There was an Iraqi man sitting next to me on the plane as we approached Erbil. He motioned towards the window.
“I love seeing Erbil at night,” he said, looking down on the lights. He sounded like a man talking about a woman or his childhood home. He looked at me, alarmed, as if suddenly abashed by some lack of manners.
“Have you been here before?” he asked.
“No, I haven’t.”
“Come, come over here!” he insisted, unbuckling his seatbelt. “You have to see! Take my seat.”
“No, no,” I said, smiling. “That’s okay. Really.” But he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He stood and pushed passed me into the aisle so that I could slide over into his chair and watch our descent into Iraq. It really was a beautiful site. Erbil spread itself out in shining white lights, hemmed in by the pitch black mountains. It looked like any other city I had flown into before – serene, busy, like an outpost surrounded by darkness.
“Thanks,” I said. “It’s beautiful.” And he smiled, looking rather pleased with himself.
“Do you need a ride from the airport?” he asked. “I can give you a ride if you need one.” I explained that our group had someone picking us up. Need I remind you that it was 4am? Never in all of my travels has anyone ever offered to give me a ride from the airport, much less at that kind of hour.
No, I had to go to Iraq and hang out with Muslims to receive that kind of radical hospitality.
* * * * *
We arrived at our hotel around 5am. We slept until 7am. Had breakfast. Glided into a day-long security training session at 8:30am. Had to prop eyelids open with toothpicks. What I caught from the lesson was this.
The road from Erbil to Mosul, along with the abandoned buildings in Mosul, were lined with thousands of old mines and IEDs that had yet to be disarmed. Our plan was to travel to the outskirts of Mosul two days later.
ISIS will sometimes put toys in the middle of the road for children. These toys are attached to explosives.
Do not leave the road. Do not walk into abandoned buildings. Do not step on rocks that are out of place.
Photos of people who have stepped on landmines and experienced traumatic amputations are images that will stay in your mind for a long time.
* * * * *
I slept well that night. I woke up early the next morning. My body had no idea what time it was – too many late nights in a row, too many long days, too many time zones crossed. I had to believe the clock, and the sun, knew what they were doing.
We ate breakfast on the sixth floor of the hotel. The entire wall was glass, and we looked out over Erbil. Again, I was surprised at how normal the city appeared. There weren’t car bombs going off every day; there weren’t mortar rounds falling from the sky. There was traffic, and people opening their shops for the day, and a bell hop who insisted on helping us out the door to our waiting van.
So began our first day in Iraq. We planned on driving two to three hours north, into the mountains, to a remove valley lined with eight Christian villages. It would be many miles on the road, and many checkpoints. I felt a little bit anxious, leaving the safety of Erbil. We climbed in the van, and off we went.
* * * * *
I traveled to Northern Iraq with a group called Reload Love. They take spent bullet casings, melt them down, and turn them into jewelry to raise awareness and money to support children impacted by terror. They send aid to in-country partners that have expertise in rescuing children from harm’s way and provide much needed assistance, including relief supplies, children’s programs, and safe spaces such as playgrounds. Reload Love is doing incredible work. You can find out more about them, as well as check out their beautiful line of jewelry, here.
Poppy at her first Maundy Thursday service, her sisters washing her feet.
We walked the six blocks to Saint James on Good Friday, the sun shining, a spring breeze chasing us along the sidewalks. I pushed the double-stroller – occupants varying in combination between Poppy, Leo, Sam, and Abra – and sometimes Maile would come up beside me, quietly, nestling her hand in under my arm. We walked long stretches without saying anything. She sometimes looked up at me with tears in her eyes.
The knowledge of my upcoming trip to Iraq came to us during Lent, just before Holy Week. Everything about Easter week felt heavier to me after my trip details were finalized. Everything felt pregnant with undelivered meaning.
* * * * *
Two-year-old Leo did remarkably well during the Good Friday service, but towards the end, he got antsy, and I took him out into the courtyard. He played in the fountain, carefully picking up tiny pieces of gravel and making small piles, or squatting over the meandering movement of an ant, or eyeing the flowers blooming off to the side.
But he wanted to walk, he wanted to run, and around the corner of the church he fled. I followed him through the arches, past the climbing tree (as our middle son Sam calls it), and back, back, back into the church yard. The cemetery.
