It's popular. Way popular. So of course the critics come out. Yes, it's about the Trinity. Yes, it's 'pop' theology. There is a reason that scholarly tomes on theology do not become best sellers. And, yes, if you remove some of the explicit "Christian" terminology the theology might seem a bit more inclusive than the exclusivity, the membership club, to which Christians are so accustomed.
This is the work of a person who has suffered, who has been damaged in the deepest parts of his being, and has been healed. It's a story of the healing process, by someone has been there. Read his personal story before judging him.
For anyone who has suffered in some form or other, the book will resonate. Whether or not it will lead to healing, I can't say as it merely acted as a reminder of the healing that has been occurring in my life. There are many moments where he expressed quite well what has been going on internally and it is an inspirational reminder to return to the Source rather than try and take matters into our own hands. I believe this, not the theology, is the reason for the book's success.
The book is a work of fiction; it is not a work of theology. It's a story, and a simple one at that. It's certainly not going to win any prizes for it's literary qualities (grown men responding to profound truths with 'Whoa!' and 'Oh boy, oh boy'?) but it is deeply affecting. For people not so theologically inclined, some of the "theology" talk (which is a large portion of much of the book) might be a bit tough to muddle through. But it certainly has people, ordinary people, non-theologians, talking about the Trinity and the nature of God and love and relationships, grace and mercy. Not a bad thing at all.
The problem isn't the book. Or people flocking to it. Or Christians thinking they now understand the Trinity.
No, the problem is what the Church has become. In an effort to be all things to all people, the Church has been cast adrift, irrelevant even, just another cog in the cultural wheel. The deeper things of the faith have been laid aside and have therefore ceased to take root in the lives of believers. What has taken it's place is church as social center, an "alternative" to the culture at large (read: it is basically the mainstream culture with a Christian stamp).
Deeper yet, the problem is that the Trinity is complex and has been all but ignored in many churches. Sure it's difficult. Why is that so shocking? But it's not impossible. Just hard. Challenging work. The Trinity is a hedge, a boundary to keep us from straying. And within it lies the beauty and the power of the doctrine of the Church, 'doctrine' a word which causes repulsion in the church of today. At best, the foundation of the Church's creed is given lip service. It seems to contradict the simplicity of the gospel of which Paul speaks and the light burden Jesus mentions.
I also believe this book is the author's response to his own struggle with this very same question. It isn't a book that says "This is the way it is" but "This is what I've found."
But don't criticize this book. Don't criticize the readers.
Fix the problem.
The problem is us:
Educate.
Live the gospel.
And feed His sheep.
Obviously there is a hunger both in and out of the church and this book satisfies that need. Until the Church can satisfy that need, books like these will continue to proliferate and hungry people will seek them to curb their hunger.
I recommend it. I just hope they don't make a movie out of it.
In 1992, my addictions and subsequent wanderlust were beginning to manifest. Big time. I was making good money at a job I swore I'd never do and was living on the cheap and socking the excess money away (what was left after drinking anyhow...). It was during this time I began journeying West frequently. I'd been to Colorado in high school to ski with the family so had a taste of it and was drawn to the idea of space. Lots of it.
A drive from Ohio to Bozeman, Montana; a one-week tour of the four corners in a rented convertible Mustang; a job interview in Brooking, South Dakota. The itch was there.
The photo above shows actual copies of two Times articles where I first learned of his story. I've laminated them in order to preserve them. The first article appeared on September 12, 1992.
The header of Chapter 10, page 98, in Jon Krakaeur's Into The Wild contains the text of the column (if you click on the photo above you can read both articles). I remember the day it hit. It took hold of my soul and never let go.
A week later, the second article, the one above with the photo, appeared.
I have a day planner from 1992 (I was selling cell phones then...remember the bag phones?). On September 18 I have "Vacation" written (with a big arrow pointing through to September 27th).
On September 19th his body was identified.
This was my trip with girlfriend in tow driving to a bed and breakfast in Bozeman, Montana. Even then distance was a magnet. We went through South Dakota, visiting some roadside museum tribute showing where Dances With Wolves was filmed (another serendipitous moment), yes, Wall Drug, the Black Hills and making our way to Bozeman. I think it was this trip where I really became hooked on the open space via automobile.
Somewhere along this path I picked up the Sunday Times (probably outside of Chicago where we were staying with friends on the way) which contained the article on the identification of his body. That photo, which I've never seen anywhere else, is the image I have and will always have of Christopher McCandless.
