What are you looking for?

In 2003 I was a dreaming indie artist meeting with people in Nashville who I hoped might champion my music and make life a little easier by rescuing me from obscurity (oh how naïve I was about the way the music business worked).  I’d had many such meetings over the years, but this one was different—in my mind at least—because I was finally learning how to write the kind of pop songs I hoped might make me attractive to a label. During that trip, one of the people I met with gave me a stack of CDs for my drive home. Among them was Love & Thunder by Andrew Peterson. It was the first CD I put in my player and it ended up being the only one I listened to for my six hour drive that day. Before a word was sung, I was surprised to find tears in my eyes, tears that would accompany me through the entire record as not only the artistry but also the spirit of the music stirred deep waters in me. “What am I doing?” I kept asking myself, reassessing my own music and the kinds of songs I was writing in hopes of courting the attention of the Christian music industry. I still believe that accessible pop songs with a broad appeal as well as a heart and a brain are the hardest kind of songs to write, and therefore the kind of challenge I still really enjoy, but certain ambitions in my heart were laid to rest that day and new ones were taken up. All these years later Andrew Peterson’s work remains an inspiration and a guiding light to me. He is one of my heroes. He is also one of my great friends. The first time we did a show together was eight years ago, I think. Afterwards he, Ben, Taya, and I sat at a Perkins and talked late into the night about things we loved. We talked a lot about books and authors like Frederick Buechner and Wendell Berry whose works had enriched our lives. We laughed a lot. The next time I got to do a show with Andrew was many years later in Green Bay, Wisconsin, the week my label debut, All The Lovely Losers, was releasing. We were backstage and he was talking with me as he nonchalantly poured water into the cap of his water bottle. As the emcee was announcing me, Andrew said, “Well, have a good set,” and then tossed the capful of water into my lap so that I walked on stage looking as though I’d had an unfortunate accident. Of course I loved him for it. I remember staying at Andrew and Jamie’s house a number of years ago. Jamie had left chocolates on my pillow and I had to break it to her that I had given up sweets for Lent. When I got back later that night, the chocolates had been replaced by a can of mixed vegetables on my pillow. I still have that can of vegetables and it occupies a prominent place in both my memory and my home. Andrew has laughed with me and cried with me and enriched my life in ways too deep and wide to measure. He is a trusted friend who keeps some of my secrets. I know a few of his, too. Where once his work inspired and moved me, now his friendship shapes my life. But I’m still a fan, too. As a young man I was always a music evangelist, telling my friends, “you gotta hear this artist I love!” I think I wore some of them out with my enthusiasm as I tried to turn them on to music I was passionate about. Who am I kidding—I still do that. Andrew and I have talked about doing a tour together for years and I’m grateful that we finally get to do it. I’m excited about it for selfish reasons, looking forward to laughter, shared stories, and being with my friend. But I’m also excited to get to share him. Andrew has enough fans without my help, but one of the things I’m most excited about is the idea of getting to introduce Andrew’s music to people who have connected with my music on the radio in recent years. I’ve always approached writing more accessible “pop” songs with the hope that people would buy into the whole record and hear the other songs. “Thanks for listening to ‘More Like Falling In Love,’ have you heard ‘I Will Find A Way?’ I wrote it with my buddy Andy Gullahorn?” As I get ready to go out on the road with Andrew, I’m grateful for a similar opportunity. “I’m glad you like ‘Good To Be Alive,’ but you gotta hear this artist I love. . .”  I’m also looking forward to meeting Andrew’s fans. Andrew and I will be hitting the road this weekend with my good friend Spencer Ford (who joined me and Todd Agnew in the fall) on percussion as well as one of my favorite players around, the always impeccably dressed James Gregory on stand up bass. We’ll do two individual sets at the top followed by a joint song swap set in the second half. We’ll laugh, we’ll cry, we’ll perform daring feats of singer/songwriterism. I’ll be nervous when Andrew is holding a water bottle. He should be too. I hope you can join us for one of these special nights. And even if you can’t, if you’ve never heard Andrew’s music, you must check out his latest record, Light For The Lost Boy. It is one of the most beautiful and compelling records he’s ever made, which is saying a lot. “You gotta hear this artist I love…” Tour Dates: 2/16 Harrisburg, IL (SOLD OUT) 2/22 Syracuse, NY 2/23 Woodbridge VA 2/24 Knoxville, TN 3/1 East Ellijay, GA 3/2 Charlottesville, VA 3/3 Williamsburg, VA 3/8 Omaha, NE 3/9 Racine, MO 3/15 Elmhurst, IL 3/16 North Royalton, OH

[Reposted from Jonathan-Rogers.com] It’s Ash Wednesday. Yesterday my friend Father Thomas, an Anglican priest, burned the palm fronds from last year’s Palm Sunday to make the ashes to rub on people’s foreheads today. “Remember that you are dust,” he will say to them, “and to dust you shall return.” I didn’t grow up observing Ash Wednesday or Lent, but I have to say, at this age it helps to be reminded that I am dust and returning to dust. It’s not just a help, but a comfort. This world is forever demanding that we take it as seriously as it takes itself, and it tempts us to take ourselves too seriously too. Ash Wednesday says, “No, no, no, dear sinner. You’re just dust, living in a world that’s just dust, and you and the world both are returning to dust. And you are dear to God nevertheless.” I love the prayer in the Anglican Ash Wednesday liturgy: Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wickedness, may obtain of you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. I used to associate Ash Wednesday–when I considered it at all–with self-flagellation. But, as the apostle Paul said, it is the kindness of God that leads us to repentance–the confidence that God hates nothing he has made and forgives the sins of all who are penitent. For all my ambivalence about T.S. Eliot, there are passages in his poem “Ash Wednesday” that I just love. The lines I love the most in that poem, the lines that most perfectly capture the spirit of the day, are these: Lord, I am not worthy Lord, I am not worthy but speak the word only. “I’m not worthy.” True enough. But not the truest thing. The Lord speaks truer things into being every day. So happy Ash Wednesday, you old sinner. You are dust, and to dust you shall return. And God loves you anyway.

Dear People of God: The first Christians observed with great devotion the days of our Lord’s passion and resurrection, and it became the custom of the Church to prepare for them by a season of penitence and fasting. This season of Lent provided a time in which converts to the faith were prepared for Holy Baptism. It was also a time when those who, because of notorious sins, had been separated from the body of the faithful were reconciled by penitence and forgiveness, and restored to the fellowship of the Church. Thereby, the whole congregation was put in mind of the message of pardon and absolution set forth in the Gospel of our Savior, and of the need which all Christians continually have to renew their repentance and faith. I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word. (from the Book of Common Prayer) Lent begins today, on Ash Wednesday. If you live in the English or Spanish speaking world, there is a traditional Ash Wednesday service going on somewhere near you. Check with a local Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, Methodist, or Episcopal church. I recommend Ash Wednesday to everyone. At our church, we have three services today: 7:30 a.m., noon, and 6:30 p.m. at 920 Caldwell Lane in Nashville. I encourage my fellow Christians to observe Lent through whatever disciplines seem best to them. I recommend the reading of Christian spiritual books, the giving up of unnecessary comforts (alcohol, sweets, facebook, etc.), and/or the taking on of a more committed time of prayer and Bible reading. Faithful participation in Sunday morning worship is an excellent way to keep a Holy Lent as well. Keeping Lent is designed to make more room for the Holy Spirit in your life. Keeping Lent may or may not lead to feelings of joy, sorrow, happiness, or anger. You may or may not alienate a friend, have a spiritual experience, lose weight, or feel grouchy at work. Keeping Lent will not make you more holy or beloved in the eyes of God. Keeping Lent will not save you. Keep Lent anyway.

When Centricity (my record label) is considering which song should be the next single to promote to radio, they will do “pre-testing”, which means they hire a service who plays a portion of the song (sometimes only 8 to 16 seconds of it) for the target demographic of radio listeners. If it scores poorly, it’s not a single. If it scores well, then that becomes part of the case they’ll build when talking with radio about the song. If you’re anything like me, this whole business of pre-testing 8 to 16 seconds of a song is . . . discouraging. What happened to listening to a song? And what happened to the romantic image of DJs who played music because they believed in it? Well, that still happens, too. And while it’s tempting to feel “pre-testing” lacks soul and conviction . . . well, I guess I just don’t want to give any more energy to judging it (or anything else for that matter). I bring it up, though, to highlight one of the reasons I’m so grateful for my label, Centricity Music. As they wondered about what the next single would be, pre-testing revealed a clear front-runner. However, as we talked about it (and please understand what a remarkable thing it is that I get to be a part of the conversation!), their conviction was that, though it wasn’t the obvious choice, “Nothing Is Wasted” is the song they think people need to hear most. I’m beyond grateful for their belief and willingness to go with their heart on this rather than the numbers. We recorded two versions of the song—the album version and then the solo piano alternate version for the Special Edition—but neither were deemed radio ready, so a remix was proposed. I get a little nervous about that kind of thing because it’s often the best way to ruin a perfectly good song. But when they decided to hire Ben Shive (producer of Andrew Peterson’s last four records), I got excited. Ben worked hard to preserve the heart of the song while also reshaping the track to help it feel like the kind of song you might hear on the radio right now. Lauren Daigle, an artist in development at Centricity, lent her amazing voice for some beautiful harmonies. Ben also added cello and hammered dulcimer. He also took the two pre-existing versions and combined them, so that the song has the original bridge and final chorus that I wrote for it. I’m nothing but grateful: that Centricity went with their heart and picked this song, that Ben remixed it, and that early response from radio has been really positive. But more than anything I’m grateful that of all the things I could be talking about at this time in my life, I get to talk about the goodness of God, the way that he works all things—all things—together for the good of those who love him. Pain, loss, even failure . . . these things don’t get to have the last say over our lives. God has the final word, and his word over our lives is love. I hope you like the song, thanks for listening. Nothing Is Wasted Jason Gray/Jason Ingram/Doug McKelvey The hurt that broke your heart And left you trembling in the dark Feeling lost and alone Will tell you hope’s a lie But what if every tear you cry Will seed the ground where joy will grow Nothing is wasted Nothing is wasted In the hands of our redeemer Nothing is wasted It’s from the deepest wounds That beauty finds a place to bloom And you will see before the end That every broken piece is Gathered in the heart of Jesus And what’s lost will be found again Nothing is wasted Nothing is wasted In the hands of our redeemer Nothing is wasted When hope is more than you can bear And it’s too hard to believe it could be true And your strength fails you half way there You can lean on me and I’ll believe for you Give it time, you will believe it too Nothing is wasted Nothing is wasted Sometimes we are waiting In the sorrow we have tasted But joy will replace it Nothing is wasted In the hands of our redeemer Nothing is wasted

One of the projects I was most excited about last year was The Molehill Vol.1. Putting it together was exciting and challenging and, in the end, hugely rewarding. I’m proud of it and I hope readers have enjoyed it. We’re now beginning the process of putting together The Molehill Vol.2, and I thought it might be fun to collect some feedback that could potentially give us some guidance. So I’m turning to you: the readership. What did you like about Vol.1? What do you want to see more of in Vol.2? What do you want to see less of? If you didn’t buy Vol.1, why not? What would make you interested in Vol.2? Did anyone decipher the elvish and dwarvish quotes? Did anyone wonder where the Governor of Ohio’s leg lived? The floor is open. Let us know what you think.

Not all men are created equal. The phrase sounds odd, but for me it rings true. I’ve been turning it over in my head in recent days and weeks as I’ve reflected upon my own story and absorbed the journeys of close friends. Together they reveal the truth about the statement oft cited that tells us that the opposite is true. Of course, we all value the belief that we are all on a level playing field, and I will admit the lens through which you view that phrase will change the way you measure it. But in the real world in which we live and move, work and play, step up and back down, we are definitely anything but equal. *** This entire last year has informed the lesson I’ve learned about (in)equality. A few months ago, some of our closest friends gave birth to a beautiful baby girl troubled by multiple medical issues. Their lives since this moment have been a rollercoaster both inside and out with a whirlwind of emotions accompanying a constant rotation of appointments, tests, and results. Even now there are more questions than answers. More recently, another set of close friends gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. We recently had dinner with them to hear the wonderful news about the “easy transition” back to home life with word that it “is easier than we thought it would be” and reports of decent sleep. With one couple, we toast their good fortune and praise God for the joys of parenthood. With another couple, we cry, grieve, pray, and process amidst the blessing of new life. The disparity between the experiences has only served to bolster the belief that all men are definitely not created equal. *** As for myself, I am in a frustrating season. Nine months after leaving the church I started and served to create space and write about topics long-circling in my head, I have yet to truly begin the task. In the name of security and stability, I took a full-time editorial gig that has me abandoning the laptop at the first possible moment after finishing my “day job.” The creative desire has left; the spark left unattended. No progress has been made. And yet I desire the desire. Not only that but the shadow side has appeared again and again in my mind, pointing at those with the freedom I yearn for and denouncing them or myself in some way or another. The curse of comparison comes in and tells me that I should be able to do that. What’s wrong with me? What’s not wrong with them? To say that all men are not created equal is a phrase that disturbs. But maybe it needs to. Maybe it needs to hurt. As Montag says in Fahrenheit 451, “We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while.” So maybe it’s good to admit that we all aren’t going to enjoy the same luxuries or experience the same pain. When it comes to the human experience, we are all different. Not all men are created equal. *** I had a slight epiphany two weeks ago, which in my current period of spiritual and emotional desolation amounts to a minor miracle. My wife and I are moving to Nashville and we visited Church of the Redeemer on Sunday morning to take in the community and to hear my friend Thomas McKenzie—yes, the famously succinct movie reviewer—deliver the sermon. I had not attended a church since leaving my own, so the entire affair felt a bit foreign, but there in the liturgy came the heartening words of Psalm 72: Endow the king with your justice, O God, the royal son with your righteousness. May he judge your people in righteousness, your afflicted ones with justice. May the mountains bring prosperity to the people, the hills the fruit of righteousness. May he defend the afflicted among the people and save the children of the needy; may he crush the oppressor. In the midst of the psalm, I was struck by the couplet of mountains and hills and have not shaken the image since. This typically happens to me when I find my own story in the midst of whatever it is that seizes my attention. Mountains and hills. Babies with questions and without. Some following their passions and others struggling to break free. All men, all things are not created equal. They are, however, given an equal task. This was not the point of the fine sermon. Perhaps it’s not even the main theme of the psalm. But within the psalmist’s plea for God to make all things right in the world, I was struck by the realization that it is not our wealth, status, vocation, looks, or gifts that unite us. Rather, it is our calling. If God is to make everything right in the world, then he will do so with both mountains and hills. It is the mountain’s job to do much with what it has been given and bring prosperity to the people. For the smaller hill, another task is given: to bring the fruit of righteousness. While the poetic language has many layers of beauty and meaning, I was arrested by the equality of the task given to an inequal creation. Everything working together for the sake of the common good. *** When I say ‘inequal,’ I don’t mean to insinuate value. I suppose that, more than anything, I mean our place in life. Whether or not we like it, we are confronted by the frustratingly ‘inequal’ circumstances of our lives and those around us. Some mothers will bear many children, while others only the grief of their frustrations. My own miserable season stands in stark contrast to those I insist on comparing myself to. Inequality is all around. We must be bothered by it. Yet I have learned that these are things that we cannot control. We all scratch our heads at the artist who creates beautiful work that’s never seen or heard. We all shake our heads at a tragedy like the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. We all bow our heads when we wish to reverse the diagnosis. All men, all things are not created equal, at least through this lens. In short, life is not fair. But what I can control is my own response, the measure in which I am ushering in the Kingdom of God. Whether a mountain or a hill (or even a valley), there is a part to play in the greater ongoing story of God in the world. As the psalmist concludes, “Praise be to his glorious name forever; may the whole earth be filled with his glory.” Rather than focus on the inequality, my only concern should be in the equal task I share with all men and all creation.

