Not sure who is reading emails this weekend but in case you are, hi!

Another quick one... I wanted to share this with you guys from...

Matthew McConaughey's Greenlights: Raucous stories and outlaw wisdom from the Academy Award-winning actor

Lovedd reading this book a year or so ago (in the aftermath of 2021's breakup... just thought of that because 2022's breakup gets a mention shortly. Who knows what 2023 has in store hey!) This little anecdote just popped into my head again yesterday:

(I assume most people know who Matthew McConaughey is but maybe not. He's an actor... you probably gathered that from the book's subtitle...)

The Monastery of Christ in the Desert sits in miles of undisturbed desert, on the banks of the Chama River, in Abiquiu, New Mexico. The thirteen-and-a-half-mile dirt road from the highway that leads you there is usually washed out, so you can’t bring a car. Thomas Merton loved it there. He said this monastery was a place where people can go to “re-adjust their perspectives.” I read about it in a book and thought, That’s what I need at this time. A spiritual realignment. I was all messed up in the head. Lost in the excess of my newfound fame and struggling with a nondeserving complex, my now roofless existence not only had me searching for my bearings, it was bearing down on me. How could a working-class kid from Uvalde, Texas, be deserving of all this opulence and accolade? I didn’t know how to navigate the decadence of my success, much less believe it was mine to enjoy. I didn’t know who to trust, including myself. In the book, the brothers said that, “If you can get to us, just ring the bell, we’ll take you in.”

A good friend and I drove from Hollywood to that dirt road, where he dropped me off, and I made the thirteen-and-a-half-mile march to the monastery. I arrived an hour after sundown and rang the bell. Dressed in cowl and tunic, a short man named Brother Andre greeted me, “Welcome, brother, all travelers have a place to stay here.”

I washed up and went to the group dinner where Psalms were read aloud and talking was strictly prohibited. Later, Brother Andre ushered me to a small, simple room with a cot and a sleeping mat on the floor where I lay down for the night.

The next day, I said to Brother Andre, “I need to talk about some things going on in my life and mind, do you know who I could talk to?”

“Yes,” he said, “Brother Christian would be a good man for you to talk to about such things.”

I met Brother Christian and we went for a long walk in the desert. I unloaded my feelings of guilt, the low and lecherous places my mind had been traveling, the perverseness of my thoughts. “Since becoming famous,” I professed, “I’ve tried to be a good man, to not lie and deceive myself, to be more pure of heart and mind, but I am full of lust, objectifying other people and myself. I do not feel a connection to my past nor see the path to my future, I’m lost. I don’t feel myself.”

I shared the demons of my mind for three and a half hours with Brother Christian. I took myself to the woodshed. He did not say a word. Not. One. He just patiently listened as we wandered side by side through the desert.

At hour four we found ourselves back at the chapel sitting on a bench just outside the entrance. Now weeping, I eventually came to the end of my confession. We sat in silence while I awaited Christian’s judgment. Nothing. Finally, in the unrest of the stillness, I looked up. Brother Christian, who hadn’t said one word to me this entire time, looked me in the eyes and in almost a whisper, said to me,

“Me, too.”

Sometimes we don’t need advice. Sometimes we just need to hear we’re not the only one.

Greenlight.

This week on the Growing Up with Delia Burgess podcast:​
​Ep. 28 - Susie: finding out your Dad isn't who you think he is
​Susie is a senior barista at an independent coffee shop in London (she's the same person who gave me the brownie and hug that day... remember the newsletter about the breakup and the little mice people? Back here)
​
​Ep. 29 - Matthew Lesh: what a free society looks like
​Matthew Lesh is the Head of Public Policy at the IEA. He regularly appears across television and radio, including the BBC, Sky News and GB News, and has been published in the Daily Telegraph, The Times, The Spectator, The Wall Street Journal, the Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian.
He has written about the role of the business and the state, barriers to innovation, digital regulation and free speech, political divides, housing, and market environmentalism. He is also the author of Democracy in a Divided Australia (2018), a Fellow of the Adam Smith Institute and an Adjunct Fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs. Matthew graduated with First Class Honours from the University of Melbourne with a Bachelor of Arts (Degree with Honours) and completed a Masters in Public Policy and Administration at the London School of Economics.

Wishing you all some more health and happiness xx Delia

​deliaburgess.blog​
​Listen to Growing Up with Delia Burgess on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts

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