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I felt like Jo March in Little Women. The 1994 film version, to be exact, when Winona Ryder and Gabriel Byrne are sitting backstage at the opera, perched high among the ropes and riggings. Byrne’s Professor Bhaer has invited the ingenuous Jo to a performance of Wagner, having dismissed her concerns over a suitable opera dress with the half-abashed confession that, where they were sitting, things would “not be so formal.”  He is interpreting the German libretto in a whisper, and Ryder’s already ethereal face is a portrait of pure enchantment as she gazes down at the spectacle on the stage below, her brown eyes round with delight. It’s a gorgeous scene, charged with the enthusiasm of youth and the incredulity of a realized dream . . . and not only because she ends up getting kissed as the curtain falls. But I love that image of wide-eyed wonder in the face of almost unearthly artistry and skill. It’s exactly how I feel each and every time I’ve witnessed a flash of human genius of any form upon the stage—and opera in particular. I love grand opera. Unlike Jo, I’ve seen many. But I never get over the old rapture I first knew when I saw one of these miracles of orchestra and voice leap into living color before my eyes. When I was in high school, my piano teacher handed me a fat volume of famous arias and I spent hours upon hours with that book over the summer that followed, getting acquainted with the greats: Faust, Carmen, La Bohème, Aïda. My first and best love, however, has remained steadfast to this day: La Traviata. I’m just enough of an incurable romantic to ache for the ill-fated heroine. And, in my starry-eyed opinion, there is nothing in opera to compare to the soaring tenderness of Verdi’s score. Philip and I got to see it live last week—front row of the mezzanine, so far to the left of the theater it almost felt like box seats. We were captivated from the very beginning by the aching sweetness of the overture (one of my favorite moments in classical music) and the breathtaking Belle Époque sets and costumes. But the moment Violetta swept onto the stage in her diaphanous white gown, a glass of champagne in one hand and a coquette’s fan in the other, I knew that we were in the care of a master artist. La Traviata is, in many ways, Violetta’s opera (the title literally means “The Fallen Woman”), and I am always surprised by how much of the action takes place with her singing alone on the stage—or, as in the case of the final act, in the room with her nurse (who manages to sleep through it). Even the famous love duet with Alfredo fails to reach its crescendo of passion until the reprise, when she is tunefully searching her heart in her now-empty salon and he renews his suit from outside, beneath her window. In other words, from backstage, softened by distance and curtains and enormous control on the part of the tenor. I think it’s the most thrilling moment in the whole opera. And it’s all about Violetta. It did not surprise me to learn that Violetta was the soprano’s signature role. She has literally sung it all over the world, sixty times and more, and you could tell by the way she took possession of the character that she knew her girl. Violetta was so magnetically alive—right until the very last moment—that whenever she was on the stage you couldn’t look elsewhere if you’d wanted to. The final act is notoriously heart-rending—and stupendously difficult. It opens with Violetta on her consumptive deathbed in a desolate room, stripped of its former treasures. The orchestra sobs out a poignant memory of her gaieties and flirtations from the first act, a painful contrast with the broken, pale-faced woman on the bed, her erstwhile ringlets strewn over the pillow in dark disarray. The light is dim and grey with the coming of dawn, and into the sudden hush at the overture’s close comes Violetta’s song: high, sweet, ineffably pure. And deathly quiet. I can’t understand how a human being can do that—I mean, she’s lying on her back, for crying out loud! It’s one of the most exquisite instances of mastery you’ll ever see. The opera ends, predictably, in tragedy: after a brief, valiant flare of life and hope at the return of her lover, Violetta dies in his arms. And thus she departs this life, carrying all the sympathies of the audience with her. (I mean, does anyone really care what happens to Alfredo after Violetta is gone? Even romantic little me doesn’t think twice about him. The cad.) It’s a supremely touching scene, however—moments earlier Violetta has gasped out, Gran Dio!…morir sì giovine !— “Great God!…to die so young!” and you feel the calamity of it right along with her. But more moving yet was the scene after the final curtain had fallen. The cast members came out one at a time to receive their well-deserved “bravos” and “encores”—but when Violetta’s soprano took the stage once more, she brought the house down. Evidently, Philip and I were not the only ones who had been staggered by her performance. There she was, barefoot, in a nightgown with her hair tangled over her shoulders, having just accomplished a feat of superhuman virtuosity, and the look on her face (I could see it well) was of the utmost—gratitude. Down she went to the music of our applause, again and again, in curtsies that nearly kissed the floor. Then up once more with her hands over her heart, mouthing the words, “Thank you.” To us, the audience. Thank you for pitying my Violetta, she seemed to say. Thank you for honoring this sublime music with me. There was such a sincerity in her bearing and manner that I actually found I had tears in my eyes. Such astonishing generosity; such sublime humility. Such a crystalline image of the modesty inherent in all true lovers of their craft, from a ballerina defying gravity in a jeté entrelacé to a woman baking bread in her own kitchen. Mastery, in its purest sense, implies servitude: interminable hours of effort and training and devotion. Kahlil Gibran said that our work is our love made visible. I cannot think of a better expression for the self-giving essence of genuine art than the barefoot virtuosity I saw there on the stage before me that night. Contrary to popular belief, the real divas don’t strut around barking orders like Minnie Driver in Phantom of the Opera. They are kissing the floor in their great love and heavenly courtesy.

Patrick lived at the end of the world. A Roman citizen, he was born and raised in Britain, the northern- and westernmost extremity of a Roman empire that extended (overextended, as it turned out) south to Africa and east to the Tigris and Euphrates. I often run across people who are convinced that our culture is running hard toward rack and total ruin, but any sense of cultural doom that keeps you up at night is nothing to what a Roman Briton of Patrick’s era must have felt. The exact date of Patrick’s birth is unknown, but he was probably born within a decade of 410 AD, the year the Vandals sacked Rome. That same year the Emperor Honorius sent a letter to the cities of Britain putting them on notice that they were officially on their own; they could expect no more help from Rome. The letter was only a formality. The Roman army had withdrawn from Britain three years earlier; the Roman Britons were keenly aware of the fact that they were on their own. Patrick’s real name—his Roman name—was Patricius, as in patrician, noble-born. A scion of a wealthy family, he grew up in a Roman villa, surrounded by British barbarians (the island was never very Romanized), who were themselves surrounded by Irish barbarians, Scottish barbarians, and Angles, Saxons, and Jutes on the continent. At the beginning of the fifth century, these barbarian tribes saw significant Roman wealth in Britain and no Roman army to protect it. You can probably guess what happened next. Patrick was a teenager when Irish pirates kidnapped him, brought him back to Ireland, and sold him as a slave. He spent six years tending his owner’s sheep, often in very harsh conditions. Though he grew up in a Christian home (his father was a deacon and his grandfather was a priest in the Roman church), it was in the spiritual isolation of his Irish captivity that Patrick began to own his faith. He wrote, “I used to stay out in the forests and on the mountain and I would wake up before daylight to pray in the snow, in icy coldness, in rain, and I used to feel neither ill nor any slothfulness, because, as I now see, the Spirit was burning in me at that time.” Six years into his slavery, Patrick heard a voice in the night suggesting that it was time to leave Ireland, so, to borrow a phrase from Raising Arizona’s Evelle Snoats, he released himself of his own recognizance. Through much hardship he made his way back to his family in Britain. It was a joyous reunion. But Patrick hadn’t been home long when he had another dream-vision, in which he heard the voice of the Irish people saying, “We beg you, holy youth, that you shall come and shall walk again among us.” You may not be surprised to hear that his family was not happy when he told them that he intended to return to the island where he had been a slave and preach the gospel to the people who had enslaved him. After a few years training as a priest, Patrick got himself appointed to a post in Ireland and spent the rest of his life there. He didn’t actually “bring” Christianity to the island. There was a small Christian population when he got there. Patrick, after all, was one of thousands of Roman Britons who had been carried off to Ireland by pirates and raiders, and many of those people would have been Christians. Those Christians began to have families; no doubt they converted some of their Irish neighbors. On top of that, merchants and sailors coming back and forth from the Continent and Britain may have added to the small population of Christians in Ireland. In any case, by 431 AD, there were enough believers in Ireland that Pope Celestine gave them their own bishop, a man named Palladius. So not only was Patrick not the first Christian in Ireland; he wasn’t even the first bishop. Nevertheless, Patrick was immensely important in the spread of Christianity through Ireland. When his superiors sent him to Ireland, they were sending him to minister to the Christians who were already there, not to convert the barbarians. His insistence on reaching out to the pagans kept him in constant trouble with Church authorities. One Church official in Patrick’s time asked, “What place would God have in a savage world?” Another wrote “How could the Christian virtues survive among barbarians?” By Patrick’s time—a century or so after Emperor Constantine gave official sanction to the Christian religion—a de facto orthodoxy had emerged that conflated Christianity with Roman civilization in much the same way that first-century Jewish Christians assumed that Christian practice would and should be shaped by Jewish cultural mores. By the end of the fourth century, the Church was as big as all the empire—but, it appeared, no bigger. It wasn’t obvious whether, in this close association between Church and state, the Church had conquered the empire, or the empire had conquered the Church. As the Empire began to crumble, the Church took on an even more important cultural role. In Britain, as in many parts of Northern Europe where the civil structures of Roman authority had evaporated, the Roman Church was the only significant Roman institution left. In reaching out to the heathens of Ireland, Patrick was up against not only the hostility of the Irish themselves, but the hostility of his own Church. But the very thing that drove his superiors crazy is what the Irish loved about him. In bringing them the gospel, this Roman Briton left their Irishness intact. He was making Christians, not Romans. In the Western tradition, at least, the Irish were the first people ever to submit to Christianity without first submitting to the Roman Empire. We could hardly overestimate the uniqueness of Patrick’s work among the Irish. As a pioneering missionary, his only real precedent was the apostle Paul. When Patrick took it upon himself to make disciples among the Irish, he became, so far as we know, Western Christendom’s first missionary to the world beyond the bounds of the Roman Empire. Paul’s journeys were an astonishing achievement, but even Paul never ventured beyond the empire of which he was a citizen. For that matter, Paul’s travels rarely took him even a hundred miles away from the Mediterranean Sea, the center of the Roman world. In reconciling Jew and Greek, Paul already had his work cut out for him; the barbarians hardly figured into the equation for him. For Patrick to reach out to the barbarians as he did was almost as radical as Paul’s outreach to the Gentiles. So raise a glass of green beer to St. Patrick, patron saint of the Emerald Isle and, more importantly, a man who loved the gospel enough to rebel against his culture–and in doing so changed the world. P.S. If you need another reason to love St. Patrick, consider this: No Patrick, no Flannery O’Connor.

