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A Happy Story of Death

by Nick Hayden
December 9, 2016

Advent wreath – waiting for Christmas
ASSY / Pixabay

The Saturday after Thanksgiving we made the six-hour trip from Peoria, IL, back home. By the last hour, all the kids (and the adults) were tired and bored and ready to be done. I put on the Muppets Most Wanted soundtrack and we bounced to the ridiculous songs. (The “Interrogation Song” is simply wonderful.) I was caught up, as I often am at unsuspecting moments when lively music is playing, in an almost aching sense of joy and expectation.

And it hurt, because while I felt a sort of inexpressible life, I knew it would pass, that it would drift away, and that I could not hold onto it. Next time I listened to those songs, it would not feel quite the same. The joy was destined to be short-lived. It was, by its very nature, transitory–and that is partly why it ached.

And, yet, I think this ache might be one of the truest marks of real joy. In a broken world, among fallen men, what else could real joy be but the merest glimpse of what we were destined for–and still are, if we will accept Jesus at his word.

When one of my friends read my new short story collection, Behind the Curtain, he joked that I should call it “Happy Stories of Death.” In many ways, that’s a valid summary. The stories circle around the search for something beyond–like that glimmer of joy with which, if you could just capture it and hold onto it, you would be happy to live forever. But these stories are filled with death and madness and deceivers, because the glimpse comes amid pain and confusion and the source of it cannot be found, really, in this life.

I’ve told my wife that sometimes I think I only really have one story to tell, and that I just keep attempting variations of it. That story is faith, man’s struggle to believe, the journey to fill the hole within, the quest to find God. Take Obed, from The Unremarkable Squire, who finds he serves one he doesn’t quite know yet; or Strin, from The Remnant of Dreams, trying to save all his people by his own efforts because he cannot believe in God; or Fitzwilliam Fitzwallace, from The Isle of Gold, who desires not only a drink of water, but to taste the experience of everything within the Sea; or Calea, from The Well’s Orphan, who is afraid to die, but doesn’t know why she lives. Everyone is looking for something, in fiction…and in life.

I started writing this blog only wishing to somehow collect my thoughts from my Thanksgiving trip home. But now that I’ve come this far I find myself thinking on Christmas. The answer to all my stories, to all the searching, is found ultimately in the stable, in the child who is somehow God, in the immortal man willing to suffer and die, in God seeking us out first.

That is where my stories are wrong. It’s good drama to have your hero search and overcome. But we aren’t the heroes. We’re the rebels. We aren’t looking for him; but he has found us. And He has offered us Himself.

Someday we will have Him completely. We will know as we are known. But for now, in this still-waiting world, we have glimpses. A moment of glorious happiness, tinged by sorrow, upon a road trip is one of them. Because everything will disappoint until we are with Him; and then we will dwell in the fullness of joy forever.

This blog was originally posted at Works of Nick.

December 9, 2016 - Tags: christianity, holidays, Nick Hayden, other projects, personal, philosophy Posted in: Blogs

The Burden of Loneliness

by Nathan Marchand
June 24, 2016

I could write a progress report on Bron & Calea #5, but the pertinent lessons I’ve been learning are summarized pretty well in the latest blog I posted on my own website. I also hinted at a few things in my previous blog here. Ironically, in that same blog I joked about how my fellow CotW creators were getting personal in their latest posts, but I wasn’t. Well, now it’s my turn to be a bit vulnerable since most anything else I could blog about I’ve done elsewhere.

My birthday is June 29. I’ll be 33 (going on 19, according to some—I look young). As Tim said of himself in his most recent blog:

“I’m still unmarried, unsettled in my career, and not nearly as financially stable as I would prefer. At times, it’s hard not to look at where I’m at this far after graduation and not consider myself a failure.”

While I, too, feel the weight of all of these things, the first is where I’ve been hurt the most and worst. (more…)

June 24, 2016 - Tags: christianity, Nathan Marchand, personal, relationships Posted in: Blogs

A Perfect Failure

By Natasha Hayden
April 29, 2016

I’m back! After months of silence and a lot of change (Baby #3 is three months old already!), I’m venturing to contribute more than just baby pics to the web world. In thinking about what I might say on this very unnoteworthy occasion, I’ve been reflecting on what is meaningful to me of late. Clearly, family would be near the top of that list, and Children of the Wells…perhaps not so near.

