Simple Acts of Kindness

. . . are the Holy Spirit's specialty

In my early twenties my life turned around, largely when I quit drinking. It was a good decision, made less by me than by the Holy Spirit and for which I am eternally grateful. I was living in hell - familiar in a family history sort of way but nothing you'd wish on someone you loved. It was change or die and most days my response was "I'm thinking about it.”

I chain-smoked unfiltered Camels and drank coffee fifteen, twenty hours a day. I couldn’t sleep and drank in secret, cheap jugs of wine I bought with money I borrowed or stole from family and friends. Between binges, I walked miles and miles with my head down. I wrote nihilistic poems on scrap paper and lost them. I didn't want to live and was terrified of dying. I truly hated myself.

And then I started reading Charles Bukowski poems.

If you know Bukowski, then you know that he is a genius whose work is perhaps not ideal for a sensitive young poet at nontrivial risk of killing himself. I was stuck in half a dozen downward spirals and all Bukowski did was accelerate them.

In those days, I had a friend. We’ll call him Richard. Richard was an ex-priest who had worked out the worst of his drinking problems. I don’t remember how we met, but sometimes our paths would cross and we would talk. I told him the truth. I hated the way I was living but couldn't stop. Death was always in my mind making a case for itself. And Bukowski was basically nudging me ever closer to the exit.

Richard shrugged and said, "so don't read him."

Until Richard told me that I didn't have to read Bukowski, I didn't know I had a choice. It seems so simple now but back then I was truly confused. We were sitting on a park bench in Burlington Vermont, the wind was coming off Lake Champlain and I felt as if somebody had thrown open a window that had been locked shut for decades. I didn't have to suffer? I could choose something different?

Here is the thing. We always have that choice. This world is a manifestation of fear; it is riddled through and through with suffering and death. But we can always dream a happier dream. We can always refuse hell, and ask instead the way to Heaven.

And when we ask for help, help is given.

Ask and it shall be given you because it has already been given. Ask for light and learn that you are light (T-8.III.1:2-3).

The One Who teaches us this lesson transforms all life with His teaching.

Each instant is a clean, untarnished birth, in which the Son of God emerges from the past into the present. And the present extends forever. It is so beautiful and so clean and free of guilt that nothing but happiness is there. No darkness is remembered, and immortality and joy are now (T-15.I.8:4-7).

It only takes a moment to let the Holy Spirit re-translate the world and our lives in it. We stop perceiving each other as enemies, and instead know each other as spiritual family. We see Christ in our brothers and sisters and they in turn glimpse Christ in us. We understand that it is no dream to love our brothers and sisters as ourself (T-18.V.5:1).

These glimpses inspire us to service, which is the living manifestation of kindness. We become like my friend and I on a park bench all those years ago. We become intentionally vulnerable and speak our truth, however difficult or seemingly meaningless it seems. We cry out for love and we respond with love. In care-filled and non-dramatic ways we are consistently present to one another.

In this way, we let the Holy Spirit use us to make both us and the world happy.

Happy dreams come true, not because they are dreams, but because they are happy. And so they must be loving. Their message is “Thy will be done,” and not “I want it otherwise” (T-18.V.4:1-3).

A lot of time has passed since that afernoon. Richard died of a heroin overdose in a faraway city. And I have somehow cobbled together a life in which it is possible to be in relationship with women and men whose kindness and courage always gently beckon me away from the abyss. Most days I forget it’s even there. Together we share the road to Emmaus; together we remind each other of the One who shares that road with us.

Bukowski, by the way, saw the problem clearly - we are dead in this world and need to be reborn. And for all his own pain and suffering, he knew that rebirth was possible.

There was - there is always - hope.

I have not escaped
but I have not failed in trying again and
again.

before my death I hope to obtain my
life.

For me, the secret was not to try and obtain it alone. It is not easy. I am grateful to all the ones who share with me the road to salvation. The only way to walk it is together, and the way to be together is over and over to offer - and accept - simple acts of kindness.

Love,
Sean