I'm Andrew Klavan
I got the worst possible mark in every class
in Hebrew school
and my father used to say they can't flunk you out of being Jewish
but I came very close, I came very close.
By the time I was bar mitzvahed I was so completely estranged
from this entire tradition.
I didn't want to do it at all - it meant nothing to me.
I gave in, I had to.
I was forced to be bar mitzvahed
and say these things that I didn't believe
so I ad-libbed the Hebrew in my bar mitzvah because
I had really barely learned the portion of the Torah I was supposed to read
I was making up Hebrew words to get through it
just anything I could to get through!
And at that time when you had a bar mitzvah
people just piled presents on you.
Savings bonds, money, thousands and thousands of dollars worth of jewelry that I got from
my bar mitzvah and I put it all in this leather box that I also got for my bar mitzvah.
It was the first time I ever had anything, any wealth that was my own - I was 13 years old
and I was very excited by it. And so I had this box and I would keep it in a little closet
little pantry kind of closet in my room and every now and again I'd take it out
and just kind of stare at it - I never wore a lot of jewelry but I'd just stare at this
wealth that I had accumulated.
But over the course of - let's call it the next 6 months - the joy of this wealth started
to seep out of me.
I began to feel that I had done a truly hypocritical thing.
These are ill gotten gains.
I was bought off - I let someone give me money to say what I did not believe.
I kind of naturally had a sense that God was there, but I hated the hypocrisy.
I hated the fact that I'd been bullied into something, I hated the fact that I'd been
bought off.
And it started to dawn on me that it must have been important to me that I lied about
God specifically.
And one night, I waited til the entire house had gone to bed, and I took out this box
full of thousands of dollars worth of jewelry, and I crept outside and I stuffed it
in the garbage, because I felt so bad about it.
I remember I could feel, you know, whenever I talk about it, I can feel the broken eggshells
and the coffee grounds on my arm as I shoved it down deep, because I was afraid someone
would find It before they would throw the garbage away.
And in the morning the garbage men came and they took it the garbage and this jewelry
and they threw it away.
And that was meant to be the end of my religious life.
I loved stories.
I wanted to be a writer for as long as I can remember.
I loved tough guy stories because I didn't get along with my father - I needed a male
role model and I turned to stories like by Earnest Hemingway and the tough guy detective
stories of Raymond Chandler, the Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett, you know these detectives,
and I thought these are the kinds of men I want to be like.
These are the guys who walk in a corrupt world
but they carry this kind of integrity inside themselves.
As I studied literature, I realized that Jesus was at the center of all of Western literature.
I should find out about this.
I should find out about it.
I went into my bedroom and I closed the door, and I started to read
the Gospel according to Saint Luke.
One of the funny things about the gospel is that people have this concept of
"gentle Jesus, meek and mild".
If you can go into the gospel and find a place where "gentle Jesus, meek and mild" exists,
I will pay to see it, because Jesus is a hard man.
He walks into these deadly situations, even when they're threatening him with death,
he just says what he has to say.
And that, to me, especially in this world of lies, that to me is so important.
Such a great model for any man.
My father, liked to sabotage anything that I did.
So like if he heard me writing, if heard me typing he'd always break in on me
and try to mess up my concentration.
And so while I'm reading this, he walked in without knocking - he threw open the door,
and he caught me reading the Gospel according to Saint Luke.
Now think about this for a minute, right, I'm 15 years old, he could have walked in
on me with a girl in the bed - I was doing that - but he walked in on me reading
the Gospel according to Saint Luke and he was furious.
I mean the rage came out of him, in little bits because he was trying not to let it out,
but it kept bubbling up out of him like hot tar, and he couldn't stop it and he was cursing at me.
He was using, you know, foul language, and it would just keep bursting out and we went
in to have dinner and we'd sit down and it kept coming out and it kept coming out...
I'm trying to explain to him, "I'm not reading it for religious purposes, I'm reading it
for literary purposes, I just wanted to know what all these guys were writing about."
And he pointed his finger at my nose, and he said, "If you EVER convert, I will disown you."
"I will disown you."
And there was only one ambition that I had - I wanted to be a novelist.
That was what I wanted.
I applied to the University of California at Berkley because it was so far away from
my New York home, and I went into the first of my terrible, terrible depressions.
I call them the 'bolo', because they were like that throwing thing that appears out of nowhere
and wraps itself around my throat and chokes me with sorrow and I was torn up.
I was so broken and crazy inside that I didn't understand how to communicate
with people, how to write stories.
I knew I had a talent for writing stories, but I couldn't write stories that people liked
because my mind was so messed up. I was so full of rage and twistedness
and you know it didn't appear... I wasn't like a crazy person
you would have looked at me and you'd have thought, "Well he seems like a really put together guy"
But I was not. I was really broken inside.
And I didn't know I was going insane.
I didn't realize I was going mad because I had that romance of the intellectual
an intellectual is miserable, an intellectual faces things, he tells the truth, he looks life in the eye...
and life is meaningless and life is death
and because he sees these things, he's a man of sorrow
and so I just thought I was a typical intellectual
you know, like that song - It's hip to be miserable when you're young and intellectual.
That's what I thought I was.
But I was in so much pain, I did begin crying out to God
in this kind of sick, superstitious way.
I remember trying all these spiritual experiments to try and get clear
I published a novel when I was about 26
and the book didn't sell, I couldn't publish it
and it just died. It was such an experience of grief
I didn't even feel the grief.
And I just started to unravel.
And at the same time, my wife became pregnant.
