And here we go.
I know that there has always been an argument about God, or which God is there right God, or if there is a God, is He or She (or They) listening?
Does God hear our prayers?
Does God answer?
Is God an earthly being, made up by mankind with the need to believe or to have some kind of character or some moral code, to keep us faithful, or to keep us in line?
Perhaps it was just a person who came up with ideas, like, The Ten Commandments, which are pretty simple and they’re pretty good too, if we think about it.
Don’t steal. Don’t kill.
Things like that . . .
I remember telling you something about my belief system in some of my previous journals. I told you about the time when I was a little kid and I tried to build a small carnival in the basement of my childhood home.
I never told anyone else about this—except for God of course.
I invited God to come play.
But something must have happened because God never showed, and neither did anyone else for that matter.
I don’t think my trick or the tricks I look to pull has much to do with God or anything Godlike.
Then again, my trick has everything to do with me.
I remember being told that man cannot live by faith alone. I remember when I was taught about The Book of James, in Chapter 2:14-26
I was told that “faith without works is dead,” which basically means that faith alone does not save us. We have to work.
We have to move. We create and grow and, in the cases where we have to go back or start over, sometimes, we have to understand what it means to be destroyed so that we can rebuild.
I’m not sure about what this has to do with faith as much as I am sure that no one can sit back and wait to be saved.
We have to save ourselves.
Or like I’ve told you before, you have to save your own life on a daily basis.
Act as if no one else is coming and depend on your own legs to stand yourself up.
Be happy if someone shows.
Be grateful.
But be prepared for what you have to go through or what you have to endure because no one can endure pain for you.
This is on us.
As for The Book of James, it would be dishonest of me to say that I picked this up on my own for a leisurely read.
No.
This was mandatory reading for me. This was something that I had to read, back when I was young and living in a farmhouse.
I can say this was a farm. And it was a farm.
But this was more than just a farm to me.
This is where I found myself and lost my old routines. This is where my anger and the hate and revenge went to die. This is also where I lived when my Old Man passed away.
I was sentenced here or remanded by the courts.
I began to revel myself here and tell secrets that I swore I would never tell.
I said goodbye to my old ways here.
I lived here and I learned here.
I was young, of course, but at the same time, I lived with both grown men and women, younger kids, and kids my own age.
All of us came from different places and from different backgrounds. At the same time, there was an undeniable connection and from a mental health perspective, this was the place where I learned about recovery.
I was fortunately removed from my environment. I was packed up, so-to-speak, and taken away by an unfortunate stream of events.
I was far away from the normal everyday dysfunctions and far from the troubles that went on in my life. I was far from my so-called friends and far from the mass casualties of social crisis and teenage drug use.
I was removed from the images of cool and my struggles with popularity. I was far from all of this.
I was far from the wannabe tough guy nonsense. No ego. No false bravado.
No reason to cut myself or bleed, or act as if, somehow, I am my own martyr or to act as if I needed to endure pain, rage, or scream through my behaviors, as if to physically verbalize the outrage and the discouragement of misunderstood challenges, such as learning disabilities, mediated resistant depression, anxiety, authority defiant disorder, and the list can go on.
I had diagnosed problems, or whatever else there is to be labeled by our current or up-to-date DSM5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Illnesses)
I was removed from my environment and placed far away from the dope spots in East New York, Brooklyn. I was far, far away from a man named Papool who used to sell me bags of tiny envelopes over near B-15th Street in Far Rockaway.
I have always struggled with the idea that someone like me could ever be worthy or redeemed, or if redemption were possible, I was never sure if I could pull off a trick like this.
Why me?
Maybe this was because I lacked faith. Or maybe this was because I lacked the ability to support the idea of some humanly conceived idea that God made man in His so-called image. Thus, I knew about the he goodness and hopefulness. However, I knew more about destruction and chaos than the art of purity. I knew about miracles and yes, I saw and often felt the string of purity when say, I’d see something pure of heart around the holiday season.
How could someone like me, or how could someone who did what I did or thought as I thought, or how could someone like myself, a thief of souls, a sinner, a person who never had the courage to care or love beyond my own self or be so selfless enough that I could give, wholeheartedly, and more to the point, all I knew how to do was hurt and destroy or ruin and devastate. Therefore, if there was a God, or if there was truly someone or some “thing” out there, or if there was some Heavenly Being, or a Glorious Spirit—then why me?
Why did I survive?
Why did I go through such pain?
Why did I hurt people the way I did and why would I do this without emotion?
Or even if there was emotion or a semblance of guilt or shame, then why?
