The Intellectual Devotional

Because of my alcoholism, I’ve spent a lot of time over the last ten years or so among evangelical Christians. That’s because most recovery programs (the kind that don’t cost tens of thousands of dollars, anyway) rely heavily on faith rather than therapy, mostly Christianity. Say what you want about it—and there’s plenty to say—but that approach does work for some people. There are significant numbers of people out there who are searching desperately for something to believe in, something with the potential to change their lives.

Unfortunately, faith is something I’ve always struggled with. Maybe it’s because of my education or my intellectual curiosity, maybe it’s because of Star Trek and sci-fi in general, or maybe it’s because of my own stubbornness, but I’ve never been able to bring myself to wholly believe in something on faith alone, especially if it runs contrary to logic or reason. I may love my stories, my TV shows and movies, my comic books and novels, but I don’t believe in the literal reality of them. They’re metaphors, thought experiments, goals to strive for, but not actual reality. They’re something I need to reinforce every day, like someone devoted to their faith needs to reinforce their belief every day, but they’re not objective fact and they’re not always terribly well-written or conceived. (Some of them can be quite bad, in fact, and it’s important to be able to judge each individual story on its own merits, rejecting the bad ones and embracing the good ones.)

In Christian circles, daily devotionals are very popular. For those that don’t know, devotionals are typically small books containing individual entries for every day of the year. Each entry contains a brief passage from the Bible followed by a few paragraphs written by the author (usually a pastor) expanding on the day’s scripture and providing analysis. Devotionals are meant to be read one entry at a time, every day, and then prayed about by the reader with the goal of receiving true insight from God.

As someone who has never been able to fully embrace faith, I’ve never been crazy about devotionals and, when I’ve been asked questions about the day’s reading, I’ve always reflected on them from a more academic or historical perspective than a faith-based one. The Bible really does contain a great deal of historical fact, even if I do believe parts of it are embellished to a greater or lesser extent. That’s the nature of writings that have been around in one form or another for hundreds or thousands of years.

One day, in a large, chain bookstore, I came across a small book titled The Intellectual Devotional. In the upper corner of the cover, it boasted “365 DAILY LESSONS FROM THE SEVEN FIELDS OF KNOWLEDGE”. Intrigued, I picked it up and paged through it. I had never seen anything like it, but sure enough, it offered brief, daily lessons on topics like history, science, and the arts, one for every day of the year.

I ended up buying it that day, and I proceeded to read it every day just as faithfully as other people read their Christian devotionals. It was great, actually, to get a little bit of education every day and to feel like I was exercising my mind a little. I’ll admit that I also got a little bit of amusement out of reading about academic subjects that most of the other people I was with would have laughed at. I can be disagreeable like that sometimes.

But my point is that personal fulfillment comes in lots of different forms. Contrary to what some people who have you believe, there is no one, universal right answer for everyone. That’s why it’s so important to understand Who You Are, so you can then find what fulfills you and how that’s different from other people.

We can’t live anyone else’s truth. All we can do is live our own, but to do that, we have to first know what it is.

Writing Prompt #3: Write a diary entry, dated 10 years in the future.

February 16, 2036

It’s been a long road.

With apologies to Star Trek: Enterprise, that’s not just a song lyric. It’s been a long road for me. I’m about to turn 58 years old and my life has been a series of nothing but ups and downs; most of the downs have been my own fault, either because of choices I’ve made or the way I’ve reacted to things. I’m not going to lie: I still have a lot of issues to work through, but at least I haven’t had a drink. It’s been ten years, in fact. I was in denial for a long time, but it took getting hospitalized and having to move back in with my parents for a while to get me to really recognize that I just can’t drink. Ever. I can’t pretend that I’m like other people. I can’t hide my alcoholism. I have to be open about it, and I can’t be reluctant to turn down a drink when it’s offered. I can’t go on a date and pretend I’m a normal person.

But the bigger issue was always that I can’t deny who I am. The alcoholism is part of it, but I can’t deny myself the things I want to do or the people I want to be around. I didn’t like living at the Hacienda or the Salvation Army or in Fontana because that’s just not me. I don’t want that lifestyle. I gave up most of the things I wanted to do years ago, but when Lindsey and I were together, in fact, because I felt guilty spending money on myself. I stopped buying comics, going to conventions, playing card games, and lots of other things because it all costs money, and in doing so I gave up parts of myself. I pretended I didn’t need anything and, especially after Lindsey left, I didn’t allow myself to do things that brought me joy or that I could look forward to on long days at work. And so I started drinking more and more. Part of staying sober is letting those little moments of light and joy into my life and not feeling guilty about it. I had to give myself permission to be happy.

