In part one I talked about the burdens of poverty and of wealth, in part two I laid out some of the nuts and bolts of what it costs to make an album–but one of many ways an artist can use his or her gift to shed light. Before I wrap this up I want to respond to a few comments.
Thank you all for your thoughts. I’m a people-pleaser, so it’s always hard for me to throw out thoughts like these for public scrutiny. I know better than any of you just how deeply wrong I can be about things, which leaves me with two options: I can keep quiet for fear of wrongness, or I can write out my thinking in the hopes of gaining a better understanding.
A few of you bristled at some of my comments about Rich Mullins’s singleness. My point wasn’t that marriage is necessarily better, nor was it that single people have no responsibilities. Obviously, if you’re in Christ your responsibility first and foremost is to God, and his will should be sought in any decision. I thought that went without saying. But a married man or woman with children has a far different set of responsibilities than a single person. There are lots of options available to a single person that aren’t available to married folks, and vice versa. For Rich, identifying with the poor and living a somewhat vagabond lifestyle was an option he took as a single man (under God, of course) that he wouldn’t have been able to take as a married man with children. In fact, had he chosen to marry and have children and still live in his truck and go barefoot and smelly, he would have been a picture of selfishness–though I suppose there’s a slim chance he might have married a woman who was similarly called, and they might have lived in a van down by the river with their smelly barefoot children. I’m being silly. It occurs to me now that I’ve met lots of families blessed with the astounding courage to live on the mission field or in inner cities, which is probably what someone like Rich would have done. Still, that’s a picture of living simply, not in poverty. Living out of a truck (literally) would no longer be an option, at least with children in the picture. Read the rest of this entry »
In part one I talked about poverty and wealth, and a father’s calling to care for his family. Now I’m going to broadly explain some of the nitty gritty nuts and bolts behind trying to make a living as an artist. It might get tedious, but bear with me.
How to Lose Money. So these mugs. Oh, the mugs. We thought it would be fun to find a place to commission some handmade Rabbit Room mugs, partly to support the specific potter, partly to give ye faithful Rabbit Roomers a beautiful, somewhat meaningful souvenir, and partly (how foolish we were!) to help the Rabbit Room make some money.
*Note: if this is totally boring for you, skip down to where it says, “Now, forget about the mugs.”
Brannon McAllister suggested a potter (potteress?) in Greenville, South Carolina named Katie Coston, so I sent her an email and got the wheel spinning. She charged about $16 for each mug. That sounded like a lot until I thought about all the equipment she had to have bought, and the expertise (they were really beautiful pieces) and the clay and finish and other supplies, and the time it took her to spin each lump of clay into something beautiful, and the lettering, and the firing, then the shipping and packing supplies–and suddenly $16 didn’t seem like all that much. So I ordered a dozen or so (which came out to $192); with shipping the total came to a little over $200. If you subtract from that Katie’s hours, equipment, and supplies, I’m sure that didn’t leave her much. When Jamie goes to the grocery store for our family the bill can come to quite a bit more than Katie’s gross, so our order for mugs probably didn’t even buy her and her family a week’s worth of food. Hmm. Read the rest of this entry »
A few questions were raised about the Counting Stars pre-order tiers we sold here, and about the pricey $20 Rabbit Room mugs. If a few people were brave enough to question it by commenting, I’m sure there were even more who kept quiet. There are a few more of those patronage plans on the horizon so I figured it would be a good time to explain our thinking.
Years ago I played several shows with a few members of the Kid Brothers of St. Frank. Remember them? It was the unofficial pseudo-Catholic order started by Rich Mullins in honor of St. Francis of Assisi, and included a few younger musicians like Eric Hauck, Michael Aukofer, Mitch McVicker, and Keith Bordeaux (who wasn’t a musician, but who was on the verge of moving to Arizona to serve however he could before Rich died). I was as big a Rich Mullins fan as you could imagine, so in the years after his death I was honored and a little frightened to find myself occasionally doing shows with those guys.