Two days later, two days after Leo and I wandered among the stones, our church would hold its annual egg hunt there, and children would scramble over the graves, trampling the grass and hugging the trees and walking over all those bones. They would laugh and call out to each other, their new voices filtered by standing reminders of death.
So, Leo and I walked through the stones. He climbed on the graves’ edges, balancing like a man on a cliff. He jumped into the green grass. Would that we all saw death as our playground! We made our way to the far, back corner. There is a memorial stone there, and large granite slabs. While there are no more free spaces in the church’s cemetery, this is where our saints are now remembered. Flowers reached up around the edges.
I saw my friend’s name there on one of the slabs: Nelson Keener. He died one year ago. I sat with my back against the hard stone and watched Leo, now swinging a stick. This is life. This is death. And so it goes.
* * * * *
Planning a trip to Iraq during Holy Week is a wonderful way to come face to face with your mortality. I know the odds are in my favor of returning, perhaps not unscathed emotionally, but at least in one piece physically. It’s the unknown, I suppose. I will be there for a little over a week. If I spent that time here, at home, that week would probably pass by like most other weeks I have come to know. But now, thousands of miles away, in a place decimated by war and conflict, in a place so full of hurting people, that week will be different. Life will be different, measured as happening either before or after my trip to Iraq. This is only a sense that I have. Time will tell.
* * * * *
Can I take a moment and tell you all you need to know about our wonderful priest, Father David? Stay with me. This will all come together in the end.
Imagine this: Easter morning. The church is packed. The choir has made their way to the front, and Father David stands at the front beside Father Rob. The church is ringing with the sound of saints singing, the sound of a trumpet peeling against the beautiful morning light streaming through stained-glass windows. And suddenly, Father David is walking towards me where our family sits in the front row. We are not normally front row people, but on Easter morning the church was full, and we were two minutes late, so there we were.
Anyway, Father David walks down the stairs, comes over to me, and leans in close.
“I think your wife is looking for you,” he whispers, smiling before he turns and walks back to his place. I look around, locate and make eye contact with Mai, and wave her to the front. But it struck me, the fact that my priest would, in the middle of the service, take the time to come down to where I sat and let me know my wife couldn’t find where I was sitting.
This may seem like a small thing to you. I have never seen a pastor do such a thing before, not during such an important service. This is not a small thing.
Nine months in the womb, and now almost nine months out. Poppy has been the icing on our cake.
* * * * *
Father David spoke on Easter morning about those four powerful words the angel uttered to the women at the grave, when they came to see Jesus.
“He is not here.”
Father David went on to say that, basically, it sure feels that way, doesn’t it? I look around at this world I live in, and it’s easy to wonder if God is here or not. And it’s easy to conclude, when you see Syrian children being gassed or pulled out from under the rubble, when you see Iraqi children dying in the wilderness, when you hear of aid workers being killed by ISIS sniper fire, when you hear a woman across your very own street screaming at, and hitting, her child, when you lose yet another friend to cancer…and on and on.
“He is not here.”
And yet. The angel goes on to say, “He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see Him.”
He is going ahead of you.
There, you will see him.
* * * * *
The unasked question I see in many friends’ and relatives’ eyes when I tell them I am going to Iraq is not difficult to recognize. They have, every one, remained verbally positive, but eyes ask questions mouths will not utter.
“You have a family and you’re risking your life on a trip to the Middle East? For what?”
My only answer is that I was asked to do something that fits entirely within the realm of our family’s mission and way of life. But as I think more about it, I realize there is another answer, a truer answer. The true answer to why I am going to Iraq is that God is not here. He is there. He has gone ahead of me.
There, I will see him.
* * * * *
I think we all have an Iraq to go to. God is not here anymore. Do you realize that? He has gone ahead of you. Go! There, you will see him.
* * * * *
If you want to read about someone who is going, who is following the call to wherever there might be, someone who inspires me to stay open to where the spirit might lead, check out my friend Tsh Oxenreider’s beautiful new book, At Home in the World, releasing today! It’s the story of her family of five’s journey around the world. Yes, around the world. Tsh is insightful, funny, adventurous, and you will love this book. I promise.
