What are you looking for?

[Thomas McKenzie here. I’d like to introduce you to my friend Chance Perdue. We’ve known each other for some years now, and he’s the youth minister at our church. On Good Friday this year, I asked Chance to give one of the seven meditations during a service called The Seven Last Words. It’s a three-hour-long vigil during which we ponder the sentences Jesus spoke while on the Cross. I loved what Chance had to say, and I commend it to you here as a RR post. I hope it’s a blessing to you.] “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus knew these ancient words long before he was hoisted up onto the instrument of his execution. How many times had he chanted them in the Temple, around the table with his family at Shabbos, in the silence of his own heart? They are the cry of David from Psalm 22, and any Jewish boy would have learned the Psalter at an early age. So when Jesus cries out in agony from the cross, it’s as much a well worn prayer as it is a doubt in the presence of the Divine—there’s no need to assume that you can’t do both at the same time. There are moments when the Scriptures we’ve heard over and over again become the truest way for us to express our hopes, our hurts, our fears. I imagine this was true for Jesus throughout his life, but especially so on the cross. His broken and dying heart became a vessel that only Psalm 22 could fill. But he isn’t the only one. Very recently, I saw that same cry of David and King Jesus come alive right in front of me. And yes, it was painful. Last week I got a call from Mom. “Hank is on his way out. They found the cancer just a few days ago. It’s been growing for years and it’s aggressive and could you and your brother please come. They’ve removed all monitors and the feeding tube, according to his wishes, and it’s only a matter of time until nature takes it’s toll. He’s going to lay here and starve to death.” I made the necessary arrangements, packed a light bag, drove to the airport to pick up my brother, and we headed for North Carolina. From the moment I received the call, I’d been thinking about Hank. His life is full of outlandish tales, and my mind went immediately to the many stories of faith he used to tell about a great grandmother. “Grandma would pray, and things would happen,” he used to say. Suddenly, I could hear the words of David from that old psalm: “Our forefathers put their trust in you; they trusted, and you delivered them.” This was going to be an interesting trip. On top of the sadness, the whole situation was tense and awkward. Hank has spent the last few years of his life, inexplicably pushing away those who love him the most. A few months ago, he formally disowned my brother over the phone. So you can imagine the feelings of my dear brother, ever the cynic, as we drove into the night. He was less than cordial, dreading the whole scene, certain that we’d all be forced into a “come to Jesus” moment over this dying man’s body, and he was having none of it. It seemed unreal to him, disingenuous. And again, in the back of my mind, I heard the psalm: “they curl their lips and wag their heads, saying, ‘He trusted in the LORD; let him deliver him; let him rescue him, if he delights in him.’” After some hours of driving, we made it to the solace center in Asheville. The other side of the family was already there. They’ve spent most of Hank’s life draining his billfold and casting him aside when the money runs out. We are not friends. As my brother and I made our way into Hank’s room, we saw them first. I admit that they looked to me like vultures gathered around the bed, and the psalm went on: “They stare and gloat over me; they divide my garments among them; they cast lots for my clothing.” When the group of people spread, we saw him. He was a thinned out suggestion of the man I knew. It was terribly disturbing to see him lying in this place, his emaciated frame twisted this way and that, his head back and mouth open as if crying out to the ceiling. It looked like his limp body had just been dumped there, but once again David said it better than I could: “I am poured out like water; all my bones are out of joint; my heart within my breast is melting wax.” We spent the rest of the night and the next day at his bedside, taking turns holding his hand and talking to him. The nurse assured everyone that he could hear us—I’m still not sure if that’s true. It was fairly somber until my brother and I got everyone laughing, telling wild stories about Hank and all his funny antics. I kept wondering absent-mindedly when someone would feed him, then I would remember. Through it all, he mostly lay there with his mouth open, his breathing labored. You can’t give food or water to a dying person, as it only does more harm. The only “relief” you can give them is wetting their lips every so often, using little moisteners from the drawer next to the bed. As I sat beside him, using this little tool to give a tiny gift of water to his dry lips, I heard it again: “My mouth is dried out like a pot-sherd; my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; and you have laid me in the dust of the grave.” On Saturday, we took his hand, said our goodbyes, and my brother and I headed back toward Nashville. It was strange to drive away, knowing that I’d seen my grandpa for the last time. We tried to talk and laugh as much as we could during the trip, but long and uninterrupted silences kept getting in the way. Death is such a bothersome thing—not like a fly in the kitchen or an untied shoelace, but a bother that’s hard to get at, hard to work out. Why is it that no matter the passion we bring to the table, we all end up splayed out on a sterilized bed, helpless and feeble? It is the great injustice of this universe, and there’s nothing we can do about it. I couldn’t quite put my finger on how I felt or what I needed to say. We got back to my house late on Saturday night and made it to church the next morning to wave our palm fronds and whatnot. I admit, this year the cry of Hosanna felt more like a funeral dirge than a triumphal announcement. Things just felt a little out of place for most of the day. Then, on Monday, as I sat in my office studying, it came full circle. I saw my grandfather’s life spread across years and miles. I saw the hurt and frustration of a failed marriage, a retirement lost, the abandonment that he faced from so many, the abandonment he measured out toward others. I saw him lying there in that bed, unable to speak, unable to think coherently, unable to make amends. Then the words of David became his words, my words, our words: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” I’ve spent more than my fair share of time and research on these words, but it’s a different thing altogether when you can no longer analyze them because they’ve begun to well up deep inside of you. For better or worse, the feeling of abandonment, fear of isolation, and utter injustice of this planet is part of what it means to be alive. In all likelihood we will each of us feel it rise from within at one time or another. This is the point of Scripture—it’s the description of human experience, handed down to us from our forebears. There really is nothing new under the sun. The fear, the confusion, the hurt has all been felt before, and these sacred words testify to that truth. But it’s more than that. In these very old words, we also hear the story of the One who is truly man and truly God, walking among us, feeling our joy, taking on our abandonment and despair as his own. The Word through whom all things were made humbles Himself and allows the very human and broken words of mortals to become the cry of his own infinite heart. And that changes everything. See, it means that no matter how abandoned, how hurt, or how utterly god-forsaken we may feel, it’s okay. To cry out with David, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” is no act of unfaithfulness, because Jesus cries out with us from the agony of the Cross. He has touched the deepest and darkest parts of humanity, and that is Good News indeed. And even if we can’t see the light when we cry out in despair, that’s okay too. Sometimes our forsakenness is so deep that it can only follow us from the hospital bed to the grave, where it must wait in the silence and darkness of the tomb. But Jesus has been there, too. Amen.

In the middle of my ballet class last week I was struck with a sudden memory that almost made me topple out of a pirouette. (At least, that’s what I’d prefer to attribute it to, and not to mere laziness over finding my center before attempting said pirouette.) For whatever reason, my brain chose that inopportune moment to summon a recollection that was nearly twenty years old. I was nineteen (I said nearly twenty years, mind you) and I was attending the teachers’ intensive put on by Ballet Magnificat in Jackson, Mississippi. (Y’all do know about Ballet Magnificat, right?) For three weeks I had been taking master classes from some of the best teachers in the country and scribbling frantic notes on lectures ranging from anatomy to choreography to grant writing. (Okay, I confess, I kind of checked out during the grant writing session.) Every day I got to attend morning chapel with a roomful of dancers who were head over heels in love with Jesus Christ, and every night I fell into bed wholesomely exhausted from an impossibly rigorous schedule. It was an amazing time that left a permanent mark on me, and I loved every minute of it. Almost. You see, there was one item on the schedule that made me a little uneasy. Creative Worship. I heard alumni talking about it in reverential tones almost from my very arrival on the Belhaven Campus. It sounded interesting, so long as it didn’t turn out to be a bunch of people dancing around extemporaneously all at the same time. That just seemed a tad—I don’t know, unrefined—to my meticulous little sensibilities. I worried, and gathered clues from my fellow dancers (I seemed to be the only one that was squeamish about it) and, long story short, that’s exactly what it proved to be. On one of the final nights of the intensive the whole company was to gather in the gym, prepared to worship God with all of our strength, as creatively as we knew how. We had had classes in improv—nothing about Ballet Mag is desultory. But making things up in front of a room of one’s peers just seemed like a whole different ballgame than—a bunch of people dancing around extemporaneously all at the same time. I talked to my teacher about it (you may remember her—she is amazing), sitting in the car one night after a long day of classes. She heard me out, listened patiently to my litany of very religious reasons why I was uncomfortable with the idea. Then she pursed her lips and drew her breath in that way she had that always alerted me she was about to say something important. You know, one of those things I would remember all my life, or something. “Lanier, when my sister was little—probably about four years old—she saw all of us giving presents to our dad for Father’s Day. She didn’t have a gift, so she went through the house and picked out pretty things she thought he would like, and wrapped them up and gave them to him. It never entered her mind that those wouldn’t be considered ‘real’ gifts.” My teacher looked me right in the eyes with that piercing blue gaze of hers. “And do you think that her presents were any less precious to my dad than the ones we bought at the store and wrapped up with beautiful ribbons?” I swallowed in the darkness and admitted that I supposed they were at least as precious. If not more. That father knew the heart of his little girl, and he cherished the offerings of her heart, no matter how humble. (Or, in this case, repurposed.) I appreciated the vignette and the prayers she whispered over me in the half-light of the car, and I thought about her words a lot over the days that followed. She had so much wisdom—it had chiseled away at my assumptions plenty of times before this—but I still felt uneasy. It wasn’t my self-consciousness that was on the table, I insisted, so much as my principles. And my principles had just never considered doing anything quite this weird. I went to the Creative Worship session. I found a girl who was almost as uncomfortable as I was and we sat down on the floor together. Someone opened with prayer and someone else turned on the music—a gentle, rippling stream of melody that I can still hear the ghost of to this day. And then, nearly as a body, the company rose and began moving around the room in an elliptical of orderly individuality. A censer was lit and gently passed from hand to hand amid the revolving throng, and the aroma filled the gym with a spice-laden haze. I remember one dancer in particular, a girl from New York I had met at the airport and one of the most gifted ballerinas I have ever seen: every movement was poetry and the look on her face was nothing short of beatific. She danced like there was not another soul in the room—or in all the world—but Jesus. At length my friend got up and joined the quiet circle of worship. I know you’re thinking that the moral to this story is that I did, too—that I conquered my self-consciousness (or was at least too self-conscious to sit there all by myself!) and smashed my silly ‘principles’ to smithereens in the act. With all my soul, I wish I could say that was what I did. I think it would have been an experience of genuine abandonment to God, which can only and ever be a good thing. To my shame, however, I sat there, watching, longing for I scarce knew what. And that was the memory that assailed me the other day as I was cringing at my reflection in the mirror in ballet class, hoping everyone else was too occupied with their own pirouettes to notice how badly mine had just turned out. It all came back in a rush, and I felt my cheeks grow warm, twenty years after the fact. If I could go back, I would yank my nineteen-year-old self off of her derrière and shove her out on the floor with the others. (Lovingly, of course, but, heavens, that girl could use a bit of roughing up. She thought she knew everything.) I think it’s sad that I missed such an opportunity of corporate worship, simply because I had learned to mask my fear with a set of cozy convictions. I have so much respect for the souls who are able to worship God with all of their might—wielding pens, pointe shoes, paintbrushes, cellos, what-have-you—without being restrained in the least by what others think. God knows it’s difficult—almost super-human, you might say. But it’s the joy of our souls, and the fuel to more formal pursuits in His name. I know that Jesus is tender towards that nineteen-year-old me with all her answers and insecurities. He doesn’t despise my weakness the way I do. Twenty years from now I will doubtless have plenty of other missed opportunities to chafe at. But today, burning from an old shame yet standing in grace, I offer myself anew, re-purposing these gifts (that are not my own anyway) to my Father’s good pleasure. Because, in the end, isn’t it all Creative Worship?

