The Rabbit Room

Your Calling and Your Critics

This is not a post about sports. Chad Pennington emerged as the last guy standing after injuries plagued Marshall University's football team at the quarterback position. Player after player went down and the unheralded freshman from Tennessee debuted. I was there at an early game, watching this guy throw passes that looked like they took ten years to get to the receivers. My verdict was in: this guy stinks, and he’ll never amount to anything in the football world. That was about 15 years ago. A few days ago, Chad Pennington retired from the NFL after an eleven year career in which he was twice named the NFL’s comeback player of the year. He still has the highest completion percentage in the history of the NFL, making him the most accurate professional quarterback of all time. And professional takes on a fuller meaning with Pennington. He is universally praised, loved, and acknowledged as an ideal pro athlete. He worked hard and overachieved his entire career. Besides his intelligence and athletic gifts, he is known for class, dignity, charity, and other virtues that make a lasting reputation. In college, he led Marshall to unheard of victories and became one of the most, if not the most, beloved quarterback the team has ever had. And that’s saying a lot at Marshall, which has had numerous great quarterbacks. Everyone in West Virginia feels like he belongs to our state, even though he is not originally from here. He is an adopted son and we are very proud of him. I admire him greatly, and despite my cheerless prognosis, I cheered him on for his entire career. His career features many highlights, one being that he was once a runner-up to Peyton Manning for the NFL’s MVP award. Playing through countless injuries, he left a mark on professional football that was all his own. What about my early prediction, my dismissive reaction to his debut?

A Magic Deeper than Tales

One of the great benefits of reading fiction is the experience we often have of deep empathy for a character. Like a charm, we don’t even realize we have become immersed in someone else’s perspective, loving what they love, hating what they hate, riding shotgun in their hearts. This is dangerous, of course, because we lay our hearts open to things in stories we never would if we were acting with our mind in charge. But it is also a wonder. It’s fantastic to experience someone else, to love and be united to some one so closely in spirit. Perhaps more wonderful is the miracle, if only for a moment, of not being consumed with ourselves. “Sir, you forget yourself.” Thank God. Keep it coming. Maybe it’s not a big deal that the people in stories are often not people in the sense that you and I are. I would argue that they are real. As Chesterton said, “Fable is more historical than fact, because fact tells us about one man and fable tells us about a million men.” It must be admitted they are not real in the primary creation the way we are, but still, we forget ourselves and see through new eyes. Perhaps a million eyes.

The Rabbit Room Presents: An Evening with N. T. Wright

Sold out!

Our task as image-bearing, God-loving, Christ-shaped, Spirit-filled Christians, following Christ and shaping our world, is to announce redemption to a world that has discovered its fallenness, to announce healing to a world that has discovered its brokenness, to proclaim love and trust to a world that knows only exploitation, fear and suspicion...The gospel of Jesus points us and indeed urges us to be at the leading edge of the whole culture, articulating in story and music and art and philosophy and education and poetry and politics and theology and even--heaven help us--Biblical studies, a worldview that will mount the historically-rooted Christian challenge to both modernity and postmodernity, leading the way...with joy and humor and gentleness and good judgment and true wisdom. I believe if we face the question, "if not now, then when?" if we are grasped by this vision we may also hear the question, "if not us, then who?" And if the gospel of Jesus is not the key to this task, then what is?” --N. T. Wright

Hold onto your seats. This is going to be awesome. On the evening of Monday, May 7th, the Rabbit Room will host something of a micro-Hutchmoot. Will there be music? Yes. We'll have as many of the Square Pegs as we can round up. Will there be food? Yes. Everyone is encouraged to bring an appetizer dish of your favorite sort. Will there be free popcorn and coffee? Of course. Will there be a world-renowned British theologian. Yes, there will be. Is he the author of books like Surprised by Hope and Simply Christian, and will he be addressing the crowd, answering questions, and signing books? Yes, he is, and yes, he will be. Is his name N. T. Wright? Yes indeed. This is going to be a fun evening, folks. Bishop Wright will read from and discuss his new book, How God Became King, and he's graciously agreed to answer questions and sign books afterward. And on top of that, you'll be treated to live music from members of the Square Peg Alliance. If you'd like to join us for this intimate evening, all we're asking is that you purchase his book from the Rabbit Room store (book still available, event sold out). We'll be holding the event in the living room at Church of the Redeemer in Nashville so attendance is strictly limited to 50 guests. If you'd like to have your name added to the guest list, click here to buy the book from the store (EVENT SOLD OUT). Your books will be waiting for you at the church when you arrive (or, if you're local, you can stop by the Rabbit Room office to pick yours up ahead of time). Note that for couples, we've provided the option of buying a combination of two different books so that you won't need to buy two copies of the same title for admission. These seats will not last long. Get your orders in while you can.

Everything Broken and Everything Beautiful

Since late August I've been co-writing songs with Rebecca Reynolds (aka "Becca" here on the RR). As a songwriter, never prolific, and often completely mired in a swamp of doubt when writing, I have read many books on art and creativity; Art & Fear by Bayles & Orland, The War of Art by Pressfield, On Writer's Block by Nelson, On Writing by King, Walking on Water by L'Engle, The Music Lesson by Wooten, along with books like The Success Principles by Canfield, and The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Covey. In talking with Rebecca I quickly became interested in her research on creativity and how it operates, due to my personal search and frequent sense of lack in certain areas.

