We claim spiritual progress, not
spiritual perfection.

                                                Alcoholics
Anonymous

Progress in my
life seems to be continually evolving. I have admitted personal problems with
addiction that have cleared away obstacles in my life. Central in my addiction
recovery is faith and a relationship with God. This relationship is leading me
to places I never dreamed of, but always longed for. Where I am going seems to
be a journey down a diverging path.

Without a doubt,
spiritual progress took a giant leap when I admitted and “conceded to my
innermost self” that I was powerless over alcohol and drugs, and they were
controlling my life and actions. My daily focus revolved around obtaining drugs
and where and what I would drink. It took enormous energy which detracted from
my usefulness to anyone. Removing these impediments made possible changes I
never imagined possible. Personal relationships with my wife and children were
the first improvement. Work productivity and, most importantly, my interaction
with colleagues and clients are totally changed for the better. In all these
areas I have ceased or, at least minimized, fighting people, places, and things.
These changes are spiritual in nature and are not based on personal fortitude,
but grace form God.

My relationship with
God has changed from one of petition—please do for me and I’ll be good—to being
open to what God is calling me to do. I have always had a sense of right
actions, but choose to ignore them when they conflicted with selfish motives or
when they required personal loss or sacrifice. I put myself above the will of
God. Now feeling a pull to move beyond myself and to live a life useful to
others, to be of service, I am beginning to move in new directions. Only time
will tell if I have the resolve to live on a new path.

With new
opportunities and possibilities available to me, I have become aware of long
ignored pieces of my personality. Focused for so long on technical, black and
white issues from my world as an engineer, I neglected creativity. The arts
were lost to me. Moving toward these attractions leads me in totally new
directions of career and life focus. A glimpse of this was my attraction to
music and renewed interest in playing guitar. This was, perhaps, an indication
of something missing or ignored. Most recently, my application to the Master of
Arts in Professional Writing program at KSU encompasses not only creativity
but, also, a change in life’s direction as well as a challenge—because I
struggled with English and writing an undergraduate. The idea of perusing an arts
degree, something I once discouraged my children from, is a radical change. In
the past, I viewed these courses of study as a waste of time because they do
not train for specific job related tasks—a narrow view that limits potential. This
type of degree provides a broad education only limiting potential by the
student’s imagination and creativity. The opportunity that the MAPW degree
provides will be to teach valuable writing skills to underprivileged and
challenging students. Again, time will tell if I have the resolve to live this.

Spiritual progress
that has begun and with God’s grace will continue. We are human and, as such,
perfection is not possible. I choose only to follow a spiritual journey that
moves in a completely different direction than the path I had previously
followed. The challenge is to have faith where this road leads, even when I
seem to get a wheel in the ditch.

Copyright © 2006 Mark Holmberg. All rights reserved.

        Create in me a clean heart, O God, *

     and
renew a right spirit within me.

(The New
Oxford Annotated Bible, Psalm 51, verse 10)

 
            The heart that
beats in my chest is probably in good physical shape these days. I have quit
smoking (tobacco and other substances), drinking, and drugging. I keep in good
shape, although years of abuse may have taken a toll. I run and work out on a
regular basis. I do as my doctor suggests and take ten milligrams of Lipitor
daily to keep high cholesterol in check. But the heart that this verse of Psalm
51 refers to isn’t the one that beats in my chest. The heart it speaks of supplies
the spiritual lifeblood of my spirit.

This heart feeds
my imagination, and creativity. It is the essence and source of my freedom.
However, the heart of my soul, like the physical heart, is susceptible to
disease. The disease of anxiety, addiction, and fear have affected and broken
my heart. 

All too often voices
that guide my actions remind me of Screwtape and Woodworm, the senior and
apprentice devils that converse in CS Lewis’ Screwtape Letters. I used to say I did not believe in the devil or
devils. However, I have been aware of competing voices in my head and have come
to believe the negative voices are, for lack of a better word, devils. Their
loud din can drown out all of the positive. When this happens I become
separated, cut-off, from the positive—God. I don’t want to sound trivial or
clichéd when I say “the devil,” but this is the most concise term I can come up
with. Verse 11 of Psalm 51 put words to my cry to silence the negative, invoke
the positive, and turn a deaf ear to Screwtape and Woodworm.

