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“Many of my ardent admirers would be roundly shocked and disturbed if they realized that everything I believe is thoroughly moral, thoroughly Catholic, and that it is these beliefs that give my work its chief characteristics.” –Flannery O’Connor Some of us are passionate about Tolkien’s epic, some about Lewis’s theology, or Berry’s Port William, or Buechner’s broken saints. Jonathan Rogers is passionate about the writing of a quiet woman from small-town Georgia. Flannery O’Conner wrote some of the finest short fiction in all of American letters, and she’s been polarizing readers ever since. To some her work is a bafflement of violence and cruelty, to others it’s nothing short of revelation. But no matter which side you come down on, O’Connor remains one of the most fascinating of American writers, Christian or otherwise, and you may find no one better suited to illuminating her life, work, and faith than Jonathan Rogers. The Terrible Speed of Mercy, his long-awaited “Spiritual Biography” of Flannery O’Connor, is due to hit the shelves on September 18th. Signed copies are now available for pre-order in the Rabbit Room store. Look for a full review and a special podcast coming soon. About the Book: Flannery O’Connor’s work has been described as “profane, blasphemous, and outrageous.” Her stories are peopled by a sordid caravan of murderers and thieves, prostitutes and bigots whose lives are punctuated by horror and sudden violence. But perhaps the most shocking thing about Flannery O’Connor’s fiction is the fact that it is shaped by a thoroughly Christian vision. If the world she depicts is dark and terrifying, it is also the place where grace makes itself known. Her world—our world—is the stage whereon the divine comedy plays out; the freakishness and violence in O’Connor’s stories, so often mistaken for a kind of misanthropy or even nihilism, turn out to be a call to mercy. In this biography, Jonathan Rogers gets at the heart of O’Connor’s work. He follows the roots of her fervent Catholicism and traces the outlines of a life marked by illness and suffering, but ultimately defined by an irrepressible joy and even hilarity. In her stories, and in her life story, Flannery O’Connor extends a hand in the dark, warning and reassuring us of the terrible speed of mercy. [Now available for pre-order in the Rabbit Room store.]

A part of what draws us to this peculiar treasure of a community called the Rabbit Room is a shared love of stories and storytelling. We are a bookish and thoughtful tribe who believe a book is more than something to read—it’s a doorway to enter a universe as significant as our own, full of life, wonder, and wisdom. We walk the aisles of second-hand bookstores with the fervor of treasure hunters, smelling the open pages when nobody is looking, intoxicated by them. We love to lose ourselves in grand and beautiful tales, believing that it’s one of the best ways to be found again. We regard our favorite writers with a sacred awe, letting them into the deepest, most intimate places in our hearts. Yet for all of our love of storytelling, it’s easy to forget that each of us is a powerful and accomplished storyteller in his or her own right, with a vivid imagination and capacity for creating wonderful and terrible worlds. It is a gift bestowed upon us by the Great Storyteller who made us in his image. He whose words are made flesh endows us with the power to bring our own stories to life. When we remember this and walk in the truth and grace of it we tell better stories with our lives. We are, of course, a story that he is telling, but I believe he also invites us to be co-storytellers with him, participating in the tale, every one of us a novelist and autobiographer. Our work is published in the daily living of the life we lead. It shapes us and everyone we know. I believe our storytelling falls into two categories, each a part of the other: the story we tell the world and the story we tell ourselves. The story we tell the world is a pro-active and intentional kind of storytelling, paving the road as it opens before us. “What kind of story do I want to tell today?” is a question that helps me participate with purpose in the daily chapters of my life. The story we tell ourselves is responsive and interpretive of events as they happen to us or around us. It’s the way a plot line runs through me before continuing on to others. Together, the story I tell the world and the story I tell myself form the single narrative of my life and either lead me deeper into the life-giving heart of it or drive me away from it. Though I prefer pro-active story telling in my own life—where I have a stronger sense of participating in the direction of the narrative—I believe I can be just as intentional in my responsive and interpretive storytelling, and this is what I want to focus on here. I am empowered when I’m aware that every moment I am telling a story and that the plot can turn in me, right where I stand. Knowing I hold a pen helps me mean what I write. But just as I am empowered when I am aware, there are consequences when I’m not. Another voice takes over like a ghostwriter when I’m not looking: it is the voice of my broken nature and it speaks the loudest when I stop being intentionally responsive and instead become merely reactive—left to the mercy of whatever story my emotions, physical condition, state of mind, hormones, etc. want to tell me at the time. When I’m exhausted I am inclined to tell a different story than I would if I were well rested. When I’m sad, I may come to believe that a fiction is truth. When I’m lost in my own insecurity, I find rejection in the eyes of every character in the scene. When I’m full of fear, every shadow hides a bogey. When I’m angry, I may set my world on fire, burning up entire chapters of my life. This is how many beautiful stories turn very sad. My friend Al, a gifted storyteller, helped me understand the power of the story we tell ourselves. He had a friend who was supposed to meet him for lunch one day but didn’t show up. At first Al was irritated. “It was inconsiderate of him to waste my time.” When Al couldn’t reach him throughout that afternoon to see what happened, he began to worry about him. “Is he okay? Was he in an accident?” By the next day, having still not heard from him, Al began to wonder if he had somehow offended his friend. “Is he ignoring my calls? Is he so angry with me over something that he refuses to talk to me? What did I do?” And so what began as a happy story about two friends sharing a meal and good conversation together was led away into stories of blame, fear, and then shame. Several days later the real story emerged: his friend had a sudden family emergency and had to catch an early flight that morning. In his hurry to leave, he misplaced his phone and was without it until he got back home. I recognize myself in Al’s narrative and in it see the kinds of stories that I so often tell myself, though I’m usually not even aware that I’m doing it. How often do I run with the stories of blame, fear and shame? I am vulnerable to this kind of thing everyday and, if I’m not careful, I can become the victim of my own worst story telling—led into the sad, shadowy corners of a confusing narrative and away from the heart of the plot and the characters I care about the most—including, and especially, myself, or at least the self that I most want to be. Great wars are fought and lost daily in the broken storytelling of our darkened imaginations. But recognizing ourselves as powerful storytellers who have a say in our own story helps us to participate in the tale by inviting the light of grace into our narrative, taking every thought captive and making it obedient to Christ (2 Cor. 10:5), and submitting our stories to the ongoing chronicle of God’s larger tale of redemption. Al’s account helps me to be more than merely reactive. It puts the pen back in my hand by helping me ask the question: “What is the story I’m telling myself in this moment?” Asking this interrupts the sad script that runs on autopilot without my being aware of it. Armed with the knowledge that God has gifted me to be a story-teller, I am entrusted and empowered to tell the kind of story I love the most: A beautiful narrative full of truth and grace. I do this best when I ask these two questions: “What kind of story do I want to tell today?” and “What is the story I’m telling myself in this moment?” The first question helps me to enter my narrative with purpose and intention. I shape and am shaped by it. Is what I’m doing right now adding to the beauty of the story God has given me to tell? Or am I writing a scene that I’ll regret? The second question helps break the spell of the gibbering voices of fear, pride, and insecurity that are always trying to hijack my story. Like Oz the Great and Powerful exposed behind the curtain, I am liberated from the worst version of myself. There in the light of my awareness, the sad, scary lies that bully me in the darkened corners of my imagination are exposed and scattered. I can pick up the pen and by God’s grace I can write something new. What kind of story do I want to tell today? What kind of stories am I telling myself right now? Do they ring with truth or read like bad fiction?  How can I tell a better story starting right now?