I’ve never met Tsh or her husband, Kyle, but we’ve become online friends. If you’re intrigued by people who do not allow themselves to be tied down by conventional commitments, people who want to live fresh, meaningful lives, Tsh and Kyle are your kind of people. Here’s a snippet about her newest book:
What would you say if your spouse suggested selling the house, putting the furniture in storage, and taking your three kids under age ten on a nine-month trip around the world? Tsh Oxenreider said, “Thank you for bringing it up first.”
At Home in the World follows their journey from China to New Zealand, Ethiopia to England, and more. They traverse bumpy roads, stand in awe before a waterfall that feels like the edge of the earth, and chase each other through three-foot-wide passageways in Venice. And all the while Tsh grapples with the concept of home, as she learns what it means to be lost—yet at home—in the world.
Check it out HERE or wherever books are sold. Buy it. Trust me.
When Father David said what he said on Sunday morning, I immediately grabbed the pen my daughter was drawing with and scribbled his quote at the top of my bulletin. “Hey!” she hissed in quiet protest. Lucy and Cade looked over my shoulder to see what I was doing, what I had stolen from Abra. When I finished writing down Father David’s words, I handed the pen back folded the piece of paper, and tucked it into my pocket. Those words were like a promise to me, like some kind of blessing.
* * * * *
Two years ago, I read a blog post by Ann Voskamp that left me in tears. When Maile came home later that evening, I made her sit down and read it, too. We soaked in Ann’s writing, suddenly aware, awake, to a small part of what was going on in the Middle East, and we were shattered. Empty. We did what we could, we gave what we could, but for the last two years, ever since reading that post, I’ve felt a holy kind of restlessness whenever I thought about the Middle East. It felt, and continues to feel, intensely personal.
This is part of the reason I’ve been so upset by President Trump’s efforts to keep out refugees from the Middle East. This is part of the reason I befriended a Syrian refugee family who recently moved to Lancaster. This is part of the reason I’ve done work with Church World Service and Preemptive Love. The restlessness, the discomfort, has continued to grow. I wanted to do more, but I didn’t know what else I could do.
We all know this sense of helplessness, right? In a world where we see every tragedy, where we witness every injustice, how can we feel anything but helpless? Well, I found a small way to beat back the helplessness, and for me it came in doing small things, whenever I could. You might find this useful, too, when you’re drowning in helplessness, in a sense of smallness.
Ever since reading Ann’s article two years ago, I’ve felt a kind of irresistible pull towards that region of the world. Sometimes I’ve felt impatient to get involved – What’s taking so long, God? At other times, I’ve been content to sit back and wait – after all, our life is busy, and the days fall over each other in their passing. Months get swept away. I can hardly believe two years has passed since I first read that blog post.
Still, there was this invisible trajectory, inevitable in its motion. I think the passing of this time, all these days and weeks and months, have been a grace, God’s way of easing Maile and I into a new movement, one that at first might have been difficult to accept had we not been given so much time for it to grow. I think God knew that if he gave us this opportunity too soon, we might mistakenly pass it up out of fear or practicality or uncertainty. But God gave us time. Two years, to be exact.
I continue to be amazed at God’s adept use of time in my life, this insistence that I wait, that I not have everything precisely when I want it. I’m beginning to think it might be God’s greatest talent, this use of time, this creating of holy space, this invitation into the waiting.
* * * * *
Finally, the penny dropped. I spoke with my agency about a potential project, and that led to a phone conversation with the potential client. I researched her story and what her organization is involved in. What I didn’t expect was the question that came next.
“Would you be willing to travel to Iraq to see the work we’re doing first hand?”
I called Maile as soon as I got off the phone.
“The client wants to know if I’m willing to travel with her to see the work they’re doing.” Maile was quiet on the other end of the line. “So, where do they want you to go?” she finally asked, laughing nervously, because somehow she already knew.
“You’ll never guess,” I said, also starting to laugh, for no reason. We were both giddy with nerves and a sense that what we had dreaded and wanted was upon us.
“Iraq,” she said, and we both stopped laughing. We both grew serious.
“I knew you’d know,” I said.
“The dangerous part of Iraq, or the really dangerous part?” she asked.
