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A Naked Confession: I Have a Problem With Lady Liquor (A Guest Post By Seth Haines)

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Today’s guest post is brought to you by Seth Haines. I first came across Seth’s blog while following the story of his son Titus. Seth is a true gentleman, a deep writer, and the kind of Christian I hope to be someday. After reading this guest post by him, head over to his blog and check out some of his other poignant writing.

Welcome to a naked moment.

Today, I reckon it’s time to let you in on a little secret, and I won’t talk much about it again for a while. I hope you’re okay with that. We’ll call this a hit-and-run confession. I reckon I should tell you to “listen up,” or “pay attention,” but since this is a place of semi-permanence, I’ll just come on out with it.

I have a problem with lady liquor.

I reckon I could spin the whole story for you; I could tell you the moment when my drinking went from something resembling social to something resembling moronic. I could tell you about a sick child, or the pressures at work, or the burnout of living a typical American life, or the plaguing doubt that nags, that makes me feel like the finest of Christian frauds. The precise excuse for my over-indulging ways, though, isn’t really the point—not for this particular piece, anyway. The point is this—I’m not so much different than some of you.

Am I?

Do you know this pain? Perhaps you’ve been stung by loss of the runaway father, the dead mother.  Maybe you’ve felt abused by the church, or otherwise accused by it. Maybe the Christian clique had at you. Perhaps you’re friends turned tail. Maybe you’ve been singled out for your sinner’s ways. Maybe you’ve been abused, raped, or murdered in some small way (there are a million ways to die alive, you see).

In any event, I don’t suppose I’m special among you. I reckon there are more than a handful here that sing the hymns of the risen Christ on Sunday morning and drink, or eat, or spend, or puke, or sex, or systematically theologize their way into the icy numb during the rest of the week. It’s such a convenient escape from dealing with the underlying pain, such an awful comfort. Isn’t it?

I had a therapist once ask me why I ran to the bottle. He asked what I heard in the quiet moments. I told him that I heard the accusers, the accusations from all the perceived injustices. They were in the cave of the soul, he said. I know he is right.

Sit for a moment in the silence. Listen. Do you hear them, too? Are the accusers in the cave of your soul? Do you deal with their voices, or do you avoid them? Do you confess it to your husband, your wife, your friend, your therapist? Or instead, do you shrink deeper into your most favored coping mechanisms?

Don’t make a deal. Nothing to see here. No eyes on me.

Shrink violet, shrink.

Perhaps this post is all too much for you. After all, don’t we all feel alone in our out-of-placedness? Yes, maybe some of you were quite comfortable in it, and then, along comes this stranger here at Mr. Smucker’s place, and he’s confessing the same things I’ve felt for years.  I’m here to tell you, you can hide behind your vices, pretend that I don’t see, but my vision is x-ray. I see through the drinking, the affair, the over-systematized theologies. I know that the thing, the addiction, is not really the thing at all. I know the addiction is a just a coverup, a ruse to hide the pain. And if you strip those ruses away, what comes screaming to the surface?

That’s right. The pain.

Ask yourself, in moments of clarity, of stone-cold sobriety, do you ask whether Jesus is a figment of your imagination, whether God is real? Do you have fond dreams of dying–not suicide–but of dying? Do you see the prospect of death as release?  Do you lust after money and power so much, that you poor yourself down and skinny yourself up to try and assuage that guilt? Do you have so much money and power that it scares you, that you wonder whether you are the rich man who’ll sooner be screwed than enter the eye of the needle? Perhaps you love your spouse, perhaps you don’t, but do you know whether God loves you? Do you know whether he likes you? Do you wonder whether God will ever speak again, and whether he ever spoke in the first place? Do you wonder whether it’s just your noggin talking to you? Do you hear your accusers casting aspersions, telling you that you’re unloved, unworthy, a thing to be discarded?

I know that the pain makes you ask these questions. How do I know this? Because you are my brothers and sisters. Because I’ve heard these accusations. I’ve lived with them, and by-God, I’ll live with them again unless a better way finds me.

