by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional
I feel like I’m drowning. I’m over my head in conflicting problems. I don’t know what to do, and there is no one I feel safe enough to talk to about all this, yet you are able to write openly about some really hard problems, and how small groups have helped you. How can a bunch of other screwed up people help me? What is the spiritual process in such groups that has given you the courage to face and deal with the problems you write about?
You’ve pin-pointed a crucial question that I’ve heard from many people. There are groups whose primary purpose is to study together, discuss topics, or enjoy a common activity together (like square dancing, quilting, hunting and so forth). So not all groups are helpful for dealing with personal problems.
A certain kind of group has not only helped me but led me into a way of living that has kept me from panicking so much when I realize I’m in deep water, fighting to stay afloat somehow while wrestling with some pretty serious problems. But the kind of help I’m describing didn’t always happen right away.
For example, when I first stepped into a men’s group that dealt with compulsive behavior and addictions, I realized I was “in trouble.” By that I mean I wasn’t sure I could be really honest—because I didn’t trust men much. But these men didn’t try to change me. They just said, “Welcome.” Then as they talked about their lives, they brought their inner worlds out into the open, including the terrifying, frightening and seemingly impossible situations that had driven them to the end of themselves.
They were very honest about themselves and didn’t try to fix each other. Almost all of them said they felt like they were “in over their heads,” struggling in deep water and didn’t know if they could survive. and that they had ventured into the group only because their situation had gotten so scary that they became, after much resistance and struggle, willing to “come out of hiding” and talk honestly in this safe, confidential setting, even though most confessed later that they really didn’t believe the group could give them any significant answers or help!
Somehow, hearing about their fear of losing things they were not prepared to live without made me feel safe, which sounds strange. But my sense of safety came from realizing I was with people that had been where I was.
I came to see that this was no study course you had to make a grade in. These men had not accumulated a large body of knowledge. It was more like a swimming school for people who had almost drowned in deep water and these men had learned how to “swim” in these deep-water situations, and weren’t so terrified of drowning in them. In fact, I saw that if you learn to be a strong swimmer, it doesn’t really matter how deep the water gets.
Although this was not a study course, there was a simple program of steps described in one book, two-thirds of which is made up of the stories of people who are dealing with the same kinds of struggles the members of the group talked about. The stories were about how God was helping them to trust enough to allow them to let the group help them to swim through deep water situations.
As I thought about what I might say about my own situation, I realized that I needed to learn to trust the group before I could learn this kind of swimming. And I realized that talking about weakness and failure out loud took great strength and courage in a society in which many of us had focused on cars, houses, clothes, cosmetic surgery and super deeds to try to appear to be more successful, beautiful and adequate than we really are.
As I sat there listening to these men sharing their guts, I remembered I remembered a time many years ago when I was teaching some little kids how to swim. This one young boy wouldn’t even put his face in the water although I was holding him up. After I gave him a pep talk about how “you can do it!” he still was too scared to put his face in the water. After many sessions, I was about to give up, but then I had an idea. I told him that if he would relax in the water, the water would hold him up, and he would not sink. I added that I had had trouble believing this until I tried it.
Finally I said that at first I would have my hand under him to hold him up. Then I’d slowly lower my hand down just about an inch below his tummy so I could catch him if he began to sink. He asked me again and again to tell him what I would do if he started sinking. Finally, I think his curiosity must have become a little stronger than his great fear, because he took a deep breath and tentatively stretched out face down on the water, trying to relax on my hand beneath him on his stomach. When he had floated for a few seconds, he came up sputtering, and grinning from ear to ear. The next session he began learning to swim. And all the other fearful little boys I taught that summer began to catch on, too after they first learned that the water they were in would support them.
And in the same way, as a new person in the group, I had to learn to trust that the water (group) I’d stepped into would support me so I wouldn’t drown. I kept attending the meeting, and when I could finally trust enough to risk trying to live a whole new kind of life, that was when I could listen to the message of grace about how God would really forgive even me, a man who had failed and hurt so many people. And I began to learn to live a life of facing my problems honestly as they come up so I could swim through the deep water that all my friends in the group are swimming in—ready to hold out a hand if I start drowning again.
