this link.

http://www.madonnahouse.org/restoration/2008/07/apostolic_farming_in_a_city.html

The 12 Steps and Christian Faith

One of the things that I have pondered since working my 12-Step recovery program in Families Anonymous is how to reconcile the theology of the 12 Steps with my Christian faith. Though I am a Catholic Christian I have also been heavily influenced by Eastern Orthodox thought and spirituality, by my involvement in the Pentecostal/Charismatic movement, and the Christian ecumenical movement. I see many Christians struggle with the spirituality of the 12-Steps initially because it is not Christocentric, Trinitarian, church, or bible-based and for many of us, a "spiritual" program that does not have that kind of foundation raises suspicions. References to a Higher Power" can be awkward because in 12-Step theology a Higher Power does not have to be God in the sense that most religious people are accustomed to. A Higher Power in 12-Step thinking could be the group itself, a vague notion of a greater Good, a Life-Force, the Universe or whatever helps the individual to move beyond his or her own limitations and powerlessness. "The God of our understanding" which is the way we customarily refer to our Higher Power is not defined because many who come to our groups for help do not have a well-defined religious faith and yet, are searching and frequently desperate for help.

12-Step theology does not try to answer all of the questions that Christian theology - or any other theology - attempts to answer because it is focused more on helping us to get in touch with our basic need for the help of a power "greater than ourselves." This is what philosophers of religion would call "natural theology" and within the context of the 12-Step spiritual tradition it has a very practical emphasis on the "how" question. In other words, HOW do I stay sane and find some sense of peace and serenity in the midst of dealing with the baffling and destructive family disease of addiction. In my experience, the 12-Steps are extremely practical and do not really attempt to deal with some of the other questions that religious faith tackles and that, I believe, is okay. 12-Step spirituality does not have all of the answers about who God is, or who we are, or the nature of the universe, or where evil comes from and yet it is extremely helpful for dealing with one little piece of our human struggle i.e., our tendency toward being attached or addicted to certain behaviors, or things, or people, or even ideas.

To the extent that it can help us to understand ourselves and others a little better it is a powerful, self-help program and can give us insight into how we can live in a healthier way or to conduct our other affairs. It can do this without answering all of the bigger questions in the same way that other disciplines can help us to understand other aspects of our existence without answering all of the big questions. As a Christian, I believe that the ultimate purpose of my life is divinization, an all-encompassing participation in the life of God without ceasing to be fully human, see this reference for an explanation of this concept http://www.antiochian.org/node/16916. The fact that 12-Step spirituality does not attempt to explain something like this does not matter, nor would I want it to.

12-Step spirituality teaches me to value myself as a person, to believe that I can have serenity in spite of all kinds of unresolved problems, to detach from the destructive behaviors of others, to take personal inventory and to confess my shortcomings, to learn to be honest and open with others, to learn how to pray, and to be kind and generous even when people around me are not. All of these 12-Step principles are an extremely good foundation for the revealed or illuminated understanding that comes with my Christian faith. They are not opposed to one another but support each other. What I have found in practice is that living by the 12-Steps and the Four Absolutes of AA - Absolute Honesty, Absolute Love, Absolute Purity, and Absolute Unselfishness has helped me to be a better Christian because they have helped me to see, to understand, and to love myself and others better.

Recovery and Religion

Last night at our Families Anonymous meeting a newcomer whose husband is addicted to prescription painkillers asked how she, as a Christian, was to reconcile our FA approach to this illness with her belief in the importance of helping others. It is an excellent question and one that many Christians and other "religious" people struggle with initially because of the appearance that FA and other 12-step groups promote a cold, uncaring attitude towards those who are abusing drugs, alcohol, and their loved ones. This is actually not the case as anyone who has worked a co-dependency recovery program for a while will tell you. What we gradually discover is that our understanding of what being helpful is changes as we start to address the ways that the disease has affected our thinking and behaving. In co-dependent relationships the boundaries between individuals almost always get blurred and we find it hard to know where we end and the drug-abusing person begins. This is often expressed in the funny but painfully true statement: you know that you are co-dependent when you say, "I'm cold. Would you please put a sweater on?"

