Hope for our Families

New Families Anonymous Meeting in Ypsilanti Michigan

2010-01-27T10:47:00.003-05:00

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

2008-07-22T22:32:00.003-04:00

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

2008-06-08T05:41:00.005-04:00

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

2008-06-05T04:37:00.003-04:00

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

2008-03-30T07:18:00.002-04:00

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

2008-03-25T09:13:00.005-04:00

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

2008-03-17T16:42:00.003-04:00

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.

Expectations, Pain, Communication, Powerlessness

2008-02-22T05:38:00.005-05:00

All four of these words showed up in my Families Anonymous readings this week as titles of different daily meditations. Volumes could be, in fact have been, written about each of these topics but , in order to give them some immediate relevance, short, to-the-point stories are used to illustrate their significance. These are contained in the book, "Today a Better Way," which I have talked about before. It has lots of down-to-earth wisdom from parents who have struggled to stay sane while learning how to live with the family disease of addiction or the out-of-control behavior of another family member.

In our FA group we are currently working on Step Four in our workbook which, helps us to go through the 12 Steps in an organized and in-depth way over the course of many months. We have done this before but each time it helps me to learn something new. For me, this is a particularly good thing to be doing during Lent because it is a very practical way of taking some extra time to think about where I am at this point of my spiritual pilgrimage and my life in general. The Fourth Step of FA is the same as in other 12 step groups, and states simply that, "We made a searching and fearless moral inventory." Wow, how much is contained in that brief sentence!

The Presentation of Christ and Lent

2008-02-06T19:16:00.001-05:00

I love the image of the Presentation of christ shown here. It is so real - in the sense that you see images of Joseph and Mary as peasants joyfully bringing their child to publicly present him to God according to the Mosaic and Hebrew tradition. The baby is smiling and looks very baby-like.

I think of every event in the life of Christ as also representing something significant in our life as Christians or, to put it another way, as symbolic of our life in the world but as members of the Divine Family. Whatever has to do with Christ has to do with us because we are Christ. Christ is born with two natures, we now have two natures through our first birth of water and our second birth of the Holy Spirit. When Christ is presented in the temple - so are we, and inasmuch as he will be"a sign of contradiction," so are we. As Christ will call the world to a new birth in God and to put off its old self-serving ways, so do we as we live the Gospel of Love.

For western Christians Lent begins today and is summarized by the invitation to turn away from wrongdoing and self-centeredness and to believe the Good News. For eastern Christians, Lent does not begin until March 10th and Easter is also much later this year. Yet, whenever we observe this season of the Church year, the invitation is the same: go deeper into God, let God go deeper into you. Make more time for prayer, choose voluntarily to be hungry, to be empty for a time of created things, to wake ourselves up in order to detach, in a healthy way, from desire that can be easily satisfied. Instead let us search wholeheartedly again for the Uncreated Good which, while always close, is not so easily perceived if we are spiritually asleep.

The beauty and the simplicity of the desert beckons...

Making Time for Prayer

2008-02-03T09:34:00.000-05:00

Like most activities or relationships that we engage in getting to know God takes time. Inspite of natural inclinations to pray, like when we are facing a difficult situation or feel desparate, prayer must be learned and worked at to be effective and to bear fruit. Though I had experienced some of those little impulses to pray, even as a child raised in a secular home, and had embraced the importance of prayer as a new 16-year old Christian, it wasn't until I got really sick about nine years ago that my prayer life really took off. During that period, I came to realize that prayer not only requires an investment of time and energy, but it also requires that I learn to be patient with myself and to order my life in a way that allows me to make space for it. I also discovered that the simplest and easiest way to learn how to pray is to ask God to teach you. Since we never finish learning how to pray it is always a reasonable request, and one that God honors over and over again.

There is nothing, in my opinion, that awakens us to our need for prayer like pain. In traditional Christian terminology, I think of this as "taking up our cross," because it represents our willingness to acknowledge that pain is part of life. We can either embrace it or run from it. For Christ, the cross was literally the consequence of being true to himself, the work of his life, and to his relationships. This is no less true for a Christian but it is especially true as we face our need for change and growth, transitions that frquently make us feel like a part of us has to die so that something new can happen. For Christ and for us, the cross is what brought about the greatest change that the world has ever known - the end of death and the possibility of unending life as members of the Divine Family.

