Galveston Bay [United States Geological Survey, Wikimedia Commons]

Jim Blackburn

Enough: A Spiritual Quest

Galveston Bay [United States Geological Survey, Wikimedia Commons]

Below is an excerpt from Jim Blackburn's September 30, 2008 speech at the Rothko Chapel. Mr. Blackburn is an environmental lawyer and contributor to Cite. He was the recipient of the Bob Eckhardt Lifetime Achievement Award for Coastal Preservation Efforts from the General Land Office of the State of Texas and was granted Honorary Membership in the American Institute of Architects in 2003, in recognition of his legal work associated with urban quality of life issues. My quest begins in the 1980s, one of the most difficult times of my life. Ronald Reagan – the source of many of our problems today - was president. I was practicing environmental law and was watching the dismantling of the environmental protections that my country had passed during the 1970s. I had lived long enough that I had encountered realities about myself, about others and about the system and it would be an understatement to say that my experiences were not in sinc with my expectations. One day in 1986 I found myself sitting in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. I have never been in such a low place before or since. My lance was shattered, my armor in pieces, my horse without a rider. I had a problem but was denying it existed. At AA, they told me that that I had to admit that I was powerless over alcohol. They also told me that I needed to acknowledge a “higher power” which was described as a power greater than myself that would provide me with spiritual strength sufficient to give me the ability to change. Well – I fought both concepts, particularly that of a higher power. It seemed like capitulation, that I had to return to the religion within which I was raised and from which I had fled. And then at a meeting one day, a young man said that his higher power was a METRO bus. The METRO bus as a higher power made me smile and it allowed me to loosen up and think more creatively. At this time, I was doing work on Galveston Bay and had a good feeling about the bay, so I chose Galveston Bay as my higher power, a truly life-changing event. Sometime later, I found myself in the marsh on the West End of Galveston Island in a remote cove in my kayak. As I paddled in late September, the tide was high, flooding the Spartina marsh that was green-gold against the clear blue sky. As I turned down a marsh channel, a white shrimp jumped out of the water beside me and a school of finger mullet bolted into the stalks, causing a blue crab to shuffle aside, orange claws pointed like jagged daggers, warning all to stay away. A white ibis raised its head from the edge of the marsh pond, made eye contact with me, determined I was no threat, and went back to ramming its scythe-like beak into the soft mud deposited by rainwater runoff of storms long past. I heard the whoosh from their wings and then saw a flight of blue-wing teal flaring up as they saw my lime green boat, then darting back down to set their wings and settle and feed. At that moment, I was struck by the fact that I was a part of a living system - that I was experiencing other living things. I was struck by the fact that life was not just about being alive - it was about being alive and amongst other living things in a living system. The energy flowed through me like a pulse – a pulse of connectedness with those with whom we share the planet. This was life and I was not just living it – I was perceiving it – feeling it in every cell of my body. Primal. Forceful. Clear. We coastal residents live in a place that is full of wondrous “other living things” and we do not see them and do not feel them and do not relate to them. For me, the realization of connectedness with other living things redefined who and what I was and am. And it gives me both the will and the patience to try to alter the status quo. This connection with the natural system helped me survive the eighties and beyond. I learned to be grateful and thankful with a bit of humility. My connection with other living things helped me set drinking aside. And it also was my first insight into the concept of enough. Over a period from about age 18 to 38, I had enough drink to last a lifetime Through a connection with something larger than myself, I was able to impose limits on my addictive behavior. That was spiritual and it saved my life. The full speech is available at http://www.blackburncarter.com/news/RothkoChapelSpeech.htm.

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