I’ve had a long-time fascination with and love for stand-up comedy. It’s every bit as much an artform as songwriting, painting, or swordsmithing. In this short video, Jerry Seinfeld (one of the great ones), pulls the curtain back and shows us a little of how the machine works. (If you enjoy the behind-the-scenes of comedy, you might also enjoy the 2002 documentary Comedian, which follows Jerry on his first stand-up tour after leaving TV.)

Last year I read lots of books. I actually listened to most of them, as has become my habit. It’s been a good habit and it’s led to a certain set of skills. For instance, I can both stay awake at the wheel to audiobooks and fall asleep at night to them. Amazing, I know. I’m like the Dos Equis man of audiobooks. I read lots of fiction, a little poetry, and of course in and on the Bible and theology. Then there’s history. I got on a Napoleon Bonaparte kick, spurred on by my shocking and profound ignorance, and gobbled up several on the man and his era. I read a few on the American founding and a few more on history of the Kings and Queens of England and surrounding nations. I love that stuff and keep reading more and more each year. But this is the inevitable thing. After reading several history books last year, I’m more convinced than ever that I know nothing and should probably never open my mouth again. I’m also more informed than ever. How is this happening? I know, I know. “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” Thank you, Socrates. By the way, I loved you in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. I’ve never been and never will be a scholar. The only academy I’m really into is probably Starfleet Academy. My life isn’t going to be about serving in that crucial area. Others will go there, people who know how to tie a bow tie and who care less about West Virginia football. I want to be informed, not to be a fool, and understand what I can and ought to know. But you’ve come to the wrong shop for scholarly brilliance. (And all God’s people said, “Duh. Like, obviously.”) I feel like I’ll never know enough to be as sound as I’d like to be, to be free from being found wanting in some important area. But maybe that’s misplaced desire. At least it’s not the identity-defining thing I can make of it. For the Christian, this is our Father’s world. In addition to the “knowing you know nothing” cliche, let me add another. It’s not what you know, but who. For those in Christ, it’s not exactly that, though. It seems more apt to say that because of who we know, we can know everything, because he whom we know is everything. And on top of that we have everything in him who has and is all. We don’t have to know everything because we know him and have him who knows and has everything. This is a relief. And more than the thrill and relief of knowing him is the astounding news that we are known by him. (I’m talking about Jesus.) So, though ignorance is not any kind of thing to be desired (rather the opposite), we can be assured that the world isn’t spinning based on our achievement of omniscience. We, who were once far off and strange, are near and known. Good news! Jesus knows me, this I love.

I love animation. Here’s one good Oscar-nominated reason why, courtesy of Disney studios. https://youtu.be/HSxJkKiHXbw

“There was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when he walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied that it was his mirth.” —G.K. Chesterton, the closing line of Orthodoxy I love the detail of Scripture. I love the bits God has elected to include—like how Jesus ended his last supper in the upper room, right before his arrest, by singing with his friends. (Mark 14:26) And I love the mystery of what he has left out—like what ever came of Nicodemus, for example. (Jn 19:39) I am currently working on the follow up to my first book, Behold the Lamb of God: An Advent Narrative—a 25 chapter retelling of the story of the need for and the coming of Christ from Genesis through the nativity. The new book will be a Lenten companion—40 chapters tracing the narrative of the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus as found in the four Gospels. I hope to release it before the end of the year. The opening chapters of the new book take us into the early part of Jesus’ story when he was, for all intents and purposes, unknown to the world. Though we read it knowing what is coming, the people around him had no idea who he was or how he was about to change the world. Jesus’ first public miracle took place at a wedding in a town called Cana, west of the Sea of Galilee. Mary’s involvement in the after-party suggests these were either relatives or friends of Jesus’ family. Weddings in those days were big events that lasted several days. The wedding’s host was responsible for making sure they had enough food and wine to last to the end. At this particular wedding, the unthinkable happened. They ran out of wine early. So Mary asked Jesus if he could help. Jesus’ initial response to Mary was as cryptic as anything you’ll find in Scripture. He told her, “What does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” (Jn 2:4) He seemed troubled by his mother’s request, though in itself it wasn’t that unreasonable. She was just asking for help. And since Jesus hadn’t fully shown what he was capable of when it came to miracles, I imagine Mary wasn’t certain about what Jesus would do. Regardless, Jesus heard more in her request than she knew she was asking. In a sermon Pastor Tim Keller preached on this passage, he asked, “What do single people think about at weddings? Their own wedding.” So what was Jesus thinking about? Was he thinking about his hour? His wedding? His bride? Is there any good reason to think he wasn’t? He was about to perform his first public miracle. Let me frame that a different way. He was about to formally and publicly introduce himself to his bride—the church—for the first time. I wonder if Mary’s request sounded to him something like, “Go on, son. Ask that girl to dance.” Jesus told the servants to fill the stone jars used for ceremonial cleansing with water—six of them, each able to hold 20 to 30 gallons. (Jn 2:6) When they did what he said, the water became wine—good wine, the steward would later say with a smile. (Jn 2:10) Let’s split the difference on those stone jars and say they each held 25 gallons. That makes one hundred and fifty gallons of fine wine. Jesus’ gift to the wedding at Cana amounted to over 700 bottles of wine. Think about that for a minute. Sure, it might have been a big wedding. But what would you think if someone brought 700 bottles of wine to your party? Have we found a glimpse of what Chesterton found so elusive—Jesus’ mirth? Is there not some measure of mirth in the man who brings 150 gallons of wine to a party? Any party? And yet we know this couldn’t have been mirth alone, because something about the whole ordeal troubled him. I wonder if part of the mysterious sorrow we see in Jesus as he performed this miracle stemmed from a sense that this wine was meant for a different wedding—that it belonged to his special reserve, a reserve that still exists out there somewhere, somehow. Do you suppose those wedding guests were drinking the finest wine ever to pass over the lips of men? Were they drinking the best wine in the history of the world? They couldn’t have known it if they were. Still, I wonder. One day I will hold a glass of that wine in my hand. (Rev 19:6-9) When I set it down, it will be to dance.

When you walk through Central Park you feel like you’ve escaped out of the city into the countryside—you’re surrounded by natural beauty. Except that it’s not. Natural, I mean. The space where Central Park was built was originally a “pestilential, rocky swamp.” The natural beauty of Central Park is completely designed to seem as if it wasn’t designed at all. When the park was built, back in the 1850s, only wealthy New Yorkers could afford to go the Adirondaks. The designers, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, wanted to give the experience of being in the Adirondacks, the same experience of beauty, to those who couldn’t afford it. Central Park is a park designed for everyone. Joshua Cohen wrote of two examples of the designer’s obsessive attention to detail. First, the park is 2 ½ miles long. The Central Park Commission said that there had to be four cross-streets connecting the east and west sides of Manhattan. To do that and still feel as if you’re in the Adirondacks, Olmsted and Vaux put the cross-streets eight feet below ground level—an innovation in park design. Second, in the Bethesda Terrace there’s a fantastic ceiling made with more than 15,000 tiles. They’re encaustic tiles which means that the color and geometric design on the surface goes all they way through: it is not a glaze but multi-coloured clay. The ceiling was designed by British architect Jacob Wrey Mould, based on his two-year-long study of the Alhambra. So this public park in New York City includes a structure with a ceiling based on one of the most beautiful works of architecture in the world.” Beauty for everyone. I’m so grateful that Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux believed everything matters, that they went for excellence—down to the tiniest, most obsessive detail. And, as a result, gave us Central Park. Excellence, it turns out, is not elitist. Excellence is the most inclusive thing. It is beauty and beauty reaches everyone. It’s a bit like books that way. At least picture books. The best ones are completely designed to seem as if they aren’t. Truly great design is almost invisible, I think. It’s there not to draw attention to itself—it’s there to not get in the way of the story, the experience, the beauty. Great art is a generosity. Because it’s not about the creator or the designer—it’s about the person looking at the painting, the reader opening the book, the New Yorker walking across the park. ———————————– This was originally posted on Sally’s blog. She’s one of our favorite writers, so be sure and visit her blog, or her website, and check out a few of her books right here in the Rabbit Room Store. Photos by Sally Lloyd-Jones.

Charlie Peacock released his new record, No Man’s Land, this past fall. Charlie and I have been friends for close to twenty years, and I was a huge fan for years before that so I asked him for an early copy to review here. He was gracious enough to oblige. I imagined I’d listen to the record, mention a few key high points and invite you to pick up a copy. That was a few months ago. Yes, life has been busy. But the reason I’m so late in getting to this “review” is because I’ve been spending a lot of time with the record, and it’s stirring things in me that have not so much to do with the record itself (which is, in my estimation, his best work—and for me, that’s saying a lot) as with how a great artist’s work works on those who invest in it over the span of time. Consider Paul Simon. It was only a few years ago when I discovered Paul Simon. Sure, I knew who he was. I’d heard a bunch of his songs. I even knew I was supposed to say yes if anyone asked if I thought Graceland was one of the best records ever made. I knew all that. But recently, I jumped into Paul Simon’s ocean of work, and I’m still not done unpacking the complexity, brilliance, and wonder of his music. What a craftsman! I hope he keeps it coming. As much as I love Paul Simon now, I lament that I will never have the experience of hearing Graceland in the context of its day, or most of his other works for that matter. I’m current from Surprise on. Anything before that and I’m late to the party. It makes me wonder what I’m missing. I wonder if there are things I’ll never be able to appreciate about some of his songs because they don’t carry the nostalgia they would have had I been wearing Graceland out when I was in high school. I imagine in some ways I stand at a distance from that record simply because I missed it in its original context. One of the beautiful qualities of good art is that you can spend a lifetime turning it over and over and never run out of new angles to see. Think of a record you fell in love with when you were first discovering music. Go back and listen to U2’s Achtung Baby! or Emmylou Harris’s Wrecking Ball or Peter Gabriel’s So—whatever it is for you. Tell me dusting off an old favorite doesn’t do new things in you. Okay, so I missed a lot of Paul Simon’s career and now I’m playing catch up. One of the happy by-products of recognizing this is that it’s got me thinking about how I’m getting old enough to know the joy of following some artists over the course of their creative careers. There are a few I’ve walked a long road with, and I receive new work from them in a different way than I receive from an artist I’m unfamiliar with or am only just coming to know. It’s a rare thing, but every so often we find the good fortune of discovering a great artist—someone with a lifetime of things to say—closer to the beginning of their creative path than the end. When this happens, we don’t just become fans. We walk through life together. We hear their words or look at their creations in the context of an ongoing conversation we’ve been having for years. When they release a new record, book, or exhibit, it can be one of the best days of the year—as exciting as a birthday. Not every artist can sustain this sort of run for very long. Some die young. Some run out of things to say or the means to say it. I have a few collections of records from musicians I was prepared to listen to for as long as they would make music, and they just disappeared. I have other collections of music from folks who seem, to me at least, to have gotten tired and run out of inspiration, even though they continue to make records. (That’s a sad section of the CD shelf.) But if you find a thoughtful artist—one who trades in truth and beauty—to engage with over the trajectory of his career, you find a rare and precious jewel. Charlie Peacock has been this sort of artist for me. It started like this. In high school, I went on the road with a Christian Heavy Metal band to help with merchandise and whatever else they needed. I wasn’t kidding around either. My love for such music is well documented here on this site. One day, we were setting up on a side-stage for an afternoon show at a festival somewhere in the Midwest. As I unpacked a box of CD’s, I heard music coming from across the fairgrounds—just an acoustic guitar and two voices—nothing metal about it. Nothing metal at all. But in just a matter of seconds, I was Ulysses with no one to tie me to the mast. I left my post, walked across the fairgrounds, and watched in amazement as the Charlie Peacock Trio unknowingly changed my life forever. I wish you could have been there. You would have seen a diehard metalhead drift irreversibly into the tranquil waters of pop music, never to return. But even more, I’m certain you would have been amazed. That trio shared an uncommon chemistry. I still grieve that I will never again hear them like that this side of glory. That was how I discovered Charlie Peacock. I had to ask someone who he was. Turns out, he had a few out of print records and a few bootlegs of demos and a record coming out soon. I went home and made my local record store order it all. And I’ve kept up ever since. I’m not that kid anymore. A lot of life has happened since that day at the festival. But not a single year has passed since then where I wasn’t helped in some way by Charlie’s art. What I appreciate most about Charlie’s art is that it is so informed by his hard fought-for commitment to creating excellent work in an industry that doesn’t always require excellence. I know he’s not trying to waste anyone’s time. I know he’s a true artist. And I know he’s not done. For me, over the span of all these years, his records reveal an artist finding his way across genres and across the country—but not like someone trying to find himself. It’s more like every genre from every corner of the world fascinates him and he wants to do it all if he can do it well. It has been a tremendously rewarding thing to follow Charlie’s career as a fan first and now, to my great pleasure, as his friend. I hope he never stops making new music. I welcome No Man’s Land like I would a new canvas from Vincent van Gogh. The new songs belong not just to this new record, but to his body of work—one I’ve grown up with, and I am happy to report, am still growing with because it just keeps getting better and Charlie has not run out of things to say. Here’s the video of “Death Trap,” his first single from No Man’s Land.

