“Avoid all forms of self-rejection.” – Henri Nouwen

I recently heard from a friend of mine, a friend whom I hadn’t spoken to in what seemed like ages but was realistically only a couple of years, and I was blown away with the remote changes that had rippled through his life.  

He had decided to stop drinking, and even though I had never perceived his drinking to be a problem, it was obvious that it had been, and that he had successfully escaped this particular part of his life, and was better of for it.  

He said the money he was saving in aspirin alone was nearly enough to fill his gas tank.

I thought about that for a minute.  And I sighed, and laughed a little, and pondered upon what the little things do to us and in us and outside of us. No more drinking means no more hangovers means no more aspirin means 30 more dollars a month. Perhaps it’s only when we can draw diagrams like this that we can actually witness ourselves becoming fuller, becoming more pronounced and at-peace versions of ourselves.

***

One time, when I lived in Los Angeles, someone said something to me while we were eating breakfast that made me so mad and hurt and sick inside that I skipped both lunch and dinner so I wouldn’t have to see those people again, and spent the entire day writing in my journal and drinking straight from several bottles of Martinelli’s Sparkling Cider.  In short, I became a nonfunctioning, nonalcoholic wino.

***

I hung up with my friend and that was it.  But I think about the diagrams in my life that demonstrate my unwillingness to be self-destructive or sad or angry or self-doubting.  I think it looks something like this: No more self-loathing means no more obsessing over what other people say means no more doubting the gifts God has given me means fully living life.

(Maybe this isn’t as small a change as I made it sound – “no more self-loathing” is a tall order)

(Or maybe it’s just making the choice to listen to what Mr Henri Nouwen called “the inner voice of love”)

(I don’t know)

***

When we’ve been gone for 20 years
They won’t remember what I did tonight
That I sat down with this old guitar
And struggled with the words to make this right
That I stared down all the chaos
And I dared myself to make my life lines straight
That I never hated anyone, but I hated this

And here I go - God forgive my sins because
I just don’t know why I’m buzzing like a 
Catholic radio, humming with the pulse of untouched snow

So read me like the Gospel
And hear the things I say and what I won’t
The odd suspicious pauses
Where you wait for me to finish but I don’t
Read me like an open book
Underline the words that mean the most
And free me of the ghosts that I have haunting me

Love is perfect, undefiled
But only when it’s wasted on the dirty and the wild

When I’ve been dead for centuries
They won’t remember what I did tonight
That I whispered up a psalm to you
And shook my head and just shut off the light
That I slept for several hours
And woke up and just started it again
Like a man who’s playing chicken with his enemies

***

A few weeks ago, someone said something directed at me that was unkind and hurtful and served no purpose, and I got over the initial shock within an hour or so.  I rededicated myself to praying for this person, and I went and got coffee with perhaps one of the only people I know who has the same job as I do within the same context, and I vented, and he vented, and we felt better.  Then I went home and drank a beer on the back porch and wrote this song and inhaled deeply, because I am living life and life more abundantly.

If ever people who knew me 10 years ago want to know if I’ve changed, I’m not going to point to the house Amy and I bought and fixed up, or the job I am now holding down (a job that, 10 years ago, I would’ve lost almost immediately) or the group of people who call me their friend.  I’m going to point to this song as proof that I can function in the face of self-doubt.