Two years ago Andrew Peterson posted an essay here on the Rabbit Room in which he describes the experience of reading Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’s novel The Yearling. I sat on the front porch at the Warren on a rainy day, read the last sentence, turned my head so my children wouldn’t see my face, and wept. I asked God, aloud, “Why must it be so? Why must it be so?” Why must the bright wonder and innocence of youth be shot and killed? Why must the little boy in me pass into the night, gone like a ghost? Why must I spend the second half of my life grieving that boy’s departure from the world, always seeking him, always wishing for a world untainted? Soon, however, Andrew found that he was no longer grieving his own past, but his children’s future. I thought of all my children, and the loneliness that will dog them all their days, and how I long to protect them from it. But the world is drenched in sorrow. For in these precious few days of childhood the Lord grants us a glimpse of Eden, and as we age we are called back again and again to remember what was lost, and to reclaim it, to tell its story. We weep for the death, and hope in the resurrection, when Christ’s Kingdom of wise, old children may walk a healed world unharried by the looming certainty of death and more death. Light for the Lost Boy, one suspects, was born in that moment on the porch where AP sat surrounded by children fast approaching adolescence, The Yearling still fresh and raw in his heart. He explores the aching truth that the fully alive heart of a child must always come to terms with a broken world stalked by death and sorrow. And he lets us sit in it a while and wonder, not rushing to a solution. The first words of the first song, “Come Back Soon,” drop us into a swirling chaos where a boy is forced to deal with death: I remember the day of the Tennessee flood The sound of the scream and the sight of the blood. My son, he saw as the animal died In the jaws of the dog as the river ran by. One of the many things I love about Light for the Lost Boy is the fact that the light it offers is light for this world—the one in which we are so often confused and doubtful. AP tells the truth about what it is like to live here. The son who sees the animal die beside the flood-swollen river doesn’t get a pat explanation from his father. Rather, the boy’s experience is a comment on the man’s: If nature’s red in tooth and in claw, Then it seems to me that she’s the outlaw. Cause every death is a question mark At the end of the book of a beating heart. And the answer is scrawled in the silent dark On the dome of the sky in a billion stars But we cannot read these angel tongues, And we cannot stare at the burning sun, And we cannot sing with these broken lungs, So we kick in the womb and we beg to be born. As the old saying goes, “For every difficult question there is an easy answer. And it’s wrong.” AP wrestles with exceedingly difficult questions in this record, and he resists the temptation to offer any easy answers. We live a world full of sin and hurt and sadness and confusion; the gospel answers all of it, but it doesn’t twinkle it away like pixie dust. The angel at the gate of Eden doesn’t step aside. He doesn’t sheathe the flaming sword. The hope of the gospel is not clarity in our confusion, but the knowledge that God is at work in spite of the fact that we don’t understand what he is up to. Consider these lines from “The Cornerstone,” in which AP describes his boyhood experience of God: I read about the God of Moses Roaring in the holy cloud, It shook my bedroom window panes. I did not understand then, I do not understand now. I don’t expect you to explain. I don’t mean to suggest that these songs are without hope. There is plenty of hope throughout Light for the Lost Boy, but it is hard-won, born out of an honest wrestling. Rather than anesthetize the discomfort of this world, AP treats that discomfort as a clue to a deeper truth. Light for the Lost Boy is literally a nostalgic record. We think of nostalgia as a longing for the past, but etymologically speaking, it’s a painful longing for home–nostos (homecoming) + algos (pain).  What often passes for nostalgia is sentimental and naive, not idealizing a past that is gone, but a past that never existed. In its desire to go back, most nostalgia is not especially productive. The home-pain of Light for the Lost Boy is another thing altogether. It is a spur to look ahead to the New Heaven and the New Earth, as AP puts it in “Day by Day”: And it hurts so bad But it’s so good to be young. And I don’t want to go back. I just want to go on and on and on. It is indeed good to be young. One of the sorrows of parenthood is the fact that our children can’t stay young and we can’t do their growing up for them or absorb their heartache. As a father of teenage boys, I find “You’ll Find Your Way” especially moving: When I look at you, boy, I can see the road that lies ahead. I can see the love and the sorrow Bright fields of joy, Dark nights awake in a stormy bed. I want to go with you, but I can’t follow… And I know you’ll be scared when you take up that cross. And I know it’ll hurt, ’cause I know what it costs. And I love you so much and it’s so hard to watch, But you’re gonna grow up up and you’re gonna get lost. Just go back, go back, Go back, go back to the ancient paths. Lash your heart to the ancient mast, And hold on, boy, whatever you do To the hope that’s taken hold of you. No amount of idealizing of childhood is going to change the fact that our children grow up and get lost and have to find their way just as we did. At the end of The Yearling, Jody Baxter’s father Penny makes a remarkable speech. He has worked hard to shield his boy from the hard realities of their world, but the time comes when his man-made Eden collapses. You’ve seed how things goes in the world o’ men. You’ve knowed men to be low-down and mean. You’ve seed ol’ Death at his tricks…Ever’ man wants life to be a fine thing, and a easy. ‘Tis fine, boy, powerful fine, but ’tain’t easy. Life knocks a man down and he gits up and it knocks him down agin. I’ve been uneasy all my life…I’ve wanted life to be easy for you. Easier’n ’twas for me. A man’s heart aches, seein’ his young uns face the world. Knowin’ they got to get their guts tore out, the way his was tore. I wanted to spare you, long as I could. I wanted you to frolic with your yearlin’. I knowed the lonesomeness he eased for you. But ever’ man’s lonesome. What’s he to do then? What’s he to do when he gits knocked down? Why, take it for his share and go on. This is a lovely speech, and it speaks to the instincts of every father everywhere. But in the end, it demonstrates the limits of a father’s love. Do we really have to “take it for our share and go on”? Or, to ask it another way, what does it mean to “go on”? This is where AP has surpassed his subject matter. It feels like a spoiler to say this, but Light for the Lost Boy reaches a climax with this astonishing truth: Maybe it’s a better thing To be more than merely innocent, But to be broken and redeemed by love. Maybe this old world is bent, But its waking up, And I’m waking up. It’s not fair to the album to skip straight to the ending like this, because Light for the Lost Boy earns this ending. To quote Flannery O’Connor, “A story is a way to say something that can’t be said any other way, and it takes every word in the story to say what the meaning is.” Light for the Lost Boy is a story that proves its truth in ways that can’t be summarized. You just have to live with it. Those of us who are parents all wish we could protect our children from the brokenness of the world we brought them into. To put it another way, we all wish our children didn’t need the gospel. But they need it as much as we do. And the gospel is sufficient. [Light for the Lost Boy is now available in the Rabbit Room store.]

