CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

ADDICTIONS & ENABLERS-Hypergraphia Edition  [R, 3-18-21]

 

I have been trying to train myself to think about something without writing about it. Obviously, that’s not going very well.

For years, I didn’t have to write about the stuff that happened, because I preached about it. All week long I would examine any moment with the question, “Can this go into a sermon?” What about the child on the bike? The dog in the park? The article in the newspaper about the woman who killed her husband because his rocking chair creaked? Surely each of those related to a story of Jesus, or a prophet, or Paul, and so could be useful in a sermon. If not this week, maybe next.

I did not realize that it was becoming an addiction, until it became full-blown. Now I can’t even think about what Helen’s fixing for supper without wanting to write about it. Grilled cheese? Tomato soup? Surely people would be interested in my words about their universality in their peculiarity.

And it’s only getting worse. Addictions often get worse in old age. I suppose because we’ve been honing the dependency for so long. But now I don’t have sermons as an outlet for all my incidents and anecdotes. They’ve got to go somewhere. Or do they?

That’s what I’ve been saying to myself. No, you can think about something without writing about it. Like the David Sedaris story I just read about his sister’s suicide. Wouldn’t a normal person just think about that and let it go at that?

I can’t read for very long, even a novel, without closing the book and thinking about it for a while. Why did the perp choose that method of killing his victims? Why did the vicar choose that moment to confront the bishop? Why does Nels Ferre call the church an umbrella? Why does Gerald May define “love” that way? Why does someone want to get out of your family so much that they are willing to take their own life?

That’s how Sedaris saw his sister’s suicide. Even though his family of six kids and two parents was chaotic in the best of times, it was “…the only club I ever wanted to belong to.” So why did Tiffany want out so badly?

Sedaris processed that by writing about it. Now I feel that I have to process my thinking about it by writing about his writing about it. Why can’t I just think about it, and let that be enough?

It’s not that I don’t like you, dear reader, [as authors used to address us]. I’m not trying to punish you by involving you in my confusion. I realize this is not your problem, and you have no reason to be interested in it. I like you. Why should you have to deal with this at all? Don’t you have enough stuff of your own to think about?

Of course, people in addiction always have enablers, and you, dear reader, are enabling me…

John Robert McFarland