Eric in particular embodied the spirit of the Kid Brothers. He was hilarious, gentle and kindhearted, had a long biker goatee, a braided ponytail, smelled a little funny, drove a motorcycle, and played cello. You read that right. He played cello, and he played it well. Also, he never wore shoes. The only time I saw him with footwear was in the airport (because the FAA requires it). When they stopped him from boarding the plane Eric pulled out of his grimy backpack a grimy pair of flip flops to appease them. He was perfectly content to bounce through life without anything to tie him down, money least of all. Read the rest of this entry »
A few times during Hutchmoot I heard about books I wanted to track down but I didn’t have anything to write on. Now I can’t remember a single one. I’m sure I’m not the only one, so I thought it would be helpful to start a list here. Some of these are available in the Rabbit Room Store, so check there before you go gallivanting over to Amazon or somesuch to spend your hard-earned money. We’ll put it to better use than they will.
A few people asked me about the following:
Walking on Water, by Madeline L’Engle
The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield
Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott
I also referenced in my George MacDonald talk the book The Sacred Journey, by Frederick Buechner.
Allen Levi, Ben May, and I stood on Wendell Berry’s front porch as nervous as schoolboys. Allen had prayed aloud as we pulled up to the little Kentucky farmhouse that God would keep the visit from descending into some goofy hero worship, and that we’d remember who we are, that somehow our visit would amount to a blessing to the Berrys even as it would be to us. Basically it was, “Dear God, don’t let us be dummies.” Read the rest of this entry »
And lo, in the year 2010, an idea stepped out of the realm of theory and into the realm of time and space.
I’ve been sitting here trying to think of what to say about the weekend, but my heart and brain are still so jam-packed I don’t know how to do it. I’m waiting on some pictures from Grant Howard (the guy with the fancy camera who walked around all weekend) before I write an official play-by-play, but in the meantime I thought I’d ask you guys to post your thoughts. What did you like best about the weekend? What were the surprises? What did you learn? Did you make any connections with future good/best friends?
If you have any photos, would you mind emailing them to me at photos@rabbitroom.com? I’ll pick the best ones and include them in a post for everyone to see.
What a weekend. I’m grateful to each of you. Stay tuned for info about next year.
My friend Russell Moore (I guess you’re friends with someone once they’ve bought you a Johnny Cash t-shirt) had some great thoughts in response to the furor over Anne Rice’s comments about Christianity. You may remember our own A.S. Peterson wrote a review of her newest books, which aren’t about vampires but about Jesus. Here’s a bit of what Dr. Moore had to say:
“Yesterday the Internet was abuzz with news that Anne Rice has renounced Christianity. The best-selling vampire novelist, who professed faith in Christ several years ago and has since written several books about Jesus and her conversion, publicly quit Christianity on her Facebook page. There’s a real opportunity here that hinges on how we respond to this, or, rather, how we respond to her.
Anne said that she was leaving Christianity because she just couldn’t be “anti-gay, anti-feminist” and so forth. The response was immediate, especially on Christian forums and comments on blogs and on various other forms of media.
Anne Rice is, at best, our sister-in-Christ who is going through a dark night of the soul. She is, at the very least, someone who has encountered something of the light of Christ, is drawn to it, and is now “kicking against the goads.” In either case, she is not our enemy.”
A little boy approached me after a recent concert with something clearly on his mind. He had waited till the crowd dispersed, and his parents sat in the pews at the back of the auditorium, wanting to give him his space but unable to avert their eyes. He wrung his hands and shifted his weight from sneaker to sneaker. He wanted to ask me a question, he said. I said that was fine, and uncapped my Sharpie marker for the autograph I thought I was about to sign.