But if the scene of the real action of honest, loving and non-judgmental spiritual groups is evidently inside each person’s mind, then how can we learn how to keep learning, growing and facing new problems that happen in all lives and relationships? Well, when this kind of group meets, every person brings his or her new inner failure, and shares how the experience, strength and hope he or she is learning about helps the person to quit thrashing and start swimming again. And before my eyes every week I see how God continues to work in our lives behind the scenes in our personal experience.
And if my twenty-five years is in any sense the experience of others, then I can tell you that wherever you go (these meetings have sprung up all over the world) and whatever happens to you even in countries where you do not speak the local language, you will never have to be alone again!
Lord, thank you that your Kingdom or Reign in people’s lives is broader and deeper than I had even imagined—even after many years trying to learn all about you. Thank you that you came to turn our lives right side up—and then to invite us as we struggle to keep our heads above water to let you teach us how to swim with you. In Jesus’ name, amen.
“But me he caught—reached all the way from sky to sea; he pulled me out of that ocean of hate, that enemy chaos, the void in which I was drowning. They hit me when I was down, but God stuck by me. He stood me up on a wide-open field; I stood there saved—surprised to be loved!” – 2 Samuel 22:19-20, The Message
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“You’re blessed when you are at the end of your rope. Because then there is more of God and less of you.” – Matthew 5:3, The Message
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“Sometimes God calms the storm. At other times, he calms the sailor. And sometimes he makes us swim.” – Author Unknown
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“The water is your friend…..you don’t have to fight with water, just share the same spirit as the water, and it will help you move”. – Alexandr Popov, Russian former Olympic gold-winning swimmer, widely regarded as one of the greatest sprint, freestyle swimmers of all time.
by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Recovery, Weekly Devotional
On February 4th I posted a blog titled “What Makes A Life Meaningful.” In that blog I was wrestling with the fact that as an old man (of 83) it seems to me about all I can do is help a few people find hope and meaning by helping them find sobriety and/or a new life of faith in God.
I related an incident that occurred while a group of friends and I were reading about Bill Wilson’s doctor’s opinion that Bill had little chance of ever getting sober unless he had some sort of spiritual experience. I reported how one of Bill’s old drinking buddies named Ebby had gotten sober at Calvary Church in NYC and went to see Bill. I said that at first Bill thought Ebby had just “gotten religion,” but something about his friend’s changed life convinced Bill to go with Ebby to meet the Rector, Sam Shoemaker. As a result, Bill Wilson became a Christian, sobered up, and with Shoemaker’s help wrote the “Big Book” that described and inaugurated Alcoholics Anonymous’ very powerful spiritual movement during the last sixty percent of the 20th century. To read the original post, click here.
The same day the blog came out I received an email from my friend Ruben who pointed out the following:
“NOT TRUE:
I remembered that Ebby probably didn’t know the amazing effect of his walking a few days with his old friend, because I’d heard that Ebby went back out and drank himself to death. Ebby’s life did have great significance because of working a simple program for a short time. But I also realized that whether Ebby knew it or not, those few days eventually gave meaning to lives of probably millions of men and women around the world.
TRUE:
Wilson stayed sober and eventually formed Alcoholics Anonymous with Dr. Bob Smith while [Ebby] Thacher soon returned to drinking. Wilson always called Thacher his “sponsor,” and even though he had returned to drinking, Wilson looked after his friend’s welfare for the rest of his life. Thacher struggled on and off with sobriety over the years, and ultimately died sober in Ballston Spa, New York from emphysema in 1966.”
Ruben’s email included several more paragraphs about Ebby’s struggle with the disease the rest of his life, but I will not quote them here since the point of my post was not about Ebby’s death, but to say that Ebby’s willingness to go see his old friend led to the founding of a great movement of healing. And I realized that I am having a meaningful life simply by helping a few people find hope, people whom God may have plans for that are between Him and them.
