The Abyss

What remains when we find ourselves in the well of despair—when all is lost? We see no way out of the darkness, no glimmer of light to guide us. Real hopelessness comes from the belief that nothing can remedy our situation, that no one can help us. We are abandoned in the abyss with our sorrow or anger or grief. We are alone with our secrets and our shame.

We may blame God, and the unjust way he has created the world. We may feel he has turned away from us, despite our anxious pleas. We may be angry because his purported love has not delivered us. There is no safety net, no solace, no relief.

Alternatively, we may feel we deserve our pain, that our failure to live up to our ideals or our duty has rightfully resulted in our fate. We may see that we’ve cast ourselves into this hell, that we are the sole authors of our pain. Perhaps God has abandoned us for good reason, we think, and despite our hope to the contrary, has justly consigned us to these depths.

What remains when we are out of answers, when we are friendless, when we are lost? Where do we turn when no power can help and no friend can be found? What remains to us as we freefall terrified into the abyss?

I imagine Peter after his disavowal of Jesus, contemplating his life in the pre-dawn cold. Peter had witnessed the miracles, heard the gospel, and understood the message. Yet Peter denied his identity as an apostle, a follower, or even a friend. Standing around a fire with a group of strangers, he denied any association with Christ. Seized by fear, he could not even pass this trivial test. Walking through town afterwards, he would judge himself as salt that has lost its saltiness… “no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.” Mt 5:13

Perhaps he thought it didn’t matter anyway. His leader had been arrested and would probably be killed. Their grand crusade had been broken up, and the promise of a new kingdom lost. What mattered now? Where could he go? Would he be tortured and imprisoned, too? Would he be killed simply for having believed? The abyss would open up within him, scouring out all hope.

In such a desolate moment, there is no fast-forward button, no undo command. There is only the pain coursing through us, as we fall through the hours.

Most of us can sympathize. In such a desolate moment, there is no fast-forward button, no undo command. There is only the pain coursing through us, as we fall through the hours. Yet in the moment of Peter’s complete defeat, in the bleak pre-dawn cold, we see the necessary christening of the first pope. Here is the incomprehensible spiritual formation of the person who would lead a worldwide church.

Peter emerged from the abyss and carried a message, and in carrying that message he galvanized his reason for living—and ultimately his reason for dying. The hero’s journey is always marked by failure, as Peter’s had been with his denial of Christ. But within a couple months, his preaching was so powerful that three thousand were converted in a single day. He could never imagine how the message would resound through twenty centuries.

The self-abasement that Peter felt is one realm of the abyss. One can only imagine how long his torment lasted, and what might have been required to emerge from it. What remains when all is lost, and where does one find the way out?

Tragedy is a different realm. The sudden death of a child, for instance, will bring us to a place of incomprehensible pain, an abyss of agony that seems endless. There is no possibility of consolation, no shred of meaning or value. What remains after such a tragedy?

If I believe anyone else is responsible for the death of my child—even partially—I may plunge into an abyss of bitterness or hatred and be consumed. The loss may be compounded by injustice, making my pain intolerable. What remains in this conflagration?

Or did I unwittingly contribute to the death? What are the ten thousand things I might have done differently? How did I fail? Here, I have not only lost everything, I am also guilty. I am irredeemable. What remains?

In these and other examples, I may find I simply can’t go on. I may not be able to carry out the simple chores of daily living. My thoughts seem to crumble before they become coherent. I am in the darkest recesses of depression, and it seems there is no end to it.

Still, at some point, I dimly begin to recognize another possibility. After the deepest grief has passed, after some mottled patina of normalcy has returned to the hours, I begin to perceive an alternative. It may come to me wordlessly or through the kindness of another person or through something I have read. I sense an opening in the darkness. I can continue on the inward journey of grief, delving ever deeper into the abyss, or I can shift, however slightly. I can turn from the pain and begin searching for some flicker of light. The flicker will not restore my loved one. There will not be a Lazarus-like moment when they will rise from the grave. The past cannot be undone. Still, I can turn toward the light, toward my closest Friend, the who knows suffering so well.

When I am desolate and inconsolable, I can turn to the Friend who knows all these things. The one who has suffered such terrible pain. He sits quietly with me. He pronounces no platitudes, offers no empty words. He is the good Friend who suffers with me, and together we travel through the hours.

The loss is still unspeakable, the grief is still endless, but I am no longer isolated. If I look—no matter how tentatively—toward that glimmer of light, I see I am not alone. I am being accompanied, even in the depth of my distress, and I am cherished.