An old man kneels by a fire, telling imaginative tales to eager children. They hang on his every word, transported from their world to another. Their world is beautiful, but broken. He speaks into their hearts words that string together to form new worlds, anticipating the one which will surely come. These are the seeds of the unseen world. N.T. Wright, in a lecture on the impact of the Resurrection of Jesus, has said this: “Art is love creating new worlds; justice is love rolling up its sleeves to heal the old one.” This is the hope of the artist with holy imagination. To work, and by her work, to serve. To plant a seed that may, in time, grow into a new world. A world that reflects, with eager anticipation, the bursting resurrection of the life to come. Is our art truthful? I don’t mean ‘Is it a vehicle to carry truthful sayings?’ But is it truthful? J.R.R. Tolkien famously described The Lord of the Rings as a true story. But how can it be true? It didn’t really happen. Tolkien argued that it need not have happened to be true. The parable of the prodigal son almost certainly didn’t happen, but it is nonetheless true. Penetrating and true. Likewise, the Prophet Nathan’s tale to the adulterer, King David, is a true one. It was not something that happened, but it first moved David to anger by it’s power, then entirely undid him in its climax. “You are that man.” Are our tales true? This need not mean they will be safe and never bother us. This is not a call to create more bright and shiny “Christian” shlock. The world is broken, so our tales must deal with this. There is darkness to be contrasted against. But there is an important point to be made about reveling in the gritty, depraved, and horrific. I’ll try to make it this way. There is goodness in, having discovered that your beloved wife’s wedding ring is lost in the septic tank, digging through it to find your treasure. On the other hand, going for a swim in the septic tank because it’s so “real” and “edgy,” would constitute a sort of perversion. A delight in wickedness. Both men swam in the septic tank, but their stories are different. No. We need not bathe in excrement for delight. We need construction, not elaborate and artful celebrations of destruction. But you will say we must be honest about the fallen world. Yes, I agree. We need to depict and represent the destructive, broken, wounded world as it is. But let us wince at it. Rebellion is the story of our era and the sad, selfish theme of so much art. To celebrate rebellion is to cheer on cancer, to send money to human traffickers, to inspire racism. Christians—and this includes Christians in the arts, even with electric guitars—are, by definition, submissive followers of King Jesus. How do we rebel against rebellion? “Construction is the best way to rebel against the established rebellion.” Zach Franzen We must construct. There are people constructing and many more who would love to. Do you feel called to construction? Maybe you feel called to support people who have their hard hats on and are going to work. That’s good. Do it. Children see everywhere an upside-down world. Holy imagination is a crucial capacity to help them see it right-side-up. To help them appreciate the wonder and magic of the world that is and anticipate the almost entirely unimaginable glory of the world as it shall be. Sometimes artful work can be that window into wonder, that little seed of unseen worlds. Let’s warm our hands and start building. ————————————————– This post first appeared at Story Warren. Image by Gina G. Smith.

“No poet in the world has written a more beautiful short story.” –Alexander Schröder, about the Book of Ruth The church where I pastor started this year by going through the Old Testament book of Ruth. Ruth is a short book nestled in between some of the most pivotal and epic stories God’s people would ever pass down through the generations: you’ve got Samson, Joshua, Gideon, and the entrance into the Promised Land on one side and King David, Solomon, and the best and worst of the rise and fall of the Kingdom of Israel on the other. But there in between is Ruth—part tragedy, part romance, part survival story, and all heart. Goethe called it, “the loveliest complete work on a small scale, handed down to us as an ethical treatise and an idyll.” When I prepare sermons, I edit with a particular eye. I’m working to put together the key themes and events of a Biblical text in such a way that they take a room full of people to the foot of the cross—to that place where our deepest needs are met in God’s gracious provision. I believe the power of preaching resides with the Holy Spirit’s work in the hearts of God’s people. At the same time, I also believe God wants me to care deeply about the craft of preaching and my personal development as a communicator. Those two truths make sense together. I approach sermon writing as a skill, an art, and a God-directed mystery, and I want to be more skilled, more artistic, and more God-directed as I grow. My personal experience in writing sermons (which goes for any sermon writer, I suppose) is that I discover far more about the text in front of me than I will ever come close to verbalizing on a Sunday morning. In preparation, I read a lot, think things over, and fit pieces together until, God willing, a picture begins to form. I step back, look at it, and then set out to describe it in a way that will help people, by God’s grace, see themselves in it. And see Christ. This process demands that I leave out far more information than I include. Every week I want to say more than I actually do, even on those weeks when I am certain I have said far more than I should. Sometimes people say, “Christians shouldn’t care about how long a sermon is. You’re talking about the word of God, for crying out loud!” Here’s what I think about that. I think, often but not always, most longer sermons are not long because the information in them is so compelling that it takes an hour to unveil the full, astonishing truth of what’s being said. I think longer sermons are long because the preacher struggles to discipline himself to find his focus and stay on it. I think I could edit out 20% of any sermon I’ve ever given and find it to be 20% more clear. But the weekly work of paring down, focusing in, and setting aside requires a mysterious combination of discipline and sorrow. The sorrow comes from knowing that many beautiful aspects of any week’s particular text will be edited out and set aside in a place I may not return to for years, if ever. The discipline comes from making my peace with this. I’m running a marathon here, not a sprint. I tell myself, “The information you leave out still shapes your greater understanding of Scripture, so in that sense, you’re putting it to use.” Most of the time I embrace the limits of sermon writing. I know they help. They make for cleaner lines. They sharpen the focus. They keep me closer to 30 minutes, and that keeps the hungry masses from revolt—which Lyle Lovett warned me about. But my cup runneth over with this little book called Ruth. So while I yield to the limits of a Sunday morning, I’m also gathering up some of the beautiful details I discover in a folder for another time and a different format. Maybe a narrative for Ordinary Time. Who knows. Here’s the thing. Whoever wrote the Book of Ruth, he (or she?) too left out more details than he wrote in. He made hard choices. He told us nothing about certain key characters except their names and that they died. He gave us a story that spanned countless months but he really only dealt specifically with three particular days—the day Ruth met Boaz, the day she asked him to marry her, and the day Boaz redeemed her. He wrote vaguely about moments and conversations that leave us begging for more details. He could have told us more. He could have left everything in. But he didn’t. And if he had, I wonder if people would have marveled at the beauty of the story in the same way. I think God teaches our hearts not just through the knowing, but also through the wondering. And because he does, sometimes the best way to tell a complete story is to keep it short.

[Thanks to Hutchmoot alums Jonny Jimison and Jen Rose for letting us post this. To see more of their work, check out their blogs at JonnyJimison.com and JenWritesStuff.com.]

Robert Siegel (1939—2012) is the latest poet to have a volume published in the Poiema Poetry Series. His new book, Within This Tree of Bones, is a career retrospective, which emphasizes the spiritual in his work. The four sections demonstrate: the human condition, the disclosure of God through nature, the revelation of God in scripture, and then culminates with celebration. Dana Gioia wrote in Poetry that “Siegel’s imagination is excited by the nonhuman world, and he writes about plants and animals with surprising immediacy…A compassionate observer…he looks at them as mysterious and wonderful signs of a greater order.” When I last spoke with Bob, on December 10, he entrusted to me the approving of the final proofs for his new book. He died ten days later. I am honoured to have worked with Robert Siegel to edit this excellent collection for publication. He had not mentioned his battle with cancer to me, until that final phone call. I am sad to know he never held it in his hands, but am pleased that I encouraged him to add many new poems to the collection. The following is the first poem in his new book, and is the source for its title. Matins It is morning. A finch startles the maple leaves. Everything’s clear in this first light before all thins to a locust harping on the heat. While day clutches at my pulse to inject the usual anesthetic, now, Christ, stimulate my heart, transfuse your blood to fortify my own. Let no light upon these sheets diminish, Lord, before I feel you burst inward like a finch to nest and sing within this tree of bones. *This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Robert Siegel.

I wrote “You’ll Find Your Way” (from Light for the Lost Boy) for Asher, my second son. He turned 13 last month, and I wrote him a letter for part of his birthday (the other part was a drumset). Here’s a little excerpt from what I told him: You’re thirteen today. I know you know that, but it feels kind of weird and wonderful to sit and think about it, doesn’t it? I remember being that age, and beginning to realize more than ever before that growing up was an inevitable adventure. “Inevitable” means it’s coming and there’s nothing you can do about it as long as you’re drawing breath. And I don’t just mean getting older and taller, either. I mean your heart is growing up. You’ve experienced some pain, some loneliness perhaps, some sense of your smallness in the great big world. It’s a scary thing, isn’t it? There’s no shame in saying yes. But it’s not all the bad kind of scary, either—it’s also the good kind of scary, like roller coaster scary: you’ve been clicking up, up, up toward the top of the ride, and any minute now the coaster is going to peak and plunge you down into the wild and holy speed of life. Throw your hands in the air and scream. But one of the grand things about growing up, I’ve learned, is that you’re already ancient. Your soul, whatever the “soul” is, will live forever in Christ, and God exists outside of time. That’s a crazy thought, isn’t it? God looks at us and sees the beginning and the end at once, kind of like a song or a story. When you hold a book in your hand, you’re holding that character’s whole world—the terror, the joy, the lostness, and the final good ending. But if you think about it, the character in the story doesn’t see the ending, doesn’t know his story is something that can be held in one hand. The character is feeling whatever he’s feeling when you read that sentence. But the reader, a little bit like God, can flip to the end and see how it all works out. Maybe that’s how God beholds our lives. He sees the ending, the middle, and the beginning as one good story. Right now, you’re thirteen and wondering where you’re going to work, who your friends will be in twenty years, where you’ll live, who you’ll marry, what your kids will be like. But in some mysterious way, God knows all those answers even now. Every day is another page in that story, and you can’t know how it’s all going to turn out, just like riding a roller coaster for the first time—except that because of Jesus, because he has made you his son, you can embrace all the twists and turns with joy because you can be confident that he built the ride and loves you more than you can presently know. You will survive until the end of your life (whenever he has decided that is), and then you will continue on into the next book of your life in Christ. That’s Heaven. I guess that’s what I’m saying. Your soul and your body are mysteriously connected. Your body, like Mr. Clarence’s body, which you saw at the funeral a few weeks ago, is going to waste away, but you, Asher Jesse Peterson, will live on. After your body dies, your soul will happily await the day when Jesus will return to earth and raise us all again. Then, like moving into a new house, your soul will inherit a new, perfect body that is neither old nor young, and will go on living in a perfect world without disease or the great shadow of death. So in that sense, you who were made from the mind and imagination of God himself, were born on December 15th, 1999, but what you are made OF has always been, and, because you placed your life in Jesus’ hands a few years ago, you will go on living forever and ever. So yes, you’re thirteen. But in God’s eyes you’re already as old as the stars, and indeed, you will outlive them. Is that a crazy thought, or what? Your experience and age and wisdom are merely catching up to the eternal nature of your redeemed soul. And I believe that you’ll go on catching up to that eternal age, well, for eternity. Our lives will unfold and unfold and unfold forever into the Kingdom of God, the expanse of which is infinite. That means you’re already old, and you’ll continue growing younger as God’s son forever. Does your brain hurt? Mine does. When I look at you I see the boy you are and the man you will be. I’ve said before that I think you’re going to be an amazing grandfather. That grieves me a little, because by the time you’re a grandfather I’ll probably be long dead. But your quick mind, your amazing sense of humor, your gentleness with children, your thoughtfulness (all traits that delight me) will go on developing as the Lord refines you and makes you into the person you were always meant to be. I give thanks to God for every single day I get the gift of watching you shine in this world. And when I’m an old man (if I live to be an old man), I’ll still look at my son, my Asher Jesse, and marvel. I’ll shake my head in wonder that I got to be a little part of your story, and you got to be a big part of mine. My hope for my boy is that he’ll take Jeremiah 6:16 to heart: “Thus says the Lord, ‘Stand by the roads and look; ask for the ancient paths, and walk in them, and you will find rest for your souls.” https://youtube.com/watch?v=NMn3ThuvGMo%3Frel%3D0 A little bit of trivia about the video: we filmed most of it at Michael Card’s place in Franklin, TN. The little boy in the video is named William Hearn, and is a part of the homeschool co-op our kids go to. His whole family plays music and is involved in drama productions. He’s a sweet kid, and was a trooper on the long day of shooting. We did a few reshoots at the Warren, which is where the piano shots were filmed. That day was the peak of the heat wave of 2012, and though it may not look like it, the temperature was 108˚ in the shade. Every minute or so we had to wipe the sweat from my face, and in a few of the shots you can see it dripping from the tip of my nose. In the shot where I’m sitting at the piano and you can see the grassy woods slope away behind me, the Hidden House my daughter and her friends built is just outside the frame. I love that we got to make some of this video in the woods where my children have adventured. The video was directed by Grant Howard, the fine fellow who also directed the “Dancing in the Minefields” video. Thank you Grant, William, Michael, the crew, and Centricity Music for making this happen! (Here’s another little video about the song.) https://youtube.com/watch?v=fQ7PwQd-3Og%3Frel%3D0