“Take your time and think about it. We both have to be okay with this.” I paused. “We’ll talk when I get home.”
Later that day, I walked straight up to the bedroom, past my kids’ greetings and requests for food and shouts to arbitrate some new disagreement. I went up the stairs, back the hall, and into our room, where Maile was folding clothes on the bed and seven-month-old Poppy was sitting, proud of herself, happy to see me.
I started talking, but Maile held up her hand and smiled and there were little seeds of tears in her eyes.
“You’re going to Iraq. We both know it. We’ve both seen this coming for a long time. And I’m okay with it. I don’t know how, or why. But I’m not even worried. It’s the next thing.”
* * * * *
A few days later, Maile and I were up in the study. Through the narrow window, I could see this little city we’ve grown to love. We gathered the kids into the room and they sat down, some on the chair, some on the floor, some on us. We have six, you know, and everyone was there except Poppy.
“So, Daddy has a new writing project,” Maile explained. The kids stared at us. This is nothing new to them. We are constantly talking about having or not having projects, having or not having money, having or not having time. We explain when it’s time to tighten our belts. We explain the value of money and how it relates to time. Then, when a new deposit comes in or a new contract is signed, we celebrate by going out to eat. I hope our honesty with them is a good thing. I don’t want them to be obsessed with money, but I do want them to understand the true cost of a thing.
“To write this book, he has to go to Iraq,” Maile continued. I nodded.
“Is there a war going on there?” Cade asked.
“There’s a lot of conflict,” I conceded. “They’re working on getting rid of ISIS.”
“Is it dangerous?” Lucy asked.
“It’s not the safest place in the world,” I said, shrugging. Maile laughed.
“It is a dangerous place,” Maile said, “but here’s the thing. This is right in line with the purpose of our family. We are adventurous. We try to stand up for people being persecuted. We live differently, or we try to. And when God opens up an opportunity like this, we say yes.”
Maile paused. It was quiet there in that third-floor room.
“Daddy has the opportunity to shed some light in the darkness. He has a chance to share stories people might not otherwise hear.”
Our five oldest kids, including Leo, stared at Maile as if she was explaining the meaning of life. Their eyes were round, their mouths stretched in serious straight lines. I was glad Maile was talking because I felt myself getting choked up. I don’t know if it’s possible to plan a trip to Iraq without at least considering the possibility that you might not come back.
“So Daddy is representing our family, what our family stands for. And that’s why he’s going.”
* * * * *
This writing life, this crazy, beautiful, unpredictable writing life, has led me to so many wonderful places: Sri Lanka, Istanbul, an Iranian community in Los Angeles, middle-of-nowhere Indiana, a Navy SEAL’s house in Maryland, and so many others. I’ve read the sacred diaries of a young woman who committed suicide. I sat across the table and became friends with a father whose young son committed triple homicide. I’ve witnessed firsthand the ridiculous power of forgiveness.
And now, in a few weeks, Jordan and Iraq.
Tonight, I came back early from driving Uber because I’d rather watch some basketball with my son than make another $20 or $30. When facing a trip to a place like Iraq, I am reminded that time is a non-renewable resource. I suddenly see how limited it is, how we hold it without any guarantee, and I find myself spending the minutes more deliberately.
At one point I went into the bathroom and there, on the sink, was my bulletin from Sunday. I unfolded it, square upon folded square, and there at the top were the words I had written down, Father David’s words.
“Live a little more beautifully and dangerously, as Christians should.”
So, I go, and do what I’ve been created to do: tell stories, mine, as well as the stories of those who cannot tell their own. And I represent Maile and my kids and all of us who believe Christ was not about worldly power or cultural success or being first, but about being last, about taking up an Iraq-shaped cross, and going, even when it doesn’t always make sense. Or when it makes perfect sense. And I carry with me the phrase of Father David:
“Live a little more beautifully and dangerously, as Christians should.”
Two or three nights a month, I’ll wake up at an ungodly hour and see blue lights flashing against our white window blinds, a rhythmic beating, like the inside of a vein, or a party light. But, because it’s happened so many times before, I know it’s none of those things. It’s just the police.
