Mucked Up

By Lenora Rand. For September Recovery Worship Service, based on Matthew 19:16-26.


A couple years ago my husband Gary and our two daughters Zoe and Hannah and I were spending a beautiful summer day in Galena, IL, a lovely little tourist town near the border of Illinois, Wisconsin and Iowa, just a couple miles from the Mississippi River. Galena has its own river running through the town, in fact, that empties out into the Mississippi. And that day we decided we were up for a little adventure so we rented canoes and took off on a trip down the lazy Galena River. We even packed a lunch—I say that proudly because Gary and I have in the past gone on canoe trips without bringing any food or water because Gary had told me there’d be someplace to stop along the way and I’d believed him—I guess he was envisioning a canoe-through restaurant or something. And hey I bought into that vision. Clearly we’re not big outdoorsy types. But we did learn…so we packed a lunch for this trip.

After canoeing along, slowly for an hour or two we decided to pull off to the dry land to eat our lunch. It had actually been pretty hard going because there wasn’t much of a current and the river was kind of low, sometimes really low, and we’d been getting stuck in the muck on the bottom of the river a lot. Plus the girls were young and inexperienced canoers and we were old inexperienced canoers, so we really needed a break from all the fun we were having, as you can imagine.

Anyway, Gary and Hannah pulled over in their canoe and then Zoe and I managed to maneuver our canoe to the embankment. I was in the back of the canoe so I got the front end positioned up on the shore and Zoe hopped out the front onto land—muddy land, but land nonetheless. Then I attempted to get out. I however made the mistake of stepping out of the canoe not at the very front, but a little bit on the side. The water wasn’t deep there, so I thought it wouldn’t be a problem, but it was. It was a sucking mass of mud problem. I put one foot out of the canoe and immediately I was knee deep in quick sand like mud. One leg still in the canoe, one leg knee deep in the muck. My family rushed over to the bank yelling words of advice and encouragement, suggesting mostly that I pull that one leg back into the canoe and walk up to the front to get out, that sort of thing. But I couldn’t pull my leg out, I told them. Because I was afraid I’d lose my shoe. I was afraid my leg would come out but my shoe would stay down there deep in the mud and I didn’t have on a pair of $5 flip-flops unfortunately. I had on $100 Dansko sport sandals…OK, once again, not an experienced outdoorsy type. So I was worried that when I took my foot out, the mud would engulf the shoe and I’d never see it again. And I couldn’t let that happen. Those shoes were too important, too expensive, too irreplaceable—I think it was a discontinued model even. So I was stuck there. Knee deep in the muck. While my family waited on shore with an idyllic picnic lunch spread out and ready to eat.

The guy in our story from Matthew was also really stuck, knee deep in his own ideas about the right way to live his life. Knee deep in his own illusions about what was really important and valuable, about what would guarantee him the outcome he was looking for and give him a “good life.” He was born into a world that said wealth and power will save you. He was born into a world that said doing what is expected of you would save you too. And when you think about it that way, it doesn’t sound so different from our world.

But he comes to Jesus and basically says, I’ve been doing all this stuff I’m supposed to do, I’ve got all the stuff I could possibly have. But I still feel like I have nothing. Like I’m missing out on life. Like I’m not really living. Jesus gets right to the heart of things. He tells him to let go of all that stuff, let go of the illusion that he can save himself, let go of whatever he’s holding onto and afraid to step away from. He tells him to trust. To let go and surrender.

If you want to have real life, Jesus says, you need to let go of what you’re holding onto for dear life.

Letting go of what we think is holding us together isn’t easy. Like trying to gallop on a camel through the eye of a needle.

