Hemingway plus 50

This past week was the fiftieth anniversary of Ernest Hemingway taking his own life.  Hemingway is my favorite American author.  On trips to Key West I would tell my sons the story of Hemingway living above the bar called “Sloppy Joe's” (the real Sloppy Joe's is across the street from the tourist stop today).  How every morning he would sit in front of his typewriter and churn out 500 to 1,000 words then head downstairs and drink himself into unconsciousness. 

In the summer of 2006 I brought my family to Sun Valley, Idaho for a conference.  Just outside Sun Valley was the small town of Ketchum.  It was there that Hemingway lived…and died.  He’s buried there, a simple tombstone, a powerful voice, a tragic end.

I think the reason I love Hemingway so much is because there is (notice the present tense) eloquence in his simple words.  He doesn’t bowl you over with polysyllabic words to make his point.  When he writes “the soldier bled and died”, you get the imagery.  He wrote uncomplicated prose and lived a complicated life.

I’ve read “A Farewell to Arms” perhaps a dozen times.  It is a novel, one of his earliest, yet it discloses more about the heart and heartbreak of the man than any other book he wrote.  It is the story of an American expatriate who volunteers to serve in the Italian Army at the beginning of World War I.  He is wounded, falls in love with an English nurse and embarks on a dangerous course of action, jeopardizing his own freedom, for the love of this woman.  There is a pain and honesty in the tragic ending beyond words.

Hemingway’s story mirrored his own life.  He did serve in the Italian army during the first World War.  He was seriously wounded.  He fell hopelessly in love with the English nurse who cared for him.  And, she broke his heart.

Hemingway’s power as a writer came from that heartbreak.  I don’t believe he ever truly recovered.  Oh, he led an adventurous life:  he ran with the bulls; he watched firsthand the Nazi’s help Franco’s forces in Spain defeat the republicans in ’36; he went on safari; he sailed, he drank, he had three wives and dozens of female lovers; he wrote masterpieces like “The Sun Also Rises”, “The Snows of Kilimanjaro”, “The Old Man and the Sea”, and “For Whom the Bell Tolls”; and his heart never recovered from the lost love of the English nurse.

Hemingway understood rejection; he felt it and lived it and no pain is worse.  Where he tragically missed the mark was how he dealt with it.  You can’t run away, can’t hide in a bottle or in taking risks.  You have to live with it.  A recent visitor told me she worried I was “too hopeful about things working out when I leave this place”.  You keep holding on to hope, you’ll get your heartbroken.  I laughed.  My heart’s already broken.  It can’t break more.  Hope is that thing we hang onto for dear life when everything around us tells us otherwise.  Hope keeps us going when it would be more than reasonable to give up.  Hemingway was brilliant, but he lacked hope.  And, hope matters.

Advent Story

I had a pretty good week. One of the guys here in 3A – “J” – has been working closely with me to get his GED. He passed two parts last week. To thank me, he got me a set of “thermals” – long johns. Buying a set cost $20.00, but “yard workers” get them for free. J goes all over the compound and knows guys everywhere. He got me a set from the laundry.



Then “Ray”, who I helped with his college lit class (he read Hemmingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea”, an amazing story) delivered me a new set of sheets and two new towels and washcloths to thank me.


Another guy made sure I had enough “good” typing paper for my legal work. He was thanking me for helping him handle an insurance claim. The paper they sell on commissary is a cheap, low grade paper. The 200 plus sheets he “found” and gave me are high grade.


Big S, E and I found our way into two more large bags of chocolate chip/cranberry cookie dough. Every night for the last week I’ve fixed, in my plastic bowl, a thick, bubbly, gooey cookie. My whole bed area smells like Christmas!


I have a small, fold out nativity scene sent to me last year by a friend, an Episcopal rector. I set it up on my book shelf as my “Christmas decorations”.


It was a good week. My advanced writing class began a group writing project – a three act play. We sat around a few tables pushed together, sketching out a really remarkable story about a group of down on their luck losers who win a chance to interview for an employment opportunity with the “job God”.


Big S and I were talking. He had his daily devotion book out. Big S isn’t a “church guy”. A couple of months ago he noticed me watching a church program early Sunday morning. Since that week he watches. Afterwards, we’ll get a cup of coffee and discuss what we’ve heard.


Big S read a devotion from Genesis. The writer’s point was God made everything and everyone. All are unique and distinct and in God’s eyes valuable and worthy. Big S asked me if I thought that meant in God’s eyes, a child molester was as good as he was. “You know, Larry, I have a real hard time with that. I just don’t get how God can love “W” knowing what he did (he sexually abused his own daughter).”


Tough question. But, the answer is even tougher. God loves all of us: even child molesters, even embezzlers, even wives who divorce their husbands because they are “a good person”. We are all sinners and all fall short of the mark. In God’s perfect eyes a sin is a sin.


That is really a difficult idea to accept. I struggle with that in here. I’m around a good many people I would have preferred not to have contact with. As a matter of fact, I tended to live my life avoiding less desirable people. It was easy to spot the “good” people. I hung out with them. Oh, they may cheat on their spouses and their taxes. They may hold grudges, say hateful and hurtful things, but they weren’t criminals. They didn’t kill, they didn’t rape, they didn’t steal.


There comes a point in time when you are broken. When you realize you’ve made a terrible mess of things. You know you are a thief, you know you lied to your family; you betrayed your wife and kids. And all the goodness you thought you had was nothing but a lie. You do the last thing you have left. You cry out to God and admit how you really are.


So I told Big S God forgives every one of us if we sincerely ask. He does it for molesters and adulterers, embezzlers and arrogant, self righteous SOB’s.


The reason the Advent season is so special to me is I’m reminded in a world filled with anger, crime, broken relationships, and fear we all can have hope. God loves us, in spite of ourselves, He dearly loves us.


This season is a great time to remember that. It’s a great time to reconcile with someone you’re angry at or hurt by. It’s a great time to remember what love really means.


God sets a pretty tough example for us to follow. Then again, He was willing to give me another chance.