I attended a small
church for the first time recently in town about twenty miles from my home.
Actually, a high school friend is the rector of this church and I had been
meaning to visit for some time. Jim said verse 11 as he was preparing for the
Great Thanksgiving (communion) as he was liturgically washing his hands with
the assistance of an acolyte. The simple direct words that I had heard many
times—Create in me a clean heart, O God;
and renew a right spirit within me—smacked me right between the eyes. I
suddenly realized my heart was broken and contrite, and I felt the pain that
King David must have felt when he wrote this Psalm. I suppose this was a blues
tune of David’s time. He sang of the despair and depression that I feel that day.
Some things never change—the song remains the same. Screwtape and Woodworm have
been around for quite some time. Pleased
to meet you, hope you guess my name, in the words of Mick Jagger.

I really have a
lot to be thankful for today and, without wanting to sound self-righteous, I
have made significant progress squelching the negative. As I said above, I
don’t drink alcohol and have been sober six years, by the grace of God. I tried
for so long to control my drinking, with no success whatsoever. Not until I admitted
I had a problem and asked God for help did this negative part of my life turn
positive. I have, however, come to realize that drinking was but a symptom of
deeper heart disease—a disease of the sprit.

The disease of
self-will and selfishness has a pull me toward the negative. I say the Lord’s
Prayer often and familiar words sometimes lose their meaning. I would be well
to remember Thy will be done. I’m not
in control—it’s not my will be done.
However, that’s exactly the thinking I can slip into. And when I do the voices
of Screwtape and Woodworm become louder.

The
more I carry on this conversation in my head, the harder my heart becomes. When
I lose contact with the positive (God), heart dis-ease becomes chronic. This
disease is insidious. I’m not aware of its onset and I become oblivious to its
consequences. I begin to realize it when find it hard to sleep and when I begin
to lose my patience with those around me, and those around me loose their
patience with me. Something within me screams: “Do not cast me away from your
presence, and take not your holy Spirit from me.” (The New Oxford Annotated Bible, Psalm 51, verse 11)

Copyright © 2006 Mark Holmberg. All rights reserved.

Caroline
Westerhoff is the author of three books: Calling:
A Song for the Baptized (1994), Good Fences: The Boundaries of Hospitality
(1999) and Transforming the Ordinary
(2001). She has also co-authored two
books with her husband, The Rev. Dr. John Westerhoff: The Threshold of God’s Future and Living our Baptism. Caroline has served as principal of an
Episcopal Day School, worked as a consultant to the Alban Institute, and was a
visiting lecturer at the School of Theology
at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee.
She is a licensed lay preacher, and a conference leader for the College
of Preachers. Caroline is currently
employed as the Canon Educator of the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta. In the
Forward to Calling, John Westerhoff
uses a quote from Amos Wilder, a New Testament scholar, to describe Caroline’s
mode of communication as “theopoetic.” Her prose and poetry have a theological
basis; however, I find her writing clear, understandable and
entertaining—primarily through the use of ordinary stories about ordinary
people. During my talk with Caroline we discussed how she began writing, her
writing style, her approach to the writing process, her audience, and the
importance of collaboration in her writing process.

When I asked how
she got her start as a writer, Caroline responded, “I’ve always been a good
writer. My English professor at Agnes Scott tried her best to convince me to
pursue writing as a career.” She did not listen, however, and graduated with a
master’s degree in biology. It was not until “the late 1980’s” when Caroline
began to refer to herself as a “writer.” The first time she did so made an
impression on her: “I was at the doctor’s office filling out the health
questionnaire they always want you to complete. When I got to the occupation
question, I filled in Writer—it gave
me goose bumps.” From that point on, she has devoted more and more of her time
to writing and developing her writing style.