Every year, there was a slight exodus from the church that I pastored. Typically around the beginning of summer, a few members of our community, largely comprised of 18- to 35-year-olds, would venture out for the Great Plan that lay before them. It was a sad yet expected time and the transient nature of our community became a part of the ethos of our church. While that segment of the population is bent toward mobility across the board, there was always a cross-section of our congregation in search of an easier time of things. Our part of the country (a post-industrial Midwestern small town) is notoriously difficult to find jobs within. The city itself lacks any real cultural options, the educational system is a complete disaster, and local bureaucracy features the same small-town politicians trading the mayoral seat every other election. In short, there’s a lot of environmental friction here. I’ve done a lot of thinking, praying, writing, and speaking about environmental friction over the years. It never had the title, but the concept was ever-present in my mind, prayers, articles, and sermons. It’s that reality that each environment—a city, an organization, a family, a work place—holds a certain level of friction you must deal with. The amount of friction will vary, but there’s always some level of difficulty we face in our endeavors in regards to the place and people and culture around us. It’s a part of life. The common default for most of us is toward the path of least resistance. The reason is that there’s less environmental friction involved. Many of our stories are littered with episodes of having taken that path to avoid the friction we feel in certain environments. We avoid the family reunion because it would require “that” conversation. We leave a church community because there’s “nothing there for me/us.” We move to another city because the job market in our current one never opened up. It’s all a form of environmental friction. Part of the response we have to this friction is not only understandable but perfectly reasonable. After all, a person must pay their bills so they must go where the opportunities are. I’ve watched many friends endure toxic ministry environments as pastors or community members only to lose their heart for service to the overwhelming level of friction. I recently interviewed a songwriter who lived in the middle of New Mexico, far away from any surroundings that would nurture her craft. After several years of attempting to give a career in music a chance from her home base, she decided to make the move to Nashville. When I asked her about her familiarity in Nashville, she stated that she’s only been there twice in her life but that each time “things just happened there for me that have never happened anywhere else.” For her, Nashville held less environmental friction than what she was used to. At home, the population couldn’t quite understand her calling and craft. Consequently, they could not fully relate to her. At the same time, inspiration was difficult to find and loneliness was a common feeling. She was experiencing the effects of environmental friction and it was overwhelming to her. We’ve all lived there (or even continue to do so). Sometimes the friction is the indicator that it’s time to leave—to find a new church, a new city, a new circle of friends. We must, however, also admit that there is a darker side of our response to environmental friction. Perhaps our tendency toward the path of least resistance is not always the right option as Christians. After all, the Gospel compels us to bring love and establish the kingdom of God in the very places that environmental friction reaches its fevered peak. My wife and I labored in our town in Indiana for many years, eventually coming to the realization that very few people were willing, or else called, to do so. The harvest is plentiful, as they say. The joke told multiple times at church planting conferences I’ve attended is that somehow God is calling nearly everyone to start a work in Denver, Seattle or some other happening metropolitan area. I was always amazed at the heart and fortitude of the people who committed themselves to our church community. They bought houses in unsafe or unsightly neighborhoods. They started small businesses in economically depressed areas. They dreamed of a new reality in a place where the destructive nature of the present had quelled any sense of hope. In short, they stood tall in the face of staunch environmental friction and embodied what the Gospel is supposed to do—to call forth the upside-down nature of the kingdom by freely offering ourselves to the margins and doing so in loving community. Now I find myself at the crossroads of all of this. After eight years it became clear to my family that it was time to step down from the ministry — that a personal toll had been taken and that my own dreams and gifts and passions had changed over time. New leadership was in place and ready to assume my responsibilities, so we made the decision to step aside. With that single decision, my wife and I became a part of the exodus. We haven’t moved — yet. Those things are in the works and will come soon enough. Yet even a few months after the escape of my own version of environmental friction as a pastor, I find that the overall feeling does not go away. Doubts loom about career decisions that I have made, and they will continue, as they always do, with each choice that I face. Life is not so neatly categorized in terms of right or wrong, at least in my experience. A friend and I gathered for lunch the other day and the topic du jour was his unmet expectations in seemingly every area of his life. I did what any good friend would do in that moment—offered an ear to listen and told him “that sucks” 10 or 12 times. When he was finished, I asked him what changes he planned on making to get himself out of at least some of these situations. He turned the tables on me. He asked me why I defaulted to change as the answer he needed. He asked a question that will likely stick with me for some time: “What role does faithfulness play in our lives today? That’s what I am wrestling with now, so I’m drawn to the reasons why you ask me about change.” I sat there in silence. My first impulse came without thinking. I didn’t want my second one to be the same. His challenge is something I am wrestling with as I consider what to do with the friction that I feel. To stay or leave. To get involved or back away. To commit or to look around. These are the questions that we all face as we search for signs that one person, one situation, one opening, one opportunity is the “right” one to move toward or away from. As my wife and I continue to make such large-scale decisions, my hope is that we continue to wrestle with what it means to face the environmental friction that we feel and face it faithfully. I pray we are willing to faithfully endure in difficult places where perseverance is needed, yet my desire is also for discernment in case the friction is intended to move us toward something new.

Some twelve feet above the ground, in a gutter attached to my neighbor’s roof, a maple tree struggles to grow. In early spring, I first notice the green of the sapling peeking above the gutter’s metal confines. Its single verdant leaf is in stark contrast to the shallow metal container from which it springs so high above earth, its roots never contacting a single gram of the soil below. The gutter, having not been cleaned for many years, moonlights as a lofted planter, a trough, a wholly unintentional vessel holding rich, alluvial soil in which life manages to flourish. Mere inches from the sapling, the downspout, clogged long ago, acts as a dam, collecting every leaf, nut, or branch the sloping roof above can tender, until the decomposed material creates a phony and shallow habitat. I watch throughout spring as the maple slowly inches above the walls of its unlikely vessel, spreading forth new branches and leaves. It reaches up, despite its unforgiving environment. The maple eventually achieves a height of two feet before the gentleness of spring is replaced by summer’s heat and intolerance. It wreaks havoc on the plant. This is survival of the fittest. The soil in which it grows is no more than three inches deep. Yet, here, a few short months ago, a seed first fell, or was washed down from the roof, thus establishing contact with enough dirt to send forth a root. Here, in that shallow depth, with nothing substantive to reach into, the nesting tree begins to succumb to summer’s drought and the direct baking of the gutter and the soil within it. The gutter’s gentle inhabitant withers to the brink of death. The brown curling along the leaves’ outer fringes is the first hint that things are not well. Leaves droop, wither completely, and eventually fall. All that is left is a vertical twig, a skeleton of a young hope that, had it found its place in living, breathing earth, might have grown to be a monolith, bountiful in color, a merciful shade-giver, legendary. Annually, this same maple tries to recreate its life in the very same gutter. Every year it fails. The rain comes too little, too late, causing it to die yet another small death. Every year I watch the tree’s straining, hoping for its survival and success, knowing that its improbable setting will eventually stunt its growth, inhibit its wild nature, and exact again destruction. The small deaths keep coming. But, blessedly, so too does the spring, and though every life may not be saved, the living and the dead are the skeletal reminders of frailty, abundance, and hope as we peek above the temporary confines of this shallow earth.

I’ve been playing guitar for 20 years without really knowing how. I’ve written songs—lots of them. I’ve played in bands. I’ve just started a new one, actually. But I’ve mostly just hammered away on an acoustic six-string with bad thin picks for 20 years. It all started with a very cheap acoustic guitar and a Bob Dylan songbook. I learned to read the big chord diagrams over the music, and I just started strumming songs I already knew. Then I wrote about 30 teenage-angst songs strumming those same simple chords, a bad recording of which has mercifully been lost. Then I wrote some decent songs in my early 20s, but the band I played them with doesn’t exist anymore. (Though I can still dig up copies of our 4-song record, I wouldn’t want to do that on purpose.) I was the unofficial “leader” of that band, calling most of the musical shots and being the key “presence” on the stage. Twenty years after picking up a guitar, I’m finally learning how to play for real. I decided to take lessons, unlearn bad habits, and do it right. It’s an incredibly frustrating process. Up until now, I could pick up a guitar and play hundreds of songs, make it sound pretty good, and my kids could dance around the living room. I could lead music at church or play along with other musicians. Now my instructor is assigning me a bunch of songs to learn and critiquing what I do, and I’m sitting and embarrassingly plunking through the notes like it’s my first time touching the instrument. There’s a spiritual metaphor in there somewhere. I’m convinced that, some day, when I’ve got maybe a week or a month left to live, I’ll finally realize that I’ve been doing something wrong for decades, and I’ll be right back to square one. I remember a time in my life when I ran Bible studies, led youth group, was a pastor, was looked to for spiritual advice, gave gospel messages on college campuses, and was an overall spiritual superhero in my own mind. Just like I was the leader of a Christian band, but had no idea how to play the guitar correctly. I think life is full of these kinds of epiphanies that we’ve been doing it wrong and need to start over. And it’s a good thing we rest in grace, or we’d go crazy with frustration at ourselves. My kids aren’t judging me because I’m suddenly plunking away at notes. They don’t even notice how often I miss. The 15-month old thinks my slow picking through “Wildwood Flower,” “Soldier’s Joy,” and other old tunes is just fantastic, and it makes his eyes light up and his feet start moving. And I’m writing new songs and still playing the old ones. It’s difficult to pick up the guitar and suddenly feel like I don’t know what I’m doing. It’s difficult to do the same so often with how I approach God in prayer or how I approach the reading and understanding of Scripture. Or church life or interaction with neighbors or any other vital part of life that I’ve been practicing for decades without really knowing what I’m doing. On our way out of church Sunday morning, our pastor let us know there’d be confirmation classes coming up, that the bishop is visiting in September, and would we like to become voting members. A million conflicting thoughts raced through my mind when he asked. We’ve been overcommitted and burned out before and have trouble finding a balance. We’ve not been extremely involved in a church family since the burnout. We’ve been going to church for as long as I’ve been playing guitar and longer, but the time has come for some relearning. Despite conflicting thoughts in my heard, I heard my own voice saying, “Yes, we’d like to do that.” It’s scary. But the kids still dance when I play guitar. And I think the angels still rejoice when we repent and restart.

