Through the Red Door Blog

My name is Shane, and I am a grateful, recovering sex and love addict. By the grace of my higher power and the power of the twelve steps I have been sober from acting on my bottom lines since February 20, 2013. My journey to addiction began when my adopted father, an alcoholic and sex addict, introduced me to pornography at the age of six. I now realize that exposing a six-year-old boy to pornography is a form of sexual abuse. As a child, I lacked the maturity to deal with the feelings I began to associate with these images. My secret activities continued into adolescence, where they collided with my struggle with same-sex attraction. About the time I hit puberty, I became a born-again Christian. Over my teenage years, I repeated a cycle of being attracted to boys my own age, looking at pornography, sex with self, experimenting with same-sex peers, and then drowning in a sea of religious guilt and shame. By age sixteen pornography and sex with self became my drug of choice to medicate my shame, guilt, confusion, and fear of being gay.

After High School I entered the clergy and was married, mistakenly believing doing so would cure me of my struggles. How wrong I was! These issues persisted despite prayer, fasting, and faith. It left me convinced that I was unworthy of God’s intervention. Regretfully, my need to control everything (so the real me would never be revealed) drove a wedge between my wife and I and we divorced. I eventually married again with an honest commitment to do the right thing. However, I quickly returned to my addiction, this time discovering the internet. Addiction is progressive and debilitating, and every barrier I said I would never cross I did. In the 15 months I was acting out I had scores of sexual encounters, one of which was with a young man I met on line who was under age. Sex addiction is a sure pathway to insanity. How else can I explain the perfect sense it made (to me) to imagine that an emotional and sexual relationship with a teenager would be acceptable? I had so detached from the reality of my life that I was trying to maintain the public persona of a faithful husband, respected religious leader and member of the community while hooking up with men at the risk of my freedom, my family, my career, and my sanity.

Eventually I was found out and arrested. I seriously considered suicide when the police came to my door, but the thought of my children or wife finding my body stopped me from doing the deed. After a 93 day stay in sex rehab I was able to admit that I was an addict and came out to my family as a gay man. While there I was introduced to SLAA and made a half-hearted attempt at recovery. After rehab I did a one-year stint in state prison. I left state prison in 2012 thinking I had everything under control.

Within six months I had relapsed. I did not believe the stories I heard about relapse being worse than the first go around with our disease, but I became a believer. I rationalized that I could handle a little pornography. That thinking error began a journey that led me back to prison for four years. During that time, I missed my grandfather and uncle’s deaths/funerals, the birth of my two grandchildren, and so much time that can never be regained. It took that second arrest and imprisonment to wake me up and get serious about recovery.

I wrote SLAA’s office asking for a correspondent sponsor who would work with me while I was in prison. My higher power sent me just what I needed in my sponsor! He had been in prison as well and had an almost identical background. While inside, I began to work the steps, set my bottom, caution, and top lines, developed a daily spiritual routine that includes prayer, meditation, and affirmations. For a brief time, I actually met with other inmates for SLAA Meetings in our dorm. It has been said that suffering is a pathway to peace. Those four years were the most difficult days I have ever experienced – so much violence, darkness, isolation, and despair. Working the steps, the support of my sponsor, my family, a small group of fellow inmates whom I trusted, and my Higher Power were how I got through it. On December 20, 2016 I began my recovery journey in the “free” world.

Since my release I have continued that work by seeing a licensed sex offender therapist, regularly attending our local SLAA meetings where I serve by setting up chairs, leading meetings, and serving as the chairperson for our Intergroup. I am beginning work on my ninth steps and have one sponsee. I have been able to find work and have a recovery job as a restaurant manager. I recently led a discussion group at my church that discussed the connection between the Twelve Step and the Gospel as Jesus lived out. An opportunity I never imagined I would every again have.

I have built recovery friendships and meet regularly with a ground of men in recovery. I am actually developing healthy, intimate same sex friendships! I have a close friend who serves as my spiritual advisor and mentor who is well versed in recovery. I have surrendered my right to have sex anytime I want, with anyone I want, and have made peace with abstinence unless I am in a committed relationship.

Almost five years of sobriety has restored much of my sanity and empowered me to begin to love myself. I am now fully present for my family and friends. My spiritual life is exactly where it needs to be, utterly human yet touched by the grace of my Higher Power. Now when I feel those familiar triggers creeping in, I call a trusted recovery partner or my sponsor. My biggest struggle is with loneliness and much to my surprise, feeling lonely does not kill me. Each day I do not act out is a step back to restoring my reputation as an honorable man. 