Then he surprised me. He didn’t want an autograph, and he didn’t want to ask about songwriting. (I’m embarrassed at my presumptuousness.) He asked me, “How can I be sure I’m saved?” I blinked. I glanced across the room at his parents, then back at him, and saw that he was dead serious. I bought myself some time by answering his question with a question. I sat on the stage steps and asked him why he was asking. Read the rest of this entry »
I swore many years ago that I’d never make a music video. Back when my career began no one had ever dreamed of YouTube or Vimeo. If you wanted to watch a music video by a Christian artist you had to wait till the televangelists had gone to bed and the network couldn’t think of anything else to air, and so too few people would see it for the amount of money it would cost. But times have changed. Now people watch their computers as much as their televisions, and I figured a video like this might be good for somebody out there, even if they’re watching it at work when they’re supposed to be tweaking spreadsheets or something.
I sat in a little coffee shop in Nashville with Ben Shive and director Grant Howard to brainstorm, and in about thirty minutes I went from being wary of it to being excited about it. My only stipulation was that I wouldn’t have to dance, even though the song is about dancing. We had the idea to shoot the video in an old house that had weathered a century of storms, and to invite a few luminous older couples who had weathered storms of their own to dance around in that old house. We wanted to make something that, like the song, would celebrate marriage in all its terrible beauty. Below the video is the little blurb I wrote about the song for the record label.
Feel free to send the YouTube link to every human you know, as I’m pretty sure it’ll guarantee you a long, healthy life.
“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.” Psalm 23:4
“Turn around and believe that the good news that we are loved is better than we ever dared hope, and that to believe in that good news, to live out of it and toward it, to be in love with that good news, is of all glad things in this world the gladdest thing of all. Amen, and come Lord Jesus.” Frederick Buechner
Do not fear.
Those three words are at the heart of the good news of Jesus. Before he enters into our wrecked lives we have good reason to fear. Before his grace restores us we are a ruin, a foggy graveyard in the dead of night. We’re too lost even to ask for direction, too feeble to beg for help. We may be wealthy, successful, beautiful, even happy–but we know that our deepest heart is a wasteland, a vast, black emptiness of stone and sorrow. To know that emptiness is to be afraid, and that fear is good. That’s the kind of fear that leads to humility, the kind of helplessness that leads to repentance. Read the rest of this entry »
My friend Justin Taylor, over at a great blog called Between Two Worlds, recently posted this video about C.S. Lewis, and I thought you guys might find it as interesting as I did.
It may be because I’m prone to believe anything if it’s said in a suave British accent, but I really think there may be something to this. Lewis was a man of formidable intellect and education, so it wouldn’t be a huge surprise to find that he was following a planetary mythology with the Narnia books. If it’s true, there’s something wonderfully boyish about the fact that he kept this undergirding a happy secret, something for his own nerdy satisfaction. In a MUCH less intelligent/awesome way I’ve enjoyed peppering my lyrics and stories over the years with elusive references, internal rhymes, and/or meanings that are only noticed and appreciated by a few people, if any at all. I don’t mind being the only guy who knows.
I haven’t read the book, but this little clip makes me want to. Kind of. I wonder if it would be better not to look behind the curtain?
Hey, folks. With the release date for Counting Stars just six weeks (or so) away, the promotional machine has ignited and is rolling down the Please-Buy-My-Record Highway. Here’s the first of a few (I think) videos we’ll be happily bombarding you with, starring the gregarious Andy Gullahorn, the hilarious Ben Shive, and the nefarious me. By all means, send the link for this video to everyone you know.
Nerd alert: the following post is about drawing/painting pictures with hobbits, wizards and dragons. Thus, I dig it.
Justin Gerard, probably my favorite illustrator, joined in this discussion with several visual artists about the ways each of these works sizzle their creative juices differently. As a reader and writer, I like Lord of the Rings better, but I’ve never wondered which would be a deeper visual well. Justin’s answer is insightful.
If you’re like me, pictures like this tickle the story muscle in your brain. Few things make me feel boyish like a well-drawn picture from an adventure story. It makes me want to pack my things and hit the hobbit-trail.