What remains then is a passageway out of the abyss and back into life. Much like a person trapped in an underground cave, I have begun to sense a way out. But unlike a physical passageway, this way is a way of life. It is a glad and unexpected dimension.

Sometimes the abyss, besides clearing away all my joy and hope, also clears away all my distractions and objections. Sometimes the abyss allows me the luxury of starting over. I can begin to see that my great Friend is leading me into a new world that is beyond my finite understanding.

I sense I am connected to God in a way I cannot understand. In some mysterious way, I now perceive that we are all bound to him, our souls are part of him. “I am the vine, you are the branches.” We can think of the sap flowing from the tree, through the vine and to the branches. The branches may have to be pruned—an inexplicable loss—but only so the branch may be more fruitful. Peter was more fruitful. His failure and redemption prepared him to carry the message of metanoia even more powerfully.

Whether I know it or not, when I find myself in the abyss, I am with the Man of Sorrows. There is no injustice greater than what He experienced, no physical pain greater than what He endured. He was abandoned by everyone except his mother and his young disciple John, looking on helplessly. Jesus had the additional torment of watching their agony—the ones he loved the most. There was no solace in his cry: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” His echo of the 22nd Psalm wasn’t followed by a miraculous deliverance, either for him or for them. It was crowned by death.

Whether I know it or not, when I find myself in the abyss, I am with the Man of Sorrows.

Why have you forsaken me? Anyone who has been in the abyss knows these words. What is the purpose in crushing out goodness and dreams? We are at a loss to explain why Jesus himself must endure these tortures, notwithstanding theological explanations. From the depths of our hearts, we cannot understand why such suffering is necessary or even allowed—not for Jesus and not for us.

But on the other side of the abyss, we do understand. When we emerge from our suffering, as Jesus rose from the dead, all things are new. It takes time—perhaps years—but when we get through our season of darkness and continue on our journey, the light warms us as never before, and bestows a gossamer nourishment that comes to us in no other way.

Alcoholics (like me) who have survived a hard bottom are acquainted with a different realm of the abyss. We may have been spiraling for years, destroying everything we love, hurting everyone close to us, and then returning to hurt them again. We can’t make sense of our own actions, so we rationalize and justify, blaming others for our shortcomings.

Bill Wilson, the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, spent many years in the abyss of addiction. Once a successful stockbroker and analyst, he began drinking alcoholically and destroyed the good living he had built up. After the market crash of 1929 it was even worse, and Bill was rarely able to hold a position. He and his wife Lois survived on her love and perseverance alone, as she took minor department store jobs.

Bill was in and out of hospitals, with only brief periods of sobriety—but never for long. The grip of alcoholism was so tight that even a visit from an old friend, Ebby, who had found religion and sobered up, wasn’t enough to stop Bill from drinking. He listened to Ebby’s story with bottle in hand, incredulous that his old friend had found release in the company of other believers. This was too much for Bill, who had renounced his New England Protestantism for the barren soil of twentieth century relativism. He believed in nothing but his own thoughts, though they had led him to disaster.

The story of Bill’s active alcoholism is long and agonizing, but it finally came to a conclusion at Townes Hospital in New York City, where Bill was once again strapped down with delirium tremens. The attending physician, Dr. William Silkworth, had seen him before, but now he was sure Bill had come to the end of the line. He would either die very soon or be condemned to a sanitarium for good. There seemed to be no hope for the ruined stockbroker, whose army service and sharp intellect were no match for the disease.

Bill knew it, too. He had tried hard to get sober, even managing to string several months together at one point. He was so proud of himself that he had regaled a fellow in a bar for several hours about the benefits of sobriety. But in the end, after convincing his new-found friend of his willpower, Bill inexplicably ordered a drink and then another. The fellow said Bill must be insane, to which Bill heartily agreed, and kept drinking. It was not long after that Bill came to his lowest point at Townes.

After the worst of his detox was over, Bill found himself deep in the abyss. He knew the routine too well, and he understood the hopelessness of his condition. No doubt, he also regretted the hell he had brought on dear Lois. There was no medical cure or psychological treatment for his alcoholism. He was doomed.

Then, in the gloom of the night, something happened. Lying awake in bed, thinking back to the faith of his childhood, Bill cried out to the God he didn’t believe in. He may not have believed, but he knew intuitively that if there was a God, He would certainly hear his plea. Bill begged for deliverance.