But embracing pain as a motivation for change is meaningless unless there is something on the other side of the changing room door. My friend Jim Balmer of Dawn Farm says, "Pain brings you to the threshold of the door of change but hope is what gets you inside." This was as true for Christ as it is for us. Scripture tells us that Christ endured the pain of the cross for the sake of the joy that lay ahead of him. Prayer more than anything is what helps us to persevere through the door because it is what connects us in a conscious way to the hope and the joy that is God - the uncreated community of Divine Goodness which we were created and predestined to become part of.

Addiction - A Disease

2008-02-02T07:26:00.000-05:00

I was having a conversation the other day with our auto mechanic, a wonderful and kind man, about addiction, as I was picking up our car from his shop. I was explaining to him why I, and many others in the recovery community, think of addiction as a disease and how this requires a shift in our thinking about the meaning of that term. I have had the same conversation with some family members who, even on the occasions of my mother's and brother's deaths from addiction related behavior, were struggling with this idea.

The problem usually revolves around the issue of choice and the assumption that people choose to behave in a self-destructive way as an escape mechanism or to mitigate pain of some kind. Most commonly, I think, we try to psychologize the cause and link the behavior to a particular event or series of events believing that, if the abuser understood why they were using they would be able to stop or at least, be able to control their use like other people. A simple version of this scenario would go something like this: John used because there was alot of change and instability in his life as a child and therefore he did not get all of the attention that he needed. His using was the way he escaped from that pain. In this view his using was not pathological - disease based - but a response to trauma of some kind. Usually what accompanies this assessment is the implication that he should be able to understand this and do something about it so that he stops hurting himself and others. There are almost always strong moral overtones that accompany this perspective.

Several things helped me to begin to consider that addiction is a disease - in the sense that it has its own pathology - and that the treatment of it must address the whole person. One - we now know, in part from the human genome project but also from neuroscience and beahavioral studies, that the causality of addiction is far more complex than was once believed. Two - the fact that unmitigated drug and alcohol abuse is almost always fatal to the individual. Three - the treatment of it as a moral or behavioral problem or according to a traditional medical model has had a miserably poor success rate compared to the "treatment" of it in AA or other 12 step, spiritually-based, programs.

My understanding of addiction as a disease was really furthered by reading "Addiction and Grace," by Gerald May, a psychiatrist who has worked with addicts for decades, and by becoming actively involved in Families Anonymous, a 12-step group for parents of users. As a Christian, I have also found it helpful to look at addiction through the lens of Eastern Christian theology because it views destructive or negative behavior (which we commonly call personal sin) as the symptom of the disease that ensues from not being in communion with God and eventually results in spiritual death.

Here is the meditation for today called "Addiction - A Disease," from "Today a Better Way," a little book published by Families Anonymous. I think it is helpful:

"When some people come to Families Anonymous for the first time, they have trouble accepting the fact that addiction to mind-altering substances is a disease. All they can think of is the horrible way the addicted person has been treating family and friends.

It is difficult for family members to recognize disease when all they have seen is hostility, contempt, lies, and even stealing.

But all of this is part of addiction - the disease that causes its victims to choose drugs over people. Until we accept addiction as a disease, we remain stuck at the level of hostility and contempt. We feel the need for revenge. We want to punish the addict for what he or she has done to us.

As I begin to work through my resentments in FA, I come to see how they damage my peace of mind, my spirituality, and the well-being of family relationships. I will be far better off when I react to my addicted family member without punishment or negativity. Then I will be free to grow myself.

TODAY I WILL accept addiction as a disease and lay my feelings of hostility aside."

Joseph, Mary and Jesus

2008-01-27T23:35:00.000-05:00

I've always gotten a kick out of this icon of Christ being retrieved by his parents after he had gone missing in Jerusalem for three days. It is such a normal family picture of frustration, misunderstanding, even anger. And yet, there is also unity, compassion, forbearance, and great love of the three for each other.

Lionhead Rabbits

2008-01-26T12:53:00.001-05:00

Be sure to visit Rebecca's new Website for rabbit sales. these bunnies stay small, are very gentle, and have a "mane" like a lion http://sunnybrookfarmrabbitry.blogspot.com/

Sanity

2008-01-25T22:37:00.000-05:00

Step 2 - Came to believe that only a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

For me, there is nothing that sums this up better than the help I find in the Serenity Prayer:

"God, grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

Practically, it means "doing the next right thing," doing "the duty of the moment," and, learning how to grow more of our own food. Though to some it might seem that what we are doing on our little 1/10th acre downtown lot is crazy, but we have never felt more sane.

