Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Sugarless Dreams

A testimonial about sugar addiction by Patricia Caspers:


It’s been two months since sugar has passed these lips, and nearly every night I dream of cake. Sometimes my dreams are heavenly, more often guilty, and, most recently very, very angry.

I'd always been a little bit proud of my sugar addiction. After growing up in a family of alcoholics and addicts, sugar seemed a harmless habit, and there are so many fun ways to eat it.

I don't know when it began. My mother tells me that I was three when the dentist said to lay off the candy bars because they were turning my teeth into black stumps. Her attempts were eventually foiled by my loving grandparents as they could never resist handing over anything I asked of them. I asked for candy.

I know that sugar has been my regular habit since I was old enough to pilfer from the quarter can under my parents' bed and take myself to the liquor store.  I would get one of those small brown bags one usually sees wrapped around a bottle of booze and fill it with Laffy Taffy, Neccos, candy cigarettes, Now&Laters, Zots, Root Beer Barrels, Lemon Drops, Pixie Stix, Jolly Ranchers (I loved the way the formed to the roof of my mouth as I ate them), Abba Zabbas, JuJuBees, and Sugar Daddies. If I could afford it I washed it down with a big bottle of Pepsi sipped through a Red Vine straw.

I took myself to my closet-- not because I was ashamed, but because I didn't want to share with my family-- and I ate until my mouth was numb, and my stomach roared in revolt. As I grew older it took more and more sugar to get to that point. But I never threw up, and I never dieted or fasted or took laxatives. I figured I was OK.

I don't hang out in my closet anymore. I do, however, spend a lot of time in my car. After a particularly challenging day, I would drive myself to the store for an Almond Joy and a bag of Sour Patch gummies. Sometimes I’d choose Snapple instead of Pepsi-- in attempt to be healthier (ha!) and gobble it down while I thought no one was looking.

But my tastes have also broadened, which means that after all that sugary bliss I’d still have room for creme brûlée after dinner because that's what grownups eat.

Two months ago, though, I read a novel called The Sugar Queen in which the main character has a sugar addiction, and when she reaches for a treat in a stressful moment, her friend says “You can love that cupcake all you want, but it’s never going to love you back.” A lightbulb went off in my head, like one of Oprah’s Ah-ha moments.

So for the last two months I’ve replaced sugar with exercise, reading, cashews, solitaire, Downton Abbey . . . and then a friend pointed out that if I want to crack the real issue, to stop feeling the craving, having the dreams, I need to stop replacing the sugar and let myself feel what I need to feel, discover  source.

Honestly, I haven’t been so good at this bit, but I have an inkling that what I’ve been after all these years is love. I’ve searched for it in many places: in men, in publishers, in Facebook, but even now that I’m married, I’ve had poems published, and 30 comments on one Facebook post, it isn’t enough. There’s nothing that can satisfy that giant craving—except me.

Many people in recovery depend on God’s love to get them through. For me, God is within, and so the answer must be to love myself more. I’m not exactly sure how to go about that, but I also believe that God is in each of us, so maybe I should start by loving all of you more, too.

Addiction & Spirituality

We hear a lot about addiction: its prevalence, the social costs: lost hours of productivity, increased incidence of homelessness, skyrocketing costs of prosecution and incarceration, the dearth of adequate treatment and misguided social policies that accelerate rather than prevent rampant substance abuse. We read about the economic and psychological costs to families, the burden addiction places on schools as they deal with the children of addicts and young addicts themselves. And after a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have grown accustomed to the hidden toll reported Thursday in New York Times:

Veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder are more likely to be prescribed opioid pain killers than other veterans with pain problems and more likely to use the opioids in risky ways, according to a study published Wednesday by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, also found that veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan who were prescribed opioids for pain – and particularly those with post-traumatic stress disorder — had a higher prevalence of “adverse clinical outcomes,” like overdoses, self-inflicted injuries and injuries caused by accidents or fighting.

The Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense have for years been trying to reduce the use of opioid pain therapy among active duty troops and veterans amid reports of overmedication, addiction, rampant drug abuse and accidental deaths caused by overdoses or toxic mixing of medications.[1]

Meanwhile politicians decry a national addiction to oil: a disabling and dangerous  dependency imperiling the planet while propelling many a service member into the path of those highly addictive narcotic prescriptions. Addiction plunges the addict, be it an individual or a nation, into what appears an inescapable abyss where rationality succumbs to obsession, compulsion and the inability to choose.

