“My fellow creatures, we have been gifted with only so many turns around the sun. We Become What We Normalize is a plea to be brave, truthful, and joyful with our lives. In a clear and prophetic voice reminiscent of Wendell Berry and Richard Rohr, David Dark invites us to live authentic, wholehearted, undivided lives. Sit alongside David Dark for a spell. Observe him as he disarms himself by telling the deepest truths about his life. In turn, Dark’s courage and wisdom might help you disarm yourself—and thus spark a revolutionary process of generating the deep reflection and liberating love our world so desperately needs.”
That right there is Dr. Bonnie Smith-Whitehouse doing me a supreme solid. We are co-conspirators in beloved community at Belmont University. We are also friends. I am also a fan. I love discovering that she’s already checked out particular books in our library when I discover them for the first time. I also love processing news and considering possibilities and assessing pressure points and righteous opportunities with her. She’s one of the people I think of when I imagine what Christianity means (when it doesn’t mean horror). I commend her vision of our world to you via all her work, but, especially at this time: Seasons of Wonder: Making the Ordinary Sacred Through Projects, Prayers, Reflections, and Rituals. Getting saved, in her view, is becoming more whole and less divided in our affections. She invites everyone within earshot to drop the psychic burden of dualistic thinking and to become more attuned to our own resources, whether it’s the Bible, Alanis Morrisette, the Tao Che Ting, or an inquisitive child in Star Wars pajamas. Look into what she’s setting down.
But wait. More about me first.
I’m putting together a global book tour, and I have a few confirmed dates. I place them before you as advanced warning in case you’re someone who might later say unto me, “I wish I’d known you were in town,” or “If I’d known you were in town I would have had you in as a guest lecturer,” or “If I’d known you were in town, I would’ve invited you to deliver the one true gospel from behind the pulpit,” or “If I’d known you were in Columbus, I’d have asked you to do a signing at this bookstore I know of in Mt. Vernon,” or “If I’d known you were in New York, I would’ve introduced you to my friend, Patti Smith.” So…
November 6, Square Books, (with John T. Edge)Oxford, MS
November 9, Carmichael’s Bookstore, Louisville, KY
November 10, Parnassus Books, (with Bonnie Smith Whitehouse) Nashville, TN
November 12, Union Ave Books, Knoxville, TN
November 16, Two Dollar Radio Headquarters (with Hanif Abdurraqib) Columbus, OH
November 17, Mac’s Backs, Cleveland Heights, OH
November 19, Novel., Memphis, TN
November 25, Lowry’s Books and Huss Project, Three Rivers, MI
So…where else am I going to be? You tell me. Or rather, make me an offer.
Also, you don’t need money. It don’t take fame. It don’t take no credit card to ride on this train of thought. You can order your public library to order a copy of my book and then you can take a picture of it and put it on God’s internet and thereby help a brother out. You can also put it on some sad someone’s radar and get it publicly derided and start up a media frenzy You can also review it on GoodReads or Amazon. Can you believe this book only has one review on Amazon? Why not join Jeremy Garber? Why make him go it alone? Gimme some stars, people.
I treasure what Lily Rooke’s set down here. I wish more people would give it a try.
So anyway, come see me or come see about seeing me coming your way. Reminder: I don’t want your money through the pledging of a Substack subscription, but one way to scratch the itch to move money toward me is by buying, praising, or complaining about my books. You have the right to not remain silent (on the subject of David Dark of Nashville).
Thanks for listening.
Editor’s Note: We Become What We Normalize: What We Owe Each Other In World’s That Demand Our Silence is available for pre-order on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Indies Bookshop, and wherever eye-rubbingly awesome books like We Become What We Normalize are sold.
I wrote a poem recently using the human act of naming as a metaphor to describe human behavior
Naming the Wind
Name the wind on your face, it becomes part of you.
Even the distant revving of a motorcycle engine whizzing by worms through your consciousness.
Name the wind, name the sound
Your body possessed.
Your mind obsessed.
The sound vibrates in the ear,
And circles through your brain
a relentlessly refrain.
Suddenly an image becomes attached,
And a story imagined of the rider’s destiny.
All is noise.
Naming,
a heavy chain of possibilities,
Endless scenarios spun
Anchors down your reality.
So human to take charge;
Assign work, corral circumstance,
Even with the most innocent of incidents
Arranged for personal understanding.
Forces of nature and culture impose
on solitude infinite distractions,
Muddy mind’s eye,
Call for possible solutions
Insist on resolution,
Beyond ability and surpassing intentions.
Continuously these storms stir habitat and circumstance,
Disturb stillness time after time
Anxious to control,
To impose our will,
To swing secure with the wind at your back.
Forget what binds
Learn to let go
Or fail to revel in the present flow.
The best prayer of the human soul.
A worthy contemplation —
this blessed moment.
THH
7/20/23