Eric S. Fought

A prodigal misfit's journey.

We’re Still Here

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I’m grateful to the editors of U.S. Catholic magazine for providing me with the opportunity to tell my story and enter the ongoing conversation regarding the clergy abuse crisis in the Roman Catholic Church.

You can read my essay, “We’re Still Here,” which is published in the July issue of the magazine by clicking here.

In the mid-1980s I was sexually abused by a Roman Catholic priest, the pastor of my parish in rural Wisconsin. For many years I didn’t tell anyone, keeping what seemed like a promise. Gratefully, our family moved in December of 1986, and I never saw the priest again. He died in 2008.

I’m 42 now, more than 30 years removed from the trauma I experienced. I’ve had the opportunity to address what happened with many professionals, close friends, and fellow survivors.

As the church continues to grapple with this crisis, it is important that we are intentional about the reality that many survivors have chosen not to leave, but remain. Indeed, we’re still here, we welcome your prayers, and we yearn for you to know us and our stories.

Read the essay by visiting the U.S. Catholic website.

Sent Out in Pairs

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The international fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous began in 1935 when two men, Bill W., and Dr. Bob S., met in the home of a mutual friend in Akron, Ohio. Medical professionals, friends, family members, clergy and the men’s spouses all described Bill and Dr. Bob as “hopeless cases,” likely to die from alcoholism, a disease of the body, mind, and spirit. The key for Dr. Bob was that he found in Bill, and many other alcoholics he would encounter during the rest of days, a fellow traveler, someone who truly understood what it — alcoholism — was like. And Bill found in Dr. Bob, and countless alcoholics he would meet over the remainder of his life, someone whom he could help simply by sharing his own experience, strength, and hope.

The program of Alcoholics Anonymous, and the many 12-step fellowships that have been created over the years are based on the principle that alcoholics and addicts stay clean and sober by reaching out to others and giving away what they have been given. It was through attraction, and not promotion, that the fellowship grew from two idealistic drunks to an organization with a presence in more than 180 countries around the globe.

In Sunday’s Gospel text, Jesus sends 72 disciples out into the world. It is, indeed, an unusually specific numeric reference. But, perhaps more important than the number 72 is the number two. The disciples were sent out to minister in pairs.

This is good news for sure. After all, it wasn’t going to be an easy life. Lambs among wolves…no money bag, no sandals or sack to carry anything of value with you. All that the disciples had was themselves, their faith in Jesus, and their ministry partner.

In the life of discipleship, the question is not what you need but who.

We don’t walk this journey alone. We need each other — for support, encouragement, a listening ear, perhaps even advice at times. We learn from the experience of others who have walked before us, and we share our own experience with those who walk with us.

In our current context, the harvest that is in need of reaping is the tremendous pain that so many carry around each day. Our opportunity, as followers of Jesus, is to go out into the world (from the comfort of our pews and our homes) and bring with us open hearts, listening ears, and a prayerful presence. With that presence, with those ears and with our hearts, we can harvest much that burdens our neighbors.

However, we will only be able to really help those who are hurting if we are authentic about the pain we carry ourselves. In sharing our own experiences of grief, mental illness, economic insecurity, addiction, strains on our families, and other challenges that cause us hurt, others can relate. And in relating, they are not only meeting us but meeting Jesus, who has sent us out ahead of him.

People who are hurting — all of us — need to know that the kingdom of God is at hand. That should not instill further fear and shame, but hope. For the kingdom of our God brings love, liberation, reconciliation, and resurrection. Too often, and for too long, we have failed to share such a hope-filled message. And now, more than ever, we need to get it right.

And in so doing, by going out into the world two-by-two, we can bring hope to that hurting, bruised and broken world. Along the way, we, too, will be helped, for just as one alcoholic helping another alcoholic keeps both sober, one hurting child of God helping another will keep both in the loving arms of their Creator. The laborers will grow, not through promotion, but through attraction, to the liberating, life-giving movement of discipleship we tend to call the church.