But for all the talk about addiction: from the pathetic exploits of celebrities to tell-all TV shows a forty year national war on drugs that has wrought no victors, we hear little about the spiritual dimensions of addiction and recovery. Statistics abound but spiritual aspects are squishy, not quantifiable therefore difficult to parse scientifically. But at the core of any addiction, be the substance alcohol or other drugs, sex, gambling, sugar, shopping or oil, is a spiritual disconnectedness from self, others, and whatever one finds sacred. That’s why the best known model of recovery, though certainly not the only one, declares itself a spiritual program.

People outside Alcoholics Anonymous and the other twelve-step programs that have spun off from it, ask why do alcoholics and addicts need God to get and stay sober? What’s religion got to do with it? Isn’t depending on a higher power just a replacement for booze or Percocet? Indeed cognitive behaviorial approaches to abstinence and recovery omit any spiritual connotations. But inherent in the twelve-step model is an understanding that addiction strips one of the ability to sustain, or some cases create, abiding connection, and thus to restore that connection, one must reckon with and recognize one’s spiritual being, not just the electro-chemical workings of the brain.

There’s a aphorism in AA: it’s always 3:00am in the heart of an alcoholic. This speaks to an existential loneliness one attempts to fill in the absence of spiritual connection—not necessarily to God but to the interdependent web of existence. When we are fully present to that connection how we consume oil matters. Whether we as a nation allocate resources for incarceration over treatment matters. Whether we as a congregation choose to serve alcohol matters. Whether we have non-sugary snacks at coffee-hour matters.  All of it matters because the willingness to grapple with what constitutes right relationship and the desire to restore individual and collective well-being lies at the heart of every religion and wisdom tradition. It lies at the heart of each addict’s journey toward wholeness as well.

This morning, three people in our congregation have generously and courageously agreed to offer a testimonial about the intersections of addiction and spirituality in their lives . . . 

If I were to ask for a show of hands who has not in some way, directly or tangentially, been affected by addiction: your own or someone else’s, I suspect the air would be filled. Fortunately, not everyone has first-hand experience; but we all suffer the effects of the spiritual bankruptcy addiction perpetuates. And such spiritual disruption is of course, not the exclusive domain of addiction. The self-seeking and self-centeredness, the ungrounded fear, the compensatory pride and ego that mask insecurity and a lack of self-worth, the propensity to rationalize or deny—anyone can grow spiritually isolated on a steady diet of these, and so too, anyone can find spiritual nourishment by consciously adopting a practice of humility, honesty, openmindedness, continuous self-inventory, the making of amends, along with some form of intentional connection with whatever we deem sacred and sustaining.

In the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, of the twelve steps laid out, eleven make no mention of alcohol. Instead they offer evidence “the spiritual life is not a theory. We have to live it,” and thus provide tools. The book tells the alcoholic or addict: “We are not cured…What we have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition.”

The same could be said of being human: the inherent foibles and limitations are not subject to a cure though they invite us into deeper connection with all: with a God of our understanding or misunderstanding, or no God at all if we prefer it. A connection then to the microorganisms that hitch a ride on us, the stars that spawn our elemental matter, the trees that give us oxygen, the earth that sustains our being and the people, plants, animals who companion us, feed us, love us and prevent us from succumbing to the arrogance that we are ever truly alone.

Thus, the plight and the reprieve, the failure and the flourishing matter, if not belong, to us all.

Closing words:

We close with the promises of Alcoholics Anonymous. Good spiritual fodder for everyone:

We should be sensible, tactful, considerate and humble without being servile or scraping… If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us—sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.

What Are We Waiting For?

I have two readings this morning. The first is from an address by the Reverend Victoria Safford entitled “Open Wide the Windows”:

The challenge for our movement on the threshold of the 21st century, is for us to stay open, to remain “unsealed,” available, but also to be absolutely grounded, clear in our convictions, our principles, our history, to know who we are and what it is we stand for… as a gathered people, bound by covenant in congregations and in our Association. “Unsealed” does not mean “unglued.”

…Can a religion defined not only by pluralism but by an evolving, open pluralism really hold together? Can it, can we, speak with relevance to a world that has traveled light- years away from the one we were born into (even if you were born only 20 years ago)? Can our religious way be relevant and reverent moving forward?

[Can we] find the fulcrum of integrity, and practice a religion that’s alive, not calcified and dead?

This from Daniel Berrigan, the Catholic priest and activist Safford quotes in a recent sermon:
“A fairly modest urging – Don’t kill, whatever the pretext. Leave the world un-befouled. Don’t hoard. Stand somewhere.”

Last week, Marcia read a story about a little girl named Irene, the daughter of a dressmaker, who braves a ferocious storm to deliver a ball gown to the duchess. As in many children’s books, where elements and animals have voice, the howling wind admonishes Irene to turn back and go home. “No!” she declares, “I’m on a mission.”

