Category: Faith and Doubt

You know those weeks? Those weeks when work still isn’t showing up and that bookshelf just doesn’t seem to paint itself and you find out the transmission is out on your truck so there goes $3000 you don’t have? You know those kind of weeks?

Yeah, we had one of those last week.

I’ve felt it for the last month, that descending into a certain period of time you’ve experienced before and don’t necessarily look forward to experiencing again. Do you know what I’m talking about? It’s that sense of a gradual lowering, the way they used to lower miners down, down, down into the darkness with nothing but a headlamp and a hammer. I sensed it coming a few months ago, but I couldn’t describe it and I tried to avoid thinking about it. No one likes the quiet and the shadows that fill these valleys of life.

But there’s something I say every time I give a book talk for The Day the Angels Fell, and I guess it’s time to see if I believe it or not: There is no resurrection or redemption without some kind of death. Something is passing away in me now, something that needs to die all the way. I can’t put my finger on it yet, so I take a deep breath, and down we go.

* * * * *

I couldn’t help but apologize to the couple at the end of our two-hour conversation.

“I’m really sorry,” I said, trying to steady my voice. “I know this is tough ground for you to cover, and I’m sorry I have to drag you through it every week.”

Their daughter committed suicide 20 years ago, left behind 22 journals, and they hired me to write their story. I’ve written about it before. But last week, it was a tougher session than usual. Brutal memories and questions and uncertainty.

“I’m really sorry,” I said again.

“No, it’s okay,” the mother said.

“You know,” the father said. “There’s an element of this process that brings her back to life for us.”

Silence on the other line. I could tell they were descending through their own valley, their own mineshaft.

“Are you okay?” she asked him. I could barely hear their voices through the phone line. It felt like I was eavesdropping on a private moment.

“Yeah,” he said quietly, clearing his throat. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

* * * * *

One of the central premises of The Day the Angels Fell is that Death is a gift. And it’s so hard for me to accept. Rationally, I get it. But in my heart? It’s hard.

So when I gave a book talk and read the first chapter at Pequea Valley Library last week, and when a large portion of those in the audience were part of a family who had just lost someone last summer, I found myself apologizing for that premise.

“I know it’s hard to understand,” I said. “And I don’t want to be insensitive about this idea that death is a gift.”

They listened quietly, those family members of my friend who had died: his brother and sister-in-law, his mother and father, his nephew and niece, his friends. Afterwards they came up and hugged me and we talked about books and they were so encouraging, everyone clamoring for a sequel and asking about details in the book, which is of course the best way to make your writer friends very happy.

But at the very end, when chairs are being put away and tables are being repositioned, the mom came up to me and gave me an extra hug.

“You don’t have to apologize about that,” she said with emotion in her voice. “You don’t have to apologize about death being a gift.”

* * * * *

All of that to say, we are surrounded by courageous people. Have you taken the time to notice them? I find that these days, when the darkness is most palpable, I cling to the courage of others, those that go before me, fighting battles, climbing mountains. I watch in awe the paths they are able to navigate, and it gives me fresh determination to take the next step of my own.

The darkness never seems quite so dark when you’re being lowered down into it with someone else, someone who can be courageous when you start to feel the fear rising.

Thank you for being courageous for me.

* * * * *

If you want to read the first chapter of The Day the Angels Fell, you can check that out over at Caleb Wilde’s blog (you’ll also find a link there to purchase the ebook for $3.99).

Have you ever driven out of the city on an overcast January afternoon? Have you ever left the traffic and the brake lights and the three-day-old gray snow in your rear view mirror? Have you ever gotten out to the fields you grew up hiking through, the rolling hills and farms and long lanes, and marveled at how white everything was, how unmarked?

I know those roads better than any other roads in the entire world. I know where they go and where they come out. I know the woods and the farms that line them, the places to fish, the turns that will spin your car around if you’re not careful.

We drove out that way last week to see some friends, and the sun was setting somewhere behind the dim slate clouds and the low light shone off of fields of untouched snow. Corn stubble poked through, but that was all, just endless miles of white, and beyond the fields the hills, and beyond the hills, eternity.

My daughter Lucy said something that perfectly echoed how I felt at that moment.

“If I could do anything in the world right now, I’d run into the middle of that field.”

There was such longing in her voice. We had just pulled into our friends’ driveway.

“Go for it, Lu,” I told her as we parked the truck. “Do it.”

But as so often happens, the glory of desire met the unflinching light of practicality.

“I don’t know,” she hedged. “I mean, I don’t have the right boots on. These would soak through. And it’s so cold.”

“C’mon, Lucy,” Maile said. “If you want to do it, do it. We’ll get you home – you don’t have to wear your wet boots.”

“I don’t know,” she said hesitantly. We sat in the truck for a few more minutes but it became clear she wasn’t going to do it, no longer wanted to do it, so we walked into our friends’ house, and that was the end of that.

* * * * *

How often do we want to run out into the field? How often do we see something beautiful, or something we want, or a way of life we want to live, and the sacred nature of that desire takes our breath away?