Welcome to week one of our discussion of Leif Enger’s So Brave, Young, and Handsome! We’re so very glad that you’re here. Please speak up, share your thoughts, and pose additional questions to the group. Your voice matters. For the over-achievers in the class who’ve read ahead, let’s agree to keep conversation within the boundaries of the reading schedule—i.e., no spoilers in the comments! Thanks in advance for waiting on the rest of us. Discussion Part One: “A Thousand a Day” In the opening pages, the narrator gives an orientation of his writing career and family, and we’re given glimpses of his longings and fears. Out of the mist rows a mysterious vagabond, whose presence sets the action of the story into motion. When Redstart, the narrator’s son, is talking with his parents and insisting that the stranger would indeed be joining them for dinner, he explains, He told me his name. He didn’t want to say it, but I tricked him and out it came. You know what happens, once you get a person’s name. . . Why, then you have power over him. —p.9 1. What do you think he means? What other stories come to mind? 2. Do you think it’s significant that we learn the narrator’s name only after this conversation takes place? What other passages refer to the importance of name? 3. What themes do you see being introduced? A line only gets grace when it curves, you know. –p.19 4. What images/stories does this bring to mind? 5. What does this tell us about Glendon? What insight do we get from Becket’s response? Let the discussion begin, and don’t be shy with questions of your own. Bonus questions: The novel is set in 1915. What was the state of the country at that time? The state of the world? The state of American literature in which Monty is a sudden hit? Discussion Introduction Week 1: “A Thousand a Day” Week 2: “The Old Desperate” Week 3: “Jack Waits” Week 4: “The 101” Week 5: “The Fiery Siringo” Week 6: “The Rarotongans”

[Stephen Lamb (no stranger in these parts) recently had an essay featured on the Art House America blog and it’s too good not to share. Is it a record review? Yes, sort of, but it’s also a lot more. The opening paragraphs are posted below; click over to Art House America and read the entire piece. It’s great.] The day I turned thirty, I met some friends for drinks and celebratory cigars at a smoke shop across the street from one of my favorite restaurants, an Asian bistro where the sushi bar offers a roll that uses raw filet mignon instead of rice to hold everything together. After a couple of beers, and halfway through my cigar, I responded to the question someone had posed, asking what I wanted from the future. For one, I said, I hoped I’d be married before another decade had passed. “I’m not looking for someone to take away my loneliness. I know another person won’t do that. It’s just that sometimes I think I’m ready for a different kind of lonely.” * * * I listened to Leonard the Lonely Astronaut seven times in a row the first day I heard it. A concept album from Andrew Osenga, it tells the story of a man named Leonard, set in the year 2365. While in the process of finalizing his divorce, his wife and child are killed in a car accident. Crippled by grief, Leonard decides to volunteer to pilot a transport shuttle to a distant planet. The trip will take a year—six months there, six months back—but due to the laws of relativity and such, everyone he knows will be dead by the time he returns to earth. “I’ll make some new friends / maybe with their grandkids,” Andrew (Leonard) sings, ready for a new start, hopeful things will turn out differently this time. I loaned Andy my old 60s Rogers drumset for the project and helped him build the spaceship in which to record it (yes, you read that right), so he sent me a copy of the record as soon as he had the final mixes. A couple days after my first listen, still hitting repeat over and over, I read Terry Tempest William’s new book, When Women Were Birds: 54 Variations on Voice, in two sittings. A beautiful book, equal parts reflection on her own relationships and meditations on the ways women find their voice in a world that often says their voice is unimportant, she has this to say about her marriage: “I have never been as lonely as I have been in my marriage. I have also never been more seen or more protected.” That night, I e-mailed the quote to Andy (one of the friends who had been around the table when I’d answered that question), saying I didn’t think I could come up with a better short summary of Leonard, no matter how hard I tried. Click here to read the entire post at Art House America.

[This is a short piece I wrote for Story Warren that may resonate with Rabbit Roomers as well. –S.D. Smith] “Wonder is involuntary praise.” Edward Young said that and I’m glad he did. What are we doing to facilitate wonder in our families? C.S. Lewis said we need an enchantment to set us free from the bondage of worldliness. How are we working for our children’s liberty? If it is only in books and art and literature, then we are only making them more interesting slaves. As Lewis says, the true thing comes through the books, or the art. The art is not the thing. Beauty will not save the world, really. I believe we fail our kids insofar as we perpetuate in their lives the mirage of Godless Delight. We fail them if we convince them, by the forms of our lives or by our words (or both), that the basic reality of the world excludes God. The sad reality is that this is an assumption that flavors much of the stories and art we receive and which shape our spiritual formation. I confess I sometimes live like this. I need not only wonder and gratitude, but to know the One to whom my wonder and gratitude are rightly directed. We talk a lot about imagination here and I stand by that, but it is holy imagination we are after. If our imagination isn’t doxological, it is diabolical. We are for the liberty of families. We are foster parents of wonder. We aim to be an ingredient in the spell cast to break the enchantment of worldliness. The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited. Do you think I am trying to weave a spell? Perhaps I am; but remember your fairy tales. Spells are used for breaking enchantments as well as for inducing them. And you and I have need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness which has been laid upon us for nearly a hundred years. Almost our whole education has been directed to silencing this shy, persistent, inner voice; almost all our modem philosophies have been devised to convince us that the good of man is to be found on this earth. C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory The wonders really are all around us, pointing us to God and his kingdom of light. But we live in a dark enchantment. How are you working for the liberty of your family? What machines are you building to frustrate the darkness? Let’s conspire in our construction. Let’s form an alliance. The hole in the enemy’s lines is made gloriously wide. Once more to the breach, dear friends, once more… —–   —–   —– Images by Boekell/Boekell.

Well, it’s time. High time. I’ve been hoarding a literary treasure for far too long. I did tell a few good souls about this gem of a writer at Hutchmoot, but really, the whole world needs to know and its time I sound the trumpet. Have you ever discovered an author who speaks the language of your inmost thoughts? A writer who answers the questions that were just beginning to ghost about your mind before you even knew what to call them? Have you, moreover, discovered such a writer who is also a poet, a priest at a Cambridge college, a masterful sonneteer, a folk musician, and, well, has an air definitely hobbit-like? Let me introduce you to the inimitable Malcolm Guite. I first encountered this lovely writer several years ago as a speaker at a C.S. Lewis conference, where he gave an intriguing talk on the spiritual value of poetry. I loved it, but several years passed and I forgot the encounter. When my Dad got me his just-published Faith, Hope, and Poetry last year for my birthday, my memory stirred and my curiosity was piqued. But when, in the first chapter, I encountered Guite’s central theme of defending “the imagination as a truth-bearing faculty,” I was captivated. I had just come off a course of study with Michael Ward (author of the marvelous Planet Narnia—another book you must read (reviews here and here), in which we explored the difference between analytical knowledge and the knowledge that comes through experience, through emotion, and most importantly to me, imagination. My studies affirmed everything important to me—the value of beauty, the power of story, the truth that comes through physical creation—and I was hungry to learn more. Guite’s book became my feast. In Faith, Hope, and Poetry, Guite explores, consideres, and concludes many things I have felt about knowing God through imagination, through poetry and story, but have struggled to articulate. In the opening chapter, he traces the history (a story that begins with the Enlightenment) of our modern dependence on reason, logic, observation, and analysis as the sole means of knowing what is true. He explores the false divide of imagination from reason, and challenges the modern skepticism toward imagination as a truth-bearing faculty, arguing that poetry, myth, and story are vital and powerful ways through which we know what is true. Sounds like the topic of many a conversation at Hutchmoot. The book offers a grand survey of poetry starting with The Dream of the Rood and ending with Seamus Heaney, in which Guite demonstrates how the faculty of imagination aids us in apprehending that which is real, but just beyond our sight. To quote him quoting Shakespeare: “This is the heart of the art: to create a shape that can be sounded, a network of vocables, a nameable name, in which to incarnate insight, so that the remote or uncatchable is caught in the net of sound and has ‘a local habitation and a name’ that can evoke it forever after.” (The Shakespeare line is from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.) Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings basically saved my faith, and poetry, story, and myth are the means through which I have always most poignantly encountered the world of faith. They are also the means by which I seek to communicate my faith, so for me (and I bet it might be for many of you) his book was a powerful affirmation of imagination as the spiritually potent thing I had always known it to be. But the book is just the beginning. Hungry for more, I logged onto Guite’s website and discovered that he is also a skilled and poignant poet. His sonnets are masterful, and he just finished a collection called Sounding the Seasons, a cycle of sonnets to mark the church year. His poetry has been a gracious presence during my devotions this year. On top of that, I discovered his podcasts, in particular, a series of talks he did on the Inklings that explained the common vision that drove their desire to “re-enchant the world.”  That website is a goldmine. So fellow rabbits, I present the good Mr. Guite. Dig in. He is a friend to all lovers of imagination. You should visit his website. Listen to his podcasts on the Inklings. And look at his books as soon as may be. You can thank me at Hutchmoot. The featured image of Malcolm Guite is used with the kind permission of Lancia Smith. Image copyright Lancia E. Smith, 2011, www.lanciaesmith.com.

