Carver: Recovery

“LATE FRAGMENT:

And did you get what

you wanted from this life, even so?

I did.

And what did you want?

To call myself beloved, to feel myself

beloved on the earth.”

—Inscription on the tombstone of Raymond Carver along with his poem “Gravy.”

This takes me back again to Olivia Laing’s story in The Trip to Echo Spring on the relationships of six award-winning, but alcohol-addicted, authors: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, John Berryman, John Cheever, and Raymond Carver. Knowing that Carver is the only one of these six majorly talented American writers who went into significant 12-step recovery for any length of time tells us a great deal about addiction—how cunning and baffling the disease is even for the most brilliant and creative of minds.

I hope you have a chance at some time to read my favorite Carver story, “A Small Good Think” about a dying son, his birthday cake, and the baker of the cake. Make sure you read Carver’s original version, published after his death by his wife, Tess Gallagher, in Beginners (Vintage, 2015).

For people caught in this disease, their addiction, alcohol, drugs, sex, relationships, work—all become their God, their higher power. It is impossible to find the relationship with God that our life continues to call us to when there is something else in our “God hole.” The paradox, of course, is that the answer, the awakening, the Lazarus experience for any addiction is a spiritual one: turning our lives and wills over to the care of the God of our understanding.

Joanna joannaseibert.com

Book Signing Wordsworth Books

Saturday, November 2, 2019 1 to 3 pm

Just in time for the holidays

A Spiritual Rx for Advent Christmas, and Epiphany

The Sequel to A Spiritual Rx for Lent and Easter

Both are $18. Money from sale of the books goes to Camp Mitchel Camp and Conference Center in Arkansas or Hurricane Relief in

The Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast

Carver: Gravy

“No other word will do. For that’s what it was.

Gravy.

Gravy, these past ten years.

Alive, sober, working, loving, and

being loved by a good woman. Eleven years

ago he was told he had six months to live

at the rate he was going. And he was going

nowhere but down. So he changed his ways

somehow. He quit drinking! And the rest?

After that it was all gravy, every minute

of it, up to and including when he was told about,

well, some things that were breaking down and

building up inside his head. ‘Don’t weep for me,’

he said to his friends. ‘I’m a lucky man.

I’ve had ten years longer than I or anyone

expected. Pure Gravy. And don’t forget it.’”

—Raymond Carver in The New Yorker (9/29/1988), p. 28.

It is not unusual that people coming for spiritual direction are seeking some relief from an addiction. They are under the influence of another “spirit” and have “seen through a glass darkly” that the answer may be a spiritual one—a relationship with what those in recovery call “a higher power.” They may just come for a brief time. As a spiritual friend, we are there to care for their soul that has been anesthetized, put to sleep by drugs, alcohol, work, shopping, etc. We keep looking to see where God has been working in the person’s life, caring for that soul; and we keep praying that through those moments he or she will know God’s leading to the world of Spirit.

There is a recovery theme or principle that a person caught in addiction must reach some kind of “bottom” before he or she will have a moment of clarity leading to a desire to change. We look for that bottom and hope to bring to awareness what the person can learn from that devastating event or events.

Raymond Carver was a brilliant poet, short story writer—and an alcoholic. When he reached his bottom in June of 1977, he went into recovery for ten years. This is his famous poem about his last ten years in recovery, written at age fifty before he died of lung cancer. It is also inscribed on his tombstone in Port Angeles, Washington. I sometimes share this poem when that moment of clarity comes to someone I am talking with.

Olivia Laing has written an insightful book, The Trip to Echo Spring (Picador, 2013), about the association between creativity and alcohol in the lives of six writers: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, John Berryman, John Cheever, and Raymond Carver. Carver is the only one of these six who found significant recovery.

Joanna. Joannaseibert.com

Book Signing Wordsworth Books

Saturday, November 2, 2019 1 to 3 pm

Just in time for the holidays

A Spiritual Rx for Advent Christmas, and Epiphany

The Sequel to A Spiritual Rx for Lent and Easter

Both are $18. Money from sale of the books goes to Camp Mitchel Camp and Conference Center in Arkansas or Hurricane Relief in

The Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast

Redbud Blossoms and Fig Trees

“Then [Jesus] told this parable: ‘A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’” —Luke 13:6-9.

There is a wild redbud tree outside my office window that in the spring had beautiful pink budding flower clusters very close to the stem. The tree is in the middle of a line of wild bushes and hardwood trees. For several years I saw no new life on it. Then, one spring, when I was outside, I noticed these beautiful blossoms and wondered where they were coming from.

When I went back to my office I could not find the tree. Then I happened to look up from my desk. There they were, high above the other trees. The tree was flowering only in the canopy above my window. Lower down in my direct vision there were no blossoms. It gave me pause, and I determined to stop during the day to look up from my line of vision—to interrupt my work to glance away and take in the beauty of the blossoms.

One more lesson from my blossoming redbud tree: Very near its trunk it has divided into three parts. For years, it looked as though only one of the divisions was living and flowering. The other two large sections had no leaves or blossoms. Then, this year, I notice that at the very top of the middle division, clusters of blossoms have formed.

I am reminded of the fig tree in the Gospels. Jesus calls us to be patient and expectant. What is difficult to detect and may seem to be dead may still be very much alive and capable of producing beauty and fruit.

Joanna joannaseibert.com

Book Signing Wordsworth Books

Saturday, November 2, 2019 1 to 3 pm

Just in time for the holidays

A Spiritual Rx for Advent Christmas, and Epiphany

The Sequel to A Spiritual Rx for Lent and Easter

Both are $18. Money from sale of the books goes to Camp Mitchel Camp and Conference Center in Arkansas or Hurricane Relief in

The Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast