The Fifth Decade: 1988 - 1998

(Fifth in a series of life-reflections in the week before my 60th birthday.)

It turns out that this is the first decade of my life since the first one where I spent the whole time in one place. This time it is in what I now consider my second home town, Watertown, WI. Today, I have no problem saying I'm from Wisconsin.

As I said yesterday I joked at my 40th birthday that I had done my 40 years in the wilderness. Now was the Promised Land. When thinking about entering the Promised Land I forgot about the Battle of Jericho that preceded it...

• Just shy of 3 months after my 40th birthday I enter treatment for alcoholism. The Battle is waged as I discover- and admit- my active alcoholism. I wrote a letter to the congregation telling them what I was doing. Some felt I should prepare to move. It would be hard to continue to minister in this church after admitting I was an alcoholic. Fortunately the people of the church gave me the greatest gift- their ongoing support and care and love. We spent another 11 years serving in the same place.
  


• Recovery starts and grows into a blossoming life and hope that I had never felt before. That recovery gave me back a lot- and in some ways, things I never had. Happiness, hope, renewed family, new friends. Most of all through the 12 Steps of AA I found a way of life that helped me live in new and exciting ways.
  


• I start writing a yearly Christmas story, a tradition that will last 14 years.
  

Death returns in the form of AIDS...

• DB, my second oldest friend dies in NYC, less than a year after I get sober.
  


• WK, my oldest and best friend dies on Good Friday as I take the train home after staying with him for Holy Week. This is about 2 1/2 years into sobriety.
  


• Recovery, a new way of life, keeps me in that pain instead of ignoring it and allows me to live in hope.
  

Life and ministry expands as perhaps this decade becomes one of the most fulfilling, exciting, and productive...

• I earn my Doctor of Ministry from the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago and
  


• Become a Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselor five years into sobriety.


• I "discover" the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness as a place of spirit and spirituality and, at the same time, rediscover the wilderness that Pine Creek had first introduced me to.
  


• Work part-time as an alcohol and drug counselor at a local Watertown clinic.


• I begin developing short-term mission work with youth and adults, a real passion.


• I read the books, The Missional Church and Kicking Habits. They will soon lead my whole ministry in a new direction.