I began reading A MILLION LITTLE PIECES thinking I would find an insight into the darkest parts of my own soul. I planned to call this piece: The allure of James Frey: rubbernecking or naval gazing? I expect the answer to be naval gazing.
I'm the sort of person who was cast as Good Deeds in my high school play. Literally (it was a medieval morality play). I'm the sort of person to whom people give birthday cards that read: "Dearest Caroline, You're one of those special people God seems to use to bring happiness to others." Literally (I keep it in my kitchen).
And yet I began James Frey's book thinking that my heart is as black as Hitler's. People always get very angry when I say that - their faces get hard; their eyes narrow; and they say in harsh tones, "you don't really believe that." But I do. The Bible says that the "Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart" (1 Samuel 16: 7 NIV). Heaven forbid anyone else could see my heart. I break the Ten Commandments every day - among other things, God's finger inscribed on the stone tablet the words: "You shall not covet ... anything that belongs to your neighbor" (Exodus 20:17). There is not a human being alive who can go through a day - perhaps, if we are really honest with ourselves, even a minute - without coveting something that belongs to our neighbor. Likewise, God says in Leviticus 19:17: "Do not hate your brother in your heart." The same concept is echoed by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount: "You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder,' and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.' But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment" (Matthew 5:21-22). God looks at my heart, and He knows that my heart covets and is angry and is therefore "subject to judgment."
As a novelist, this concept has been incredibly helpful; one of the things that most freed me up from the fear of condemnation in being honest about my characters' failings, was finding in Henri Nouwen's THE WOUNDED HEALER, that the thing that you think is most private is really the most universal. I knew that A MILLION LITTLE PIECES was on the bestseller list not just because of rubbernecking, but because it held a mirror up to the human condition.
To a point, my suspicions were confirmed. As I read A MILLION LITTLE PIECES, I found myself between its covers. I recognized the hungry part of my heart that always cries, as Frey's does, "more, more, more." I saw the part of me that wants to exaggerate, bend, and even ignore the truth - especially when doing so results in making a better, more satisfying, Story. When Frey describes in harrowing detail pulling out his toenail because of his Fury, I saw the unhealthy part of me that wants to hurt myself when someone has hurt me.
Those parts of me are the reason Christ had to go to the cross. Unlike Frey, I recognize my hunger as a God-given gift, not as a desire to be annihilated. My hunger drives me toward God, because I have learned that nothing less will satisfy me. As St. Augustine puts it: "our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee, O Lord." As much as I would like to believe that I might be responsible for just one tiny part of one teensy tiny thorn on Christ's cross, while that big, bad James Frey is responsible for an entire nail, in my times of greatest clarity, I have visualized Christ going to the cross for me, and me alone, because of the vast, deep, dark, desolate wilderness that is my heart.
As I closed the book last night, however, I realized that I'm not James Frey. I'm not an alcoholic. I don't punch policemen. I've never done crack. I'm not wanted in three states. I've never left a priest for dead.
So how do I reconcile these two beliefs? I didn't know, so I went running around the reservoir this morning. Ironically, just as I reached the very place where it looks like Frey's picture was taken on the back of his book, it hit me:
I HAD ASKED THE WRONG QUESTION.
God doesn't sit in heaven pondering, "hmmm. I wonder who's worse? Caroline or James?" Instead, God looks at me as an individual. And He asks: "what has Caroline done with the gifts I've given her?" That's why the opening line of THE PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE has it backwards. It is all about me. In the best possible way. Christ would have gone to the cross even if I were the only human being alive, because He loves me that much. And because my sins are covered by Christ's blood, God views me, as He puts in the Song of Songs, as the "most beautiful of women" (S of S 1:8). Of course, because He's God, He can see every other person in the same way. That is God's kind of love, and that is the only kind of love I'm interested in.
That is also why I can agree with Frey's complaint that accepting God is just replacing one addiction with another. Yes, in a sense, it is. But God is the only "addiction" that offers you freedom instead of slavery. God is the only "addiction" that gives you back your identity. As Soren Kierkegaard (the subject of my first novel) puts it: "a person who has no God has no self either" (SICKNESS UNTO DEATH). Because only in God can I find complete honesty about the blackness of my heart, and yet complete freedom from shame when I accept that Christ's sacrifice offers me the kind forgiveness that Frey craves. And the love that floods my heart when I realize that, is the kind of love that Frey encountered in buckets at Hazelton, and the kind of love that freed him up to stop drinking and doing drugs.
Am I as bad as James Frey? Who cares. God doesn't compare me to other people, and therefore I should stop doing the same.
Amen to that. Because after it hit me that I had asked the wrong question, the sun came out on the reservoir today. Literally.
(And by the way, I don't think the truth hit me in the EXACT spot where Frey's picture was taken - maybe 20 feet away. But in the interest of Story, I exaggerated the truth. Just as he does)