I go to the movies for a lot of reasons. I love adventure (John Carter, The Hobbit, The Avengers). I love watching another person’s imagination work its way out in light and color (Life of Pi). I love the way that movies use sprawling images and wild tales to wrestle with intimate, personal questions (Tree of Life), and eternal mysteries—even if they don’t necessarily succeed (Prometheus). But if I had to narrow my love of movies (or stories in general) down to a single defining factor, I think I could make a good case for “moral complexity worked out to an honest end.” What the heck does that mean, Pete? Let me explain—no, there is too much. Let me sum up. The Man-With-No-Name in Drive is so driven to protect what he loves that he becomes a monster, destroying himself, and therefore separating himself from the object of his love and protection. Drive takes a single compelling idea and works it out to its conclusion. Happy ending? Not really. But it delivers an ending that feels true. It doesn’t sacrifice its integrity. Warrior works on a similar level. It’s about two brothers, both of whom we want to see win the title, but one of whom we know must lose. Warrior finds a way to resolve that complex problem with integrity. A story gets really interesting, you see, when a character is faced with having to do the wrong thing for the right reason or the right thing for the wrong reason, or even more to the point, when a character has to choose between more than one equally right (or wrong), but exclusionary, decisions. This is, of course, the definition of “drama.” And that brings me to two movies that I was looking forward to seeing this year: The Dark Knight Rises and Django Unchained. They each appealed to me on this level of “moral complexity,” and while both movies delivered what I’d hoped for in some fashion, they also let me down in pivotal ways. In the run up to the release of The Dark Knight Rises, I rewatched the first two movies, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, and coerced my wife into watching them with me (because she owed me for having watched Anne of Green Gables in its entirety—I even liked it). In Batman Begins, we discover Batman’s origins and meet Ra’s al Ghul, leader of the League of Shadows. Is he an evil man? That’s not immediately clear. Perhaps he is. Perhaps he isn’t. As an antagonist, he’s the sort that’s compelling precisely because he doesn’t think he’s evil. He sees himself as a savior, fighting corruption by destroying everything it touches, the innocent and the depraved alike. Ra’s al Ghul’s is a world of black and white; a society is either good and it deserves life, or it’s corrupt and it deserves death. There’s no room for grace in Ra’s al Ghul’s view; he’s the Javert of Gotham City, so to speak. Bruce Wayne on the other hand believes that people can change and he’s fighting to let them prove it. Fighting not with guns but with wits. Batman is the “world’s greatest detective.” Batman doesn’t kill. Instead he uses the weapon of the enemy: Fear. He turns his fear into his strength. Is that wise? Maybe. Maybe not. The story aims to explore the answer, though, and by the end of Batman Begins, an ominous escalation has begun. The good guys are wearing capes; the bad guys are becoming the Joker. In The Dark Knight the story becomes, not only more complex, but terrifying. The Joker is hate for hate’s sake. He’s evil that wants nothing more than to be fought. “Come on! Hit me!” says the Joker. “I want you to do it.” The Joker preys on our deepest instincts for justice and corrupts them. He doesn’t want to destroy Gotham like Ra’s al Ghul; he wants to blacken the souls within it so that its citizens will destroy themselves. And more than anything he wants to corrupt Gotham’s protector: Batman. He doesn’t want fame, or money, or to put forth an ideal. He wants corrupt and burn. He’s chaos incarnate. True anti-Christ. The only way to defeat an evil that wants to be fought, is to refuse to fight at all. I confidently put The Dark Knight in the same league as The Godfather and Apocalypse Now. Each of those films provides a fascinating exploration of the nature of evil and the ways in which we respond to it. They each force us to look at the state of the world and ask ourselves how it got this way and how we ought to go about setting it right again. So then arrives The Dark Knight Rises, and I was anxious to discover what conclusions the director, Christopher Nolan, might draw from all this exploration of evil and violence and escalation. In the new villain, Bane, we have Ra’s al Ghul and the Joker combined. He’s a man who believes he’s saving the world from corruption, and he does so by unleashing the base human emotions of envy and entitlement, sitting back to laugh as society tears itself apart. And what are his tools? The very tools used to stop Ra’s al Ghul and the Joker—Batman’s own personal arsenal. Bane takes what’s meant for good and turns it to evil. So what new method of war will Batman employ to defeat his own tools used against him? And where will it escalate from there? War without end. Amen? Up until this point, Nolan’s movies, despite their flaws, had done an admirable job of maintaining the integrity of their characters’ moral complexity. There were few easy decisions, everything had consequences, and the resolutions were generally as complex as the problems they solved. But it’s at this point that The Dark Knight Rises lets me down. The culmination of all this escalation of violence ultimately boils down to a fist fight. Batman, who couldn’t best Bane with brute force in Act 2, comes back in Act 3 to best him with the same brute force (even though he’s just recovered from a broken back). This is not a satisfying resolution because there’s been nothing to break the cycle of escalation and violence. Oh but wait, you say, Batman saves the city by making the “ultimate sacrifice,” thereby showing us that the the final solution is something higher. Well, I could buy that if Nolan had the insight to end it there, but he didn’t. The final scenes are of a continuing promise of escalation in which someone new finds Batman’s arsenal and takes on the protective mantle. So has anything changed? Has anything been learned? Has all of our exploration of evil come only to this? A fist fight, and Catwoman pulling the trigger that Batman wouldn’t? I cry foul. I still enjoy the movie and applaud it for what it does well, but I mourn the complexity it failed to maintain. This brings me to Quentin Tarantino. He’s one of my favorite directors. From Reservoir Dogs to Inglourious Basterds, his films have tickled my film-lovers fancy in complex and often troubling ways. Foremost and most simply, he speaks the language of cinema so fluently that even when he hasn’t got much to say, it’s a delight to hear him say it. But that’s also a frustrating thing. What does he have to say, if anything, and how long am I willing to listen? In some ways, Tarantino makes me feel like I’m a parent waiting for a talented child to grow up. With each successive film, I sit down in the theater hoping to discover that he’s arrived and set about the business of his masterwork. Pulp Fiction certainly established such a promise with its denouement of unlikely mercy proclaimed by the “tyranny of evil men.” There have been ups and downs since, but Inglourious Basterds, an incredible film, hinted again at those old promises with its bold ironies and its apparent indictment of violent entertainment. So enters Django Unchained. Django is a fantastic piece of cinema. The dialogue is sharp, the direction (and by extension the acting) is top-notch, the (camera) shots, edits, and music are all the stuff of film-geek heaven. What’s behind it all, though? Anything? A lot of people accuse Tarantino of indulging style over substance, and in that respect I’ve often been one of his defenders. With Django, Tarantino is interested in legend-building. One of the characters in the film recounts the Wagnerian tale of Seigfried and Brunhilde in which the “princess” Brunhilde is imprisoned in a ring of fire to await rescue by a hero who knows no fear. Django’s wife in the film is actually named Broomhilda, and her ring of fire is a barbaric plantation; the analogy is clear. That’s the kind of idea I can really appreciate, and on that level I enjoyed the film. In Django, Tarantino is giving us a legendary African-American hero that Spaghetti-Western cinema has never really had. That’s a great idea to build a story around, and it’s potentially a story well-worth the telling. I worry, however, that Tarantino has begun to repeat himself. Django indulges in the same vengeful fantasies we’ve seen in previous movies, but shows us very little of the accompanying moral complexity. The complexity isn’t gone completely, but it’s certainly not in the forefront as I’d argue it is in Inglourious Basterds. Vengeance is a real thing. We all feel the need for it. We all enjoy seeing justice carried out. We enjoy seeing a bad guy get his comeuppance. But however righteous vengeance may feel, vengeance is not a virtue, and human history is a testament to the damning circular logic of revenge. Attempting redemption through vengeance is a recipe for destruction, and while I certainly admit the enjoyment of the occasional revenge tale (The Crow, Kill Bill, The Princess Bride—mentioned all in the same sentence for the first time ever), it’s not only unsatisfying in the end, it’s dishonest. The answer to the “tyranny of evil men” must, in the end, be something better than the tyranny of vengeful men. If you want to draw me in and show me the pain, price, and nature of human evil, you are going to have to come up with a better resolution to the tale than a spirited fist fight (The Dark Knight Rises) or a gory and inconsequential shootout (Django). In Kill Bill The Bride got her revenge, but she suffered for it, was changed by it. In Inglourious Basterds the gang gets their moment of wrack and ruin, but they pay for it with their lives, dying in the theater alongside the Nazis they hated. But Django dances into the sunset, unscathed emotionally or physically, after killing dozens of people and even lowering himself to the level of a black slaver to do so. Make of Django a 19th century gunslinging Seigfried if you will (please do!), but leave him his complexity. Let us believe his journey has cost him something. Leave us hoping he’s come to the end of his story with a better idea of right and wrong than his antagonists had. That’s where Tarantino seems stuck. That’s where Nolan loses his battle. The final answer to evil and violence cannot really be more violence. I don’t need to see Batman and Django become pacifists, but I certainly don’t enjoy seeing them become the new tyranny, which is arguably where they both end up. I think it betrays, cheapens, and undermines the power of their stories and presents a destructive answer to a world that is full of questions and looking (rightly or wrongly) to society’s storytellers for wisdom. Imagine, if you will, the way we’d have felt had Frodo defeated Sauron in a duel? Would that have been a story for the ages? Would we still be singing Victor Hugo’s praises had Valjean and Javert squared off and traded blows on the banks of the Seine? I don’t think so. And that’s why I’m disappointed in Nolan and Tarantino. I still like their movies, but I had dreamed that they’d dig a little deeper and hit upon something true in the end. All this led to several solemn talks with my wife about gun control, war, pacifism, and the human instincts of defense and vengeance. We didn’t come to any clear answers, and that’s rightly the case. The world is a morass of complexity, and the stories we tell about violence, evil, and human nature should reflect that. We live in a grey mist of moral paradox that none of us can fully navigate, and anyone who offers easy answers is offering the revenge cycle of Django or Ra’s al Ghul. Anyone who claims there is no answer is enslaved to the Joker’s chaos. Somewhere in between is Bane, demanding what is merely fair rather than what is just, and everywhere we turn, what we mean for good is used for evil. When Bob Kane created Batman, the “world’s greatest detective,” he set out to tell fun stories that upheld decency, justice, and law. When The Dark Knight Rises premiered, his dream was corrupted by a madman in a theater with a gun. God tells us that what man has meant for evil, He has turned to good. He untangles the knots we make. He unravels the evil of the world and makes of it beauty, truth, justice, peace, and he does it in ways infinitely complex and beyond our limited understanding. It’s the lack of this mystery that leaves me unsatisfied when films like Django Unchained or The Dark Knight Rises insist that eye-for-an-eye comeuppance are enough. The paradox of our fallen world is that all of our good is turned against us, and yet we must not cease from the good work we do, because we have the assurance of one greater than the world, one who has overcome the world, one truly and eternally incorruptible. Our great hope is of the day when tangling at last shall cease, when of strands both old and new the world shall be remade—incorruptible, unfallen, eternal, yet no less complex—no longer spiraling and twisting in cycles of moral ambiguity and vengeance, but becoming more and more clearly its true shape and self. Until then, we wrestle our broken natures; we strive, like Batman, to be more than merely men, but less than new forms of evil. And like Batman, we often fail. We are tragically and inevitably tempted toward revenge. Do we dare reduce it to the simplicity of just deserts? If we aim to tell stories that are true, then our telling ought to reflect, not merely the false finality of vengeance, but the complex and eternal mystery of mercy.