(We All Come From Somewhere, Part 1.) What did I think would happen? I suppose I hadn’t really thought about it. Still, what actually did happen came to me as a bit of a surprise. The concert started at 7:30, the doors opened at 6:00. At around 5:00, I stopped by the venue to buy my ticket. What did I see? A line. There was a line. Fans were already gathering so they could get right up to the front of the stage—fans wearing Stryper t-shirts and holding records they hoped to get autographed. Why did this surprise me? It wasn’t that Stryper had fans. Of course they had fans. The surprise was how willing these fans were to identify themselves as such. And even more, how unwilling I was to do the same. Lest you think I’m using Stryper or their fans as the punch line of a joke, let me explain myself. For close to a decade of my life, when I told people I was a Stryper fan it was a badge of pride. Then there came another decade where, when I mentioned liking them, people thought I was joking and I sheepishly denied it. Now I’m in a decade where people buy music, concert tickets, and t-shirts for ’80s big-hair metal because they think it’s “ironic.” To like something “ironically” is to like something that wasn’t meant for you, and to like it for reasons other than those originally meant to make it appealing. One example might be going to a Nascar race mainly to observe Nascar fans in their natural habitat, though you have no idea how the scoring system works or who the drivers are. Let’s be honest, irony played a much bigger role than Nascar ever did in making Ricky Bobby a household name. (The Onion created a pretty good – and funny – video explanation of what I’m talking about here.) As the line formed, I realized I didn’t exactly know how I was supposed to feel about this concert. Was I supposed to be excited to see my one-time favorite band? Did I think the concert would be, in some way, funny? Was I there for ironic reasons? Would I maybe get nostalgic for a time long past? Or would I end up loving every minute? And who were these people in line with me? They were mostly my age. When they were kids, they probably covered their bedroom walls with the same posters I had. Could it be that these were, in fact, my people? Could it be that though we’d perhaps weathered the ’90s differently, we had each come to gather on this common ground—ground we all felt, at some point in our lives, was the soil from which we’d grown? I played it cool and kept my distance. The last thing in the world I wanted was to get into some conversation with a stranger about what we hoped would make the set-list, or whether the band would be wearing yellow and black spandex, or if vinyl was truer than digital. I slipped into the venue and climbed up to the balcony where I planned to observe the show from a distance. But so help me, by the middle of the second song I found myself headed for the stairs to stand among the crowd right in front of the stage. Why? Because my favorite band from high school was putting on an amazing live show. They moved me from being a distant observer to being a part of the experience. A couple days after the Stryper concert, one of my more recent favorites, Josh Ritter, played a rare full band show here in the city I love. During that show, he helped me make sense of my experience at the Stryper concert. Toward the middle of the crowd favorite, “Kathleen,” Ritter’s band shifted into a slow waltz and he began to talk about how we’ve come to regard so many things we used to love as funny now. He reminded us that there was a time when we bought Hallmark cards for the sentiments they expressed, not for the humor of how cheesy they could be. Then he invited us to do something I hope I’ll never forget. I’m paraphrasing, but here’s what he said: “In all this love of irony, I wonder if we’re forgetting how to love things for what they are. And I wonder how much we’re staying on the sidelines for the sake not feeling awkward when what we could do is become a part of something beautiful. Let’s do something real tonight. Let’s put away our cynicism for a moment, and lets create a beautiful piece of art together. Turn around and find someone—anyone, it doesn’t matter—and lets share a very short, very loving slow dance. Just find someone. It doesn’t matter who. And if it doesn’t work, just bounce off to someone else. Let’s turn this room into the biggest slow dance in this city.” This was a risky thing for Ritter to ask of his audience. We spend a lot of energy working hard to distance ourselves from things that move us. But do you know what happened? The people responded. The concert transformed into a dance hall, and every last person in the room was smiling from ear to ear whether they danced or not. Why? I think it was because the moment became what Ritter was hoping it could be—a work of art. I think the phenomenon of liking things ironically is disingenuous and self-protective. It comes across to me as more of a boast: “I laugh at the things that actually seem to stir the hearts others.” But, just as C. S. Lewis said that “an atheist cannot guard his beliefs too carefully,” the same can be said of anyone who attempts to like something ironically. The beautiful flaw in liking something “ironically,” is that if you’re not careful, what you start off liking primarily for the way it plays in our culture eventually begins to grow on you, and you start liking it for what it really is. And when you start to like something for what it actually is, then your heart gets involved. And when your heart gets involved, you move from the balcony to the front of the stage. And when you move to the front of the stage, you begin to participate. And when you participate, you begin to grow and change, and dare I say, enjoy yourself. Those people in line? They were my people. We had so much fun.

After much hand wringing and deliberation, the Hutchmoot 2012 session list is, at last, complete. I’m really excited about our line-up this year which includes good folks like N. D. Wilson, Sally Lloyd-Jones, Andi Ashworth, Steve Taylor, and a few other special guests in addition to our already great cast of speakers. I get several emails a week in which people plead with me to find a way to record all the sessions and make them available, and while that’s a near impossibility for a number of reasons, we do have plans to get some of them recorded. Which ones? Well, we’ll just have to see how things work out. But we hope to have a meaty chunk of new content for podcasts once Hutchmoot is over—which by the way is only a month away! Wow. Here’s the final list. The book list is also complete, and all titles are available in the Rabbit Room store. Adventurous Storytelling: Young Adult author N. D. Wilson and S. D. Smith discuss the powerful draw of adventure in the stories we tell. The Art of Caring: Author Andi Ashworth and writer Lanier Ivester discuss the importance of creativity in how we care for the people around us. Recovery Through Song: Musicians Jason Gray, Eric Peters, and Andrew Osenga discuss ways in which music and creativity can be powerful means of spiritual and emotional recovery. Art in the Kingdom: Pastors Matt Conner, Russ Ramsey, and Thomas McKenzie discuss the unique power and place of the arts within the Church. Gospel Uses of Comedy: Author Jonathan Rogers and singer-songwriter Andy Gullahorn discuss the use of comedy to communicate the Gospel in unexpected ways. Tales of the Fall: Musician and author Andrew Peterson and author Travis Prinzi examine the ways in which art continually, and necessarily, retells the story of our fallen world. The Art of Spiritual Subtext: Author Sarah Clarkson and writer Lanier Ivester discuss the delicate tension of spiritually-informed storytelling and how authors like Elizabeth Goudge and Evelyn Waugh avoid crossing the line into preachiness. Productive Collaboration: A number of artists who have collaborated together discuss the pitfalls, highlights, and methods of working with one another creatively. Speakers include Don and Lori Chaffer—the husband and wife band better known as Waterdeep, producers Cason Cooley and Ben Shive—the production team behind Andrew Peterson’s Light for the Lost Boy, and Ron Block and Rebecca Reynolds who have worked together long-distance-style to write Ron Block’s newest album. Playing with Words: Children’s author Jennifer Trafton will lead a writing workshop using some of the fun-filled methods and activities she employs for teaching creative writing to kids. Come prepared to stretch your imagination. No writing experience or aptitude necessary. The Cinematic Imagination: Filmmaker/musician Steve Taylor (Blue Like Jazz), producer Chris Wall (VeggieTales), and filmmaker/songwriter/author Doug McKelvey (Centricity U) discuss the value of cinema in our culture and the ways in which it informs and shapes the imagination. The Theology of Theatre: Greg Greene and Wes Driver, the creative team behind Nashville’s Blackbird Theater Company, discuss the history of theatre as an early form of worship, the ways in which the theatre arts are analogous to the Incarnation, and ways in which audiences can best engage the theatre from a Christian perspective. The Ragamuffin Legacy: Musician/author Andrew Peterson and musician/producer Ben Shive look back on the work of Rich Mullins and discuss the lasting impact of his life and music. Tales of New Creation: Author A. S. Peterson, author Jennifer Trafton, and pastor Thomas McKenzie discuss the importance of art and story within a fallen world and how our daily acts of creation are signposts pointing toward the world to come. Art in the Family: Author Sally Lloyd-Jones, writer S. D. Smith, author Sarah Clarkson, and musician Randall Goodgame discuss the importance of engaging the arts within the context of everyday family life. Illustrating Wonder: VeggieTales producer Chris Wall will lead illustrator Justin Gerard in a discussion and demonstration of the methods he has used to create his many awe-inspiring works.

