David Carr on recovery—and the prayer that sustained him

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 4:11 pm by Deacon Greg Kandra

David Carr on recovery—and the prayer that sustained him 2015-03-13T16:11:43-04:00 Deacon Greg Kandra

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The brilliant New York Times media columnist David Carr died suddenly yesterday—which jolted a lot of us who were still shell-shocked from the death of Bob Simon the day before and the perilous fall from grace of Brian Williams. It was not a good week for the news business.

Carr was a recovering drug addict; he meticulously chronicled his journey into and out of rehab in his memoir “The Night of the Gun.” He was also Catholic—the brother, in fact, of John Carr, a former seminarian who worked as a lobbyist for many years for the USCCB.

The Washington Post picks up the Catholic threads of David Carr’s life:

In his book, Carr wrote about how faith was central to his rehabilitation.

“It was hard to avoid a spiritual dimension in my own recovery,” he wrote. “… The unconditional love of the Church could possibly mean the difference between somebody living or dying.”

Carr also urged churches to help drug addicts rebuild their lives.

“The Church can do more than mitigate the gravest of these problems,” he wrote. “In my opinion, by demonstrating a willingness to minister to those afflicted with this disease, the Church becomes better … The Church has the proximity and the people to make a difference in what seems like an insoluble problem.”

The Post also cited an interview he did with NPR’s Terry Gross, which is illuminating and poignant:

CARR: One of the things that I’m doing is praying, which seems like a really uncomfortable, unnatural activity for me. It’s to whom, to what, about what. You know, I have a prayer in my wallet that I’m saying…

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

CARR: …and I feel like a complete fraud while I’m doing it. But it’s the act of acknowledging that there may be something else out there. And so it isn’t – I haven’t really thought it through, but I think the behavior and the activity will sort of lead to something good. Anything that sort of gets me into a place of something less than self-obsession and gets me into a place of some humility, not even acknowledging a higher power, but that other people exist and they’re not here as an extension of my world – I think that part of the reason I got involved in journalism is I just – I love the stories of other people. I mean, everybody’s got a story to tell. It – I just – when all these layoff stories were coming, I was just thinking to myself, good Lord, what if I would have to go and get a real job? How horrible would that be? Because I don’t – I do – what I do as something of a caper, not really work.

GROSS: Can I ask what the prayer that you’re keeping in your pocket is?

CARR: Sure. Let me look at it. It’s really full of, like, thees and thous and I think it’s the prayer of St. Francis, what it would be known – programmatically, again, no names mentioned, is kind of a third-step prayer. I’m not comfortable reading the whole thing. But what it talks about is to offer yourself to God to build with you as God would see fit. And then the important part to me is to relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do thy will. And then it goes on to say, take away my difficulties. Of course, everyone prays for that. We all do – and that victory over them will bear witness to a power greater than yourselves, and just says may I do thy will always. I don’t really know who I’m talking about when I say those words, but I sort of feel good when I do.

God love him. There’s much more. Read it all.

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him.

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