The next several posts will focus on several periods from the earlier part of my life: 1) the Oklahoma years – birth through 5th grade; 2) the first Kansas years – 6th grade through high school graduation; 3) undergraduate college; 4) serving in the United States Air Force; 5) first graduate school experience and following first employment.

For each of these five periods of time I plan to briefly discuss autobiographical details, but, more importantly, write about things that happened during that period of time that have proven to be important in my development as a human being. As you might imagine some of these experiences had a profound and lasting influence on my life – both positive and negative. Other experiences seemed extraordinarily important at the time – but the passage of time and life has either relegated them to less important or other experiences have provided important new understandings of who I am and who I was created to be.

A few years ago, I encountered a book that I continue to believe to be the most important book I have ever read and re-read and re-read. The book is Addiction and Grace authored by Gerald G. May, M.D. (San Francisco: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1988). The following words, which continue to profoundly influence my day to day living, are from the beginning of this marvelous book:

I am convinced that all human beings have in inborn desire for God. Whether we are consciously religious or not, this desire is our deepest longing and our most precious treasure. It gives us meaning. Some of us have repressed this desire, burying it beneath so many other interests that we are completely unaware of it. Or we may experience it in different ways – as a longing for wholeness, completion, or fulfillment. Regardless of how we describe it, it is a longing for love. It is a hunger to love, to be loved, and to move closer to the Source of love. This yearning is the essence of the human spirit; it is the origin of our highest hopes and most noble desires.

Modern theology describes this desire as God given. In an outpouring of love, God creates us and plants the seeds of this desire within us. Then, throughout our lives, God nourishes this desire, drawing us toward fulfillment of the two great commandments: “Thou shalt love thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself.” If we could claim our longing for love as the true measure of our hearts, we would, with God’s grace, be able to live these commandments.

But something gets in the way. Not only are we unable to fulfill the commandments; we often even ignore our desire to do so. The longing at the center of our hearts repeatedly disappears from our awareness, and its energy is usurped by forces that are not at all loving. Our desires are captured, and we give ourselves over to things that, in our deepest honesty, we really do not want. There are times when each of us can easily identify with the words of the apostle Paul: “I do not understand my own behavior; I do not act as I mean to, but I do the things that I hate. Though the will to do what is good is in me, the power to do it is not; the good thing I want to do, I never do; the evil thing which I do not want – that is what I do.”

In writing these words, Paul was talking about sin. Theologically, sin is what turns us away from love – away from love for ourselves, away from love for one another, and away from love for God. (1-2)

And then just a couple of pages later Dr. May writes:

Understanding will not deliver us from addiction, but it will, I hope, help us appreciate grace. Grace is the most powerful force in the universe. It can transcend repression, addiction, and every other internal or external power that seeks to oppress the freedom of the human heart. Grace is where our hope lies. (4-5)

Until next time – may grace and peace be yours!