Why would I be able to allow myself to go so low, or why would I be so selfish?
Why was I so lost and others appeared to be so obviously found?
I recall having conversations with God. I remember telling God that I’m not sure if anything is real. I don’t know if I believe, but I’d like to.
I never felt comfortable in churches or near the pews or sitting in a room where Christ was either in a picture or if there was a cross on the wall—or as it was in a church on a cold February morning, in the year 1990, and I was alone, hollowed and soulless and emptied of hope or faith—I recall The Son of Man on the wall of a church in a town called Callicoon.
I was there. I was alone.
I was facing myself.
I was reliving old and vivid dreams and long-lost nods where I recalled watching angels, falling from their grace, both upside down and backwards.
They were all dying like the womb of innocence with each dose, each grain of powder, and each crime, every act, each moment of witnessed or contributed theft and with all my rage and contempt, I sought to euthanize my discomfort.
I tried to do this as a means to systematically destroy and end the soulless contamination of a life I couldn’t get away from.
I have this place which I dream about.
I view this place as Holy.
And I’d like to share this with you.
I lived here, yet the place looks nothing like it did when I was part of this farm.
The animals are gone. The people have all moved away and some have passed away and finally, they rest in peace.
There is a hill which I dream about. This hill is very real to me. This is a reminder of a time and a place where life was hard, and times were impossible.
Yet I lived through them. I survived what I thought was something that could be nothing other than un-survivable.
Was this my faith that saved me?
Was it a trick?
Was it the work I put in?
Or maybe this is a combination of all the above.
Who knows?
I have met people who committed offenses, who survived the unthinkable, or who endured the worst, who live with scars, both noticeable and invisible, and I have sat with people and heard their stories.
I have wept with them. I have listened to young girls who lived more of a life by the age of 15 than most people live in a lifetime. It amasses me how lifesaving they are, yet no one tells them.
I have sat with young girls and boys who mourn the loss of their father or mother, or brother or friend.
I have met with those who have been abandoned and betrayed. And I admit to where I have gone wrong with both accusations, abandoning and betraying.
I am humbled by the people I have met. No, I am blessed because I have had the chance to see that I am no different from anyone.
I am no better or worse, despite myself or my past.
I am simple and complicated, and I am only human.
I was telling you about this hill.
I dream of this place.
I think about the person I have been throughout my life. I think about how amazing and how unbelievable it is to be touched by someone. I think about the hill in my dreams which was part of the farm years ago.
Maybe this is Godly.
Maybe this is a sign.
Maybe the sign or the actions of redemption can come from the mouths of babes, or maybe this can come from people like me, or from “angels with dirty faces,” or perhaps, despite imperfections and flaws or the emotional hang-ups, the real trick is to realize that no one has the right to judge. Since no one can talk about salvation, as if they’re going to be the one accepting tickets at the Gates of Heaven, I can realize that this is a test or a task and to each and everyone; faith without works is dead.
Who am I without my effort?
All any of us can do is make sure we get up in the morning and no matter what—even if the upcoming outcomes are unfortunate and hard, perhaps there is something beautiful in the fact that loss can lead us to regain our composure.
I am fortunate.
I am unlucky and lucky enough to say that I have people in my life who still care and who show this to me, every day, no matter what.
I do not pay attention to enemies because enemies will do what they do. I have no time or patience to rethink or relive the past or wish that I could go back so that I could say or do something differently.
There is no point.
That hill . . .
I was there last night in my dreams.
I recall looking up to the sky, which was gray as if to be cloaked by the clouds just before a rainfall in late November.
The trees were emptied from their leaves and while the grounds appeared cold and tired, I know that I have been here before.
I was not forsaken then.
Therefore, I am not forsaken now.
I’ve been here before.
And I will be here again, perhaps.
But above all, I can choose to rebuild, to be reborn, or learn to reconstruct my life into something different and brand new.
I can’t just believe and hope that I can pull a trick.
No.
I have to work at this.
I have to practice –
but more,
I have to perfect my craft by repeating the moves it takes to get back up, no matter what, and no matter how often life comes along to knock us down.
“You have to sit and be quiet, son.”
“Just listen.”
“He will tell you what you need to do.”
“And then, you’ll do it.”
“Just be patient, son, Good things are on the way.”
I hope so, Father Mike,
I wish you could have met Father Anthony.
He was a saint to me too.
Just like you . . .
I was never tough. Then again. I don’t think I want to be tough anymore.
I just want to be me.
Like St. Dismas said –
Remember me when you come into your Kingdom.
See you around, my old friend.
The Written Addiction 