In preparation for Easter this year, during the time of Lent, rather than sacrifice something, I spent some time in a devotional book written by my favorite fiction author, Ted Dekker. His message in The Forgotten Way is simple but profound and profoundly different from society’s way of thinking. Essentially, it’s this: my identity is not based on what I do or the costumes, as he puts it, that I wear in life. My identity is not writer, mother, wife, daughter, or any other role that I play. Those are just that: roles. My identity goes much deeper. Who I really am is not how I or anyone else sees me; it is how God sees me. And because I am His, bought with the blood of his son, Jesus, I am His perfect creation, made in His likeness, complete and completely loved, not condemned. Even my body, though special and made by God, is not who I am but just the vessel for the real me, which is spirit. (more…)

April 29, 2016 - Tags: christianity, Natasha Hayden, personal, philosophy Posted in: Blogs

Rejoice and Be Glad

By Gregory Meyer
March 24, 2016

Figure 1 Found on Pinterest

I originally planned to spend this blog post as a launching point for a multi-blog series on the creation and process behind The Seekers and the Hidden, my soon-to-be-released contribution to the Bron/Calea side of our novel series. Yet given what’s gone on in my life as of late, I decided to postpone it and talk about life.

See, my grandmother passed away this month after battling cancer. She was a strong and beautiful woman, and watching cancer rapidly deteriorate her health was difficult to watch. Yet through it all she stayed positive and feisty to the very end, and I’m proud of her for not allowing her condition to rule her spirit.

During the funeral, I got to see my extended family and all of the lives that she touched. We celebrated her life together in a beautiful ceremony, and I know she would’ve been happy with how everything was done. Afterwards, we shared stories about her, the things she would say, and laugh at her little quirks.

I know one day I will see her again, rejoicing, healthy, and cancer-free. This is the hope that we have as believers in Jesus Christ. Death is the end of this life, but not of the next. (more…)

March 24, 2016 - Tags: christianity, family, Greg Meyer, personal Posted in: Blogs

When the Fate of the Nation is at Stake

By Timothy Deal
March 11, 2016

First off, yes, this is a commentary on the current political races. At least, in general terms. While the staff at Children of the Wells shares similar political viewpoints, this website is not the place to engage in debates or campaigning. (That’s what Facebook is for! …I’m kidding.) But what is worth talking about here is the high stress levels politics inflicts on all of us.

Both politicians and 24/7 news media are keen to remind us of the high stakes involved with election season, wherein every outcome bears heavy consequences for the good or bad of our country and very way of life. Politicians use the threat of impending doom to galvanize their followers into action. News media hype up the drama as if it was a sporting event in the world’s largest arena, filling up their air time with endless commentaries and soundbite replays. As an audience of voters, it’s easy to become overwhelmed by the inundation of speeches, inane comments, angry rhetoric, and angrier responses, and sense an increasing loss of civilized discourse or even the erosion of what we feel are America’s best values. After all, even though we know politicians and media have their own agendas for pumping up the election drama, the consequences of an election are not all exaggerated. (more…)

March 11, 2016 - Tags: christianity, philosophy, politics, Timothy Deal Posted in: Blogs

Extravagance

by Nick Hayden
November 20, 2015

Nightdragon0NA0 / Pixabay

“If I were God, I never would have made procreation such a messy, intimate, emotional, painful affair. It’s crude and unclean and sometimes horribly unpleasant. I would never have made trees. I would have made lampposts. Goldfish, but not the sawfish, in my world; cats, but not the cougar; grass, but not the ivy. It is fortunate that I am not God. He enjoys the beastly disorder of forests and rivers and caves. […] And so we build hospitals and office building and laboratories to shield against the pain — and hide us from real joy.”

The above-quote is from a little known project that preceeded Children of the Wells by nearly a decade. It was called The Story Project and it was a collection of the fictional blogs from a varied and interesting group of fictional writers who lived together in a New England mansion. The above writer’s name was Vincent, and he lived in a meticulously spotless lab in isolation from others. He preferred to control his environment.

