In a white room, with black curtains, near the station....

Salon's book review says "...it's also a redemption narrative, in which a wastrel is saved by grace after hitting bottom." Here's a rare, beautiful confession from an aging rock star who had been given everything this world has to offer:
"Nevertheless, I stumbled through my month in treatment much as I had done the first time, just ticking off the days, hoping that something would change in me without my having to do much about it. Then one day, as my visit was drawing to an end, a panic hit me, and I realized that in fact nothing had changed in me and that I was going back out into the world again completely unprotected. The noise in my head was deafening, and drinking was in my thoughts all the time. It shocked me to realize that here I was in a treatment center, a supposedly safe environment, and I was in serious danger. I was absolutely terrified, in complete despair.
Almost of their own accord, my legs gave way and I fell to my knees. In the privacy of my room I begged for help. I had no notion of whom I thought I was talking to - I just knew that I had come to the end of my tether, and I had nothing left to fight with. Then I remembered what I had heard about surrender, something I thought I could never do, that my pride just wouldn't allow it. But I knew that on my own I wasn't going to make it, so I asked for help, and, getting down on my knees, I surrendered.
Within a few days, I realized that something had happened for me. An atheist would probably say it was just a change of attitude, and to a certain extent that's true, but there was much more to it than that. I had found a place to turn to, a place I'd always known was there but never really wanted, or needed, to believe in. From that day until this, I have never failed to pray in the morning, on my knees, asking for help, and at night, to express gratitude for my life and, most of all, for my sobriety. I choose to kneel because I feel I need to humble myself when I pray, and, with my ego, this is the most I can do... In some way, in some form, my God was always there, but now I have learned to talk to him." Eric Clapton, Clapton: The Autobiography.

Scrambling for Pennies

I confess; I have just not been too interested in the "budget process" within our Big Church. I have been wearied by all the talk and planning and meetings and meetings and meetings leading up to the day when a large group would spend all day in a marathon meeting to try to figure out how to split up the 10% of the budget that was deemed discretionary. I have serious questions about our priorities when all our "benevolence ministry" is deemed discretionary (meaning optional and subject to being eliminated in times of financial crunch).

But in the midst of that meeting a beautiful thing occurred. As further cuts were being discussed and negotiated, an uprising broke out from the crowd and a roomful of people who had been bargaining, begging, justifying, cajoling and pleading their own causes (all of which are GOOD WORKS) turned their eyes toward the Benevolence Center Ministry and requested, no demanded, that its funding be restored to the full, proposed level, even at the expense of their own budgets! This was an act of God and a sure sign of the purity of hearts in that room, representing the pure hearts in this church. It was the highlight of the day, in my eyes! HALLELUJAH! God is at work, even on budget Sunday!