Big mistakes

Lately I've been spending a lot of time thinking about the concept of things that have gone wrong—specifically, things that have gone wrong that we've caused. Even in a life as relatively privileged as mine has been, you don't live to the age of 41 without making some mistakes.

You spend a lot of time as a child thinking about what you're going to be when you grow up, or where you're going to live—what kind of life you'll have, and all the positive things associated with it. Nobody sits around wondering what their life's besetting sin is going to be, but maybe we should. Even if you have a cultural framework for understanding fault—something like a Judeo-Christian worldview, which is built on the concept of forgiveness and grace—it's really difficult to wake up and realize you're an alcoholic, or a compulsive gambler, or an adulterer, or maybe just mean. There are more terrible mistakes than ice cream flavors, but the ice cream is where we put all of our focus. There are a million ways to conceptualize what might go right in a life. There's not much support for how to navigate the realization that you've screwed up, perhaps royally.

Even in church we talk about sin and forgiveness, but we don't talk much about what walking those roads might look like. I read a lot of writing by recovering alcoholics and I think those communities (because there are many more besides AA) have the best articulated notions of what it means to rebuild in the rubble. Everything from the notion of twelve steps to spiritual connection, abstinence, support communities—there's a lot of helpful scaffolding around the idea of reaching a total dead end and making the decisions that lead to new ways of being.