Caroline describes
her writing style as “narrative essayist, a writer who preaches and a
storyteller.” Her essays and stories relate familiar, ordinary events through
which she reveals “glimpses of the Mystery [God] and glimpses of [Caroline’s]
story.” In the opening chapter to her book Calling,
Caroline uses her childhood story of summertime visits with her grandmother in
rural South Georgia to relate the mysteries of life in
Christian community. The story “Calling” begins:

            I visited my grandmother in rural South Georgia every summer when I was of grade-school age. My
family lived in New
York State at that time, and my parents saw this respite from
“Yankee influence” as an opportunity for me to know and claim my heritage as a
child of the South, a time for the red Georgia clay to color my clothes and my heart.

Calling was
what we did in the afternoon […]. More often than not Nanno’s friends came to
call on us. (3)

Calling refers to the “habits” of
the women in this South Georgia community—their ritual
of visiting each other daily. Caroline uses this metaphor to describe God’s
call for us to live in community.

As
Christians we have heard and accepted the call into the grand and precarious
quest of discipleship, and as disciples we are to become bold callers. The call
has to do with habits—holy habits that direct us out of ourselves toward others
and the Other. Habits that polish away the grit and grime we accumulate so
readily. Habits that smooth the rough places that snag and tear. Habits that
wash the imagination in fresh possibility. Habits that strengthen the spine and
strengthen the heart. Habits that feed us and bring us cheer. (Calling 5)

Caroline said that
she is often “surprised” where her work leads. She added, “The story “Calling”
actually began as part of a keynote address at a convention in Houston
in the mid 1980’s.”

Caroline’s
narrative style includes the use of several personas: the storyteller, the
preacher, and the child. Her roots as a writer began by telling stories, and
the storyteller seems to be her strongest voice. She often uses her own story to
entertain and to give her readers glimpses of her personality.

We returned
again to my grandmother’s porch and the rockers and the good Methodist ladies.
They gathered out of habit. They gathered to rock in each other’s company. They
gathered to tell stories.

I heard of
my great-grandfather, the drummer: he and a driver sold hats from the back of a
motor car in South
Carolina. I
heard how my grandmother, his daughter, met my grandfather, the doctor, on a
tennis court in the early years of this century. I heard how she walked up to
the First Methodist Church and shot her revolver in the air at the end of the
First World War and the return of her husband. I heard about my grandfather’s
medical practice among the poor—black and white—of rural Georgia, with my mother, the tomboy child, making rounds
with him. I heard of his early death. I heard how Grandmother went back to
school and resumed her calling as a teacher to support herself and her two
young daughters. (Calling 6-7)

Her lyrical story goes on to tell
of what she learned from the stories told in the chairs on the porch.

Caroline’s persona
changes to the preacher, which, in this passage from Calling also reveals how she feels about telling stories:

It is a
fearsome thing to speak and write words that symbolize one’s life. But if we do
not, we cannot participate in the weaving of God’s designs. It is a fearsome
thing to speak or write words of other lives. But if we do not dare, figures of
the past and present will be lost to the children of the future. And we are to
evoke the stories of those who come to call. If we do not, they will go away,
and the chairs will be empty. We are to listen to the stories being shouted in
the streets and whispered in the corners. If we do not, we will miss the world
of God. (8-9)

 “I have a better opportunity to develop a
story more fully—to see where it takes me—in written form,” she said. “Most of
the essays in the books would be too long for a sermon, but I have used many of
the subjects for sermons.”

Perhaps Caroline’s
favorite persona is that of a child. She frequently uses a child’s voice in her
poetry and writing. Throughout Calling
she uses portions of one of her poems, written with voices of an adult and a
child, as a refrain:

The Children in our midst look around (as those children
always will): “What are we to do if we are followers of Jesus? What habits
do we practice?” (5)

“Can we join the followers of Jesus, or are we to be alone?
Will they let us lean against them when the way becomes hard? Will they lean
against us?” (6)

“Where will we
hear stories—all kinds of stories? You won’t skip any of the pages, will you?
May we sit in your lap and tell stories to you?” (9)

