On Suffering and Megaphones
An introduction for all my new subscribers!
My subscriber base has grown considerably for the last 3-4 months, so I thought I’d introduce myself to all of you newcomers. I’m awfully glad to have you here, by the way, and I hope you enjoy reading my stuff!
A lot of you found your way here through my husband’s Substack, Bad Bill Sheet. That’s right, my name is Amanda Barber and I’m married to former SC State House Rep. Jonathon Hill. He’s written a couple of guest posts for me which you can read here and here. I write under my maiden name because my first novel was published before I’d met Jonathon, and I don’t want to confuse my readers too much.
The Bad Bill Sheet is the bane of every establishment Republican in South Carolina’s existence. Before the Bad Bill Sheet… Jonathon was the bane of every establishment Republican in South Carolina’s existence. For Jonathon reads alllllllll the bills that come through the South Carolina House, while in office (which is an unfortunately rare trait for politicians) and now out of office, and goes straight to the people of South Carolina to tell them all the dastardly ways SC politicians are spending the money they extract from them via taxes. It look like this:
For eight years, Jonathon bellowed into his proverbial megaphone about the goings on in Columbia, SC and voted no on just about everything. He earned a lot of love from the people and a lot of hatred from politicians. And I was along for the ride all eight years. The first year as his girlfriend and the last seven years as his wife. It was quite an education for such a one as me—an introverted thinker with no prior experience in politics. You might say I got thrown in head first because I did.
Jonathon called it quits after his fourth term in office, and we are now living the civilian life. Sorta. We live on about 4.5 acres with the neighbor’s cows. Jonathon works his job and he is currently serving his two years as Chairman of our county’s Republican Party. And…he still reads all the bills and puts out a weekly newsletter about all the bad ones. So, we still have our fingers on the political pulse, for sure.
Jonathon served as an icebreaking ship. He, and Ralph Norman before him, served to show upcoming politicians a different way to behave in office other than getting along to go along and “building political capital now so you can spend it later” which translates to: “Do as you’re told and lose your soul and by the time you actually have political capital in the bank, you will not use it for good, because you will no longer be the same person that entered office. You will be a hollowed out shell of a human being. You will have become…the problem you went there to fix.”
The upshot of all the headaches Jonathon endured in office is that we now have a growing group of “won’t go along to get along” legislators in the State House who have formed their own Freedom Caucus and they cause considerable headaches for the Republican establishment types who gave Jonathon headaches.
Am I proud of my husband? Oh, yes I am. And now I’m beginning to see some of the fruits of his hard labors.
This week, Freedom Caucus-aligned candidates ousted two of the absolute worst, corrupt, and lying Republican incumbents in the South Carolina legislature….a difficult and well-executed feat, indeed. This article from Fits News gives a quick history lesson on what went down during the primaries, specifically how much money the establishment Republicans unsuccessfully squandered trying to get rid of the more conservative members.
But I did not always live in South Carolina, married to a (former) politician. I spent all but nine months of my childhood and all of my pre-married adulthood living in Michigan. So, how did I get from there to here? And why do I write weekly on Substack?
Well, the simple answer to the first question is that I married Jonathon. He was in office in South Carolina, so it was a no-brainer. And I have come to love this place in spite of its corrupt good old boy network, its quirks and the crack and methheads everywhere. Not twenty minutes from my house, I come to a place known as Homeland Park. The name would imply a place far more wholesome than it really is. Here, my eyes are constantly assaulted with sights so strange and wonderful that I am want to exclaim at frequent intervals, “What in the methamphetamines am I looking at, here?!”
The place is chock full of jittery baby mamas, late for their next fix, and shirtless, toothless dudes riding down the sides of busy streets on mopeds and lawnmowers because their licenses have been revoked once again. I still have a somewhat irrational fondness for the area…perhaps because the thrift stores are so good. Who knows?
But what I really love, is our beautiful 4.5 acres surrounded by grazing land, and beyond that, hills and trees. It’s been a very long time since the most prominent sound in my ears when first I walk outside is the singing of song birds and the lowing of cows. It is a beautiful thing, and now that I’m here and have begun caring for this little plot of land, wild horses couldn’t drag me from it. I want to live here until I die. Perhaps save up all our money and buy the land around us out from under those pesky developers when they come salivating, to plaster the countryside with their hideous copy-and-paste, made-to-self-destruct-in-ten years houses. I shan’t let them have it, if I can possibly stop it.
And now, why do I write weekly on Substack? Well, because I’m a writer. I have tried to stop writing before and it just never stuck. It seems to be something God meant for me to do.
Why should you read my stuff? Well, because I have a quite unusual voice.
I see the world through the lens of my own suffering, suffering sanctified by my Father and His suffering son, Jesus Christ.