About 10 or 11 years ago now, I remember having a conversation with my therapist, a recovery specialist, about one of my many addiction issues--smoking—which happened to be the one I was ready to deal with at the time--and I was saying how much I wanted to quit smoking, but I was afraid that if I did I literally wouldn’t be able to function throughout my day. I couldn’t keep going on, I couldn’t hold it together. I knew it was crazy, but still it felt like having a smoke was the glue that was keeping me from falling apart at the seams. And my therapist told me I could always call someone if that started happening, if I started falling apart. I didn’t really like to call people that much, I told him. And with a little smile he added I could even call HIM. See, I never called him. I went to see him at our appointed times once a week, but I didn’t actually need him, you know? You only call people if you really need them. And I didn’t like needing anyone.

So finally, a few months later, armed with his phone number, a nicotine patch and the Zyban he prescribed for me, I quit smoking. And guess what, my worst nightmare? It turned out to be true. I stopped smoking and I started crying. I mean really crying. At the drop of a hat. For seemingly no good reason at all. AN EMBARASSING AMOUNT. I had at least one of what I now fondly refer to as the “blubbering idiot incidents” pretty much every day.

But I lived through it. I started calling my therapist and cried into his answering machine. I cried with my husband. I cried with my friends. I cried in church. I cried in recovery groups. I cried in the ladies room at work with whoever happened to be in there at the moment.

I stopped smoking and I started crying and I also started living. I starting having a real life. What I was holding onto, the cigarettes and the illusion that I didn’t need anyone and that I didn’t have any feelings, the illusion that I could take care of myself, I finally started to let go of that. And the result wasn’t pretty. But it was good.

The addictions I’ve dealt with in my life have all basically been about holding on to what I think will protect me. Or save me. Or make me feel better. Whether that addiction has been to food, or achievement or trying to control others, or to blaming or to hiding my real self or to smoking…it’s all the same thing.

For me, the simplest definition of an addiction I’ve ever heard (and I think this was from Barbara Brown Taylor) is anything we hold onto instead of God. Whatever it is that isn’t God that we think will make us whole, make us happy, make us feel safe, help us feel more alive, that’s an addiction. And we need to let go of it. And the longer I’m in recovery the more I realize I’m addicted to.

And just like the guy who comes to Jesus in our story, I’ve needed to take in what Jesus was saying, if you want to have real life, you need to let go of what you’re holding onto for dear life. I’ve needed to do what Jesus invited that rich young man to do…stop grasping at straws and start opening my hands and heart and life to the good things God might actually want to give me.

You’ve heard that expression haven’t you—grasping at straws? It comes from a proverb written in the 1500s. A DROWNING MAN WILL CATCH AT STRAWS – And it means “A desperate person will try anything to save himself, no matter how unlikely.”
I know what it’s like to feel desperate and like you’re drowning. Maybe you do too. So it’s not surprising that we’d try anything to save ourselves.

The problem is when you’re holding on desperately to one thing, you can’t hold on to something else. Something sturdier, and richer and stronger and more life-giving than a straw.

When you’re stuck knee deep in the mud holding on to your expensive shoe, you can’t have a feast with your family. When your fist is closed tightly around something, there isn’t room for anything else.

And yet we grasp at straws all the time, don’t we? I know I do, at least. Whether that straw is a cigarette or a donut or a drink or a big win at work or an expensive pair of shoes. Whether it’s our own sense of rightness or denial or shame…whatever it is for you and whatever it is for me, I’m coming to believe that it’s still always a flimsy piece of nothing to hold on to. And by holding on to that straw my hand isn’t able to reach out and hold someone else’s hand. My hand isn’t able to wait empty and hopeful and trusting and ready to receive what good gifts God might have in mind for me. Even gifts that might not seem so good when you first get them, like the gift of excessive crying.

But that’s where my recovery seems to be taking me. Step by step. And that’s what I pray to be able to do every day. Let go of what I’m holding onto for dear life.
Release my grip.
And have real life.