Here's a picture of the goat cart (with three grandchildren in it) that we bought at one of Steve Gross' auctions at the Freight House several years back. We plan to train two of the male goats to pull it.

Families Anonymous

2008-01-22T10:02:00.000-05:00

Last night we had dinner with friends from our Families Anonymous group. We started doing this about a year ago to give us an opportunity to get to know each other outside of our 12-step meeting. At one point the question came up about how FA is different from other recovery groups and why it is not the same as AlAnon, for example. The FA website is good to look at http://www.familiesanonymous.org/ it gives more specific information about the organization and directions to group meetings.

The main reason we are in FA is because the staff at the Family Foundation School in the beautiful Delaware River valley area of New York http://www.thefamilyschool.com/ strongly recommended it when one of our children was there for three years. We have found it to be an excellent way of helping ourselves to learn how to live with, what we strongly believe is, the family disease of addiction and specifically as it presents itself in children. We found the school when we asked our friend Jim Balmer, the Director of Dawn Farm http://www.dawnfarm.org/index.html what he would recommend for our child. He suggested googling "12-Step Schools," which we did. The Family School came up right away and before long we were visiting the campus in Hancock, New York.

The program is not as well known as AlAnon, AA, or some others but it has been operational for over twenty-five years and continues to grow. Our own group in Canton, Michigan, that meets on Tuesdays at Saint John Neumann Church on Warren Road, has been around for almost twenty years. When we joined three years ago is was languishing even though Bob H. came faithfully every week and was oftentimes alone. Since then we have grown to a strong and steady core of about ten members and recently started a new group that meets Thursdays in Livonia. We are very grateful for the sanity we have found in our lives as a result of this great program!

Here is the info about both groups:

Group #776MEETING INFORMATION
Location/Facility...St John Neumann Church
44800 Warren RoadCanton, Michigan
Meeting Day and Time...Wednesdays at 7 PM
Room location varies so ask Church receptionist
Local Contacts...Phone Numbers (313) 690-8901
e-mail Group 776 Online Contact

Group #1802MEETING INFORMATION
Location/Facility...St. Mary's Mercy Hospital
36475 Five Mile RoadLivonia, Michigan
Meeting Day and Time...Thursdays at 7:00 PM
Local Contacts...Phone Numbers (734) 748-6108
e-mail Livonia Group 1802 Email Contact
Other Information...Meetings are in classroom "D".

Food, Riches, and Children

2008-01-20T14:55:00.000-05:00

Here are some thoughts that my old friend Gary Gibson shared with me today. Gary was one of the people who introduced me to Christ in 1970 while visiting the school in Vermont where I was a 16 year-old boarding school student. We have maintained that friendship ever since - he and wife Ellen are God-parents of our daughter Elsa and we of their daughter Grace (in the photo with fiance Chris Best). Ellen lived with Becky and me in Boston soon after we got married in a communal Christian household that was part of the Catholic Charismatic prayer group we belonged to while we were college students. Not long after that, we all moved to the Ann Arbor area where we have been for the last 30 years or so. Our lives have been richly intertwined on many levels. Gary's life story is very compelling, and, despite his modesty and his current humble profession as a painter, he holds a degree in Philosophy from Boston College and has many thought-provoking things to say. I will continue to encourage him to e-publish his writing! - Pater Peter

Gary says:
The closing lines of Psalm 17 reveal what the ancient Jewish people value the most in life : good food, riches, and, most of all, children. The composer of this psalm, King David, acknowledges the value of these things, but points to the unseen God as the highest good. There is even a hint of the afterlife, a concept that slowly grew in Hebrew consciousness over the centuries before Christ.

Look at verses 14 and 15 that conclude this psalm : " . . . with your hand, Lord, rescue me from men,from the sort of men whose lot is here and now. Cram their bellies from your stores,gives them all the sons that they could wish for,let them have a surplus to leave for their children!For me the reward of virtue is to see your face, and on waking, to gaze my fill on your likeness".

In our wealthy country, we have an abundance of food. It may be tough to imagine how valuable good food was for the ancients - and how rare to enjoy it. We take for granted how rich we are compared to those in developing countries. Most of us still clamor for even more money. It has become the god for many today. To the secular mind today, children are a burden - noisy, messy, and expensive. Most people of faith see the value of children. Those who struggle with fertility issues today often understand, better than most, how precious children are. In healthy cultures, kids are very desired and important. In my parish, we have many large families 7, 8, 10 kids or more. Having 5 kids is considered a good start. But even this wonderful blessing - a gift from God - does not compare to the Creator Himself. Psalm 17 reminds us that God trumps all other goods, because He is their source and happy is the one to find Him.

