20 June
Dear friends,
In a moving article I read this week, “Desire, Use, Repeat: An Addict Looks for a Way Out”, James Mumford reflects on his journey in a twelve-step programme, formerly known as AA. His life, as he explains, had been reduced to a demolished and reductive core: desire, use, repeat. He was addicted to everything he could get his hands on, he says: “Nicotine. Alcohol. Caffeine. Prescription meds. Food. Sex. Spending. It doesn’t matter what the substance is (…) My drug of choice is more.” Desire was central to all of this. He expected, and perhaps hoped, to find a total negation of desire in the twelve-step programme. In fact, the preamble at the beginning of each meeting says: “The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking.” To his surprise, though, he found desire to be a moving target:
“What I want deep down at 7:30 a.m., fully caffeinated and ensconced in my morning AA meeting, is not always what I want at 7:30 p.m. when I’m hangry and my concentration is shot. And precisely because desire wanes, I am finding that perhaps a better bet than merely desisting from using (i.e., sitting on my hands, “white-knuckling it,” trying to stop wanting to finagle drugs from a doctor) is, instead, to put myself in a position where I can be enticed by goods worthier of my attention.”
What he found in the twelve-step programme was not simply a way to stop desiring. Instead, he had to learn to reorient his desires. As he says, AA is about “taking up, not just giving up”. And the desires he had to reorient himself towards were rather surprising. They were not the ultimate good things that might make him into some kind of spiritual guru. No, they were the ordinary day-to-day wonders:
“I am rediscovering long-forsaken hobbies; I’m listening to Counting Crows ballads circa 1993 on repeat; I’m studiously rewatching Alan Partridge sitcoms; I might even try to play for England again. I am attempting – for instance, by making calls to fellows in the old-fashioned hope of connection – to put myself in a position where I can be bewitched by alternative “objects” of attention, rival and more worthy objects of love. I can’t yet see all the good there is in this new health, but I have a hint. I have the end of a thread. To follow that hint is to enter into all the life that lies in store, a life that I will, I must, show up for.”
On Sunday, we will be reflecting on the work of the Holy Spirit and imagination. More specifically, we will ask what kind of desires the Spirit awakens in us. What kind of dreams do we dream? What vision do we hold for ourselves and our world? Where does the compass of our hearts point? Perhaps Mumford’s reflections on his AA journey can help us with this. The Spirit, as we will hear on Sunday, also gives us “the end of a thread”. And, indeed, to follow that thread, or that hint, is to enter into all the life that lies in store, a life that we must show up for. So, we start with a question: what do you desire?
*While I have your attention, please note that this will be my last letter for a while. I am taking my summer leave from the 29th of June as we set off for South Africa.
I will be back on the 27th of July. I wish you a joyful and restful summertime, whether your break starts now or later in the year. Thank you for a beautiful first half of 2026. I cannot wait for the next chapter in our church year.
Marius Louw