Jellybean Highfive sent a servant down to the auction hall to do his bidding. Well, Trevor couldn’t be classified as a servant per se. Jellybean thought of him more as a slave. Servants got paid after all and Trevor was not going to get paid. He had handed Trevor one-hundred American dollars in cash money to take down the street to Action Auction Hall and directed Trevor to bet on the portrait of Fredrick the Great Dane when the dog portrait section of Action Auction’s Active Auction Extravaganza was in process. Trevor, never one to want to stand still for more than a few minutes, took the money and ran. He ran like a running runner with cash and running on the soles of his feet like running shoes in the wind. Like a shooting star of golden glittering sun bombs of light. Jellybean wondered if he’d ever see that money again. He hoped not, because he hoped it would be spent on a portrait of a dog named Fredrick the Great Dane, or, if he was unavailable or overpriced, one of Duke Hamlet, the greatest of all the Great Danes ever to live in the great nation of Daneland. Jellybean assumed this land of dogs was fictional, but he wasn’t sure. He thought it might be near Denmark, but his globe sat unused on his desk like a now-used thing which has time-travelled forward from the past. After an hour or five, Jellybean began to worry. He expected Trevor back minutes ago. Something stinked in Denmark, and Jellybean Highfive was persuaded it wasn’t his upper lip. The cream was working. He wanted to cream Trevor, though. What kind of a name was Trevor? It sounded like “Clever,” but that’s where the association stopped. Then Trevor came in and not a moment too soon. He bore a portrait in his arms. He ran like wind, he jogged like lightning, he tripped and sent the portrait spinning through the air like a rocket star in the night of day. It spinned the span of the room’s air, and descended in a mad rush of angry hurry to the floor. The very earth seemed to cry out, “Oh no!” and “Catch it!” with its very soul, or voice. Jellybean dived. He got his hand under the corner, softening the impact with his ligaments and bones. The corner spiked his hand like a tent peg and the upper momentum of the painting of the Greatest of all Great Danes came onto Jellybean’s face like a steam engine out of hell or worse. But he was too fast, he thought to himself. He reached his other, non-tent-pegged hand up to arrest the devastating progress of the spinning portrait of the dog hound. He was unsuccessful. The portrait collided with his hand, his head, his very soul dreams, and went spinning past like a bouncing tire in the road and in this case Jellybean would be like a thing that the tire bounced on and over, unimpeded in any serious way. Jellybean’s hopes crashed like a portrait. But Trevor, who had not been idle, or paid, spranged into action. He had recovered his legs after his initial fall, and had caught up to to the progress of the portrait as it collided and tent-pegged Jellybean Highfive. He ran along-side the portrait as it emotionally and physically devastated Jellybean and plucked it out of the air like a magician plucking a very large painting of a dog out of thin air, or a card. Jellybean turned, anguish written on his face in cursive. He saw salvation and his name was Trevor. “Way to go,” he said. “Way to go, Trevor.” “Thanks,” Trevor said. “Thanks,” he repeated. “I knew you had it all the way,” Jellybean said, smile-grimacing at the pain-joy. “Always bet on Trevor is what I always say when I’m betting on people.” Trevor handed the portrait to Jellybean, who had to set it down because his hand was basically destroyed. He examined the picture. Fredrick the Great Dane stared back at him out of the portrait, over the centuries, over the gap between species, his large dog eyes seemed to awake some kind of hidden something in the wild inside of Jellybean’s mind. “Trevor,” he said. “Do you remember those ‘Be Your Own Dog’ shirts from the late 90s?” “No,” Trevor said. “Me too,” Jellybean laughed. “Me too.”

There’s a place across the sea where some of my favorite stories were born. Aslan, Frodo, Robin Hood, Peter Pan, Hazel and Fiver of Watership Down, King Arthur, young Diamond (who visited the Back of the North Wind), Harry Potter, Sherlock Holmes—they all haunt the cobblestone streets and grassy downs of England, and when I’m there I feel like the kid I was when I first read about them. However you may feel about Peter Pan, it’s hard to deny the magic of seeing Big Ben, that majestic clock tower, rising out of the moonlit clouds as the Darling children glide past. And after two quick trips to London over the years, I can tell you the sight of the real Big Ben still contains some of that magic. But London is only part of the story. A short train ride from away you’ll find the ancient city of Oxford, where C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien and their friends gathered in the original Rabbit Room to share their stories (and a few pints of ale). I would wager that anyone who’s had their heart nourished by some of these tales has wished at least once to visit the ground where they sprang up like Samwise’s vegetables. I jokingly called it my C.S. Lewis Pilgrimage as we saw the Kilns, Tolkien’s house, the Eagle and Child pub, Addison’s Walk, and Lewis’s resting place beside the old stone church he attended. While Jamie and I stood in silence I spotted long-haired cows grazing on the adjacent hill, and the cold spring sun broke through for a few minutes while I thanked God for good stories and their tellers. It’s not that there aren’t places in America that are just as beautiful or spiritually significant; I’ll never forget the first time I drove across Kansas and into Colorado when at last I caught my first glimpse of the Rocky Mountains. I grew up reading about those, too. I’m a proud American, but I’m also a shameless Anglophile. Now that I’m in the process of finishing the Wingfeather Saga I’m thinking more and more about that faraway land and how I long to visit it with my children before they outgrow me. So I’m going back. We’re touring Sweden again (as lovely a country as ever there was), then heading over to the U.K. for several shows—and this time the kids are coming with us. I can hardly wait. When I first visited London and Oxford with Jamie a few years back, I had two regrets. First, I wished I had more time. We were there for three days, I think, and there was no way we could see it all, or have time to process what we were seeing. (Hutchmooters, think about the brain-weariness you feel at the end of the weekend, then add jet lag and culture shock.) Second, I wished someone had been there to lead the trip to Oxford. We popped in and out in an afternoon without much help, and Jamie and I both would have gained much from a curator or docent to help us to know what we should see and why. I’m telling you all that to tell you this. In July, Dan DeWitt (from Boyce College/Southern Seminary in Louisville) is leading a trip to England, sponsored by the seminary, and I’m planning to meet you there. Since the Peterson family will be in the middle of a European tour anyway, Dan and I agreed that an acoustic concert by a self-professed Inklings nerd would be more than appropriate. The trip is more than two weeks long, includes time in both London and Oxford, and will be led by three smart professors dudes (including my friend Dr. Dan DeWitt, an expert on all things Lewis and Tolkien) who will conduct field lectures. It’s not cheap, but an adventure never is (one way or another). I guarantee you that it’ll be worth every penny. As old Bilbo said, “It’s a dangerous thing, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you’ll be swept off to.” Maybe even an AP concert in England? Click here to learn more about the trip. And just for fun, I dug up these photos from an impromptu, last-minute concert at a pub in London back in (I think) 2009. I posted on Facebook that I’d have my guitar at a certain pub at 10:00 one morning, and these fine Londoners showed up. It was just as fun as it looks.

[Howdy, Rabbits. Allow me to introduce you to Loren Eaton, another of Story Warren’s fine contributors. Loren blogs about genre fiction and is an accomplished short story writer. He’s also a dad and “has discovered that love covers a multitude of Richard Scarry.” Enjoy! –S.D. “Sam” Smith] At first blush, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane seems an odd choice of book to encourage holy imagination in a child. Newberry-winning author Kate DiCamillo’s tale of a china rabbit who becomes separated from his owner (one Abilene Tulane of Egypt Street) and undergoes numerous misadventures has a distinctly downbeat tone. The trouble, if we want to call it that, begins with the titular protagonist. Edward Tulane is not a nice china rabbit. Vain, prejudiced, self-absorbed — such adjectives only begin to describe him. He’s not your normal “hero,” that’s for sure. And the book’s speculative premise proves odd, too. In most respects, Edward behaves like any other doll, meaning he doesn’t really behave at all. Yet he possesses a rich thought life, one that turns successively darker as the novel progresses. Make no mistake, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane goes places few children’s books dare. Circumstances constantly conspire to sever Edward from those whose care he comes under. In one instance, Edward even has to listen as a child dies from a terrible consumptive disease. So why would I recommend such a dour title? Because it deals in profound ways with a superlative virtue—love. Only one member of the Tulane family understands Edward’s selfish nature, namely Abilene’s grandmother Pellegrina. She knows how he would rather contemplate his fine silk suits and startlingly blue eyes than give a minute’s thought to the little girl who loves him. So Pellegrina shares a tragic fairy tale about “a princess who loved no one and cared nothing for love,” a princess who dies because of her egotism. This tale mirrors Edward’s trials, only he doesn’t perish. When he falls from the side of a cruise liner Abilene is on and plunges into the ocean, he learns fear, a new emotion for him. When a jealous daughter throws him into the town dump, he feels the first twinge of loss. When a railway guard kicks him away from a hobo, he discovers the heartbreak born of true affection. With every separation, Edward learns more of the value and pain of love, love both velveteen and so sharp it can draw blood. The novel almost seems like a narrative incarnation of those famous lines from T.S. Eliot’s “Little Gidding.” Who then devised the torment? Love. Love is the unfamiliar Name Behind the hands that wove The intolerable shirt of flame Which human power cannot remove.      We only live, only suspire      Consumed by either fire or fire. We know of this love, don’t we? A ferocious, irresistible thing, it spoke the universe into being, hung on a tree for its redemption and broke the power of death after three days in the belly of the earth. It draws the dead unto itself and makes them live again. And much like Edward’s ultimate fate, this love won’t stop pursuing its own until it finds them, no matter how long the years may stretch. (Picture: CC 2009 by allerleirau)

If you were to look at my Neftlix queue, you would probably think, “Wow! That dude must really like documentaries and foreign-language films.” If, on the other hand, you were to look at the history of what I actually watch on Netflix, you would more likely think, “Wow! That dude must really like Nacho Libre and The A-Team.” It’s easy to be high-minded when I’m planning out what movies I’m going to watch someday. It costs me nothing—not even five seconds of my time—to add The Bicycle Thief to the queue. But when I actually sit down to watch a movie—when we’re actually talking about 89 minutes of my life…let’s just say that in the several years that The Bicycle Thief has languished in my queue unwatched, I have watched Raising Arizona several times, even though Raising Arizona has never been in my queue. This phenomenon is not, of course, limited to the Netflix queue, nor is it limited to me. Jill Phillips recently tweetered, “When I am at Whole Foods I only want to eat salads. And then I leave and then I don’t.” Exactly. To my knowledge, this phenomenon doesn’t have a name. But it ought to. So I present the question to you, the readership of the Rabbit Room. What are we to call the principle by which Jill Phillips likes salad as long as she doesn’t actually have to eat it, and I like foreign-language movies as long as I don’t actually have to watch them? Offer your suggestions in the comment section below. If you contribute the best name for the above-described phenomenon, you will win a signed* photograph of Russ Ramsey with very big hair. *I can’t guarantee that the photograph will actually be signed by Russ Ramsey; but if he won’t sign it, I’m sure somebody will.

