Posted on

What Maile Said to Me Ten Years and Two Days Ago

10427353_10152577122317449_8345197862930955877_n

Ten years and two days ago we drove through the beautiful English countryside just outside Wendover, speeding through roundabouts on our way to the Stoke Mandeville hospital. Maile was panting in the passenger seat, and her mother sat in the back, encouraging her.

I parked, then led her inside. She walked gingerly, the way we now walk across Lego-covered floors in the middle of the night. It was a cold, December day. December 4th. Those winter days are short in England, and the sun had already started to descend, even though it was barely lunch time. Dark days. Days when headlights always led me home.

* * * * *

I tell this all to Lucy as we sit around the dining room table, ten years and two days later.

“You came so fast,” I say, and the older four children listen in awe with smiles on their faces, the way they always do when we talk about a birth. The older ones know the details by now. It is like a children’s question and answer time within a religion service.

“What did you say when she came out?” Cade asks.

“Well, I looked at your mom, and she didn’t know if you were a boy or a girl yet because the nurse hadn’t even said anything, so I walked over beside her and leaned down close and whispered into her ear, ‘It’s a girl!'”

Lucy is smiling from ear to ear now. What a precious thing, that feeling that someone anticipated your existence, that you were loved from the first moment.

“And then your mom looked up at me and started to cry. ‘It’s a girl?’ she asked me, not able to believe it. She was so happy. ‘Are you sure?’ she asked me.”

We all laugh.

* * * * *

Ten years and two days ago. Time is not linear – it is cyclical, seasonal. I hope that someday time will circle around for them, that they will look into the eyes of someone they love with that same disbelieving joy.

“It’s a girl? Are you sure?”

Happy Birthday, Lucy.

Posted on

If You Constantly Think There Must Be Something More to Life…Maybe There Is

13788245905_819d211533
It’s the great tension. Comfort versus adventure. We crave both. Comfort usually wins, but it doesn’t like to share, so we let it lull us to sleep. Before we know it we’ve organized our entire life around that small god, making every decision based on the perception of stability. We lay our dreams on the altar, pretending that someday we can retrieve them, or that Comfort will give them back to us when we are old and gray.

In the last fifteen months, two of my friends died, both in their mid-30s. The future will wait for some of us, but not all.

I know it might sound irresponsible, or breathtaking, or maddeningly idealistic, but just consider it for one moment. Forget what you should do, what you feel pressured to do, what you’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars on a degree to do. What if you were designed for more than entering data into a spreadsheet? Or constantly trying to crest the waves of email that threaten to drown you every day? What if your mind-numbing commute is actually that…numbing your brain to the things you would love to do?

Dream big. And I don’t mean big financially. Dream bigger than that. What if your personality, your skill set, your strengths and passions and loves, make you the perfect fit to serve refugee communities spilling into Lebanon from Syria? Or to adopt multiple children? What if your ability to think on your feet would make you one of the most successful fighters against human trafficking the world has ever seen? What if your ability to form relationships in hostile environments lines you up perfectly to serve in the more difficult places of the earth, places where others are currently trying and failing?

Maybe it’s simpler than that. Maybe you have close friends who desperately need you once a week, and you simply need to make time for them. Maybe you’re an organizer and can help the local food pantry go to the next level. Maybe you have one or two or three or more littles in your house who need forming. Imagine a world where children are protected and not exploited, nurtured and not abused. You can be part of that. You can participate in that.

Maybe you have a book you need to write.

Maybe you need to paint a picture.

I’m not saying that what you’re doing now isn’t important. I’m not saying a paycheck isn’t worth anything. But if you live your life with that constant nagging in the back of your mind that there must be something more, well, maybe there is.

Posted on

Book Tour Stops For “The Day the Angels Fell”

IMG_0211
We’re starting to put together the stops on our book tour, and I have tell you, I’m really excited about it. It looks like we’ll get a chance to see some of the same folks we met on our 10,000-mile, cross-country trip in 2012, along with some new stops and new people. Here is a general itinerary – as we start to firm up venues and times, we’ll let you know (I’m going to start a new page here on the blog tracking our planned stops). In most of these cities we’re already beginning to line up events, but if you see that we’re going to be in your area and you’d like to organize a book signing or reading, just let me know and we’ll see if we can work you in.

Thanks again – without your interest in The Day the Angels Fell, this wouldn’t be possible. (The book should be available to purchase in about two weeks, so stay tuned.)