Last night I saw it on Twitter: “Brennan Manning has died.” His death has been coming for quite some time now. I’ve been expecting it. However, I questioned the news initially, not having seen any legitimate source for the information (an obituary, a news article, his website, or his Facebook page). But this morning it was confirmed on his website. If his recent autobiography is correct, Brennan’s drinking killed him. Depending on how you view alcoholism, Brennan was either the victim of a terrible disease, or he was just a lush. In any case he made a long habit of lying (at least through omission) about his condition. That, by the way, is a symptom of the disease. He was a victim and a perpetrator, a liar and a sufferer, a vow breaker and a people pleaser. He was no plaster saint, no image on a holy card, no bearer of hagiography. Brennan Manning was a man who loved Jesus and, most importantly, was beloved of Jesus. He was a sinner but a forgiven one. He was a liar who spoke the truth. He was a broken vessel, a jar made of clay, who nonetheless bore the Good News of Jesus Christ to millions—myself included. Brennan Manning taught me the Gospel. If I have ever shared the love of Jesus with you, you can be sure that Brennan was partly to blame. If I have ever pointed anyone to kindness, forgiveness, or hope, you can be sure that Brennan’s words helped to form my message. Though I only met him twice, he was one of my most important mentors in the faith. Now he joins most of those mentors in glory. I commend to your reading the treasures Brennan left to us. Abba’s Child and Ruthless Trust are my favorites, but The Ragamuffin Gospel was his best-known work. If you read him, please remember that the Holy Spirit is working through him in spite of all his personal failings. Thank God, because that’s how He works in all of us.

When Jarrett J. Krosoczka was a kid, he didn’t play sports, but he loved art. He paints the funny and touching story of a little boy who pursued a simple passion: to draw and write stories. Watch the video. It’s well worth your time.

[She will be miffed at me for saying this, but it would not surprise me at all to find that, in twenty or thirty years time, my singular claim to fame was being friends with Rebecca Reynolds. She is one of the finest writers I have ever read, combining profound intelligence with wizardly worsdmithery, and besides that she’s a real swell gal. The “Letters” series she has been sharing at Story Warren has been priceless, connecting deeply to so many readers. This one, “On Creativity”, seems especially appropriate for The Rabbit Room crowd. —S.D. “Sam” Smith] There was a bad storm rolling, so we piled in the basement to wait it out. As far as I can remember, I was five, which means it was probably the spring of 1977. Your grandparents have always been fond of simple, self-driven entertainment. They respected me enough to believe I could find something worthwhile to do in an hour alone, so they handed me a pencil and seven pieces of pink paper. The pages were ripped from a carbon copy stack, fronts scribbled with charts and numbers, backs blank with potential. Mom showed me how to fold them in half and staple the middle to make a binding. I sat on the cool concrete floor and began to mark out chubby new sentences. “Once there was a wolf. He did not eat girls. He ate wolf food.” It was the first time I had ever written a story. I remember distinctly because my life is divided in two by that day. March lightning crashed somewhere distant while a sharp thrill ran through my arms and up into my brain. Stories could be made, and I had the power to guide them. It should have been a given, I suppose. There’s a certain ontology about the thing, like a watch found on the beach. Yet I remember how strange it was to me in the beginning, because stories didn’t seem like made things. They seemed like things that had always existed. Baby brothers grew in the swollen belly of my mother, and this was completely logical. I had seen puppies born, and I knew human infants were also barfing, pooping creatures who squawled for milk and chewed their own paws. Progeny was a comic reduction, that was how the thing worked. We giggled and condescended over our creations, for the most precious reflections that we could stir together emerged weak, helpless, and dribbling out mashed peas. Stories, on the other hand, were perfect. Stories seemed better than we were, not lesser. I wouldn’t have been more shocked if someone had handed me a magic wand. For in fact, a magic wand had been handed to me. Typing this to you now, electricity still runs up and down my arms. I have never recovered from the invitation. Watch, here. Watch how it works! I might write any word next that I like – any word at all. If I am careful, I can make you remember how your sheets feel cool at the bottom of your bed in the morning or how the ocean wind runs like a woman’s hand through your hair. I can bond us or divide us. I can tend to you, or I can wound you. I can help you see things I have seen. I can show you a dark night on foreign waters, then speak into it, “Let there be light,” for the Maker made me a sort of maker, too. There is a reverence to it, Child. I felt it from the first moment I saw how the thing worked. A story emerges from the womb of a soul, screaming and sucking in the air of our world, exhaling the air of another. All my life your grandmother kept a quote taped on our refrigerator. It was a wrinkled bit of paper, clipped from a magazine, hidden between recipes for oatcakes and newspaper pictures. “Give me twenty-six lead soldiers, and I will conquer the world.” I always knew it was a commission. And will you, Child? Will you conquer the world? How will you do it? I have spent sixteen years watching you all grow into such fine, strong things. I listened when you asked Jesus to dwell in your hearts. I have seen you make wise, hard choices and learn from failures. You have gifts beyond what I could have bestowed upon you. You take up simple things: paper, pencils, clay, wood, string, cans, leather, insects, instruments, and found bits with industry in your eyes and fire in your minds. Beholding you, I have worshiped God with an awe stronger than that which ran through me when I was five, sitting on the cold concrete floor, watching letters make words, watching words make sentences, watching sentences make a book. Here a new story is coming to life. The image of the Creator of creators is alive in you. The Grand Artist danced glory through the firmament. He established rhythms of science and beauty; then He bestowed upon you also some small bit of His ability to separate land from sea, light from darkness, to organize gardens and medicines, and to grow up food for a world that hungers. He waits each morning like a master artist preparing for a pupil, distributing planting and cultivating, offering an eternal communion. For you were made imago Dei. You are a vessel formed for filling. Sometimes you feel the vacancy of working your lone self, don’t you? It is like an itch or an ache, like a drawing that needs to be put to paper, like a story unwritten, like a mathematical equation unfigured, like an experiment untested. The stuff of man thirsts for the indwelling Creator, thirsts for those rivers of sweet water that never run dry. It is such a tender kindness that He offers us a sort of co-creation with Him. Good works were prepared for us from the beginning, good works we cannot do alone. These creations are to be wrought through our particular temperament and training in the power of holy company. Because the gift is powerful, there is a sobriety to it, as well. Men and women have set off boldly to make things for Jesus, and they have done damage instead. In fact, I have made this mistake myself too often. I will caution you then a little. Mind the Bible. Mind the wisdom of good elders. Mind the temptation to do for God instead of in God. Run to Him unguarded for alignment, willing to hear whatever He says to you. Walk filled with Him, for you are filled with Him. Then go as He leads. Go with all your heart. Makings and cultivatings of a thousand sorts are waiting. There are sick to tend. Meals to stir together. Songs to sing. Bridges to build. Accounts to balance. Hungry to feed. Feet to wash. Deaths to die. Souls to woo. Books to be written. There are Sabbath rests to take, and fields to walk, and silent prayers to pray that seem to accomplish nothing at all, but accomplish everything instead. Yield. Yield. Yield to Jesus in you. The Creator flows in You, alive and rushing. Drink Him up, swim, and be baptized, and baptize in Him, Child. Yield to the One who made you to remake. Walking with Him, you will form because you were formed, and nothing else will do for it. There is birthing yet to be done. I can feel it in you. And if God wills, when I am a grey old woman, I will gather around my red-headed grandtales, and the freckle-cheeked grandtamings, and the shy grandsongs, and the grandgardens of your hand. I will kiss them all and laugh a deep old laugh. Because this is the story of us, the story the Maker making through us. It is full as one that has always been written.