Here’s a quick list of some good films/television shows I saw this year. (Asterisks signify availability on Netflix Instant View.) I just watched this for the third time. Yes, it’s that good. I paused it a few times when we watched it as a family—mainly to point out where I thought George dropped the ball with his marriage. (The film gives the impression that his marriage was already doomed and he would be better off abandoning it. Obviously that doesn’t jibe with what I want to teach my kids.) Other than that, it’s storytelling at its best: funny, heartbreaking, imaginative, entertaining, inspiring. Re-reading this, it’s a good time to point out that every one of these films probably has moments that might offend more sensitive viewers. Please don’t throw a brick through my virtual window. I’m a bit neurotic about recommendations like this because I’m a pastor’s kid who’s always assuming that something he says will get him into trouble. I’ll do my best to voice any caveats you should know about if you plan to watch these with your family. There. Disclaimer over. I exhaust myself, honestly. —————————————————————————————— I’m a big fan of Wes Anderson films (Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Life Aquatic, The Royal Tennenbaums, The Fantastic Mr. Fox), and if I had to give one reason is this: he’s a great storyteller who seems to care about the audience. His attention to detail is staggering, and it feels like he’s bending over backwards to delight us with his stories.  That said, most of his films have a moment or two that make me shake my fist and say, “Now why did you have to go and do THAT?” Moonrise Kingdom, in addition to having one of the most magical titles ever, is the perfect vehicle for Anderson’s prowess. But it has one scene that, frankly, ticked me off and, in my opinion, kept it from being the classic it might have been. Anyone who’s seen the film knows exactly what I’m talking about. —————————————————————————————— The BBC knows how to do television. There are two three-episode seasons of Sherlock so far, and each episode is about 90 minutes, which gives the story time to develop in ways most feature films only dream of. From a parental perspective, these are probably PG-13, though the first episode of season two, with the Irene Adler storyline, was racy enough that I fast-forwarded quite a bit of it. You wouldn’t be missing anything to just skip it altogether. I watched the last two episodes of season two with my teenagers and we loved them. The ending is ridiculously good. —————————————————————————————— This might be hard to believe, but Warrior might have been my favorite film of 2012. The first thing I should point out is that it’s about MMA (Mixed Martial Arts), but it isn’t at ALL about MMA. It’s about two brothers, their father, and the redemption of their relationship. The fighting is brutal, so if you’re squeamish you shouldn’t watch it. But I basically forced Jamie to watch it and, though she closed her eyes for a lot of the fighting, she told me the next day that she couldn’t stop thinking about it. The last scene made me blubber-cry all six times I watched it this year. The National did a few songs for the film, and from the moment the final song begins to the credits is—and I’m not exaggerating here—one of the most emotionally resonant things I’ve ever seen in a movie. The whole Moby Dick subtext is brilliant, and Nick Nolte’s performance deserved the Oscar nomination he got. I just finished reading Mere Christianity again this year, and I kept thinking about Warrior in the final chapters where Lewis talks about the lengths to which God will go to make us into who he wants us to be. —————————————————————————————— I can pretty much guarantee you’ve never seen a movie quite like this one. It’s half-documentary, half-drama, and tells the true story of something pretty crazy that happened in an East Texas town several years ago. It made me glad all over again that I grew up in the south, where it seems that anything can happen, and usually does. I think Flannery O’Connor would have liked this one. —————————————————————————————— My wife is a food nut. This is one of my favorite things about her. She’s determined to create a healthy eating culture in our home, and I’m confident that we’ll all be happier and live longer because of it. Films like this are really interesting whether or not you agree with their conclusions, but their evidence for vegetarianism here is pretty strong. There are all kinds of takes on the veggie story in Daniel 1, but it’s hard to argue with the idea that vegetables are good, and too much meat is bad. I don’t know that I’ll ever give up my dad’s famous ribeye steaks, but I’m done with pigging out on meat at every meal. —————————————————————————————— My brother recommended this BBC series to me. Once again, those Brits prove they know good stories. Detective Foyle is solving cases in England during WWII—so imagine all the intrigue of a good Father Brown or Sherlock Holmes story with the historical atmosphere of the German air raids. Throw in the occasional Nazi spy and you’ve got Foyle’s War. I haven’t finished it yet, but I watched quite a few of these with my sons and we had a blast. —————————————————————————————— I knew almost nothing of the Korean War before I watched this film. It’s a documentary about one of the most famous battles in any war, told by the Americans who fought it. Like Band of Brothers (which I loved), the best part of this documentary is the first-hand accounts by these beautiful, broken old men who survived something I can’t imagine. —————————————————————————————— This film should have been a gigantic success. Something went wrong (I’m reading a book called John Carter and the Gods of Hollywood which chronicles the making and subsequent bombing of what was actually a really good movie), and for some reason the studios declared it a flop before it even made it out of the gate. My brother described this to me as “The best Star Wars since Star Wars,” and I think he’s spot-on. It’s not perfect (neither was Star Wars), but it made me feel like I was ten again, and woke in me the most delightful longing at the end. Not only that, director Andrew Stanton tweeted Pete’s Rabbit Room post about it, which is cool. —————————————————————————————— I loved this book. I loved this movie. As Thomas McKenzie more or less said in his review, “No, the theology proposed isn’t orthodox, and no I don’t agree with it. Moving on.” It was one of the most beautiful looking films I’ve ever seen, and the story is so good that it’s worth your time. As a Christian, I enjoyed the way it made me think on God, and I can imagine that whoever sees it, regardless of their beliefs, will spend more time than usual considering his existence. With both the book and the movie, the story talks about God and Jesus in a way that isn’t belittling or cynical; it takes for granted that at least some kind of theism is normal and even laudable. That strikes me as surprising in this day and age. The next step, that of believing in Jesus, is another story, of course, but it’s good to start somewhere. Our family conversation on the way home from the cinema was wonderful. Here’s a link to a painting by my son Aedan after seeing the movie and reading the book. Some more that I liked this year, though I’m fresh out of writing energy: The Pirates!, Brave, The Birds, The Hobbit, The Avengers, Lincoln. Let the listing begin!

“I started listening to the wolves in the timber at night. I don’t know how they found me, I’ll never know quite how.” – musician, Josh Ritter “The shadow proves the sunshine.”– musician, Jon Foreman Whether one believes in origins as a matter of seven simultaneous 24-hour days carved out of emptiness, as the result of billions of years of settling and seething, as a lone voice speaking the entirety of everything simultaneously into existence, or as mere ornamental accident, the artist’s act of creating—the effort to birth something new, previously unknown or unseen into the world—is inherently the creation story retold in its most primitive, though fallible, form. Any artist worth any grain of salt must, even on their worst, most godless day, admit that the act in which they engage themselves is an effort to replicate origins. The artist fully engaged in his or work knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that nothing he creates did not already previously exist. Worse still, neither the shadow nor the doubt will ever leave him in peace. Though not present at the original unveiling of time, the artist yearns jealously to participate, to have a hand in emulating beginnings. Though plagued by cavernous insecurity and grave doubt, the artist is, ironically, a hopeful soul by nature. He seeks to eradicate the dark by introducing light, struggling to fight off the bloodthirsty wolves, and contending however feebly to muzzle the odious butcher voices. The artist is a figure in storm, rapt and straining to hear melody amid chaos, not at all aloof or immune to projectile shrapnel, very much aware of and susceptible to the pain. If lucky, in the end the artist is able to walk away, but never without a limp. Even luckier is the soul with friends and an audience who listens, affirms and joins in harmony. I am a dabbler and a sparer. I paint canvases. I spare and repurpose dilapidated wood. I collect old books. And, the way I see it, I dabble in the art of lawn mowing. None of these acts involve the writing of words, and, for me, that is entirely the point. Creating is my way of fending off the sadness. When painting a canvas, I am wringing the throat of darkness, forcing its movement, coloring the vacuum of shadows, answering the aching, dull melancholy with color of my own. When working with castoff slabs of old, dingy wood, I am repurposing an atom of origins, and lending it an atom of myself. By reclaiming lost, unwanted, unnoticed debris, and wiping away the grime of plaguing memories, chipping away tormenting layers of paint, I am reintroducing the refashioned work into the living fold. When mowing a lawn, I am laboring over something unkempt, perhaps hideous, and wrestling it—toiling, even—to make it pretty again, albeit temporarily so. By revering the meek, undistinguished objects and scenes of earth, the artist seeks to recapture a grain of the original garden; that place where the soul first felt its worth. The artist sings a song over his subjects’ unrequited lives of possibility, their lifeless carcasses, and, necessarily, dies a little bit himself. Not all death is to be avoided. The artist wants. In wanting, he must fight a good fight. Under these terms, fighting “good” is not to be confused with fighting fair. I must push back against the darkness, if necessary using darkness itself as a weapon. In proclaiming origin, the artist humbles himself before the blank space and the medium, and asks of them, “What do you wish to be?” By such expression, the engaged artist wittingly or unwittingly pleads, Your will be done, not mine. In submission, I am shredding the darkness, and flinging it back at itself. We are, after all, replicators seeking to help the near-blind see their own origin of color. In engaging his heart and hands the artist stares through the well of life into the implacable sadness and yanks out the light from the dark depths. In the original garden abounded radiant light, bounty, and beauty, and in his heart the artist continues clinging to, and fighting for, his own shimmering origin. And he hopes that light is enough.

Hello, rabbits. Here’s a short list of a few books I read and liked this year, very few of which were published in 2012. They’re not in any particular order, and a few may have actually been read at the end of 2011. Here goes. I stumbled on this one at Goodwill and picked it up because I had the creepy feeling the title was describing me. I had, after all, just spent thirty minutes with my head cocked to the right so I could read every single spine of a hundred yards of used books. I’m a sucker for a good detective story—if it’s based on actual events, then even better. One of my hobbies on the road is visiting used book stores, so learning about not only the world of rare book collecting but the world of rare book thievery was fascinating. I’ve read every book by Larson—first Devil in the White City, then Thunderstruck, then In the Garden of Beasts. He’s a great writer, and has carved a niche by unearthing relatively obscure bits of history and humanizing them as deftly as he researches them. His books are usually about two things: Devil in the White City isn’t just about the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, it’s also about a serial killer who was in the middle of it; Thunderstruck isn’t just about a famous English murder, it’s about the invention of the radio; and Isaac’s Storm isn’t just about the tragic Galveston flood of 1900, it’s about the beginnings of meteorology and the anatomy of hurricanes. Anyone who’s interested in American history and is awed by the power of storms will love this book. It is no secret that Flannery O’Connor is one of the great American writers. I have read and appreciated many of her stories without going bonkers over them. I find that O’Connor only appeals to me when I’m in a certain mood, and I’m seldom in that mood. But Jonathan’s book changed that for me. I found that after reading The Terrible Speed of Mercy her stories feel deeper, more human, less eccentric—no longer do they feel like they’re written by the fierce, intellectual lioness of Georgia who doesn’t much care what I think, but by a weak, lovely and lonely girl who sees her writing as a way to wake the world to the glory of God. This isn’t the greatest book ever, but it’s one of the most interesting. Lindskoog died a few years ago, having gone perhaps a little crazy trying to get the world to believe her theories on corruption in the C.S. Lewis estate. I finished the book feeling like Lindskoog was truly out of touch with reality on some points and yet raised some excellent questions about others. If even 10% of what she proposes is true, then I’d love some straight answers from the C.S. Lewis camp. It would make for an amazing documentary film. Merton lived and wrote at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky, which is where I spent the weekend in 2002 that led me to a song called “The Silence of God.” The Seven Storey Mountain is probably his most famous work, and I’m sad to say I’ve never read it or anything else by him until now. I found a first edition of Jonas at a bookstore on the road (I forget where) and started it one afternoon when I was feeling particularly sinful. It was just what I needed: the journal entries of a man in love with the mystery of God, who is discontent with his own sin and yet gives thanks for his suffering as the Lord’s loving discipline. Giving thanks for my own suffering is a virtue I hope to practice in the coming year. There’s so much to learn from Merton, and I’m excited that this is only the tip of the iceberg. Sometimes you don’t feel like reading a book written by a Trappist monk. Sometimes you read a book just for fun. If a tale about a Houdini-esque magician on the run from FBI agents who think he killed the president isn’t fun, I don’t know what is. I think this is Gold’s first book, and I think they’re making it into a film. I’m not the kind of guy who thinks every great book would make a great movie (Narnia is a case in point), but I kept thinking while I read this that it would make for a great ride in the theater. A few of the songs on Light for the Lost Boy were influenced by this book—“Day by Day” is probably the most obvious, and I had the honor of singing it for NTW himself at a Rabbit Room event earlier this year. Chapter after chapter I found myself thinking, “I hope this is true,” and because Wright uses so much scripture I then found myself thinking, “It is true.” I’ve read a few theologians’ critiques of this book, but even the harshest admit that there’s much to be learned from it. Every October I get out my collection of spooky stories, and Russell Kirk is at the top of the list (thanks to Jason Gray). I’ve read most of Ancestral Shadows, his collection of ghostly tales, but this was the first time I read Old House of Fear. If you’re ever in the mood for foggy moors, old castles, dashing heroes, ancient mysteries, and shipwrecks, then this is the book for you. And if you haven’t read Ancestral Shadows, it’s great. Search for Jason Gray’s excellent review of it. Cartoonist Jonny Jimison was at Hutchmoot this year, and we talked a bit about Doug TenNapel. I had heard a lot about him (and knew of his creation, “Earthworm Jim”) but hadn’t read any of his graphic novels yet. Then at a local bookstore I was arrested by the cover of a book called Cardboard. I thumbed through it and loved what I saw: big, bold lines, cartoony but artful and bursting with energy—at times the panels felt like the best Bill Watterson drawings. I was sold before I ever realized it was a Doug TenNapel book. And it’s so good! I pushed it on my kids immediately. Then I went on a TenNapel binge and read Ghostopolis, Bad Island, and Monster Zoo. I grew up reading comics and graphic novels, but I’ve never read stories quite like his. He’s unabashed about being a Christian, and yet is well-respected in the comic world. That’s saying something. (His newer books are kid-appropriate, but Creature Tech, for the record, isn’t. I’m working my way through the back catalogue.) There’s my short, off-the-top-of-my-head list. If I think of more I’ll tack them on. What about you guys?