I picked up a copy of the Argus Leader in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where we had stayed for a night that week, and found an article about Wayne Westerberg's assistance in identifying the body. Carthage, where Christoper spent time, was just north of the Interstate on which we were traveling to Montana. I was traveling along the same terrain, unknowingly, following in his footsteps as I would do Robert Pirsig's several years later. Below is the original copy of the South Dakota paper, preserved and guarded for seventeen years. The story resonated deep.
Snippets from his diary were published in the Times and then the details soon followed. It was gripping. Horrifying. But I was captivated. Immediately. He went where I was longing to go. For years his story would haunt me. In my travels, he acted as cautionary tale. But he was not a hero. There was no glorifying his tale. He simply lived out where I was headed.
He was, quite simply, me. I think on some level he is a mirror for many who have dreams of going, getting out, wandering into the wild. What I was dabbling in, he acted out in full force. I understand where he was coming from; I understand the drive; I understand the longing for alone and for solitude and for Truth. We all struggle with this, some more overtly than others.
It was to my shock when Jon Krakauer's book was first published. And an even greater shock when the movie came out. Here was a private muse of mine, now made public, myth, legend. For those who know or knew me, to read the book was to read my story. No one could really figure out what it was that was driving me, why I couldn't find peace, why the longing to run, or numb myself. While the questions are never really answers in the case of Christopher McCandless, I, from what I have come to know, get it.
Both he and I graduated from high school and college in the same years. Like him, I too was, and still am, content to drive old cars with high miles. Like him, I too was becoming more and more disgusted with materialism and the "American" dream. I wanted out. As with him, it is perhaps ironic as both of us, though perhaps emotionally lacking, were, for all intensive purposes, well provided for materially. In other words, one might argue, we were both spoiled. Obviously we learned that the answers to life's bigger questions were not to be found in the world of 'stuff' but at least we had the 'stuff' we needed to survive.
It took me years before I was able to read the book and months to muster up the courage to watch the movie. There was something private about his story and I was afraid to relive this period of my life. I wasn't ready to heal as this part of my life had become, in my mind, quite mythical. The reality I wasn't ready to face was that I was just scared, emotionally scarred, a boyish man who wanted to hide from the fear.
Though there were genuine and sincere longings for truth, I don't know that I was running to anything as much as I was being driven by something, running from something.
By the time I left home in 1994, I had a much larger cushion than the one he had. I had a pretty sizeable savings account, a car and, as I would later learn (one of the best lessons I learned being on the road for almost a year), way too much stuff.
I have a soft spot for Christopher McCandless. Without being too sentimental, I can honestly say he may have saved my life. I was the typical suburban dreamer, longing of living in the mountains, or moving to Tibet, being free and on the road. As Christopher McCandless learned, too late, it is hard. And, in the end, what really matters is not being self-sufficient but being interdependent upon others.
For my year on the road I took four rolls of film. That's it. Of all the people I met, I am not in touch with any of them. This is perhaps one of the saddest reminisces of all. I met some amazing people, brilliant, beautiful, adventurous, yet made no connection with any of them. I got close to a few people but couldn't handle it and left. Longing for identity, I ran with a diverse crowd and experienced things I would never have otherwise experienced. But, in the end, all these experiences were mine. They were not shared with anyone.
The road of relationship is much more difficult, and rewarding, than that of the loner which, in the end, is a death sentence. We all die alone, certainly, but what matters is what we have deposited in those who remain when we die.
Christopher McCandless' story is bittersweet. Had he lived, it is likely no book would have been made about him as many have adventured much in the same way he did. It was his horrifying death, capturing a fear many - especially many a traveler - hold, that of dying alone, starving, in the middle of nowhere.
The book is a great read (though it is as much about the author as it is about McCandless) and the movie is stunning. I cried several times during the film, something quite rare, though it had more to do with my process of healing, film as mirror, than it did a concern for the character in the film. It comes highly recommended.
My only concern is that it tends to idolize him and his adventure. After all, he basically abandoned his family. It seems he realized this too late. And, as some have posited, perhaps he was more than just a little bit crazy, his disconnect and need for isolation signs of those who have mental illness.
As an aside note, the song "Big Hard Sun" performed by Eddie Vedder is a remake of an original by Indio whose CD containing the song is was out of print. It was karmic. I heard this song once on some independent channel in my hometown and was mesmerized and bought the CD new back then.
I still have it (love Vedder but the original is much better than the remake...). Here it is twenty years later and it's come full circle.
Here's the original from Indio's Big Harvest album:
As if these connections are not enough, L. Subramaniam play violin on this track. For those who aren't familiar with his work, his track 'Wandering Saint' appears on the Baraka soundtrack which, for those who may be interested, has a strong significance in my life as well.
