The Rabbit Room

The Bond Between Creature and Creator

[This is adapted from part of the Hutchmoot 2012 session absurdly titled Your Story and Your Story: The Bond Between Creature and Creator.] I’m going to talk about this whole “Bond Between Creature and Creator” idea in just a bit, but first I want to lay some groundwork by telling you briefly about myself, and you’re going to have to trust me when I say that I’m going somewhere with it. Okay? Okay. I was born in 1971 and lived my early childhood amid the cornfields of Illinois. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to the Midwest but the horizons there are just immense. You can see for miles and miles, and to a kid a mile or two can seem like the far reach of the universe. I remember trying to walk across the cornfield next to our house once. I was very young, maybe five or six at the time, and the cornfield had already been harvested and plowed under so that it was a vast tract of brown furrowed earth with bits of dead cornstalk jutting up, poking through the topsoil like dried bones. I set off on my great adventure to the other side determined to find out what the world looked like all the way over there, but I turned back halfway across because I was scared of the distance. The further I went, the smaller the house looked behind me, and the other side never seemed to come any closer at all. I was suddenly afraid that I might take one step too far, I might cross that giant horizon and lose sight of my house altogether, and then I wouldn’t know how to get home again. So I went back while I still could.

Christian Storytelling, Part V: Faithful Improvisation

Part I: The Right Stories Part II: The Story of God Part III: The Story of the Scriptures Part IV: The Biblical Drama There's a lot of N. T. Wright talk around here right now, so it seems an appropriate time to continue the series on Christian Storytelling. In the past couple of installments we began looking at Wright's view of the Bible as an "unfinished drama." We continue now with an understanding of ourselves as actors in the fifth act. The Christian story gives new meaning to the old Shakespearian line, "All the world’s a stage." The world is the stage upon which the drama of redemption takes place. And you and I are players. But we are not merely players. We are the faithful improvisors of the tragic and glorious fifth act of history, trying with all our might to remain faithful to the first four acts, as well as the few scenes of the fifth act, that preceded us.

The Shape of the Stories We Tell

[Note: This has been adapted from the Hutchmoot 2011 session of the same name. Click here for a portion of Travis Prinzi's contribution to that same session.] What does the shape of a story look like? A lot of people might say it looks like a Bell curve: setup, rising conflict, and resolution. That’s the typical answer, and there’s nothing wrong with that, in fact, there’s a lot that’s exactly right about it, and there are a thousand and one books on the subject to prove it. But I don’t think that’s the whole picture. The reason for the question is that we want a way to predict whether a story is going to work. We want a pattern for our creation. We want rules to write by. So what makes a story work? Every critic’s got a theory, me included—or you wouldn’t be reading this.

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.

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.

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 First Day of the Rest of My Life

I am fickle. I am also dramatic. The combination of the two often leads me to make inane decisions and impulsive choices.

That's the reason I took four full months to make the decision to leave the church that I founded eight years ago. The Mercy House has provided my identity for almost a full decade now: serving and shepherding and living life alongside the most creative, missional, loving community of people I could ever hope for. The Sunday morning gathering was often the last thing we worried about in leadership meetings because everyone was so busy with ministry throughout the rest of the week. In short, I had the easiest job any pastor could hope for. But my time had been coming. For the last couple of years, I've journaled about a longing to write full-time. Book ideas were written down but never spoken aloud. New endeavors were silently hoped for as an introverted side began to emerge--much to the surprise of my extroverted, church-planting, social butterfly self of old. Those thoughts were always deemed foolish, selfish, childish or, at the very least, something to get to later.

The Last of the Amazons

I could tell by the tone of my mother’s voice that something had happened–-even over the phone I sensed the gentle sadness–-and I knew with a pang of kindred sorrow what it was. Aunt Ruth had died.

Quietly, my mother told me, in her sleep. 104 years old and the last of my grandmother’s sisters. The last of a generation that was mighty upon the earth. I never thought the Aunts would die. It never seriously occurred to me to fear it--they were too foundational to the proper functioning of the world in general and my life in particular: like Corinthian columns fluted and lovely and made to bear the enormous weight of life with seemingly effortless grace, especially in such a precision of placement as these five sisters had aligned themselves. Even frail little Aunt Ruth, an invalid these forty years, had borne her load manfully, with a core of iron and steel beneath her thin housecoat. Out of all these mighty pillars only she had remained, her faded, almost transparent little body but thinly veiling the light and fire of a still-vibrant mind within.

Good Advice from Pixar’s Mark Andrews

This is a lecture that Mark Andrews (Pixar's director of the forthcoming Brave) gave to a group of students at CalArts (California Institute of the Arts). He's talking chiefly about the art of storyboarding, but I found that most of what he says applies directly to the art of writing as well (or any other artistic medium). The video is in two parts. In the first, he shows his storyboard of his treatment of the Icarus myth. In the second part, he discusses the choices he made and how he went about putting the story together. The quality isn't the best, but the advice is spot on. Well worth the fifteen minutes if you're a storyteller.