The spice of it caught their notice first. As they entered the chapel for the Christmas Eve service, they lifted their noses to scent the air like a pack of curious hounds. The dim place was fragrant with the sharp green tang of holly and fresh air and the undertone of something sweet. Old and young, dean and student, the freshness spurred them to a sprightlier step toward their accustomed pews. Instantly, they spotted the gifts. A chorus of tiny gasps fluttered through the chapel as the people filed in, for perched atop each hymnal was a tiny trinket with a paper folded neatly beside. Neglecting even to sit or straighten their coats, they pulled off their gloves and reached for the treasures. A tin car, a teacup, a rusted brooch, they cradled the trinkets in their hands and glanced at their neighbors, eyebrows arched in curiosity and amusement. That’s when the laughter began, a polite twitter that sounded like a flock of small birds chirping in the seats. When they opened their notes to find angels laughing, dancing, or waving at them from the paper in their hands, the smiles burned in the dim shadows. A little boy, clutching a tin soldier, pointed from the paper to the ceiling with immediate recognition. “Look mum, it’s the angels in the rafters,” and his stage whisper reached every ear within six pews and turned every face skyward on the instant. Then the thrum of whispers grew like a gathering storm, and laughter rumbled up and down the pews and giggles flocked up like sparrows. When everyone stood for the first hymn, there was a good deal of jabbing of elbows and pointing of merry fingers and arching of amused eyebrows. The people leaned a little closer to each other, glad to savor an unexpected delight together on so festive a day. But Eric was the last to notice. He had, in fact, walked his solemn way down the aisle and taken his seat before he realized that something was up. There were chuckles, deep, throaty, smothered laughter coming directly from the pew where the oldest professor and his primmest of all prim wives always sat. Eric craned his neck and caught a distinct glimpse of a pile of buttons on top of the old man’s hymnal, and a silver spoon on his wife’s. Old Mrs. Monroe, next to them, cradled a tin car in her hands and was grinning from ear to ear. But before he could sufficiently absorb the shock of these foreign objects in his chapel, he became aware of a sea-like rustling amidst the choirboys. Their heads bobbed up and down like waves and their robes swished against the smooth wooden pews. They were distinctly sticky; Eric could see it now. Every single boy had a full mouth and most were surreptitiously licking their fingers. “What in heaven’s name is going on?” he whispered to the choir director, a few seats in front of him. His shock was immense when the sophisticated young man turned to him with a mouth as full as the boy’s and whispered back “chocolate drops on every boy’s books, and ridiculous trinkets on each seat. The dean got a teaspoon! Great fun indeed. Ellie’s idea?” And he turned back just in time to prod the choirboys to their feet for the first hymn. In helpless bewilderment, Eric sank back into his seat and gazed about him. Every person in the chapel seemed to be smiling or nudging their neighbor as they lifted their voices. Even Ellie was beaming, for she caught his curious glance on the instant, and waved the rose she was holding at him across the aisle. He dropped his eyes, crimson with embarrassment, and finally spotted his own gift. No trinket for him, just a fat missive waiting on top of his hymnal, his name scrawled across it in big, red letters. Slumped in his seat, with head bowed in mock meditation, he unfolded the paper. His eyes widened and his hands shook. For an angel stared back at him, an angel unmistakably drawn from those hovering in the shadows far above his head. And the angel was winking. With an ear-to-ear smile and wings waving up and down (this was illustrated by an immense number of fluttery lines) the angel stared straight at Eric in an endless, comradely wink. For one instant that blazed like the noonday sun and filled Eric top to toe with warmth, he felt a bright shot of hope. Perhaps it was all true. How could anyone else know of the wonder he used to glimpse? But Eric dropped the paper and shivered. The sight bewildered him. And then it angered him. Someone had discovered his secret thoughts and set this before him as a cruel joke. He was humiliated to be found out in his childish fancy and need. Of course, none of it was true. He crumpled the paper in both his hands and glanced around at his congregants. Who, he wondered was at the bottom of this foolishness? Who had scattered cheap toys through his chapel and made a mockery of the angels? Who was it that had mentioned angels? He sat suddenly straighter as he remembered his encounter with old Father Jonas that morning. Crazy old priest. Of course it was him. Eric pulled his robes straight and peered into the shadows for a glimpse of the old man. He was not to be spotted, but the minute the service was over, Eric planned to search him out and give him a lecture that he would not forget, however bad his memory was. Winking angels indeed. *** Father Jonas looked distinctly like a small, fierce star as he bid each visitor to his chapel a happy Christmas Eve. He twinkled, he hopped, he laughed, he spun. It had worked. In his marrow, in the very beat of his heart, he knew their scheme had worked. Swathed in shadows by the door, he had spied upon the people as they found their gifts. He saw full rows of eyes turned merrily toward the angels, he heard the murmurs and the laughter, and he saw the lightening that came to darkened eyes. It took every ounce of discipline he possessed to stand and sparkle by the door until the last person had gone. Only then, when it was safe, dared he patter up the stairs to the loft to celebrate with the angel’s boy. “Bren,” he hissed when he reached the loft, “Bren! Come out lad, it’s safe. We did it!” When no movement met his voice, he entered the first rows of pews. “Bren!” he said it aloud now, “come out!” But his words were greeted with a silence that set the hairs on the back of his neck in a sudden prickle. A low little moan came from the far corner. “Jonas?” Bren peeked out from his cubbyhole at the foot of an old pew and tried to stand. But he wobbled like a toddler and the old man rushed forward to catch him just in time. “I don’t feel well,” Bren whispered when Jonas had him settled on the stones, back against the pew. It took only a touch of his hand on the little boy’s face for Jonas to realize that Bren was in a fever. “I felt a little dizzy earlier, but I got so cold sitting here during the service, and the lights look blurry now and I can’t stop shaking.” The words melted Jonas’ heart within him and made his knees feel like water. Somewhere in the dim past, amidst the blackest thoughts that had fallen from him was another child’s cry, another burning face, and with the memory a sense of grief so great he could still taste its sour tang on his lips. In one instant, it wiped out the joy from his mind. There was no time to think, to wait, or hide and all he knew was fear for the angel’s child. With the swift insight of terror, he knew that he was powerless to help in this matter and. He must reveal Bren to at least one person. But he knew just the one. Trembling, he forced himself to his feet and dragged Bren up too. Fear lent a taut, wiry strength to his muscles that carried the both of them down the stairs and out of the great door into the freezing air. Bren bent nearly double at the slap of the cold upon his skin, but Jonas wrapped his old arms tightly about the boy and hurried him on. Down silent cloisters under a blackened sky, in an eerie silence with damp and dust all about them, they limped until they came to a tiny house tucked into the far corner of a shadowy courtyard. Jonas rapped upon the door with three hard strokes. It was opened by a woman with a quiet face. A low, flickering light seeped into the darkness from behind her and danced over Jonas’ face and Bren’s bent head as she looked down upon them from its midst. “He needs help, the boy needs help, please,” Jonas pled, “he’s quite ill and I don’t know what to do. I knew you’d help.” Ellie stared just for a second before she pulled both of them into the small sitting room and shut the door tight. In an instant she was on her knees, feeling the boy’s face, chafing his hands, and firing questions at poor Father Jonas. “His name’s Bren,” Jonas said in answer to her first query. “I don’t know how old he is. I found him in the chapel, the angel’s sent him and we left the Christmas gifts together.” “The angels?” Ellie lifted an eyebrow at this explanation but led the boy to the sofa and began to cover him with blankets. “Jonas, how long has he been there? And gifts, was it you who left all those funny little things? And the angel drawings?” “Yes,” admitted Jonas with just a hint of sprightliness. “We wanted to make their thoughts light again. It was his idea,” he finished sadly. “And you left me a rose, it was so lovely,” sighed Ellie, gazing at the boy with gentled, curious eyes. “But Jonas,” her voice was businesslike again, “how long has the boy been in the chapel? And who is he?” “I found him this morning, and he had been there through the night. I don’t know anything else,” said Jonas humbly, thinking for the very first time that there might be a tiny bit of truth in the thought that his mind wasn’t quite all there. Both of their eyes shot to Bren as he gave a tiny little moan. His eyes were barely open now, his little body so wracked with chills he could barely speak, but he sat up just enough to clutch Ellie’s hand and whisper “please, please don’t tell them I’m here.” “Tell who?” she questioned gently, leaning close, but Bren closed his eyes, breathing very hard.  Jonas stood back, twisting his hands until they were red and sore as Ellie tucked a last blanket around the child and tiptoed back to Jonas. “Listen to me Jonas, I think he is very ill. He must have caught cold in that drafty old chapel last night. Do you know when he ate last?” “We had a chocolate drop,” murmured Jonas with a red face. Ellie rolled her eyes. “I’m going to ring for the doctor, and you must run to Mrs. Murray and ask her for an extra hot water bottle. I’ll see to the boy. Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of him.” Jonas hopped to attention and turned toward the door. “Don’t let anyone take him,” he whispered, hand on the knob, his huge eyes like a child’s in their fear and yearning. “I won’t,” she promised, “and hurry back. He’ll miss you.” Jonas slipped out into the darkness. His bones ached and his many years suddenly felt like countless heavy weights upon his back. He got lost almost as soon as he began. The chapel he knew like the back of his hand and the college ways were clear enough in daylight. But the grey, moonless dark, the wind’s hiss, and his own worry muddied his thoughts so that it took three times as long as usual to find Mrs. Murray’s door and ask for the water bottle. But she had none to spare, and he was sent hobbling through two more courtyards in search of another, and by the time he finally began his walk back to Ellie’s cottage it had been almost an hour. As he neared the house, a strange urgency pulsed through him. The image of Bren’s frightened face filled his thoughts and the fear that the child felt at being discovered beat in his own heart. A great darkness was headed toward the little boy. He stumbled forward with all the haste his old, tired body could muster. He burst in the door without knocking and looked toward the couch. But a tall, dark figure blocked his view. “I can’t believe you!” came Ellie’s angry voice from the fireside, where she huddled on a stool, staring up with snapping eyes at the stern face of her husband. “A little child needs our shelter, and you are going to turn him right over to the people he fears. What is wrong with you?” “Why can’t you see that this is a matter of practicality?” Eric growled back. “He’s a runaway. His foster mother came looking for him two days ago and it’s only right we call them.” “Even though he fears them so much he ran away? Just leave it until later!” “I can’t. I won’t. He’s already been gone two days, and in that time he’s made my chapel ridiculous. Did you see what he and that crazy old man did? Junk on the seats. A mockery of the angels in those ridiculous drawings. I want him gone as soon as possible. He doesn’t belong here and I will not keep him!” Jonas’ fierce slam of the door made Eric whirl around. He glared daggers at the intruder, but Jonas did not even look at Eric. Bren was nowhere to be seen. “Where’s the boy?” his question was terse and directed at Ellie. “I put him in the bedroom. I’m so sorry about this Jonas.” But Jonas didn’t listen. He bounded across the room and barged into the bedroom, with Eric’s protests nipping at his heels. The shadows of the small room blinded him for a moment, but it took only an instant to see that the bed was empty, the blankets cast aside, and the room filled with the bitter darkness of the freezing night. The window was open and the boy was gone. Jonas turned on his heel. He was fevered now too, but it was anger that reddened his face and made his very fingers tremble. He marched straight to Eric and stood before him, half his height and less than half his size. But Jonas’ black eyes snapped in his lined face, and his wild white hair made a halo in the firelight as he pointed a rigid, accusing finger at Eric. “You drove him away,” he shouted, “The angels sent him to us and you sent him away. He was the answer to your prayer!” Eric raised an angry hand at this and towered over Jonas. “Angels had nothing to do with it! He’s a foolish, runaway boy! And you know nothing,” he hissed, “nothing at all about my prayers.” “Oh but I do,” whispered Jonas, suddenly very still. “I hear you there in the chapel. I’ve heard you cry to God so very many times. I’ve heard you pray for him to come, and weep when you thought he didn’t.” The room grew heavy with Jonas quiet words, each dropped like a stone into Eric’s startled silence.’ “But God heard you. He sent a little boy to answer your prayer. He sent that child to all of us, to lighten our darkness, to make us laugh.” Jonas was moving again from foot to foot, sputtering with anger, “they laughed tonight! They laughed! But you,” his finger jabbed the air near Eric’s face, “all you see is the darkness. You don’t even look at God anymore. You don’t want to laugh or be glad again. Your heart is dark and you drove the child away!” Jonas thundered and turned a circle in his fear and grief and rage before he whirled back to stand in front of Eric and shake his finger good and hard. “God didn’t leave you,” he spat. “God never left you. But you left him. You turned him out into the cold!” For a moment, Jonas glared into Eric’s stricken face with the steely anger of an avenging angel. But the iciness broke abruptly and he began to wail, “and now he is lost. And he will be so cold. My poor little boy!” And Jonas wept like a tiny child. He dropped onto sofa where Bren had been and shook with sobs. Ellie held him, her own tears hot on her face as she turned to address her husband. But Eric was not there. The front door was open into the black night and the sound of steps pounded away into the darkness. ***** Bren knew only one shelter and he made straight for it. Back through the silent cloisters, two turns left, one right, he thought he remembered the way to the chapel. He found the door and stumbled inside. He was shivering so hard now his teeth clattered in his head and drove away his reason. He couldn’t think what he ought to do. He could not plan or protect himself. He turned his glossy eyes to the ceiling, trying to see the angels, but everything blurred together and billowed like waves on an ocean. He shuffled to the window where Christ had laughed, but tonight no eye glimmered to life, no bell chimed, no voice sounded in the echoing dark. A terrible sense of isolation engulfed him. He ran toward the altar, as the walls seemed to bend and the ground to swell beneath his feet. He stared up at the statues, but they did not speak. Instead, their faces grew long and their eyes seemed to glare at him so that he was afraid. He stepped back, ready to run. But at that moment, a door slammed in the outer hall and heavy steps thumped down the aisle toward him. He had only an instant to scramble for cover and the first thing his blurred eyes saw was the life-size manger just beside him, part of the altar crèche scene. It was deep and filled with hay. He crept in as quickly as he could, and pulled the hay around him. “God, God! What have I done? Have I lost you forever?” The chapel was suddenly filled with a terrible cry. It came from a voice shattered into a million little pieces of ragged grief. Sobs echoed in the cold, high spaces of the chapel and the footsteps shuffled closer to Bren’s hiding place. “Oh God,” it was the voice of the young, angry priest and Bren shivered even harder, “What have I done? Who have I become?” And the steps shuffled closer. Bren heard Eric’s ragged breath as he knelt at the altar. “I have been blind. I have hated you. All I saw was the darkness. But oh God,” Eric’s voice was just a whisper, “please let me find him. Help me to find everything that I have lost.” For a moment, a silence that felt as deep and final as death filled the chapel. But then, a sneeze gave Bren away. A sneeze followed by a wild fit of coughing, followed again by a tempest of sobs as Bren knew himself revealed. At any moment, he expected rough hands to pull him out and march him back into the cold, straight into the things he feared. He heard Eric rise and he trembled amidst the hay. But there was only the catch of a breath, then the scramble of Eric’s feet as he ran to the manger. And then Bren was lifted and cradled in strong arms whose gentleness was like the dream he had of his mother’s touch. Eric lifted Bren from the manger, sat down on the cold stone floor and held the boy, rocking him back and forth. Bren looked up, wondering, into a face in which tears had rubbed out all the hard lines. The dark eyes met his own, and there was a light at back of them that reminded him of the brightness in Jonas’ gaze. “I found you,” Eric whispered, “God heard me, and I found you, and manger isn’t empty anymore. You’re safe now. Don’t be afraid.” For the first time that night, Bren felt warmth seep through his body. His eyes cleared slightly and he leaned against the man who held him so gently. He wanted to sleep. But a rustling in the rafters caught his ears and turned his gaze. His eyes suddenly widened. “Look,” he whispered. And Eric lifted his eyes. An angel waved its wing and winked. Part One Part Two Part Three