I have always been led by signs, between points in time that confirm that I am where I am supposed to be. When these signs come I know that what has happened between those two points in time is complete and I can lay it behind me and move on. There have been several of them in my life, confirmations that speak "my" language and are too serendipitous to ignore. This was one of them.
Though I don't consider him to be a saint or hero, Christopher McCandless' life, though tragic in the end, was not in vain.
God is a trip. Sometimes you can pick up a book and you don't know why. You may even try to read it. But it doesn't click. So it sits on a shelf. But sometime later you pick it up and at that moment it is exactly what you need. I have lots of books like that.
But sometimes a book crosses your path at just the right time. You know it. You may not know why but you just know.
Nate Larkin's Samson and the Pirate Monks: Calling Men to Authentic Brotherhood is one of those books. It is one man's journey through addiction, specifically sexual addiction, and his way out. For those of us who have suffered silently, independently, stubbornly alone, this is a refreshing book. He taps into the experiences of men who share this worldview.
Traveling through life alone, living to share the adventure stories of what he calls his "persona" with arm's length friends, all the while slipping from "deprived to depraved" he bares his soul as a mirror of our own. I can't recommend this book enough. It isn't just a vomit blog of horrible escapades. No, these escapades are a premise, a mirror against which to reflect the saving grace of the Gospel message.
It's real. The grace is not the hard part; the hard part is the surrender. The ego, in all its guises and trappings, is a tiger that does not go down easy. But it can be tamed. Nate Larkin is an excellent guide on the Path we all travel down.
Here's a snippet from the first meeting of the Samson Society:
"Welcome to the meeting of the Samson Society...We are a company of Christian men. We are also natural loners, who have recognized the dangers of isolation and are determined to escape them, natural wanderers who are finding spiritual peace and prosperity at home, natural liars who are now finding freedom in the truth, natural judges who are learning how to judge ourselves aright, and natural strongmen who are experiencing God's strength as we admit our weaknesses." (p. 115)
It is in sharing, in openness, in honesty, in accountability that freedom is found. It may be painful, it may expose every weakness, flaw and shame you've ever tried to conceal but these are all "persons" (in the sense of character masks) that we've created. They are as big a lie as the counter-person created as antithesis to these things you hide.
Nate Larkin describes these well: Church Nate. Date Nate. Mate Nate. All Alone Nate. We all have these personas we create that keep us disconnected and far removed from the present.
You are not alone. Your story is not unique. We are all in this together. The body of Christ is the entire human race, though not all realize who they are in the body. The body of Christ, in harmony, is the most powerful force on the planet. Even if it just a portion of the body, those who believe, there is power in communion. And communion requires laying aside the ego and dying to self so that Christ in us may shine.
Don't be fooled into thinking no one understands, no one cares or that you are the only one going through what you are going through. It is the silence that is cancerous. This book is a great starting point. But then take it somewhere. Do something with it.
When I was in high school I used to write stories. Aside from the "porno stories" I used to write in middle school (!), in high school the escalated. I used to write stories about blowing up the school and killing I don't remember who. I don't know that I ever named names nor did I ever necessarily have anyone in mind, though it's quite possible.
But I was so detached and everything so external I tended to categorize and label rather than personalize anything. It led to a certain form of schizophrenia. I was able to get along with pretty much everybody and didn't really dislike anyone (though my middle school yearbooks tells a different story) and had some really good friends. I had many "girl" friends but didn't date much and this, of course, is also a pretty curious detour to travel upon.
But there was a growing darkness, a gap between who I was and who I perceived myself to be. I don't remember when I did this, but below is an image of an artistic creation of mine.
And the reverse:
It's kind of bizarre looking at these things almost thirty years later. Creative? Certainly. But pretty disturbing.
Would I have ever really gone off and done the violence I fantasized about? I may have. I found enough outlets, negative as they may have been, to distract this impulse. Perhaps this is how copycat killers evolve. Perhaps these dark dreams lurk in the shadows and are brought light when seeing others pull it off.
Perhaps that is my ego rising up again, the flare for the drama to attract attention. But in digging up this past I am seeing the signs, the answers to those drives that seemed to mysterious and so compulsive. I also see it now through the eyes of love. True healing will be present when I have worked through this darkness that seems so clear now and begin to look back and see the good. When we live in a state of anger or despair or depression, we either idolize a past golden age or we filter everything through these lenses and thus only see those things that align with how we feel.
The obsession now isn't that my past was bad. I have had a good life. But right now I have become obsessed with laying these ghosts to rest. In uncovering the source of these wounds I will be able to close the door for good, heal up the gap and live in the present with no denial, no distraction and no imitation of life.
