Seth Haines's Blog, page 40

How to Pray For Fish

In our fifteen years of marriage, Amber and I have moved more than migratory birds. I’ve written about this before, just two months ago. What’s more, at the time I penned those words about home, I had no plans of moving again. But humansare creatures of habit, and our habit–so it seems–is to get the seven-month moving itch. And when that itch sets in, we scratch it.

All animals scratch their itches, see.

These facts being the facts, it should come as no surprise that we’ve moved again. Amber’...

How to Start National Recovery Month (An Addiction Survey)

It’s National Recovery Month, a month dedicated to educating and bringing awareness to issues of drug and alcohol dependency. Awareness, recovery, dependency–aren’t these words so overused that they’ve lost their punch? Did you let the bold-faced predicating sentence slide through your auditory canal, rattle against the porcelin walls of your cranium for a nanosecond, and slide out the other auditory canal? Have you already clicked away?

“Recovery-shmovery; yada, yada; I don’t have a drinking...

The Places I’ve Been

Oh, hey there.

It’s been a crazy season here in world Haines, and if I went about the business of explaining it all, I’d bore you to tears, or at least to clicking off to your favorite online retailer. There’s business to be done, children to raise, and a to-do lists that stretches from the Ozarks to the Rockies. In all of that (and more to be sure), it’s the little things–like keeping up this little writing space–can fall by the wayside.

But in 400 words or less, allow me to catch you up on...

7 Things to Tell Your Sons About Anxiety

1.

Twenty-some-odd of us sat in theliving room on plush chairs, recliners, and an elegant sectional. Conversations among friends began to have the feel of a twelve step meeting, what with everyone confessing all manner of anxious thoughts. On a whim I asked, “how many of you struggle with overwhelming anxiety, like the need-to-breath-into-a-paper-sack-and-tuck-my-head-between-my-knees kind?” The hands shot up, nearly all twenty, to which my only response was, “whoa.”

Some said the breakneck...

Let the Babies Live and the Lions Die

1.

There’s nothing like a good social media meltdown, is there? The issue du jourcomes down the pipeline and the folks choose a side. Some gather their facts like bullets to a munitions dump. Lock and load. Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes. Ready! Aim! Others enjoy the view from the cheap seats, watch asthat-guy-I-could-have-sworn-was-conservativecomes out of the closet as a liberal so-and-so, or asSuzie-liberaldefends the historically orthodox position of such-and-such. Soci...

Wild in the Hollow: A Birthday Bash!

I was told once by a bunch of Calvinists that all things were predestined before the foundations of the earth. Death. Salvation. Destruction. The weather on May 21, 1996. The toast I ate for breakfast this morning, a touch burned. All of these things were chiseled in a stoney timeline even before God thundered “Let there be light!” over the void. All things planned. All means spinning toward the ultimate ends of God. These are the things once said by that Calvinist bunch.

Perhaps its an overs...

The Weekend Review: To Kill a Watchman… Er… Something.

It’s been one of those long weeks, a week I thought might never end what with all the obligations atop obligations atop obligations. I’m plum tuckered out.

I missed a great number of links this week, mostly on account of the fact that I wasn’t on the internet much. I suppose that’s not a bad thing. There is, after all, a real world that exists outside the confines of the digital. Right?

Right?Sometimes I wonder.

Here’s a little juice to get your weekend rolling, anyhow. A book. A few good lin...

Wild in the Hollow: the Buffalo Edition

*There’s a hidden link, a secret message in today’s piece. Can you find it?

Amber birthed a book into the world, and worn to raw nubs from all the work, work, work, our family took a drive down into the hollow–the hollow of the Buffalo River, to be exact.

River sluices were made for crawfish and boys. My boys took to them like crawfish, scooting through on hands and feet.

They crawl to the big rock, the rough-hewn gem in the center of the diamond pool. There’s a freedom hiding between rock a...

The Weekend Review: Wild in the Hollow, Unyielding Wildness, and a Fuzzy Puppet

It’s the weekend, and this one feels like it flew in on the wings of forever. Dang.

This weekend, let’s talk books, links, maybe a video or two. Let’s talk about productivity, but only a little. Let’s watch fuzzy puppets dance. (Huh?) Whatever we talk, let’s enjoy, enjoy, enjoy.

Books:

Amber’s new book, Wild in the Hollow, is out in the world.It’s beautiful. Here’s a taste:

“There is no believing and leaving the church. We are the church, satisfied in God alone.

I do not care if you’re in a b...

A Podcast and a Goodread

It was an email out of the blue, followed by a cold call or two.His name was Troy, he said, a layman doing the work of the church by way of a podcast. Don’t we live in strange times? It’s a brave new world, and all of that.

Troy read my writing on Coming Clean for In Touch Magazine, and he asked whether I’d be willing to sit for an interview. Before I agreed, I interviewed him. I walked in the summer garden, cell phone to ear, and we talkedabout Rich,Brennan, and Walt. We talked about the imp...