I woke up on the edge of a dream. In the dream I had been back home in Champion, Michigan. My son had woken me, as he did so often, by jumping on the bed. We were singing our favorite song, made popular by a Muppet frog. The warmth and laughter were so real. But it was a dream. As my eyes opened completely, the dingy room I now called home came into view. My son was hundreds of miles and a whole life time away. I was alone and as Christmas approached, that is how it was going to be.
As I got out of bed, I knew it was cold outside. The cracked linoleum floor was frigid. I shivered but knew if I wanted to be warm, I would need to bundle up or crawl back under the covers, there would be no more heat, there was no thermostat. Knowing it was a Sunday, I battled the temptation to do just that. Throw the covers over my head and just see if I could recapture the dream. But instead, I lit up a cigarette and looked around for the whiskey bottle I had brought home last night. Finding it next to the rickety night stand, I held it to the light. Almost half gone and there would be no liquor stores open today in the whole state of Utah. Just another reason not to get out of bed. But for some reason I just could not lie down again. The feeling of utter aloneness was closing in on me and as it did the walls of the small room seemed to close in also.
I needed to get out. To go somewhere. But where? Salt Lake City, Utah on a Sunday morning left few options. There was church and there were restaurants. The first I could not do, and the second would mean having conversation with at the very least a waitress and I just did not want to talk to anyone. Then it came to me, Wendover, Nevada was only 80 miles away. It was the perfect place to be alone in the middle of a mass of people. Hurriedly dressing I was soon heading west along the I-80.
The drive from Salt Lake to Wendover is a mix of water and desert. Skirting the Great Salt Lake for the first part of the journey ending in the arid desolation of the Bonneville Salt Flats. I had driven it so many times none of the scenery interested me. With my heater blowing full blast and the radio tuned to the local PBS station I drove in silence not even wanting to talk to myself. Totally alone even as cars and trucks filled with people ran along all heading away from the rising sun.
The Wendover, Nevada of the middle 1980’s was like most of the border towns that met with more sedate Utah, each were alive on the weekends, but especially on Sundays. Many came to escape the stoicism imposed by an almost state religion, others just to get a drink and gamble, and I am sure some, like me, to be alone in a crowd. I stopped at the first casino along the strip, the Stateline. I had gambled there many times at its tables. But today I wanted the aloneness and isolation of the slot machines. Back then slots were still pretty much ‘one armed bandit’s, not a lot of bells and whistles of the modern computerized machines. I knew I could spend hours mesmerized by the rolling wheels and no one except the wandering change girl would even notice me. It worked for a while but even here in the middle of the casino din, I could feel the walls closing in on me. The aloneness I had sought was crushing me and I did not know what to do.
Have you ever been there? Alone in a crowd. In those years of addiction and desolation, I found myself there more than I would like to admit. And you know what. I tried everything to escape the devastation of it. Alcohol and drugs, of course. They provided a few hours of oblivion but always reality would happen even if I stayed high for days on end. Sex and relationships. Yeah, I even married with the idea it would keep me from being alone. Two of those marriages and many other relationships just proved you could be in the same bed with someone but still be so alone. For years struggled and embittered, I wore my aloneness like a badge. Doleful and sad most of the time, my joy and humor only came from outside sources. What was I missing?
It took years to find that answer and today I want to do something I rarely do in these pages, quote a lengthy segment of God’s Word but in these verses, I found my answer, “You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely. You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.” (Psalm 139: 1-10) There is so much more to this amazing promise written so long ago by King David. But when
I first heard these words, I stopped in the middle of my evening walk. I scrolled back in my MP3 player and listened again. If I could believe there was a God who knew me this intimately, I would never be alone again. It did not happen right away, but I read this Psalm over and over. It was when I heard a musical group, the Heritage Singers, putting it to music, it melted me. God’s Spirit was there, and I found myself laughing with a joy I had never felt. I have been filled with His joy and laughter ever since. I know now I am never alone. Even as I write this, I am smiling.
Not so on that Sunday in Wendover. I played the slots until I had little money left to lose. Entering the casino bar, I began to drink myself into oblivion. I woke up in my car around midnight, how I got there I will never know, cold and with almost frozen tears. I drove back to Salt Lake and readied myself to face the Monday work schedule. Mad at the world. I think my crew paid the price that day. Today I think of all who still live in that lonely world. I pray that just one reads this today and opens a Bible to Psalm 139, I know God is waiting there for you as He was for me. Lord, I pray!
Blessings, John
12/5/18
