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Another Friday, another letter in our Postmarked series. This time, Jen had me on the verge of tears as she remembers looking through her father’s writing long after he had died.

Also, this:

“Building and rooting a life, even a body of work, is like this slow growth of trees (and less idyllically, the slow explansion of a city subway). It is not a hurried. In fact, I think the accumulation, the growth can be so inconspicuous as to surprise us, though we’d really have to leave it to future generations to measure.”

You can read her letter to me in its entirety HERE.

* * * * *

What began as a Twitter conversation between two writers on creative work and family life has become an exchange of letters. Here is a list of our prior letters for Postmarked:

Postmarked: Dear Shawn (1)

Postmarked: Dear Jen (2)

Postmarked: Dear Shawn (3)

Postmarked: Dear Jen (4)

Postmarked: Dear Shawn (5)

Postmarked: Dear Jen (6)

Postmarked: Dear Shawn (7)

I am writing this on Tuesday evening, in a cozy little room at the Montrose Retreat Center. A storm passed over us, driving rain against the windows, pinging on the window air conditioning unit. But the clouds have cleared in time to make room for the setting rays of sun. The birds sing in the dusk.

I am sitting in an armchair in my room, feeling very, very content. Today my latest novel released into the world. And somehow I have not felt the normal stress or pressure that comes on release day, the ridiculously high expectations, or the creeping disappointment if certain things do not happen. I feel only an intense gratefulness for this life. This book. For you, the folks who read what I write. For Maile. My children.

How have I been so blessed?

For the first time in a long time, I care very little what anyone else things of this book. I wrote it how I saw it, put in the effort to tell it clearly, and now here it is. Take it or leave it. It was the absolute best book I could write at the time. There’s something to be said for wrestling with the work, doing it well, and then releasing it into the world. I suppose it’s much like raising children, or farming, or any other thing in life we might care about.

There is also much to be said for gratefulness. It seems that enough of it can crowd out just about anything else – jealousy or fear or anxiety about results.

The last few lines of Psalm 90 from Eugene Peterson’s The Message have been resonating with me quite a bit lately:

And let the loveliness of our Lord, our God, rest on us,
confirming the work that we do.
Oh, yes. Affirm the work that we do!

So, thank you. Thank you all for walking this journey with me again. It is not lost on me, the amount of time you take to read the words I write. Hopefully, there will be many more, and we can journey together for another few thousand pages.

 

I woke up on Thursday morning having had the strangest dream. At first I couldn’t remember it – the dream was nearly gone, like a name you can’t quite remember. But then, there it was, and remembering it brought a hollow pit into my stomach.

I had dreamed that every single review of my new book was a negative one. Every. Single. Review.

In the half-light of early morning, it felt nonsensical, almost humorous, but I could just about still remember that feeling of crushing disappointment when I scanned first the Amazon rankings and saw all 1- and 2-star reviews, followed by email after email of prominent, negative reviews. And as I woke up and started walking through the day, I kept coming back to the dream.

What if all of my reviews are negative?

And then:

Why am I dreaming about reviews?

* * * * *

Maile has been reading a book lately that I obviously need to pick up. It’s Life Without Lack by Dallas Willard. She keeps reading me these mind-bending quotes about having everything we need. At the beginning of the introduction, Willard quotes Charles Spurgeon:

We have all things and abound; not because I have a good store of money in the bank, not because I have skill and wit with which to win my bread, but because the Lord is my shepherd.

Willard goes on to explain, using Psalm 23 as his foundation, that one of the weirdest, most transformational truths of being a Christian is that with God, you do not ever lack anything. And he’s not talking about an avoidance of lack that equates to a name-it-and-claim-it prosperity gospel that comes fully equipped with the biggest house and best car and a Scrooge McDuck style money silo. No, Willard’s point is that precisely in the moments when the world would look at you and think you lack everything important – a good retirement account, a well-paying job, the trappings of a successful life – you can live and believe and know that actually you lack nothing.

Of course, many of us feel a sense of lack in areas outside of our finances.

We feel like the lack is us. We are not enough.

How often do I look at my writing life and feel a sense of lack? How often do I wish I could sell more books, have more reviews, generate more followers?

Could it be, could it really be, that I lack nothing?

Could it be that I am exactly where I am supposed to be, that I have exactly what it is I’m supposed to have?