[Editor’s note: We’re really excited about having Jeffrey Overstreet as one of our guest speakers at Hutchmoot 2013. Jeffrey has long been one of my favorite film critics and his book Through a Screen Darkly is a must read for anyone who loves movies—expect to see it on the Hutchmoot reading list. Jeffrey’s blog, Looking Closer (hosted at Patheos.com), is always insightful and the following post is a perfect example of why I enjoy it so much. He was kind enough to allow us to repost it here on the Rabbit Room. Click here to view the original post at Looking Closer.] This article on “Christian fantasy” by novelist Lars Walker confesses something that may surprise his readers: I don’t read much fantasy, and I read almost no Christian fantasy. I’ve been burned too many times. You buy a book, hoping to experience over again the joys great fantasy can provide (for me, the Mines of Moria, the Ride of the Rohirrim, and the resurrection of Aslan provided the greatest moments of joy I’ve ever experienced in literature), and what do you get? Wannabees. Wannabee Tolkiens, wannabee Lewises, wannabee (christened) George R. R. Martins. While I might have named different storytelling moments—scenes from Watership Down, The Tale of Despereaux, Winter’s Tale, along with some from The Fellowship of the Ring—I found myself nodding in agreement. But then I came upon this surprising paragraph: Who’s writing good Christian fantasy today? . . . Walter Wangerin Jr. wrote one of the best fantasies of any kind I’ve ever read, The Book of the Dun Cow, an amazing animal story that I promise will break your heart and put it together again. Stephen Lawhead is an excellent writer who has never (in my opinion) soared to the heights he’s capable of. Jeffrey Overstreet may be the best. Wow. I’m honored and grateful and inspired to get back to work on my new novel. I’m grateful that Walker appreciates these books so much. Walker’s a formidable storyteller himself. His novel Wolf Time is on my nightstand right now. (I tend to read a dozen books at a time, little by little, over many months, and this is the only fantasy novel currently in the mix.) So, to be highlighted by him is a huge encouragement, and it sends me toward a weekend of writing with new enthusiasm and confidence. However—friends, family, and those who have been reading my blog for a while probably know what I’m about to say—for the sake of preventing misunderstanding, I am duty-bound to offer a contrary opinion. I know, it feels kind of self-defeating to disagree when somebody says something complimentary about my work, especially when that somebody is more experienced and more accomplished. But here I go anyway . . . I don’t write “Christian fantasy.” I write fantasy. While I do have some Christian readers, I don’t write stories for a Christian audience, nor are my stories designed to deliver “Christian messages.” There is no reason for my novels to be segregated from other novels, to be branded as part of some sub-genre. I want my stories to be held to the standards of great fantasy writing. They may fail by that standard—only time, and greater imaginations than mine, will determine that. But “make-believe” is the game I’m playing, the tradition I’m following, the goal I’m seeking to achieve. I wouldn’t know how to write “Christian fantasy” if I tried. I don’t know what it is. I don’t see labels for “Hindu fantasy” or “Buddhist fantasy” or “vegetarian fantasy” or “atheist fantasy” in the bookstores, and there’s a good reason for that. Art is about exploring possibilities, not fashioning messages or proselytizing. When artists start trying to “make points” or “deliver messages,” their art suffers and becomes something else. Much of what I’m saying has been expressed here many times before, primarily in the foundational vision of my blog: “Mystery and Message,” by Michael Demkowicz. If you haven’t read it, check it out. It says a great deal in a few words. You’re probably familiar with author Katherine Paterson. She wrote Bridge to Terabithia and Jacob Have I Loved. In a Books and Culture interview, she once said: Novelists write out of their deepest selves. Whatever is there in them comes out willy-nilly, and it is not a conscious act on their part. If I were to consciously say, ‘This book shall now be a Christian book,’ then the act would become conscious and not out of myself. It would either be a very peculiar thing to do—like saying, ‘I shall now be humble’—or it would be simple propaganda… Propaganda occurs when a writer is directly trying to persuade, and in that sense, propaganda is not bad.. . . But persuasion is not story, and when you try to make a story out of persuasion then you’ve done something wrong to the story. You’ve violated the essence of what a story is. Is this place a work of “Christian bricklaying”? I don’t have the stature of Paterson. I am not one of the great fantasy writers of the world. But that’s not something I worry about. When artists concern themselves with their own greatness, they’re in trouble. I want to focus the energy and time I’m given differently. I want to discover stories that are unfamiliar, that wrestle with questions that are new and challenging for me. I’m focused on developing characters I find interesting, so I can follow them. And I trust that if I pay attention and work hard, they will lead me to all kinds of truth, all kinds of beauty. My grandfather didn’t build “Christian houses”—he built spacious, sturdy, wonderful houses worth exploring. In a way, I’m doing my own work inspired by him. My stories are not “Christian stories” any more than my coffee is “Christian coffee,” and my favorite hill climbs of the Pacific Northwest are not “Christian hiking trails.” I don’t want my companions on the journey to think that we’re engaged in some kind of illustrated sermon. We’re on an adventure. “Ah,” you might say, “but you are a Christian. Your beliefs will affect your story. So your stories will reflect truth differently than secular stories do.” My answer to that—“No, not necessarily.” In my life of reading, moviegoing, listening to music, and studying visual art, I have encountered truth, beauty, and mystery as much in the work of non-Christians as I have in the work of Christians. I’d even go so far as to say that the truth and beauty I have found in the work of unbelievers has strengthened my faith even more than what I’ve found in “Christian art.” And that’s to be expected. I believe that we are all made in the image of God, and that eternity is written in our hearts . . . in all of our hearts. Thus, when anybody achieves any kind of beauty or truth in their work, that goodness is from God, whether the artist likes it or not. I want to write stories for the whole world, stories that enchant readers with their beauty, provoke readers with their questions, haunt readers with their mysteries. I want to write stories that inspire readers to investigate important questions, rather than illustrating arguments in hopes that they’ll agree with me. If my work is categorized as “Christian fantasy,” all kinds of trouble and misunderstanding begins. People begin to assume—wrongly—that they should be looking for religious symbolism and and allegories that I seek to avoid. They write reviews on Amazon that severely misinterpret the stories. (Many of the reviews of The Auralia Thread there, even the positive ones, make me cringe because readers have read them with only one set of lenses—lenses you use when you think that your job is to discern a religious allegory. As a result, they’ve missed out on much of what I believe these stories are about, and they ignore all kinds of details and characters and subplots that are essential to the story.) Novels by Marilynne Robinson, Leif Enger, Katherine Paterson, Wendell Berry, Madeleine L’Engle, J.K. Rowling, Walter Wangerin Jr., Tim Powers, Gene Wolfe, and J.R.R. Tolkien are shelved in Literature or Fantasy. I’m not saying my work is as accomplished as books by those great writers—Christians, all of them—but if Auralia’s Colors, Cyndere’s Midnight, Raven’s Ladder, and The Ale Boy’s Feast are branded as “Christian fiction,” they’ll remain set apart from the books that inspired them, taken away from the audience for whom I wrote them. Even if my stories pale by comparison, they were written in the same genre as books by George R. R. Martin, Neil Gaiman, Mervyn Peake, and Patricia McKillip (writers whose stories are, by the way, filled with echoes of Christ’s teachings . . . whether they intended that or not). If you were a winemaker, and you found your bottles shelved with diet soda, or vice versa, you’d be bothered, wouldn’t you? If you made a sports car, and found it advertised as a family SUV, you would suspect—correctly—that its real purpose would never be discovered or acknowledged. Further, it would greatly confuse shoppers who were looking for a family SUV. If truth and beauty and mystery—those things that make us wonder about God and salvation and the meaning of life—are what make a book “Christian,” than I’d argue that most of the best “Christian books” were not written by Christians, and you can find them all over the bookstore, not just in the “Religion” section. Finding Nemo, WALL-E, and John Carter were all stories written by the same filmmaker—who happens to be a Christian—and all three were full of ideas and themes that Christians will celebrate. But they were not “Christian movies.” Here’s a passage of Walker’s article that made me cheer: How do you produce good fantasy (I won’t say great fantasy; that’s beyond my expertise)? First of all, remember this truth—e-books make it possible to publish your own book. That does not earn you the right to expect anyone else to read it. Writing is a craft, like shoemaking. I don’t care how sincerely the guy who made my shoes loves shoes. The main thing I want from him is expertise, the practiced knowledge of how to put together a shoe that fits, won’t give me blisters, and lasts a while. Your sincerity may please God, but He also says, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men” (Colossians 3:23, NIV). It’s possible you may be a prodigy, a literary Mozart capable of amazing the world right out of the gate. But probably not. Amen to that! That’s why I buy the best shoes I can buy. And I have never, ever, ever shopped for “Christian shoes.” That is why you should check out Lars Walker’s fantasy novels. They are heavy, challenging fantasy stories that fans of the Inklings—and beyond—will find rewarding. So again, sure, it’s encouraging that someone familiar with “Christian fantasy”—whatever that is—would say that he likes my work. Especially an accomplished writer like Lars Walker. But to be honest, I’m hoping that somebody somewhere will someday read them the way they read any other fairy tales or fantasy novels, find something that troubles or intrigues or haunts them, and tell their friends, “I just read the strangest fantasy series.” To deliver that—instead of something called “great Christian fiction” (as nice as that might sound)—would feel like a mission accomplished.

[Editor’s note: Leif Enger’s So Brave, Young, and Handsome is such an incredibly readable book (chapters are rarely more than 3 or 4 pages) that we thought it would be a great idea to read through it as a community in the months before Hutchmoot. I’ve asked a good friend, Julie Silander, to set things up and lead the discussion and I look forward to the conversations to come. You can click here to read my original review of the book, but whether you think it sounds like your kind of story or not, I challenge you to give it a shot; you won’t be sorry. The discussion won’t start for a couple of weeks so you’ve still got time to pick it up from your local library (or support the Rabbit Room by picking it up from the Rabbit Room store). Please welcome Julie to the Rabbit Room and give her a big welcome.] Discussion Introduction Week 1: “A Thousand a Day” Week 2: “The Old Desperate” Week 3: “Jack Waits” Week 4: “The 101” Week 5: “The Fiery Siringo” Week 6: “The Rarotongans” You are cordially invited to join the Rabbit Room community as we read So Brave, Young, and Handsome by Leif Enger. For those who will be attending Hutchmoot in October, this is an opportunity to become more familiar with Enger’s work. If you won’t be making the trip to Nashville, the reading group offers a great way to participate from afar. It’s an invitation to experience truth and beauty not only through story, but also through each other as we read and discuss. The book is divided into easily digestible parts and beginning on April 22nd, we’ll cover one of those parts each week. A few questions will be posted in order to prompt conversation, but we’ll all share in the heavy lifting as we work through the book. Consider it a virtual mini-moot that extends for weeks. The Rabbit Room is a relatively new discovery for me. Two years ago, I learned of open spots for Hutchmoot only after the waiting list had been exhausted. I had three days to arrange travel and get my ducks in a row. Although familiar with a few names, when I arrived I had no real connection to anyone other than my roommate. There wasn’t time to pour over the schedule. There wasn’t time to think through and consider which seminars I wanted to attend. There wasn’t time to do the suggested reading. But for three days in Nashville, my soul was well fed. I returned home with a grateful heart and a yearning for more. In an effort to catch up on missed reading, a small group of us committed to trekking through Dorothy Sayers’ Mind of the Maker together. It’s a dense book, the kind that evokes good intentions—intentions that wane in direct proportion to the number of esoteric references by the author. I had never been a part of a reading group and didn’t know what to expect. We started our time together as casual acquaintances, at best. Diverse in age, geography, and literary experience, this new community seemed to have little in common. Yet through the following weeks, strangers became friends. Folks posed questions, made observations, and shared personal experiences. As a result, we all worked harder and our reading was much richer than it would have been alone. And as an unanticipated byproduct, we received the greater gift of getting to know one another. Please consider joining us as we read Leif Enger’s So Brave, Young, and Handsome. The schedule is as follows: Week of 4/22 A Thousand a Day Week of 4/29 The Old Desperate Week of 5/6 Jack Waits Week of 5/13 The Hundred and One Week of 5/20 The Fiery Siringo Week of 5/27 The Rarotongans “In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets.” C. S. Lewis

