12 Years Free

I had the opportunity to speak in front of the recovery community at Lighthouse Church while being here in Fargo, ND. Snow was melting on the streets outside. They were honoring milestones: 1 month, 1 year, and annuals. I just hit 12 years sober, so here's what I shared:

"Over twelve years ago, I remember lying on my bathroom floor using a towel as a blanket, hungover, harassed by memories from the night before that were so embarrassing I wished they were dreams – and along with those memories flooded more from the weeks and months and years before that, along with a shame that was so deep it felt like it was being delivered via spinal tap that pushed beyond my spine all the way to my soul.

And in all of those memories, looking back now – whether it’s me blacked out in a car, or sleeping in an alley, or trying to drink enough to forget my name; I see myself as being in one spot, one prison, the whole time. Like in each of those moments I was buckling under the same set of iron shackles that had been forged by my own bitterness, my own self-hatred, my own self-obsession; I was captured in some kind of internal jailhouse.

On that first day I quit drinking twelve years ago, it’s like I can hear, now, though time, the first strike – the first clang – of an iron hammer against those shackles, and with each day I decided to stay sober there was another clang that sung the truths that slowly set me free. “I forgive myself and I am loved.” Clang. “I forgive everyone who I have been hurt by, and I will love them, too.” Clang. “I will reach for others who are drowning like I have drowned.” Clang. “Every breath that passes through my lungs is precious.” Clang.

And on and on it went until today – except it doesn’t feel like that hammer is beating me free from an internal prison any longer, it feels like those chains have fallen off of me, and I’m a blacksmith in an open field. And using that same iron that once bound me and using that same hammer, I’m somehow forging something new – like I was gifted iron in my suffering so I’d have the raw materials needed to forge whatever armor or ladder or sword I might need to step back into the dark and help others find their way to their own freedom.

I’ve been in Fargo for just a month, and I leave this Saturday, but in my short time here I’ve been in many meetings and services with many of you. And it’s like I can hear the iron clang of your own hammers against your own shackles, and I can hear the foot falls of you escaping your own prisons, sprinting through an open field along with me toward a horizon we all thought did not exist.

I may not know you, and I may not see you again, but I support you all and I love you all, and I hope you know – each day your hammer clangs is a victory, and that victory is available again if ever, whenever, you fall. And if that hammer on some days seems too heavy, I hope you know that God is with you, and he will help you lift it – and not only that, he has been with you the whole time. And like a father to his son, or a father to his daughter – he says, “Do not fear, for I am with you.” Isaiah 41:10. “I am close to the brokenhearted, and I save those who are crushed in spirit.” Psalm 34:18. “Even to your old age and gray hairs, I am He. I am He who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.” Isaiah 46:4. You are not alone.

12-years free. Thank you so much. Hallelujah."

Fargo: We Have a Seat For You

I met an old man here in Fargo; he has schizoaffective disorder – it’s a combination of hallucinations and delusions along with periods of depression and mania. He is bald only on the top of his head, his skin is chalky white, and his eyes you can tell used to be blue but are gray now. He has facial features almost like a young boy even though he’s old; it’s like he’s inside of a photograph that started fading a long time ago.

His father was a sugar farmer about an hour outside of Fargo; a Norwegian immigrant – that’s where the locals get their accent from (think: what you’ve heard in the show or movie ‘Fargo’). He was telling me about how his father was an alcoholic. In guessing what it must have been like, I told him a story from my own Dad whose father was an alcoholic, too. Harlan looked at me square in the eyes like I’d recognized something special, something secret, “ – that’s exactly what it was like,” he said. It’s like I was suddenly holding treasure, or like I threw a dart and it hit some place in his heart he thought was cold and alone and unknown. “That’s exactly what it was like,” he said.

The sun starts going down before 5PM around this time of year. The sun explodes across the snow; the light seems brighter somehow. The apartment I’m staying in has pipes that moan throughout the night. There are photographs of wolves on the walls, and another one showing a bison standing in the snow.

During my first week here, the heater was broken in my apartment. Outside it was -10° F. I’m not sure what temperature it was in here, but I was still cold with two pairs of socks, two sweaters, two blankets, and a beanie. I got sick. The water was shut off for 24 hours. Three of my toes went completely numb and turned white; I found out this was due to a combination of the cold and the pressure from the two pairs of socks. In a hot shower, I looked down in disbelief as the first toe that had turned white remained white for what seemed like several minutes. I thought – I couldn’t have gotten frostbite from just sitting in this apartment, right?

A few blocks from me there’s an old colonial building with big white pillars holding up the awning above its porch; it’s a church, I’d come to find. I pulled the neck of my jacket over my face as I walked there – frostbite can show in about 30 minutes when it’s this cold. In front of the building, a few people were hanging around smoking cigarettes. They had neck tattoos and piercings and the kinds of personal adornments a midwestern mom might clutch her purse to even think of.

Inside I found myself sitting next to a man with a tattoo on his face of a cherub holding an AK47. One of the services was interrupted by someone drunk, walking to their seat, heckling the pastor. Someone else stood up and shared how she’d abandoned her children for her boyfriend who was a drug dealer. And right after the pastor shared their fundraising goal of $75,000, he announced a member of their congregation had died of an overdose; he encouraged everyone to attend his memorial even if they didn’t know him. This church is, I've discovered, from the front door to the pulpit – for those struggling with addiction; the congregation is aimed at recovery. I’ve joined their weekly meetings, Sundays and Thursdays.

There’s a stark brutality to Fargo. There are no mountains on the horizon. It’s flat. Your eyes see Fargo and only Fargo and then the sky. Like maybe Fargo is all that exists. A local told me, “I don’t know why anyone lives here.”

The lonely cold makes any warmth you receive even warmer, though. When I shook someone’s hand and had a nice conversation, or when I stepped back into my apartment, the warmth embraced me more than it would’ve had I stepped in from weather less brutal.

In the cold, and without mountains on the horizon to remind you you’re part of something greater, maybe it’s like you have to be that for each other here – each home has to paint mountains on its own horizon and light its own fire. Maybe that’s where that midwestern kindness comes from. “It’s cold outside, and there isn’t too much going on, but it’s warm in here, and we have a seat for you."

Nomad, fully.

I just left everything behind. No keys to a home in my pocket. Nomad, fully.

My old apartment’s empty. My family all got together to have some pizza together. My Dad and Mom grabbed this selfie at the airport.

And now I’m writing this from a city I’ve never been, in an apartment I’ll never come back to, on a street that - before this - I didn’t know existed. I’ve never lived outside of the bay in my life, and moving forward I’ll live everywhere.

Lose your life and find it. If a vision lands on your heart, commit to it. Step into whatever unknown somewhere, or unknown something, you are called into by that still small voice - and be free.

In Fargo, ND.