Are we? That is the question. For the last year and a half, the church has engaged in a process of strategic planning. Last year, three teams: rural, urban, and umbrella, studied the possibilities. We considered purchasing land in North Fitchburg. We investigated community partners who might want to use our building. We decided to hire an architect to conduct a feasibility study and draw up preliminary plans to make our building accessible: not only in terms of mobility impairments, but civically too. What might we do to make this building more user-friendly and attractive to the community partners we hope to attract?

In two weeks, the Strategic Planning Committee will present a report and the architect will display his drawings. Over the last several months, the folks directly involved in this effort have done yeoman’s service to the church. Many intriguing ideas have been put forth with input from a range of knowledgeable people including the mayor. But the question before us remains: what are we strategically planning for?

Are we planning so that we “practice a religion that’s alive”? Are we planning in an effort to achieve “a fulcrum of integrity”? Are we planning so that we can “speak with relevance to a world that has traveled light-years away from the one we were born into”?

Which raises the question: what makes us relevant and to whom?

Church historian Diane Butler Bass in an interview with Tom Ashbrook “On Point” this week cited an interesting statistic: Thirty percent of Americans polled identify as “spiritual not religious” while 48% identify as “spiritual and religious.” She extrapolates:

Large numbers of Americans are hankering for experiential faith whereby they can connect with God, the divine, or wonder as well as with their neighbors and [leading] to a more profound sense of meaning in the world. Americans are searching for churches—and temples, synagogues, and mosques—that are not caught up in political intrigue, rigid rules and prohibitions, institutional maintenance, unresponsive authorities, and inflexible dogma but instead offer pathways of life-giving spiritual experience, connection, meaning, vocation, and doing justice in the world. 
Americans are not rejecting faith—they are, however, rejecting self-serving religious institutions.[1]

Our church situates itself in a city that boasts a fantastic art museum, a dynamic drumming circle, and visionary young mayor. About a quarter of the population speaks a language other than English in the home. About twenty percent of residents live in poverty and the crime rate is slightly higher than the state average. 57.4 percent of the population affiliates with a religious congregation. As of March 2011, the unemployment rate in the city was twelve percent.

If we think about the population and conditions of Fitchburg, what do we offer that folks can’t get anywhere else? Are we doing all we can to “offer pathways of life-giving spiritual experience, connection, meaning, vocation, and doing justice in the world”?

During the course of our strategic planning, our architect, Chip Greenberg, sent me a link to a colleague’s blog. Chip notes with interest the Rev. Dan Harper’s thoughts on Unitarian Universalist mission statements. Dan read literally hundreds of them from congregations large and small, urban and rural, historic New England congregations and youthful fellowships founded in recent decades. Out of them all he found two effective. Folks who study mission for all manner of non-profits note that in order to be effective a mission must be short, concrete and clear. It expresses the purpose and pulse of an organization.

Too often, especially in our congregations where we dearly love our words, our lofty thoughts and cherished ideals, we wax eloquent and verbose. But think of travelers in an unfamiliar land. Imagine yourself in a place you’ve never been searching for a sign that indicates the location of a building you need, be it a hospital, the subway terminal, a grocery. You don’t want a paragraph description of the architectural highlights or a philosophical treatise on the moral underpinnings of the builder—especially in a language you don’t know. You want the universally understood graphic that takes a fraction of a second to register so you can feel assured and get on your way.

If a mission statement is analogue to the blue road sign with an H, the mission itself is analogous to the hospital. When we see that sign we know if we follow it we will end up in a venue for health care. We know what to expect, what we can find, and what we won’t. There may be a gift shop but not groceries. There may be a heliport for life flights, but there won’t be a train. That’s the beauty of a clear mission and a succinct summary of it.

At the end of the month, a Unitarian Universalist minister and church consultant named Jane Dwinell will facilitate a leadership session with the board and staff. The purpose is to help church leadership sharpen our focus, retool our efforts and put all our good strategic planning to use. In her book called Big Ideas for Small Congregations she writes:

Having a mission is the difference between being a congregation and a social club. Most clubs focus inward, enjoying the activities members do together with little or no thought about anything outside the group. Our congregations, however, have a larger purpose in this world. Unitarian Universalist congregations are hereto help people develop their own spirituality and then move their faith out into the larger world. Your congregational mission is about taking your faith community beyond your walls to live out what every faith professes in some words—making the world a better place.

She poses two questions to help a congregation determine its mission: 1) What are the strengths and passions of the congregation (considering the energy of the current members) and 2) what needs are most pressing in our community? I would add a third question: what is the most feasible, achievable intersection between the two?