See, the truth is, you can see through me, too. Your vision is x-ray if you let it be.

It’s been decided for me—I’m moving from a place of addiction to freedom. How you ask? I’m not running from the pain anymore. Instead, I’m sitting in it, I’m asking how it feels, and whether it’s true. The process hurts, there is no doubt, and I know I’m not finished just yet. The voices in my soul-cave are myriad, and the guano in here is hip deep. But if I sit with the accusers long enough, if I ponder the lost father, or mother, or the haunting injustices, if I still my soul, if I pray that simple prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner,” something magical happens.

Magic?

Yes.

I hear the echo of something still and small. It tells me that no matter the pain, no matter the doubt, no matter the addiction, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matt. 28:20)

This is my naked confession.

Please take a moment and check out Seth’s blog.

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How Our First Book Signing Went on Saturday

photo-20You never really know how a book signing will go, especially when you’re a writer hovering somewhere around my level of fame and fortune. In other words, no fame and very little fortune. I’ve had book signings or talks at local libraries where a nice crowd showed up, and I’ve had book signings where in the span of an hour one solitary person meanders up to the table and you soon find out that they’re not even interested in your book. They’re simply looking for the restroom.

So it was with some trepidation that I loaded up Maile and the kids into the minivan and drove from one end of the county to the other on Saturday. Our destination? The official launch of our new book, Refuse To Drown, to be held at our local independent bookstore, Aaron’s Books.

It takes a fair bit of time to get four children to put on their shoes and coats and get out to the van and get their seat belts on and please stop punching your brother, Sam, and please stop playing in the snow in those shoes, Abra, because now look at your tights, they’re soaking wet. And no I didn’t bring the charger for your iPod. Then we made the hour-ish drive north, through the country, through Lancaster City, and then back into the country again. The roads were lined with old snow, stained from a week of traffic. The sun was bright.

I had a good feeling from the moment we walked up to the store because there was a woman standing outside explaining the book to some folks who were passing by. I pretended not to know anything about it and walked quietly past her. Inside, I met the owner’s of the bookstore, Todd and Sam, and they were so kind and gave us access to the backroom to put our mound of coats and then we set my kids loose in the children’s section.

My co-writer, Tim Kreider, was there, along with his wife, Lynn. We’ve become good friends after so many long hours together, so many stories, so many words. I was anxious for him, that his story would be well-received, that people would pick up on his generous heart and sincere desire to help others.

I shouldn’t have worried. By the time I finished saying hello to Tim and Lynn and putting our coats in the back room and getting the kids (and Maile) settled, there were already six or seven people waiting for a book. So Tim and I sat down at a small table and Todd from Aaron’s Books introduced us and then we started signing. And we didn’t stop signing, not for two hours. The people just kept coming, some with sincere looks of admiration on their faces for what Tim was trying to do, some with tears in their eyes, hoping to gain any small piece of wisdom about how to approach life with their own troubled child.

One couple in particular still sticks in my mind, the way they clutched the book like a talisman. They shook our hands and held on a little longer than is usual, and the wife cried a little while she explained the situation with their daughter, and the husband cleared his throat and looked away, and I thought to myself that all they want is a normal life. All they want is a happy child. But we don’t always get what we want, and sometimes life sucks, and then what?

There were group hugs when Tim welcomed old friends, and there were sincere handshakes, emotional thank yous, promises to stay in touch. Mostly I was honored to be there, to mark this occasion with Tim, this official release of his story. I’m always amazed at the power of these stories we tell. I’m always amazed at the healing they can bring, if we’ll let them.

Over 100 people came through the line in a few short hours.

Later that night we went back to Tim and Lynn’s and were soon joined by 40 or 50 of their friends, eating food and laughing and mostly just celebrating how far Tim has come, celebrating the launch of this book, celebrating life and this often untapped power to overcome even the most dire of circumstances. A few people bought more books, some purchasing their third or fourth copies in order to give them away to friends they think might benefit from them.

