The sleep? That didn’t work—not really. It was a fitful night, the disquieting kind in which I rolled over to find Amber dead to the world at two o’clock in the morning, while I suffered this sinking feeling, this creeping notion that something is missing without the bottle. I suppose that notion will take a good while to kill, and I’m not sure I know just quite how to kill it either.
I didn’t come here to write a book, so if you came here to read one, turn back now.
If you are hoping for plot, climax, and resolution, this might be a sore disappointment. After all, does life run along such a clean narrative arc? This is a diary of sorts, an exposition of a sobering mind. So, if you came here to watch all liquid courage evaporate, you’ve come to the right place.
As we begin, I might as well get one of the worst confessions out of the way.
Some folks come into this world with Catholic names, while others are cradle Methodists. Some are sprinkled Presbyterian, and still others are “Baptist born and Baptist bred, and when I die, I’ll be Baptist dead.” I wasn’t born into any particular denomination, though. I only ever recall being woven into the fabric of a local church. My childhood faith was a canvas, colored and sometimes stained with charismatic, Baptist, Catholic, mystic, and evangelical theologies. I was exposed to it all and learned the rules of each. And though this rich tapestry of traditions was a blessing in so many ways, I learned one common Christian truth: there are things not normally confessed by good Christians.
We who are supposed to listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit, who are to serve as the walking image of God—we are supposed to have a different way about us. We live by supposed-tos and shouldbes. Our more romantic versions of a transformed life clothed with the magic holiness of a magical God are the golden ideal. Our lives are part of the world redeemed by God and for God. Our social interactions are to reflect God; our art is to reflect God.
Right?
So as a writer of faith, a southern-born boy who calls Arkansas home, when I write of a southern morning, I’m supposed to point always to the hospitable, genteel God who created the glories of the Ozarks by his word. I give you a fog that hangs over the White River, one that draws allusions to the Spirit who clung to the deep nothing before light exploded. I’m supposed to paint one million metaphors of rebirth. What’s more, I’m supposed to apply them to my life: see how the trout leaps heavenward from the tailwaters, how it gulps great breaths of another world, returns to its home where it finds strength to swim against the current?
I’m supposed to both draw strength from and give strength to these metaphors, to leave the impression that we’re all walking in a larger, ordained narrative. I’m supposed to write in spiritual certainties about the mysteries of the cosmos; there is a reason for Titus’s mystery ailments, isn’t there?
Here’s what I’m not supposed to say: sometimes I do not see an active God in the world around me. Sometimes the realities of the world are not ideal; sometimes nature’s contours are not so supple. Sometimes there are no good metaphors. In the last year, I’ve hoped to see God active, even struggled to write it as if it were true. Instead, I have the dreadful feeling that God set all things in motion and then walked away.
Too many mornings, I wake with the dull thud. This may or may not be the day the Lord has made, if you ask me, but either way we’re not exactly on speaking terms. The mist is not holy over the deep these days. There is only smog, and it is void, the cold anxiety of dead winter.
Some mornings, I am wakened by the slamming of my neighbor’s car door, and peek out the window to see his taillights speeding smaller down the street. I imagine his life, how he is always chasing the next thing—the promotion, the newer set of shrinking taillights, the latest and shiniest upgrades. Chasing, chasing. His wife is at home, lonely. She has chased too. She has chased and chased him until she can no longer bear the thought of chasing.
I imagine that this morning she is in a nightgown that soon will be packed and loaded into the back of her station wagon along with her favorite watercolor, her KitchenAid mixer, and the paisley tie she gave him for their anniversary last year. His bosses will be asking for projections again—always asking for projections—while her taillights shrink down Interstate 49. She will chase the wind to who knows where. It will be bonus time soon, and he’ll have only the alimony and a porterhouse steak to show for it.
None of this may be true, of course. It may be only the product of my overactive imagination. In a sense, though, it is all too true. We’ve all run from some sort of pain; we’ve all turned our backs and shrinking taillights on something.
I’m lucky. I have a good wife and a happy marriage, save and except for this drinking bit. I am convinced, though, that I am my neighbors and my neighbors are me. We have different problems, different pains. I have the failing health of a shrinking son, and they have the failing health of a shrinking marriage. We all chase, all reach for something to cure this kindred pain, this native groaning. I nurse an appetite for liquor; they nurse different addictions—money, sex, power?
We’re all alone together, no matter what shiny face we might be wearing. We are all just people trying to work out our first, best, and only possibility.
I think on these things, the everyday brokenness of this American life, and this is nothing to say of the more visceral kinds of suffering—the hunger, poverty, and prejudices that consume the everyday lives of too many. And we all have our ways of running away.
For me, it is the liquor that silences the noise, mutes the collective groaning of this wounded life. But it blurs the danger and beauty of the world too. It obscures the hippos that guard the far side of the river; it dulls the colors of the dripping sky. In the bottle, the blazing sky has no allure; it presents no threat either. It is only air and empty cloud and occasional wisps of dulling color.
The truth is I’m waiting for the healing God to come and set it all right, to come and rid me of the thirst for liquor. I wonder if he’s still in the business of redemption, of healing. Perhaps this is what keeps me up at night.
Who else feels the anxiety of supposing an absent God? Who feels the dread creeping up from behind? Do you know the tightness in your chest, the speeding of the heart? Do you sometimes hear the voices asking what would happen if your friends and family discovered that you doubt God’s active, healing, redemptive presence? Do you wonder whether they’ll think you a fraud—you, the infidel, the runaway, the doubter?
Yes, if you are looking for a book to entertain you, turn back now. If you are looking for a dose of uncensored honesty, a partner for the coming clean, if you are looking for a sobering exploration of God, maybe we’re in this together.