The reality is that I did have a strong support system growing up and I did have a strong sense of right and wrong, some sense of hope, that there was a future, even if that future was only dreams of escaping the stifle of small town suburbia. In hindsight, I don't know that I ever contemplated the reality of it.
There was always a part of me that was longing, love buried deeper than the hate that covered it.
My ego would prefer to be a sex addict. Being a porn addict sounds sleazy, cheap, creepy, perverted. At least as a sex addict you've got what it takes to get some. Even though it hurts another human being, at least there is another human being; at least there is contact. The porn thing is introverted, i.e. loser.
It's the paradox of being an addict. My addiction is compared to another's. If I'm going to be an addict, I want to be the "best" at it. Believe me, there are competitions when it comes to swapping horror stories of addiction, a sense of pride in divulging just how low a person has been. It isn't just the sharing and depth of horror shared that determines one's level of recovery but the amount of pride or humility in which someone shares the story.
I'd say it's a continuum. The truest of healing is reflected in pure humility (and not self-degradation or self-deprecation); someone still in the throes of addiction will speak with pride, even braggodocio, of the depths of depravity to which they've sunk.
But the reality is that each form of addiction is still that: an addiction and, as such, is on par with alcohol, drugs, food or any other form of addiction and all, in some form or other, harm others as a consequence, though all addictions can lead to total and complete isolation as well when the addiction causes one to be so self-centered that all choices involve the addiction over or at the expense of any and all relationships except those that somehow benefit the addiction.
So in pondering the attraction of pornography, I have realized that in the objectification of the actors what I am really doing is role playing my psyche. I am at once the one in power and the one whose power is being taken. There are times watching porn where I have a moment of conscience that usurps the numbness and I see, in horror, the look of pain in the eyes of the woman. Instantly I'm torn. There is arousal, yes, but not so much "sexual" arousal but the arousal of being in control, of having power to have said woman surrender her power, and simultaneously desiring to help, save, even love the woman who is longing for the same, her surrender of power actually a desire for love.
I am at once the perpetrator and the victim, both sides of my psyche being played out and watch live in front of me. I am the man assuming power; I am the woman who needs saved. In a sense, I am taking my own power and longing to save myself. It is the disconnect, the barrier I have created around my wounded soul, that allows this distancing so much so that I can watch "objectively" without the pangs of conscience, the lack of recognition of the symbolism I am witnessing on the screen.
Any and all fetishes or deviations venture forth from this premise, the darkness in said fetish representing some aspect of self-identification based in lack of love.
So pornography addiction isn't about sex. Sex is an objectification of interior battles, scars and hidden spots that are manifest un- or even subconsciously onto the screen. This is how women become sex "objects" and how men often devalue the personhood of women in an effort to resolve, unaware, their own inner demons.
The worst thing about addiction is ultimately self-absorption. In the case of a damaged soul, the damage, that rupture, the leak in the dam, is the black hole of selfishness. Everything gravitates toward that vortex.
In reflecting back over these past few weeks I've realized that I've left a trail of damage in my relationships. This may just be my perception, still self-centered, narcissistic, dramatic. But, as kind as I may have been toward people, and my general temperament is kind, when it came to relationship and the deep things of being with others, the facade crumbled and I ran, or faked it.
So I feel compelled, when thinking back on my life, to say I'm sorry. I don't see the joy, at least not yet. I am at a stage where I want to look at those I've hurt and apologize. It's quite possible that I am thinking too much of myself and that I really didn't have that much of an impact on others. Perhaps it is vanity again in thinking this much of myself as addicts, even former addicts, are wont to do. Paranoia is the same thing. So full of ourselves, we really do think the world revolves around us, albeit in a negative way, and the feelings of being watched, or hated, or lied to all revolve around this self-absorption.
Vanity leads to the incessant need to apologize to others, to have others tell you that you are ok, to have others tell you positive things about yourself, to filter out all those things that don't have anything to do with you. It is that need for attention, for approval, for love. Addicts become emotional leeches, the vortex in the soul, the gravitational pull of emotion, sucking the life out of those around you.
This isn't necessarily malicious or intentional, though it can be. But the greatest horror of it all is that it is unconscious. This is the disconnect. And it is this disconnect that leads to all the damage, taking away our ability to be real. It's always as if there is "something" wrong, that something is nagging at us, pulling at us, taking us away from reality. Even in a crowded room, we feel lonely. In a crowded room we may even feel more lonely, more frightened.
Yet there is an innocent desire at the base of it and that desire is to be loved. Beyond the pain, beyond the attempt to cover it up, beyond the desire for healing and wholeness is the desire for love. To love and to be loved. Addicts and people with mental illness do not intentionally become selfish, do not set out to live a life of narcissism and vanity. But the force of that which drives them leads to this behaviour. And it is incredibly difficult to break free from it, to be come "other" centered, to stop giving in order to get back, to stop hiding and putting on a front out of fear.