Nobody’s ever asked me about it, but the bridge of the song “Little Boy Heart Alive” is a true story:
I met a kid at the railroad tracks
He had a stick and a nylon sack
I ran to the house to pack
I wanted to follow
Down at the tracks near my house I saw this teenager with a walking stick and a bag slung over a shoulder. I was fascinated. It was like he had stepped out of a storybook and onto my street. Read the rest of this entry »
Donald Miller’s teaching on life-as-story has been so good for me over the years. Stephen Lamb reviewed A Million Miles in a Thousand Years here in the Rabbit Room a little while ago, and the ideas in that book still come to mind on a regular basis. At some point almost every day I ask myself, “Am I living a good story?” Most of the time the answer is no. I’m working on it. But it doesn’t stop with asking myself about my own story. Stories intersect. Another word for that is relationship. And it is in relationship, kinship, and community that the Kingdom lives and breathes.
A story is a character that wants something and overcomes conflict to get it. So next time you meet somebody, delve into their story, not their job or the weather they experience where they live. To find out a person’s story, you have to find out what they want or have wanted in life, what conflict they endured in getting what they wanted, and what great moments of celebration they have experienced. Questions like this: Read the rest of this entry »
I finished The Yearling two days ago, and my heart is still heavy with it. The book didn’t wound me. The wound was already there. The book gave the wound a name, which is strong medicine. I remember my mother-in-law, who named her dog Jody after the main character of the book, telling me that it wasn’t until she re-read The Yearling as an adult that she realized the yearling wasn’t the deer at all; the yearling was the boy. I had caught wind of the fact that the book was sad, which only made me dare it to sadden me. I went into the story armed with the knowledge of its metaphor and its impending doom. And yet, it caught me unaware. I was a deer in the woods, minding my own business, feasting on the green grass of the story, when the shot rang out. Read the rest of this entry »
I hadn’t heard of this documentary until today, and I really want to see it, if for no other reason than to relive my checkered, Christian-rock-listening past. I’m a sucker for documentaries. Having Stryper in it just seals the deal.
Update 3:40pm: The Hutchmoot is now full. If you missed your chance this year, we hope to see you in 2011.
As of today, less than two weeks after we announced its rabbity existence in the world, Hutchmoot 2010 has 86 registrants (thank you, folks!). Because we want the event to be as intimate as possible, we’re capping it off at 100 registrants, which means, according to my math, we have 25 slots open. Wait. Did I do that wrong? I meant 17. What? Hold on. Let me put my guitar down. It’s hard for me to count with a guitar on. FOURTEEN. As in, 100 - 86 = 14. Right.
This is for real. Somewhere around the country, twelve emeralds are hidden, and the clues to their location are in the pages of The Clock Without a Face, by Scott Teplin, Mac Barnett, and Eli Horowitz.
I’ve been an admirer of McSweeney’s writing/reading/tutoring community for a while, and even hope to emulate some of their methods here in the Rabbit Room one of these days. They run several inner-city tutoring centers around the country, with the idea that if you can teach a child to write you greatly increase their chance of succeeding in the world. I think that’s true. We’ve long kicked around the idea of opening up Rabbit Room tutoring programs for the purpose of exposing children to great writers, particularly great writers who were/are Christians, and encouraging those children to hone their craft and to treat it as Kingdom work. I geek out just thinking about it. Read the rest of this entry »
I’m pleased to announce that Walt Wangerin, Jr. is coming to the Hutchmoot as our honored guest and keynote speaker. (I’m doing my best to retain my composure, since there’s a chance he may read this.) Here’s the official announcement:
Mr. Wangerin is the author of over thirty books including the National Book Award-Winning (and Rabbit Room favorite) The Book of the Dun Cow, as well as other oft-referenced books like The Book of Sorrows, Ragman and Other Cries of Faith and Saint Julian. His newest book is entitled Letters from the Land of Cancer. Mr. Wangerin’s work has been a source of deep spiritual and creative inspiration to the writers of the Rabbit Room and we couldn’t be more pleased to have this opportunity to host him in our community.