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty.” –John Keats “Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson In preparation for a History of Modernity mid-term this week, my fifteen-year-old daughter is listening to a lecture on the Romantic Poets. As I’m sitting in the same room, I’m afforded the possibility of reclaiming a few bits of literary knowledge grown fuzzy in the couple of decades since my last British Lit class. The lecturer is describing how the works of the romantics in art, poetry and literature were expressive rather than imitative in nature, focusing on experience rather than objectivity. To experience turbulent heights and depths of sensation and emotion was their desired end both in life and art; emotion and sensation divorced from any objective construct wherein they might serve anything larger or more lasting. Keats’ declaration that “beauty is truth, truth beauty” takes on a somewhat disturbing light in this context. Without ever critically examining the poem, I had long assumed Keats was speaking of the inherent beauty of objective truth. Alas, now I think not. It seems that he’s actually subverting the idea of an objective truth. His “beauty equals truth” statement is less than a degree removed from saying “If it produces pleasure, then it’s good,” or, to phrase it as a more contemporary mantra “If it feels good, do it.” The experience is regarded as its own moral proof text. I suppose if that’s the case, then he must also be inadvertently subverting the idea of beauty. The earlier pre-enlightenment geniuses like Shakespeare—though masters of the use of emotion in their stories—operated from a different worldview, one that didn’t employ emotion as an end in itself. Instead, emotional responses served some larger reality that was informing the meaning of a story, poem, play, or painting. This is interesting to me from a personal journey standpoint, as only in my mid-twenties did I begin to appreciate the structures of truth and the requirements a concern for truth might place on literary expression. From the ages of sixteen to twenty-four, I was much more in sync with the romantics. I wanted to feel deeply, and I did. High highs, deep lows. I approached both theology and romance this way. It was raw emotion that fueled my poetry. I courted darkness and despair for the added edge such experience gave to my expression. Having no windswept moors to haunt, I wandered Southern fields on dark and stormy nights. I swung wildly between acts of asceticism and lapses of mild indulgence, partially because I had no understanding of the liberating message of the gospel, and partially because I prized sensation, emotion, giddiness and pain so highly as fuel. For the sake of everyone around me, it’s a really good thing I didn’t remain twenty-one forever. It wasn’t until my mid-twenties that the strictures of Truth entered the picture. Till then, form & emotion had been paramount. Now there was this whole added consideration of meaning. And the question of whether my writing lined up with, or failed to line up with, an objective reality. And whether the artifacts I created were ultimately redemptive or counter-redemptive in their effect. Writing suddenly became a whole lot more difficult. If things meant something, if art incarnated ideas and if ideas had consequences, if truth was not the same as beauty (at least not in the way that Keats believed it), then I was responsible for the impact of the things I made and therefore had need to be sensitive and discerning. It wasn’t enough just to spin evocative, poetic phrases that were fragments of no greater whole. This was a holier vocation than I had imagined. I became a much slower writer, which is to say, for the first time in my life, writing truly became work. It was no longer enough just to bleed all over the page. Truth is not something we often arrive at by chance after all. It must be sought and discerned. One does not want to blithely misrepresent those things that Flannery O’ Connor referred to as lines of spiritual motion*, for on some level by attempting to name such things, one is attempting to create roadmaps and signposts for others to follow. Nothing less than the recognition of grace as grace hinges on the act of naming the stuff of reality rightly. If we fail to name rightly then we as humans will never make sense of the twin wounds of our seemingly indefinable, unfathomable loss and of our seemingly inexplicable, lingering hope. If one believes that such things as these spiritual lines of motion do exist, then one will probably agree that artistic portrayals of these lines might more often and more easily be drawn falsely than truly. Especially in a culture that has lost it’s place in the larger narrative and so has little point of reference by which to rightly name anything. This is where romanticism plunged us off a steep cliff. But maybe we were already going there anyway. It is perhaps the holiest work of the artist to discern and divine and reveal the names and locations of these lines of spiritual motion accurately. It is easy to create when one is a romantic after all, for no emotion or experience has to line up with anything beyond the glorious (or inglorious) abandon of the emotion or experience itself. It is declared to be its own validation simply because it is. But when we come to see ourselves as servants and stewards of an unyielding truth and love that preexisted the universe, forever unchanging, then we assume a quite different posture. We are humbled. We wonder whether we are fit to employ such tools at all in stumbling service of something beyond our comprehension. And yet, there remains the thumbprint of God in our souls, compelling us to create, compelling us to press forward, laboring to capture those lines of spiritual motion in lines of poetry, in brush strokes, in film. And so we do. Stumblingly. Haltingly. Imperfectly. Weakly. Brokenly. But oftentimes beautifully as well. I’ve been ruminating on such things lately because of my involvement in an ongoing, collaborative art project that in some way hinges on detecting those fault lines along the surface of our existence. Several years ago, public spaces painter Jonathan Richter invited me to create pieces with him for a gallery show. Richter spends evenings in public spaces (mostly pubs) painting an ongoing series of off-kilter, spontaneous portraits. These paintings give off a vaguely disturbing, surreal aura, sometimes seeming fraught with a subconscious and archetypal symbolism, other times feeling like fragments from the watery language of dreams. At any rate, Richter is quick to say that the pieces in this series are not created with forethought or planning. Rather they emerge from the process itself, from the layering of paint, the subjects sometimes achieving a definite shape only towards the end of the physical process. Once the paint has dried, Richter turns the paintings over to me. I meditate on the images, mulling the portraits for however long it takes to begin to tease out their secrets such that I can express something of their essence in a line or two of poetic prose. There’s something about this process of filtering a work through two imaginations that seems to put a finer edge on it. Like double-distilling a vodka. For my part, the process is all about trying to discern and name rightly whatever spiritual lines of motion might be inherent in the paintings. I recognize such a statement will sound strange to some. I’m certain it would have sounded strange to me in my romantic phase. I probably would have thought it ridiculous. Inherent meaning? In a spontaneously-wrought surrealistic painting? Are you kidding me? Doesn’t it just have whatever meaning each person subjectively brings to it? Isn’t the “truth” in it just a product of each person’s emotional and aesthetic response? To respond in a word—No. To respond in five words—No, I don’t think so. Real choices have been made in the act of creation, and real things have consequently been set in motion. Something else is going on that, if not as predictable as clockwork gears, at least has the mysteriously organic physics of storm winds or ocean waves. We might apprehend only whispers and fragments of the songs such things are perpetually singing, but they are singing. As a song lyricist of some eighteen years or so, I’ve found the most difficult cuts to write are the ones that an artist has already fleshed out musically and melodically when they hand them off to me. The first time I hear the song, it is already complete save for the thematic concept and the lyric. Shouldn’t that be easy though? After all, in such a situation one could write about anything: Butterflies and moonbeams, a tragic ballad of ice road truckers, an ode to parasites that inhabit the lining of intestinal walls, young love, old love, lost love, found love. Anything! But alas, as I learned the hard way years ago, writing about anything is precisely what one must not do in that situation—because the music, the structure of the song, and especially the vocal meter and melody, is already saying something rather specific. The trick is to get inside the song far enough that you can look out at the world through it, casting about in your own soul and experience for an answer to the question “What is it in existence, in reality, in creation, in the human experience, in my own past or present,” that conforms to this same pattern, this same movement? What spiritual lines of motion are already being described here by this phrasing and melody and interplay of voices and instruments? What true thing is being described here?” At the end of the day, there usually aren’t many things a particular vocal melody can say. At the end of the day, you find that you’re choosing from a very limited palette. From among all the colors in the visible spectrum say, it has to be red. And from all the varieties of reds, it has to be some variation of a rosy hue. That’s your wiggle room. Dark rose, light rose, redder, pinker, etc. Yes, you can still divide hundreds of variations from that little slice of the color wheel, but you can’t go blue or gold or even barn red. All of those options were excluded from the start by the melody itself. If you ignore this as a writer, you do so at your own peril, because you’re going to build a song that’s trying to pull in different directions. When Richter gives me his paintings, I go through an almost identical process of narrowing what the possible meanings might be. The difference is that instead of melody, meter and inflection revealing the meaning, it’s the lines, the colors, the expressions on the faces of the figures, the objects they’re holding, their postures and positions. When I first began to work on these pieces, I had no assumption or expectation that this would be the case. It was only as I sat with the first few pieces that it became clear that this was not going to be a process of me assigning meaning to the paintings, but rather of identifying meaning that was already latent within them. It was a dawning revelation. Nowadays, I begin my relationship with a painting believing that there are lines of spiritual motion embedded in it, though they are oftentimes wary and reluctant to show themselves. I wait them out. Armed with a pen and a yellow legal pad I sit quietly, watching the painting, making no sudden moves. Some reveal their secrets within a few minutes time. Others take hours, even days before the meaning begins to emerge. I return over and over to the clearing where I sit and wait for something to step into the open and give me a clear line of sight. I scour the ground for clues. I follow game trails into the bushes. I make notes. I attempt writing lines that branch off into new ideas. Eventually, the thing itself is revealed, standing there right in front of me. I nab it. I know it’s the thing I’ve been waiting for when, in hindsight, the conclusion feels inevitable. How could I not have seen it from the beginning? It was so obviously already there, waiting in the painting. Apparently, some doors must be knocked on before they will open. It would be very safe to say that I am no longer a romantic in the sense that the romantics were romantic. I regard my own emotional reactions to things with a great suspicion nowadays, as I recognize how dangerous and misleading my own sentimentality can be. And yet, I can’t help but believe that what I do believe is more wildly and frighteningly and wonderfully romantic than any merely emotional or sensational experience the romantics would have deemed romantic. Is it not more wildly romantic to operate from a premise that every facet, detail, and pattern in creation, even those that we perceive as random, are fraught with meaning far beyond our ability to comprehend? To believe that the stars are singing? To believe that the objective evidence points to the conclusion that we are living in an actual fairy tale? To believe that hunger and hope are our true guides, pointing us to something objectively real that will ultimately satisfy our deepest hunger and our most achingly beautiful hope? By my reckoning, all of that adds up to something far more romantic than the pursuit of intense but unmoored moments of sensation and emotion, divorced from any larger story. Romanticism is dead. Long live romance. ______________________________ *“When a child draws, he doesn’t intend to distort but to set down exactly what he sees, and as his gaze is direct, he sees the lines that create motion. Now the lines of motion that interest the writer are usually invisible. They are lines of spiritual motion.” —Flannery O’Connor, remarks at Hollins College, Virginia (October 14, 1963) [You can help make Subjects With Objects a reality. Visit the Kickstarter page. There are only five days left to participate in this unique project.]

Justin Gerard created this Christmas card a few years ago and posted it on his site today. It was too good not to repost here, in light of our rodential leanings. Thanks, Justin, and all you Rabbit Roomers for another great year. Be sure and visit Justin’s blog for mounds of artistic inspiration. (But don’t worry–no recipes.) Also, for you Tolkien fans, he’s got an amazing array of original Hobbit pictures here.