The Absolute Necessity of Prayer

2008-01-13T23:34:00.001-05:00

"If we would all learn how to pray, the world would be a different place in three months." - Catherine Doherty, Foundress of Madonna House, Combermere, Ontario http://www.catherinedoherty.org/

I have often wondered if this challenge, attributed to Catherine, should be taken literally or figuratively. I know from experience that prayer changes things but, perhaps most importantly, what I have come to realize lately is that prayer changes me. I know that when I pray, and more specifically when I ask God to help me to pray, besides other benefits, I know myself better. When I know myself better I am more readily able to find ways to be my highest and best self. When I am my best self I am more loving, more patient, more courageous, kinder, gentler, and understanding. That, I believe, is what makes the world a better, less violent, healthier, happier place. Is that literal or figurative? Literal, I think, because the change can happen that fast if we want it to. Figurative because it remains only a hope and a potentiality if we do not embrace its urgency and the importance of taking it personally.

Prayer, in the sense of seeking God with one's whole heart, is in many respects the greatest possible antidote to evil. On a very basic level, the greatest evil perpetrated in and on the world, is the damage we do to one another - and ourselves - out of lust, envy, greed, gluttony, anger, pride, or sloth. But surprisingly enough, it is not so much virtue that we need to counter the momentum that these forces bring to bear on our ability to choose but a conscious relationship with God. There is no such a thing as knowing God without knowing ourselves and it is, in many respects, self-knowledge that we need more than almost anything else. Seeing, knowing, and loving ourselves as God sees us, knows us, and loves us - with our shortcomings and our potentials - is what real conversion and spiritual growth is about. I do believe that prayer can change the world - but that it has to begin with me. The sooner the better.

Absolute Honesty and the 12-Steps

2008-01-08T08:38:00.000-05:00

Yesterday's shocking Detroit Free Press headlines identifying and exposing a number of reputable Michigan men involved in Internet child pornography was both sad and tragic. Sad because of the suffering and pain it has brought into so many lives, tragic because the help that is available for this compulsive, destructive behavior goes unused.

As a volunteer lay-minister in our church, I have at times been a counselor to other men. Using both my experience as a husband, a father, and some pastoral training, I meet with them periodically, mostly to listen, but occasionally to make suggestions about how to approach either practical or spiritual challenges. Several years ago I found out that two men I had counseled about 25 years ago had since gone to prison. One, for sexually abusing children, including his own, and the other for vehicular manslaughter. Apparently he had been drunk and killed a mother and several children in a head on collision. I wondered then if these tragedies could have been averted, especially since both of them had willingly participated in a program of pastoral guidance. What I came to realize many years later, and only after I had become actively involved in a 12-step group, was that the component that was missing from our conversations many years earlier was Absolute Honesty.

Becoming willing to be absolutely honest with ourselves, with God, and especially with others is perhaps one of the most difficult things any of us has to do, especially those of us who are addicts or co-dependents. Some of us can never do it, a fact noted in the AA Big Book and a reality that many of us from alcoholic or other behaviorally bizarre families have experienced first hand. But absolute honesty, one of the four founding principles of AA and the basis for the 4th step in all 12-step groups, is the bedrock on which any real personal growth must be based. For years, I danced around it, even as a committed Christian, always wanting to appear to be someone other than the tormented and fractured person I was inside. I really truly thought that the best way to become the person I wanted to be was to ignore all of the sick, negative, destructive feelings I had. The turning point for me came with a long period of physical illness and depression which, literally made me so desperate for change that I was finally able to start being honest with myself and others. Only then did I start finding the help I needed to really work on becoming my best self. There is an Ethiopian proverb hanging on the wall of my doctor's office. It says, "He who hides his wound is less likely to find a cure for it." I agree.

But absolute honesty is not just a nice principle, it has to practiced, sometimes very intentionally, to have any real effect. There are many things we avoid talking about, especially things we consider deeply private, either out of social convention or sheer discomfort. I have found that the price to be paid for not talking about them, whether they be drug or alcohol abuse, sexual or compulsive behavior, lying, stealing, or other kinds of deception, is far more devastating in the long run than the temporary discomfort of putting them on the table and asking for help.