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Three years ago, Jason Gray lent me his first edition copy of The Book of the Dun Cow, just as we were putting the finishing touches on the Rabbit Room website. He told me he read it with his family every Easter, and since I was working on an album about resurrection I dropped whatever else I was reading and entered the magical, terrifying, sorrowful, and profoundly beautiful tale of Chauntecleer the rooster, Mundo Cani Dog, the evil Cockatrice, and the mysterious Dun Cow. It’s hard to put into words the way I feel about that book. In many ways it exemplifies the kind I love best: an epic tale, beautiful sentences, frightening at times and at others a holy comfort, thick with wonder and mystery, and full of truth.
We’ve sold several first editions of The Book of the Dun Cow in the Rabbit Room Store, along with other Wangerin books, including its sequel, The Book of Sorrows. Wangerin’s books continue to move me, and have become a part of my own family’s Lenten celebration by way of Ragman, his famous telling of the death and resurrection of Jesus. Many of Wangerin’s thirty books occupy my favorite bookshelf, placed with care among my collection of Buechner, Dillard, O’Connor, Lewis, Tolkien, and MacDonald books. So it’s humbling and exciting that this esteemed storyteller would join us at the Hutchmoot.
I can hardly wait to hear what he has to say.
If you haven’t registered yet, do so, post haste. It’s filling up fast.
The Fiddler’s Gun, A Review: Making History Come True
A.S. Peterson has crafted a work of compelling historical fiction which begs the question, “Can this really be a debut novel?” With dogged fidelity, Peterson captures the spirit, manners, and social conditions present during the American Revolutionary War. We meet colorful, credible characters who navigate the high seas of life and love, dependence and independence, war and peace, truth and consequence, and despite forays into dark places, The Fiddler’s Gun is beautiful, lyrical, and redemptive.
Shive Arrives: A Song by Song Commentary on The Ill-Tempered Klavier
One listen to Ben Shive’s debut The Ill-Tempered Klavier will provide obvious evidence of why this young man has secured the respect of peers and colleagues on the inside of the Nashville music community. With The Ill-Tempered Klavier, Shive’s skills are now planted in the public garden.
Heretofore, there have been unsubtle hints: Andrew Osenga pronouncing Shive as his favorite songwriter, Andrew Peterson naming him as producer of The Far Country, his ubiquitous presence as a studio piano ace on a wide range of mainstream CCM records, Sara Groves choosing him to produce her next record, and the majestic arranging of the strings for Andrew Peterson’s Behold the Lamb of God, The True Tall Tale of the Coming of Christ. Like a fast growing wildflower, Shive seems to pop up everywhere, though always in the background. Now, the secret is out. Raise the curtain on Ben Shive.
I just stumbled on a copy of O’Connor’s complete short stories at a used bookstore here in Nashville and listed it in the Rabbit Room store. Years ago a friend bought me this same edition and I read it with a sense of creepy amazement; it was like nothing I’d ever read. I knew Chris Slaten was a big fan of her work so I asked him to write a recommendation for the book. We only have one copy, so if you click here and can’t find it, someone beat you to the punch.
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This collection is essential to both long time fans and first time readers interested in the work of Flannery O’Connor. My first time to read a handful of her short stories I was helpless to interpret them. One would expect that reading the 1950’s work of a female “Christ-centered” southern fiction writer would be a simple, modest or at least predictable experience.
Several people in the last few weeks have commented to me about how glad they are that they discovered Wangerin’s The Book of the Dun Cow here in the Rabbit Room. It really is a remarkable book, and I still can’t recommend it highly enough. It won the prestigious National Book Award when it was first published in 1978, and was only the beginning of Wangerin’s career.
