Help

I was a minister trying to love God and serve people. I was also a bi-polar, anxiety-ridden, acting out, alcoholic.

Those didn’t mix nearly as well as the 9/10 gin, 1/10 tonic I used to guzzle to make my problems go away (which worked for maybe 18 1/2 minutes on a good day).

So after tribulations, rehabilitations, medications, and reconciliations, here I am almost two years later doing the last thing I ever thought I would do besides ranching. I am a farmer. Okay, I am sort of a rancher too.

I am not doing this alone. I have a lot of help. One of the many lessons I have learned in recovery is that going it alone is a killer. Almost literally for me. Fear, anxiety, and hopelessness gained their power in my life under a shroud of go it alone secrecy. I have now learned that asking for help is not a sign of weakness, whatever the voices in my head may tell me. Asking for help is a courageous act of life-giving strength.

Since I came into farming knowing next to nothing, I get to practice asking for help, lots of help, on lots of levels everyday! I thought I needed a tractor, a load of store-bought fertilizer, and some fire ant poison and I was ready to farm. Come to find out, you need none of these things. What you need is to work with nature rather than against it, pay close attention to your animals and land, practice principles of regenerative agriculture, and ask for help.

I get the most help from my wife, college-age children and in-laws. I have the best relationship I have ever had with each of them. It’s amazing, what truth-telling, grace-giving and farm-living will do for a person and a family.

The relationship with my family began to heal when they graciously came and spent a week with me at the end of my 60 day stent in rehab. One of the activities we did there was called the maze.

We were blindfolded and put into a maze with ropes on each side of corridors, leading to twists and turns with no way out. Yet we were told that there is an exit and if we needed anything, to raise our hand, and the leader would come over. So what was the secret to getting out? Simply raising your hand and then when the leader comes over, actually ask for help.

I had been apart of the maze or seen it two other times during my time in rehab. I watched very intelligent, thoughtful people struggle for well over an hour of and never ask for help. Some would memorize every turn of the maze and become exasperated. Others would call the leader of the exercise over and debate analytical questions of geometry. But they never asked for help. It is the simplest thing but also sometimes the hardest thing. I need help.

This past weekend I was out doing the morning farm chores. My wife came out and said “can I help?” I am grateful that I have learned to say “yes.”