I now pray for an opportunity to live out this hope by carrying this message to others trapped in their own struggle with sex and love addiction, especially those who are in vocational religious ministry. In that regard, I am now a certified Recovery Coach who focuses on helping recovering clergy stop living out a pattern of sex, love and pornography addiction. My recovery has not been perfect, but it has been the recovery I needed, including my prison sentence. I am thankful for the pain it brought and the hope I discovered behind those bars through the twelve steps of SLAA. 

Shane M. Conway, Arkansas

Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

In this gospel reading Jesus reminds us that it is not what we put into our bodies that causes us to sin. Now we alcoholics and addicts know well that Jesus is not talking about physical food or drink because that is certainly what finally got us into trouble. Jesus is referring to spiritual and intellectual food that we take in. It is what happens to the words, thoughts, actions that we hear and see and allow to penetrate our body and reach our heart, and then how our heart reacts to them can cause us to sin, to develop character defects. Someone harms us. We want to hurt them right back. Someone does not treat us with the respect due. We make sure they are put in their place. Our children act out. We throw up our hands and scream at them.

Ours is a God of love and I love all the ways scripture and sacred writings give us images to pray and  meditate on about changing our heart. The collect for this passage from Mark talks about “Graft in our hearts the love of your Name.” Some of you master gardeners know more about grafting than I do, but I hope you can identify with the personification of the word heart. Graft in our hearts the love of your Name.  Graft meaning to insert, implant, transplant into our hearts God’s heart of love.

There are many other personifications of our hearts.

In Lent in Morning Prayer we often read the Prayer of Manasseh (BCP pp. 90-91) where we appeal to God for forgiveness as we “Bend the knee of my heart.”  Our image is bowing our body and especially our heart as we ask on the bended knee of our heart for forgiveness for the harmful things we have done to others. Another great prayer image.

In the marriage ceremony if the Song of Solomon (8:6) is read, we will hear, “Set me as a seal upon your heart, .. for love is stronger than death.” A seal upon our heart..a seal is a substance joining two together. It can be a substance with something stamped on it or a badge saying that this document comes from the sender. If we view this in our relationship to God we are asking to be stuck to God like glue and marked as at baptism, “marked as Christ’s own forever.”  

Again, in a Morning Prayer Canticle, the Song of Ezekiel (36:26), God says, “A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” What a great image for our prayers:  asking God to take away our heart of stone.

My favorite image of our heart is in the Prologue to the Rule of St. Benedict. The founder of the Benedictine monastic tradition’s very first words to us are, “Listen with the ear of your heart.”  What an image for our relationship to God and our neighbors. Listening to God, listening to those we meet with not just the outer part or pinna or lobe of our ear, but with the middle and especially the inner part of our ear and connect what we hear to our heart that no longer is a heart of stone but has been tightly grafted to the love of God.

Hold on to these images of our hearts in this new year. They could be resolutions that could change our lives.
Listen with the ear of your heart.
Graft in our hearts the love of your Name.
Set me as a seal upon your heart.
Bend the knee of my heart.
Remove from me my heart of stone.
We will review them on February 14^th

Joanna. Joannaseibert.com

Seeing that we can’t go it alone, God delivered a Higher Power to restore us to sanity. Born of Mary into the House of David, He came to live among us to suffer with us and for us (Isaiah 53). 

Now and still, we can’t go it alone. Richard Rohr says that when God looks at us, he sees Christ – so completely does his love align with our need for love. And when we look at each other, whom do we see? If not Christ, do we at least see ourselves in one another, in our addictions, our confusion and fear, our loneliness, our aspirations, our insights, our courage, our hope and joy?  There is so much to apprehend in one another and so much power within and among us. Other’s gifts and graces needn’t be “higher” – only present.  Our presence for each other is our hope and our salvation.

Sober holidays and holy days invite us to recast traditions (especially those we may have defiled in the throes of our addiction) and invent rituals that enshrine our venerable principles and natures. The best of these celebrate the truth that we are no longer condemned to go it alone. We are not condemned by our addictions, by our failings, by our weakness. Christ is born. He is with us and in us.

Christmas cards are a fading custom, but for me a ritual filled with luminous memories. This year, I am greeting stalwarts who have sustained me through trials and numbing losses and unexpected triumphs. Their heroic generosity and genius buttress me.  As I compose, sign and address the cards, I recall how these dear people, some barely acquaintances, by intense exertions and inspired gestures lighten my labors, lessen my load and lift my outlook. How wonderful they are! 