My daughter Sophia, 6 years old, has become a big fan of the Avengers. Her favorite, she says, is Thor. So after watching The Avengers film together recently, I thought we’d watch Thor together as well. I had not seen it previously. A few minutes in, you get a good look at Asgard. It’s a beautiful, golden city. Sophie was astonished: “What? Come on! Asgard is all gold? I wish our world was like that!” I smiled. I just let it sink in for a bit. I didn’t want to turn it too quickly into a “lesson.” But I didn’t want to miss the opportunity either. Since Sophie was old enough to understand stories, I’ve always told her the story of our world more or less like this: “God made this beautiful world. But there was a dragon who didn’t like what God had done, and he came down here and broke the world. He even lied to us, and we helped him break it. But there is one person who is able to defeat the dragon.” You see where it’s going. While we’ve talked before of how Jesus will make all things new and finally defeat the dragon once and for all in the end, this was my first really great opening to explore that more. I paused the film. We talked about the story she knew of the beautiful world that the dragon broke. But then we talked about the better, golden world that Jesus would bring to us when he makes all things new. “But then the dragon will break that world, I guess,” Sophie said. “No, Sophie,” I replied. “When the world is made new and is more beautiful than Asgard, the dragon will be locked up forever and will never be able to break anything again.” When we turned the movie on that afternoon, I thought, “I could be doing a craft or reading to her or working with her on math or some other more productive project.” And obviously those things are important. But none of those things would have been as eternally important as watching a movie that drew, however faithfully or unfaithfully, from a mythology that asks the same questions humans have always been asking, and that only Jesus can answer. In this case, the story created a longing in my daughter for something that Jesus had promised her, and promised us all. I’m reminded once again of Tolkien’s retort to C.S. Lewis about myths: “They are not lies.” Blessed are the legend-makers with their rhyme of things not found within recorded time.

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 shoulder’s 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. We begin with Pixar and the art of storytelling. This past July, Emma Coats, a storyboard artist at Pixar, compiled a list of narrative wisdom gleaned from her years working in their animation studio. She originally released these insights as tweets, which accounts for the unusual abbreviations and contractions. Lots of wisdom here. She twote: 1: You admire a character for trying more than for their successes. 2: You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be v. different. 3: Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about til you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite. 4: Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___. 5: Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You’ll feel like you’re losing valuable stuff but it sets you free. 6: What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal? 7: Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working up front. 8: Finish your story, let go even if it’s not perfect. In an ideal world you have both, but move on. Do better next time. 9: When you’re stuck, make a list of what WOULDN’T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up. 10: Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in them is a part of you; you’ve got to recognize it before you can use it. 11: Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you’ll never share it with anyone. 12: Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th – get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself. 13: Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it’s poison to the audience. 14: Why must you tell THIS story? What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That’s the heart of it. 15: If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty lends credibility to unbelievable situations. 16: What are the stakes? Give us reason to root for the character. What happens if they don’t succeed? Stack the odds against. 17: No work is ever wasted. If it’s not working, let go and move on – it’ll come back around to be useful later. 18: You have to know yourself: the difference between doing your best & fussing. Story is testing, not refining. 19: Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating. 20: Exercise: take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How d’you rearrange them into what you DO like? 21: You gotta identify with your situation/characters, can’t just write ‘cool’. What would make YOU act that way? 22: What’s the essence of your story? Most economical telling of it? If you know that, you can build out from there. What jumps out at you? Do any of these surprise you? Are there any you disagree with? Are there any you would add? ___________________ Follow Russ on Twitter

There’s this restaurant in East Nashville called Mas Tacos, right down the road from Cason Cooley’s home studio. Ben, Gully, Cason, and I walked there for lunch several times during the Light for the Lost Boy sessions, and I can tell you it’s some of the best Mexican food in Nashville. I can also tell you it annoyed me, for a couple of reasons. First, they don’t take credit cards. These days—when even Waffle House takes credit/debit cards, when most folks I know don’t bother to bring much cash, when even regular dudes like me can take credit cards at my merch table—why in the world wouldn’t Mas Tacos? There are fees associated with it, sure, but isn’t it an inconvenience to the customers? Several times we wanted to eat there but couldn’t because I was footing the bill and didn’t have the cash. Your loss, Mas Tacos. Secondly, their hours are a little weird. Like many of the restaurants in East Nashville, they’re closed on Sunday and Mondays. Due to invisible forces in the universe, this creates a fierce craving for Mas Tacos on Sundays and Mondays. Almost every Sunday after church I find myself thinking, “Oh! We should totally go to Mas Tacos—ugh. Nevermind.” There have also been several times when I wanted to take Jamie out to a simple, small dinner and headed towards Mas Tacos before I remembered that they’re only open for lunch (except on Fridays). Because I’m a spouter, I spouted off about it to Cason. “Why wouldn’t they want to take credit cards and make it easier on me, the Almighty Customer, to pay for my food? If there’s a demand for business, why on earth wouldn’t they add to their hours?” Cason gently pushed back, as is his way, and said, “But the owners are interested in keeping their food local, in having their own lives, in keeping their business simple. What’s so wrong with being small?” Mas Tacos serves excellent food. Maybe part of the way they keep their food great, not to mention part of the way they maintain good customer service, is by virtue of their simplicity. Maybe their commitment to buying local vegetables and meats requires that they resist the American urge to grow, grow, grow, GROW. Maybe the very thing I like about that place would disappear if they gave in to my grumpiness, at which point I would be the first guy to say, “It’s too bad. Mas Tacos used to be great.” I tell you this story in order to apologize to the many of you who didn’t get into Hutchmoot this year. As you may have read, we’ve determined over the last three years that part of what makes the weekend special is its smallness. If we grew too much we would forfeit the peaceful location at Church of the Redeemer in that leafy Nashville neighborhood, not to mention the potential for real, unhurried conversations to take place. “So why not do two?” some of you have asked. Good question. The truth is, Hutchmoot is an exhausting weekend for us. It’s all we can do to plan one a year, and the thought of doing it all twice might make Pete’s beard fall out. Doing a second one in a different city doesn’t work either, because so many of the speakers and artists live (literally) just down the road that it’s the only way we can afford to have the roster we do. All that to say, we’ve thought about this quite a bit and have decided that, as with Mas Tacos, there are more important things than growth, more important things than profit. (Of course, there are Biblical principles such as tithing, sabbath, and jubilee which back up this idea.) I used to be irritated at Mas Tacos, but now I admire them for it. With every delicious bite I reap the benefits of their unconventional values. So as for Hutchmoot, we’re keeping it small. That doesn’t mean we don’t care about the good folks who couldn’t get in. We do, trust me. We’re excited and grateful that Hutchmoot and the Rabbit Room has resonated with so many, and we’re trying to sort out ways to serve everyone. But in the meantime, I want to preserve what makes Hutchmoot special. The Shire wouldn’t be the Shire anymore if they put in a McDonald’s. The last thing I want is for us to change everything to accommodate more people, then to read a comment card that says, “It’s too bad. Hutchmoot used to be great.” Thanks for being patient with us. The Rabbit Room has been such a pleasant surprise at every turn, and we realize that none of this would be happening if not for you, dear readers. Thank you. God bless us, every one. —————————————– In the meantime, there are areas where we hope to grow. We have some fun stuff in the pipeline, which we hope will be a blessing to you and us both. If you wanted to come to Hutchmoot this year but didn’t get a ticket, don’t forget to sign up for the waiting list (by sending an email to orders@rabbitroom.com); every year there were enough cancellations that quite a few on the list made it in.