I just stumbled on his most recent novel, Saint Julian, and was so captured by it that it bumped aside the other four books I’m reading. Last Sunday afternoon–a perfect Spring day–I sat on my front porch swing and read the last half of the book, savoring the careful prose, the pastoral tone, and even the look and feel of the book itself. The cover illustration fits the epic, vivid quality of the story perfectly, and the fonts (I’m a sucker for a great font) added just the right atmosphere.
RELEASE DAY REVIEW: On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness
Janner Igiby lives in Glipwood, a nothing little village in the land of Skree, on the edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness. Manhood is on the horizon, but Janner finds it hard to feel much hope for the future. Skree is ruled by foreign oppressors, snake men called the Fangs of Dang, servants of a shadowy emperor named Gnag the Nameless. The Skreeans are weak and weaponless. They’re even tool-less. Any Skreean who needs to use a hoe has to borrow one from the Fangs (and fill out the requisite paperwork). And from time to time, the Black Carriage arrives in Glipwood to carry young Skreeans toward an unknown fate across the Dark Sea.
But once a year the Sea Dragons sing just off the coast of Glipwood. With their song, life reasserts itself in the hearts of Skreeans who have long since learned to numb themselves:
I am not a fan of Civil War literature; in fact, I have always thought of it as one of those weird sub-genres for obsessive types. They’re almost like Trekkies with their re-enactments and maniacal devotion to detail. It’s just not my thing (although I’m secretly jealous that they get to dress up and shoot cannons).
Arkadelphia from Randall Goodgame: Music in Motion
A Randall Goodgame song is like a great independent movie. Characters deliver lines like they were lifted from a break room, a truck stop, or a downtown diner. Seemingly incongruent scenes are juxtaposed and plot isn’t obvious; in fact, narrative–a good story–is often more evident than linear plot lines. An indie movie, like a Randall Goodgame song, seems to tell itself. Rather than being rudely yanked by a chain through a sequence of contrived events, with a Randall Goodgame song, I have the sense that I’m being allowed a willing, but vicarious sneak peak into the real lives of his real characters.
Walt Wangerin is a name I’ve seen in print many times. My dad had Ragman and Other Cries of Faith lying about at home for years and I remember thumbing through it at Christmas or Thanksgiving, reading bits here and there, and being intrigued by the style of writing; the words on the page had a canter to them, and a sparseness that gave them strength.
Sara Groves irritates me just a little bit. With each album she makes, she moves from strength to strength and is always raising the bar with the quality, depth, and lyrical ambition of her work. And as a fellow artist, that’s just a little irritating since it means the rest of us are going to have to work harder if we hope to keep up.
I am outside on my front porch. The yellowed leaves are methodically falling from the black walnut in the yard, my breath is chalky visible in the recent cold snap, and lately I have been exploring the unpleasant nuances of the dark night of a soul - my own, to be exact. It is a strange passion we live out on this over-glorified orb of rock hurtling through space at some rate that I’m sure would astound me were I to know what it was. It is an odd series of days, I am realizing, when you question your own faith more than you question your own doubt. And, indeed, it is these nagging questions which have prompted me to share my thoughts on Andrew Peterson’s 2003 album, Love and Thunder.
11-year old Reuben Land, a character in the 2001 book Peace Like a River, provides narration that is clear-eyed and insightful, yet retains the magic, wonder, and innocence of youth. I found it easy to entrust my imagination to the author’s clever method of telling the story through the sensibilities of a pre-teen boy. An author with lesser skill would have either made the boy too smart-alecky for his own good or impossibly cute.
I just finished a book that upon closing it, I felt like it finished me in a sense. A quiet meditative book that reached down and stirred the deep waters in me. It’s Marilynne Robinson’s 2005 Pulitzer prize winner Gilead, given to me by my friend Andrew Peterson.
Do you have any CD’s in your collection that will be forever associated with some event or season of life—like the soundtrack to your last high school summer or what you listened to over and over again on that one road trip to wherever it was?
