Today I'll share with you a quote that struck me as so true. I need to notice what my addictions are and pray and work for freedom. Addiction is not just about something you shoot up or drink. All of us have them and it's possible for a whole nation to be addicted.
Our Need of Recovery
Brian McLaren
For many people, economic recovery means getting back to where we were a few months or years ago. That means recovering our consumptive, greedy, unrestrained, undisciplined, irresponsible, and ecologically and socially unsustainable way of life. I'd like to suggest another kind of recovery, drawing from the world of addiction. When an addict gets into recovery, he doesn't want to go back and recover the "high" he had before, or even to recover the conditions he had before he began using drugs and alcohol. Instead, he wants to move forward to a new way of life---a wiser way of life that takes into account his experience of addiction. He realizes that his addiction to drugs was a symptom of other deeper issues and diseases in his life---unresolved pain or anger, the need to anesthetize painful emotions, lack of creativity in finding ways to feel happy and alive, unaddressed relational and spiritual deficits, lack of self-awareness, and so on.
Similarly, I'd like to suggest whenever we hear the word "recovery," we as a nation see it not as a call to get back our old addictive high, but rather as a call to face our corporate and personal addictions....
I pray we are in more than just "economic" recovery. Here's to real inner and outer freedom on this gorgeous (at least here) Spring day!
Amen. I experienced a full blown round of my own "addictions" this last week. I spent "Holy Week" taking on a multitude of projects ( all "worthy"; most were at Church ) and, in the middle of a 12 hour Outreach Project, said a reflexive, absolutely NOT prayed about "yes" to a friend in "crisis" to spending some time listening and helping her sort things out. I ended up exhausted, grumpy, frustrated and with a Rheumatoid Arthritis flare to boot! I KNOW better...don't we all? Too little time in the "prayer chair" and too much time allowing myself to slip back into that slightly "co dependent" mode of being "addicted" to activity and "doing good work". Ugh. I've since rested and prayed it through, talked with my SD and I feel better and more grounded but,it's always surprising to see how quickly our "recovery" can backslide. A wonderful bit from Brian McClaren; I like his work alot. Good thoughts for today!
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