One of the things I struggled with when I first started working on my own recovery was my misperceptions about my own Christian faith. I believe that in some respects, too much emphasis on behaving "nicely" or being "helpful" happens at the expense of honest and healthy communication. Often, in Christian and other religious groups this emphasis on good behavior can get in the way of the real work of personal transformation that is the real stuff of religion and of 12-step groups. The genius of 12-step programs is that our work is done in an anonymous setting where the often sordid details of our lives remain confidential and we gradually overcome the fears that most of us have of others seeing us as we truly are. Unfortunately the opposite often happens in religious groups. Even if we start a faith life well it is easy to fall into the habit of wanting to be seen or perceived a certain way by those around us. In the process we can become dishonest or at the very least lack a certain kind of transparency to those we live or worship with. Sadly I have seen this happen too often, most recently with a Christian man I knew for years, a social worker, whose "secret" life of sexually abusing his patients came to light and landed him in prison. Obviously many of his family members and friends were shocked when this was exposed on the front page of the Ann Arbor News earlier this year.

Ron Harrison, a local recovery specialist, says that parents and other family members have to unlearn or learn to stop doing the things that we most naturally do for our loved ones when it comes to dealing with a drug-abusing family member. Because of the nature of this disease and the way it affects us, those helpful or protective things that we most naturally do are almost always the very things that get in the way of an abuser's recovery because they enable that person to continue to abuse the people who love him or her the most. Getting some healthy distance from the abuser is essential for family members who often forget their own needs and get caught in the downward spiral of someone else's disease. The belief that this is somehow a worthy or expected or noble sacrifice on the part of a parent, a spouse, a sibling, or of a Christian in particular couldn't be further from the truth in my opinion. Real sacrificial love never disregards or minimizes our own value as a person but chooses to act in a way that tangibly expresses our appreciation for being part of a community and that there is more to life than living just for ourselves. It also challenges those we love to grow up, to take responsibility for their own lives, and to see that they have something of value to contribute to the commonwealth. We often say that to be of real help to others we must first help ourselves and that we simply cannot give away what we do not have. May God help us all to understand and to do this a little bit more today.

News from the Farm

Be sure to visit http://thomasonfamilyfarm.blogspot.com to see the slideshow of the new baby goats that were born on Good Friday and Easter Monday!

Walking the 12 Steps Today

This is how I have adapted the 12 Steps of FA/AA to my daily efforts to live in Serenity and Sanity.

1) Today God, I acknowledge that I am powerless over drugs, alcohol, other people's behavior, and a million other things, and that without Your help my life would be unmanageable.

2) I believe that it is only with Your help that I can be truly sane and healthy Today.

3) God, I choose Today, even at this moment, to turn my whole life, every part of it - especially my mind, my emotions, and my will - over to Your loving care.

4) Please help me to be rigorously honest and fearless in taking my own inventory Today.

5) If I become aware of a shortcoming or some wrongdoing for which I need to take responsibility, I will acknowledge and own up to the exact nature of it first with myself and You and then with another human being whom I trust.

6) I am ready and willing for You to remove or to work with me on any of my shortcomings or character defects that You want to Today.

7) In fact God, I humbly ask You to remove any of my shortcomings or character defects that you want to Today.

8) If I harm someone or become aware Today that I have harmed someone, I will make a written or a conscious mental note of it and be willing to make amends to them.

9) Whenever possible Today, I will make amends directly to any person I have wronged unless to do so would harm them or someone else.

10) I will continue to take my own inventory throughout the day and if I do something wrong I will promptly admit it.

11) Today I will make time to pray and to improve my conscious contact with You. I pray to know your will for me and for the power, the serenity, the courage, and the wisdom that I need to persevere in doing it.

12) Knowing that I am now more spiritually awake and aware as a result of taking these steps, I will share this message of hope with someone else who needs it Today if I can. I will practice these 12 Step Principles in all of my affairs, especially making it my goal to be Absolutely Loving, Pure, Unselfish, and Honest.

Hope Springs Eternal

Spring always makes me feel more hopeful. Even when I hear about so many things going on in the world that should make me feel discouraged, one of the things that helps me to know that I am doing okay is that I feel hopeful. I can't really explain it, I almost can't help feeling this way. Like the smell of a fresh cup of coffee in the morning or a late Spring day, hope seems to rise up inside me more often than not. I know there must be a source for this that is not dependent on the unstable or changing circumstances I witness all the time. It's just there - and the more faithfully I work my 12 step program the more consistently I experience it.