Fortunately for all of us, there are more 12-step groups available today than ever and those of us who avail ourselves of this help, for whatever behavioral problem we have, know that the program works - if we work it. We believe that every person, regardless of their disease, is worth the effort but the decision to do it is up to them. The urgency for all of us is to do it before it's too late and we end up on the front page of the Free Press - or in prison.

Why Does the World Need Christ?

2008-01-06T17:03:00.000-05:00

Today is Epiphany in the Western church, Theophany in the churches of the East. Though the events in the life of Christ that are being recalled are different they share significant themes. There are also important distinctions between the two that are worth thinking about.

Historically both events have been understood by Christians as defining moments in salvation history when God revealed Christ to the whole world, symbolized by the presence of the three gentile kings at Bethlehem and the very public nature of Christ's baptism in the Jordan, especially his visible and audible annointing as Messiah by God the Holy Spirit and God the Father. Taken on the surface, the dramatic nature of the events as they are presented in scripture and in many sermons at this time of year would seem to be enough explanation of their importance. Like the bumper sticker that says, "Christ is the Answer," we often leave the question itself unexamined because the answer seems to be so authoritative in and of itself.

At least it appears that way to those of us who are already converted to a Christian worldview or, more importantly have met and developed a relationship with the Ressurected One. For those who have an experience of an encounter with him to fall back on, many questions simply lose their importance or are somehow answered as they were for the disciples who met him on the road to Emmaus. Nevertheless, for the converted, because we need to be able to answer the question intelligently and for the unconverted because they deserve a good answer, I believe the question that needs to be asked is: "Why does the world need Christ?"

The answer, I think, is actually remarkably simple. Not withstanding the importance of responses having to do with things like atonement, justification, mercy, or forgiveness, it is in the simplicity of this answer wherein its beauty lies: the world needs Christ because we are incomplete without him.

Saint Athanasius, the great father of the Council of Nicea http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athanasius_of_Alexandria put it this way, "God became man so that man might become God." In some beautiful and mysterious way, it has always been God's intention that through, with, and in Christ we would be drawn into and become part of the divine family and acquire by God's free gift what we did not have by nature. This is what scripture refers to as "the fullness of time," that, at a certain point in human history, in the evolution of the world, God the Son, born a man of a human mother, would offer to mankind the gift of divine life, the opportunity to live forever in union with God and each other.

This is what we Christians believe is revealed in the Epiphany and in the Theophany. In one sense the celebration is about how important Christ is for the well-being of the world. I believe it is equally about how important you and I are to God.

Apostolic Farming - In the City

2008-01-05T12:30:00.000-05:00

"Plant gardens and eat what they produce."
Jeremiah 29: 6
As I write this during the third week of Advent, I am watching the snow pile up around our chicken coop and goat shed. Though not an unusual sight for farmers in our part of the world at this time of the year, it is unusual for where we live. Our farm, what we call an urban-micro-eco-farm, is right in the middle of downtown Ypsilanti, a small, post-industrial city most famous for being the home of Kaiser, Frazer, and Tucker automobiles and what was the World War II Willow Run B-23 Bomber plant. It is also the location of Eastern Michigan University and a stone’s throw from Ann Arbor.

When Rebecca and I came to Michigan from Boston in the early days of the Charismatic Renewal to join the Word of God Community, we wanted to raise our family in a place and with others who shared our desire to work for renewal in the church and to be a force for good in the world. We were also being influenced by Catherine Doherty, Madonna House, Dorothy Day, the Catholic Worker, the Grail, Focolare, and other renewal groups whose publications and members had crossed paths with us over the years. Neither of us had grown up on a farm but both of us had kept backyard chickens for a time. In Michigan we have always lived in urban areas but have always talked about moving to the country so that we could have a little farm. We were especially excited about the idea of apostolic farming as Catherine described it and as we have witnessed it being lived at Madonna House. During a month-long stay about five years ago, Becky spent time working at Saint Ben’s and with Mary Davis and came home with a renewed desire to plant, to garden, and to have animals around for food, fun, and manure.

