The Perfect Day, Anderson South Carolina

In the recovery world it is often stated that right action will lead to right thinking and right thinking will lead to right feelings. The implications are that our experience and perceptions of life will often be strongly determined by our feeling states. The reality is that feelings and little else often determine one’s perception of the quality of life. Perhaps this is why depression, anxiety, and other affective disorders are so devastating to those suffering from them. The structure of life can be sublime yet its benefits lost on the victims of affective angst.

The recovery journey teaches its pilgrims to fly by the instruments when life seems shrouded in darkness. Whether one’s nemesis is alcohol or drugs or some other form of all consuming addiction, the solution is identical. One finds through other people and God the help to do the next right thing, to have the next right thought, to live the first of a series of present moments that will turn into a whole day, which will in turn into a whole week, and then a whole year. We build a meaningful future by stringing together a series of meaningful present moments. We often find ourselves challenged to do the next right thing, whether we feel like it or not, trusting that eventually we will feel like it. We then can find ourselves living joyous, happy, and free lives

One of the useful tools to gaining wholeness is to take inventory of one’s day before falling asleep. We look at those things we did during the day and ask ourselves if they made the world friendlier, warmer, and safer to those around us. Did we contribute to community building? Did we give others hope? Did we draw closer to God? Did we give people laughter and joy? Did we do these things with a right attitude? While lying in bed this morning I again thought about what my day was like yesterday. I suddenly realized that it had been an absolutely perfect day, even though it did not feel like it.

The day started with me walking about forty minutes around a small lake in my neighborhood. Carrying a small deck of scripture promise cards, I worked at renewing my mind with promises that speak a very different message than the curses that were pronounced upon me in a troubled alcoholic childhood. The infusion of these promises into my mind along with mild exercise prepared me to do the next right thing.

On Wednesday mornings about a dozen of us gather at Meals on Wheels to cook and pack 650 hot lunches for the invisible and marginalized that are imprisoned by their infirmities and poverty. And so we did yesterday. The forgotten and discarded of an individualistic material culture were reminded that they really do have value and matter in God’s economy.

In much of the world people live at the lowest level of Maslow’s need hierarchy, consumed with the survival needs of shelter and food. These billions of people do not have the time or energy to think about purpose or actualization. As I do about this time every month, I went to a local grocery and made a funds transfer to a small orphanage in India. I then went to the public library and sent a control number via wi-fi e-mail to the orphanage. The hundred or so orphans and leprous widows that live in this small island of safety will eat and be attended to for another month. In the next few days I will get an e-mail containing digital pictures of a mountain of rice and those other things that make life more plausible. It is a profound return on investment for the half hour it takes me to do this each month

For those of us that own our own houses without the encumbrance of mortgages, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that decent housing is a huge issue for many people. In the recovery world of addictions, homelessness and poor shelter are rampant. Many of those trapped in poverty have forgotten how to dream. On Wednesday and Saturdays, and often on other days of the week, a group of us will gather with our tools at one of several sites to build dreams for those who have forgotten how to dream in their struggles for survival. We simply build simple decent houses in the poor parts of town under the auspices of Habitat for Humanity. Yesterday the sheetrock was finished in one of the houses and the vinyl finished on one end of the same house. The kitchen cabinets were planned out for another one of the three houses currently in progress. My part was to be up on an extension ladder installing vinyl siding. A fellow doing community service hours for underage drinking helped me. This took me up until about 2:30 PM.

Recovery is about finding a full meaningful life. It is a means to an end. Life should contain laughter and joy and friendship. Community theaters are good places for this to happen. Each afternoon I make it a point to go to the community theater and build sets for the plays we put on. There is nothing glamorous about working alone in a dark hot auditorium, yet on opening night the payoff is suddenly paid out under the bright Klieg lights. The joy the patrons get over the next several weeks is full compensation for my hot tiring work in the dark. Giving people a respite of good entertainment from their often-challenging lives is part of God’s economy.

Life is also about stewardship of one’s health and the local YMCA has been a grand place for me to exercise for several years. Besides getting exercise with other people who are embracing wellness and community, the Y provides the opportunity to make people feel visible and significant. Our Y has a lot of very elderly patrons and they are often uncertain about being on fitness floors with buff young men who seem to have it all. Simply speaking to them and offering assistance on the use of machines can make their day. I always leave the Y feeling, younger, better, and healthier. Perhaps some others do as well because I made it a point to do the next right thing and show up there one day.

An important part of drawing closer to God is to participate in the life of a church or other religious organization. Sometimes simply showing up for a Wednesday dinner and making a newcomer feel a part of the community is enough. I simply showed up last night and ate a lot of fine fish at our annual fish fry and made two new comers feel like their presence really matters. One of them left the church years ago because she felt invisible. My being there last night was a good thing for both of us.

There must be nothing like the pain experienced by a young mother who loses her kids because she has been drinking and driving her kids around while in black out. I cannot pretend to know this specific pain for myself but when asked by a mother if life can ever get better again, I can emphatically state that there is hope and that it positively can get better if she will own up to her problem with addictions and get help. She was in the right place to start a new journey to wholeness and I was allowed to be standing along her path for a few minutes.

A homeless man on the street needed a ride to the Salvation Army shelter. I took him over there and he felt like he had gotten a bit of a lift in life.

If I keep doing these things each day, perhaps one day I will find I am truly happy, joyous, and free. “All things do work together for those that love the Lord and are called according to His purposes.”