Sublime

He started, “One, two, three . . .” He enjoyed the counting. There was nothing down to earth about it. The vastness of the galaxy was in each star. There were too many stars to count, and yet the count went on like a prayer. The next day he kept repeating to himself, “Count the stars in the sky.” As he drove and ate and talked to his family, he

brought him into the lobby, signed him in, and together we waited for a turn with one of the counselors. He sat in a cheap black plastic chair, staring catatonically at the institutional blue walls. An hour passed. He began to fidget. Two hours passed. His brow furrowed; his face clouded. Three hours passed. The tears started. Four hours passed. He

What we added to this outward change in behavior was prayer.

the threefold nature of the human spiritual condition: God creates us for love and freedom, attachment hinders us, and grace is necessary for salvation.

Whiskey was a gift of the gods—dangerous, like fire and all gifts from heaven—to be used by the strong man with pleasure for joy, to solace and stimulate the imagination, to clothe reality in rosy light, evoke elusive happiness. I had misused it as a stupefying poison, to deaden consciousness—as an escape.

I found that on the days after I drank even more than the usual amount, which often happened Saturday nights, I felt more intensely, and felt drawn to hear people talk about God. That feeling of the lingering drunkenness made everything feel loose, loose and without weight, like a cloud with no rain being moved by the wind. I’d let the sermon, the