In the next moment, he found himself in a new world. It was as though he were transported to a mountaintop with unimaginable vistas. He was no longer sick. He was well and vital, but the vitality had not come from within. No human power had ever been able to relieve his alcoholism, and no human power had now. Bill knew he had been snatched from the outer rim of hell, and he knew he had to share his story of deliverance with other alcoholics.

The following day, he was hesitant to tell Dr. Silkworth what had happened, afraid the psychiatrist would dismiss his experience as an alcoholic hallucination. But the good doctor said nothing of the kind. In fact, he assured Bill that it was not a hallucination, and that he needed to hold on to that experience with all his might.

Bill left the hospital, and immediately began working with other alcoholics in a skid row mission. He worked with them tirelessly for months, but had no success. Commiserating with his wife one day, he puzzled over his inability to keep anyone sober. Lois had the wisdom to see what Bill could not, and she replied, “But you are staying sober, Bill.” Her recognition of the intrinsic power of “carrying the message,” regardless of the perceived outcome, was like a thunder clap. At that time, Bill was years away from writing the Twelve Steps, but through Lois’s words he discovered the essential elements: carrying the message, being selflessly helpful to others, and sharing his experience, strength and hope.

Bill had many financial difficulties in his early sobriety, and one of his ventures left him broke and alone in Akron, Ohio. He knew he had to find another alcoholic to help, if he were to stay sober. He got a church directory and found a certain minister who led him to a woman named Henrietta Seiberling, who knew a whale of a drunk who was unable to achieve sobriety. His name was Dr. Bob Smith, and he didn’t want to meet with Bill initially, but ultimately agreed to a fifteen-minute chat the following day. The two men spoke for six hours.

As a result of their discussions, Dr. Bob realized that no one understood him like this fellow alcoholic. They became fast friends, and out of their shared experience and their selfless work with other alcoholics, a worldwide organization emerged that is still helping people find sobriety. Both men had come from the abyss, and both found light in each other. What they discovered, what became a linchpin of the program was, “you have to give it away to keep it.”

Like Peter, the good news was so powerful it demanded to be shared. Bill and Bob realized the spirit could not be held back—or it could be held back only at their peril. They knew they had been given a great gift, “a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition,” (Alcoholics Anonymous, pg. 85) They shared the good news without any thought of personal gain. Even coming from the absolute bottom of the abyss, these men found a way out, not by their own strength, but by an act of interior surrender and a humble appeal to God—in whatever way they understood Him.

What remains when all seems lost, then, is a choice. I can hold on to my despair or grief or secrets or fear; or I can loosen my grip and reach out for help. I can isolate in my abyss of pain or I can venture out. I don’t have to understand the leap of faith, I only have to sense the need for it.

What remains when all seems lost, then, is a choice.

The ultimate gift of the abyss is that it lays everything bare. My suffering is a clarifier. Will I choose to keep fighting the darkness, trying to lay hold of the shadows, or will I turn toward the light? My willpower can only be used to surrender my willfulness. It is left to me to open my heart, and trust that God will do the rest.

Then, there is a trick. In order to keep my faith alive, in order to safeguard my recovery, I need to carry the message. The first century Christians were models of mutual support, encouraging and building up each other. They were open about their failings and strove for equality among themselves. They were followers of The Way, which they called the good news, and it was news that needed to be shared.

The first recovering alcoholics were the same way, and they made it an integral part of their program. Prayer was used “only for knowledge of His will for us, and the power to carry that out.” It was not to be self-centered, but outward looking. The principal goal was to “carry this message to other alcoholics and practice these principles in all our affairs.” These actions, they learned, are the keys to long term recovery—and redemption from the abyss.

What remains when all is lost is the chance for new beginnings. It is the chance to reunite ourselves with God, and to rejoin the stream of life. If I want to be buoyed up in this stream, I will be of service to others. I will be focused on their welfare instead of my own, and realize that my life is intimately tied to theirs. As survivors of the abyss, we are family, and we are saved together. St. Peter and Bill W. emerged from their crucibles with a message. I can emerge from mine and share the good news.

Faith-in-action has two parts: gratitude to God and helpfulness to others. It is Jesus message in Mark 10:27: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart…and your neighbor as yourself.” Those of us who have been delivered from the abyss—from any one of its many realms—can help the person who still suffers. In this mysterious and wonderful communion, we can fill the abyss with love.