A few weeks ago the lights got my attention at three in the morning and I looked out to find a car had crashed and ended up directly under a parked car – as in, there were two cars, and one was parked on top of the other car. Last summer I woke up and looked out to find five or six police officers holding a man down on the sidewalk while his girlfriend shouted at them from down the street, warning them that she was recording everything on her phone. Another time, I woke up to find police breaking up a domestic dispute that had made its way out onto the sidewalk.
This is life in the city. You think you have your own house, but what you don’t realize until you live in a city is that your house is more like your bedroom – you share a living room and foyer (the sidewalk and street) with 70,000 other people.
This happened again on Sunday night. I turned over in bed, noticed the blue flashing, and stumbled over to the window. I lifted one of the slats and peered through. A police officer sat parked in the street, his lights making the lazy turn after turn after turn. Another police car was on the opposite side of the street, lights off. Besides that, nothing.
Streets in our city are eerily quiet at night. It’s strange when you think about how many people are all around you, yet there is no one on the road. The yellow street light across from us shines down on nothing. At 3am, no one even drives by.
But another car did pull up, and this one was a hearse. It stopped behind the police car, and two men got out, dressed in suits and bow ties, and the first thing I thought was, “How in the world can people do that night after night? Show up at a stranger’s house at their most vulnerable moment and carry their dead out the door?” I thought of my friend Caleb, who does this for a living. He’s my hero.
I wondered who had died. I’ve got a friend who lives over there, or at least a guy I stop and talk to from time to time. He’s an older, African-American gentleman with kidney disease. He’s on dialysis twice a week and waiting for a kidney transplant. Was it him? It also happens to be the apartment where the mother lives, the same one Maile confronted the other day after she hit her little daughter over the head. Heaven forbid…not the little girl? There are only three apartments in that row home.
So I sat in the chair and I waited and time oozed past. One of the police officers left. A fire truck came, four burly men went inside, and then they came back out again. The fire truck left.
Maile got out of bed and came over, stood beside me. It was like we were keeping vigil. Neither of us said a word for a very long time. Finally I turned to her.
“Do you want to sit down?” She shook her head no. We continued waiting.
One of the funeral directors came out and moved the hearse into an alley before unloading a stretcher and taking it up onto the porch. It was a heavy moment, a strange moment, sitting there, waiting for the dead to come out. Still, we waited. I wondered if other people watched from other windows, wondering who death had come for on that Sunday night.
They were a long time in the house. Eventually, I turned to Maile, barely able to keep my eyes open any longer. “I’m going back to bed,” I said. She nodded, sat down in my chair after I crawled into bed. Every so often I would doze off, then wake up again. I’d look over and see her sitting there, holding up one slat of the blinds, peering down, waiting. The street lights made pale, golden lines stretch across her body. Besides that, the darkness was all around us.
She woke me up. I have no idea how long this all took.
“They brought him out,” she said, and I went back beside her at the window. And there he was. Or she was. Lying there on the stretcher under a sheet, the topography of a person. I wondered what that person had been doing a few hours earlier. Sleeping? Watching late-night television? Making love? Dreaming? Had they been in pain or absolutely clueless? If they had known death was coming, would they have been relieved or terrified?
What would I think, if I knew death was coming for me? Would anyone recognize me, lying there under the sheet?
I sighed. We couldn’t tell who it was. The body seemed tall, long and lanky, and didn’t seem to match the physical description of anyone we would have recognized from our street, but who knows. Who knows what any of us will look like under a sheet. And we both went back to bed.
I woke up this morning, wondering lots of things, more aware than ever of the fact that it will be me someday, under the sheet. And then all this will be over, and what will I be left with? It’s a strange thing, seeing someone being carried from their home. It’ll make you stop and think.
About a week ago, I pulled up to the curb on James Street in time to see someone’s car being loaded onto the flatbed of a tow truck. I had seen the Lancaster parking authority vehicles earlier that morning, and a few of their employees going door to door, trying to find the owner of the vehicle, which happened to be blocking a business’s garage. They hadn’t been able to find them, so the car was getting towed.
I crawled out of my own car and walked towards the house when I heard a woman shout at the top of her voice.
“Noooooooo! Nooooooo!”
I glanced across the street, and she came flying out of the apartments. She was on her phone with someone else while shouting at the man operating the tow truck.