I’m no Vincent, but I feel the draw of ordering my life “just so.” I tend to want to use my time efficiently, to edit things repeatedly, to balance my checkbook accurately, to cross items off my checklist daily. And these things, indeed, are well and good.

But there is something that kills in these things, an instinct that grinds the edges off life and mechanizes it. God created the world in an orderly manner, but he did not create it as Henry Ford might. The universe might be compared to a cunning made watch, but it so often defies that easy description. There is a diversity, a wildness, a sense of surprise and head-scratching weirdness to the created world. You need not look far into space or deep into the ocean or long through the aisles of Wal-mart to see what a strange cacophony of men and animal and galactic bodies we’re surrounded by day-in, day-out.

We miss something, I think, by isolating ourselves in safe little havens of calendars and Netflix and Internet-relationships. We are safer, but we are not better. For a writer and reader, it is like this: if the stories I create and consume draw me into myself, I have perhaps failed to understand. If they draw me out, I have grown wiser and better.

It is nearly the holiday season. It is nearly time to celebrate with some sense of indulgence because to celebrate is to overdo–to cook more food than is necessary, to decorate a little too much, to thank God that he gives us not just nutrients, but taste, not just the potato, but the genius to mash them and drape them with gravy.

And soon we shall gaze upon the Nativity and see a baby who is actually God, the Creator disguised in flesh, a wild, inexplicable extravagance–astounding, inconceivable, but not so out of step with the God who thought we must have both the jellyfish and the giraffe.

There is a beastly disorder to loving others, to living in the world as it is, in seeing the God of the universe in all he has made. It is not safe, and I dare say I am not good at it myself, but this holiday, perhaps you and I can embrace a bit of that messiness and enjoy well this weird, wonderful world all the more.

November 20, 2015 - Tags: christianity, holidays, Nick Hayden, The Story Project Posted in: Blogs

Personal Reflections on a Year of Change

By Natasha Hayden
October 2, 2015

It is barely October (my favorite month!), but for many reasons, I have been looking back over this year and the challenges and changes my family has gone through.

In January, our contentment and happiness was rocked by a sledding accident that put my three-year-old daughter in the hospital with potential brain damage. I was deeply shaken, wondering if the rest of our lives would be different. But the bleed into her brain dissipated with no obvious lasting physical effects. The emotional trauma lingered a little longer and will, perhaps, stay with her father and me for a long time to come.

In May, after a year of wondering and waiting, I found that I was pregnant with our third child. It wasn’t an easy decision to make to have a third. We already had a boy and a girl. Our small two-room house fit us, and we were getting close to paying it off. I wavered back and forth about whether or not I wanted a baby. Ultimately, it wasn’t up to us. We struggled to get pregnant with our first child, and this time, we had some trouble again. We left it in God’s hands, and he decided it for us…about a year after we thought we were ready.

The Hayden Family

In August, we became more serious about looking into new houses, and in the space of one very interesting week, we found a house, got our initial paperwork in order with the bank, made an offer, and began the process of closing. That process is nearing completion now, about a month later, and soon, we will be moving from our home of 12 years, a thought that brings both excitement and melancholy.

Last week, I watched my cat Chewbacca, who’s lived with me nearly as long as my husband, fight his last days of a disease I didn’t even know he had and be euthanized before my eyes, his little body stilling under my hand.

I laugh (and cry a little) to think that I had hoped for a less eventful year at the close of 2014. This one’s not even over yet, and ahead, I know there are expected joys and unexpected losses, blessing and pain all mingled together so that sometimes it is hard to tell one from the other. Such is life. We can prepare all we want, but only God knows what’s in store for us.

This is illustrated so well in even that first moment we draw breath into our lungs. No matter how much a mother prepares for the birth of her child, when labor hits, she has to go with the flow. I wanted to try a natural birth with my oldest, but I had gestational diabetes and had to be induced and ended up with an epidural, thank God, and that’s just how it goes.

As I’ve shared before, two of my pregnancies ended in miscarriage, and a little bit of that fear that my children’s lives are out of my control has remained with me ever since. I can no more protect my children now than I could at their conception and birth, as I was so strongly reminded in January and again, a few weeks ago, when my five-year-old son ran a kid-size motorcycle into a tree, five feet away from a lake. He walked away, but part of my heart still beats on the ground where I stood. We plan and plan and live in frustration when control inevitably slips from our hands.