I learned a few things on Saturday while coasting along on this high that resulted from a wonderful book signing. The first is that it is so important to celebrate things, to come together with friends and to hold each other up and to say, “Look at what we’ve been able to do together. This is important. I appreciate you.”

The other thing I learned is how wonderful it is when someone takes time out of their life to join you in these kinds of celebrations. I will never forget the friends who came from far and wide to visit us at the book signing, to buy a book, and to say, “Well done. Congratulations. We’re proud of you.” So to those of you who came, to those familiar faces who stood at the end of a long line, thank you.

Life wasn’t mean to be lived alone. Who are you encouraging?

 If you’re interested in purchasing a copy of Refuse To Drown, you can check it out HERE.

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Tomorrow is the Day That’s Been Three Years in the Making

Refuse to Drown front onlyThree years ago, I walked out of Tim Kreider’s house with a 300-page, typed manuscript and a large box of letters he had received from people in the community who had wanted him to know he was not alone. We whittled the 80,000-word manuscript down to about 45,000 words, then added scenes, rewrote large sections, revised, added some more, and finally ended up at around 60,000 words, or 200 pages.

There were drafts that lay dormant for months, when Tim needed a break from the story of his own life. There were chapters too difficult to focus on, so we put them to the side until later. There were long nights spent across a tape recorder, nights when a bottle of wine slowly emptied, nights when we sat in silence as the reality of his life hung around us like a cloud.

There are images from the story I will never forget: the brutal crime scene; the day Tim found out his son had been committed to a psychiatric facility; the confession. There are things Tim has said that will never leave me, none more powerful than the questions he asks about making the long walk through the prison to see Alec, and what it will be like to make that walk when he is an old man. Questions like, “Who will visit Alec in prison after I’m gone?”

There were joyful nights, too. Finishing the manuscript. Choosing a cover photo. Holding the proof copies in our hands and hoping, hoping, hoping that somehow the painful retelling of this story would make a difference, change the trajectory of a life, prevent the unthinkable from happening again. There were the early reviews, the first hints of people who were being changed by Tim’s story.

There was the realization that Maile and I had become life-long friends with this couple, Tim and Lynn, simply through the shared mission of trying to retell a story.

Three years ago we started on this road. And it all comes to fruition tomorrow, when we unpack boxes of books and sit behind a table at Aaron’s Books, an independent book seller in Lititz, PA. It’s been a long time coming. It’s been a long journey. So here we are.

Many of you have asked, “How can we help?” If you’d like, you can buy the book. The different options for doing that are HERE. I also wrote a blog post not that long ago entitled, “20 Free Ways to Help Your Writer-Friend Survive the Writing Life.” So if you’d like to help but don’t want to spend any money, you can check that out HERE. You can invite Tim to speak at your church, library, business, or other organization. You can buy 500 copies and give one to each of your Facebook friends. There are all kinds of ways to help.

Finally, Tim and I would love to see you at Aaron’s Books tomorrow anytime from 12 to 2pm. Thanks so much for all your help on this incredible journey. I hope you read the book, and I hope it gives you a different perspective on life, gives you a glance into what Tim has been through, and, most importantly, gives you hope that no matter what you’re currently going through, you don’t have to drown in the circumstances. You can find hope.

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You Are Enough, Just as You Are

I developed a paranoia, around that time, that I might drop the communion plate as it passed. They were large, chrome, hubcap-shaped dishes, and they each held at least fifty small plastic cups filled with grape juice. The whole thing shimmered like a ruby, and every time it came to me I held on tight, white-knuckled, quite certain the dish had a life and mind of its own.

That’s a lot of grape juice, I’d think to myself. That’s a lot of blood.

Today I’m writing over at Seth Haines blog. He’s a deep thinker, a profound writer, and a good guy. You can read the rest of my blog HERE (and while you’re there, check out some of Seth’s writing as well).