During our discussion of persona, Caroline
opened her book Good Fences to a
passage where she changes from the voice of the adult narrator to the voice of
a child, in mid-paragraph:

The way that
these spoken and written stories take on strength and power is often through
stories. It has been suggested that the ultimate definition of humankind lies
in our ability and longing to tell and listen to stories, which children seen
to know without being told. When they ask again and again to hear the
story—whatever the story and however many times they have heard it—children are
really asking us to tell them who they are, to remind them of the fundamental
definitions that give meaning and shape to their lives and their values. Tell
me the story of how you met […] Tell me about the day I was born […] Tell me
how I got my name […] Tell me about […] (17)

Caroline says her
writing process begins by setting aside blocks of time devoted entirely to
writing down ideas she has researched and developed during her everyday
activities. She noted, “Calling is a
collection of essays, stories and sermons written over several years. I took a
three-month sabbatical from my job at the Diocese to write the first draft of Good Fences. And Transforming the Ordinary is a group of essays written
specifically for the book over a year.” She continued, “During the times I’m
seriously writing, I usually write in the living room on my laptop. I spread my
notes out on the floor—it’s a real mess. It drives my husband a little crazy,
but he tolerates it—actually he’s very supportive. Thank goodness he can cook!”
Her handwritten notes are kept in a small notebook in which she enters brief
notes on anything that catches her imagination. She also keeps quotes, along
with the name of the speaker, so she can attribute quotes to the proper person
when they are used in a story. She said, “Some people wonder why I’m always
writing things down—I think it makes some of them nervous.” At the end of 2003
Caroline will retire from her job at the Episcopal Dioceses to devote all her
time to the job she loves, writing. She said, “I have several books in me and
I’m tired of carrying them—it’s time to give birth to them.”

When I asked
Caroline if she had a specific audience in mind for the books she is “carrying,”
she paused for a moment and thought. She said, “Well I write for groups of
grown-ups—for personal reflection and devotion.” She asks questions of her
audience and has included study questions for this purpose in her books. She
states this attitude in the following paragraph from Calling:

While it is
true that moments of deep and wrenching truth may only come as we, like Jacob,
wrestle with the spirits on a solitary bank of a river in the night, we are to
test those wrestlings around the fire of community. We are created to be
unique, unlike any other who was or will be. Yet we are also created to live with
each other—to eat and drink together, to hold each other when we are afraid, to
laugh together at our antics, to prod each other, and to forgive. It is in
community that we bear the pain of the limp we share with the wrestling Jacob.
It is through the relational that we bear the tension of solitude. (5)

Caroline said she enjoys leading
discussions—“it’s great feedback on my writing.” The questions are, at times,
too effective, she noted, with a story of an angry priest confronting her after
a class about one of her essays—“it’s true, you cannot please everyone.”

Caroline’s writing
begins as a very personal process: however, she relies on collaboration to
refine her “first drafts.” She says that if other people are part of her
stories she lets them read the story prior to it being published and almost
always make the changes they suggest. In addition, Caroline relies on two
friends—Betty Barstow, an English teacher, and Terry Tilly, a journalist—to edit
her writing. She added that her husband, John, is another source of
collaboration—he was an editor prior to becoming a priest. Also, brainstorming
with those around her is helpful. Finally, as noted above, classes that she
conducts using her books and the study material provide valuable feedback. I
get the sense that collaboration is very much a part of Caroline’s writing
process.

Caroline
Westerhoff takes her writing seriously and works to “get it right” from
research, to getting it down on paper, to gathering feedback through
collaboration both prior to and after publication. She considers the
arts—poetry, prose, music, painting—as “ways to touch the Mystery.” Caroline
has the gift of seeing extraordinary things in ordinary events and uses her
stories to bring light to the Mystery of God in our ordinary lives.

Copyright © 2006 Mark Holmberg. All rights reserved.

Works Cited

Westerhoff,
Caroline A. Calling: A Song for the
Baptized. Boston: Crowley
Publications, 1994.

—.
Good Fences: The Boundaries of
Hospitality. Boston: Crowley
Publications, 1996.