I remember Frankie, the main character in Carson McCullers’s Member of the Wedding, saying, “the world is a sudden and dangerous place…,” but when I googled the quote to verify it, I found that she says only, “the world is a sudden place…” When did the danger come in?

Actually, in my corner of the world—rural New Hampshire—the world right now doesn’t seem all that dangerous. As long as I don’t turn on the TV or radio, as long as I don’t look at any newspaper or magazine, and as long as I don’t talk with anyone except BridgetAdams (my golden retriever) or Freckles (the cat,) then I can just bask in the clear New England sky, the crisp late-summer air, the trees just getting their first blush of fall color. I can listen to recordings of my favorite music, re-read books that I’ve loved for decades or watch movies that I’ve already viewed (so there are no unhappy or dangerous surprises.) I can even knit patterns I’ve used before. My world can be predictable and safe, not sudden and dangerous.

There are problems with thinking that my cotton-batting swathed bubble is the world. One of the biggest problems is that I am an alcoholic and I can’t stay sober alone. I need other people to tell my story to so I remember who and what I am. I need to listen to tales that other people tell of the redemption of their regrettable pasts so my soul expands. Truth to tell, it’s not only staying sober that I can’t do alone. I can’t live my life alone. There’s not a whole lot of fun. Conversation with a dog and a cat gets tedious.

Their opinions tend to mimic mine and there’s no stimulating banter.

I try to tell myself that the world—the big world out there—has always been fraught with danger and uncertainty. Even if Kurt Vonnegut and certain mystical scientists are correct and past, present, and future are all swirling around us simultaneously, in my linear perception of existence, there is “before,” “now” and “sometime sooner or later.”

My friend Marcia and I were talking recently (this will get dangerous) and we each said in our own way, “Oh, I wish things were simple and good the way they were when we were in fifth grade.” But then we looked at each other with our white-privileged eyes and said, “Hmm…things really weren’t all that great, were they…?” We muttered to each other… “Oh, right…polio…discrimination…hunger…”

So even if the world out there has always been…difficult…and even if the idyllic childhoods of our memory were really not heavenly havens of protected comfort, it seems that now things are worse than ever. We are all together going through a “rough patch.” There’s a whole lot of unhappiness, turmoil and grief happening. There’s more overt social antagonism than ever before in my personal memory, although history certainly has repetitious tales to tell of similar antics by our human forebears.

So I calm myself down and I think of two things:

• 1.   I am an alcoholic in recovery. I can attest (to anyone who listens) that it is possible to be an alcoholic who chooses not to use alcohol for years on end. My mind is filled with words and images that sustain me. A grateful heart never drinks. One day (moment, minute, second) at a time I can not drink, no matter what I or the people I love are suffering through.
• 2.   I am a Beloved Child of God. I am an Episcopalian. I am a church goer. I pray daily. I know all the words to lots of hymns. I have been baptized and confirmed. I receive communion regularly. I can tell Jesus anything and am convinced that he still likes me and wants to reassure me.

Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Hold your horses (I can hear my mother saying that) —isn’t there a third thing that will calm you down?

Oh yes, I think of this, the most important: as Cassius said in his brilliant August sermon, “With all humility, persistence and strength (the church) can inoculate a fearful world with the blessing of hope.” ¹

• 3.   In our faith and in our recovery, we have received a promise: we are not alone. God is with us. God will see us through this. We—the church—the recovery community—we have work to do. We are, each of us, important and needed and we have been given gifts to share, to use, to help ease the travails of those with whom we are trudging along this path.

It is ours to give the world a shot in the arm—a vaccination against despair—we have been given the blessing of hope. The blessing of promises that come true. That blessing, the promise that all shall be well. That all is well.

–Christine A. H.

1. With all humility, persistence and strength (the church) can inoculate a fearful world with the blessing of hope. The Rev. Cassius Webb, sermon videotaped at All Saints’ Church Peterborough NH. 8/23/20