Copyright – Celebration Publications – July 2019

The Spirit of Pentecost

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Several years ago, a friend of mine, a bishop in the Episcopal Church, gave a sermon on the Feast of Pentecost, making note of a sermon she had heard from a Southern preacher. In the south, she noted, Pentecost often comes right at the beginning of hurricane season. To the faithful along the Gulf Coast and up and down the Atlantic, wind has a very different significance than it might to those of us who grew up in the Midwest.

Wind, in such a climate, is not a positive source of life, but one that often causes death, destruction and pain. The slightest breeze in June or July can bring shivers for anyone that has ever been evacuated or lost a home.

The wind of the Spirit, the role the Spirit plays in our lives and the questions we are asked in the process of discernment aren’t always positive. It’s often the big questions in life that cause us to stop and consider how the Spirit is working. Those questions aren’t always questions or situations we want to face.

The Spirit calls on us to consider the best way to respond to whatever the wind is pushing us towards. We are called to discern how to handle the care of an ailing spouse or parent or child, perhaps even to pray about the journey at the end of life and the decisions that come with it.

Indeed, it seems that the Spirit works in us even when we might not even believe that God is with us anymore. The wind of that Spirit pushes us to reach out for help when we are struggling, after a relationship ends or a job is lost. That wind blows even when we put up as many defenses as we can, no matter how far we dig our heels into the sand.

Even when we think we’ve said no, the Spirit demands that we continue to discern and engage.

However, the Spirit doesn’t always act as a mighty and destructive wind. At times, that same Spirit acts as a breath, offering us new life and energy, often at times when we need it most. Here we are reminded of the presence of God, even in the most simple and mundane ways. In the way we breathe, or how someone makes our day with a smile or a note or a surprise.

The Spirit doesn’t just show up as a mighty wind, asking us to discern the biggest decisions in our life, like choosing religious life or marriage or single life, how to best pick up the pieces when someone dies, or even what to do when we win the Powerball jackpot.

The Spirit and our call to discernment from that Spirit shows up in varied ways—as both a mighty wind and as a life-giving breath—throughout our lives, even when we aren’t paying attention.

And, as we are reminded in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, the call to discernment is not only an individual spiritual endeavor. Indeed, for us as Christians it must happen in the midst of a community, where we are not individuals at all, but the same spirit.

There are many parallels between the church in Corinth and our church today. The need for, and pleas toward, unity that Paul expresses to the deeply divided community he seeks to minister to can easily be adapted to our own lives, our parishes, and the church throughout the world.

We are called to consider, as the church in Corinth considered, how to welcome those who are different than us into our midst, even and especially when they are sitting right in the pew next to us.

We are called by the Spirit to discern how to move beyond charity and towards justice, to find ways to bring about compassion in a world that is so deprived of it. We are blown around by the wind of a Spirit that asks us to talk to one another. That Spirit tussles us until we can finally let go of all that divides rather than unites, that harms more than cares for our neighbors.

Just as we will likely not survive a hurricane standing alone in the middle of a coastal boardwalk as the eye of the storm makes landfall, we cannot thrive without each other.

How do we honor the diversity of gifts that we all bring to this specific time and place? No matter the gifts given to each of us – they all stem from the same community, the same Spirit, and the same God who makes it all happen.

The Journey Home

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The opening scene of the popular film Love Actually features footage taken outside of the arrivals gate of a busy airport. One of the characters narrates:

Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think of the arrivals gate at Heathrow airport. General opinion is starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed. But I don’t see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often it’s not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it’s always there. Fathers and sons, mother’s and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaking feeling you’ll find that love actually is all around.

Whether or not you’ve ever seen the movie, or remember that scene, you can probably relate to seeing folks reunited at the airport. Perhaps you’ve had the experience yourself of waiting for someone to get off the plane and turn the corner, making their way past security.

In late 2006 I traveled to Jackson Hole, Wyoming on a business trip. I was gone for several days, nearly a week. My partner, Hugh, and I were in the middle of what might be referred to as an epic fight. One for the ages. The argument began before I left and continued with angry phone calls from my hotel room. I don’t remember what we were fighting about exactly, but I’m sure that I was wrong.