“We will rock the hell out of you.” –Stryper Last weekend when I heard about a certain concert happening in my city that night, I sent out a tweet that has been bugging me ever since. I twote: “I may or may not be taking myself from 25 years ago to see Stryper at the Wildhorse Saloon tonight. ‪#dontjudgeme ‪#weallcomefromsomewhere What bugs me most about that tweet is how much effort I spent qualifying something I genuinely wanted to do. “I may or may not…,” “Don’t Judge Me…” Insinuating that if I go, it’s for nostalgia. Why did I feel the need to distance myself from going to see the one band who has probably received more of my money and bedroom wall space than any other in the history of the whammy bar? For those unfamiliar with Stryper, a little history might be in order. They formed in the early 80’s, appearing on LA’s Sunset Strip music scene with other big-hair metal bands like Motley Crue, Cinderella, Poison, and Ratt. If you know these bands, you get the picture—long hair, spandex, ear rings, make-up, lots of promises to rock people—no matter where they’re from—and to rock them for seemingly unending periods of time. Stryper, from the beginning, occupied rarified air. If you were going to make it in that industry, there had to be something about you that 1) made you stand out, and 2) made people like you. With their yellow and black attire and their commitment to singing plainly about their faith in Jesus and the free offer of the Gospel, they certainly stood out. However, I expect both of those characteristics made the “make people like you” objective a little more of a battle. Why? Because lyrically and morally, they were swimming against the current of their competing colleagues’ core values. Thematically, the bands of that genre and era devoted 90% of their lyrical capital to weird euphemisms about women, the anticipation of drinking, and doing whatever they wanted to do, no matter what their parents thought. The remaining 10% of their lyrics went to space travel, rainbows in the dark, the travail of the early native Americans. (I’m looking at you, Europe, for two out of three here.) Stryper never tried to philosophize about the druids or sing about fighting super-natural serial killers while in a dream state. They kept things pretty straightforward. They sang mainly for and about Jesus. But if they were going to make this their play and earn a living doing it, they needed to be a great band. So what did Stryper do? They worked hard. They worked hard at defining a certain sound built around both vocal and instrumental harmony and precision. They worked hard to create a live show that people wanted to come see and then talked about long after. They worked hard to promote themselves—gut-wrenching work because it often carries more rejection than acceptance. And all this work paid off, establishing them as one of the most visually and musically entertaining live acts of that genre, and with some pretty magical records to build those tours around. Then came the ’90s. I assume Stryper, like most of their peers from that era, faced a commercial decline when some kid called Slacker Angst rolled out of bed (at the crack of noon), put on his flannel shirt and handed Eddie Vedder a microphone to tell the Sunset Strip that the party was over. (Was that sentence too much? It felt good.) When grunge took over, a lot of those 80’s metal bands just put down their B.C. Rich Warlocks and walked away. Some became tribute bands to themselves, earning their living by playing old hits. Some found gainful employment in reality TV. But several weathered the storm, kept working, and have resurfaced in recent years as a new form of “classic rock.” (Case in point: in the past year alone, Nashville has hosted concerts for Van Halen, Def Leppard, Poison, Cinderella, Lita Ford, Kiss, Motley Crue, Iron Maiden, Ozzy Osbourne, and Judas Priest, just to name a few.) When I went to see Stryper a week ago, here’s what I saw. I saw four guys, who have been playing music together for the better part of 30 years, put on a great show. Musically speaking, they were amazingly tight. They didn’t play a single ballad. They started loud, stayed loud, and finished loud. Each member filled their respective roles with graceful control that reminded me how rare it is to see a true band—folks who have logged countless shows honing their craft in such a way that they come across as a single, seamless unit. They came to play. They played songs I hadn’t heard in 20 years, and they made me love them all over again. They were obviously happy to be there—without a hint of entitlement or cynicism. They were generous with the audience—including some “above the call of duty” graciousness with a guy who rushed the stage to try to sing lead on his favorite song. And they were still as committed as ever to their singular purpose—to tell of the faith they had built their lives and careers around. This was illustrated well in what was, for me, a moment of humble poignancy. Back in the day, Stryper was known for throwing bibles out into the audience, and I wondered if this was something they still practiced. Sure enough, near the midpoint of the show, Michael Sweet, the lead vocalist and guitarist, grabbed a stack of New Testaments from the top of his amp, and the other guys did the same. What he said as he tossed them into the crowd made me not just appreciate them as a band, but really respect them as men. I’m paraphrasing, but here’s the gist of what he said: “Back when we first started out on the Sunset Strip, the scene was all about sex, drugs, and partying. So many people just bought into this way of looking at life. We were asking ourselves, how can Stryper stand out and tell people that we believe there is a better way? How can we tell people that our relationship with God is broken, but that there is a way to be right with Him by believing in His Son Jesus? One idea was to actually put God’s word in their hands. So we started tossing out Bibles at our shows. Over the years we’ve kept doing it, because this is still ultimately what we care about as a band. We believe God loves you and we want you to know that. That’s what matters to us. So that’s why we throw these out.” Sweet’s humility and candor about how they’ve come to be who they are over the years, with his unapologetic winsomeness in a culture he knows is cynical and jaded, was really refreshing. We all come from somewhere, and where we’re from never completely leaves us. I discovered Stryper more than half my life ago. I come from a bedroom in central Indiana with dozens of Stryper posters on the walls. And I come from a boyhood where one of my biggest fears was how to live out my faith with conviction and at the risk of being made fun of. Stryper helped me find some courage there. My story is joined, in a small but still real way, to those four guys from southern California—four guys who happen to rock. I would be lying if I told you I went to that show for purely nostalgic reasons, as my tweet suggested. I went as a fan.

I like scary stories, in case you couldn’t already tell. I believe George MacDonald was correct that we are to “make righteous use of the element of horror.” I recently had the honor and privilege of fleshing out these ideas a bit in a new book called Light Shining in a Dark Place: Discovering Theology in Film. This was a fun book to contribute to, because I got to write about one of my all-time favorite films: Poltergeist. The last two years at Hutchmoot, I’ve tried to sneak a reference to the spiritual metaphors in Poltergeist into my talks, and haven’t had the time for it. (I’m talking with Andrew about “Tales of the Fall” this year, so perhaps third time’s the charm.) Here’s just one paragraph from my essay, “The Parable of the Poltergeist:” Here we’ve come to the real truth-telling value of the horror genre. We can do everything in our power to mask the Fall, to create an illusion of safety and tranquility. But underneath it all, the terror of our rebellion against God and its consequences remains. Nothing symbolizes this better than death, which is why the horror of Poltergeist culminates in dead bodies coming up from the ground. As the perfect, pristine house is destroyed in a supernatural explosion, the lies they formerly believed about the world come undone: The world is not predictable. It is not safe. It is not peaceful. Even those who believe in Christ are risen from the dead. “You were dead,” St. Paul reminds us. And if that weren’t enough, our sinful nature still wages war against us (Galatians 5). The destruction of the Freelings’ house by the supernatural dead tells a much truer story than the image of the tranquil neighborhood which opened the film. It’s not October yet, which is when this subject is perhaps more seasonally appropriate, but I might as well take the release of this book and the subject matter of my essay to ask the question: What’s your favorite scary movie? And perhaps even more importantly: What truth does it tell?