I peeled the sticker off my lunch pear, then ran it under the faucet, frustrated. It wasn’t a real piece of fruit. It was only a shadow of those knotty old fragrant pears Mom gathers every summer from Mrs. Janson’s hundred-year-old tree. I shook it dry, scratched the skin with my thumbnail, and inhaled. The smell was faintly sweet, but a supermarket pear can’t fill a room with perfume. I could expect a watery crunch, not that honey-dripping mess of food you’ve just pulled out of the sun. Later that night I prepared our beef for dinner. I had to cut away a sheet of plastic wrap before I could even touch it. I never saw the animal of origin. I didn’t know its farmer or its butcher. I didn’t know the state (or even the country) in which that life or its taking took place. Meat nowadays is stripped of all meaning. It has become an ingredient. Anyone who has removed the head from a chicken will understand the difference between taking in a tray of meat and taking away a life. I remember being eight or nine and holding the body of a hen still as I could while Mom swung the axe. It was too much for me. At the last second I looked away and fell on my rear end in the Kentucky dust, overcome by the nerve force of death. The hen’s opened neck flung blood on my shirt, and I was too shocked to catch the body to stop it flopping. The rearing of living food is a close and sober thing. It is one of those intimate jobs that has grown foreign because it’s too close and too sober. Chicken goes down easier when it’s shaped into dinosaurs and dipped in chemical sauces. Satiating our hunger has become numbingly easy. The same has become true of my social hunger. Most of my family members have Facebook pages, and our lives have grown so busy and full that I see only whatever bits they offer online. They post pictures of children who are strangers to me; and when we intersect in person, it is awkward. At our gatherings we muck around smiling for an hour, thinking up questions to ask one another. I always feel like apologizing, “Oh, you. I used to actually know you.” Instead, we slip into the bathroom and click our phones, looking for community at arm’s length. Criticism for all of this is so abundant I hardly need to summarize it. Experts say we need to return to our agrarian roots. Humans were made to live close to the earth and to one another; therefore, we must relearn the raising of bees, the growing of our own vegetables, slow time, local markets, and communities made of people we know who know us. People need real people. Besides, it’s dangerous to pump your private life into the cyber “out there.” To throw sincere ideas out into the e-wild is as carcinogenic as Red 40. After all, people might misinterpret. Openness can isolate. Truth can offend. There are safer ways of doing things. Wendell Berry is my favorite living author, and I have savored nearly every book of his that I have ever read. I grew up in central Kentucky, so I remember the world he describes. He makes me miss it. Yet, a truer truth is that I miss only some things about it. I don’t miss the apathy that ran like an epidemic through our county high school in the 1980’s. I don’t miss pockets of laziness, suspicion, abuse, religious manipulation, sexism, or ignorance. There were beautiful aspects of my world during those years, but at seventeen, these were the flaws that choked me. They made me want to shake the dust of that dirty little town off my feet and see the world. Time has passed, though. My memories have softened. Last week I drove through those same hills again, and I was warmed. I suppose the contrast of modern life has enhanced my nostalgia for old ways. I spend too much time staring into screens and too little engaging reality. I long for porch swings, Rook cards, a grocer I know, and Mason jars sealed up in neat rows in the cellar. I hunger for food that looks and smells like food. I love those things because they were once close. I love them even more because they are now distant. The old world has become a sort of Platonic ideal to me. It is the perfect good that I can never fully regain. I am left with shadows of things. Shadows of relationships. Shadows of dinners. Shadows of community. Sometimes I read Thoreau and vow to rid myself of electronic distractions. Or, I will decide to try my hand at an old craft. A few years ago, determined to return to simplicity, I bought three chickens. Predators broke through the fence and ate two of them overnight. (Predators! Wild beasts still exist?) I chased my surviving hen into a woods full of poison ivy, suddenly realizing my paradise regained had left little room for Calamine lotion. The next year slugs ate holes through all our root vegetables. Deer flattened the corn. A vague memory resurfaced. You had to be careful when you bit into those old pears. They were full of worms. I was so irritated about the chickens, I blogged about them. Perhaps my idealistic, Platonic tendencies are what make Aristotle’s teachings such a breath of fresh air. Truth isn’t just out there, it’s also here in the present thing. We must look down around our own feet sometimes, so that we might attend to what is close. What then is close? Here is where you will begin to disagree with me, I think. What if the close transcends the garden soil I tend so carefully? What if it transcends handmade meals and board games? What if it transcends every good, old primitive thing? What if—along with these good, old things—my close also includes a group of six-hundred-something cyber relationships? What if there is good to be done among these souls collected from around the world; souls full of needs, hurts, loneliness, and dreams, drawn like moths to a glowing screen? What if, instead of fighting the new world we have been given, we realize that these particular social intersections have been entrusted to no one in history except us? Society has changed, and still, we have been given to one another. Why? Are our imaginations big enough to step away from nostalgia and guilt to see that there could be a higher purpose, even in something so plebian as Facebook? I am as ashamed to call Facebook my community as I am to call a dinosaur nugget chicken. Such a thing is not in vogue. Besides, there are days when taking social media seriously exhausts me. People hurt me. I hurt people. There are gaps in communication, political volatility, pet peeves, and strangers who slip in side doors. There are weeks when I grow weary, shut the whole thing down, and hide. But after a few days of quiet, it seems like I always come back to one question: What sort of good might there be in daring to walk among those who walk with me, giving them everything I have? What if I freely give them my best art? What if I freely give them my best honesty? What if I spend time pouring my imperfect love through these channels that exist, leaning on God to speak this new language through me? Am I willing to paint my masterpieces (or as close as I ever come to such a thing) on cyber-alley walls? Secretly, many young writers believe that success occurs when a respectable publisher wants their material. (If yours is a different art form, please translate. A show in a gallery. A role in a ballet.) That “published” label somehow nails down our worth into something legitimate. This is why it seems to be a running joke among better writers that blogs are full of low-quality work. I’ve heard industry professionals snicker through nasal whines that anyone nowadays can be published with a push of the button: the kvetchers, the try-hards, the regular Joes, the fakers. I get that. I’ve read crappy blogs, too. Yet I have also seen common writers who are humble enough to give away the work of their hands in faith. God uses these people and their simple words written imperfectly. Their creations tend to enter my mind at silent, crucial, ordained moments. After all, Jesus has never been the sort to scoff at two mites. My point is that there is a tremendous opportunity at hand, and I wonder sometimes if elitism and nostalgia might be causing us to miss it. Facebook. Twitter. Instagram. These are the art forms of the common man. They are untidy, coarse, dangerous, and unstructured. Yet, just sit and listen a moment. Don’t you hear in all of this flutter the poetry of the daily flux of humanity? If you do, imagine this with me. What if some element of the incarnation involves coming down into our own skin and living amid the crass humor, the sadness, the grand ideas, the struggles, the waste, the normalcy, the formlessness, and the void of the grind? Do we have faith enough (humility enough) to kneel down to the earth, into this opportunity that is waiting for us, and make something meaningful of it? Are we willing to be so imperfect? So honest? So present? So woundable? The idea of this has been turning round in my heart for years. I felt it on that first day Facebook became a reality to me. I sat in shock, clicking from page to page, thinking, “This changes everything. We can touch the world now. All of us can.” I long for the old world like a pear that would run juice down my chin. Yet you, staring right now into your little lit screens full of unspoken groanings, I think you are my greater longing still. Sometimes I can barely sleep for thinking about what we could become.

This past summer, I had myself an adventure. It’s the first part of a two-parter, mostly because when you’re a grownup, you can get started on an adventure but not have time to finish it. There’s an 80-foot waterfall in my hometown. It’s on private land, but the owners have never cared much about people hiking up to it. I hadn’t been there in about 10 years, and I decided it was time for a hike. My usual walk involves a well-worn path through woods up to a set of railroad tracks. From there, it’s a steep scramble down to the top of the falls. I learned recently, however, that you can get to the bottom of the falls by walking the creek. So I decided to start there. After a rather slidey climb downward, I ran into three boys, probably 12, 10, and 8, off on their own adventure. They were headed toward the falls as I was headed away. I took the creek back and then made the usual trek through the woods to the top of the falls. But as I got to the top of the falls, I heard shouting and laughing. And there were those same three boys, completing the climb that I had abandoned. Feeling a little embarrassed but also excited at these brave boys, we talked for a while, and then they informed me that they were going through the railroad tunnel and up the creek. I’d never gone through the railroad tunnel. But these boys weren’t going to out-brave me a second time. So after my usual time admiring the top of the falls, through the tunnel I went. I found them playing at a smaller waterfall higher up the valley. I stayed there as long as I could with them, but my time was running short. The boys said they were moving on. “There’s another waterfall, and then another tunnel ahead! But we don’t go through that tunnel. It’s creepy.” Not the “creepy” tunnel. I looked at the time. I was out of it. I had to turn around. But something very important happened in the moment that I turned around and I can only attribute it to the grace of God. My usual inclination at this point would be to feel sorry for myself, sorry that my life has become so full of obligations that I’m no longer free to keep walking up the creek. I would feel sad that my adventures are on a clock, that because people expect things from me and need things from me, I can’t just wander wherever I please. But my kids’s faces floated into my head again. So did my wife’s. And this thought went through my mind: Being a husband and a dad is a better adventure than this. And so I went home, not depressed that I’d missed out on an adventure, but happy to have had this little journey and excited to return to my life’s real adventure. It wouldn’t be completely honest to end this story there. Those boys still have one up on me. They made that climb, and I didn’t. But they wouldn’t go through the creepy tunnel. When the snow melts, you can be sure I’ll take this trip again. And I’m going into the creepy tunnel. And when I come out, I will write Part 2.

For most of the last decade, Josh Garrels has created his intriguing blend of folk and hip-hop in strict isolation — whether holed up at John Dillinger’s former home in central Indiana or sequestered away in a bedroom of his own. The results speak for themselves: a beautiful discography that has cemented Garrels as a truly independent artist. On his most recent full-length album, Love & War & the Sea In Between, Garrels opened up the creative process to include some friends in a collective known as Mason Jar Music. A group of NYU and Julliard alumni, Mason Jar Music previously backed Garrels on a takeaway show featuring his song “Words Remain.” It was the beginning of a relationship that continued with Mason Jar’s production of a few of the tracks on Love & War and eventually blossomed to include tour dates and a brand new documentary, The Sea In Between. Garrels and Mason Jar Music are touring throughout the year, debuting The Sea In Between in select cities. The collective came to Nashville this past Sunday night for the last of a string of dates in the Southwest. A few of us from the Rabbit Room were able to check out the show and it was a sight to behold. Not only was the documentary itself compelling, but Garrels’s music took on new life when surrounded by such talented players and thoughtful orchestration. Yet something else stood out to me that night and remains with me still: the courage that art requires. Josh and his wife Michelle initially released the 18-song Love & War album for free for a full year, a leap of faith response to a spiritual call that both of them felt to give their art away. The end result? Over 125,000 downloads, an “album of the year” declaration from Christianity Today and a greater platform than ever before. While greater sales or reach are not the guaranteed outcomes of such a step of faith, it was encouraging to chat with Josh before the show on Sunday about the results. We remembered specific conversations from the past where he described the tension of stepping out into the unknown, choosing to follow the internal push to give away these songs. If anything, it was a reminder that we reap what we sow, that moving beyond the fear of failure or the tendency to measure risk will often bear unanticipated fruit. And after being reminded of that before the show, the spectacle of the movie and concert offered further support of that idea. If you missed out on the first run of The Sea In Between, Josh said a second edition is forthcoming later this year. And if you have the chance to catch the show with Mason Jar Music, you should definitely make every effort to do so. #JoshGarrels #TheSeaInBetween