Addiction is rooted in fear.
Hurt people hurt people.
Healed people help people.
There is help available. If you look around, there are many offering to help, many proposed solutions to our addictions, to our wounds, to those things that keep us disconnected.
As long as there is still breath in our lungs, there is hope.
Pornography is not about sex. Sex is the means. It is about power whether it be about taking power or having power taken. There is no love in pornography. There is no relationship. There is base animal instinct. The only difference is the fetishization of it, the channeling of the power of the role playing into the varieties of human desire.
Plain and simple: it is about power. In many cases, the viewer can be both the powerful and the powerless. I suppose I hold a Daoist view, seeing in each role the seed of the other so in watching a man have sex with a woman the fantasy is not only that of the man "getting the girl" but, depending on the level of violation of the woman, part of the viewer can also be tapping into a place within where power is taken.
I have discovered that the many different fetishes, all compartmentalized, and categorized, are representative or symptomatic of some deep seeded issues and if the apparent separateness of them all can be rooted to an event or events it becomes possible to see the thread between them and it becomes possibly to allow a healing balm to stitch together the disconnectedness.
The ability of the human mind to disconnect and isolate based on a symbolic level and have it manifest is incredible. Whether it be vintage porn which takes me back to the beginning of this darkness or the other varieties that tap into other areas of my life which the rupture in my innocence had opened up there is really no limit as to how deep it can go.
Porn involving children has never been an interest and is not always the way such addiction leads. The theory that a traumatic event and the origins of addiction leave the person at that age in whatever area of trauma the event occurred. So for sexual abuse, the person remains sexually immature. I managed an apartment complex for the dually diagnosed, people with a mental illness and substance abuse, for about a year and a half and realized the truth of this. There were individuals there in their forties who had the emotional maturity of a very young person. The abuse and the addiction left that area of their life immature and though they were physically forty, emotionally they acted life children.
But addiction will always take you deeper. I had gotten to the place where the self-hatred was so intense, I began to see how sex and violence intermingle. And it affected my ability to relate to others. The deeper I went, the more the withdrawal, the greater the facade and role play.
But the image that has remained with me for all these years is that of having a trash can over my head when I speak. In my dreams, I frequently dreamed about pursuing something and would ask for help but the person to whom I spoke looked at me as if I was strange. They couldn't hear me, ignoring me, and the frustration was so bottled up I would often awake out of frustration at the inability to speak, my words mumbled and jumbled like the Peanuts characters' parents in the cartoons.
Something in me refrained from going all the way and whenever I would see images of porn involving physical violence and violation, whether actual striking, acts causing vomiting or other forms of violence under the guise of sex, I was at once appalled yet compelled to look, even if just a glance. But it is out there. And it is probably far worse than I can imagine. What was a glance and repulsive could, over time, desensitize and draw me in.
Fortunately, I found salvation. This isn't the cheap variety of salvation, a quick alter call, a thank you Jesus and thinking everything is cool. No, it is so much harder than that, so much more difficult. God shines the light into the darkness but He walks with you through the shadow of the valley of death. But you still have to walk it. But the difference is there is no fear; there is safety, even in the darkness. And when the wounds begin to heal, the healing is permanent as the ego detaches from the power of the wounds.
Don't ever be fooled into thinking it can't get any darker. There is no end to the darkness. The only limit are the safeguards in your life, whether love of family, moral principles or other "natural" means. But even these will break down over time and render the addict powerless. Only when healing truly occurs at the deepest level is there any hope. And, in my case, the healing only truly began with surrender to learning who God is through Jesus Christ.
I am not completely there as there are still issues to work out. But there is an openness, a clarity that has come lately that has been life changing. It isn't quite an objective look at where I've been and how it has affected me but it is quite clear. In fact, the initial incident to which I've traced this did not come back to my memory until a few years ago. I had blocked it out or had rendered it meaningless. But when it came to me after a period of some deep soul searching there was no doubt about it: this was the event.
All the Islam, all the Daoism, all the Zen, while helping me along the path, never did the trick. They paved the way, they opened my heart and mind and gave me a foundation upon which to build. Perhaps I never committed enough, never truly surrendered so this is not to cast judgment upon upon these faith traditions. In fact, I still find great value and wisdom in them. But they are good only in so far as they align with Jesus. But it was only after truly surrendering, and continuing to surrender, to following Jesus that the healing began and the light shone in the darkness of my past.