I'm trying to write and I'm picking up a little bit of money
but we're slowly going broke
and I'm slowly going crazy. I'm just going crazy.
My books became unreadable.
My writing - I'd always prided myself on this clean, clear American prose, you know
and suddenly, I was writing these convoluted sentences that nobody could understand
I not only couldn't sell my books anymore, I couldn't even get an agent
I couldn't do anything - I was just frozen. I was so depressed.
I was in my bedroom and my wife was outside
sometimes she would sleep on the couch so I could work in the bedroom
because that's where my desk was.
And my little baby daughter was in her nursery
and I was drinking... not heavily, but I was drinking a scotch and I'm smoking cigarettes
and I was thinking about killing myself.
I'd had suicidal thoughts before, but this was different.
This was the real deal.
I was sitting there thinking, I don't know how to live.
I do not know how to live.
And there was a radio playing a baseball game
a Mets game.
And it was just playing in the background, I wasn't listening to it
I was just sitting - I was thinking about throwing myself off the roof
because we lived in a - I don't know - an 8, 10 story building
and I was just thinking I could walk up there and everybody would be happier.
My wife would be better off, my daughter would be better off...
I don't know how to live.
In the baseball game, the Mets had a player that I just loved named Gary Carter.
Gary Carter was a devout Christian
and whenever they would interview him after a game, you know, how did it feel when
you hit that home run? He would say, "Praise Jesus, I am so happy I hit that home run!"
And I used to think like, "Ah! Gary stop!" You know, it just went right up my spine
it was like someone had dropped a worm down my back
"Jesus, Jesus, Jesus"...
And after the game, I'm sitting there, considering suicide
drink in one hand, cigarette in the other
and after the game - Carter won the game
by beating out a single at the first base
in other words he hit a ground ball and he ran so fast that the throw was late
and he got to first base before the throw
which was amazing because Carter's knees were gone
he was a catcher and he spent all his time squatting
he had terrible knees.
So after the game, the interviewer came up to him
and said, "How could you run so fast when your knees are so bad?"
And if Carter in that moment had said, "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus"
I wouldn't have heard him. I was no way ready for that.
God? I had pushed God completely out of my life.
But he didn't. What he said was,
"Sometimes, you just have to play in pain".
I remember thinking... I heard that, and I remember thinking,
Well I can do that.
I'm a tough guy. I've always been a tough guy. I can play in pain.
And that was the answer.
How do you live? Sometimes, you've got to play in pain.
I think about that a lot these days.
That this Christian ball player who's clearly given these words by God
to speak to me.
that he didn't use God's name
that I wouldn't have heard God's name.
That God, that the King of the universe
put himself out of the picture
to reach me.
That's you know, a kind of humility that you don't see in a lot of people.
Anyway, that was the last time I ever thought of suicide.
I was reading a book - a sea adventure story.
Great book - Patrick O'Brien - great author.
At the end of this chapter it said... his name was Mattran - Mattran said a quick prayer
and fell asleep.
And I thought, well, if he can say a prayer
because he was a very intellectual character, I really loved him
it was a series of books, and I just really identified with this character
I thought, if he can say a prayer, I can say a prayer.
Here I was, my career was going great,
I had married this woman I just adored,
I had two children I just adored...
I was so happy that I had come through this period of pain and emotional breakdown,
and had changed everything in my life.
So I said a 3 word prayer, I said, "Thank you, God".
And I went to sleep.
The next morning I woke up, and everything had changed.
I was suddenly more alive.
I suddenly saw everything more clearly.
I had been trying to see things clearly since I was a little boy
I remember as a child thinking, I can't get past my daydreams
I can't get past my own thoughts...
And suddenly, there it was!
There it was! Everything was beautiful!
I could see my wife, I could see my wife's face, I could see the coffee in the cup
I went out into London, one of the most beautiful cities on earth, and I could see the city
and it was all clear, and I realized
it was that prayer - it was those three words
a three word prayer.
And it was kind of an intellectual experiment for me
but for God it was the lifeline that he needed
it was the connection he was looking for.
What I'd been looking for all my life, as a writer, as an artist
I'd been looking to be directly connected to life.
You can't be directly connected to life until you've been directly connected to God
because God is the source of life.
Not just the source of life from the beginning, from creation
but the source of life RIGHT NOW. Right this minute.
And you can't know God - he's just too big for the mind
unless you know him through Christ who is a man like you.
I was connected to the world, I had life in abundance
that great promise, "I want you to live, and I want you to live abundantly".
You know, my father was afraid that by embracing Christ I'd be leaving Judaism behind
but weirdly, I never really felt connected to my Judaism until I found Jesus.
When I found Jesus, that's the first time I started to think,
Oh, THAT'S what all that stuff in the Bible meant!
That's why there were those traditions, that's why there were those passages...
They never meant anything to me before.
I always had a connection with my cultural Judaism
I always knew I was a Jew, I was happy and at peace with that
but I never understood the religious aspects of it
until Jesus came into my life.
It's absolutely true. Until I was baptized, I don't think I was a Jew.
And it has just been a remarkable, remarkable adventure.
I don't even know how to communicate the way
the whole of life makes sense now.
You know what it is? It's the difference between sailing in absolute darkness on a stormy sea
and sailing in darkness on a stormy sea, but you can see the North Star,
so you know where you're going.
And suddenly the storm doesn't bother you,
suddenly the darkness doesn't bother you
because you know exactly where you're headed
because you've got that star to lead you.
And I think that's my testimony guys.