“Read the confessions, the memoirs, the court room transcripts. There is always a line the scoundrel steps across and becomes a wanted thing.” — Leif Enger, So Brave, Young and Handsome Last month, through the wonders of social media, I learned the sad news that my middle school vice principal had died—Steven Van Horn, or Mr. Van Horn to you and me. It had been well over half my life since I last thought of him, but seeing his picture there beside his obituary brought back a crystal clear memory of what had to be one of the more formative moments of my young life. It was the day that man paddled me. It happened when I was in 7th grade, during Mr. Fratus’s math class. Mr. Fratus had left the room for some reason, and while he was gone well over half of the kids used that as an opportunity to get out of their seats and move around his classroom with a kind of cavalier leisure that Mr. Fratus’s generation regarded as a corporal offense. Schools were meant to be places of order and respect for authority. When the lookout (a necessary thread in the fabric of youthful scheming) warned, “He’s coming!” everyone rushed back to their seats and did their best to act causal. When Mr. Fratus walked back into the room, he regarded us for a moment and said, “Everyone who was up out of their seats while I was gone, out in the hall.” So far, I had not stepped across any line to become “a wanted thing.” I belonged to the few who had not gotten out of our seats. (I tend to choose the side of compliance more than rebellion. But don’t mistake that fact for anything too gallant. I assure you my reasons for cooperation are often more self-serving than noble.) Mr. Fratus’s invitation to go out into the hall—that was when I stepped across the line. See, in my middle school, getting sent out to the hall usually meant you just had to sit out there for the rest of class. And while I didn’t get into a lot of trouble, on those occasions when I was sent out into the hall, I really enjoyed the time. So when Mr. Fratus stood beside the open door, I took his attempt at discipline as an opportunity to take a pass on my least favorite subject—math. I rose from my seat and went out into the hall. Only one other kid joined me. There we were, two young rule-breakers scoffing at the law—the other boy for the transgression Mr. Fratus had named and me for one he hadn’t, both of us certain we were getting away with something. We hung our heads as we left the room because that was part of the code—don’t let the teachers know hallway time is fun. But as soon as he closed the door behind us, we both grinned, knowing most of the kids on the other side of that door were jealous of our quick thinking. But not less than a minute later, Mr. Fratus stepped back out into the hallway, looked at the two of us and said, “I’ve had enough of this. I’m going to let the vice principal deal with you.” And off we went. We bypassed the receptionist and were led straight into Mr. Van Horn’s office where we sat like a couple of disorderlies waiting to be booked while he and Mr. Fratus conferred. Mr. Fratus left and Mr. Van Horn came in, sat behind his desk, and explained to us that our disrespect had earned us each a paddling. His paddle, which hung on the wall beside his desk, was a long board cut from a sturdy piece of hardwood, with large holes drilled in at a slight angle for—legend had it—enhanced aerodynamics. The other kid went first, which gave me time to think about the jackpot I’d gotten myself into. What could I say? “No Mr. Van Horn. See, I actually didn’t get up out of my seat. Ask anyone. I’m innocent!” Then why was I in the hallway? “Well, see, I like the hallway. I thought it would get me out of class.” My alibi was even worse than my alleged offense. I was as guilty as any kid who had ever sat in that office, except my crime felt almost white-collar, the sort of thing you use words like “fraudulent” or “crooked” to describe. That’s when I reckoned that whatever was about to go down in that room, it was between me and my Maker before it was between me and anyone else. Before his paddle hit my backside I was in tears, because that’s what I do. I cry. Yes, I cried because I was afraid it would hurt. But looking back, mostly I cried because I was self-righteous. Up until that moment, there were two types of kids in my world—those who knew the sting of Mr. Van Horn’s paddle, and those who didn’t. More simply—there were good kids and bad kids. I was a good kid, and proud of it. God used Mr. Van Horn to break it to me that just because someone doesn’t see the true nature of my transgression, that doesn’t make me innocent. The Apostle Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 4:3-4, “What you think about me doesn’t matter. And what I think about me doesn’t matter either. Only what God thinks about me matters.” And He thinks I need both discipline and grace. Neither come cheap. And both come from His hand. It’s funny how after all these years, seeing Mr. Van Horn’s name in print brought me back to that day. I commented on the Facebook page where I saw his obituary that he was the only person ever to paddle me, and that he was right to do it. As I scanned the other comments, can you guess what theme emerged? Other adults remembering when he paddled them, and how thankful they were for his discipline, and how they seemed to regard it now as a kind of grace. I didn’t know Mr. Van Horn as a man. I didn’t know anything about his family, or his faith, or his hobbies, or any of that. All I knew was that he was a man charged with the responsibility of disciplining young hearts to respect authority and care about learning. Sometimes that led kids to fear him, and other times to dislike him. But at the end of his life, there we all were: grown-up kids respectfully laying comments like flowers upon the memory of his impact on our lives, with little but reverence for the aerodynamic sting of that paddle. It couldn’t have been easy for Mr. Van Horn to be the school disciplinarian. He had to take a lot of scorn from us kids, and no doubt from angry parents too, due to the role he filled in an era where kids got paddled at school. He didn’t do it often, and wasn’t known for taking any pleasure from it. I imagine every time he used that paddle it stung him a bit too, so there had to have been something in him that understood he was not fighting with us, but for us. So rest in peace, Mr. Van Horn. Thanks for the paddling. It never felt like punishment; only discipline, and now all these years later, grace. You have my deepest respect. _____________________________ [Author’s note: I realize that some of what I discuss in this post (paddling at school) is a sensitive subject—no pun intended there—and as such, the practice has been largely done away with in the US. It is not my intent to be making a comment one way or another about that issue in this post, so please let me off the hook from discussing what I think about the morality of paddling. And I humbly ask that you not use this forum to debate that issue either. There are plenty of places online where you can weight in on that if you want! 🙂 The goal of this post is to honor a man who showed me both discipline and grace in the years I knew him. It just so happened that we knew each other in the context of a time and place where corporal discipline was an accepted practice. This is a true story about being guilty of more than anyone knows, and of how necessary both discipline and grace are for a sinner like me. And it’s a story I’m thankful for.] ___________________ Follow Russ on Twitter

[Greetings, rabbitfellows. This is S.D. (Sam) Smith, passing along another post from your friends at Story Warren. Over at Story Warren, we’re all about being an ally to parents (and others) who want to help foster holy imagination in children. That often means trying to help parents see what they are doing, or want to do, in imaginative ways. James Witmer is gifted at leading us to a place, perhaps just a little ways off the path we’re on, where our vision clears and we see. –Sam] My wife loves plants. I love beautiful places that encourage a restful heart. The result is that I have learned to love gardening and the general niftyness of the plant world. Caring for plants can also open our eyes to larger truths. For example: After thinking over the relationships I’ve been blessed with, I’ve concluded that people are what gardeners call “part-shade/part-sun” plants. As you may know, a full-sun plant does best when stuck out to fend for itself, soaking up the sun with no shade, protective or otherwise. (Think daisies in a field.) A full-shade plant cannot ever be challenged by direct sunlight, or it withers. It needs a constant covering, and lots of water. (If you’re familiar with hostas, you know what this looks like.) Part-shade/part-sun plants need protection from the sun’s most brutal rays. But they also need something to reach for – they need sunlight overhead to become strong and healthy. They do best growing in dappled shade, near, but not beneath, older and larger plants. We, like they, need the help of more mature friends – people who have survived our current stage of life. But we don’t thrive if our every move is coached, corrected and kept “safe.” We grow strongest when we’re given a goal to shoot for, protection from our worst errors, and allowed to work the rest out for ourselves. This can be especially challenging for parents. Scripture and instinct should keep us from abandoning our young sprouts to the withering sun. But do we bury them in shade, producing wispy, wind-blown tendrils instead of sturdy little shoots? Maybe nurturing our children means talking through issues of culture and Christian morality instead of hiding from them. It might even mean saying “yes” one week and “no” the next, depending on whether their souls are growing bleached (too much sun) or spindly (not enough). It certainly means remembering that they are living, growing things like plants, not lumber to be assembled. People are partial-shade plants. So let’s love like birch trees. [This posted originally appeared in the Story Warren.]

[Editor’s note: Please welcome Blackbird Theater’s managing director, Greg Greene, to the Rabbit Room. Many of you may have met him at Hutchmoot 2012 where he led a session called “The Theology of Theater.” Greg has become a good friend over the last couple of years and I’m always impressed with his level of theological insight into the plays that Blackbird Theater produces. Here he is with a bit of insight into his production of Amadeus. Specially-priced tickets to the show are still available through the Rabbit Room store. We hope to see you there.] I’m sitting in the room with a dozen skilled and honest actors in a first rehearsal known as “table talk.” We discuss the play, its characters and meanings, read through a handful of scenes, and hear the director’s vision for the show we will create. The play is Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus. You likely know the film—also scripted by Shaffer—and its anti-hero Antonio Salieri, the respected court composer of eighteenth century Vienna. Salieri is, by his own account, a righteous man: chaste, hard-working, striving to better the lot of his fellows. Above all, he wants to be a conduit of God through the pure, unparalleled transport of music. But that’s not all—he wants to be famous. “Not to deceive you,” he tells the audience, “I wanted to blaze, like a comet, across the firmament of Europe.” Life for Salieri is rich with promise until Mozart arrives at Vienna’s royal court. Though certainly the more privileged and positioned of the two, when Salieri browses one of the younger composer’s scores, he realizes that he will ever be consigned to the shadow of Mozart, the purer and singularly transporting conduit of the divine. In Salieri’s envious eyes, Mozart is the elect—the chosen voice of God. One of my actresses—a vivacious, intuitive Texan—says that her designer/musician husband is in constant turmoil over the disparity between his God-given artistic calling and his sense of achievement. Whatever measure of artistic success he’s expected by now, he is far from it. She asks him: And if you could achieve everything you dream of, would it be enough? He knows it wouldn’t be, and he doesn’t know what would. In a room full of actors, everyone knows the feeling. Amadeus is one of the great scripts of the twentieth century—a bold, unflinching look at religious motivation, human frailty, and unbridled genius. And while its cinematic offspring leans more toward a fictionalized Mozart biopic, the play is more starkly narrated by his rival. At the heart of Amadeus are Salieri’s confession of Mozart’s murder and, more shockingly, his earnest complaint against what he sees as a capricious God. Salieri has always considered his wealth, status, and considerable artistic success to be signs of God’s favor. He is, indeed, a blessed man. “I own a respectable house, and a respectable wife,” he says, referring to the docile Teresa (tellingly, a role with little presence and no lines in his self-obsessed narrative). Mozart, the one-time child prodigy, is still a genius and, for the most part, still a child, not to mention vulgar and self-destructive. Constanze, his wife and chief advocate, is little more than a child herself. As Mozart lives and composes with joyous abandon, he needs someone in Vienna’s court to shield him from the consequences of his own immaturity. Salieri is uniquely positioned to recognize Mozart’s genius, to come alongside as counselor and ambassador, and help him build a body of work that would elevate the soul of the human race. Salieri instead makes a chilling choice: if he cannot be the divine voice—if God chooses that “obscene child” over the steadfast Salieri—then he will defy God’s will by destroying Mozart. Who among us in the creative fields has not shared Salieri’s struggle, in essence if not in his extreme of satanic pride and dilapidating envy? My friend “Dee,” a godly and mission-minded actress, confesses her frustration after years of dedication to stagecraft while living off high-flex/low-pay jobs, and for . . . what? Her years of scrutinizing the signs for a heavenly confirmation that she is following God’s plan for her life yield little of the proof we are trained to look for. And what is that proof? Surely fame is the first and most naturally assumed measure of success. In my teens, I wanted fame as a writer. In my twenties, I tempered my fleshly nature by saying I didn’t want fame, only influence. By my thirties, the measure evolved (or devolved) into mere livelihood. Now in my early forties, I’m coming to terms with the real problem: it’s not the modesty of the measure, it’s the focus. My fame, my influence, my livelihood. Artists, I think, are inclined to desire glory, and to the Christian artist, the glory belongs to, is sourced from, God. But would I be content to sit at the feet of Mozart and drink in the glory of God flowing from his piano? I confess the gnawing of discontent. Would I be satisfied to participate in the creation of glory, to be the one person uniquely positioned to recognize and foster Mozart’s brilliant compositions? In my fleshly nature, I confess that’s just not enough. I want to be the source of the glory. And here I share Salieri’s flaw: satanic pride, dilapidating envy. As an artist—as a Christian artist—I have much to re-learn. In a room full of creatives, I’m guessing we all know the feeling. [Join us at the March 9th performance of the show. Tickets available here. There will be a special question and answer session with the cast and crew after the show.]