“Noooooooo! Nooooooo! What the f***! What are you doing?”
I didn’t want to hang around for the ugly scene sure to follow, so I started walking up the steps to the house. That’s when Maile pulled up in the Suburban and parked. She had just been to the grocery store. She kissed me and said hello and we started taking groceries into the house and catching up on what we’d been doing that morning.
But the woman got louder and louder until it sounded like she was losing her mind. She kept shouting obscenities – at the driver, at whoever she was talking to on the phone, at the sky. The driver stood there staring at her with something like amazement. The car was halfway onto the truck, and he didn’t seem to know what to do.
Then a little girl came wandering out of the apartment, maybe seven years old, her hair up in a ponytail on top of her head. The mother was shouting at someone on her phone, and when she saw the girl she made a beeline for the apartment. Maile and I were in and out during this time, but what we heard next brought us to a halt right there on the sidewalk.
The woman was pounding on her apartment door, inside the building, and we could hear her screaming and wailing, her hands thudding against the wood. The little girl edged out onto the porch, away from her mother. The woman was terrifying.
“WHAT DID YOU DO!” the woman screamed, somehow finding another volume level, and now her voice was aimed at the little girl. She came out onto the porch and grabbed hold of the little girl’s arm. “HOW COULD YOU DO THIS? WHAT THE F*** WERE YOU THINKING? YOU LOCKED US OUT OF THE APARTMENT! YOU LOCKED US OUT!”
“That’s not right,” Maile said, pausing, staring across the street. We were both frozen. The woman continued screaming at the child. “Hon, that’s not right,” Maile said again. The little girl was crying, cowering on the porch. The mother’s rage only grew. Her voice was louder.
“She can’t do that,” Maile said louder, her voice cracking. “She can’t talk to her that way.”
Then, the woman jerked her little girl’s arm with one hand, and with the other she hauled back and hit her hard, across the head.
“No, no, no, no, no,” Maile said, starting across the street, her normally gentle voice getting louder with each “no.” I have never seen her like this before. I followed her with a strange numbness setting in, the kind that accompanies disbelief. I couldn’t believe this was happening. Maile was in the middle of the street, standing on the double-yellow line. The woman heard her, turned to look.
The woman came flying down the steps to the edge of the curb.
“MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS!” she screamed, over and over again. And no matter what Maile said, no matter how Maile pleaded, the woman screamed the same thing. “MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS!” The woman had a crazed look on her face, still holding her telephone, and I thought she was about to come running out on the street and punch Maile. Here we go, I thought. This is where I defend my wife and, let’s be honest, get beat up by some strange woman. I pulled out my phone and called 911.
But there was an invisible wall between the two of them, something that kept them physically separated. The woman kept shouting, MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS, and Maile kept shouting, SHE’S JUST A LITTLE GIRL! I don’t know what invisible force eventually snapped, but whatever held them together in that opposition dissolved in minutes, moments. The woman suddenly turned her back on Maile and vanished back inside the apartment building, only to resume her bashing on the door. Maile stood there for a moment, and later she told me she was talking to the little girl from about fifteen feet away.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered up the stairs to her, tears running down her face. “I’m so sorry.”
Then, Maile came back across the street while I spoke with the 911 operator and relayed what was going on. Maile kept weeping, sobs shaking her body. She walked past me and up the porch steps to where my daughter Lucy was standing, also watching the entire thing, and Lucy gave her a hug, stood there and held her in a way I’ve not seen one of our children hug either of us before. And Maile just kept crying.
The response I got from the 911 operator was sort of along the lines of, “Really? Is that it? We’ll send someone when they’re free.” Which, whatever. Mind your own business, right?
We were all pretty shaky, and we sat in the living room for a long while. The police came – we watched through the windows – and asked some questions and then they left. But whenever I think about this, and I keep going back to it in my mind, I wonder if we did the right thing, if there was some other way. I know beyond any doubt that Maile did the right thing. Stopping that trajectory was important, crucial.
But after I called 911, well, I don’t know. Maybe I’m becoming an official city-dweller, but calling the police felt icky, like being some kind of colossal tattle-tale. And it felt pointless. I wish I could have put aside that pesky adrenaline, that annoying sense of panic, and walked across the street, asked the woman if I could help her get into her apartment, or if there was something I could do about her car being towed away. I wish I would have offered to help. Maybe she wouldn’t have been able to hear me. Maybe she would have screamed at me, too. I don’t know. But next time, that’s what I’ll do.
