Seth Haines's Blog, page 20

The One That’s Not About Politics

Yesterday, I sent out the first edition of this month’s Tiny Letter. Why the wait? This one came together like a slow slog. Uphill. In a blizzard. Through a vat of tar. At 3:00 in the morning. On a Monday.

Brutal, eh?

It’s a piece that touches on the darkness of Advent, the Eucharist, and the best medicine in a world with out-of-control healthcare costs. I hope you’ll read along (excerpt below) by following this link and signing up.

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*Authors Note: Welcome to the TinyLetter it’s taken me a...

For Jude (Advent Poem #1)

I’m starting a little poetry series for these waning days of Advent. I’ll be posting a few here. For the entire series, join my Patreon community for as little as $2.00 a month.

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For Jude (Advent Poem #1)

A year will come when December looks less like Christmas and more like Advent, a hidden promise waiting in dark waters, a buried body sojourning in the womb of an immigrant woman, pregnant.

In that year of our Lord, childhood music will hollow out, and you will be left with the muted shel...

The World’s Last Night (and an invitation)

If you’ve been hanging around these parts for any amount of time, you know what I’m about: reading; writing; exploring the world around me in light of the faith I carry. I dig good music. I read the poets I like. I share what I can, when I can, for the sake of my readers–you. I love every minute of it.

In the past months, I’ve curated a new space near and dear to my heart. It’s a space where I can lay down the bones of new poetry, stretch into longer form pieces (short stories and such), and...

To My Sons #4

We call America the land of the free, but hasn’t it become the land of the powerful? They chase after underage women then sweep it under the rug. They grab women by the genitals, or at least claim they can. The powerful purchase elections, or try to, anyhow. The powerful take and take and take and leave the rest of us to clean up their messes, sometimes the bodies. America—some have called it a Christian nation. I’m not sure what that means anymore.

The Haines family retreated into the heart...

What is True (My 40th Confession)

I’ve crossed the threshold into life’s second half. Forty; four decades; one-half of eighty. The exuberance of my twenties is gone, the thought that the world was somehow mine to take by the tail. The gut punch of the thirties is a memory too, the winded nausea that results from anything overwrought. Thank God Almighty.

Forty came, somehow, like the morning sun waking Bayou Desiard. It settled in, patient as the heron on the bank, waiting. It was the daybreak that cleared the fog.

In the week...

An Earnest Wish (On the Murders in Texas)

On November 5, a lone gunman hunted saints in a small church in Sutherland Springs. On Sunday, babies, mothers, the elderly died in one man’s video-game-come-to-life, and by Thursday, America is back to business as usual. We’ve moved on to tax bills and China and the best new shows on Netflix. We’re back to our obligations, our PTA meetings, our to-do lists. We’re holding our smart phones closer than our wives and babies.

 

Maybe those saints in Sutherland Springs believed the God-man when he...

What is America?

Yesterday was All Saints Sunday, and during the prayers of the people, I prayed for the departed saints in Sutherland Springs, Texas, all 26 of them, including no less than three children, a woman who was 5 months pregnant, and the the elderly who could duck, or run, or whatever.

What good is prayer? I genuinely wonder sometimes, but in that wondering, I prayed for America, too. America the wasteland.

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Who are we? What is America?

America–land of insanity, of gun r...

Reaching From The Shadows (And For The Sun)

I’m building a little membership community over at  Patreon. If you like what I’m doing here, I think you’ll enjoy that community. Would you consider joining for as little as $2.00 a month? If you do, you’ll get access to my mini-podcast (“Dispatches”), my interview series “The Places I write,” and short story or two. Come along.

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Ten years ago, I was watching Austin City Limits when an orchestra and choir wearing technicolored choir robes took the stage. Their vocal arrangement was tigh...

#MeToo: Let the Women Speak

Social media has been abuzz with the #metoo hashtag, a hashtag highlighting the personal stories of sexual harassment, assault, and abuse. I could spill words on the hashtag, but instead, I’m opening up space today for my friends.

Below, you’ll find the stories of women I follow on social media. Read their tweets. Listen.

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If all women who’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted said “me too,” we might give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem. #MeToo

— shauna niequist (@sniequi...

Childhood Identity (Politics)

In this month’s Tiny Letter, I used last week’s nostalgic post as a jumping off point to discuss childhood, belonging, and identity politics. In it, I write:

That evening, we gather around the television in my grandfather’s home and watch the presidential debate shape up. President Ronald Reagan—a man whose name I’ve never not known—and Walter Mondale—a man whose name I never can remember—engage in some sort of gentlemen’s fight. I pour a second bowl of cornflakes, spoon on heaps of sugar, an...