Andy Gullahorn is hard at work in the studio putting the finishing touches on his new record. Wondering what the album is going to be like? So are we. But we have no doubt that it’s going to be awesome. We hope to have a sneak peak soon. In the meantime, here’s an old favorite. “If I Were” by Andy Gullahorn If I were the devil I wouldn’t wear red I wouldn’t have horns or a pitchfork I wouldn’t breathe fire cause it might give me away But if I were the devil you’d never know I’d befriend you quick and corrupt you slow So you don’t notice until its far too late If I were the devil If I were the devil If I were the devil I’d spend all day Lowering standards of what’s okay To think to say to watch on your tv I’d break down the value of promises kept And fade out truth till there’s nothing left Except gossip and lies popping up as thick as weeds If I were the devil If I were the devil. I might not be as foreign as you think ‘Cause I wouldn’t always show my evil side I’ve got the time and patience just to wait And steal your soul just one sin at a time Like I would If I were. . . No I’m not the devil but if I was I’d take God’s people and split them up To keep their minds off who they’re called to be So they’re no longer fighting over living or dead It’s “Is it the body or just bread?” While all the unfed die hungry on the street If I were the devil If I were the devil I’d make moms and dads who never stick around Pain so bad you have to drink to drown And guilt so I can kick you when you’re down And I would If I were. . . If I were the devil I wouldn’t wear red I wouldn’t breathe fire cause it might give me away

“Don’t be a writer if you can get out of it! It’s a solitary job, sometimes a rather lonely one (who’s listening? you say), and it requires relentless self-discipline. The world is not waiting with baited breath for what you turn out. A writer has to be some kind of nut to stick with it. But if, like the psalmist, you say, “My heart was hot within me, while I was musing the fire burned,” then perhaps you will have to write.” —Elisabeth Elliot My writing partner, Laura, and I are up to our necks in another of our famously insane writing challenges. We’ve committed to tossing off eight chapters in our respective books by the end of February—and our husbands have gallantly committed to throwing a little two-person awards banquet at our favorite restaurant after we cross the finish line. Usually at this point in one of our writing sprees I’m starting to daydream about which dress I’m going to wear on the illustrious night, but this time I’m wondering if I’ll even make it to the dinner. Truthfully, this latest challenge couldn’t have come at a worse time for me. Life has been rushing in with such intensity of late that I feel like a very small boater on a very small craft gazing up at a bulging dam that’s about to give way. When I finally sit down to write, I’m so tired and scatter-brained that it has required copious amounts of caffeine just to get the grey cells firing, much less to help me remember where I left my subconscious mind. One day last week I woke rather dazedly from what Laura would call “the world’s most inappropriate nap”: head on my desk, tea grown cold at my left hand. And it’s not because I was bored with the story (at that point). One of my characters had just escaped being attacked by an alligator, for heavens’ sake.* It was because I was exhausted, body and soul. On paper, it looked like a great time for a writing challenge. In practice, it has been very, very hard. I keep sending Laura endearing little notes saying things like, “Life is crazy these days. Thanks to you.” And I really mean that with all my heart—thanks to her, I am writing again, for better or for worse. Writing like my life—my real life—depends on it. Because the only thing ornerier than an exhausted writer is a writer who is not writing. It’s such a proverbial problem I’m actually a little surprised that Solomon didn’t mention something about it: “A writer that’s not writing is like a broken toe or a garden hose with a kink in it,” that kind of thing. It’s agonizingly annoying, reminding you of its noxious reality with every step. And if that hose has been strained long enough, it’s going to start springing leaks, trickling its gift into impervious driveways and patios, missing the garden altogether. I hesitate to carry the metaphor further because, obviously, I’m not Solomon, and I fear this one is getting away from me. But you catch my drift. On the other hand, the times when I am doing my thing, guarding moments in which to put words down faithfully—whether they are any good or not—are the times in which I feel I am living my life, rather than being swept helplessly along in the current of time. There is a keenness to my days that intimates of eternity, an awareness of the world’s sorrow and loveliness that nearly breaks my heart. I don’t live in my thoughts so much as my imagination: the What If? factor is strong, kindling a madcap curiosity and near-delirious joy in the very ordinary world around me. When I am writing, my life is charged with light and color and music. And I don’t mean when I’m writing well—that doesn’t happen very often, if ever, really—I mean when my body is planted in my chair and my fingers are moving over the keys; when I am daydreaming over a blinking cursor, or, for a change, doodling a fountain pen over a creamy possibility of Moleskine goodness; when I am dancing in rhythm with my own unique drumbeat and actually cooperating with the routine I’ve fashioned to make this thing work. But it is so hard. As much as I want to do this, I am always taken aback by how devastatingly easy it is to not do it. I am constantly evaluating my priorities, praying over my to-do list and seeking wisdom. Some days, however, I feel like I am pitted against an adversary that is stronger than me when it comes to just getting to my desk. And when I do manage to fight my way there, I have an even greater foe to contend with: the fear that I have nothing to say; the cold, slinking snake of thought that I have won the battle but lost the war. My head swirls with lists of people I need to call, emails I have got to send, things I simply must not forget to do—and a crushing sense of failure that I’ve merely forwarded all this from the day before. It can be as daunting, figuratively speaking, as the very gates of Mordor. As a woman, I struggle daily to care for everyone and everything that needs me without sacrificing my creative life. (I realize that men struggle too, in different ways, but I obviously have a limited viewpoint on the matter.) And when things get too out of hand, my writing is the first thing to go. Sometimes it needs to go, of course; there are emergencies. But not always. That would be wrong, because, for me, the call to love as I have been loved means, among other things, sitting all by myself in a room staring at an often-blank computer screen. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I used to imagine that any resistance along the path of my aspirations meant I’d inadvertently rammed my head against the will of God; I imagined that interruption and discouragement were His way of telling me I ought to be doing something—anything—other than what my heart most longed to do. (Deplorable theology, I know.) I remember one afternoon a few years ago I took a break from my writing to come downstairs and make some tea (caffeine, remember). Casually glancing out the window over the sink, I noticed a sinister haze of smoke tumbling over the kitchen yard and realized to my slow-growing horror that the west pasture was on fire. “Well, God,” I wanted to say, “you didn’t have to go to all that trouble to get me away from my desk!” Mercifully, I don’t see it that way any more: these days, resistance looks more like Apollyon standing arrogantly astride Christian’s path; like the combined forces of the world, the flesh and the devil, pitted against my efforts to follow a call I’ve heard, a summons as wild and strange and full of longing as the cry of wild geese over a winter landscape. Resistance means there is probably something on the other side worth fighting for. Making art is waging war on all the inner demons and the outer distractions that would keep us silent and compliant in this world. But knowing all that doesn’t make the actual war any easier. One thing that sure helps, though, is the knowledge that we’re not alone. A good flesh and blood comrade is worth more than all the writing books and conferences in the world. Laura really is my lifeline in this exhilarating, often lonely journey of a writing life and I seriously do not know what I would do without her. (Probably not write books, for one.) She and I consistently get dressed up and meet for “writer’s lunches,” complete with trim notebooks and usually a chapter or two to exchange in pretty, flowered file folders. We also bring along our complaints: our gripes with how dratted hard this is; our tooth-and-nail struggles to hear our own voices amid the clamor of life; our failures. One day at the end of last summer we gave over a goodly portion of our Pad Thai to this airing of grievances, until finally, worn-out with ourselves, we stopped and stared at each other across the table. Allright, that gaze seemed to say. Enough. Just what under heaven we are going to do? Laura proposed an excruciatingly honest evaluation of how we spent our time—not just days, but moments. “Call me in a week,” she said, “and tell me what you’re going to give up. And I don’t mean something easy—I mean something that hurts.” In Gift from the Sea, Anne Morrow Lindbergh talks about how women really resent spilling themselves in little trickles that don’t seem to do anyone much good. They long to pour themselves out by the pitcher-full, she writes, to give in a way that is both sacrificial and effective. I am just beginning to understand that sacrificial living means, of all things, sacrifice. It means giving things up—not things I don’t want anyway, but things I want, just not as bad as I want other things. And this is the very point upon which my attempts at a disciplined writing life intersect with my yearnings for a holy life—a life which sings to God, “I love You!”—namely, the more intimate I am with my own struggles and failures and calling as a writer, the more inseparable the act of writing becomes from devotion itself. It’s not just one more thing I want to do; it is my spiritual act of worship. My obedience. Laura understands this, and it’s like a warm, friendly hand in the dark when I’ve been groping my way through a lightless cave of writerly panic. Even sweeter is the knowledge that she understands, without my clumsy efforts at articulation, just how good is the joy of it all. Even when we’re drowning under our own, self-made deadlines. Or, perhaps, especially so. Next time you see Laura, give her a hug (and maybe a bottle of champagne). She’s literally saving my life, one writing challenge at a time. ~ Any of you ladies out there want to weigh in on weapons and means you have found to fight this war of resistance? Of course, the menfolk are welcome to chime in, as well, though the challenges presented often look a lot different on the surface of things. And I have a suspicion, though by no means a scientific one, that women face some really unique challenges in this area. I’d love to hear what you’ve learned from your time in the trenches. (If you are struggling with resistance, I urge you to read The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. Dreadful language; superlatively awesome book.) *No promises that such a harrowing episode will make it into the final book—this is, after all, a draft. I’ll have to make sure that Jonathan Rogers doesn’t have a monopoly on the use of alligators in Southern fiction.

Check out this great anecdote from Frederick Buechner (author of the Pulitzer prize-nominated novel Godric and about about twenty more of our favorite books) on his conversion experience.

