Meditation Moment on Grief and Loss

I am grateful for his clear eyes and steady hands, his ability to work, his sense of humor. I can’t say there are whole days when I don’t worry, but there are hours. I also grieve. I grieve for the years overwhelmed by his addiction, years when I was lost to my family, my writing, my self. I grieve for the loss of my optimism, the enthusiasm I used to feel that is now so hard to reclaim. I grieve for the relationship I used to have with Seth, the relationship I might have had with him now, one of openness and trust. I do not know how long it will take to rebuild that intimacy, or if that is still possible. I remember thinking when Seth was born that I would give my life to save his. Now I know that if he slips, there is nothing I can do.

Wendy Mnookin, “My Son, the Junkie”

Take some time to grieve for what you have lost or fear losing. Ask God for the Balm of Gilead.

NOT an Apology

Step Nine can be abused, particularly when we confuse an amends with an apology. An amend is not an apology. Amends making inevitably results in us changing our behavior. An apology side-steps that process. If we seek an apology rather than an amend, we are avoiding the hard and painful work of recognizing and feeling another person’s suffering. This is why an appropriate amends inevitably involves listening. We ask, “Did I miss anything?” We ask, “How can I make this right?” We ask so that we might listen, understand and have empathy for the person we once hurt.

When we say, “I’m sorry” we are changing the focus from our wrongdoing to our uncomfortable feelings. We are manipulating the other person to focus on the shiny object of our remorse. This is the very thing that got us into trouble to begin with - using someone else in an attempt to benefit ourselves. Saying “I’m sorry” doesn’t change anything.

A decent amends requires us to focus on how the other person feels. Perhaps the secret sauce to any good amends is listening. Not how they listen to us, but how we listen to them as they interact with our efforts to make a wrong right.

So often the drive to do the Ninth Step comes from the desire to get guilt off our back. I have a friend who once was so overcome with guilt about an affair he was having that he decided to make an amends - for an affair his wife knew nothing of! It was a disaster. He was blindsided by her rage. He was shocked that his relief was so fleeting as the consequences of his actions tumbled down on him, his wife, his family and even his friends like a ton of bricks. He swiftly moved from guilt to outrage as the divorce papers arrived via special messenger. He lamented, “My wife is not acting like a good christian!” Oh boy. He was not able to see her pain, as he focused in so attentively on his own.

When we ask someone to speak about the pain we caused them AND listen without apology and without excuses, their pain will only add to our own because we realize afresh that we have been the reason for someone else’s suffering. This is hard stuff but together, we can do hard things! But we need support and help and prayer and wisdom and God’s grace to get through it.

The Mystery of Forgiveness

The mystery of forgiveness I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.

Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

Instead of confusing amends with forgiveness, try to set aside all thoughts about reconciliation, forgiveness and the like for a future step. This helps us avoid the pitfalls of selfish, self-seeking motivations for admitting wrongdoing.

Amends = I was wrong; how can I make it right?

A Father's Grief

I longed for someone to scrape out every remnant of Nic from my brain and scrape out the knowledge of what was lost and scrape out the worry and not only my anguish but his and the burning inside like I might scrape out the seeds and juicy pulp of an overripe melon, leaving no trace of the rotted flesh. It felt as if nothing short of a lobotomy could alleviate the unremitting pain.

David Scheff, Beautiful Boy

Recently a family and I met to consider an intervention. As I met with the parents, Scott met with the son. Everyone was in great pain. All loved with open hearts and willing hands. But each was isolated too. Each member had their own brand of suffering that the others could not fully grasp.

This is the unfathomable complication of amends.

It is really hard to climb in another’s skin and empathize with their suffering when it feels like our own mind and heart is on fire with our own suffering. What kind of support do each of us need to calm our own suffering, so that we have the bandwidth to empathize with others? What do you need?

New Ways of Being and Doing

Recovery and spirituality have so much common ground - both are about leaning in to a new way of living. We only need to worry about amends if we want to live a life that makes room for the possibility of forgiveness, integrity, and courage. This inevitably includes dealing with issues of forgiveness - people forgiving me and me forgiving people who have harmed me. Over and over again we harm one another. Over and over again we are given the opportunity to make a wrong right. This is part of being human, and it is hard.

In the amazing book The Gift of Imperfection, authors Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham write:

In his book Is Human Forgiveness Possible?, theologian John Patton examines the New Testament story in which Peter asks Jesus of Nazareth, “Lord, when my brother wrongs me, how often must I forgive him? Seven times?” And Jesus answers: “No, not seven times; I say seventy times seven times.” (Matthew 18:21-22) Patton comments: Peter’s question seems to say, “Please give me a rule so I don’t have to keep dealing with this. How can I know when enough is enough? I want to know what to do instead of having to come to terms with the whole history of our relationship.” Jesus’ response to the question says in effect, “I am unwilling to give you a way out of a continuing relationship with your brother.”

As challenging as previous steps have been this one really gets to me because so often I want a way to avoid doing the next right thing when it comes to broken relationships. I want permission to find a way out of continuing to wrestle with the complicated and difficult nature of relationships where we harm one another over and over and over again. Even when we try our best to behave. Recovery and our faith say to us: I am unwilling to give you a way out because I have provided you a way through. Come on! Let’s keep going! Who do you want to be? That’s the question.