And thanks to Ruben who has helped many people already, including me.
by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional
Dear Keith, my husband and I are both Christians. We are doing our best to teach our two young sons how to treat other people—thinking about other people’s feelings, showing respect and using good manners. They seem so uninterested when we explain these things to them. What else can we do to help them learn about this, since it is so vital for their ability to get along in the world when they are grown and on their own? Any ideas?
Sounds like you’ve got the future well-being of your boys well in mind as you bring them up. I had some good days and bad days as a father. I don’t know how old your boys are now, but it seems to me that their apparent boredom [dis-interest] is pretty normal. But that doesn’t mean that they aren’t watching and listening. And it doesn’t mean that you quit explaining. But I believe that it is possibly your personal example that teaches the most—how you and your husband treat each other, your friends, relatives and the strangers you encounter in stores, etc. when your sons are with you. Also, if you write or e-mail thank-you notes for Christmas presents, etc. We required that our kids write thank you notes starting early. It’s also important in how you treat your boys, even when they are disrespectful, rude or insensitive to your feelings (i.e. Do you correct them without shaming them? If you have shamed them, can you tell them you’re sorry?) It’s very possible that they may be watching you more than you think.
As I thought about this, I remembered a story from my childhood. When I was five, I heard that my mother’s birthday was the next day. She was always giving people gifts. “What if she didn’t get one?” I thought.
I decided I’d buy her a birthday present. I put the thirty-five cents I’d saved from my allowance in my jeans pocket, slipped out of the house and started walking the dozen or so blocks to Main Street and the five-and-ten-cent store. Once in the store, I couldn’t find the right gift. Finally I approached the lady behind the counter.
“I want to buy a present for my mother.”
“How much money do you have?”
I opened my fist and showed her my thirty-five cents.
Nodding seriously, she said, “I see.” She showed me some things, but I only shook my head. Then she picked up a little blue glass jar with white bumps all over it and a powder puff inside. Wow! How could that lady have known that Mother had broken her jar just like this one!
“That’s it!” Then fear. “What does it cost?”
“Uh…thirty-five cents. Would you like me to wrap it? Wrapping is free.”
“Okay.”
I carried the little brown sack with the gift-wrapped jar in it all the way home. I was so excited that it didn’t seem far at all.
The next day while her friends were having birthday cake and coffee, I gave her my present. She was really surprised! Then she asked, “Where did you get this, Johnny?”
“I walked to the store to buy it,” I said proudly.
“You what?” Suddenly she looked frightened. “Don’t ever do that again!”
When I cried, she picked me up. Hugging me, she said, “I love the present, but you should not walk downtown alone.” Then she wept and held me until I could wiggle free.
As I was running out, I heard one of her friends say, “How in the world did you teach him to do that kind of thing at five? Mother just shook her head and shrugged.
Grown ups were so dumb. There wasn’t any trick. All my life I’d seen my mother go to the trouble to give presents to everyone she knew.
Lord, thank you for a mother who was the changes she wanted to see in me. Help me even at this late age to become a better person—father, grandfather and great grandfather—who may help them see and experience the love I feel for them as I hang out with them at the edge of their worlds. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
“Point your kids in the right direction—when they’re old they won’t be lost.” Proverbs 22:6, The Message
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“The training of children is a profession, where we must know how to waste time in order to save it” Jean Jacques Rousseau, Swiss-born French philosopher, educationist & author
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“Each child represents either a potential addition to the protective capacity and enlightened citizenship of the nation or, if allowed to suffer from neglect, a potential addition to the destructive forces of a community…. The interests of the nation are involved in the welfare of this array of children no less than in our great material affairs.” Theodore Roosevelt, 26th US president, 1901-09, colonel of Rough Riders cavalry in Spanish-American War
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When you give a child advice your state of mind is far more important than the advice itself. You may be inspired by fear—the fear that he is turning out badly. In this case you will suggest the fear to him even without formulating it. And your advice, however proper it may be, by turning his thoughts toward evil, gives power to the evil. if, however, you are inspired by prudent and trusting wisdom, this same advice will be useful.