Of course I project this outward and generalize about viewers of porn. That is my limitation. I, like all of us, am subjective, limited in focus and range and willing to listen to other takes.
After thirty years of this living hell, I can "go there" and break it down if anyone would like. It isn't about sex; sex is the medium. It is about power. And both men and women, viewers and performers alike, suffer because of it.
Even before being exposed to pornographic magazines, an incident occurred that had a tremendous impact on what was once an innocent mind. At around the same time as my first exposure to men's (and women's) magazines, at a sleepover in a friend's basement I was put in a situation which would have a deep impact on the formation of my views about sexuality. I don't remember all the details nor do I remember what led up to it. It's possible I've blocked some of it out but I don't believe so as I've been quite open to receiving information from the recesses of my memory and I don't wish to invent something just to have a scar to talk about.
But it involved my friend, who was two years' younger and his older brother who was several years older than me. All I remember was the lights out in the basement and I was asked to drop my pants to expose myself while they shined the flashlight on me. I remember laughter but don't remember any comments. I don't remember them doing the same to one another. All I remember was the feeling that it wasn't right, the discomfort and, later, the shame. This would become my lifelong dirty little secret and thus my source of sexual identity.
Traumatic? Certainly. Abuse? Yes. Now this isn't as horrifying as stories of abuse we all know about. I wouldn't end up on Oprah from having survived this. I have friends who have suffered forms of abuse far, far worse and have noticed the scale of the effects on their lives. Yet an event as "small" as mine had a huge impact, like the proverbial "butterfly effect" of chaos theory. That small perturbation led to a hurricane in my life.
My innocence was lost and with my innocence I surrendered power, my addictions a struggle to get it back. In a purely innocent state, we have maximum power. Abuse ruptures this power and allows influences in, influences which, at a young age, we are not equipped to process. So pornographic images of sexuality became the norm, these tempered by a feeling of guilt and shame; sex would begin to hold a tremendous source of power over my life.
I don't remember whether or not I was shy prior to this but introversion and depression and mood swings became my life. It was after this I began getting into fights, becoming combative, withdrawn, angry, alone. One event followed by layer after layer of accretion to cover the shame and numb the agitation within would be the force driving me. Everything else was an attempt at running away from this vortex in my soul.
It's 1982. I'm in 8th grade. Fourteen years old. My pornography addiction has been growing for four years now. Of course I didn't know it then. I was just a kid who had suffered sexual trauma and with pubescent hormones was in free fall. I stumbled across this in my 8th grade yearbook, back when I actually took the time to get people to sign it.
There is a long, deeply personal story connected to the girl who signed this, the details of which are not necessary. Suffice it to say it is significant that she wrote this.
At the time, I and another guy were writing essays during study hall to submit to Penthouse magazine. I am astounded at the fact that she knew I did this. Apparently it wasn't that big of a secret. Now it may seem like teenage hormones and no big deal. Perhaps for some this is the case. Not in my case. No, there was something deeper growing, taking root, manifesting. In hindsight, this was a cry for attention, pretty obvious looking back.
Not only was sneaking into my father's stash a regular occurrence (the look of bewilderment on my brother's face when I showed him once still lingers) but I would sneak across the street and break into the garage of a neighbor who has a huge stash of Playboys and Oui magazines. I would sneak into the garage even when no one was there. I could sniff out a stash of men's magazines in any house I entered and have gone so far as to locate them while at various jobs I've held where the opportunity arose whether in an office or in the homes of clientele. Bookstores, cigar shops, didn't matter. I had to seek them out, I had to look.
Fourteen years old.
At ten (perhaps even younger) I was shown my first porno mags. It was at a friend's house where this occurred under the swimming pool deck. He had older brothers who passed this knowledge down. In retrospect, this was a home of abuse. I can't say there was physical violence but I do know for certain the verbal abuse was intense.
I was inundated not only with Playboy and Penthouse but was also exposed to Playgirl magazine. Long before I even knew what sex was, before I had any interest in females, let alone the female body, my young mind was being filled with images of naked women and men and I was introduced to sex.
In the yearbook I took the time to white out some faces (all girls) and scratch out their names. I can't remember why there was such venomous anger, though I do remember that one of the girls was the girlfriend of a friend of mine and when I called her told him she was a 'scum' he wanted to fight me after school. Though I do vaguely remember striking him in the face, all I really remember is a few headlocks and some noogies until my mom showed up and I had to go home.
We were no longer friends after that, even though I had spent the night at his house many times and, ironically perhaps, stayed up 'til the wee hours of the morning watching Cinemax soft porn on Friday nights (the film Malicious comes to mind immediately). Cinemax Friday night softcore films were also a regular staple.