Taking the Cure

At our Recovery Services someone gives a lead, usually a reflection on a Scripture reading, as it relates to their recovery. This is the lead that I gave in April, 2008--Lenora

When I was 5 years old my extended family rented a house together at this big Southern Baptist conference center in NC for a week. While the adults went to seminars us kids were put in this day camp program every morning, hearing Bible stories, singing cute songs, and playing morally uplifting games. At the end of the 2nd day our teacher announced we'd be creating a mural the next day of the story of the Good Samaritan, which we'd been learning about. She assigned us each different characters in the story to draw. I was assigned to draw a Sanhedrin. I left day camp that afternoon in a quiet though raging panic. I had no idea what a Sanhedrin looked like. And I felt like there was clearly some correct way to draw a Sanhedrin which I SHOULD know but I didn't. And I felt so ashamed. Too ashamed to ask for help or advice from my parents or anyone else in the family because I could already imagine their response: You don't know how to draw a Sanhedrin? What's wrong with you? All afternoon as I played with my cousins my anxiety about the Sanhedrin drawing continued to build. Finally though, I figured out a solution. All of us kids were amusing ourselves by jumping off the big, tall front porch of the house to the ground below. One of the adults seeing us do this, warned us to be careful because we might hurt ourselves. And then it came to me. I took a flying leap off the porch and when I landed, I crumpled to the ground. I had "twisted my ankle" and it really hurt. And it continued hurting all night--I kept what I thought was a pretty convincing limp going--and when I woke up the next morning I managed to make my parents buy my story that my ankle was still hurting so bad that I couldn't go to day camp. When my ankle was “better” the following day, I went back and checked out the mural. I remember looking specifically for the rendition of the Sanhedrin which some other poor 5 year old had been saddled with in my absence. What I don't remember is how the other kid ended up drawing the Sanhedrin. To this day, I couldn't tell you what a Sanhedrin looks like.

I tell that story because as silly as it is, this is the story of my life. Most of my life, I've been trying to get IT right, whatever it may be in the moment. Say the right thing. Write the perfect thing, sing the correct note, give the right answer, look the right part, live in the right house, drive the right car, practice right religion...you name it. Or I’ve been in complete rebellion against the need to do everything right. And pointedly trying not to do “the right thing, or the expected thing.” Either way, though, I have been filled with shame because I can't do things perfectly, I can't do things the way they're supposed to be done. I've walked through most of my life filled with this deep down to my bones feeling of not-rightness, experiencing myself as SO inherently flawed and not good enough that I don't really deserve to take up space on the planet. I don't deserve to live. Of course, you might never know that by looking at me. Or even by being friends with me. Because just as I did as a little girl, I've also tried for many years to keep all that shame hidden, keep it a secret, sometimes even from myself. And how I've dealt with the shame has been similar to my trick as a 5 year old too. I've hurt myself rather than admit to the deep shame I was carrying around. Through the years I've hurt myself in lots of different ways--primarily through addictions of various kinds--addictions to work, to taking care of other people, to trying to fix, manage and control, to being judgmental and competitive, to cigarettes, to food. All of these addictions have proven to be great ways to hurt myself, to practically kill myself, AND great ways to keep me isolated and alone, guilt-ridden and ashamed, great ways to avoid the deeper and more profound pain of facing how worthless I feel pretty much every waking moment. I went to my first recovery group meeting nearly 20 years ago--and started working on some of this stuff. The addiction that brought me to my knees and led me there was food. I am a compulsive overeater. But as I began to confront my addiction to food, I started to realize how broken I was in so many places--it was kind of like going to the doctor for a sprained toe and discovering that actually, practically every bone in your body is fractured in multiple places. Yet along the way, step by step, I've been mending, I've been experiencing healing--though frankly, it hasn't always happened how I expected it to or thought it should. It hasn't always happened the "right" way.