Eric Peters’s body of work addresses a diverse range of topics, but hope is a recurring theme that gently percolates in the midst of it all. And yet, somewhere between the 2001 masterpiece Land of the Living, and Scarce, the flavor of hope that Peters’s work emits has evolved closer to a tone that is more resolute than what came before. And though the complexion of hope has a broad range, the lyrics from Scarce–while intermittently contrite and timorous as in previous efforts, are now strengthened and bolstered by roots that have grown deeper, radiating an underlying grit and security.
Having read The Great Divorce many times over the years, I’ve found this classic from the great C.S. Lewis to be full of startling clarity and depth on the differences between Heaven and Hell. The only thing both have in common is that both begin in the human will; we can either let Heaven enter us and rule in us to blossom into love and goodness, or allow Hell to infect and reign in our hearts by the daily refusal to submit to Heaven.
Even if you haven’t heard Room to Breathe, its still likely you’ve heard Andy Gullahorn. He’s what I’d call a heavy lifter by trade. He writes lyrics, plays guitar, arranges vocals and adds production help to the work of artists like Jill Phillips and Andrew Peterson.
Allow me to preface this by telling you that I am a great despiser of gushing reviews. I’d much rather write (or read) a scathing dismemberment of the latest Brett Ratner film or Terry Goodkind book than suffer through four hundred words of overblown hyperbole about even the best of things. But when asked to write some thoughts on Frederick Buechner’s Godric, no amount of distaste for high praise was able to intervene. I hope you’ll take what I say with the understanding that I do not say it readily or lightly.
A few times during Hutchmoot I heard about books I wanted to track down but I didn’t have anything to write on. Now I can’t remember a single one. I’m sure I’m not the only one, so I thought it would be helpful to start a list here. Some of these are available in the Rabbit Room Store, so check there before you go gallivanting over to Amazon or somesuch to spend your hard-earned money. We’ll put it to better use than they will.
Allen Levi
And lo, in the year 2010, an idea stepped out of the realm of theory and into the realm of time and space.
My friend Russell Moore (I guess you’re friends with someone once they’ve bought you a Johnny Cash t-shirt) had some great thoughts in response to the furor over Anne Rice’s comments about Christianity. You may remember our own A.S. Peterson wrote a review of her newest books, which aren’t about vampires but about Jesus. Here’s a bit of what Dr. Moore had to say:
A little boy approached me after a recent concert with something clearly on his mind. He had waited till the crowd dispersed, and his parents sat in the pews at the back of the auditorium, wanting to give him his space but unable to avert their eyes. He wrung his hands and shifted his weight from sneaker to sneaker. He wanted to ask me a question, he said. I said that was fine, and uncapped my Sharpie marker for the autograph I thought I was about to sign.
“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.”
Nerd alert: the following post is about drawing/painting pictures with hobbits, wizards and dragons. Thus, I dig it.
Donald Miller’s teaching on life-as-story has been so good for me over the years. Stephen Lamb 
The curse comes like the crack of rifle shot.
Update 3:40pm: The Hutchmoot is now full. If you missed your chance this year, we hope to see you in 2011.
leased to announce that 
A.S. Peterson has crafted a work of compelling historical fiction which begs the question, “Can this really be a debut novel?” With dogged fidelity, Peterson captures the spirit, manners, and social conditions present during the American Revolutionary War. We meet colorful, credible characters who navigate the high seas of life and love, dependence and independence, war and peace, truth and consequence, and despite forays into dark places, The Fiddler’s Gun is beautiful, lyrical, and redemptive.
Walt Wangerin, Jr. strikes again.
Janner Igiby lives in Glipwood, a nothing little village in the land of Skree, on the edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness. Manhood is on the horizon, but Janner finds it hard to feel much hope for the future. Skree is ruled by foreign oppressors, snake men called the Fangs of Dang, servants of a shadowy emperor named Gnag the Nameless. The Skreeans are weak and weaponless. They’re even tool-less. Any Skreean who needs to use a hoe has to borrow one from the Fangs (and fill out the requisite paperwork). And from time to time, the Black Carriage arrives in Glipwood to carry young Skreeans toward an unknown fate across the Dark Sea.