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When Maile and I Woke Up to an Empty House

It’s been a cold week in Lancaster County. There have been a lot of snow days. You can tell by the look in the eyes of mothers wandering the grocery store aisles, the crazed searching, as if they expect to find, hidden behind the boxes of Cheerios or perhaps tucked away amongst the Campbell’s soup cans, small portions of summer, or all-expenses-paid trips to Cancun.

When I was a kid, my favorite part about snow days was stumbling back in out of the cold and finding steaming mugs of Swiss Miss hot chocolate on the table with those little white sugary things they called marshmallows – we all knew they weren’t quite marshmallows. They were more like tiny bits of sweetened, edible cardboard. When they started making packs with “20% More Marshmallows,” well, it didn’t get much better than that.

Unless it was Grandma Smucker’s hot chocolate. She made it with real milk and Hershey’s chocolate syrup, back when we knew nothing about human trafficking, back when we had no idea (and, quite frankly, didn’t even think to ask) about Hershey’s methods of doing business, where they got their cocoa beans, how they treated the workers who harvested their profits. Back then it was simply Hershey’s, and it was simply delicious.

Grandma Smucker, the queen of hot chocolate, died about sixteen months ago. All eight of her children, along with their husbands and wives, and their thirty-some children, and a dozen or more great-granchildren, spent that last week with her, watching her fade and singing “When We All Get To Heaven” and “What Heaven Means to Me.”

A country where no twilight shadows deepen
Unending day where night will never be
A city where no storms will ever gather
This is just what heaven means to me

* * * * *

Last week Maile, the four kids, and I drove to Missouri. Whenever we told people we were driving to Missouri, they looked at us as though we had said we were driving to Antarctica.

“You’re driving to Missouri? How far is that?”

Turns out it’s about 1051 miles, but the miles going out are shorter than the miles coming home. I’m not sure how that works, but it’s true. While we were out there we met with a publishing house about a potential book project, and we also got to catch up with some family and friends.

One of the couples we saw are old friends from here in Lancaster. They have a beautiful little nine month old who reminds me of our oldest son when he was that age, all smiles and quiet sitting in his high chair, watching. It’s hard to believe ten long years have come and gone since our son was that old. Time is a funny thing, and the last thing you should do if you want it to move slower is to try and grab on to it.

* * * * *

On Monday morning Maile and I woke up to an empty house. From under the warm covers I could hear large slabs of frozen snow sliding off the roof and crashing on to the ground. The kids all spent the night at my parents’ house, and it was nice having an evening with just my wife.

I went downstairs and stoked the fire in the wood stove, then came up to the main level and opened all the blinds. Bright snow light glared through the glass. I made myself some breakfast and started working. The house was very quiet.

At one point in the morning, Maile said, “It’s hard to believe that someday all of our kids will be out in the wide world.” Cade, on his own, making breakfast? Lucy, driving to work? Abra, making a list of things to pick up at the grocery? Sam, little Sam, paying bills? It’s very hard indeed, believing that, but on a morning like that one I could feel it, the peace and the sadness, the freedom and the sense of missing things.

It’s a good stage we’re in, this busy, loud, kids-sleeping-on-the-bedroom-floor-almost-every-night stage. Someday it will pass, and the new stage will be good, too. I guess it all just reminded me to love this snow-covered, freezing cold day for what it is, and not to reach for the future too often.

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The First Time I Met Someone Who Had “Lost Their Mind”

7879731330Mostly, I was anxious because I was ten years old and I had never met someone who had “lost their mind.” Would I be safe? Would he kill us right there in Gap Diner? Would he, at random points in the conversation, fall to the floor, seize up, or foam at the mouth? I had no idea what to expect, and I would rather have stayed at home, but I didn’t have school that day and for some reason my mom was busy doing something else so I went with my dad (he was the assistant pastor at the church we attended) to have lunch with one of the parishioners who had recently been released from a mental hospital.

Today, I’m posting over at A Deeper Story. You can read the rest HERE.