And this is where I can so relate to the story of Naaman we heard from the Old Testament a few minutes ago. Naaman's got a disease and he's looking for a cure. He gets this tip from an unexpected source--not from a wise man or a peer, but from a slave girl. But Naaman is desperate, at the end of his rope, he's hit bottom enough to finally be able to take in the help. And he does what the slave girl suggests. He packs up cartloads of riches, and travels to Israel to find help. He expects the help to come from the King--a big rich and powerful guy just like him--but the King actually doesn't have a clue about how to help Naaman. Then Naaman gets the word that the Healer he's seeking is a bit off the beaten path and he loads up his big piles of riches to go find his cure from the prophet Elisha. But even then Elisha throws Naaman another curve--my guess is what Naaman was expecting from Elisha was something wild and scary--like Elisha would send him on a heroic quest, or ask him to jump through some difficult and dangerous hoops to prove his worth. And Naaman was prepared for that. What he wasn't prepared for was Elisha, not even coming out in person to meet him, but sending his servant out to tell Naaman to go take a bath in a muddy river. Naaman was like, This is absurd. This is humiliating... Naaman, the big powerful man, was essentially being told none of his own strength and power and effort was going to heal him--he has to strip down to his naked need and surrender to a cure that is quite possibly more shameful than the disease itself. He wasn’t going to do it, but his servants, sounding for all the world like a support group saying, “it works when you work it,” convince him to at least try.

Two years ago I found myself firmly planted once again in Naaman's shoes. After all my time in recovery, and all the progress I'd made in so many areas of my life, the one area I'd found very little healing in was my relationship with food and my body. I walked into my doctor's office one day weighing well over 250 lbs with blood pressure that was dangerously high. And my doctor started telling me about this surgery she thought I should have, a relatively new bariatric surgery which she had seen excellent results from. But my immediate response was, "I don't need to do that, I've lost a lot of weight before, I can do it again," because I had--when I’d first started in recovery I lost 120 lbs. I'd gained it all back though and over the last several years, no matter what I'd tried I couldn't seem to get or keep the weight off. Of course, what I was thinking was, "This surgery isn't right. This isn't the way it's supposed to be. I'm supposed to lose weight by working a program, going to therapy, following a food plan. That's the right way to do this." I told myself EVERYONE I knew would think I was a cheater for having this surgery, that it was frivolous and vain and that I was a terrible person for even considering it. And I told myself everyone in recovery circles would be appalled by the very idea... they would think I was an OA failure, a recovery screw up. So, No I said to my doctor, I can lose the weight without the surgery. But my doctor looked me in the eye at that point and said, "Lenora, I'm not sure you'll live long enough to do that." Here's the funny thing: as I began to explore the surgery and talk about it in therapy, with family and with friends in recovery over the next several months what I discovered was I was the one with all the judgments about doing it the "right way"...not them. I was the one with all the shaming messages. I was the one looking for a heroic quest to go on rather than a nearby river to take a swim in.

So I took the dip in my muddy river. I surrendered to the cure God was offering me and had the surgery. And I did experience and continue to experience what has been for me a miracle. I wasn't miraculously cured of my compulsions around food...I continue to deal with that one day, one hour, one minute at a time and I am still learning little by little, moment by moment how to love my body. Yet I have had what seems to me like a miraculous amount of physical recovery...and I'm a lot less likely to drop dead tomorrow from a stroke. But that's not the only healing I've been experiencing. In the middle of the noise that plays in my head all the time, like a radio you can't turn off, with the message that I'm not good enough, I'm not doing it right, I'm totally worthless, the miracle has been that I can also hear a little more clearly the message that God loves me and wants good things for me, the message that God wants me to Live --As Jesus said, “I have come that you might have Life and have it abundantly”--and I don't have to do everything "by the book" to earn that love or deserve to live. It isn't about doing anything perfectly. It isn't about making heroic efforts. It's about letting God's love wash over us, surround us, engulf us, in the midst of all our imperfections, all our flaws and failures. I suspect I will always have a part of me that feels like I should know how to draw a Sanhedrin. But I am also learning there is always a river waiting for me, whenever I'm willing to stick my toe in, not a picture perfect looking river, but a muddy river of vulnerability and grace. A river for washing away the shame and letting in more love than I can even ask for or imagine. There is a river of love waiting for me. A river of love ready and waiting for us all.