* * * * *

I woke up Sunday morning to find the following comment by my friend and bookseller extraordinaire, Byron Borger:

So, my fear was alleviated. Not everyone hated my book! (Apparently, the only real lack in my life is cellphone battery life!)

Still, even after receiving such kind words, I’m left with a desire to move into a space where my contentment and satisfaction aren’t based on the most recent review my work has received, but in a sense of having all things, and lacking nothing, because I know that God is my shepherd.

Can I get there? Can I actually get to that place?

I feel like I’m close.

* * * * *

Now for some news:

Preordering an author’s book is one of the best ways to support the writers you love!

While writing #LightFromDistantStars, I kept a journal recording goals, progress, and struggles. I’d love to email you a PDF of that 51-page journal.

First, preorder from any of these booksellers: http://shawnsmucker.com/light-from-distant-stars/ … (If you preorder from Byron Borger’s store, Hearts and Minds, just note that in the receipt/order # field.)

The earliest memory that I have of my father is this:

I was three or four years old and we lived in a ramshackle trailer in the middle of what felt like a deserted little part of the world: Laredo, Texas. My dad was 24 years old, only a kid himself. My sister was two, toddling around. My dad made up a game for him and me to play in the trailer. I hiked him a foam football – it barely fit between my legs – and he would call out a play.

If he called play number one, I went long, into the linoleum-floor kitchen, between the table and the sink. If he called play number two, it meant a short route, turn and catch. Three meant hook left, four meant hook right. That’s all I remember: the two of us playing football in the living room of a mobile home, me running routes over and over again. There were lizards and roaches everywhere. The neighborhood pool was unusable, full of snakes. Everything was tan and the sky was a glaring light blue and I was terrified of the fire ants that marched along the cracks in the cement slab outside our front door.

Now that I’m older, I have to wonder what my dad was thinking about while he threw football with me. Was he considering the church where he had just become a pastor? Was he wondering why in the world he had left the northeast for that dust bowl? Was he overjoyed at having his own church? Was he worried about how he’d pay for rent and food for a family of four?

I don’t know. I can only guess. Maybe I’ll ask him, see if he remembers. All I know is that I was three or four years old, my bare feet running routes on the shag carpet, the cool linoleum. There was the feel of the football settling in my arms, and the chest-inflating pride whenever my dad smiled, said, “Nice catch!”

* * * * *

This week we dropped off Abra at the Y a few blocks from our house. We signed some papers and watched as she boarded a yellow bus, on her way to a week-long summer camp. I felt my throat constrict as I tried to say good-bye. I tried to say something to Maile but then I didn’t because I felt the tears catching.

I know in my head that we will say good-bye to each of our children, one by one, but I never knew it in my heart until Sunday afternoon at 2pm, when she gave me a cursory side hug and took those tall steps up into the yellow bus.

And it was Father’s Day, so of course I thought of my dad, how he pulled to the side of the road and cried on the way home after dropping me off at Messiah College, when I was 18 and he was four years younger than I am now. I thought of what that will be like, when our kids leave our house, one by one, for good. There is an emptiness now, with Abra away. I feel like I’m constantly waiting for something.

* * * * *

The hardest part of writing my upcoming novel, Light from Distant Stars, was working through the main character’s relationship with his father, because, well, it was pretty lousy. Unlike the relationship I have with my dad. Sure, there were similarities – there was the baseball that connected them, the fact that the dad was a pastor, and … well, that’s pretty much it.

But there was one other similarity, because this novel is really, at its heart, a novel about how kids and parents lose each other at some point in life, and then spend the rest of their life trying to find each other (or not). When I left for college, things changed, and then I got married and moved away for ten years, and I think I’ve now spent the rest of my life growing closer to my dad again.

This is the natural path that parents and children take, although for some it is much more dramatic and severe than others. Some leave because they hate their parents. Some leave because their parents force them away. Sometimes it’s just the passing of time that eases the wedge in.

But this is what I loved about writing Light from Distant Stars: the idea that children and parents can somehow rediscover each other, all those years later, even after the most difficult of circumstances. Even after someone has died.

Anyway, a belated Happy Father’s Day to you, and I hope that if you’re still trying to rediscover one or both of your parents, that it happens for you. Keep searching.

* * * * *

While I was writing Light from Distant Stars, I kept a daily journal that I would write in prior to working on the novel. In it I talked about the difficulties I was facing, what I was trying to write, and just sort of my general process. If you preorder the novel now, I’ll email you the 51-page journal. Find out how to get it HERE.