At the time we lived in Lincoln, Nebraska, about an hour’s drive from the airport in Omaha. My plane landed late in the evening and I was planning on riding back to Lincoln with a colleague. However, as I walked toward baggage claim, I was surprised to find Hugh standing there, waiting for me.

He died about a year later. I still think of that moment just about every time I get off a plane, no matter where I land. As I exit the jetway, there is a part of me that hopes to be able to relive that moment, to be surprised by the embrace of unconditional love.

Unconditional love, whether from a partner, or a parent, or someone else, is unexpected. It catches us by surprise. Our minds tell us that we don’t deserve such love, and as a result, we never expect it to happen.

Rembrandt, The Return of the Prodigal Son

The younger son in the parable Jesus told the Pharisees (Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32) was certainly not expecting the love he experienced. Perhaps he knew that his father would treat him with some degree of kindness. But robes and rings and a lavish feast? Surely he never expected any of that.

And that’s one lesson Jesus is undoubtedly teaching in this text. God’s love is just like the love of the father in the story. Lavish. Surprising. Unexpected. Unconditional.

We tend to focus on the son, connecting his prodigal journey with our own experiences, those times when we squandered what we had, perhaps burned a bridge or found ourselves checking Craigslist for hog handler positions.

We may enter the story there, as prodigal sons and daughters ourselves. But Henri Nouwen, the late priest, and spiritual writer and others encourage us to set our gaze on the father. Because that is where the love is.

Imagine the pain he experienced, the worry he felt each day that his son was gone. Those of you that are parents surely can. Some of us in his position would have simply moved on, heartbroken by the child’s selfish acts of disowning. And yet, there he waited, lovingly looking out onto the horizon day after day, eagerly anticipating his son’s return.

And the joy! The joy the father experienced as he finally set eye on the one he thought might be dead. Nothing else mattered. It was time to celebrate.

Perhaps we enter the story there, in the beauty of the reunion, the hope found in the reconciliation. But do we believe that such a love as expressed in this parable is possible for us? Maybe we can get there in our head, the idea that God might love us without condition. Maybe, but I doubt it. And, beyond an intellectual understanding, we certainly have difficulty believing that such a love is possible deep within us, in our gut, in our soul.

We have too many solid examples of conditional love, tapes of hurt and brokenness to play back in our heads. Of fathers who let us down and didn’t wait for us with robes and rings. Of partners or spouses who fell out of love with us. Of times when we put ourselves first, not sharing with others the love we so desperately sought and seek ourselves.

Because our human experience of love has so often let us down, it is nearly impossible to wrap our heads and our hearts around a God who loves us each and every moment of our days without condition.

And, because we believe unconditional love is so far beyond our reach, we seek out other ways to have that hole in our hearts filled. Henri Nouwen writes in his book, The Return of the Prodigal Son[i], “I am the prodigal son every time I search for unconditional love where it cannot be found.”

Some of us try to fill that hole with alcohol, or drugs, addictions that provide a fix that is not only temporary but which further separate us from God and God’s love for us. But even if you never pick up a drink or a drug, there are other ways to fill the hole. We become addicted to money, sex, food, work, things.

Nouwen says, “Our addictions make us cling to what the world proclaims as the keys to self-fulfilment: accumulation of wealth and power; attainment of status and admiration; lavish consumption of food and drink, and sexual gratification without distinguishing between lust and love.” Nouwen continues, “In these days of increasing addictions, we have wandered far away from our Father’s home. The addicted life can aptly be designated a life lived in ‘a distant country.’ It is from there that our cry for deliverance rises up.”

Addicts and alcoholics refer to that cry for deliverance as a moment of clarity. That moment when you are in the middle of the pigsty, eating the leftover scraps. In desperation, you realize that you are not living the life that God or anyone else intended for you. You become aware that as you desperately seek fulfillment outside of yourself and your God, eagerly seeking out that next fix, there might, just might, be a different path.

Hopefully, the moment of clarity is long enough for you to take notice, and to begin the long walk home. It’s a path full of fear and anxiety and shame, but a path toward healing and reconciliation. And for me, and possibly you or someone you love, it can be a step toward saving your life.