Tradecraft: noun ˈtrād-ˌkraft – skill acquired through experience in a trade; often used to discuss skill in espionage. One long standing hope since the Rabbit Room’s inception was that this online community would become a place where we look over one another’s shoulders at what we’re reading, thinking about, listening to, and learning. In an effort to focus in on learning how to grow in art, life, and faith, I present this new Rabbit Room series: Tradecraft. These posts will look behind the curtain into the mechanics of how things work in the world of thinking, composing, engaging, and creating. I hope the content of this series will reach well beyond the arts themselves and into every facet of life. Today’s tradecraft deals with critical thinking—specifically, reasoning and logical fallacies, helpfully and humorously presented by the folks at yourlogicalfallacyis.com. I found them through one of my favorite websites in the world—twentytwowords.com—which linked to a much more interesting high res PDF of the image and content I’ve included below. The poster says a logical fallacy is: “a flaw in reasoning. Strong arguments are void of logical fallacies, whilst arguments that are weak tend to use logical fallacies to appear stronger than they are. They’re like tricks or illusions of thought, and they’re often very sneakily used by politicians, the media, and others to fool people. Don’t be fooled! This poster has been designed to help you identify and call out dodgy logic wherever it may raise its ugly, incoherent head.” If you’re anything like me, you’ll probably find yourself guilty of more than a few of these. Here they are—24 logical fallacies. 1. Strawman Misrepresenting someone’s argument to make it easier to attack. By exaggerating, misrepresenting, or just completely fabricating someone’s argument, it’s much easier to present your own position as being reasonable, but this kind of dishonesty serves to undermine rational debate. After Will said that we should put more money into health and education, Warren responded by saying that he was surprised that Will hates our country so much that he wants to leave it defenseless by cutting military spending. 2. Slippery Slope Asserting that if we allow A to happen, then Z will consequently happen too, therefore A should not happen. The problem with this reasoning is that it avoids engaging with the issue at hand, and instead shifts attention to baseless extreme hypotheticals. The merits of the original argument are then tainted by unsubstantiated conjecture. Colin Closet asserts that if we allow same-sex couples to marry, then the next thing we know we’ll be allowing people to marry their parents, their cars and even monkeys. 3. Special Pleading Moving the goalposts or making up exceptions when a claim is shown to be false. Humans are funny creatures and have a foolish aversion to being wrong. Rather than appreciate the benefits of being able to change one’s mind through better understanding, many will invent ways to cling to old beliefs. Edward Johns claimed to be psychic, but when his ‘abilities’ were tested under proper scientific conditions, they magically disappeared. Edward explained this saying that one had to have faith in his abilities for them to work. 4. The Gambler’s Fallacy Believing that ‘runs’ occur to statistically independent phenomena such as roulette wheel spins. This commonly believed fallacy can be said to have helped create a city in the desert of Nevada USA. Though the overall odds of a ‘big run’ happening may be low, each spin of the wheel is itself entirely independent from the last. Red had come up six times in a row on the roulette wheel, so Greg knew that it was close to certain that black would be next up. Suffering an economic form of natural selection with this thinking, he soon lost all of his savings. 5. Black or White Where two alternative states are presented as the only possibilities, when in fact more possibilities exist. Also known as the false dilemma, this insidious tactic has the appearance of forming a logical argument, but under closer scrutiny it becomes evident that there are more possibilities than the either/or choice that is presented. Whilst rallying support for his plan to fundamentally undermine citizens’ rights, the Supreme Leader told the people they were either on his side, or on the side of the enemy. 6. False Cause Presuming that a real or perceived relationship between things means that one is the cause of the other. Many people confuse correlation (things happening together or in sequence) for causation (that one thing actually causes the other to happen). Sometimes correlation is coincidental, or it may be attributable to a common cause. Pointing to a fancy chart, Roger shows how temperatures have been rising over the past few centuries, whilst at the same time the numbers of pirates have been decreasing; thus pirates cool the world and global warming is a hoax. 7. Ad Hominem Attacking your opponent’s character or personal traits in an attempt to undermine their argument. Ad hominem attacks can take the form of overtly attacking somebody, or casting doubt on their character. The result of an ad hominem attack can be to undermine someone without actually engaging with the substance of their argument. After Sally presents an eloquent and compelling case for a more equitable taxation system, Sam asks the audience whether we should believe anything from a woman who isn’t married, was once arrested, and smells a bit weird. 8. Loaded Question Asking a question that has an assumption built into it so that it can’t be answered without appearing guilty. Loaded question fallacies are particularly effective at derailing rational debates because of their inflammatory nature – the recipient of the loaded question is compelled to defend themselves and may appear flustered or on the back foot. Grace and Helen were both romantically interested in Brad. One day, with Brad sitting within earshot, Grace asked in an inquisitive tone whether Helen was having any problems with a fungal infection. 9. Bandwagon Appealing to popularity or the fact that many people do something as an attempted form of validation. The flaw in this argument is that the popularity of an idea has absolutely no bearing on its validity. If it did, then the Earth would have made itself flat for most of history to accommodate this popular belief. Shamus pointed a drunken finger at Sean and asked him to explain how so many people could believe in leprechauns if they’re only a silly old superstition. Sean, however, had had a few too many Guinness himself and fell off his chair. 10. Begging the Question A circular argument in which the conclusion is included in the premise. This logically incoherent argument often arises in situations where people have an assumption that is very ingrained, and therefore taken in their minds as a given. Circular reasoning is bad mostly because it’s not very good. The word of Zorbo the Great is flawless and perfect. We know this because it says so in The Great and Infallible Book of Zorbo’s Best and Most Truest Things that are Definitely True and Should Not Ever Be Questioned. 11. Appeal to Authority Saying that because an authority thinks something, it must therefore be true. It’s important to note that this fallacy should not be used to dismiss the claims of experts, or scientific consensus. Appeals to authority are not valid arguments, but nor is it reasonable to disregard the claims of experts who have a demonstrated depth of knowledge unless one has a similar level of understanding. Not able to defend his position that evolution ‘isn’t true’ Bob says that he knows a scientist who also questions evolution (and presumably isn’t herself a primate). 12. Appeal to Nature Making the argument that because something is ‘natural’ it is therefore valid, justified, inevitable, good, or ideal. Many ‘natural’ things are also considered ‘good’, and this can bias our thinking; but naturalness itself doesn’t make something good or bad. For instance murder could be seen as very natural, but that doesn’t mean it’s justifiable. The medicine man rolled into town on his bandwagon offering various natural remedies, such as very special plain water. He said that it was only natural that people should be wary of ‘artificial’ medicines like antibiotics. 13. Composition / Division Assuming that what’s true about one part of something has to be applied to all, or other, parts of it. Often when something is true for the part it does also apply to the whole, but because this isn’t always the case it can’t be presumed to be true. We must show evidence for why a consistency will exist. Daniel was a precocious child and had a liking for logic. He reasoned that atoms are invisible, and that he was made of atoms and therefore invisible too. Unfortunately, despite his thinky skills, he lost the game of hide and go seek. 14. Anecdotal Using personal experience or an isolated example instead of a valid argument, especially to dismiss statistics. It’s often much easier for people to believe someone’s testimony as opposed to understanding variation across a continuum. Scientific and statistical measures are almost always more accurate than individual perceptions and experiences. Jason said that that was all cool and everything, but his grandfather smoked, like, 30 cigarettes a day and lived until 97 – so don’t believe everything you read about meta analyses of sound studies showing proven causal relationships. 15. Appeal to Emotion Manipulating an emotional response in place of a valid or compelling argument. Appeals to emotion include appeals to fear, envy, hatred, pity, guilt, and more. Though a valid, and reasoned, argument may sometimes have an emotional aspect, one must be careful that emotion doesn’t obscure or replace reason. Luke didn’t want to eat his sheep’s brains with chopped liver and brussels sprouts, but his father told him to think about the poor, starving children in a third world country who weren’t fortunate enough to have any food at all. 16. Tu Quoque Avoiding having to engage with criticism by turning it back on the accuser – answering criticism with criticism. Literally translating as ‘you too’ this fallacy is commonly employed as an effective red herring because it takes the heat off the accused having to defend themselves and shifts the focus back onto the accuser themselves. Nicole identified that Hannah had committed a logical fallacy, but instead of addressing the substance of her claim, Hannah accused Nicole of committing a fallacy earlier on in the conversation. 17. Burden of Proof Saying that the burden of proof lies not with the person making the claim, but with someone else to disprove. The burden of proof lies with someone who is making a claim, and is not upon anyone else to disprove. The inability, or disinclination, to disprove a claim does not make it valid (however we must always go by the best available evidence). Bertrand declares that a teapot is, at this very moment, in orbit around the Sun between the Earth and Mars, and that because no one can prove him wrong his claim is therefore a valid one. 18. No True Scotsman Making what could be called an appeal to purity as a way to dismiss relevant criticisms or flaws of an argument. This fallacy is often employed as a measure of last resort when a point has been lost. Seeing that a criticism is valid, yet not wanting to admit it, new criteria are invoked to dissociate oneself or one’s argument. Angus declares that Scotsmen do not put sugar on their porridge, to which Lachlan points out that he is a Scotsman and puts sugar on his porridge. Furious, like a true Scot, Angus yells that no true Scotsman sugars his porridge. 19. The Texas Sharpshooter Cherry-picking data clusters to suit an argument, or finding a pattern to fit a presumption. This ‘false cause’ fallacy is coined after a marksman shooting at barns and then painting a bull’s-eye target around the spot where the most bullet holes appear. Clusters naturally appear by chance, and don’t necessarily indicate causation. The makers of Sugarette Candy Drinks point to research showing that of the five countries where Sugarette drinks sell the most units, three of them are in the top ten healthiest countries on Earth, therefore Sugarette drinks are healthy. 20. The Fallacy Fallacy Presuming a claim to be necessarily wrong because a fallacy has been committed. It is entirely possibly to make a claim that is false yet argue with logical coherency for that claim, just as is possible to make a claim that is true and justify it with various fallacies and poor arguments. Recognizing that Amanda had committed a fallacy in arguing that we should eat healthy food because a nutritionist said it was popular, Alyse said we should therefore eat bacon double cheeseburgers every day. 21. Personal Credulity Saying that because one finds something difficult to understand, it’s therefore not true. Subjects such as biological evolution via the process of natural selection require a good amount of understanding before one is able to properly grasp them; this fallacy is usually used in place of that understanding. Kirk drew a picture of a fish and a human and with effusive disdain asked Richard if he really thought we were stupid enough to believe that a fish somehow turned into a human through just, like, random things happening over time. 22. Ambiguity Using double meanings or ambiguities of language to mislead or misrepresent the truth. Politicians are often guilty of using ambiguity to mislead and will later point to how they were technically not outright lying if they come under scrutiny.
It’s a particularly tricky and premeditated fallacy to commit. When the judge asked the defendant why he hadn’t paid his parking fines, he said that he shouldn’t have to pay them because the sign said ‘Fine for parking here’ and so he naturally presumed that it would be fine to park there. 23. Genetic Judging something good or bad on the basis of where it comes from, or from whom it comes. To appeal to prejudices surrounding something’s origin is another red herring fallacy. This fallacy has the same function as an ad hominem, but applies instead to perceptions surrounding something’s source or context. Accused on the 6 o’clock news of corruption and taking bribes, the senator said that we should all be very wary of the things we hear in the media, because we all know how very unreliable the media can be. 24. Middle Ground Saying that a compromise, or middle point, between two extremes must be the truth. Much of the time the truth does indeed lie between two extreme points, but this can bias our thinking: sometimes a thing is simply untrue and a compromise of it is also untrue. Half way between truth and a lie, is still a lie. Holly said that vaccinations caused autism in children, but her scientifically well-read friend Caleb said that this claim had been debunked and proven false. Their friend Alice offered a compromise that vaccinations cause some autism. Of course we could go on all day about how other people abuse these (I’m looking at you, Texas Sharpshooter, with your political charts all over Facebook, and you, Bandwagon, when you tell me I don’t care about something if I don’t repost your “Appeal to Emotion” info-graphic) but wouldn’t it be more fun to turn to focus on ourselves? Which are your favorite, most worn logical fallacies? What draws you to them? Which of these had you never considered before? Why does it matter that we would care about the integrity of an argument? Let’s hear your thoughts? —Tradecraft, Pt. 1 ___________________ Follow Russ on Twitter