 

Poor little Poppy hasn’t done extremely well with Maile being away. The first thing she says in the morning and the last thing she says at night is either, “I want my Mama,” or “Where is my Mama?” On Saturday, we went to Souvlaki Boys for lunch, a Greek restaurant on the corner of our block, and I grabbed a handful of straws for our drinks. There was an extra straw in the middle of the table, and she held it up with excitement.

“Is this Mama’s straw?” she asked.

But Maile returns Monday. We’re all aching for her to come home.

* * * * *

We are always growing closer to the other people in our lives, except when we’re growing apart. It’s a strange dance, isn’t it? We have seasons of friendship with certain people where you can’t imagine your life without them, and then time passes and the currents of life adjust and a new rhythm comes along, and suddenly you realize you haven’t seen them in six months, or a year, or longer.

This is what my next novel is about – the way parents and children lose each other somewhere along the way, and then, as time passes, rediscover each other. Or not. Or sometimes they do rediscover each other, but it’s so late. Or too late.

I feel this in such poignant ways, now that my older two children are finding their own way. I am faced by this realization every day, that they are nearly adults, that they will begin choosing their own paths, their own way forward. Letting go isn’t easy. Letting go of control never is. But I feel like there is something waiting for my children and me on the other side of control, a new kind of relationship, a mutual living.

This is how I feel today. Tomorrow I might lock them in their rooms. You never know.

* * * * *

I think that in the same way our relationships with others can fade, so too can how we relate to ourselves. We can drift away from what we know our purpose is or the thing we love to do, sometimes for long periods of time. And then we can begin to rediscover ourselves, come back in touch with the things that make us, us.

I think of Maile, how she did such a wonderful job speaking at this women’s conference in Florida over the weekend. She is rediscovering herself, unearthing things about herself that make her who she is, and leaning back into those things.

Sometimes, the hardest thing can be continuing to move in the direction we want to in spite of the voices telling us all the million little reasons we won’t succeed or do well enough. For example, I read an article recently that over a million books will be published this year. One million books. And into this maelstrom, on July 16th, I will cast my next work, Light from Distant Stars. What possible impression could I hope my writing will make in that tidal wave of 1,000,000 books, of 50,000,000,000 words?

But then, am I asking the right questions? I wonder. If I only want to make an impression, if I only want to be famous, then yes, this venture might well prove pointless.

But, what if I ask different questions? Namely: what must I do in this life to feel alive? What must I do in this life to fulfill the great need I feel? That is an easy question to answer: I must write.

Everything else falls away: book sales, fame, the desire to be known and loved. All that remains is the writing, and it is enough.

* * * * *

What about you? What brings you back to life? What’s keeping you from doing it?

* * * * *

A bit about my next book:

When Cohen Marah steps over his father’s body in the basement embalming room of the family’s funeral home, he has no idea that he is stepping into a labyrinth of memory. As the last one to see his father, Cohen is the primary suspect.

Over the next week, Cohen’s childhood memories come back in living color. The dramatic events that led to his father being asked to leave his pastoral position. The game of baseball that somehow kept them together. And the two children in the forest who became his friends–and enlisted him in a dark and dangerous undertaking. As the lines blur between what was real and what was imaginary, Cohen is faced with the question he’s been avoiding: Did he kill his father?

The book comes out July 16th, but preorders are really important in the life-cycle of a book, so I hope you’ll consider pre-ordering it from one of these booksellers.

 

 

We asked him to please read us something, read us a poem, and because he is a gentleman, he complied. I have always loved the way he strings words together, but it was the cool, calm nature of his voice that struck me as he read. There is a depth to it, a kind of sadness wrapped up with hope. The room fell silent. I think we were all holding our breath. Or perhaps he took our breath from us, the way only wonderful writing can.

There are poets who walk among us, not nearly as known as they should be. They write things that make us stop, make us think, make us say, “Yes, me too.” John Blase is one of these poets.

There’s a funny line from the television show Friends, where Phoebe is watching a fellow musician. She says, “Oh, my God, he’s not even appreciated in his own time. I would give anything not to be appreciated in my own time.”

Well, I appreciate John in his own time, and I know many of you do, too. If you haven’t read any of his work, I’d suggest you pick up his beautiful book, The Jubilee: Poems. Here is a video of him reading one of his poems.