Cinco de Mayo

When I lived in my apartment on West Broadway, I had a neighbor who knows how to throw great parties. Before I met him I thought I was one of the best in that business, but he overshadows me by a longshot. His parties are happenings – big events that live in people’s memories forever. He is also very generous, so he throws parties with the idea that the maximum amount of people will come and have a good time. We lived on the top floor, and had access to our roof, and he threw a party one summer with a barbecue and a band that people are still talking about. Another time he brought a bunch of us out to a a house in New Jersey for a costume party on Hallowe’en. His sister is a designer, and she made all the costumes – we went as the entire cast of the Wizard of Oz. I usually hate costume parties, but I got to be Glinda the Good Witch and wear one of the most beautiful glittery pink dresses I’ve ever seen.

Back in those days I spent a lot of time in Irish bars drinking Guinness, and that habit coincided with an influx of new Irish bars opening all over the city - it became such a trend that there were Irish bars opening in Germany too. I had my old standbys for certain nights of the week, but there were others that I found and that friends introduced me to that I’d go to on the others. My neighbor would join me sometimes, and he got to know my routine pretty well. One night when I had gone to meet someone for a drink, I stopped on my way home at a bar where I knew the bartender. In those days I could drink a lot – I don’t say that with pride the way I used to, but it’s just to let you know another miracle that God has done. I don’t drink much at all any more, and when I do have a glass of wine, I’m done after just a little. Right after I was born again I found that I couldn’t drink the way I used to. At first I was glad because it was saving me money, and then I was really ecstatic because my health improved in a way I could have never imagined. I sleep better now, I look years younger than I did in those days, and my head and mind are so much clearer and lighter. But on the night I was talking about I’d already had a pint or two – and maybe even a shot of bourbon which was something else I often did. When I stopped to get another pint it was just to stop and have a cigarette – something else I used to do that I thank God I don’t any more. I planned to have another pint, smoke a bit, and go on home.

Two young men came into the bar and started talking to me. They may have bought  me a drink, I don’t remember at all. At some point we went outside to smoke something stronger than a cigarette – something else that I don’t do any more thank God, thank God, thank God. The reason I don’t remember much of that night is because there was something in whatever we smoked that made me want to pass out. I felt really sick, but I’ve always been good at hiding that and putting on a good front, so I somehow made my way back inside. I didn’t know how I was going to get home. The guys were surrounding me now, saying I didn't look too good and offering to get me a cab, but somehow, even though I was so messed up I didn't know what was going on, I knew I couldn't trust them. I propped myself on a bar stool, and then I saw my neighbor sitting next to me. Where he had come from, I don’t know, but later on he told me that he had just decided to go out looking for me. This was back in the days before cell phones, so he just decided to go to all of the places where he thought I might be, and the first one he tried was where he met me. Or maybe it wasn’t the first one – I’ll have to ask him if he remembers the story which I’m sure he does. He never drank as much as I did, even when he was throwing one of his fabulous parties. The important thing is that he found me, just when I needed to be found. He got me into a cab and got me home, and I’m alive today because of it.

I don’t know how you can repay someone who saves your life. Someone who just happens to follow a whim to go somewhere and catch up with you at precisely the time that you are the most lost. This is a question I ask God all the time – how do I thank Him for what He’s done? My neighbor didn’t ask for thanks, he was just glad that he had found me when he did. He was always generous with me like that – he just did what he did because he wanted to. There is a love inside him for people, and I was one of the beneficiaries of the out pouring of that love. God is that way too. I had nothing to give Him when He saved me, but that isn’t why He did what He did. He reached into my life with love just because that’s what He does.

Today is Cinco de Mayo. When I looked up the history of it, I read that it began as a celebration about freedom and democracy. I’m sure that there are people who still celebrate it with that in mind, but many people use it as an excuse to drink margaritas and shots of tequila and corona. I used to throw Cinco de Mayo parties and fill coolers with Mexican beer. I also remember a night in college drinking shot after shot of cheap tequila with a friend of mine who was at least twice my size. He was built like a linebacker and I kept up with him the whole time, and was proud of it the way I used to be.

How do we go from celebrating freedom to being tied down to a bottle of booze? I don’t mean to sound like a crotchety school marm – I know the way I used to be and I’m not judging anyone else at all. I’m just trying to figure out how we equate freedom with drinking too much which is something that can ultimately kill you if you don’t get killed first by two guys who drug you in a bar. The Lord gave me a vision of one of those bars right after I was born again. There was a movie called Major Barbara – an old movie from the 1930's. I think that’s where this image is from. It’s a story about a woman who works with the Salvation Army saving lost souls, and one of the bar flies falls in love with her and is saved. By the end of the movie, he and all of his friends are in the bar drinking big glasses of milk. Because of the nutrition and wellness work that I do, I started drinking milk again too. I drink milk every day the way I used to drink Guinness and bourbon, and my body, mind and spirit thank God for it.

There is no freedom when you are under the influence of drugs and alcohol. When you need to have a drink “to relax.” For years I thought that’s what it was doing for me, but what I know now through the work that I do and the way my life has changed, is that it was only stressing me out more. It adds stress to your body and your mind, it depletes the body of essential nutrients, the B vitamins that help us relax are diminished, it keeps us from having the sleep cycles that refresh us, and we can end up doing things or hanging around with people that could harm us even more.

Our bodies are the temple of the living God. We can treat them like trash or we can nurture them and love them the way that God loves us. Realizing that I am alive today by His grace, the best way I can say thank you is to take care of the temple He’s given me to live in. I can never thank my neighbor enough for that night he saved my life – and for so many other things he has done for me over the years. I can never thank God enough for sending people like that into my life to help me when I couldn’t help myself. God has done so much for me, and when I say grace with my meals, and when I drink my milk with thanksgiving, when I break my bread and drink my wine, I do it with rememberance for what He has done and honor Him for it.

Blessings,

Jannie Susan