On these contemplations, I venture into the last quarter of the year, preparing as best I can for a future that is, really, out of my control. But one thing I know for certain: God has brought me through so much and will bring me through the rest, little scrapes and lifelong changes all. I can trust in his control. I might rather remain in comfort and security, going at a slower pace than the rest, but contentment is found in letting go amidst the chaos and knowing he will catch me wherever I fall.

October 2, 2015 - Tags: christianity, family, Natasha Hayden, personal Posted in: Blogs

Read 200 Pages and See Me In The Morning

By Nick Hayden
September 18, 2015

The cure for what ails you.

stevepb Pixabay

Beware, I am now going to write on something I only know a bit about–bibliotherapy. What is it? It’s prescribing specially chosen books to help you deal with what ails you, whether that be anxiety or depression or fear of death. There’s even a neat book to help you find the “medicine” you need.

Now, I haven’t had the opportunity to peruse the book linked above or do any deep study on bibliotherapy, but I find it fascinating that such a thing even exists. The fact that studies show reading fiction improves empathy, social understanding, and happiness are not surprising to any book lover. What’s surprising is that such a thing as a book lover exists. (more…)

September 18, 2015 - Tags: christianity, Nick Hayden, philosophy, reading Posted in: Blogs

Rings, Swamps, and When All Hope Seems Lost

By Gregory Meyer
July 10, 2015

“Come, Mr. Frodo!” [Samwise] cried. “I can’t carry it for you, but I can carry you and it as well. So up you get! … Just tell him where to go, and he’ll go.” —Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien

Since about 2013, I’ve been ever so slowly working my way through the most glaring series in my backlog of novels: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. Since most of my friends are huge fans of the venerable Oxford professor, I decided that I needed to be part of the conversation, too. Given that most of my interests as of late consist of world building, Anglo-Saxon history and mythology, and monsters, this was right up my alley. Currently I’m three chapters away from finishing Return of the King, and then onward to The Silmarillion I shall go, for in Middle Earth “the road goes ever on and on.”

While I’ve enjoyed the heroic exploits of Gandalf, Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, and even Merry and Pippin, it’s the trials of Frodo Baggins and Samwise that’s resonated with me the most. Watching brave Frodo go from the heroic hobbit saving his friends from the frightening Barrow Wights to end up practically crawling up Mt. Doom is heart wrenching. Tolkien shows the reader the magnetic attraction and power the ring has over even the purest of hearts, twisting a kind-hearted soul into a pathetic pawn who can’t complete his quest. It’s daring of the author to show the main character fail at what should be his crowning achievement. (more…)

July 10, 2015 - Tags: christianity, Greg Meyer, personal Posted in: Blogs

Looking Back, Looking Forward

A new year is nigh, so we at Children of the Wells wanted to collect some of the thoughts on our mind as 2015 approaches. Enjoy a little look into our end-of-year psyches.

Natasha:

The best book I read this year was, surprisingly, not a YA novel but the biography Unbroken, which I also saw in the theater when it came out on Christmas Day. Just FYI, the movie is not at all exaggerated and, in fact, tones down what Louis Zamperini went through, surviving weeks on a raft at sea only to end up tortured in a Japanese POW camp. It’s just such an incredible story. If you haven’t read it yet, I highly encourage you to do so.

I also recently rewatched the classic movie It’s a Wonderful Life. It had been a few years since my last viewing, and I’m not sure I’d ever been quite so touched as I was this time around. Maybe it’s that I now have kids, I don’t know. I definitely see the world differently than I used to. George Bailey’s feelings of failure really resonated with me (I’m ruining my children!) while, at the same time, I could see the bigger picture and the personal sacrifices he made to help others. It’s so interesting to think of how the world we live in might be different with the total absence of even just one of us. One life affects so many, and whether that’s positive or negative is up to us.

Put these two stories together, one theoretical and one actual but both resounding with truth, and you have a powerfully inspiring and hopeful message. It’s a good way to end one year, putting the mistakes of the past behind you, and find inspiration for another. (more…)

December 30, 2014 - Tags: christianity, Greg Meyer, holidays, Natasha Hayden, Nathan Marchand, Nick Hayden, personal, Timothy Deal Posted in: Blogs