On a recent afternoon, I had the chance to break bread with several friends here in Nashville. (Actually, we broke chicken tenders.) The conversation was lively, but it was the lingering moments outside, after nearly everyone had left, that stirred me most. Russ Ramsey asked me what I was writing lately, and instead of answering the question, I updated him on the latest freelance assignments I’d been given. He politely listened to my answer and then asked me again, “What have you been writing lately?” I told him about the essays and ideas I’d been planning to write as soon as I cleared my slate. Simply put, I gave him an embarrassingly short progress report. After lunch, I went back to the Rabbit Room office and sat down with Pete Peterson to discuss some future ventures for the site. The conversation turned again to my own writing and the exact same thing happened, another gentle nudge reminding me to dig for what is meaningful. Twice in the same day, I’d had someone push me to move beyond immediate tasks for the sake of something meaningful. Sometimes it’s a hectic schedule that keeps me from plowing the ground I truly want to cultivate. Other times, the fear of failure is to blame. Perhaps both are at work. I don’t know. What I do know is that I often desire to dig more than I actually do. That fear is what Steven Pressfield describes in The War of Art when he writes: Are you paralyzed with fear? That’s a good sign. Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do. Remember one rule of thumb: the more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.” At a recent Sara Watkins show I was reminded of one of my favorite tunes. Her latest solo album, Sun Midnight Sun, came out in 2012 and it closes with the song “Take Up Your Spade.” The song (posted below with video and lyrics) is a beautiful, simple reminder to be obedient to the day before you and nothing more. Since hearing this song again and taking part in these conversations, I can say with some level of confidence that it’s less about inspiration and overcoming fear, and more about simple obedience. It’s the daily dig, so to speak, that eventually gives way to the garden. I’m making progress and I hope I will have something real to report the next time someone asks. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLpBPiGt248] “Take Up Your Spade” by Sara Watkins Sun is up, a new day is before you Sun is up, wake your sleepy soul Sun is up, hold on to what is yours Take up your spade and break ground Shake off your shoes, Leave yesterday behind you Shake off your shoes, But forget not where you’ve been Shake off your shoes, Forgive and be forgiven Take up your spade and break ground Give thanks, for all that you’ve been given Give thanks, for who you can become Give thanks, for each moment and every crumb Take up your spade and break ground Break ground, break ground, break ground #SaraWatkins

Randall Goodgame has a new Slugs and Bugs record in the works and it’s going in a whole new direction. We sat down with him to hear what he had to say, and before we knew what was happening, Buddy Greene walked in the door and kicked up a hootenanny.

On April Fools’ Day my grandmother and her sisters packed their lunch pails like any other school day. Their mother walked them to the dirt road and kissed them goodbye, but instead of turning left to walk toward school, the girls turned right toward the train tracks. They walked up the tracks a piece until they got to a little marshy pond, a favorite spot of theirs. They lay beside the pond in their school dresses and watched the clouds drift by and giggled at the thought of their classmates sitting at their desks that bright spring morning. They pulled out their lunches and ate them. It was only nine in the morning, but they felt like eating, and it was April Fools’ Day, and who was going to stop them? They caught some bugs and picked some wildflowers and got mud on their dresses, and then decided to catch the last half of the school day. So they walked back down the train tracks and up the dirt road toward the school. When they passed the house, their mother waved at them from the porch. When they got to school the teacher said, “Where have you girls been?” “At the marshy pond,” they said, “beside the railroad tracks.” “And why were you at the marshy pond?” the teacher asked. “It’s April Fools’ Day.” The teacher made the girls stay in from recess for a couple of weeks–a punishment they willingly accepted. From what I understand, this happened more than once. Apparently it was sort of a Dowdy family tradition, to act the fool on April Fools’ Day, and to receive the punishment for that foolishness without complaint or rancor. I love that picture of my great-grandmother waving to the little truants as they pass back by. Having given them room to try out a little harmless foolishness, she waves them on toward its logical outcome, not intervening on either end, but rather letting her daughters experience the truth that wisdom and foolishness are a matter of choice, and that choices have consequences.

[The following is an excerpt from N. T. Wright’s Surprised By Hope.] “…Many churches now hold Easter vigils, as the Orthodox church has always done, but in many cases they are…too tame by half. Easter is about the wild delight of God’s creative power…we ought to shout Alleluias instead of murmuring them; we should light every candle in the building instead of only some; we should give every man, woman, child, cat, dog, and mouse in the place a candle to hold; we should have a real bonfire; and we should splash water about as we renew our baptismal vows. Every step back from that is a step toward an ethereal or esoteric Easter experience, and the thing about Easter is that it is neither ethereal nor esoteric. It’s about the real Jesus coming out of the real tomb and getting God’s real new creation under way. But my biggest problem starts on Easter Monday. I regard it as absurd and unjustifiable that we should spend forty days keeping Lent, pondering what it means, preaching about self-denial, being at least a little gloomy, and then bringing it all to a peak with Holy Week, which in turn climaxes in Maundy Thursday and Good Friday…and then, after a rather odd Holy Saturday, we have a single day of celebration. …Easter week itself ought not to be the time when all the clergy sigh with relief and go on holiday. It ought to be an eight-day festival, with champagne served after morning prayer or even before, with lots of alleluias and extra hymns and spectacular anthems. Is it any wonder people find it hard to believe in the resurrection of Jesus if we don’t throw our hats in the air? Is it any wonder we find it hard to live the resurrection if we don’t do it exuberantly in our liturgies? Is it any wonder the world doesn’t take much notice if Easter is celebrated as simply the one-day happy ending tacked on to forty days of fasting and gloom? …we should be taking steps to celebrate Easter in creative new ways: in art, literature, children’s games, poetry, music, dance, festivals, bells, special concerts, anything that comes to mind. This is our greatest festival. Take Christmas away, and in biblical terms you lose two chapters at the front of Matthew and Luke, nothing else. Take Easter away, and you don’t have a New Testament; you don’t have a Christianity; as Paul says, you are still in your sins… …if Lent is a time to give things up, Easter ought to be a time to take things up. Champagne for breakfast again—well, of course. Christian holiness was never meant to be merely negative…. The forty days of the Easter season, until the ascension, ought to be a time to balance out Lent by taking something up, some new task or venture, something wholesome and fruitful and outgoing and self-giving. You may be able to do it only for six weeks, just as you may be able to go without beer or tobacco only for the six weeks of Lent. But if you really make a start on it, it might give you a sniff of new possibilities, new hopes, new ventures you never dreamed of. It might bring something of Easter into your innermost life. It might help you wake up in a whole new way. And that’s what Easter is all about.” [And just because it’s awesome, here’s Rev. Wright to sing you a song. Happy Easter. Now get off the internet and go celebrate!] N.T. Wright Sings Bob Dylan from Thomas McKenzie on Vimeo.

[This post by James Witmer is one of my favorites. It really captures what we mean at Story Warren by saying we want to be “Allies in Imagination.” I think it will ring true to the rabbits over here in this excellent room. –S.D. “Sam” Smith] What is imagination good for? And why do we need imaginative stories? The real world is full of beauty. Normal lives are full of drama. And beneath it all is Truth; bright, hard, sharp as the point of a spear. So why make stuff up? Why read (or play at) things that aren’t real? Because a healthy imagination is necessary for love. Jesus said, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you…Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. (Matt 7 & Luke 6) The sum of the Law and the Prophets! And it requires putting yourself in place of someone you have never been, imagining how you would want to be treated. If you think this is easy, you have: 1. never been married 2. not worked with many people 3. perhaps not yet been born It’s not just the sacrifice of love that’s hard. It is getting far enough outside ourselves to remember that other people experience the world differently, and have needs, desires, and insecurities apart from ours. The less imagination we have, the less we are able to empathize with those in need. And the less we empathize, the more likely we are to miss the deeper issues. (Issues in the old sense, that of waters which seep up from subterranean deposits, poisoning clear streams with the alkalines of rejection or fear.) If we cannot imagine, we are likely to see others’ sin as alien (and worse!) than ours. To say, “There, but for the grace of God, go I” depends on a vibrant imagination. It needs the ability to see similarities between ourselves and the fallen, and to understand by imagination what our sinful natures would do without divine mercy. Without imagination, this saying becomes the prayer of a Pharisee: “God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.” I have heard imaginative work rejected because it “has nothing to do with my life.” In other words, including swords, dwarfs, and orcs makes a story irrelevant because they are outside our personal experiences. But this is a false distinction, as C.S. Lewis shows in An Experiment In Criticism: The most unliterary reader of all sticks to ‘the news’. He reads daily, with unwearied relish, how, in some place he has never seen, under circumstances which never become quite clear, someone he doesn’t know has married, rescued, robbed, raped or murdered someone else he doesn’t know. But this makes no essential difference between him and…those who read… fiction. He wants to read about the same sorts of events as they. The difference is that, like Shakespeare’s Mopsa, he wants to ‘be sure they are true’. This is because… he can hardly think of invention as a legitimate, or even a possible, activity. Rejecting imaginative stories (and play) atrophies the “muscles” we need to love each other, by refusing to see the world from a different perspective. It encourages the assumption that our perspective, our way of life, is most important. Only after surrendering to a story, walking in someone else’s shoes, can we recognize their triumphs, struggles and sins as fundamentally human, and therefore akin to ours. But if approached with humility, this discovery of kinship can uniquely encourage and convict us. Remember that Jesus taught with stories. By compelling us to identify with his characters, He provided a relational knowledge of God that transcends facts. We teach that God is merciful. Jesus told a story about a Master who paid slackers a full day’s wage (Matthew 20:1-13). If we enter His story with our imaginations, we find ourselves responding emotionally, and are challenged by finding with whom in the story we most identify. The object of faith is not what we should learn, but who we should become. Answering it takes imagination. And imaginations should be exercised.