“Giving birth should be your greatest achievement not your greatest fear.” -Jane Weideman I’m a bit perplexed — perhaps even unsettled — about why the word picture of a midwife remains so striking to me. I’m not even the right gender, nor do I have any children. Yet for some reason the metaphor has stuck ever since first hearing it on a road trip. My wife Lindsay and I recently set out to join the extended family for a weekend of fishing, boating, and swimming. With several hours to pass, my wife hit up the local library for a few audio books and started with Discover Your Genius by Michael J. Gelb. It’s a book intended to motivate the creative drive of the listener/reader by pulling out insights from some of the greatest “geniuses” in history. In the very beginning, as Gelb is describing Socrates and Plato and their continuing influence on the world, a passage jumped out at me and has remained with me ever since. Gelb says that that Socrates thought of himself as “a midwife of ideas.” Amazing. A midwife of ideas. I created a mental bookmark knowing that I would need to reflect on and eventually flesh out why the phrase was so compelling to me. Yet it remained an incomplete word picture until speaking with a friend who actually works as a midwife herself. I was so driven by the phrase that I asked her for some perspective on the beauty of her job and why she chose the profession. “The word ‘midwife’ actually means ‘with woman’,” she explained. “For me that sums it up. I am able to come alongside a family in the most beautiful yet fragile moments and be a part of a major point of transformation in their lives. I can speak to their physical, emotional, and spiritual health in those moments and encourage the birth of something beautiful. I love my job!” Not only did I leave the conversation with a deeper appreciation for the role of a midwife, but I suddenly understood with much greater clarity why my heart leaped when I first heard that phrase from the audiobook. While an actual midwife is gender-specific, tied to a particular life-stage, the analogy fits for everyone with a dream that’s yet to become an expressed reality, an idea without proper formation, or potential not quite realized. Within a few words, Socrates states with simple accuracy the role we all play as co-creators calling forth a good creation from the void. It is my role to play midwife to the God-given ideas that come to me. It is my role to speak life to them, to create an atmosphere where transformation can take place and where the birth of a new thing is the end result. Entrusted to me, and to the community I am a part of, is the physical, emotional, and spiritual health of the idea that I am pregnant with. I’ve recently switched jobs, stepping down from a long-term ministry position to enter into a time of writing. It was purposeful, coming after years of telling close friends and family members of the numerous ideas I felt brewing inside me. These were the folks cheering me on as we made the transition that allowed me to write full-time. Yet, I’ve quickly realized that making such a transition doesn’t ensure that the idea will come to fruition. Instead the shift in vocation was only the beginning of a long series of moves I must continue to make. Attending to the physical, spiritual, and emotional health of my own self and those closest to me will help to facilitate the writing before me. I must attend to the discipline of the craft, write when I do not feel like it, and nourish my understanding by taking in the beautiful words of others, all of which were once unborn ideas.

This poem is beautiful. Thanks, D.S. Martin, for continuing to draw our attention to these stewards of words. —The Proprietor Jūkichi Yagi (1898–1927) is a Japanese poet. He became a devout Christian as a high school student through reading the Bible. At age 23 he became a teacher of English and began writing poetry as an expression of his Christian faith. In 1923, he and his wife, Tomiko, were married. His first book of poems Autumn’s Eye appeared in 1925. During the following year he developed tuberculosis, and remained bed-ridden until he died. During this time he wrote extensively about God and death. It was not until after the posthumous publication of his further poetry that he gained widespread popularity. In 1959 his widow arranged for the publication of The Complete Poems of Jūkichi Yagi. From “Soliloquy in Bed”: *** They flow naturally. What should I do with these tears? *** I’d like to recover soon and spread the names of God and Jesus. *** There are nights when I fall asleep to the sound of the waves meshing with my thoughts. There are times when I can’t sleep at all. *** Tomiko, I don’t mean that. I mean that if I must die anyway then please let me die with a beautiful heart. *** Tomiko, when we knew happiness together, those times when I was to blame for things, I can now see very clearly. *** Seen through the window, the sky and flowing clouds— I turn away from their excessive seriousness. *** Tomiko, I can’t stand being in bed alone. *** O Heavenly Father, please save this feeble body and soul and let me work on behalf of the light of God and Christ. *** Tomiko, when not calling God’s name I’m calling yours. *** I will be together with the heart of God. *** Momoko and Yooji, it’s painful that I can’t see you. I’m happiest at having been your father and not anyone else’s. *** Ah, how wonderful the sound of those waves. I’d love to go to the beach. —————————————— Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the award-winning author of the poetry collections Poiema (Wipf & Stock) and So The Moon Would Not Be Swallowed (Rubicon Press). They’re both available here.

Let me tell you a quick story about something cool that happened to me over the course of about twenty years. I promise it has to do with Hutchmoot 2012. It all started at church camp. I was working as a counselor at North Florida Christian Service Camp in the 1990’s—the same camp where as a guilt-ridden kid I rededicated my life to Jesus every year—when one night, while everyone was hanging in the gym playing carpetball or foursquare or Audio Adrenaline songs, the high schoolers suddenly went crazy over a video that featured talking vegetables. It was the first time I had ever seen Bob and Larry, and I was delighted that whoever had put the film together seemed to take the Gospel very seriously while not taking themselves seriously at all. (This is something I would love to be said about me behind my back or at my funeral.) I laughed and I learned, and I was proud that the folks behind this video were Christians and genuinely funny. Fast forward to when Aedan and Asher were toddlers. We fed them a steady diet of VeggieTales and bought every episode when it came out. I looked forward to the “Silly Songs with Larry” segment every time, thinking how fun it would be to write one of those songs. (I was also thinking how fun it would be to pay some bills by writing one of those songs.) One night in Estes Park, Colorado I was performing a short set for Compassion International (along with Phil Keaggy, of all people), and after I finished playing I bumped into a guy wearing a VeggieTales cap. I mean, come on! First, Keaggy and now VeggieTales? I introduced myself to the guy (who turned out to be Kurt Heinecke, the brains behind the Big Idea music for years), and told him my kids loved the videos. He gave me his card and told me that if I was ever in Chicago I should come by and play some songs for the employees at Big Idea. That’s exactly what we did. A few months later we got a tour of the studio, and because I spent several years as a kid dreaming of being either a Disney animator or a Batman penciller I was more or less flipping out over all the work being done on the upcoming film Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie. They even gave me a page of concept art, which I framed and hung on my wall when I got home (for my kids, of course). I say all that to say this: when Big Idea Productions went bankrupt and was bought by a company that moved the operation to Franklin, Tennessee, I figured it must have been a bummer for somebody—but it was cool for Nashville! We had a legit animation studio right down the road, and I kinda knew one of the guys. We got another family tour, and once again I geeked out. Well, not long after that we needed a penny whistle player for the Behold the Lamb of God Christmas show at the Ryman, and Kurt agreed to get all Irishy with us. Not long after that, Randall Goodgame and I recorded Slugs & Bugs & Lullabies and we gave Kurt a few copies to pass around at Big Idea. Not long after that, Chris Wall, who was then producing The Wizard of Ha’s (still one of my favorite of the Veggie films, directed by Brian Roberts), gave the Slugs CD a listen. He thought “You Can Always Come Home” would be a good fit for the end of the movie. (Actually, I have to thank his wife Heather for forcing him to listen to it.) At the time, they still didn’t have a Silly Song for the video and they gave Randall and I a shot at pitching one. Since our delightful relationship with the Big Idea gang here in Tennessee began, even though there have continued to be big changes at the company, they keep putting out well-executed and biblically sound stories that teach thousands of kids and parents—and even some high school campers, I bet—that God made them special and loves them very much. Phil started Big Idea with almost nothing and in just a few years it became a multi-million dollar company—then it all fell apart. Me, Myself, and Bob, Phil’s memoir about the rise and heartbreaking collapse of his dream, is not only funny and fascinating, but like most of what Phil does it conveys something true and beautiful about the gospel of Christ. Now that Phil is no longer directly involved with Big Idea, he’s the brains behind yet another creative endeavor called What’s in the Bible?, a show that teaches our kids, well, what’s in the Bible. I just had a conversation last night with our own Russ Ramsey and Randall Goodgame about how much they and their kids love it. But the following quote illustrates what I appreciate most about Phil’s philosophy, theology, and humility—especially regarding a flaw with the show that he created: I looked back at the previous ten years and realized I had spent ten years trying to convince kids to behave “Christianly” without actually teaching them Christianity. And that was a pretty serious conviction. You can say, ‘Hey kids, be more forgiving because the Bible says so,’ or, ‘Hey kids, be more kind because the Bible says so!’ But that isn’t Christianity, it’s morality. American Christian[s]… are drinking a cocktail that’s a mix of the Protestant work ethic, the American dream, and the gospel. And we’ve intertwined them so completely that we can’t tell them apart anymore. Our gospel has become a gospel of following your dreams and being good so God will make all your dreams come true. It’s the Oprah god… We’ve completely taken this Disney notion of ‘when you wish upon a star, your dreams come true’ and melded that with faith and come up with something completely different. There’s something wrong in a culture that preaches nothing is more sacred than your dream. I mean, we walk away from marriages to follow our dreams. We abandon children to follow our dreams. We hurt people in the name of our dreams, which as a Christian is just preposterous. As you can see, Phil has good things to say. Even though he graciously wrote a review of The Wingfeather Saga, sang Silly Songs that Goodgame and I wrote, and has worked for years with friends of mine, somehow we’ve never met. That’s just one more reason I’m looking forward to Hutchmoot this year, because (as I’m sure you guessed), he’s our special guest/keynote speaker. I can’t wait. Whether or not you agree with everything he has to say in Me, Myself, and Bob, I dare you to not be fascinated and challenged by his story and what he continues to do with the head full of big ideas that God gave him. For more information about Phil, visit his website here, and pick up his books in the Rabbit Room store.