His breath made a rope of mist in the icy air. Like a dancer, it whirled and climbed toward the brightening sky as Father Jonas turned two merry little twirls beneath it. His old bones were stiff in the bitter cold of the damp courtyard, but the sun was sitting in triumph on the chapel tower, and a brave bird was crying so wild a good morning that his heart leapt up to meet its note of joy. Christmas Eve had dawned and Jonas felt as weightless in spirit and free in soul as the misty air. Birdlike, he hopped through the courtyard, chirping a carol under his breath. Despite his thin skin and rheumatic bones, he felt this lightness most days, for the self he had always been was slipping away, replaced by something that felt like sunlight. He was very old and couldn’t remember much, even his own name at times. But oh, he was happy. People, he knew, whispered that he’d lost his mind. This assumption left him quite indignant, for his mind gleamed and shimmered within him like a newborn thing. He heard myriad voices and saw half shadows of things that took his breath with their beauty. The only things he’d lost were the heavy thoughts that set him too roundly in his body, the little worries that stuffed the minds of everyone else too full for wonders. Most of his life, they filled his mind too and forced him to all sorts of practical deeds. But now, old age had set him free. With stiff fingers, he unlocked the chapel door. Sweep out the cobwebs, set the hymnbooks straight, light the candles, the old man could at least do that they said. He could indeed and relished every minute, for he loved the chapel. He felt vaguely that it was his last home, a place in between, already tinged with the air of the unknown world that called him on. He was a daily presence in the great place, a tiny figure scurrying about in his billowy black robes with a face that looked ancient as the hills and eyes that were fresh as a child’s. His hair was a poof of unruly whiteness that looked like a dandelion ready to blow away in the wind of his constant bustle. “Bring joy to this house O Lord,” he sang his daily prayer as he opened the gate this morning, for however old he got and however many thoughts he lost, the prayers never left. “Bring joy, please, oh please” he added once more, for the sorrow he felt in the people who came to the chapel hurt him long after they had gone. In the absence of his own heavy thoughts, he found that he often knew the dark thoughts of the people near him. Not the substance so much as the essence. Anger, grief, joy. He carried it with them somehow, when it came, and lately, all that came was sorrow. Every soul that entered his chapel seemed bent and battered by it. And he felt battered himself and sometimes, the heavy thoughts seemed about to fill his own mind too. But not today. Having prayed for the sorrowful, he nearly skipped in the door and down the aisle. Christmas Eve had come and there was so much to be done. He must hurry his inspection. Hands on hips, he stood for an instant, smack in the middle of the chapel and gave it a quick looking over. All was calm and still and bright with new morning and he was just about to scamper to the closet for the broom, when something caught his eye. Then fixed it still. He took a long, quivering breath. Slumped in the back corner pew fast asleep, his head on the cold wood, his feet dangling in the air, was a little boy. For an instant, Jonas was still as a startled rabbit. Then he leapt for the corner. He stood over the child, unsure of what to do. He felt that there were some old, heavy thoughts that ought to dictate his reaction, but he could not recall them. All he felt was wonder at the small, flushed little thing, sleeping there like a little sparrow fallen from its nest. He glanced toward the rafters where the angels slept. He shook the boy’s arm. But the child’s deep breathing did not cease until Jonas bent near to his face and reached one gnarled finger to touch the flushed little cheek. And the boy awoke. Two blue eyes fluttered open and instantly widened at sight of Jonas’ startled face just inches a way. The boy scrambled to sit up, his eyes filled with a quick succession of sleepiness, bewilderment, and fear. “I fell asleep,” he began, then “the angels were singing,” then, with a cut of despair across his face, “ oh, please don’t tell anyone I’m here.” To Jonas’ utter dismay the blue eyes brimmed with tears. He swiftly grabbed the child’s hand and gave it a fluttery pat. “I won’t, don’t worry,” an odd smile came to Jonas’ face, “I don’t have to anymore. But what is your name?” he chirped, flitting about the boy like a small bird in restless curiosity. “Brendan,” the child replied, and dashed the tears away. The fear ebbed from his eyes as Jonas laughed and tapped his feet and took his hand. The boy yawned, suddenly unafraid. “Bren for short. Who are you?” “Jonas. Ooh, Brendan’s a lovely name, ah, oh!” said Jonas, and his eyes widened. “Brendan. Like the saint. The adventurer who went in search of wonders. Well,” Jonas’ face was once again an inch from Bren’s nose, “have you found them yet?” “Found what?” swallowed Bren, his own eyes a little wide in meeting so fierce and inquisitive a gaze. “Wonders! Wonders, of course, boy, have you found the wonders of God like the saint you were named for?” “Well,” said Bren, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, “the windows talked to me last night, and the statues, and the angels in the ceiling sang. Does that count?” “Count, count! Of course it counts! I’d stand on my head for a day to see such a sight,” Jonas sang, then dropped abruptly beside Bren in a motion that belied his age. “Those angels? Up there in the rafters?” and he pointed toward the dark ceiling where the angels kept a demure silence. Bren nodded. “They told me to come back, so I did.” “I knew it,” whispered Jonas, eyes wide. “I always knew it!” he crowed, leaping to his feet, “but my eyes aren’t light enough to see them yet. I think my mind is though,” he nodded at Bren, as if this explained a great deal, “but since you saw them and came to tell me it’s almost as good! What did they sound like?” Bren gave his best imitation of the angel’s tune, waving his arms wildly to indicate the swelling harmonies and the breath like wind or ocean waves filling the chapel. Jonas laughed aloud and waved at the angels just to see if they might stir. “And the windows?” he begged after, clasping his hands and shifting from foot to foot in his longing, “what did the window people say?” And Bren, fully awake now and entirely forgetful of caution, grabbed his friend by the hand and pattered with him from pane to pane, describing the bell-like chiming and the jeweled laughter. When he came to the figure of Jesus, he halted. He tried to put words to the way the light had filled the rooms in his heart, the way that it had made him part of itself, but he fumbled. Jonas put his hand on Bren’s head. “I know, lad, I know,” he whispered, and his gnarled hands went to his heart in a fist of worship as the two stared up, silent, at Christ in the window with the sunlight streaming through his heart. The sudden scratch and slam of the outer door jolted both of them from their thoughts. A set of footsteps echoed in loud, hard falls throughout the chamber and Bren dove behind the nearest pew just as Eric strode into the nave. Jonas, hands still clasped over his heart gave a gasp, turned on the spot and looked wildly about him. With the instinct of the child he was again becoming, he knew that Bren must not be discovered. His hands were still clasped at his heart and he dropped them suddenly into a most awkward, straight-armed freeze at his side. Fixed in place, eyes set upon Eric’s dour face, Jonas looked as if he was shrugging a question to the air. Eric glanced up from his dark gaze into some distant and apparently troublesome space, and raised an eyebrow as he drew even with Father Jonas. “What in heaven’s name are you doing?” he barked. “Isn’t it early for you to be cleaning the chapel?” The peremptory way that Eric spoke and his apparent ignorance of Bren put Jonas at a strange and sudden ease. One glance into the younger priest’s face showed him the great, brooding storm of bother that darkened his eyes. His thoughts, Jonas felt, must be very heavy indeed. “It’s never too early to be here,” he smiled arms loosening. He folded his old hands in a deliberately peaceful motion and rested them on the belt that cinched his long, black robes. His own eyes gleamed with gentle curiosity as he took a step toward the younger man. But Eric only raised an eyebrow and slightly rolled his eyes as he kept on his way toward the front of the church. “Well. See that you dust the alter,” he called back over his shoulder, “I was in here earlier and it is filthy. It looks like the statues are shedding, I can’t understand it.” Jonas gave a huge wink in the direction of a certain pew. A muffled giggle sounded from behind it and Eric whirled round. “What was that?” “What was what?” replied the unruffled Jonas. “That sound, like someone was laughing,” growled Eric. “Perhaps,” said Jonas, with the smile of an utter innocent, “it was the angels in the rafters.” He was not prepared for the fierce frown like a jagged scar across Eric’s face, and the younger man’s stomp back down the aisle toward him. Jonas stepped back a pace like a frightened child as Eric glowered down on him, blue eyes navy with anger. “Nonsense,” he hissed. “And foolishness.” Without another word, he stomped past Jonas and the hard clang of the outer door proclaimed his departure. Bren, still on his knees behind the pew, peeked his curly head just round the edge. Jonas stood still looking off toward the entrance as if his sight followed Eric into the courtyard beyond. One thin hand fluttered to his heart. “Why is he so angry?” whispered Bren, standing up and moving close to the old priest. Jonas turned a bewildered face to the boy. “I don’t know lad. He’s that way all the time now. But he’s never been like that before.” Bren moved a little and Jonas absentmindedly put an arm round the boy’s shoulders. His own shoulders slumped and his head drooped by the second. “Everything feels different these days,” he whispered to the little boy. “No one is happy anymore. Even here.” He sat down in the nearest pew and his great eyes, like two pale pearls in his parchment face were bright with sorrow. Bren wriggled up next to him and leaned his head against the old man’s shoulder. “They bring the darkness in with them,” Jonas sighed, remembering the storm in Eric’s eyes, “their thoughts are too heavy. They don’t notice anything else. I’ve prayed and prayed for them, but nothing seems to help.” “How awful,” whispered Bren as the old man’s voice trailed off. The thought of having a mind so full of shadows that no angel’s laughter or music could reach it was a dismal idea indeed. But Jonas suddenly stiffened and grabbed Bren’s hand. “You’re going to help,” he whispered, “I’ve prayed, I’ve prayed lad. I prayed that God would send us joy. And he sent you!” His voice rose and he stood, face beaming, “The angels sent you for Christmas! We must help them, lad,” he grabbed Bren’s hand, “you and I, our thoughts are light,” Jonas released Bren’s hand  and waved his arms wildly about in his distress “we have to help them, help that poor young priest. Somehow. We have to make them forget the darkness so that they can see. The angels sent you so you have to tell me how.” Jonas turned a gaze of saintly demand upon Bren so that the boy stared back with eyes turned sapphire by the intensity of his startled deliberation. Bren felt quite nervous, for though the angels had certainly brought him, they hadn’t mentioned his being an answer to anyone’s prayer. Bren’s face scrunched into deep thought. He squirmed. He shifted. He looked all round as if the answer might float down from the ceiling. And then he sat upright as a small flame and turned eyes like starlight upon his friend. “It’s Christmas,” he stated. “Yes,” blinked Jonas, “I know.” “Yes, and that means gifts,” crowed Bren, “You can’t be sad when you have a Christmas gift! I know, because my mum used to give them to me.” “Gifts! For all the people?” laughed Jonas, slightly incredulous. But the thought took swift hold in his mind. Of course a Christmas gift would do the trick. He eyed Bren with respect. The angels knew their business. “How will we do it?” he asked. “We’ll put gifts everywhere,” sang Bren with a fling of his arms, “and when they all come in next, for the service– that priest and all the people and the boys who sing – they’ll find something nice and they’ll think the angels left it for them and they’ll remember to look at the angels and then they’ll laugh and forget to be so sad.” This made startlingly good sense to Jonas. “What will we give them?” came the next fierce question. “Well,” pondered Bren, “if you have some money then we can buy things and I’ll help you put them all over. One for each place where they sit.” “I only have a few coins, they will have to be small,” said Jonas doubtfully. “Little presents,” pronounced Bren, remembering candy and tiny toys and warming to his role as the answer of the angels, “are the best. And I will draw pictures of the angels to put with them. And we will leave a special picture for the angry priest and the pretty lady. And we can gather holly outside,” but he halted as he remembered that he could not risk being seen. “Well, you can, and you’ll have to show me where to hide while you’re getting the presents.” During Bren’s small speech, Jonas’ lined old face had widened into a grin like a boy’s. His eyes danced and his fingers drummed and at the last words he stood and did a small dance so that the mad poof of his white hair looked more than ever like a dandelion in the wind. “Glory be to God in the highest,” he trilled, “and on earth peace. Peace to men – that’s what they’ll feel when we remind them tonight. Oh, and then,” he sat back down beside Bren and his face was almost grieved with the depth of his pleading, “will you introduce me to the angels? I think I could hear them if you were with me.” Bren simply grinned. The schemers stood. Jonas held out his hand and the little boy took it. Together, they pattered up the aisle and set about their plan without further delay. In less than an hour, Bren was cozily stowed in a little alcove in the balcony, where he could spy on all who entered and sketch the angels. Jonas, meanwhile, filled his pockets with every spare coin he could find, set a basket on his arm for the holly and made for the streets with strict instructions and a shopping list from Bren. Candy. Toys. And one red rose for the pretty lady. He returned apologetic, for those commodities were rare in time of war. But a brilliant (Jonas thought) idea had come to him (Bren’s approval made it doubly so), and he had gone to all the friends he could think of, mostly the kindly wives of the oldest dons, and begged what seemed to him quite a treasure trove of trinkets. Buttons, pens, a brooch or two, a tiny toy car, a tin soldier, even a necklace and an orphan teacup lay piled in his basket under the bright holly. Best of all was the bag of chocolate drops from the youngest wife. When told that they were for a little boy, she set them in his basket without another word. At sight of these Bren crowed in delight, then added his stack of drawings to the trove. The treasure was ready for distribution. The afternoon was waning as they set chocolate drops on top of every choirboy’s books (and ate a few for sustenance themselves). The trinkets, they placed on top of the hymnals and prayer books, with sprigs of holly and drawings of angels beneath. Under Ruth’s window, in the pretty lady’s seat, they placed a rose, and two very special drawings, while Eric’s hymnal was topped with a drawing much larger than the rest, folded, and addressed to him in big letters. Bren had drawn his favorite angel winking, for Eric was a special case and needed extra treatment. The old chapel echoed with laughter that day. Bren filled the air with tunes from his whistle, the old stones warmed to the shuffle of such friendly steps, and a fresh air – spiced with holly and chocolate and merriment –  danced into the farthest corners of the church. By the time the sun winked its last through the stained glass and sent tall shadows leaping through the aisles, all was in place. Bren ran for the balcony when the first step sounded in the courtyard, and Jonas joined him soon after. With a comradely glance toward the angels, they set their elbows on the rails and held their breath as the first people entered the church. Christmas Eve had come and something new was about to begin. Part One Part Two