Corking the Bottle

If you're as old as I am, you might remember a time back in the hippie days when the country was fighting a winless war and our leaders were being assassinated and peace rallies turned into riots. We heard the cry many times from many places: God is dead! It seemed as though the world was out of control. The captain of the ship had stepped away from the wheel and we were sinking. There were no lifeboats, just sandbags. I was a kid then. I thought that's the way our existence would be forever. I knew no other social environment. Maybe, I wondered, God really is dead. I know better now. Sometimes God does step away from the wheel. That's the way my dad taught me to ride a bike: by holding me up and then, without a word, letting me pedal on my own while staying a safe distance behind to catch me. The following is from a book, Coming Clean , by Seth Haines ( https://modernmrsdarcy.com/books/coming-clean-a-story-of-faith/ ). The passage is a little long for this blog ...

I am in the process of reading Coming Clean by Seth Haines ( https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25910321-coming-clean ). He writes about his battle with alcoholism, fed in part by his pain over his toddler son who is unable to ingest food. Doctors can't seem to help the little boy and so he probably is dying. The author also describes unresolved pains from his own childhood, and does so through analogies and metaphors that help me see what has led him to alcohol abuse and the detox process. In my drinking days, I too anguished over truth and lies and my history that left me with only positive memories. "What is the truth about truth? If it is absolute, if it is not subject to interpretation, why can I not perceive it? Where does it hide? Behind the eyes and between the ears? Is is secreting away in the nooks and crannies of my brain; does it burrow down somewhere between the folds where it waits to be germinated? Is it a seed? Does the soil sometimes turn on it, refuse t...