Clay Clarkson will always have a place in Rabbit Room lore. ‘Twas he who provided the world with that puzzling, but perfect name for the Rabbit Room’s annual conference/gathering: Hutchmoot. He is more than just a namer of things, he is a shaper of lives and a wise guide for the path of whole-hearted parenting. Clay’s book (written with his wife, Sally), Educating the WholeHearted Child, is truly wonderful. Reading it was a joy and a relief. Finally, a book on home-education I can…wait for it…whole-heartedly recommend. Seriously, this book means a lot to me, because it hits just about every button. It is enjoyable and well written. It is graceful in tone and message (and this is fundamental to its charm and power). It is not only full of grace, but is also truth-saturated. It’s faithful to Scripture. It is well layed-out and profoundly helpful. It is simply a brilliantly constructed book, a treasure for parents of any variety, most especially those who are considering, or are engaged in, home education. Clay was kind enough to answer a few questions and reveal at least one more of his famously coined words. –Sam 1. You have spent many years working to serve families. What is the core of the message you love to share with families? What would you say, “Miss everything else, but don’t miss this!” about? When Sarah was about four years old, I was a singles pastor at a large SoCal church. Most of our singles ministry leaders were from broken families, and one day out of the blue Sarah blurted out to Sally and me, “When I get my divorce, I want to come and live with you.” She didn’t know it then, but that innocent blurt planted a seed in our hearts that we wanted to strengthen families. After a couple of moves, we landed in rural Texas in 1993 and that seed grew into Whole Heart Ministries, a ministry to “encourage and equip Christian parents to raise wholehearted Christian children.” Our ministry slogan, “Keeping Faith in the Family,” summarizes what still drives us nearly twenty years later. We believe in God’s biblical design for the Christian home and family, and we are committed to putting tools into parents’ hearts and hands to help them build the faith of their children. Our heart is to set parents free from burdensome and extra-biblical parenting formulas and methods, and give them confidence to parent by faith and grace in the power of the Holy Spirit. 2. What do you consider healthy ambition for parents in regards to their kids? Is there danger in our aspirations? Aspirations are fine, as long as they are not projected personal aspirations. My secret personal aspiration was to raise a child who would be a web-tech and graphic design wizard. It didn’t happen. Frankly, it would have created great stress and unhappiness if I had tried to press that aspiration onto one of my children. Our aspirations for our children were rarely about what they would do, but more about who they would be. We were very verbal in our expectations that each of our children would have an impact for Christ and the Gospel and very intentional about training them to be gracious and effective communicators and people. We took seriously the idea of “making disciples” of our children, believing that if we got their hearts right, then we could trust God to direct them as they approached adulthood. There is a danger in projecting your personal aspirations onto your child and especially in trying to fulfill unrealized hopes from your own life. However, you won’t ever go wrong if you are aspiring for your children to become godly, mature, kingdom-driven men and women. Aspire away! 3. What role do you believe imagination and the arts play in raising children? Early in our parenting journey, we heard the statistic that children enter school with very high measurable creativity, but by third grade it is very low. Why? Because children in classrooms quickly learn to conform. It becomes all about right answers. Obviously, every child needs to learn the Three Rs in order to gain knowledge, but that is not enough. In addition to learning skills, we chose to build our children’s mental muscles, the ones that would enable them to be strong and independent learners. We identified seven muscles—language, appetites, habits, creativity, curiosity, reason, and wisdom. Taken together, I believe they are the building blocks of a strong imagination, or what might be called an “imaginal intellect,” that is able to conceive new ideas and think outside of the box. We intentionally emphasized creating a verbally rich environment and an arts-enriched atmosphere in our home, filling it daily with literature, visual arts, music, storytelling, poetry, Scripture, acting, creative play, nature, and much more. It was an imagination laboratory. 4. You are, quite famously, the inventor of the title, “Hutchmoot,” for the Rabbit Room’s annual conference/gathering. Other than signing autographs, what do you most enjoy about Hutchmoot and what are you looking forward to this year? As a writer and an amateur neologizer, I am delighted to have created such a useful new word (I’m checking OED regularly). Just for historical provenance, it was Saturday, April 24, 2010 around 11:00 AM in the back room at the Panera Bread on Old Hickory in Nashville. Andrew and Pete were meeting with Sarah—the young and newly-minted Rabbit Room author—and her aged father (me). Conversation turned to what to call this new event, I tossed out “Hutchmoot” as an idea, Andrew looked at me funny, and the rest is history. Not being able to attend the first Hutchmoot with Sarah was torture, but I was in line online the next year to secure my spot for Hutchmoot 2011. It was everything Sarah said it would be—good people, great music, delicious eats, amazing guests, stimulating workshops, laid-back goofiness, heady discussions, constant fellowship, and more. Hutchmoot was different from any music and arts conference I had ever attended. I met you, Sam, and ended up writing on this imaginative blog called Story Warren. I met Eric Peters, and will host a concert with him in Colorado. Now I am champing at the bit (note: not chomping, which I will do at Evie’s table) to get to Hutchmoot 2012. I’m ready to moot at the hutch. 5. I’ve known you as a man of vision and imagination. What’s out there that you haven’t yet done, but are itching to do? I always have more creative itches than I can scratch. On the ministry side, there are some nonfiction books and parenting resources in process, and a library of Christian books from 1860-1920 to get back in print. On the equally itchy personal side of my creative life, there’s an illustrated children’s book allegory, and a preschool children’s book and app. As a musician, I’m working on an Advent song cycle of my own songs with an monologue by a 70 year-old Mary. Since Andrew permanently removed the self-referential term “creative” from all Hutchmooters’ vocabularies this past year, I now think of myself as a “creativator.” For me, it just means a person driven to be creative. I often feel like Job, relentlessly scratching at all these itchy ideas and concepts breaking out in my brain, digging at them with the broken potsherd of my limited creative skills and abilities. Being a creativator can be frustrating that way, but also a blessing when one of those ideas actually makes it out of my brain and into someone else’s hands. It’s a rare delight to know you helped light up the imago dei in someone else’s spirit. It doesn’t happen often, but I keep pressing on because it’s just what I do. Thanks for asking. [Clay Clarkson’s book, Educating the WholeHearted Child, is available in the Rabbit Room store.]