At the end of all this wondering, I keep hearing what Maile said to that little girl.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
I don’t know why things are the way they are. It doesn’t make any sense.
I’m not sure why I went with this photo, other than it’s one of the few recent photos of all of us, from Mardi Gras, and I’ve been wanting to work it in anyway.
Eight years ago, when Maile and I were at the bottom financially (or the lowest bottom we’ve been at so far because I guess you never know), I applied for a very well-paying job doing something I probably would have marginally enjoyed. Okay, barely enjoyed. Or not really enjoyed at all. It’s hard to say if I would have enjoyed it for very long. Due to some extenuating circumstances that I won’t go into, I did not get the job. I was furious. Writing work was sparse, and I was tired of living month-to-month. I craved the security of a 9 to 5.
A few months later, I landed a book-writing project. Soon after that, another. For the next eight years, albeit on a financial roller coaster, I went on to write over 20 books and finally, last year, tricked a publisher into signing me to a three-book deal to write fiction. Well, maybe there wasn’t any trickery. The publisher seems to be going into it rather enthusiastically.
None of this would have happened if I would have landed that job. That’s a fact. It was a demanding, hours-heavy position that would have left little time for writing. Most of the progress I’ve made as a writer during the last eight years has come out of desperation as much as anything else. With that job I would have had less desperation, and without that, I would have written a fraction of the words I’ve written.
I’ve thought about that a lot during the last eight years, how sometimes it feels like things are going to hell in a handbasket and then, out of nowhere, the very thing that seems worst about a situation starts to makes sense. It’s happened numerous times. One project will vanish only to make room for an even better one. One opportunity slips away and something else even more intriguing fills the gap.
Of course, it doesn’t always happen that way, and by that I mean, the rotten things that happen don’t always make sense. There are not-so-great things that have happened recently for which I have not received a decent explanation from God. Sometimes, I fall into the cosmic trap of thinking it’s God’s duty to explain or justify or clarify everything that happens in my life that I don’t agree with or understand.
Yet, God keeps on handing me good things and bad things for which there is no rational explanation. Which gets me to the point of this whole thing, which is not that everything makes sense. I’m not here to tell you that if you wait long enough, that hard thing in your life will turn to good or lead to you picking the right Powerball numbers.
But after eight years of being self-employed, after many heartaches and disappointments, after Maile’s two miscarriages, nearly facing bankruptcy, and even after our bus’s brakes went out as we went down the Teton Pass, I can tell you this: continually searching for meaning in the madness is sometimes the meaning itself. In other words, it’s the looking for meaning that has sometimes kept me sane, the asking and doubting, the questions and silence, the searching and searching. And searching.
* * * * *
When things looked like they might slow down back in November, I started driving for Uber and Lyft. It’s a flexible way to add some income when I’m in between projects. The things is, if I was busy, I probably wouldn’t have ever done any ride-sharing, but here we are.
Like I said, now that I’m eight years into this self-employed writing thing, I try to keep my eyes open for what I might find, even in places or times that aren’t exactly of my own choosing. And what do you know! I found stories hidden there in the hundreds of rides I’ve given with Uber and Lyft. Every single fare I’ve taken has been a real, live person with real, live problems and dreams and jobs and hopes and disappointments. I’ve driven immigration lawyers and transgender sex workers, mall employees and high-powered business people, students on their way to school and students who were absolutely hammered. Granted, not everyone wants to talk about their lives – Lord knows, I only feel like talking to people about 50% of the time – but the ones who do want to talk always seem relieved to have spoken, to have had someone listen to them even for just ten minutes.
So here it is again: a difficult thing ends up shining a light on something new, some kind of fresh story, some kind of glimpse of God in these people all around me.
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Not every bad thing in your life will come with a ready-made tag explaining or pointing out the redemptive work that has happened or is happening through it. But searching for that redemption – in other words, giving yourself the permission to hope in even the direst of circumstances – is not a terrible way to live a life, even when the question goes unanswered.
