The Rabbit Room

Jellybean Highfive and the Enthusiastic Youth Pastor

Jellybean Highfive stood in front of the back of a room, his back to the front of the wall. Directionally near to him sat a youth pastor on a stool.

“It’s going to be epic,” the youth pastor said, raising his eyebrows, which were thin and trimmed and raised.

“Really?” Jellybean asked interrogatively.

“Fo’ sho’ bro,” he said, grinning sideways and scrunching up his eyes beneath a wide-brimmed hat featuring a baseball logo of a baseball team called the Yankees.

Tweet

Podcast: Interview with Under the Radar’s Dave Trout

On July 4th, 2013, Under the Radar will host its first-ever music festival. It’s called Escape to the Lake and it’s got more than a little of the Hutchmoot vibe to it, so we sat down with UTR’s founder, Dave Trout, and talked with him about the genesis of both the UTR radio show and the Escape to the Lake weekend.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Tweet

Discussion Week 4: “The 101″

Discussion Introduction
Week 1: “A Thousand a Day”
Week 2: “The Old Desperate”
Week 3: “Jack Waits”

Here follows week 4 of our discussion of Leif Enger’s So Brave, Young, and Handsome.

A cowboy doesn’t ask for much, that’s my observation. A flashy ride, pretty girl, momentary glory – for a day or two, I’m glad to say, Hood Roberts had them all.” – p. 145

Not a bad recap of “The 101”—equal parts legend, tragedy, comedy, and tall tale, sprinkled with a dash of romance.

I thought my question might be a dangerous one – who doesn’t dread what God might be up to in our pivotal moments?” – p. 109

1) What have the pivotal moments been in the story thus far? How have the characters changed as a result?

Now comes the distressing part of the story, and not just because Charlie Siringo shows up. As Glendon said later, Charlie had to show up – it was necessary for Charlie, for Glendon himself, and even, finally, for me, that Siringo wash into the Hundred and One on the edge of the coming deluge. . . No, the distress was all Hood’s.” – p. 126

2) How was Siringo’s arrival on the scene “necessary” for Siringo himself? For Glendon? For Monte?

3) Given that Siringo was pursuing Glendon, why was the distress “all Hood’s”?

4) How is Darlys DeFoe pivotal in the story?

My wife got so she couldn’t see me anymore,” said an old man in a corner. “She could see everyone else. Just not me. . . It’s the truth. I walked into the house one day saying Darling it’s me, and she couldn’t hear nor see me. If I touched her she’d see me again, but pretty soon, out I’d fade.” – p. 137

5) The quiet, exposing confession of Siringo seems out of step with his character. What do you make of that?

6) Why do you think Monte stays with Siringo?

Bonus Question: What’s the history of the real “101 Ranch”? What aspects of the story seem to be true to life? Where in the life cycle of the actual 101 Ranch does the story take place?

Tweet

If you could actually thank C.S. Lewis…

…wouldn’t you want to?

I certainly would.

He may have died long before I was born, but his books came to me like letters from a kind and witty and child-hearted godfather. Narnia companioned my childhood. Cair Paravel became a home within my thought that I roamed in imagination. The Pevensies were comrades in my play and challenged me to bravery. Talking stars and valorous mice and dryads peopled my dreams. When my siblings and I rigged up the oak tree in our front yard and called it a ship, it was the Dawn Treader I considered myself to be sailing. And it was Aslan’s country I desired to find.

Ah, Aslan. Bold and beautiful, never tame. Who can fathom the power of a story in which Christ bounds in, unfettered by the usual assumptions and in a form so wondrous and wild? I loved Aslan. And even as a little girl, I knew it was God I was learning to love through him.

When I grew up and began to wrestle with the reality of that God, again Lewis (and the old picture of Aslan) came to my rescue. I have read letters that Lewis wrote to his actual godson, and the kindly, bracing advice, the take-yourself-lightly tone and the urge to throw one’s whole self into the loving of God were familiar to me. I had already encountered that eminently insightful voice in Lewis’s spiritual and apologetic works. Like the kindly godfather he was, he walked me through doubt, assuaged my frustration; his words pulled me back from the brink of disbelief. And the stories that came from that vivid imagination of his taught me to hope that every longing of my heart would one day find its home.

So yes, if Lewis were anywhere on earth, I’d trek my way to him, shake his hand, and say the thanks that’s been years in the making. I can’t wait to do it in heaven. But I can make a down payment on that thanks right now. And I simply have to tell all of you about this rather momentous opportunity. I know this is a place where C.S. Lewis is greatly loved, so… perhaps you’d like to join me?

Tweet

Mother’s Day

I remember what it was like to want a baby.

I remember how it felt to walk through the grocery store
watching others dispose so recklessly
of everything I ached to be.

I remember mothers
(or so-called mothers)
snapping off ugly words
to curly-haired toddlers.

I remember mothers
(or so-called mothers)
sighing in exasperation,
ignoring bundles of angel on earth,
telling them to hush.

I remember seeing from a distance
the wonder of ten little curved fingers,
dimpled knuckles,
wrapped sweetly around a shopping cart handle.

I remember small voices saying,
“Momma, Momma,”
and wondering what unforgivable thing
I had done
to become unworthy of that name.

It has been sixteen years,
but I will never forget Mother’s Day empty-armed,
trying to smile politely,
running to the church bathroom,
weeping the long, hard, labor of grief
behind a locked door.

Because of this, I define motherhood
a little differently than most.

I define motherhood
as the womb of creativity
and breasts of recreativity
made full.

Motherhood is an idea fluttering and kicking,
compassion fluttering and kicking,
music birthed,
books nursed,
social healing held upright on wobble knees until it walks,
wounds of the heart and body dressed and bandaged.

Motherhood is entrance into dark rooms
where fright cries out from sleep,
and motherhood is chasing away the monsters.

Motherhood is the renaming of the rejected,
it is the embrace of the lonely,
it is a Saturday picnic packed for the hungry,
it is the rocking of the forgotten
in the lap of an old, sweet song.

Motherhood is the soft, feminine hand of love
on the cheek of the world’s need.

For children are born and tended
in a million different sorts of ways.

The earth cries out,
and here you are to answer.
You are maternity,
and you are beautiful.

Tweet