In January, I wrote a piece about the benefits of following an artist over the course of his or her creative life. Charlie Peacock was my personal Exhibit A. Here is a piece Charlie wrote back in 2010 that dovetails well. It’s about the joy of following a piece of gear– namely, one particular Fender Rhodes– over the trajectory of its creative life. (As a bonus, Charlie also gives us a not-too-shabby mini-history of his early career, and also of the electric piano’s impact on music, offered in the form of hyperlinks.) Enjoy. — Russ Ramsey This past April [2010] I was in Los Angeles meeting with film producer Brian Wells and music producer/Idol icon Randy Jackson about production work on their soundtracks. Later that evening I met up with Svend Lerche and Ran and Ricky Jackson of The Daylights for Indian and good conversation. I’m working with the band as part of Twenty Ten Music‘s Film/TV partnership with Secret Road. Our most recent placement is the song “Oh Oh” in Rabbit Hole starring Nicole Kidman, Aaron Eckhart, and Sandra Oh. After dinner we headed to the band’s house in Studio City to listen to new songs. Like every band house I’ve ever been to this one was stuffed with gear, including three upright pianos. I made an obvious alliteration about a plethora of pianos. They gave me the Craigslist story on the instruments. Then one of the fellas, pointing to a little dining alcove said, “We’ve got an old electric piano over there.” Vintage electric pianos always get my attention. I turned and moved toward it. Not ten feet from the piano I spoke clearly and without hesitation, “That’s my piano.” And it was. I knew it was. At the speed of blink I proved Malcolm Gladwell‘s thesis. Of course I had to prove it to the guys, which was not that difficult. It was the right era, a Fender Rhodes Mark I Stage (1969-75), specifically 1972 vintage — manufactured by CBS (who purchased Fender). I bought it used in 1976 and customized it by installing a MXR Phase 90 into the metal front panel between the volume and bass EQ knobs and the center logo. The Phase 90 was still embedded in it. I sold the piano in 1978 in northern California — probably to make rent. I couldn’t believe I was seeing it again after 32 years. I think I was in shock. Lots of celebration, high-fives, and “No way dude!” ensued. The band offered me the piano. Maybe someday. I was content with the unexpected reunion. Later that night, driving to LAX airport, I reflected on the odds of me working with a band in Los Angeles that would somehow be in possession of my first Fender Rhodes piano from 32 years ago. Stunning. I got a little emotional — shed some tears. Strangely, I felt the love of God, as if no detail in the universe was overlooked, no stray molecule, no Fender Rhodes unaccounted for. The Rhodes electric piano is a classic American invention with its genesis in the armed forces. There is no other instrument over the last 30 plus years that I’ve played on more recordings. It continues to be a timeless, inspiring tool in my production toolbox. There are lots of memories in that first Fender Rhodes piano. I played my first recording sessions with it, as well as many gigs with lifelong friends like Aaron Smith, Gerry Pineda, Henry Robinett, Bongo Bob Smith, Alphonza Kee, Larry Casserly, and Lorraine Gervais. Harold Rhodes‘ son David used to maintenance this piano for me. In addition to the MXR Phase 90 phase-shifter I used a Cry-Baby Wah pedal.  In the studio I had access to a Mu-Tron Bi-Phase, which sounded wonderful. For a time, in a group with Al Kee, I played a Navy issue Deagan rosewood xylophone alongside the Fender Rhodes– stepping away from the piano to solo on the xylophone — which I referred to as a marimba. I can’t imagine my mallet performance being very impressive. Plink, plink, plink. The Fender Rhodes I rediscovered at The Daylight’s house had been quite the tourist. Ace keyboardist Korel Tunador (Goo Goo Dolls and Katy Perry) was given the piano in Pittsburgh by his uncle Barry Gilmartin who picked it up in Eugene, Oregon in 1979. Korel took the piano to Boston and Berklee and eventually out to Los Angeles where he just recently had given it to The Daylights. I have no connection to the GGD but Katy did come to my house a few years ago for career counsel (assign me no credit for her success – this was a different matter altogether). In 1978 I bought a new Rhodes Mark I Suitcase (1975-79). This instrument had it’s own stereo amplification, bass and treble EQ, and the famous Rhodes stereo vibrato (which is really a tremolo). Though still owned by CBS, the name Rhodes was solo on the nameplate again, sans the Fender logo. I really wanted this particular version because a piano player I admired, Jimmy Cox from Oroville, California played one. The stereo tremolo moved left and right between speakers directly under the keyboard.  This was the sound we were all going for. Jim Cox played at our wedding reception in 1975. Later he was a member of Dire Straits and has become one of the most recorded keyboardists in pop music and film scoring history. He’s quietly everywhere. Which is no surprise. I would put him in the category of extraordinary musical gifting. At this time I started using the Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man and EH Electric Mistress. The first is a echo/chorus/vibrato pedal; the second is a flanger. The Cry-Baby stayed in the loop for any funk-oriented playing. Ultimately I gravitated to the Memory Man exclusively for it’s versatility and attitude. The Mark I Suitcase model is the instrument I owned when I first started playing my original music at Maurice’s American Bar in Sacramento, CA in 1979. In addition to a few vocal songs like my favorite, “Springtime in Israel,” we mostly devised “Sons of Miles” Bitches Brew improvisations. Guitarist Robert Kuhlmann played in that first band along with the late Erik Kleven. Blues harp legend Rick Estrin was often in the audience as was master jazz pianist Jessica Williams. Tower Records founder Russ Solomon would stop by, as did our Zen-Governor of California, Jerry Brown. My fellow Scorch Brothers, guitarist Patrick Minor and visual-media artist/songwriter Steve Holsapple were always there to hang and champion whatever experimentation was taking place. Maurice’s was the perfect creative environment to develop as a young artist. Art was front and center and people came anticipating surprise. Hauling the Suitcase model around in my Ford Maverick was no easy task. It completely trashed the back seat. I attribute all current back problems to dragging that beast around on gigs with 60’s rock legend Sal Valentino (The Beau Brummels, Stoneground) and various NorCal jazzers of my era like Darius Babazadeh, Joe Espinoza, Jimmy Griego, Tom Peron, Steve Homan, and Henry Robinett. My primary influences for Rhodes playing are in the R&B/soul, jazz, and funk categories. This is where the sound of the instrument really found resonance with musicians. Rock artists and singer-songwriters made use of it too, but not with the genre-bending results that Stevie Wonder or Herbie Hancock brought to it. I first wanted a Fender Rhodes because of a keyboardist named Craig Doerge. He played one with James Taylor. There’s a picture of Craig at the electric piano on the back of One Man Dog from 1972. Joe Sample of The Crusaders and Les McCann figured into my education too. Sacramento musician, Roger Smith was a ridiculous player and held all locals to a higher standard. All influences considered, playing the Rhodes was about what Herbie, Joe Zawinul, and Chick Corea had pioneered with Miles Davis. That’s the electric piano vocabulary I was inspired by and still draw on today. –Charlie Peacock, August 2010 ___________________ Follow Russ on Twitter

[Greetings, fellow rabbit types. I’m Sam Smith, but you might know me better as “Bizbaz the Foolhardy,” or perhaps as “S.D. Smith.” Most likely of all, you haven’t ever heard of me and that’s probably safest for you and any predator canaries you might know. Speaking of canaries, I’ve been a contributor here at ye olde Rabbit Room for several years now and last year helped to launch an ally-site focused on kids and imagination. This beast was called Story Warren. Pete has asked if we would join in here fairly regularly featuring a post from said Story Warren. That’s awful handsome of him and I’m delighted to be able to be the go-between. Without much further verbosity, I present our first such post. It’s by Clay Clarkson, coiner of the name “Hutchmoot,” father of RR (and SW) contributor Sarah Clarkson, author of Educating the Whole-Hearted Child (which is awesome), wearer of beard, knower of things. Clay has been a crucial player in Story Warren’s development and it’s pretty easy to see why. –Sam] “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” Henry David Thoreau There is a language of imagination. Let’s call it imaginationish. It’s not actually a language, but more of a universal dialect. It is using words to describe things that the eye does not see, the ear does not hear, the senses do not sense. We always knew when our children were speaking imaginationish. They would hear a symphony and begin to describe a forest teeming with life and mystery. They would look at a painting and walk into its colors and lines as they narrated a story of their journey. They would watch a movie and begin to think out loud about the deeper spiritual meanings of scenes and symbols. We never sat down and created a plan to make our children imaginative and creative. We did, though, deliberately create an atmosphere in our home that was rich in spoken and printed words—reading lots of books, discussing lots of topics, experiencing many forms of art and creativity. It was the air they breathed in our home—they inhaled it to fill their curious lungs, it oxygenated the verbal blood that fed their creative brains, and they exhaled it as the language of imagination. Call it immersion learning, I guess. If there is such a thing as imaginationish, it isn’t learned from a workbook. It is grown and cultivated at home in a print-rich environment and verbally-enriched atmosphere, and it is fed with abundant and nutritious words. God—who is the Word, and created us to be people of his Word and of words—has given parents the privilege to create that creative ecosystem. It all starts with words. Vocabulary is critical to an active imagination. A child’s ability to imagine things beyond their own senses is directly related to the depth and breadth of their vocabulary. It takes little imagination to realize the limitations of limited vocabulary on creativity, or on believing spiritual truths for that matter. However, the more words your child has with which to express himself, the greater will be the scope and intensity of what he can imagine. The stronger your child’s grasp of language, the richer will be her own creativity and ability to wonder about things beyond her five senses. To paraphrase Thoreau, your children naturally know how to look at things, but you can give them the supernatural ability to truly see beyond the material world. You can give them the language of imaginationish. But you’ve got to be speaking it first. Filling the air of your home with words, reading books that take the power of language seriously, and feasting on all the arts—paintings, music, poetry, and more. If you do, then you can sit back and watch the seeds of imagination that you plant and cultivate in your children blossom into fruitful vines of creativity. Your imaginative children will help the world not just look at, but see the God who created us all. —————- Illustration by Zach Franzen

The Song of the Week comes from Eric Peters’s outstanding Birds of Relocation album. Many around here consider it one of the best records of 2012. Here’s what Eric had to say about the “Voices” (and don’t miss his related post from a few days ago, “The Undertaking of Hope”): In the fall of 2010, having experienced a particularly brutal summer—itself the culmination of years of letdowns, career disappointment, anxiety, an overwhelming sense of defeat and sadness, and a darkness I could not make sense of—I knocked on the door of a Nashville counselor. He and I began a long dialogue about my history of low self-esteem, my insecurities, and the legion of cruel, graceless voices to whom I had long ago ceded power. In my mind, I had always assumed they were God’s whisperings, though I could not at all understand why God would continually humiliate and taunt me in such an audible way. My counselor, Al Andrews of Porter’s Call, noticed that in choosing to listen to those voices, I was giving them power; I was choosing to “love” them. Al proposed a homework assignment. He asked me to write a song about the voices, and suggested that perhaps I was better off listening instead to the very real voices of my very real friends, the saints and angels who encourage and edify me. “Voices” by Eric Peters Voices, when I listen to the voices Every shroud of anger is sorrow in disguise The voices, when I believe the voices That convince me I am worthless, bent on my demise Hear, oh hear the saints’ and angels’ voices Everything about my weakness that is strong Everything about the heart that could go wrong Every hope that ever lived there but has since flown I’m finding again, finding again In the garden, when we lived inside the garden Creatures bright and shining, we were, dust brought to life In the silence, when we lean into the silence We choose the things that hate us most, and rest upon the lies Everything about my weakness that is strong Everything about the heart that could go wrong Every hope that ever lived there but has since flown I’m finding again, finding again We choose to love the things that hate us most Everything about our weakness that is strong Everything about our heart that has gone wrong Every light that ever shone in darkened halls Is shining again, I’m finding again Oh, the voices When I listen to the voices I listen to the voices Of the saints and angels

My wife, Jennifer, and I sat down and watched the film Sunday night and I’m really looking forward to hearing your thoughts. I’m going to throw out a few things that jumped out at me and from there the floor will be open. Feel free to jump in and join the conversation. Let’s try to keep the discussion away from technical critique and aimed more toward an examination of story, character, and theme. Here we go: 1. The Prodigal Son – It’s really easy to see the parallels between Mozart as the prodigal son of the parable and Salieri as the elder brother. The movie, however, isn’t interested in the the resolution of the biblical parable, but focuses instead on the elder brother’s progression from envy to hatred and self-destruction. 2. Historicity – Neither Mozart nor Salieri are portrayed favorably, nor even particularly accurately. From what I can tell, Mozart wasn’t the buffoon he was portrayed as, and Salieri wasn’t a mediocrity. I think there are a wealth of artistic reasons for doing this, but I do wonder at what point a writer crosses a line and becomes irresponsible in his depiction of history. 3. The Love of God – The meaning of the name “Amadeus” is “The Love of God.” So the film essentially depicts the way in which one man’s self-righteousness and envy result in him doing everything in his power to destroy the “love of God.” 4. The Fool Who Shames the Wise – I think there’s a deliberate statement being made by the way Mozart is depicted as a fool. He’s cast as a sort of court jester who, in classic Shakespearian form, is the foil to the pseudo-wisdom of kings and wisemen. 5. The Hunt for God – This is considered one of the major themes of Peter Shaffer’s work and Amadeus certainly explores this frontier. In the case of Amadeus, what do you think Shaffer discovers about the nature of God?