Sadly, I found out many years later that he had committed suicide. Life is so precious and the connection so tenuous and fragile, it is often too much to really comprehend.
But the darkness that was to come and the consequences of these beginnings would not come to the healing light of God's grace for almost thirty years.
A question had popped up in my Facebook asking for 15 albums that changed my life and to list them within 15 minutes. I made the list and revisited one of the albums today. Peter Gabriel's Security (the U.S. title; everywhere else it was simply Peter Gabriel or Peter Gabriel 4).
Jon Wolf, older brother of Mike Wolf, whose house I spent the night at, who was my first (and only) fight because I called his girlfriend a scum in 7th grade, recommended this to me. He mentioned that Peter Gabriel was an expert at synthesizers and that sounded really cool even though I had no clue what he was talking about. So I went out and bought the cassette. I had the 45 single of "Shock the Monkey" and loved the B-side track.
Up until this point, the general interest was KISS Alive II, Van Halen's Diver Down, AC/DC's Back and Black and Top 40 radio. Lightweight, trapped in the insulated bubble of suburbia.
However, having been raised on a healthy of mix of outlaw country music, Gordon Lightfoot and early Jimmy Buffett (all on 8 track tapes, mind you) my little world began to expand. Perhaps the earliest album that infiltrated my naivete was Pink Floyd's The Wall . I remember playing "Another Brick in the Wall" and having my dad comment what a stupid song it was.
I have happy reminisces about listening to WDMT, an urban radio station out of Cleveland, in the early 1980s on my little clock radio, recording rap songs with an old tape recorder. Long before Run DMC hit the big time and brought rap music to the mainstream en masse, Grandmaster Flash's "The Message" freaked me out when I heard lyrics such as "junkies in the alley with baseball bat" and had horrific images of what this meant (most likely formed by stereotypes reinforced either by television or through attrition in the fears of suburbia). Morris Day and The Time's "The Walk" introduced me to funky, the lyrics which caused endless hours of laughter and curiosity. I still had a tape up of a bunch of these songs until a few years ago where it has since disappeared.
Anyhow, while these seeds of eclecticism were still budding, Peter Gabriel's music took what I was hearing one step deeper and one step beyond. The year is 1982.
The Security album set me free. The first track, with its thundering drums and exotic sounds, were unlike anything I had ever heard. I played it and played it and played it. My world changed. Lyrics included such words as "mitigating circumstances", "cynical bite" and "Hippocratic oath" that expanded my awareness of what music could do and say.
Though I would still surf the pop music wave for quite some time, it was this album that seeded my interest in world music and music outside of the mainstream.
I really didn't get into "alternative" music until my freshman year in college when I would encounter the Violent Femmes, the Smiths, early hardcore punk, the Beastie Boys and early college rock. It was then that I was on my way and I would eventually leave Top 40 pop music in the dust. I had found music that spoke to me; I had voices speaking for me.
I saw him in concert twice, once in the second row of the Pittsburgh Civic Arena with Youssou N'Dour opening on his So tour. I absolutely loved Youssou. I will never forget the freshness of these artists from South Africa, dressed in their bright, colorful clothing and dancing so freely. I didn't understand a word they said but loved it. We fed off of them and they fed off of us, a bunch of goofy suburban white kids dancing to this "exotic" music.
The show itself was one of the best concerts I had ever seen. The songs didn't sound like the versions on the album. They were fresh. Peter Gabriel performed as an artist, a far cry from the rock n roll shows I had seen previously where the songs sounded like the albums, or worse. No, Peter Gabriel was, and still is, an artist, the standard by which I would measure other concerts. No longer would I throw money away at glorified bar bands. I suppose I developed musical "taste" (or snobbery, not sure which).
I have a piece of his shirt from this show. What the hell was I thinking? During this song he stage dives (long before stage diving became popular...) into the audience and the hands carry him around the arena. Not this time. I don't know if it was just me but I grabbed his shirt and wouldn't let go. It ripped. I still have it, like a vampire, like a groupie. When he got back on stage, shirt torn, he stared right at me and smiled. Or smirked a knowing smile. What an embarrassment. Rather than surf the crowd he got to the second row.
Loved the show; this moment is what I remember. My filter is whack. I hold onto those things that carry pangs of regret, shame, guilt, embarrassment. Yet these too are my ego holding on to some notion of who I am that is false. This is becoming ever so clear. At some point I hope to laugh at them, not out of spite, not out of shame or embarrassment, but of genuine laughter at the clarify of seeing the illusion in them, a true sign of being healed.