But as hard as we tried to sell our house and to move to a home in the country, we just couldn’t make this happen. Then, two years ago as I was praying one day about what we should do, I opened my bible to Jeremiah 29. This is the passage in which he is writing to the Jews who have been deported to Babylon and is encouraging them to have hope, to remember that God has not abandoned them or forgotten them. He tells them that they still have a future in spite of the fact that they are in a foreign land. But my attention was drawn to what the Holy Spirit, through the prophet, was telling them they needed to do on a practical day-to-day basis that would help them to survive and to continue to do the work of God. I was surprised that I had never noticed the first part of this familiar passage before.
"Yahweh says this to the exiles deported to Babylon: Build homes, settle down, plant gardens and eat what they produce; marry and have children; find wives for your sons and husbands for your daughters so that they can have children in their turn; you must increase there and not decrease. Work for the good of the city to which I have exiled you; pray to Yahweh on its behalf since on its welfare yours depends." (Jeremiah 29:4-14)
Like us in many ways, the Jews who had been deported to Babylon wanted their homes to be someplace where (they thought) life would be better, closer to God or, perhaps more free from the negative influence of the world or the culture around them. It is significant for us, as it was for them, that God sees things differently than we do. Not only was God saying to them – and to us – that He had put them right where they were and that there was work to be done, life to be lived, right there, but that we should not be caught up in dreaming about being somewhere else – and in the process become disengaged from our neighbors – instead, we should pray and work for the good of the communities in which we are living.

Apostolic farming, the relationship with the earth that Catherine described as being so vital to our role as stewards and disciples fits beautifully with the directive Jeremiah gives to his peers and to us. Having a large space for agriculture is actually less important than how we think about and utilize the space we have. Using bio-intensive, raised-bed, and square-foot organic gardening methods, we have gradually transformed our 1/10th acre city lot into a small urban farm. By restoring the fertility of the soil through active composting, each year we are able to grow more produce for our personal use and still have enough surplus to sell some items through our local food cooperative. This year we also acquired a dozen laying hens, five breeding rabbits, and two pregnant goats – the beginnings of what we hope will become a small dairy herd for cheese making. Follow the link to see more pictures of our downtown farm. http://thomasonfamilyfarm.blogspot.com/

It’s hard to describe what has actually happened as a result of this change in the way we live here but I can say that we are happier and more at peace. We certainly feel more at home here now than we did in the previous twenty years, something I attribute to our taking Jeremiah’s words to heart and just doing what the Holy Spirit was saying to do. Some of the effects are subtle, like the smiles on the faces of our grandchildren and neighbor children when they come over – almost daily – to visit our animals; or the increase in nitrogen-rich manure going into our vegetable garden beds. Some are less subtle, like the float we built for our summer city heritage festival parade that carried our twelve chickens in a mobile coop pulled by a tractor. That was an event of local interest because we had to engage in some civil disobedience to assert our "right to farm," an activity which, we discovered, has the protection of Michigan State law. Another equally important result of all this activity is the pleasure that comes from interacting with the animals and the plants, knowing that we are not just consumers but, like our rural counterparts, are able to support and provide for ourselves. We feel that in some way we are making our city a better place by the working and praying we do here.

E.F. Schumacher, the 20th Century English economist who became a Christian late in life by pondering the Church’s social teaching, promoted the idea that "Small is Beautiful" in a book of that name. Economies, he said, do not need to function on a large industrial scale to be successful but can be as simple as a home-based business that remains locally focused. The result for those involved is then an experience of "Good Work," the name of the second book in the trilogy that was then completed with "A Guide for the Perplexed," the story of his conversion. It was his belief that for an economy and a culture to be true to the Gospel, and to function as if the well being of people mattered more than profit, goods and services had to have value that outweighed the monetary value assigned them through the economics of mass production. I believe that this is why Saint Paul tells us that the love of money is the root of all evil. We usually think that he is saying don’t be greedy, don’t set your heart on wealth, or is reminding of us Christ’s admonition that we cannot serve both God and Mammon. I think it is all of these things – and more. He does not say the love of value is the root of all evil rather, it is money, that thing which represents value and power and that so easily becomes the object of desire. The human tragedy that follows from setting our hearts on it is that we lose sight of the real value that we seek in the exchange of goods and services - the mutual satisfaction of our basic needs and the enrichment of our common life.

Urban homesteading in the spirit of apostolic farming is an effort to rediscover the richness of the home economy as a producing, sustainable, Gospel-centered and vital part of our local community. The fact is, the Holy Spirit will help us to be a fruitful and positive presence wherever we are if we embrace the grace God gives us to do this. As we marry and have children and grandchildren and nurture the relationships we have with our neighbors and the soil, the life of God in us takes deeper root in our local communities and has a way of making things better – for all of us.