I have adorned the face of this this special card with an iconic Botticelli madonna, and draped the backside with a verse sprung from the crannies of my soul:

This Christmas

My dear brothers and sisters,

All you viscounts, vagabonds and visionaries,

This year, let us celebrate the birth of Jesus.

We’ll sing in tune with the angels,

Rejoice in delight with the shepherds,

Pray in accord with the sages,

Let’s exclaim uproarious, unbounded, unanimous love for all.

Let’s adorn every greeting with fond wishes and wrap every gift with affection.

Let’s shed rancor and rage, and be mellow, light-hearted and merry.

On Christmas morn, let’s rise as happy children,

And on Christmas night go to our beds forgiving and forgiven,

Hearts bursting with newborn love for one another,

In the name of the child

Whose love conveys us all from creche to cross to eternity.   Amen.

Martin McElroy, 2018, from Shattered, Anthems of Healing and Rejoicing

In Parts 1 and 2, we spoke about having to consider our relationships with “people, places and things,” usually stating or implying that the frequency of those relationships may have to be reduced or eliminated, or at least at first seriously curtail the frequency of those relations, i.e., you may have to skip the traditional nineteenth hole gathering, or cut the time spent with the family at the traditional Fourth of July Grill-out or find an eatery with a burger just as fine at “Thelma and Harold’s Good Time Bar & Grill”.

Early in the program it’s important to reduce those places where you always consumed more alcohol than appropriate and embarrassed yourself and family before the gathered crowd.

You thought that everyone in attendance consumed just as much as you, but such is not usually the case. They–the normal drinkers–can actually stop at a given point, at the point “they’ve had enough.” So, your behavior is not the norm, and looking back, if we are honest, we had to admit that usually in any form of relaxation and socializing–the 19^th hole or Labor Day grill-outs–you always seemed to have a whole lot more to drink than everyone else. Be honest with yourself. If you can, listen to their conversations. They actually make sense. They aren’t garbled or slurred. They haven’t spilled a glass of beer on the picnic table, or loudly passed along the latest “out-of-place” racial insult. 

But, enough about the negativity of the excessive drinking. Look at the bright side. You’ll be able to remember conversations, what article or book title you promised to send to the person. You were cold sober when you said, “let’s have lunch” and really meant it and will remember that you said you’d call to set something up. Political and religious discussions may even be coherent and remembered. You may actually be persuaded by a contrary discussion.  You’ll understand and remember a good joke or story. You probably will find that sooner or later you will find new friends.

The benefit doesn’t include those good old feelings of being in control of your person. You’ll have positive feelings about the evening–that “feel good” attitude. Shame of that evening, or tomorrow, won’t haunt you. Instead you will realize you are making progress, you are changing your abusive ways of the past.  Your spouse might even comment, “I like/love you more when you aren’t drinking, like those days of yesteryear before alcohol dominated your behavior.”

You may even find material benefits as a result of your demonstrated sobriety: a new sales lead, being asked to make a contact, and you may find a new ability of remembering what your profession or employment is all about.

What’s not to like about sobriety–in part gained by changing those alcoholic people, places and things that did so much to enable you to go to the depths of your addiction?

Jim A. Covington, Kentucky

My name is Brandon. I'm an alcoholic and an addict, and I am a grateful believer in Jesus Christ.

That is how the meetings I first attended opened.

The 12 steps and 8 principles had scriptures attached to them, and we recited them each meeting.

In this Advent season, I am reminded of the Light. I am always trying to open a crack through which the Light may shine.

Last night, I "pulled an all-nighter." I did this knowing it's a potentially risky behavior for my recovery. I did this for the love of my daughter. My daughter is autistic and hasn't been sleeping through the night. Often, she can self-soothe when she can't sleep, but last night she couldn't. So I was there for her.

She and I talked for several hours about skills we each use to communicate with ourselves... To find the calm in the storm of our minds. We went to IHOP at Midnight and ate Grinch-themed pancakes. We returned home and played video games.

After she fell asleep around 5am, I had a clear memory of those early meetings so many years ago. The Light was shining.

My name is Brandon. I am an alcoholic and an addict, and I am a grateful believer in Jesus Christ.

The truth is I don't attend those meetings anymore because they preached a particularly homophobic doctrine, and I am queer and trans.

But those meetings and the people there still reside in my heart and are part of my recovery team in the way their stories and words live in my memory.