Sometime during my childhood, I contracted Lyme disease. I was not properly diagnosed by blood test until about six years ago. The disease ravaged my body after a certain fashion. I feel so old and decrepit some days, that looking into a mirror for me can be quite a jarring experience. I am nearly forty years old, and in spite of the pain and fatigue which has been a defining feature of my life, I look a good ten years younger than I am. There is no witchcraft involved, I assure you. I think it’s genetic, as my dad had much the same health and aging trajectory. He, too, felt awful and looked great for a long time…really right up until a few months before he passed away.
At any rate, I have experienced significant healing since I was properly diagnosed and treated for Lyme, but the long term damage from the disease is an absolute bugbear to overcome. At least it has been for me. Though I am in better health than I have been at any other point in my life, sometimes I inexplicably hurt for a while, and I just have to patiently wait for it to end. And that is hard.
It does, however, force me to stop and observe in an unusual way which a lot of people don’t have time for, out in the world being industrious in the workplace and what not. When your body hurts, your internal, psychological I guess, sensors open up. I become keenly aware of people’s expressions and micro expressions, the words they say and the hidden subtext. It all tells a story. I find people fascinating, and all my fiction is people/character driven more than anything else.
But it’s the unshakeable belief that our suffering can be sanctified in Christ which makes my stories something other than fascinating tales of miserable people having a terrible time for no good reason. The world is full of brilliant writers who write very good fiction glorifying meaninglessness. Because the easiest temptation to fall into when you are in pain is fear and rage and bitterness. I have to fight them all, frequently. But God, in His mercy, has helped me not to fall down that abyss, at least not for long.
“In the rustling grass, I hear Him pass. He speaks to me everywhere.”
C.S. Lewis wrote, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
This is my Father’s world. Everything in it is His path to joy. It is all a gift, even the pain. There is no cruelty of nature or of evil human beings which cannot be redeemed and cannot be transformed into beauty.
So, in many respects, when you read what I write, you are reaping the rewards of my pain. Even right this moment, you have gained the joy (I hope, if you are enjoying this) of a headache/shoulder and neck ache/sinus ache I have inexplicably been suffering for about three weeks which has, once again, forced me to slow down and caused me to think about these things all over again.
And so I’ve had to put aside my anxious questions.
When will this end? Will I be able to get my seeds in the ground before it’s too late? How am I going to get the weeding done like this? When my sister comes in from out of town to help me with the next big project, am I still going to be stuck having to rest every two hours?
But there is no use. It will end when it ends, and I just have to patiently wait. And so I do. Then those internal sensors start firing off and I notice things I never would have noticed without the pain. It all soaks in, and you get to read all about it later.
And that’s why you should definitely read my stuff and subscribe to this Substack and get all your friends and relatives to subscribe, too. ;)
Another reason I write weekly is because I completed a novel last year that isn’t published yet, and publishers like it when authors have a ready made audience. Because then they don’t have to spend buckets of money marketing. So, help a girl out and subscribe!
My novel’s called, 27, and you can read the whole first chapter right here for free.
So, what else do I do? Well, I sing and I sew and I bake and cook. I also have a little fresh cut flower selling scheme in the works. How original, right? If I had a dime for every late thirty-something female going into flower farming… But I can’t help it. I do so love flowers, and they bring me much joy, and if I only sell a handful of flowers every summer, that’s fine too. Because they’re just so darn pretty and if nobody buys them, it’ll just be more flowers for me!
Most days in the warmer months, if you don’t find me at my computer writing or in the kitchen cooking something or recuperating from whatever my body has thrown at me lately, you’ll find me at my sewing desk or in my other favorite place—in the middle of my garden with my dogs, surrounded by my favorite flowers.
And that is who I am.
In keeping with the singing part of me, here’s one of my favorite songs:
This is my Father's world,
And to my listening ears
All nature sings, and round me rings
The music of the spheres.
This is my Father's world:
I rest me in the thought
Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas--
His hand the wonders wrought.
This is my Father's world:
The birds their carols raise,
The morning light, the lily white,
Declare their Maker's praise.
This is my Father's world:
He shines in all that's fair;
In the rustling grass I hear Him pass,
He speaks to me everywhere.
This is my Father's world:
O let me ne'er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong,
God is the Ruler yet.
This is my Father's world:
The battle is not done:
Jesus who died shall be satisfied,
And earth and Heaven be one.
That’s all for now. Until next time, folks…
P.S. If you enjoy reading my weekly epistle, please consider upgrading your subscription from free to paid. That small amount from you adds up to a big impact for me as I seek to get both my novels published and work to write things you’ll enjoy every week. If you wish to upgrade, but don’t know how, simply click the “subscribe” button below and it will lead you through the process. Have a great week, everyone!