The good news today is that such a path exists, a road back to the father who is waiting on the top of the hill for you. As he sees you turning the corner, coming closer and closer to home, he begins to smile. And as you come closer, he begins to dance and shout. For nothing, absolutely nothing will ever keep our God from jumping for joy at the sight of us.

If you walk that path, the path home to God’s unceasing and unconditional love enough times, eventually you begin to believe that love actually does exist. That doesn’t stop you from forgetting, but the road becomes easier to navigate.

And, by the way, it’s much easier to navigate that path when you are not alone, but in the midst of a loving community on the same journey. So, when you get to a place where you have come to know God’s unconditional love, and I hope you have or will, it’s up to you to bring others along. Whether they be in your midst this morning, or as you go about your days. There are so many people yearning to turn the corner, to approach the father’s house and see God jumping for joy. Be the guide they need.

 

 

 

 

[i] Henri Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son (New York: Doubleday, 1992) 42-43.

These Days Ahead

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I struggle with Lent, which is natural. It’s meant to be challenging, the invitation is to conversion, to change. And we all know change, even the idea of it, is hard.

But I also struggle with Lent because I know that for those of us that walk each day living with mental health conditions of various types, this season provides specific challenges.

The reality of suicidal ideation already places death front and center. The last thing many of us needs is a reminder.

Low self-esteem and feelings of worthlessness are not the result of a chosen path toward spiritual kenosis, but daily challenges to navigate.

For me, and perhaps for you, Lent offers the chance for a new perspective.

Rather than choosing to give up chocolate or pie or even cigarettes, I try to instead give up all that keeps me from living fully: crippling self-doubt, painful memories, fears and insecurities about the future, toxic relationships.

But—and this is important—I also remind myself that some, if not many, of these things are out of my control, symptoms of chronic illness rather than failures on my part.

Some things we can let go of, some things we can’t. Sometimes I can choose gratitude, some days all I can do is drink my coffee and put on my shoes and do the best I can.

Lent is a time to be reminded that it’s all part of the journey.

These days remind us not only of Jesus’ journey from death to new life but our own. Together, we walk through the many challenges of our lives mindful of the hope that Easter brings, and we do so amid a community of people walking the same path. Outside of the walls of our home or parish, we find growing division, and many people experiencing pain. This season prepares us to walk with Jesus into Jerusalem, through the streets to the cross and the tomb, and listen for the call to bring the hope of resurrection to a world in need.

More than anything, Lent reminds us of our humanity. To say that “we are dust” is not to say that we are dirt. It is a call to embrace who we are, to connect with others who share in the messiness, and to seek out our loving Creator, ever more mindful of that Creator’s invitation to be embraced by love, understanding, and life-giving water to stymy our dustiness.

Beautiful Boy

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I saw Beautiful Boy over the weekend with some good friends. It was tough to watch, but important to see.

Beautiful Boy is based on a pair of memoirs by a father and son, David and Nic Sheff, about Nic’s struggles with addiction, primarily to crystal methamphetamine. Steve Carrell and Timothée Chalamet star in the film, which is directed by Felix van Groeningen.

I don’t often talk publicly about the specifics of my addiction to crystal methamphetamine, which began nearly 10 years ago. Generally when I do share about my journey I do so in less specific terms, calling myself an addict and alcoholic. It’s a way of avoiding some of the shame, of which there is much. And yet I know it’s important for me to be honest in order to continue to recover.

My name is Eric, and I am a crystal meth addict in recovery today.

The film accurately portrays the experience of powerlessness, the unceasing power of the drug, and its effects on all aspects of the addict’s life. It also shows the ways in which meth addiction not only destroys the life of the one addicted to it, but impacts the lives of all those around him.

I’m grateful to be clean today. And these I’m holding in prayer all of my friends who have walked the same path, with an open invitation to help as I can.

And, I’m mindful of all those who have been by my side, through all of the ups and the downs, even when they needed to detach in order to help me find clarity. Thank you, and I love you.