My St. Patrick’s day celebration was impromptu. I love all things Irish and think St. Patrick himself the hero indeed, but the great day  found me mired in about a thousand unanswered emails. I got home from church to face the prospect of a Monday morning to-do list that stopped me cold in my tracks. The fact that it was Sunday and I was supposed to be sane and calm and thinking holy thoughts added guilt to my fretting. I despaired of fun and set to work. But a phone call late in the windy afternoon changed the fate of my day: “Sarah,” said my mom, “we’re downtown; do you want to just go for a quick bite of fish ‘n chips at Jack Quinn’s? Leave the emails. There will be music!” I couldn’t say no. Jack Quinn’s is a dim old downtown Irish pub, floored in dented, honeyed wood, with tiny booth rooms windowed in stained glass just like the pubs I visited in England. It has the dusky depths, old-photos, and jumbled shelves of mugs and jugs to give it the feel of a real pub. But steeped in age and shadow as it is, the ceilings are high and sheathed in forest green tin. Voices and folk music bounce in a rollick of notes from the floor to the heights in a brightness and dance as good as light. For such a place, I always want to spare an hour. I paused at my desk and almost stayed. I stared at my list, I despaired of my life. But as the sun set, I flung down my pen and out the door I went. And oh what a party awaited me. The moment we stepped in the door we joined one great, grand swirl of Irish celebration. The long room was crammed to its every edge.  A bag piper rose to play as we entered, kilted and bold in the middle of the room, all purple-cheeked and bulging-eyed as he filled the pipes with song. Hundreds of feet kept a good tapping time, laughter boiled up like a drumroll from every corner, and voices rang like trumpets as people talked over the scream of the pipes. The faces in that dim room glowed like fireflies in a hot summer garden. Everyone wore green. Eight or eighty, no respectable soul would come to an Irish pub on St. Paddy’s day without a token of emerald to honor the feast. Some wore glittering bits of jade or jewel, some were decked in the gaudy gleam of green plastic beads, some were clothed head to toe in forest, moss, sage, or emerald, every hue of the color of Eire. And then there were the men who swept by in kilts. They had that delighted pride of eye belonging to those who are dressed just right for a grand occasion. At least I had on my lucky green shirt, thank goodness. I smiled as I stood, I could not help it. I leaned against one of the old walls to wait for our table with the breath of song and laughter in my lungs. I bumped elbows with strangers and swayed to the jigs flung out from the fiddler now on stage. When our name was called, we trundled upstairs to community tables stretching the length of a long, low room. Plates were piled with cabbage and corned beef, or fresh fried fish and chips. We settled in with a jolly bunch of strangers, exchanged names and stories, and set to the work of feasting. The music on this floor was softer, but no less pert. A band of fiddle, whistle, and bodhran kept our toes tapping the entire meal. Another explosion of laughter rumbled from the far end of the room as the fish salted my mouth. And, “blessed be the day,” thought I. Joy welled up in me as if a new spring of water was struck alive at the core of my heart. Exuberance was a tide, rising in my blood and thought, a freed delight in the sheer gift of life. Forgotten were bills and furrowed brows and the dullness that comes from forgotten zest. Remembered was the ever-present possibility of glee, the limitless capacity of my heart to come alive to a fathomless joy, to respond to friendship, to lift up my soul to the cry of music. A sudden silence came upon me then; one of those moments in which a part of myself stepped back, suspended in time, to ponder the scene and my abruptly joyous self at that table. Keenly did I look at the hundred faces lined in laughter, closely did I listen to the rumble of voices and music. I saw the clustered groups of people in sudden fellowship, watched as music wove us all into a pattern in which no one felt loose or at odd at ends. I saw the way good food and people pushed close for the eating made friends of strangers. I saw fun, plain and simple in the jigs and chips and tapping toes, saw the childlike mirth in the eyes of my family, felt the warmth of it in a blaze on my face. And I knew again why feasts are of grave importance, vital events to be claimed and marked. Festal days must be kept with great resolution for this single glimmering fact; we are made for joy. We were fashioned for gladness with hearts formed for fellowship and spirits for singing. Feasts teach us to remember this core fact of our being as they fling us together and banish our listless thoughts and the loneliness that hovers like a fog around our hearts. Polite, isolated, technologically-tied souls in a sin-shattered world that we are, feasts remind us of friendship, they force us into a joy we might have forgotten in the midst of our busy, driven accomplishing of life. A festal day reminds us that in the beginning, far before pain broke into the perfect world, life itself was a feast to be eaten. Existence was a great song, our lives an answering dance, and in Christ, the broken music begins anew. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I feel like a dull-eyed ghost in my own modern life. I move about my days, working at this bill or that project in my quiet room. I bump about my hushed suburban house, drive my car along deserted concrete streets to shop in big, impersonal stores, and I’m lucky if anyone even waves. I work mostly on my little black box of a computer. When I get really lonely, I check my email, hoping for an offer of comradeship from my machine. Or I sit anonymously in coffee shops, wanting company, but wary of breaching the divide of polite silence that dictates correct, autonomous behavior. Add some grief, a dose of guilt, and I find I forget to fight for rejoicing, or even to remember that all good things have their birth in God. Satan, I think, strikes a few of his best blows when he can persuade us that God is boring. That life with our Savior is a dull and dutiful upward climb toward a summit of righteousness always a little out of reach. We are close to defeat when we start to believe that God cares nothing for joy, that holy people are wage slaves to long days of righteousness. Work, pray, endure, and pay your bills, check off that list of upright deeds. And the image of God in our weary minds becomes that of a long-faced master whose only concern is our efficient goodness. We forget that we are called to a King who laughs and creates, sings and saves. That our end is a kingdom crammed with our heart’s desires. We forget that our God is the Lord of the dance and the one whose new world begins with a feast. At Jack Quinn’s, I finally remembered this fact. Celebration cleansed my mind and renewed my hope. And I wonder, today, if celebration is a craft I need to learn, a practice of faith affirming the joy of my saving God. Perhaps my moments of chosen joy incarnate the beauty to which I believe I am being redeemed. On high days and holy days, yes, but also during the common days. A candle lit, a meal prepared, music played, and laughter exchanged; perhaps amidst the fear, the grief and need of fallen life, those moments cup a draught of new-world joy. God came that we might have life, and life to the full. St. Patrick gave his life to the proclamation of that very fact. I think I’ll join him by celebrating his day, and the God whose cosmic feast is about to begin. All joy is mine. Blessed be the day indeed.

Ever since my wife and I set our sights on moving to Nashville several months ago, I couldn’t wait to get here. Expectations of new friendships and opportunities brought hope after a frustrating and lonely year of wading through vocational changes wondering where the next steps would lead us. I knew a change in location was not a cure-all, but still, I couldn’t wait. I was ready to go. Yet after several weeks in Nashville, life is beginning to become routine. We’re finding a new rhythm. We love our new house, our new life, our new schedule, but we also find a lot of it is familiar. We’re still the same people with the same habits, the same pressures, the same likes and dislikes. The new scenery is lovely, but the sheen on our new environment is beginning to fade. The experience was really about the expectation more than the lived-out reality. I’m convinced that we live more through our expectations than we do through our actual lives. It’s the expectation of what is to come that gives us hope in the current moment, and it’s the dashed expectation that ruins long stretches of our existence. Think about this for a second. How many days do we spend simply holding out for the upcoming vacation? How many weeks are spent working for the weekend? How many months are simply the precursor to the birth, to the wedding, to the holidays? I find this happening all the time in my own life, whether it’s an upcoming concert, a reunion with friends, an opportunity to travel abroad, or even the chance to get back inside a really compelling book. We lose the current moment in anticipation of moments to come. Then think of the flip side, the moment when those built up expectations are thwarted by the chaos we call “reality.” You hear it in the pain of the phrases we express. “I thought we’d be together forever.” “I never thought it would end this way.” The expectation of what we hoped would occur is positioned inside the statement of loss. The unspoken thought at the heart of a phrase like “he died so young” is that everyone expected him to live a long, healthy, vibrant life. This is the way we were created—to be people of anticipation. It marks our physical, spiritual, and emotional lives. It leaves us open to wonder. It also leaves us open to wounding. And when enough of those expectations are left unfulfilled, we slowly begin to hope less, to dream less. Instead of looking upward and forward, we lower our heads so that we are a bit less open than we were before. Phrases like “better safe than sorry” slowly creep into our vocabulary. Easter is a story of expectation. It’s the central element of a narrative that’s been playing out since the beginning of all things. It’s the story of a Creation subjected to a curse and a Creator who put in place an expectation of redemption. Even more, Easter presents a fulfilled expectation of a Creation restored. Yet not only is Easter about the ultimate expectation, there are several smaller stories at work within the grander one told in chapter 20 of John’s gospel. They are stories that tell us how Easter changes the expectations we have as we’re living our day-to-day lives. Expecting death, Finding life Much of our time is lived in what Richard Rohr calls “liminal space.” It’s the time between anticipated events when much is happening under the surface, and yet we’re frustrated by the lack of movement. It’s the time between death and resurrection, if you will. And it’s often the time when we think our expectations have gone unmet. Picture Mary in the Easter narrative of John. I love the imagery: “while it was still dark” (vs. 1). That’s not just a descriptor of the physical world, but of the heart and morale of an entire community of people who’d given themselves to something they believed was bigger than they were. Mary was coming to grieve. She was coming to pay respects. She was coming to remember what could have been. She was living in the flood of unmet expectations. She expected death. What she found instead is celebrated by millions all around the globe each Easter. She found the one thing that was prophesied, the one thing that was whispered to her to hold onto, and yet it was the one thing she never expected to find. Even the rolled-away stone only meant that someone had come and taken the body. Expecting death, Mary found life. In her attempts to cope with the worst of circumstances, she stumbled into unexpected joy. Among the ruins of unmet expectation, she found that the dark soil was fertile, giving rise to new life. Easter is not merely a historic moment to be remembered with an annual celebration. More than that, the Easter event delivers a daily reminder that our unmet expectations aren’t always what they seem. Easter allows us to continue to believe when all we see around us are reminders of the letdown. Easter is the promise that God is always at work transforming death to life, darkness to light, despair to hope, and oppression to freedom. Always.