Before I go further I want to say why church consultants of all stripes speak of mission as an imperative. St. Francis sums up the Christian imperative: “Preach the gospel everywhere; use words only when necessary.” Historically our denomination descends or arises, depending on your sense of direction, from two liberal Protestant faiths; so while our present incarnation of Unitarian Universalism has expanded beyond classic theism, it remains rooted in a wisdom tradition that began with monotheistic faith. Long before Ferenc David, a Unitarian in 16th century Transylvania uttered “God is one,” Jews were reciting the shema, or watchword of the faith: Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.”

What’s significant here is that we belong to a religious lineage thousand of years old founded in covenant—which is to say relationship. The origin of Judaism is the recognition of a God who creates so as to be in relationship. In the 1930s when modern humanism found expression and a home within Unitarian thought, the understanding of relationship remained even without the notion of divinity. What makes religious humanism religious, in contrast to secular humanism, is a focus on relationship, and covenant. The pulse of modern humanism beats in the fervent belief that humankind bends toward progress, toward the enhancement of life for all. And the pulse of modern theism is found in keen awareness that all beings connect: that the self emerges only in relationship to other beings, and the physical elements that give life a material realm. Thus we are one.

So it isn’t just a few ministers opining about the importance of having a purpose beyond common interests or shared activities. It’s not even the historians and pollsters documenting the shift from the religious practices of yesteryear to a new generation of Americans seeking spiritual relevance. It’s the soul of monotheistic and humanistic faith. We congregate to rejuvenate; we celebrate to invigorate and bear witness; we console as an act of tikkun olam, mending the torn fabric, not only of Creation at large, but our lives—so that we can better channel our resources, energies, and strengths toward the needs of the world to which we belong.

We gather to notice and affirm the sacred in everyday life, to acknowledge the true nature and worth of all the beings. We gather to improve our spiritual practice of holding ourselves and each other accountable. We gather to stretch together into fuller postures of generosity, humility, and compassion. We gather to recharge our batteries so we can continue to spread our light and our gifts, our passion and our love into the wider world.

Mission is the expression of that—the needle of the compass that tells us we are moving in the direction of justice and generosity. It’s the pole star that indicates where we stand and for what and for whom.
So before we receive the strategic planning report and review the architect’s drawings, let’s take the time today, after this service, to consider again the mission of our church. What obtainable, sustainable effort will we consistently make in service to the larger community?

Church consultants suggest a mission statement concise enough to fit on every surface: the order of service, letterhead, website, brochure, banner and blog. If it’s too cumbersome to memorize or fit in a sentence comfortably, it is too big or vague to fulfill. As a starting point for our discussion I propose this: “We congregate, rejuvenate, celebrate and console to better commit ourselves and our resources to serving the community and the world.“ We could shorten to simply, “We congregate to rejuvenate and serve the world” but I wanted to give you enough to get to par down. The mission belongs to the congregation, and any mission driven by the minister is not a mission; it’s a vanity. I offer words to work with because that’s my gift, working with words. Our mission however is to collectively embody the covenant we have as Unitarian Universalists: to inhabit the world and enrich it with our inquisitive spirits and expansive hearts.

The purpose of a clear concise mission is to be that fulcrum of integrity by which we balance what we do and how we choose to do it. That’s why I’ve asked that the congregation as a whole to revisit how we raise the money we count on from an annual fundraiser, which for years, maybe decades, has been an auction. Last year we took a straw poll to decide the format but that is no substitute for conversation and discernment. There will always be room for—and a need for—divergent perspectives and methods. People will disagree on what constitutes appropriate means to achieve a particular end. That’s healthy. What covenant requires is that we all uphold the fiber that fastens us to each other. It’s easy in a democracy to think a simple vote is the answer. Voting insures that each person has a say; but if the say is nothing more than a sequence of monologues we don’t foster community; we foment individualism. And let’s face it, as Fred so eloquently read last week from our hymnal, “The way is often hard, the path is never clear, and the stakes are very high. Take courage. For deep down there is another truth: [we] are not alone.” (Wayne Arnason, # 698)

There is comfort in knowing this and a key way we know is by gathering here. In large measure it is why people congregate in religious community: to feel connected: to know that no matter how ornery or desperate, giddy or foolish, brilliant or promising we are, we will be held in a the circle of belonging. Church is our embrace. It restores us and challenges us, reconnects us and pushes us out the door to make a difference, to say to the howling wind, “We will not turn back. We are on a mission.” May it always be so.


[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/diana-butler-bass/the-end-of-church_b_1284954.html