And it’s been good since then. Things have improved. I’m working a decent job and, while I’m not rich, I have a decent amount of money. And I have people in my life now, people I enjoy talking to and spending time with. I’m not afraid to be myself anymore, and that’s helped me stay sober. If I have joy in my life, why would I want to give that up for a drink? I don’t, and I hope I never will again.

Writing Prompt #2: Have you ever spoken up when you saw something going on that was wrong? Were you scared? What ended up happening?

I absolutely have. The most recent example is a place I worked at until a couple of years ago where I was the office manager and later the assistant director. This was a residential facility for men with a history of substance abuse, and it was intended as a place dedicated to recovery and staying sober.

Within the space of about a year, both the CEO of the non-profit corporation and the director of the facility both passed away, which led to a major shakeup in leadership. The new CEO pursued a very different agenda and had very different priorities than the previous one, and major changes started happening. Necessities were cut. Essential property and equipment were sold. Standards were lowered or eliminated. I spoke up about all of those, every cut or sale or elimination that negatively impacted the residents that we were supposed to be caring for and helping. My boss, the new facility director, agreed with me, but the CEO wasn’t listening.

Eventually, we were asked to overlook or bypass admission requirements. The CEO asked for an admission letter, signed by the director, for someone we had never met or heard of. The normal process was for me to do an intake interview with potential new admissions to determine their history, medical status, and legal status before committing to bringing them in; this was to make sure they didn’t have any medical conditions we weren’t able to provide for and to make sure they didn’t have any outstanding warrants or pending court appearances at distant locations (local appearances were fine) and were in compliance with any terms of parole or probation. It was against policy to issue an admission letter without conducting an interview like that, but the CEO insisted on it anyway. My director instructed me, over my objections, to prepare the letter and send it to the CEO.

Months went by and we completely forgot about that letter. We issued several of those letter every week, which inmates at local jails would often present at a hearing in support of their request to be released; it wasn’t uncommon for us to never hear from that individual again, so it was easy to lose track of any one letter. Then, one day, the CEO sent a guy over unannounced to live on the property with us. The instruction wasn’t to admit him, which would have involved having this individual live with the rest of the residents under supervision without a cell phone or privileges to leave and return at will. Instead, he brought a trailer with him and was allowed to live by himself in that trailer and to come and go as he pleased. We had problems with this person immediately: he barricaded himself into his trailer, came and went at all hours of the day and night, behaved erratically, and things started disappearing all around the property. But he was there at the direction of the CEO, so there was little we could do about it.

Then, one night as I was getting ready to go to bed, one of the staff came banging on my door. The individual I had been referring to had apparently collapsed in the middle of the courtyard and needed help. By the time I got out there, he had been helped onto a nearby bench and was having trouble catching his breath. I started asking him questions about what had happened and if it had ever happened before; at that point, I had already decided to call 911 out of an abundance of caution, but as I was asking my first couple of questions his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he fell off the bench onto the cement. I immediately called for an ambulance while one of the staff performed CPR, but by the time the paramedics arrived he was already dead. It seemed obvious at the time, but it was confirmed later that he had died of an overdose, and some of the residents confirmed that he had left the property earlier and returned with a backpack, though we never did find out exactly what he returned with.

This was someone our CEO had met while doing prison ministry in San Bernardino, who had apparently agreed to do handyman and construction work around the property in exchange for permission to live on the property for zero rent. He had a history of drug abuse, which wasn’t disclosed to us because he didn’t go through the proper admissions process. I watched him die on the front porch of my office because the CEO bypassed normal policy to get free work from someone he barely knew.

That was the beginning of the end for me. I stayed on for a while after that, but the changes didn’t slow down; if anything, they ramped up. More and more things were eliminated or sold off, more and more things were prioritized over the recovery program, and gradually the facility became something it had never been intended to be: a flophouse. A few months later, the CEO was scheduled to make a presentation to the remaining residents about a new direction for the facility, a direction that didn’t involve recovery or programming but instead focused on revenue generation and a change in mission. That morning, I resigned. In my role as assistant director, it would have been my job to be supportive of this new direction and supportive of the CEO, neither of which I felt I could do at that point. I packed up as much of my belongings as would fit in my van and left, and that was the end of a long chapter in my life.