“Well I thanks you for your birthday message,” Flannery O’Connor wrote to a friend in 1960. “I am thirty-five years old and still have all my teeth.” If she were still alive, today would be her 88th birthday. It’s hard to say whether she would still have all her teeth. In celebration of Flannery O’Connor’s birthday, I want to tell the story of one of the most remarkable episodes in her remarkable life. In 1958, O’Connor had been suffering from lupus for eight years and was unable to walk without a cane thanks to decalcification in a hip bone (the result, most likely, of the corticosteroids used to combat her disease rather than the disease itself). Her older cousin and benefactor, Katie Semmes, got it in her head that what Flannery needed was a trip to Lourdes, France. Lourdes was the place where a nineteenth-century peasant girl reportedly saw eighteen apparitions of the Virgin Mary. The water from the grotto at Lourdes reportedly had healing properties; from the mid-nineteenth century to today, the sick and lame and other pilgrims have come by the millions to visit the chapel built on the site, and to drink and bathe in the waters. It was Cousin Katie’s notion to get Flannery to the waters there and pray for a miraculous healing. At first Flannery’s doctor forbade her making an overseas trip. But Cousin Katie kept cajoling until Flannery and her mother Regina agreed to go. As O’Connor wrote to her friend Betty Hester, “It is Cousin Katie’s end-all and be-all that I get to Lourdes and if I am dead upon arrival that’s too bad but I still have to get there . . . Cousin Katie has a will of iron. My will is apparently made out of a feather duster.” O’Connor didn’t believe in the healing properties of the waters, and had no intention of bathing for her healing. “I am one of those people who could die for his religion easier than take a bath for it,” she wrote to Hester. “If there were any danger of my having to take one, I would not go. I don’t think I’d mind washing in somebody else’s blood . . . but the lack of privacy would be what I couldn’t stand. This is neither right nor holy of me but it is what is.” [Author’s note: Is this the earliest instance of the phrase “It is what it is”? Head coaches and televised talking heads everywhere, rejoice that you have such a glorified precedent.] It’s hard to imagine any place in France being like something out of Flannery O’Connor, but Lourdes, apparently, is. The sanctuary grounds themselves are beautiful, but just outside the gates is a strip of religious souvenir shops as tacky and commercialized as anything you would see in an American tourist trap. The combination of maimed pilgrims, vulgarized religion, and outlandish tackiness was right up O’Connor’s alley. Before leaving for her trip, she told Betty Hester, “I expect it to be a comic nightmare.” In spite of earlier declarations, O’Connor did get in the bath, at the urging of both her cousin and, perhaps more persuasively, her friend Sally Fitzgerald, who told her that not to bathe “would have been a failure to cooperate with grace.” When she got to the grotto, the invalids waiting to bathe passed around a Thermos bottle of Lourdes water and all had a drink. O’Connor had a cold at the time, “so I figured I left more germs than I took away,” she told a friend. The “sack” she wore in the bath was one that had been used by a person who went before, “regardless of what ailed him.” As O’Connor reported to the poet Elizabeth Bishop, “Somebody in Paris told me the miracle at Lourdes is that there are no epidemics and I found this to be the truth. Apparently nobody catches anything.” By O’Connor’s account, all the other supplicants at the bath were peasants; she remarked on”the distinct odor of the crowd. The supernatural is a fact there but it displaces nothing natural; except maybe those germs.” From Lourdes O’Connor’s party went on to Rome to visit the Vatican. Here, presumably, she had the opportunity to take her own oft-quoted advice: “When in Rome, do as you done in Milledgeville.” The archbishop had arranged for O’Connor’s group to be on the front row during the general audience at St. Peter’s. After the service, Pope Pius XII came down to greet the pilgrims and, having been requested by the archbishop, gave O’Connor a special blessing on account of her illness. “There is a wonderful radiance and liveliness about the old man,” O’Connor said of the pope. “He fairly springs up and down the little steps to his chair. Whatever the special super-aliveness that holiness is, it is very apparent in him.” (Just a couple of days ago I saw this picture of Flannery O’Connor from that day, standing behind Pope Pius XII like Zelig or Where’s Waldo. It’s worth a look.) O’Connor never described her bathing in the waters at Lourdes as an act of faith; he choice derived instead from “a selection of bad motives, such as to prevent any bad conscience for not having done it, and because it seemed at the time that it must be what was wanted of me.” Nevertheless, the visit to Lourdes and Rome seemed to have had its benefits for O’Connor. Later that year, her doctor announced that her hipbone was recalcifying. “They told me last year that I wouldn’t get any better,” she wrote to a friend. “I am willing to lay this to Lourdes or somebody’s prayers but I hope the improvement will continue.” The improvement, as it turns out, was limited and temporary. But it came just in time for Katie Semmes, who died that November, only days after hearing the news that the cousin she dragged to Lourdes had indeed experienced some of the healing that Katie had hoped so earnestly for. This story is adapted from Jonathan’s biography of Flannery O’Connor,The Terrible Speed of Mercy, which you can find in the Rabbit Room store.

It’s Holy Week, so I dug up a few old writings. Below are two very different pieces: first is the “about the song” paragraph that I wrote for the press kit. Second is the first of what someone named my Resurrection Letters. If you’re interested in the rest of the meditations, click here. I pray your celebration of the death and resurrection of Jesus this week brings you great joy. “Hosanna” is an old Hebrew word that means “Save us, now!”, which the Jews employed while they waved their palm branches and welcomed the Messiah into Jerusalem for the last time. Only in God’s Kingdom is a cry for help equal to a shout of praise. Once, the Jews asked Jesus for a sign to prove his authority. He declared that he would destroy the temple and rebuild it again in three days, a statement that I’m sure set them gasping and fanning their faces and running in circles. Some of them probably fainted dead away. The Gospel writer tells us that Jesus was talking about himself. But Jesus of Nazareth has plans to wreck us, too, and leave not one stone on another–-indeed, we should welcome it, because we know that Jesus has not just the power to lay waste, but to rebuild–-even his own body. And we all need rebuilding. This song is both a confession and a praise. To say to Christ, “Save me,” is to admit that you need saving, and also to acknowledge that only God is man enough to do it. I. THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY Lord, forgive us. We welcome you in because we think you’ll give us what we want. We act as if our true motives are hidden from you—you who made the world with a word. We spread our coats and wave our hands and cry “Save us!” and you ride with your back straight and your face drawn, accepting our hosannas because you know that even if the heart is false the words are true, and for now, that is enough. You come in the name of the Lord. Son of David, you come to save us. You come to save a fickle people, who one minute cry for help and the next cry for blood, and it is both help and blood that you give us. The sun shines hot on the city gate, and you feel the air move with the palm branches. You hear the hearts pumping in their chests. Their mouths cry “save us” while their hearts cry “give us what we want.” But because you are God you hear even deeper in the spirits of men and women and even children the silence of our profound loneliness. You hear the trickle of need we scarcely know ourselves. You come to us though you know we’re praying to you for the wrong reasons, singing to you without the faintest notion of how powerful and just and holy you really are. We don’t even realize the danger we’re in, crying for salvation from Caesar when the Devil himself is battering the door—crying like a baby for its bottle when a wolf is loose in the nursery. And yet, you come. You set your iron gaze on Jerusalem, and because the Father wants you to, you come. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

Many of you are, no doubt, familiar with the concept of a house concert. For those who aren’t, it is exactly what the name implies: hosts invite friends and neighbors over, and a songwriter-artist plays a concert in their home. I have been doing more and more of these events the past couple of years and I find them to be extremely rewarding in terms of their informality, intimacy, and relaxed environment. Something magically simple happens when the stage is forfeited and the “show” is taken out of the show. Imagine twenty or so folks in a large church sanctuary where they, as well as every ounce of their energy, are swallowed in the empty space between the person onstage and the chasm of vacant seats in the room. Now, plop that same number of people in a living room, perhaps put a glass of merlot or cup of coffee in their hand, and what you get is a concert setting as intimate and laid back as if the songs were being written right before your very eyes. I adore this about house shows: stories are told, connections are made, something warm, hospitable, magical and direct happens, and, from my perspective at least, I feel the freedom to be my typically squirrelly self. And surely everyone wants to see that spectacle. Recently, I participated in a winter retreat at which I filled a small speaking role, led a few hymns, caught up with old, dear friends, and made some new ones. What made this retreat distinct (for me) was that I cooked lunch for the twelve or so participants. Early on in the event’s planning and unsure of how it would go over, I had offered to cook shrimp and corn soup, a recipe rooted deep in my upbringing. So, before arriving, I forwarded a list of necessary ingredients to the hostess, she graciously went to the grocery beforehand, and I showed up in the venue’s kitchen, tracked down a cutting board, knives, stirring spoons, and whatever bowls I could root out from the cupboards, and I began the work of prepping lunch. Every second of it was enjoyable, even the tears caused by the necessary slicing of onions. (Note: music must always be broadcast when chopping diabolical vegetables.) Two hours later, long after suffusing the halls’ air with the scalding bouquet of a peanut butter-colored roux, like a meek six-year-old who’d just colored a picture for his dad and was hopeful for a broad smile in response, I helped serve bowls of steaming hot soup garnished with green onions, and side plates of salad to the guests. Wary that I’d made the soup too spicy for this particular assemblage of midwesterners, I could only hope for the best, that it would be at minimum mildly agreeable, perhaps even delightful to the palates present. Being a male of south Louisiana heritage, I tend to prefer my food altogether flavorful and not at all fat-free. Life is too short and too challenging for drab, flavorless food; as long as I live, there will be no excuse for it. There, I said it. Polite demands for the recipe led me to believe my labor was not in vain; this brought me tremendous pleasure. It was an experience—an involvement!—I hope to replicate more often in as many homes and on as many retreats as hosts will have me. Life is way too short to partake of bland sustenance. I can only hope the songs I write and the art I dabble in fits that same expression. [Click here for information on booking a show (and soup) in your own home or community.]

In the past twenty-four hours, Eric Peters, Jennifer Trafton, Andrew Peterson, and Pete Peterson (along with quite a few others) all saw this video and said, “That belongs on the Rabbit Room!” Rightly so. Therefore we commend to you the following short. It’s also worth your time to check out the artist’s website at JakeWeidmann.com. Forging the Future with the Tip of the Pen from This Is Our City on Vimeo.

I think this little video, from the theme to the art, is a neat fit for the vision of The Rabbit Room community. I especially appreciated Susan Cain’s point regarding a cultural shift towards overvaluing people gifted as dynamic, entertaining, charismatic personalities (celebrity pastors, anyone?) and undervaluing quieter people with humbler vocations. “As we shifted from an agricultural economy to a corporate one, we started to admire people who could be magnetic and charismatic, because these were the qualities that seemed to matter for job interviews and things like that. And so in the earlier agricultural economy, our self-help books used to have titles like Character: The Grandest Thing in the World, but then the self-help books later on became the ones we know today, like Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People, and those were all about teaching us to be more entertaining, more dynamic.” –Susan Cain The video’s encouragement seems consistent with the Christian vision of diversity and unity in the Body of Christ which Paul shares with us in 1 Corinthians 12 (quoted below). We are not all the same, but are called to a complementary expression of community life. In our homes this is daily worked out in miniature (people). So, let’s love our little introverts (and extroverts, too) and scheme about how to help them live in the world God made, as he made it, with the gifts he has given them. For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. (1 Corinthians 12:12-27 ESV) ——————————————————————- Originally Posted at Story Warren Featured image courtesy of Rebecca Smith Photography

You may have heard of a book called Table Talk. If you haven’t, that’s okay; it was published in 1566. It’s a series of sayings by Martin Luther that were collected as he talked over meals with students and colleagues, and the topics of conversation ranged widely, including not only insights and observations, but facetious, funny, and even damaging remarks. In short, it was off the cuff. Uncensored. I imagine that when people sat down at the table with Luther, they never knew just what they were going to get. This video series is kind of like that—only with video cameras and . . . well, you never know what else. You’ve been warned.