I am not a fan of Civil War literature; in fact, I have always thought of it as one of those weird sub-genres for obsessive types. They’re almost like Trekkies with their re-enactments and maniacal devotion to detail. It’s just not my thing (although I’m secretly jealous that they get to dress up and shoot cannons).
A Randall Goodgame song is like a great independent movie. Characters deliver lines like they were lifted from a break room, a truck stop, or a downtown diner. Seemingly incongruent scenes are juxtaposed and plot isn’t obvious; in fact, narrative–a good story–is often more evident than linear plot lines. An indie movie, like a Randall Goodgame song, seems to tell itself. Rather than being rudely yanked by a chain through a sequence of contrived events, with a Randall Goodgame song, I have the sense that I’m being allowed a willing, but vicarious sneak peak into the real lives of his real characters.
Sara Groves irritates me just a little bit. With each album she makes, she moves from strength to strength and is always raising the bar with the quality, depth, and lyrical ambition of her work. And as a fellow artist, that’s just a little irritating since it means the rest of us are going to have to work harder if we hope to keep up.
I am outside on my front porch. The yellowed leaves are methodically falling from the black walnut in the yard, my breath is chalky visible in the recent cold snap, and lately I have been exploring the unpleasant nuances of the dark night of a soul - my own, to be exact. It is a strange passion we live out on this over-glorified orb of rock hurtling through space at some rate that I’m sure would astound me were I to know what it was. It is an odd series of days, I am realizing, when you question your own faith more than you question your own doubt. And, indeed, it is these nagging questions which have prompted me to share my thoughts on Andrew Peterson’s 2003 album, Love and Thunder.
11-year old Reuben Land, a character in the 2001 book Peace Like a River, provides narration that is clear-eyed and insightful, yet retains the magic, wonder, and innocence of youth. I found it easy to entrust my imagination to the author’s clever method of telling the story through the sensibilities of a pre-teen boy. An author with lesser skill would have either made the boy too smart-alecky for his own good or impossibly cute.
I just finished a book that upon closing it, I felt like it finished me in a sense. A quiet meditative book that reached down and stirred the deep waters in me. It’s Marilynne Robinson’s 2005 Pulitzer prize winner Gilead, given to me by my friend Andrew Peterson.
Eric Peters’s body of work addresses a diverse range of topics, but hope is a recurring theme that gently percolates in the midst of it all. And yet, somewhere between the 2001 masterpiece Land of the Living, and Scarce, the flavor of hope that Peters’s work emits has evolved closer to a tone that is more resolute than what came before. And though the complexion of hope has a broad range, the lyrics from Scarce–while intermittently contrite and timorous as in previous efforts, are now strengthened and bolstered by roots that have grown deeper, radiating an underlying grit and security.
Having read The Great Divorce many times over the years, I’ve found this classic from the great C.S. Lewis to be full of startling clarity and depth on the differences between Heaven and Hell. The only thing both have in common is that both begin in the human will; we can either let Heaven enter us and rule in us to blossom into love and goodness, or allow Hell to infect and reign in our hearts by the daily refusal to submit to Heaven.
Even if you haven’t heard Room to Breathe, its still likely you’ve heard Andy Gullahorn. He’s what I’d call a heavy lifter by trade. He writes lyrics, plays guitar, arranges vocals and adds production help to the work of artists like Jill Phillips and Andrew Peterson.
Allow me to preface this by telling you that I am a great despiser of gushing reviews. I’d much rather write (or read) a scathing dismemberment of the latest Brett Ratner film or Terry Goodkind book than suffer through four hundred words of overblown hyperbole about even the best of things. But when asked to write some thoughts on Frederick Buechner’s Godric, no amount of distaste for high praise was able to intervene. I hope you’ll take what I say with the understanding that I do not say it readily or lightly.