Well along in life, he lost the battle to the Irish curse. His drinking left his family in disarray. His wife left him. His adult children were confused and bitter as they witnessed his apparent self-destruction.
However, not all was lost. In fact, much was gained as he was gifted with sobriety. This is the point of my enthusiasm. The miracle of God’s grace, the gift that ultimately matters most in life, is much more readily embraced in the weakness of recovery than in the expanding bottom line of financial success. The only blessing of addiction is this. It may lead us to accept our total dependence on God in the midst of the harshest expressions of our human brokenness, in the addiction. Our freedom allows us to accept God’s grace as the only way of deliverance. So, I really appreciated the ending of the second chapter in the sobriety of my friend in spite of all the human misery along the painful road of recovery. The alternative was to let alcoholism have its final say which is death.
I
In the fourteenth century, the famous mystic, Julian of Norwich, had this celebrated insight. She said, first comes the fall, then the conversion. Both are an expression of God’s mercy.Gerald May’s reflections on addiction share this view. For May, the only liberating dimension of a serious addiction is this. It brings us to our knees in utter helplessness. We are boxed in. The only escape is turning to the mercy of God. It is a choice of life or death. The powerful pathology of the addiction gives us a twofold possibility: accept the total destruction of the addiction or turn to God. Thus, the addiction, in this strange turn of events, often leads to one of our deepest experiences of the grace of God’s mercy and compassion. Grace often sparkles wondrously in addiction.
Gerald May’s perceptive and articulate description of the working of God’s grace and human freedom concludes that no matter how powerful the addiction, the interaction of grace and freedom always remains an option. Delving into the mystery of grace, he points out that God never controls us but always respects our freedom. The heart of the mystery of grace is this. God’s love never changes, no matter what our response is. Whether we continue to waffle in our rejection of God’s beckoning or submit totally to the demands of grace, God’s love remains the same. This divine love is like “the hound of heaven”, forever pursuing our love and commitment.
This never-changing divine love contrasts with human love that is always burdened with the brokenness of a divided heart. Addictions are always pulling us away from the call of grace. On the other hand, regardless of our generosity or failure, God’s love always remains locked into our total wellbeing. God never turns away from us in our sin and rebellion.
It is right at this juncture of God’s faithfulness and our ambivalence that May meets with the great insight of Julian of Norwich. Even when our actions have disastrous consequences, God still respects our freedom. Even in our sin, no matter how extensive or pervasive, God’s love is totally faithful to us. It is always calling us out of death into life.
The overwhelming burden of the addiction brings us to our knees. Death stares us in the face. For the most substance abuse addictions this will include both physical and spiritual death. For all serious addictions, it leads to an idolatry producing our spiritual demise. We are totally constricted by the loss of freedom whose only redemption is surrender to God. Thus, the addiction, in this strange scenario, often opens us to one of the deepest experiences of the grace of God. For both May and Julian of Norwich this is the mercy of God that blossoms out of the utter depravity of our addiction.
II
The Hound of Heaven
The nineteenth century English poet Francis Thompson wrote “The Hound of Heaven.” It is a profound poem about grace and addiction. It is a magnificent story of God’s love pursuing him through the utter depths of depravity brought on by his drug addiction. It describes in detail the futility of the pursuit of happiness in drugs. The poem portrays God as The Hound of Heaven in relentless pursuit of the poet, offering freedom, healing, and a gracious reality in contrast to the destructive and fatal consequences of the drugs.
Thompson’s powerful language unfolds the depth of the burning conflict in his soul. Only slowly and painfully does the love of God emerge in response to the persistence of The Hound of Heaven.
Here are a few key lines from the poem along with the final section. I hope they encourage you to read the poem itself.
The Hound of Heaven
(Fragment)
All things betray thee, who betrayest Me. (15)
Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me. (51)
Lo naught contents thee, who content’st not Me. (110)
How hast thou merited—
Of all man’s clotted clay the dingiest clot?
Alack, thou knowest not
How little worthy of any love thou art!
Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee,
Save Me, save only Me?
All which I took from thee I did but take,
Not for thy harms,
But Just that thou might’st seek it in my arms.
All which thy child’s mistake
Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home:
Rise, clasp My hand, and come!”
Halts by me that footfall:
Is my gloom, after all,
Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?
‘Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,
I am He Whom thou seekest!
Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me.” (165-182)