Every time I hear "11. We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, praying only for knowledge of God's will for us and power to carry that out," I can't help saying, "Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly" (Colossians 3:16a) and thinking of my first sponsor all those years ago.

As I stayed awake with my daughter last night and helped her use her self-soothe skills, I worked on my own self-soothe skills and remembered why the Light is so beautiful this time of year. It is when family, friends, communities, and even people with whom we disagree come together in a Spirit of giving. We all share in making things new.

This Advent I celebrate my daughter's growth; my sobriety which continues to draw me nearer to God, myself, my wife, my child, and others; and the new groups I've found which support my continuing recovery where I now say, "My name is Brandon. I'm a queer, trans Christian in lifelong recovery from alcohol and drugs, and I'm open to new ideas and language to help me on the way."

Peace,
Brandon

Our hope is that when this chip of a book is launched on the world tide of alcoholism, defeated drinkers will seize upon it, to follow its suggestions. Many, we are sure, will rise to their feet and march on. They will approach still other sick ones and fellowships of Alcoholics Anonymous may spring up in each city and hamlet, havens for those who must find a way out.   Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 153*

Advent is a time of anticipation, expectation and preparation. How does the forward-thinking impetus of Advent fit in with the “no expectations, no resentments” philosophy of AA? Easily. The “Promises” tell us that God will do for us what we could not do for ourselves, just as Advent tells us that God is near. AA is a light in the darkness. The Program and Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous promise us the path to a life of freedom and happiness.

An AA old-timer said at a meeting last week that Alcoholics Anonymous had brought him from a life of self-centered fear to a life of gratitude. Gratitude is the key. No matter what is going on in ourselves, our family or the world, there is always something to be grateful for. The AA tradition of November being Gratitude Month is a perfect lead-in to the Christian tradition of Advent. With grateful hearts, we begin the new year with anticipation and assurance.

So what does this mean in practical terms? How does being a grateful, sober Episcopalian affect my day-to-day life during the Holiday Season? First of all, I can be assured that the joy of the season is not dependent on my purchases. I bring the gift of sobriety to my life, to my family, friends and neighbors. The gift of sobriety includes the gifts of acceptance, thankfulness and encouragement. It includes reliability, stability and joyfulness. Anything I can buy can’t measure up to the inestimable worth of what I already bring to those I love. I can be relieved of the anxieties that who I am or what I bring or what I give aren’t good enough.

Second, being a grateful, sober Episcopalian means that I am not alone. I never have to go anywhere alone, I never have to face a family or office function alone, I never have to make a decision alone. Fellowships of AA are nearby. Meetings abound—and their numbers increase during the holidays. Many meetings supply lists of members’ phone numbers and we are all encouraged to make use of the phone. If you do make a call, you are giving that person the gift of your trust in their sobriety and their ability to help you.

And finally, being a grateful, sober Episcopalian means that I know about the cycle of the seasons. I know that Advent brings each of us renewal and promise. I know that the light overcomes the darkness. I know that despite the struggles and confusion of the modern age, God’s promises in Advent and God’s promises in the Big Book come true. We have been called, each of us, to bear witness to the Good News of sobriety, in fellowship and in hope.

-Christine H.

* The AA Bible, Alcoholics Anonymous, was published in 1939 when there were almost 1400 people in dozens of groups who had together to obtain sobriety. Today there are over two million people who meet in over 120,000 groups worldwide. There is hope for us all.

Family Holidays, Weddings, Graduations and other gala Family events. Naturally, a topic which frequently arises at discussion meetings is this problem of how we handle family or neighborhood gatherings, or picnics featuring ribs and all the fixin’s and ice-cold beer, birthday celebrations and family graduations and anniversaries, baptisms, first communions and confirmations, national holidays.  Some are long-time family and neighborhood traditions, sometimes reflecting a “must attend” modality.  And maybe you’re new in the Program and still developing your confidence levels. You may be threatened by “publicly” refusing the offering of a ”cold one,” the pitchers of freshly-made margaritas and ice-cold sangrias. You think, “What will they say?” “Gee, don’t you like what I made for my guests?” “You used to really pig-out on this? Are you sick?”

Yes, you are sick. You developed the disease of alcoholism and when you imbibe to excess (because you can’t drink any other way), your personality abruptly changes. So, upon entry to the party, tell ‘em “I have a cold and don’t feel well”, or “I’ll take care of it, you take care of your other guests.” Anything is OK and since the object is to simply get a glass in your hand: “No, not yet, I need to get a glass of water, or soft-drink," or, "Not yet, I have to check with the baby-sitter, one of the kids has a cold.”