An Easter Eve Reflection

"Lemon, YESSSsss!!" I said aloud to myself just now. Yes, I'm alone in my dear little house and I'm talking to myself. Reading through a recipe for "lemony asparagus soup," I was lamenting the fact that my produce bin (actually a drywall mud tray from Home Depot) holds only limes. But then I remember the three Meyer lemons that sit waiting in my grocery bag, destined for some spring-y dish. I just knew I'd need them. And this gives me much delight, the fact that I know the seasons and their flavors, that I know my cupboard, and that I know myself. It's been a thoroughly enjoyable Saturday-before-Easter. I've potted herbs and re-potted formerly suffering succulents. I've swept the floors until the varnish threatens to come up with the bristles. I've folded laundry. I've put things prettily on display in the living room, livened up my vignettes with fresh blooms and a spit shine. I've pre-heated the oven for the meringue building block of our family's favorite and ideal Easter dessert, Pavlova. Asparagus soup will soon commence. Evening's dark has just now fallen, the ice in my bourbon and soda is clinking and cracking next to me, and Simon and Garfunkel croon in their tremolo harmonies, "April, come she will..." quite by chance, from the next room.

How the Story will End – An Easter Meditation

I want to tell you a story—a true story. The snow had draped everything in a pillowy blanket of white that looked like something straight out of a Thomas Kincade painting. As a country kid, I preferred being outdoors. So when the snow stopped, I layered up, put on my boots, gloves and hat and went out to stand in the middle of the glory God had put on display. I remember it like it was yesterday. The roads were all but impassable, so I stood alone and uninterrupted. It was bitterly cold—the dry kind that freezes the lungs when you breathe. Everything was so still that the sound of my boots crunching through the surface of the snow muted as though I were in an acoustically perfect concert hall. I stood at the end of my driveway looking as far as I could past the stand of blue spruces draped in snow to my right when out of the corner of my eye I saw something out of place. There in a 30 foot spruce I saw something amid the alternating layers of bluish-green and pure white that was the color of ash. Unable to make out what it was, I went over to investigate.

The Next-to-Last Supper

When my father was growing up, he knew a fellow called Deafy (pronounced “Deefy”). They called him this because he was deaf. When Deafy wanted to get somewhere, he walked right down the middle of the road. When the occasional car chuggered up behind him, he swerved nary an inch. When the driver honked his horn, he never startled. When the driver cussed him, Deafy never heard that either. The practice of nicknaming people by their infirmities seems to be on the wane. I get the impression that there used to be more Deafys and Stumpys and Shortys than there are now. I thought of Deafy as I was going through Russ Ramsey’s Easter Week in Real Time readings. Jesus’ last supper before the Last Supper was hosted by a man known as Simon the Leper. As insensitive nicknames go, Simon the Leper has Deafy and Stumpy beat all to flinders. But there Jesus sat, eating in the home of a man whose very name was his shame. Simon the Leper. Simon the Unclean. Simon the Outcast. To the very end, Jesus was pouring his life into misfits and losers, refusing to leverage the influence of the powerful and well-connected but insisting on doing things his way–a perfectly backwards way, by the world’s lights. This was the Savior from Nazareth, after all. The village wasn’t just podunk, but so mean that one of the disciples asked, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” When Jesus came home for a visit, the locals tried to throw him off a cliff. I picture Nazareth as a place with more than its share of three-legged dogs. Whatever was the first-century equivalent of a speed-trap, I suspect Nazareth had one. And a Deafy and a Gimpy and a Shorty. Jesus, no doubt, felt right at home at the house of Simon the Leper.

Easter Week In Real Time

In John 10, Jesus said, "No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I alone have the authority to lay it down, and the authority to take it up again, and this charge I received from my Father."

This is a statement worth testing. Does the Scriptural narrative tell the story of an inspirational man martyred because He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and simply couldn't avoid capture? Or do the last days of His life tell the story of someone intentionally offering Himself up, on His own terms, by His own authority? As we approach Easter, have you ever taken the time to really examine what took place on each day of the week from Palm Sunday to Resurrection Sunday? Here's a daily reading guide for each day of Easter Week.

The Silent Violation of Our Time

We made our way through the streets of Falmouth, Jamaica, and as we looked back on the entire episode, the only descriptor that came to mind was “gross.” And even that term seemed inadequate. If you're new to the world of cruises, as I once was, here’s a bit of info up front: the corporations that own the ships also own the ports and much of the real estate in the cities where they dock. In short, they own both sides of the cruise experience—the vessel and its destination. Since they're selling a "good time," every port has a Disneyfied feel that removes any trace of authenticity from the experience and leaves little at all resembling the actual country you’re visiting. My wife and I wanted to escape the glossy sheen of this particular Jamaican port and explore the "real" Jamaica, whatever that might mean. From the boat, we could see old stone chapels and other interesting architecture beyond the tourist trap, and we were anxious to explore. From the outset, it was a disastrous idea.

The Three Enemies

According to C.S. Lewis, a scholar faces three enemies during a time of war. As I was reading through those tonight, I realized they are also the three enemies most of us face in the "war" of our day-to-day lives. I've selected a few quotes for your perusal. If you want to read the rest, check out his essay "Learning in War-Time" collected in The Weight of Glory.

The first enemy is excitement--the tendency to think and feel about the war when we had intended to think about our work. The best defence is a recognition that in this, as in everything else, the war has not really raised up a new enemy but only aggravated an old one. There are always plenty of rivals to our work. We are always falling in love or quarrelling, looking for jobs or fearing to lose them, getting ill and recovering, following public affairs. If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavourable. Favourable conditions never come.