You have to punish a child. You know well that you can do it in anger. You will then work out of your own system the irritation his misdemeanor has caused you. Or you may be avenging yourself unconsciously for punishments you yourself received in childhood. In such a case the effect of the punishment will not be to correct him, but to arouse rebellion in him. But it may also be a proper sense of your educational responsibility, which prompts you to punish him without any question of your being angry. In this case it is your love for the child that inspires you, and the punishment will be fruitful.” Paul Tournier, Swiss Internist, The Person Reborn, p. 58
by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional
Keith, I am so afraid that my life is not going to turn out well. My closest relationship is in shambles. No one knows this because in my family we were trained not to admit our fears or our failures. But in my heart of hearts my fears have gotten so big that there seems to be no room for anything else. It’s like they are swelling and are going to choke me somehow. My imagination and pictures of a divorce or business failure and of being alone and unhappy are dominating my life… and no one knows.
If you can understand what I’m saying will you tell me what you’ve done to deal with this kind of scary, crazy thinking?
This is a very important question—and problem! My life seems like a magnet for this question or others very similar to it. And before I talk about how I’ve learned to deal with the fear into which these swollen images of failure and rejection lead me, I want to tell you that almost every really sensitive person I have counseled or mentored before in a continuing way has reported similar fears that have almost overwhelmed them—till they finally got the courage to bring them out and share them.
From a clinical perspective (and from my own experience) what I see happening is that some significant problem comes up that a person can not solve—perhaps a significant relationship is threatened by an affair, or a spouse announces that he or she has ‘had enough’ and is planning to leave, or one has discovered that his or her drinking has increased but he/she cannot stop, and that person gets fired, etc.
What happens to me is that I start by “awfulizing” in my thinking. My mind begins generating images of being alone, deserted, or fired, with no job or remedy in sight.
When I get in such a situation, my natural impulse is first to try to find someone else to blame, so I won’t be shamed and rejected by those whose approval means the most to me.
I see myself trying to muster evidence that will make my unacceptable behavior be seen as reasonable or justified. But when that doesn’t work, my fears swell until I can’t sleep or even rationalize any way out of my “overwhelming” problems.
Fortunately, years ago I met a man I trusted enough to tell him what was happening—to share the terrifying scenes that were by that time filling my mind, leaving no room for anything else.
I heard this man share his spiritual experience with a group of people who meet together regularly to share such problems honestly. After attending that meeting for several weeks I finally got the courage to ask the man who had shared if I could talk to him. When I had told him honestly how frightened I was and how powerless I felt to overcome my fears, he said that I had “just taken” the first step to deal with my seemingly impossible situation. I had gotten my feelings of fear and powerlessness out in the open in the real world.
He told me what he’d found helpful to get through such times of magnified fear was to realize that the human mind is 3-dimensional and that we experience our fearful mental images in 3-D, often Technicolor, moving pictures that have length, width and depth. And these fearful pictures are strangely elastic—that is, “they swell” and our fears increase in magnitude in our minds so they seem to fill our consciousness until there seems to be no more room for anything else—like solutions or strategies to solve our seemingly impossible problems.
So I asked him, “What do you do when you’re in that situation?”
He smiled and said, “I do what you just did; I bring my fears out into the 4th dimension: “time,” the arena of Reality. And when I share these feelings with others in the reality of the present moment, they quit swelling. And I see in the eyes of the listeners with whom I share, that my swollen fears are normal and can be faced and changed.
What happened was is that I was no longer alone with my fear. And I realized that the greatest threat of my fearful fantasies—that I would wind up alone and rejected—had dissolved.
And instead of being rejected as I’d shared fearful experiences I was accepted as one of the group as a real, fallible but honest struggler trying to surrender our lives to God. And I realized that God is always there in the present moment when we bring our lives out of the unreal shadow land of the past or future because God never did anything in a “past” moment or a “future” moment, only the present moment. So my only hope to have God’s help is to bring my guilt about the past and fears of the future into God’s time, the present moment, where he has always been—waiting to forgive us and love us—and to be with us from now on.
Dear Lord, thank you that you are waiting to deliver us from the elastic three dimensional images of the guilts and regrets of our pasts and the fears of the future. Help us to have the courage to bring these painful images and fears into the 4th dimension: time, your dimension—the present moment—where they no longer swell and can be offered to you and our brothers and sisters in your family for forgiveness, and new changes in a new life. In Jesus name, amen.