This is a piece (essay? speech? homily?) I wrote for, and presented to, a retreat I was recently a part of in Waterloo, Nebraska. A male cardinal attacked the glass windows as I read aloud this piece, presumably because the bird saw its own reflection, not because of anything I had said or done. –EP The Undertaking of Hope Birds live their entire lives in complete vulnerability and full expectancy. Singing their songs from dawn to dusk—or from dusk to dawn, as is the case with the diva mockingbird outside my bedroom window—they never seem to sing their songs the exact same way twice. Similarly, no two persons’ faiths are identical. If indeed we were formed as unique and individual creatures, then it should follow that no two faiths could possibly be exactly the same, that the faith fully alive (or nearly dead) inside our heart is as distinct and peculiar as the midnight song of the mockingbird, the very same melody that wakes or shocks us out of a deep sleep. The frameworks of our beliefs and hopes are intricate treasures, infinitely profound and profoundly different, but the God in whom we vest those treasures, the one who revels in the songs of our hearts, the hymns and laments alike, receives our melodies, whether broken or soaring, with no small pleasure. We are songs of grace in his ears. As the Chinese proverb goes: “A bird doesn’t sing because it has answers; it sings because it has a song.” A song is a hope of sorts, something permanent. And though birds do not necessarily have the ability to hope, aside from their melody a nest is as close as they come to having something permanent. Birds are known to use almost any material available to construct their nests: twigs, straw, mud, grass clippings, twine, tree bark, moss, lichen, spider web, yarn, shredded plastic bags, candy wrappers, coconut tree fiber, dryer lint, newspaper, even human hair. Some nests, such as an oriole’s, are built suspended, dangling pendant-like from the tip of a limb. Some are nestled securely in the forks of ancient trees, some are built on or low to the ground, some high up, some inside tree excavations, some sturdily built, some conspicuous, some tiny and elusive like the hummingbird’s, and some, as is the case with the mourning dove, appear to be half-hearted efforts, seemingly flung together and flimsy as if a mere breath of wind would obliterate the thing. Yet within the down of their dwellings, something new is birthed into the world, itself frail and defenseless. Our hearts, the nest of our hopes, is a place of secrets, of protection, of rest, a place to birth and nurture a new thing, to witness that life step outside the perimeter of its shelter onto the vulnerable bough, and, ultimately, to realize flight, the very thing that defines and completes it. Though we may not release them with gladness, these hopes are our undertakings. In his book The Undertaking Michigan poet, author, and professional mortician Thomas Lynch writes: “Undertakings are the things we do to vest the lives we lead against the cold, the meaningless, the void, the noisy blather, and blinding dark. It is the voice we give to wonderment, to pain, to love and desire, anger and outrage; the words that we shape into song and prayer.” The cold, the void, and the meaningless—how intimately familiar we are with those very spaces and recesses in which we cower, fostering as it were their disappointments and bitterly forfeited hopes. Parasitic creatures, the cowbird is known to lay its eggs in the nests of other birds thereby forcing the hosts to foster and raise an alien. The young cowbird typically grows faster and larger than the host’s own brood, thereby depriving them of necessary sustenance. Big enough to throw around its weight, the thriving cowbird will often push the host’s own young out of the nest, thereby further improving its own chance for survival. Our hopes, if ousted and flung helplessly to the ground, have no chance at survival if abandoned. What are the parasites that deprive you of hope? In the ejection of hope, what do you foster in its place? Anger, despair, control, apathy, a deliberate refusal to ever hope or believe in anything good again, a deadened heart? Whether or not they have any awareness of their actions, birds instinctually flit back and forth from branch to branch, from tree to tree, peeking at the underside of fallen or still-attached leaves, trusting—if “trust” is an apt word in this situation—that there will be sustenance enough to survive the day, enough for themselves, even the ones in their care. Sometimes there is not, and that bird—no matter its distinctive plumage, beautiful trilling song, or negative reputation—dies. To this, I do not have an adequate answer, only that the earth buries what it wants. Out of stubborn belief—or perhaps just hard-headedness—I, with a veiled heart and a blurred, rickety faith, trust that my hopes and my undertakings will not plummet to the ground, into the decaying void, being for naught, buried by earth. Perching white-knuckled to hope is, on some days, my only viable option. It is what gets me through today, for the repairing work of hope may yet rise with a newly lit sun. In reality, on any given day hope may simply be the act of going to bed early—that occasionally necessary act of concluding my involvement in the day, a desperate effort to quell the butcher voices in my head—trusting that the sun, tugging behind it a new tomorrow, will bring a more peaceful, quieter sky. Its rising presence is a starting point in and of itself. Some days, all I can hope for is that beginning. To shut down hope, faith, and love is to avoid hurt, in effect killing the heart. And what of these butcher voices that never stray far or remain silent for long? We recognize them—the mutilators, the vandals of our spirit and psyche: “You are a failure at everything you do.” “Everything you touch turns into a mess.” “You are worthless.” “You have nothing good to offer.” “No one misses you when you’re not around.” “You are a fraud.” Perhaps you know voices of similar ilk? We listen to their onslaught, we nurture them, and love them in our curious, sadistic, inexplicable way. Lurking in the corners of our shadowy psychological halls is an unbelief that haunts us: we do not believe that the grace of hope is real, that it is sincere or substantial, that it is worth clinging to, or that it is a gift with no strings attached. We want—and try—desperately to attach strings, to merit the grace and favor of God in whom our salvation rests. In our near-daily interaction with these butchers, and in our deep desire to know and plainly hear God’s voice, we instead heed the butcher voices, mistaking them for the sound of God’s correction, even misinterpreting their thunderous, odious, expletive-laced chorus as a grace we simply are not yet wise enough or are too weak and small of faith to comprehend. We tell ourselves that his ways are, after all, “higher,” so we bow like good servants to the criminal cruelty disguised as God’s voice. How utterly twisted is our thought process, so expectant of abuse are we, readily confusing repair with disrepair, love with hatred, anger with sorrow, good with evil, light with darkness. Nicknamed the “Butcher Bird,” Loggerhead Shrikes are known to impale their prey (mice, small birds, insects) on barbed wire fences or thorns to facilitate tearing apart their prey. Much like the butcher voices that lacerate and tear us to shreds, we pray—many times out of a not-so-quiet desperation—and ask God why he doesn’t, or won’t, remove the thorns and the din of merciless utterings that impale us and prevent us from believing in his innate goodness. Invisible to our eyes, we struggle to find him trustworthy, and struggle to understand how, by some miracle of miracles, he finds any degree of value in us, his waveringly brave and cowardly creatures. Miracles are both great and small—from the tiniest provisions for chickadees to the repairing hope of beginning all over again. In Yann Martel’s 2010 novel Beatrice and Virgil, “faith,” according to Virgil, a monkey engaged in conversation with Beatrice (a despondent donkey) “is like being in the sun. When you are in the sun, can you avoid creating a shadow? Can you shake that area of darkness that clings to you, always shaped like, as if constantly to remind you of yourself? You can’t. This shadow is doubt. And it goes wherever you go as long as you stay in the sun. And who wouldn’t want to be in the sun?” Imagine post-Eden Adam standing on the edge of his garden, birds’ songs cascading over nearby Eden’s hedge, his shadow splaying from the soles of his feet. Born to move, to be active, and to labor, Adam, dismayed, discovers that nothing out here works. The tools—the shovels, hoes, rakes, spades, all of it—lay rusting on the ground at his feet and he, stupefied, stands over it all unsure of where or even how to begin again. Nothing works. The ground doesn’t work, the tools don’t work, at times his brain doesn’t work, even the work doesn’t work. Nothing works, so he retches that frustration onto ears that no longer seem to be listening, or so we surmise. Surveying the ground at his feet, all that is left are the incessant weeds, the toil, the futility, pestilence and parasites, and worst of all, the memories of what the garden used to be: alive, lush, thriving, abundant, bountiful, full of victory and reward, replete with every imaginable color. Yet, out here, he must take up the tools available to him and begin again, take up the undertakings he knows are his, working the ground, fending off blight, fighting to bring forth life out of the disagreeable earth. And there at every step, with every effort made, his shadow follows him. He looks both to and away from the garden for the sight of seeded hope germinating from the ground, a reminder that life—his to be exact—matters, that he is of consequence, that he must not deaden his heart and since he, in fact, casts a shadow, there is still light in the world and the darkness has not overcome it. And so I echo the monkey Virgil’s question: Who wouldn’t want to be in the sun?

Mark your calendars. Hutchmoot 2013 will convene on October 10-13. That’s a holiday weekend so we’re hopeful that travel plans will be simplified for return trips and everyone will be able to stick around for the closing session this year. The Hutchmoot website has been updated with preliminary schedules, dates, and (final) pricing. Look for registration to begin in early March. Thanks to Nathan Willis and William Aughtry (makers of the “Rest Easy” video), here’s a couple of short videos from Hutchmoot 2012. I got a little teary-eyed the first time I watched them. Enjoy (and please share them with your friends). Hutchmoot 2012 Highlights from The Rabbit Room on Vimeo. What is a Hutchmoot? from The Rabbit Room on Vimeo.

[Note: We’re SOLD OUT of everything but the O’Connor, better hurry!] And then there were was “The Epic.” *24oz The Epic comes in two varieties: Dante (top) and Milton (bottom). These and 4 other mugs styles are now available in the Rabbit Room store. Supplies are limited. Get them while they last.