These gatherings, so personal in nature, usually will feel endless and maybe animated raising your anxiety level. What to do? Easy, use your cell, go off in a corner and call/text your sponsor or a fellow “Program member.” Sometimes you can help the hostess by cleaning up, washing dishes, carrying more chairs outside, and so forth. You’re just physically separating yourself from the gala activity going on around you.  

Here are some suggestions for those gatherings “you must attend:”

•        Always have a cell phone and use it
•        Never go without having a car to escape
•        Arrive close to dinner being served and leave after desert
•        Use the excuse that “We have a neighborhood annual picnic we must make an appearance at”
•        Look for opportunities to remove yourself from the action … wash dishes, help with serving/clearing the tables.

The point is to reflect your new personality and way of living. No need to be ashamed. If you’re obviously not drinking, they probably will ignore you anyway.

TO BE CONTINUED, Jim A./Covington, Kentucky

“Today I am sober… hours/days.” It is wonderful to see more and more individuals post on Facebook that they are sober even if they are struggling to stay so. What I see missing in many of those postings is an acknowledgement about how they got sober. Their A.A. chip implies they are in a 12-step recovery program which implies they acknowledge their sobriety came from a Power greater than themselves but they do not say this.

In psalm 150 the psalmist writes, “Praise the Lord! Praise God in his sanctuary… for his mighty deeds… according to his greatness… with trumpet… lute and harp... tambourine and Dance… with strings and pipe... clanging cymbals… let everything that breathes praise the Lord.”

When I first came to the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, I didn’t need to get sober. I told my boss I would not drink and it was no big deal. Any fool can stop drinking. And this fool stopped drinking. I never picked up another drink. I never picked up another drug. But I was not sober and I was not happy about being seen in these rooms.

God was good to me. (S)he nudged me into the program and nudged me to listen to a couple of individuals who saw through my façade, my fear, and stubbornness at not wanting to have a sponsor. They sponsored me into sobriety, Praise the Lord.

With my seminary background I thought I knew all about God. What goodness I knew about God applied to others. The god I believed in I saw through clouded thinking and negative emotions—the baggage that prevented me from seeing God with twenty- twenty vision. My understanding of god was skewed with my low self-esteem issues—anger; resentments, etc. It is difficult to praise God when God is seen as the source of one’s problems.

Sobriety came slowly to this alcoholic. Gratitude for being an alcoholic in recovery came slowly. The trinitarian basis of the program began to unfold in all its simplicity and depth. Go to meetings to listen to what was shared and identifying with others was an eye-opener. Read the Big Book and underline identified emotions to help me identify with those “old folk” who wrote this book some 40 years earlier. Talk to a sponsor about what I had for breakfast, about my boss, about what I am grateful for, about my anger, and why I chose to be angry without blaming others (a new behavior). Praise the Lord.

When I say, “Praise the Lord,” I am not identifying with any particular denomination or Faith community. “Praise the Lord” was (is) the language used by a person filled with the joy of his/her awareness of a Power greater than him/her self. That power was seen in all of nature and s/he wanted to give praise with every instrument available (not just a Hammond Organ).

Today I can identify with those who seem to think they are sobering up on their own while they hold the chip that says “God, grant me the serenity…” Today I pray that they stay with the program, go to meetings, read the Big Book and talk to their sponsor until such time as the cloud lifts and they can experience the joy of sobriety.

Today, like a child, I want to make a joyful noise to the Lord with a loud sound, with the simplicity of a pot and spoon, Praise the Lord for my sobriety and serenity. Praise the Lord for a joy filled heart. Praise the Lord as we pray in our own understanding of God: “Our Father…” 

-Seamus D

“Recovery… is dependent upon [our] relationship with God.”¹

“Wretched” perfectly fits this can’t-pass-too-soon-year, 2018.  Yes, our political/societal quakes from daybreak to dark. My spouse’s political outrage, fitting and just, incites my own shadowy fears.  The death of my best friend, the woeful derelictions of my boss, and recurring sibling savagery between my sister (cardiac crises) and brother (terminal leukemia) have sapped my reserves of energy, patience and hope. Enduring civic and parish commitments, family duties and social doings consume the dregs. Over the full span of the sodden, fetid summer I barely put my toes in the waves and rarely gripped the dingy’s helm.