“Make this your common practice: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed.” James 5:17, The Message
by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Recovery, Weekly Devotional
I was thinking I’ve had my shot. I’m an old man and all I can do is help a few people find hope and meaning by helping them find sobriety and/or a new life of faith in God.
But helping some pretty negative and defiant people in these ways didn’t seem to me to be related to having lived a meaningful life. Besides, lots of the young men I meet with are proud and in denial about their addictions and control issues and very rebellious about the idea of really trusting God with their lives. Although I understand this since I have been the same way most of my life, it’s discouraging sometimes how many have to hit an iron wall before they are ready to surrender enough to get to the wonder of God’s adventure.
Recently a group of us were reading about Bill Wilson, who co-founded the multinational movement of Alcoholics Anonymous. We read that when Wilson had just gotten out of the hospital for the last time because of his drinking problem, one of his old drinking buddies came to see him. This friend, Ebby, had sobered up as a result of going to a soup kitchen manned by parishioners from Calvary Episcopal church in New York City.
Bill Wilson’s doctor had told him that he had to quit drinking or he might not make it. And further his doctor believed that Wilson could never quit drinking, except for one possible chance—that of having a spiritual experience of some kind. At first Bill thought Ebby had just “gotten religion.” But somehow the meeting with Ebby struck a chord in Wilson’s life. He went with Ebby to Calvary church and met the rector, Sam Shoemaker. As a result, Bill Wilson got converted to Christianity, sobered up and with Sam Shoemaker’s help, wrote the Big Book that described and inaugurated Alcoholics Anonymous as a movement—arguably the fastest growing spiritual movement in the world during the last sixty percent of the twentieth century.
As I sat there listening to the story unfold in the pages of the book, Alcoholics Anonymous, I thought about Ebby, a newly sober alcoholic, working his program by telling his friend, Bill, about what had happened to him.
I thought how grateful Ebby must have felt at the end of his life to have had such a significant role in founding one of the most significant and transformational healing movements in the world. If Ebby never did anything else, that was meaningful, being responsible for the religious conversion and recovery from addiction of the man who founded this great healing community of A.A. would be meaning enough for a lifetime.
But as the story continued, I realized that Ebby probably never even knew what happened because of his simply doing what he was taught to do to stay sober himself—telling another alcoholic how he (Ebby) had found sobriety by surrendering his life to God.
I remembered that Ebby probably didn’t know the amazing effect of his walking a few days with his old friend, because I’d heard that Ebby went back out and drank himself to death. Ebby’s life did have great significance because of working a simple program for a short time. But I also realized that whether Ebby knew it or not, those few days eventually gave meaning to lives of probably millions of men and women around the world.
And after that meeting in which we were reading about Bill Wilson’s beginning with Ebby, a man I’d mentored years ago, who had moved away from Austin, and whom I hadn’t seen in several years, walked up, and we had lunch. I learned that the young man was not only still in recovery but had gone to seminary and was now being ordained as a minister. I was struck after lunch by the transformation in the man’s life. His deep faith and enthusiasm about his work touched me profoundly. And as he left after lunch, I realized that if I never do any of the exciting things I once did, that my life would have great meaning because I encouraged this one young man and helped him get sober by working the same simple program Ebby was working when he had lunch with Bill Wilson over seventy-five years ago. And I was very grateful that the Rev. Sam Shoemaker taught Bill Wilson the kind of spirituality that is at the heart of the life Jesus taught his disciples.
Lord, thank you for a life in which each person we love and help along the way gives our lives significance and meaning to you and sometimes to other people we may never know. In Jesus’ name, amen.
“Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.” Philippians 2:1, The Message
“Don’t begin by traveling to some far off place to convert unbelievers. And don’t try to be dramatic by tackling some public concern. Go to the lost confused people right here in the neighborhood. … Don’t think you have to put on a fund-raising campaign before you start. You don’t need any equipment. You are the equipment.” Matthew 10:6-10, The Message