April 2nd – Greenville, OH
April 12th – 6PM, Corner Coffee Shop, Intercourse, PA (because every good book tour needs a stop in Intercourse)
April 13th – God’s Whisper Farm, Radiant, VA
April 15-16 – Charlotte, NC
April 17-18 – Charleston, SC
April 19-20 – Atlanta, GA
April 21-23 – Knoxville, TN
April 24-26 – Nashville, TN
April 27-28 – Fayetteville, AR
April 29-30 – Austin, TX
May 1-3 – Dallas, TX
May 4-5 – Amarillo, TX
May 6-7 – Santa Fe, NM
May 8-11 – Moab, UT
May 12-14 – Denver, CO
May 15-16 – Wichita, KS
May 17-18 – Kansas City, KS
May 20-21 – Lincoln, NE
May 22-23 – Minneapolis, MN
May 24-25 – Chicago, IL
May 26-27 – Cincinnatti, OH

Posted on

When the Question is “Do you want to get well?” and the Answer is “No”

IMG_1006

If you’re trying to figure out if you’re an alcoholic, well, I personally think you are. I don’t really know any non-alcoholics who ask themselves if they might be alcoholics. – Anne Lamott

Anne Lamott had the crowd laughing one minute and on the verge of tears the next, and this quote from her (which is especially poignant considering her former life as an alcoholic) really resonated with me. Not because I’m an alcoholic, but because I have my own addictions, and I think that whenever we take the time to ask ourselves whether or not we’re addicted to something, we probably are. Am I addicted to my phone? Facebook? Jealousy? Candy? Feeling sorry for myself?

How then will we heal ourselves of these addictions?

It reminds me of something Jesus said.

A man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had already been a long time in that condition, He said to him, “Do you wish to get well?”

What a stupid question, right? I know a man who is in his 60s and he suffers from so many maladies – strokes, cancer, alcoholism. Can you imagine if I walked into his trailer park home and asked him if he wanted to get well? If he wanted to be restored fully to health?

What kind of a question is that?

Yet I think there are still many areas of my life where I don’t want to get well. Seemingly petty sicknesses I have like that bad attitude towards certain people or those small stabs of jealousy that I think I’ll hang on to for now, thank you very much, Jesus. And then maybe things that aren’t so petty, things that my anger uncovers, things that trigger my white-knuckled grasping on to unforgiveness, things that discharge my cynicism and underlying (but very well hid) prejudices.

I’m all good. Thanks, J. That healing thing? I’m not ready yet.

* * * * *

I had a long lunch with a good friend recently who has been asking himself very good questions about his own addiction. And I think he will get there, in time. He will know.

But I left that lunch with that same question resonating in my mind.

Do we want to get well? Does my friend want to get well? Do I?

And I think many times the answer is no. Maybe we find identity in the sickness. Maybe we can’t imagine the life we would lead if we were well. Maybe we’ve lost hope; I think that’s it most of the time – I don’t want to be well because I don’t think it’s even possible, so why would I put myself in the position to be so sorely disappointed when it all crumbles down around me?

Which brings me full circle, back to Anne Lamott, because if you know her story you know that she finally reached the point where she said, Yes, I want to be well, and with the help of a wonderful community she clawed her way up through the murky waters of drug and alcohol addiction and now she gives us such beauty, such hope, and I guess that’s the one thing that makes me want to answer yes, when I see those who have gone before. Those who have stood up and walked away from the Ground Zero of their pain. Those who can point to their own uncomfortable journey of transformation and say, It’s worth it. Get well.

Do you want to get well?

Posted on

“That’s Usually When We Experience God, When We Run Out of Good Ideas.”

photo-35

We followed the winding line of brake lights to the far side of the college campus, swinging into the first empty parking space we could find. We got out and walked quickly past dorms and large halls, and all around us there were people walking in the same direction, as if some irresistible force drew anyone within a one-mile radius. Most of the people were in groups of three or four, and they chattered in that excited way people do when they’re on their way to something they’ve looked forward to for a long time.

How did I feel? I felt like I was on the way to meet a long-lost friend, someone who knew me and had spoken life into me for the last twenty years.

* * * * *

I love to read, and I love beautiful books, but I’m not someone who becomes emotionally attached to particular versions of books. At least not very often. I have an 1864 version of Pilgrim’s Progress that I found in hole-in-the-wall bookstore in Windsor, England. My Prayer For Owen Meany is dog-eared and underlined and definitely the worse for wear. I have many books signed  by the friends who have written them, and I’d hate to lose those.