It happened to us five years ago when the business I owned wasn’t doing so well and we decided to run into this beautiful way of living. For us it was entirely new, entirely unthought of before. I would make a living writing books for people. Maile would home school the kids. We would go where the wind took us. We would live simply and give away any extra we had.

Unlike Lucy and her field, we actually did it. We ran out into the middle of that glorious life, and it was incredible. It has been incredible.

But, right about now? It feels like our boots have gotten wet through. Our feet are freezing. We’re looking back at the truck, a half-mile away, and sometimes I wonder what were we thinking? How long did we think this could last?

It’s been a tough few weeks. A project we thought was in the bag slipped away. Out-of-the-ordinary expenses add to the weight of these moments. For the last two years we’ve had work lined up fairly far ahead, but suddenly we’re staring down the barrel of what looks like some lean months ahead.

We’ve reached that point where we ran into the field, into that glorious promise, and it was so worth it. But cold reality sets in, and we’re wondering what to do next.

* * * * *

This morning at church, Father David recounted something one of the kids said in children’s church.

“God must really be dedicated to the process.”

So true. Our God is not one of destinations, or God would pick us up and drop us down at the end of the race, the end of the hike, at the top of the mountain. But no, God is dedicated to process. So we hold our heads up, we cling to hope, and we embrace what this current process will bring to life in us.

We turn away from that truck parked back in the safe place, now so far behind us. We turn towards the next wide open, snowy field. And we run into it.

* * * * *

One year ago, Tim Kreider and I released a book that tells the story of a triple-homicide that took place right here in Lancaster County. It also tells the story of Tim’s journey after he discovered that his son had committed the murders. The book has been out for a year now, and today you can get it for your Kindle or Nook for $2.99.

Also, for reasons unknown to man, Amazon has the paperback version of my novel, The Day the Angels Fell, on sale for $9.91. You can get that HERE.

Finally, join me this Thursday night at 7pm at the Pequea Valley Library for a reading of The Day the Angels Fell.

December seems a little more gray this year, doesn’t it? I don’t know, maybe it’s just me. Seems the sun doesn’t come out often, and these long nights have me prying myself out of bed in the morning.

Decembers were brighter when I was a kid, of that I’m sure. I remember riding the bus to school through a glaring kind of light, the giddy premonition of gifts only a few weeks away. The smooth plastic of the bus seats. The air was freezing cold, liquid hope, and the ground might have been hard and brittle but I barely noticed because Christmas!

These days though, as a newly-minted 38-year-old, I’m more aware of the darkness.

You see it in the furrows of a friend’s forehead when he says, “Yeah, I wouldn’t mind if we could just sort of skip over this Christmas, you know? I know I shouldn’t say that, but…” and his voice trails off.

You see it in the almost guilty look after you ask a friend how she’s doing and she says, “We’re doing okay, I guess.” Guilty because we’re not supposed to say how we’re really doing right? It’s Christmas! Joy to the world!

When will give ourselves permission to mourn, to feel, to talk about the cold and the darkness?

It all reminds me of the lyrics from the song “Another Christmas” by Over the Rhine:

‘Cause I’ve committed every sin
And each one leaves a different scar
It’s just the world I’m livin’ in
And I could use a guiding star

I hope that I can still believe
The Christ child holds a gift for me
Am I able to receive
Peace on earth this Christmas?

* * * * *

A friend recently went into the hospital with an unexplained, seemingly life-threatening illness. Families that I know prepare for their first Christmas without a loved one. People are senselessly slaughtered.

Jesus arrived in a manger, the embodiment of everything that so many had been waiting for. But sometimes I look at what we’re left with, here in the aftermath of that birth, that life. Sometimes you have to wonder if the good guys actually did win.

When I was little, the Christmas of Santa Claus was enough for me: the flashing lights, the shopping mall, the waiting with anticipation for Christmas morning gifts. Two weeks off of school and snow if we were really lucky. That was Christmas, and that was enough.

But now? I need Christmas to be more. I feel the acute pang of waiting for a savior. I have that hope of which the angels sing, but I also have the knowledge that the world remains a dark and difficult place, and this tension between hope and waiting, bright and dark, lights and shadow, leaves me feeling less Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle All the Way and more O Come, O Come Emanuel.

* * * * *

Have you been trying too hard
Have you been holding too tight
Have you been worrying too much lately
All night
Whatever we’ve lost
I think we’re gonna let it go
Let it fall
Like snow

‘Cause rain and leaves
And snow and tears and stars
And that’s not all my friend
They all fall with confidence and grace
So let it fall, let it fall

– “Let it Fall” by Over the Rhine

* * * * *

I walk home through a bustling city, my breath exploding in cloudy bursts. I turn the corner, walk up the stairs to our house, unlock the door, walk in. We have a warm house, and that blessing does not escape my attention these days. The kids come running. I find Leo, nearly six months old, and he looks at me through eyes that don’t know worry or despair. Everything for him is now, here, this present moment. I lay down on the floor and put him on my chest and he pulls at my beard, his little fingers grabbing and pinching. He drools non-stop these days, teeth on the way.

This is hope, I suppose: playing with children, walking through the city, being willing to love. Hope exists only in the tension, and it might be the only gift that darkness has to offer.