I remember a classmate's obsession with Rush, a group I had never heard of before his mention of them, and another classmate's infatuation with Bono from U2 in 1983 (same year as the book jacket in my other post), another group I had never heard of until that moment.
The photo shows the inside of my high school notebook. Actual beer cans, cut in half and inserted. Actual Jack Daniel label. This whole shining a light into my past thing is a bit freaky because I'm beginning to really see it from the inside out.
The title of this post refers to one of my book jackets that I transferred from book to book. Remember when you had to buy (or were they given?) the slipcovers to protect the books? The photo below is mine from my sophomore year. Yes, I still have it. Even in the midst of the madness there was creative outlet.
Here are some of the sayings:
"Blow your mind. Play Russian rhoulette."
"Sit on it and rotate" (with a drawing of a hand flipping the bird)
"Life is massive confusion."
"Kiss my ass."
You get the picture.
Somewhere on there I had written "I am an asshole." I remember showing this to a girl in trig class. She looked at me as if I was insane. What would possess me to do that? Attention? Certainly. A frightened child crying out? Certainly. These are the things that preoccupied my mind.
The other things that preoccupied my mind were music, stories and my addictions.
I do know one thing. I was well aware of the smallness of my white bread, suburban existence. Though I am now grateful for it and realize the insulation provided me the luxury of wallowing in self-imposed despair and provided me a foundation to function in the world, at the time I knew something was wrong. Didn't know what, but knew there was a smallness that was too confining.
I took the time to cut this comic strip of Bloom County (one of the best comic strips ever, retired way too early...) and paste it in my notebook:
Milo Bloom: You know. I can't seem to shake the feeling that Charles and Di are too...something.
The way they walk, talk...dress...sit...laugh delicately...it's vague...abstract...I can't put my finger on it -
They're just too...too something. Just too...too...
Oliver Wendell Jones: ...white.
Milo Bloom (slapping knee): That's it!
A great cleansing is occurring. I am relaying my foundation. Shining the light on all of these things and what they represent helps me to let them go. No longer does my past have this hold on me, this black hole filled with infinite darkness, the cancer sucking the life blood out of my soul. Healing is taking place.
I see why people write memoirs, why people join AA, why people feel the call to preach. I go back to move forward. This healing is an amazing process.
Being born again is much more than just a metaphor, more than just symbolic.
Faith, hope and charity are so much more than just wedding vows.
When a wound from the past takes you back thirty years and when that wound is exposed, opened wide to the bright light of day, and then healed, there is a long process that comes because there are thirty years of scars that have had the band aids, those former identities, removed.
It is incredible to look and see exactly how that impacted every decision I have ever made, perhaps not directly to each situation but, due to the frame of mind and state of my soul, decisions were made through a distorted filter, stemming from a bottomless darkness.
Hurt people hurt people.
But once light enters and exposes the depths of that darkness, displacing it, suddenly everything becomes clear. No longer does the mystery have a hold on you, no longer are decisions made unaware. Decisions can be made from a positive place, rather than a no place.
Rather than consumers, takers, users, we are able to give, to share, to love.
Sometimes it takes a day like yesterday to get perspective on where we are. By the end of the day I was really sick of me. So of course the message at church this morning was on the Kingdom. In other words, the satisfaction of one's life is in direct proportion to the focus on self. Complete focus on self leads to complete misery. A fulfilled life is determined by how much one focuses on others.
Now, without being centered (however you understand that), total focus on others can in itself be a selfish act, whether it is being done out of lack (and thus with expectation, no matter how subtle, of benefit) or with the motive of achievement. In other words, it really isn't about the other as the other is but a mean to an end and that end is self.
No, this other centeredness must emanate from a center and that center must be free of self. Only then does it work. Only then can you expand outwards towards other free of the pollution of selfish motives and, in return, receive back, without expectation but by a natural process, the true self.
Without getting all New Agey, Christ is the center and we reflect Christ to others; in return, by interacting with others, Christ is reflected back to us (our perception determining how this is seen). We are but mirrors for Christ. The "true" us is Christ. As Paul says, it is no longer "I" but Christ living in me. In this sense, the more Christ is in us the more "I" am Christ.
So, as usually happens, when we let it, God once again shows me up. Which is good. That means I was not too far out of alignment. A little corrective, a little forgiveness and a little humility and growth can once again occur.
Yes, loss of hope is really a failure to be grateful.
Faith is hard and faith is messy because faith changes us. If it doesn't change us, challenge us and cause us to look towards others, we need to question the faith to which we cling.
is one of those books. It is one man's journey through addiction, specifically sexual addiction, and his way out. For those of us who have suffered silently, independently, stubbornly alone, this is a refreshing book. He taps into the experiences of men who share this worldview. 