But of all of the books I own, there is only one that makes me feel panicky when I can’t find it right away. It’s my copy of Anne Lamott’s Bird By Bird. On the inside cover is a short note from the friend who bought it for me

To: Shawn
From: Jason
On your 21st birthday

It was a rather inauspicious gift at the time. Thoughtful, but not something that made me stop and say, “This moment will change my life.” But it did, actually. That book, throughout the years, has given me more joy, solace, and encouragement than any other book I’ve ever read. Anne’s (and yes, I refer to her as Anne because we’d obviously be great friends if we met in person) irreverent and sometimes crass humor took me by surprise. A Christian who drops the f-bomb? A Christian who is a Democrat? A Christian who has Buddhist friends? I had never met a Christian like that; I didn’t know Christians like that even existed.

The first reading of Bird By Bird blew me away. By the second reading, I knew it would be a book I would read many times in my life. By the 20th reading, I’m still taking away new things.

* * * * *

We got closer to the auditorium. Someone handed me a program as we walked through the glass doors: “A Night With Anne Lamott.” We found excellent seats in the balcony and settled in. Anne’s talk was beautiful and hilarious, encouraging and witty. She is everything in person that she projects through her writing. This is a rare quality, a writing voice that carries over into real life.

But of all the things she said, one sticks out in my mind:

“That’s usually when we experience God, when we run out of good ideas.”

And that’s where I’m at, in some ways. I’ve been a relatively successful freelance writer for the last five years, and I will finally get around to releasing my first novel later this month. I feel it in my spirit, that there’s change a-comin’, though I can’t put my finger on exactly what it will be. In some ways I feel like I’m all out of good ideas, but I’ve been here before, and I know it’s  the right place to be.

* * * * *

At the end of night they invited people to get in line and have Anne sign her new book. Maybe chat with her for a few seconds. I thought about it, but then Maile and I walked back into the night. We had a four-month-old at home. Besides, there was nothing more that Anne could give me, not even if I shook her hand, not even if we talked for a few minutes. I have my worn copy of Bird By Bird at home. That’s enough for me.

Posted on

When Impossible Boys Grow Up to be Unbreakable Men

IMG_0565

This is a tale of my three sons. The youngest is only four months old and his personality is emerging, the way those old Polaroid photos leeched up through the blackness. My oldest son is eleven and exactly like I was as a child: a rule-follower, not a risk-taker. He’s kind to his siblings and isn’t particularly rough. He loves to read.

My middle son Sam, well, sometimes I wonder where he came from. He’s a climber, adventurous, and never gives up. He will ask for something over and over and over again, even if I say no. His primary way of relating with people is by being physically rough with them: he has a game he plays with his grandpa whenever he sees him that involves punching him in the stomach as hard as he can. He finds this hilarious. If I am ever on my knees changing the baby’s diaper or picking something up off the floor, no matter where Sam is in the house, he will sense that I’m on my knees, find me, and jump on to my back. He spent all Thanksgiving weekend wrestling with his cousin.

He is five. Words that describe him perfectly at this point in his life? I’ll take Defiant, Strong-Willed, and Passionate.

* * * * *

Maile was recently reading an interview with Laura Hillenbrand, the author of Unbroken. It’s been on the NYT best-seller list for 180 weeks, and it’s the story of a man who served in WWII, survived a plane crash, being lost at sea, and then imprisoned in a Japanese POW camp.

There was a quote from the interview that stood out to me as she reflected on the subject of her book, a man named Louie.

“Defiance defines Louie,” Laura Hillenbrand said. “As a boy he was a hellraiser. He refused to be corralled. When someone pushed him he pushed back. That made him an impossible kid but an unbreakable man.”

An impossible kid.

An unbreakable man.

Sometimes I think I am way too short-sighted when it comes to raising Sammy. Too many times I want to change his personality NOW because it will make my life easier. But I think that, with him, with all of my children, I need to think about how these current struggles will someday become incredible strengths of character. I don’t want to break him now just so that bedtime routines or dinner times are quieter. I don’t want to quench his spirit just so that I can walk through the house without getting jumped on.

I want to guide him into becoming an unbreakable man.

* * * * *

Sam catches up to me as I start down the stairs.

“Dad, can you sing me a bedtime song?”

“Sammy, everyone else is asleep. If we go back in there and I sing, we’ll wake them up.”

He looks up at me.

“C’mon, Dad,” he says.

“It’s not going to happen, buddy.”

“C’mon, Dad,” he says again.

Did I mention he does not give up?

“Come here,” I say, and I sit down on the floor in the hallway, my back against the wall. He comes over and sits on my lap, facing me. He wraps his arms around my neck, puts his head on my chest, and sucks his thumb while I sing his favorite song.

After getting through it twice, I whisper into his ear.

“Time for bed, little man.”

He looks at me and smiles, then walks back into the bedroom. Sometimes he seems like an impossible kid, but from now on I will choose to remember that this will someday make him into an unbreakable man.