Beyond the dim likelihood that they’ll be answered as asked, there’s good reason to steer our prayers away from… “unreasonable demands upon ourselves, upon other and upon god.”² Pope Francis warns against blocking our access to God’s creativity with our pleas. The idea that God “answers” our prayers, tweaking the life events of seven billion replicas of his image and likeness (is there a more self-serving notion?) may be untenable. Regardless, the Word that was “in the beginning”, the Word with God and Word that is God”³ echoes within each of us and all of us, summoning our full attention to realize His creative energy at work in everyone we perceive, engage and embrace.

In this harrowing hour, I desperately long to experience “each day’s most quiet moments, by sun and candlelight.”³ I need more such moments and long to draw more from them.  A retreat beckons… my former, longstanding Chicago home group gathers as the leaves’ colors peak.  The twelve-hour drive each way from Philadelphia gives me pleasure.  Arrive a day early; linger a day longer.  Gather my journal notes and favorite texts, plan to listen during the talks, and listen harder during the silences.

Silence. Silence, to hear the Word within me, within us.

How do I love thee [O my God]? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of being and ideal grace.

I love thee to the level of every day’s

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

I love thee freely, as men strive for right.

I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if [You, O] God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death. ³

—Martin

• 1       Alcoholics Anonymous (Big Book), p 100, AA World Services, Fourth Edition, 2002
• 2       Alcoholics Anonymous (Big Book), p 76, AA World Services, Fourth Edition, 2002
• 3       Sonnets from the Portuguese, “Sonnet 43”, Elizabeth Barrett Browning

As we read this, all of us will know the results of this mid- term election. Our prayers should be with those who win the election, for those who lose, and for those who voted for both of them.

 For some reason I am hoping to remember Joseph of Arimathaea after this election. “He was a good and righteous man… and had not agreed to their plan and action. He came from the Jewish town of Arimathaea and he was waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God.” (Luke 23:50-56)  That’s us!! I think we all are waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God and are hoping to find some part of it in all the people we voted for as well as in all the places we worship and all the places we attend 12 step meetings, those thin places, filled with the prayers of thousands before us. We have much in common with Joseph of Arimathaea.

“He did not agree to their plan and action.” But what did he do about it? Did he speak up for Jesus? There is no record that anyone testified on Jesus’ behalf. We have sometimes been like Joseph of Arimathaea. We sometimes see injustice and wrongdoings in the lives of others and ourselves, but we do not speak up against them. We fear what might happen to us. We fear the consequences of speaking out. We fear what we do or say might be offensive and hurt someone, or heaven forbid, we would become unpopular. We fear that our voice will not make a difference.

But then a transformation occurs in Joseph, what we might call, a moment of clarity. Joseph personally goes to Pilate. What bravery. He asks for Jesus’ body, personally and compassionately takes the nails out of Jesus’ hands and feet, washes off the blood from his head, his hands, his feet, his side, his back, wraps the body in a linen cloth and lays it presumably in his own tomb.

Are we Joseph of Arimathaea? Is there a point where we can no longer live our lives with a mask? We no longer pretend to go along with the old crowd inside and outside of ourselves. We look deep inside ourselves and speak our truth and act on it. This happened with our recovery. This also may be how we experienced voting yesterday. No matter the results of the election, we voted and let our voice be heard.

A fictional modern-day Joseph might be Atticus Finch, a widowed lawyer in 1932 Alabama in To Kill a Mockingbird. He unsuccessfully defends Tom Robinson the black man accused of raping a white woman.

Another modern-day Joseph of Arimathaea is Rosa Parks, the black seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama, who decides one day she is too tired to walk to the back of the bus and changes the course of civil rights.

And of course, there are those of us in 12 step Recovery who one day decide we can no longer live our old way and take off our masks of perfection and a secret lifestyle and admit we have a problem and seek help and in turn help others. Think about it. We who are gathered today through the internet know what it is like to be Joseph of Arimathea.

I think there is a Joseph of Arimathaea inside each of us, finally making a stand, changing the way we have been relating to ourselves, to God, and to the world.

Remember the quiet, compassionate, loving courage of Joseph of Arimathea that is in each of us, the courage to change, the courage that led us to recovery, the courage to bring healing to ourselves and others, and now the courage to bring compassionate healing to our country especially in the days ahead.   

Joseph provided the tomb for resurrection to take place. That is now our job. We have learned about resurrection and compassion for others in our 12 step groups. We are called now to be that same vessel for compassion outside in the world today.

Joanna joannaseibert.com