Creeks and Crises

Hank Neufeld has published an intriguing memoir which covers his early life as well as his retirement years. His boyhood, a time of confusion and surprising pleasures, hardly prepares him for his future, although Nature plays a wonderfully-intuitive role during this time. Woven throughout Part 1’s multiple vignettes are poignant descriptions of his boyish reverence for wild creatures, trees, creeks, and the prairie, all phenomena he loves and is drawn to. He finds a spiritual refuge in the natural world outside his church, an accessible God independent of rituals and formal prayers.

His large family is totally committed to their overly-coercive evangelical Mennonite Brethren church, and this creates a growing ambivalence about life’s bigger questions. Both his home and his church believe they have a spiritual truth which is absolute. His struggle with his mix of certainty and doubt governs a big part of his life.

The author skips his working years to paint the pain-filled events of his retirement. He pays loving tribute to his wife, the person nearest to his heart, and tells how their desperate and repetitive attempts to help their son and grandson find their way past the unrelieved grip of addiction proves beyond them. Together they confront the horrid tragedies of two futile and pointless events even while dealing with the idea of an unconditionally-loving God they grew up with. The couple’s relationship grows ever closer as they join hands to walk the precipitous trail of their calamitous experience. Life is hard, but, like the Nature of the author’s early life, it is also strangely beautiful.

There is a disarming frankness in Hank Neufeld’s memoir. His candid writing unbolts the reserve found in less open writing and makes his true story believable. This tale of profound love and loss, spiritual quest, and human courage will resonate in the heart of the reader.