Last night I tromped down the hill with a hammer, six wooden stakes, and a spool of fishing line to do battle with deer. But it’s not what you think. As far as I know there are no vampire deer in the neighborhood. No, our deer are the usual docile, graceful, and enormously frustrating sort. Frustrating because I’m a wannabe gardener, and they seem to think I’m doing all this work for them. I planted a pumpkin patch down in the lower part of the yard, just past the young willow tree. I’ve never had much luck with pumpkins, so this year I went all-out. My kind neighbor brought his tractor down the hill and turned the ground, revealing darker soil than further up where I plant my corn. When it rains a lot (well, when it used to rain a lot) I can’t even mow this spot for fear of getting stuck in all that soggy grass–which is why I planted the thirsty willow tree there last year. I’m guessing all that moisture and runoff has been feeding this little section of the yard for a hundred years. Now, by golly, that soil was going to feed my pumpkins. I bought a hundred feet of water hose and ran it all the way to the patch, raised six mounds of dirt, ringed them each with a little moat, and planted three seeds per mound. After a week or two of watering, the seedlings broke through the soil, and there was much rejoicing at the Warren. That was weeks ago, and now the pumpkin vines have all but exploded with leaves as big as platters, bright yellow flowers, and twenty-foot vines. It’s a bona fide pumpkin patch. And that’s when the rabbits came. Then the deer. Now, I’m partial to rabbits, as the name of the property (not to mention this website) attests. But I have from time to time, when they’ve eaten my carrots or my baby watermelons or my squash, craved a rabbit sandwich. Still, we have an outside cat who seems to keep them at bay, so I’m usually happy to see bunnies in the grass. But the deer—those impervious deer, with their “innocent” eyes and their “gentle” demeanor—don’t give a hoot about cats. And they know they can outrun Moondog’s maddest sprint. It’s not unusual to see deer on or around our property, so I knew it was a matter of time before they sniffed out my pumpkins. One morning last week I was coasting down the gravel drive when I saw her: a doe, knee-deep in pumpkin vines, munching away at those supple leaves. I slammed on the brakes and screamed at her. She stared me down and tore another leaf from the vine. I seethed as it slowly disappeared into her maw. I threw the car into park and stomped across the yard, trying to think of a curse that the deer would understand. She chewed, casually defiant, until I got about fifteen feet away, then with two silent leaps she vanished into the woods. I inspected my precious pumpkins and saw five or six lonely, leafless, budless stems, potential jack-o-lanterns who never got a chance to shine. That’s what led me to yesterday’s expedition with the wooden stakes and the fishing line. I wish I could say I was making a booby trap. I’d like nothing more than to walk out one morning and see that sinister doe caught in a net and hanging from a tree like C3P0 and the gang on Endor. No, I was making an invisible fence. I hammered six stakes into the ground, then strung the fishing line around the patch several times. Supposedly the deer can’t see the line and it freaks them out, or at least that’s what someone told me on Facebook. I’ll have to let you know how it goes. The point is this: strangely, I love that fence. It’s not even a real fence—it’s more like a spider web, really. But when I got to the porch and turned to see those six simple stakes in the ground, the setting sun glinting on the fishing line, and the weeping willow a few feet away, something in my heart woke up. What a few weeks ago was just another spot in the yard, an alcove of grass surrounded by a sweep of honeylocust, hackberry, and juniper, became something new. In a way, it became newly mine. I claimed it, marked it out, enclosed it in that fishing line, and now it’s not just another swath of grass. Now it’s another place to visit on my nightly walk around the property. Planting the willow tree last year was the first step; it adorned a blank canvas of lawn. Then my neighbor tilled it, and Jamie and I enjoyed watching the seeds sprout and the vines creep. And it was nice, too, when the plants were established and flourishing. I asked my neighbors, “Hey, did you notice the pumpkin patch?” Until I pointed it out, they hadn’t. But something changed yesterday when I staked that fence and strung the line. I was telling the deer and the rabbits and the neighbors and myself that it was more than just a random congregation of plants; it was a garden. It was protected, and tended to, and had purpose. Out of this wildness, order; out of this vastness, place. God made the world, and in it, he made a garden. A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. (Genesis 2) Yesterday, right here in Nashville, I understood something about God’s love for his people. I chose, out of my whole property, one nook to claim for pumpkins, and that act made the whole place more beautiful. I subdued the earth, and she became more lovely for it. I imagine the rest of the property, the part that grows wild as it will, looks at that little, protected tangle of pumpkins with longing—a longing not to be constricted, but to be cared for; a longing not to be enslaved, but beloved. Then, of course, I think of the Israelites. From all the peoples of the earth, God chose Abraham and made out of his descendants a garden—a garden with boundaries. God gave them his law not to punish, but to protect and provide. He put up a fence and set his affection on them, that all creation would see and rejoice. My little perfunctory fence isn’t just there to keep the deer out (or to keep the pumpkins in, for that matter). Now I know it’s also there to establish. It’s there to make the whole place more beautiful, to the delight of the owner of the homestead. As it says in Jeremiah 30:22, “You shall be my pumpkins, and I will be your gardener.” Or something like that.

My son scampered around the graveyard, having to be reminded not to be too rambunctious. I asked him to stop playing on the gravestone pictured below and got his happy, “Sure, Daddy.” I commented that I loved the shape of the marker, and he agreed. “Look at this spaceship, Daddy. I think it’s pointing to God.” But this wasn’t the grave we came to see. I have seen a few famous grave sites in my 35 years, but none of the graves I’ve seen in Arlington, Lexington, New York, London, or Durban quite measure up in importance to this one in Galax, Virginia. Lillie Cooley is not famous outside our family, but inside our family? She’s a central character in our story, an unrivaled heroine. Lillie Cooley is –to me and many others– more important than many people who are internationally famous. Lillie Cooley was a faithful woman in my wife’s family (and therefore my family) and one whose leadership and example are celebrated years and years after her death. Aunt Lillie was my wife’s Great Aunt, the second oldest of eight siblings. The oldest and only son, Edgar, died in his twenties. When their parents died as well, Lillie (then) Mabe took on the responsibility of caring for all the children. She was helped in this by Aunt Elva. Lillie didn’t want the kids parceled out here and there, because she wasn’t sure they would be taken care of properly. She decided to devote her life to the family. There were seven daughters, so the “Mabe Babes” are all famous, and Aunt Lillie was the star above them. She became a sort of humble matriarch for a vulnerable family. She worked hard gardening, taught school, and supported the family. She delayed her marriage to her beloved Lucian for many years in order to care and provide for her siblings. She kept them all faithful in church attendance, and raised them well. Her life was characterized by self-sacrifice, by devotion to God, and by holding the family together. On a recent Sunday, we visited the church she faithfully attended for her whole life and her grave which is in the churchyard. We heard the grace of God preached faithfully in this country church, as I imagine Aunt Lillie did in her day. And in the cemetery, we thanked God for his grace on us. Everyone in the family talks about Aunt Lillie as if she were a country saint. I think this is because that is exactly what she was. There are many people who have enjoyed Aunt Lillie’s kindness. They speak of her in reverent tones and with joyful tears, shaking their heads at the goodness they received. My father-in-law is one of best men I’ve ever known. How different would he be if Aunt Lillie were not the woman she was (and is)? How different, then, would be his daughter (my wife)? How different would be the destiny of my little ones? What kind of hole would there be in the heart of the family if God had not given us Aunt Lillie? And it’s God who deserves thanks. For Aunt Lillie was a gift, a gift I am reminded of every morning when I wake up next to Gina Smith. Gina and her dad both look like Mabes. Three of our four kids look like Gina and her dad –all little Mabes. So I get a visual reminder of the impact that Lillie (Mabe) Cooley has had in our family every day. I am grateful. Instead of a hole in the heart of our family, there is a wholeness. The family is far from perfect (see my side for proof enough of that). But when I consider the goodness of God in giving us a wonderful, heroic character such as Aunt Lillie, at just the time such a character was needed, I am thankful for this story. I thank God for this incredible woman. I have never met Lillie Cooley. But nearly everywhere I look I see the fruit of the work of her life. What you love and live for matters, for more than just those you see with your eyes right now. Close your eyes and see the multitude you will impact, and love them as you love yourself. Love them as Aunt Lillie has loved me. Then, even in death, you will point to heaven.

Dark is thick, and I am weary as the frayed last light dying out beyond the trees. The mud and cold stick to my boots and my sigh etches a frozen circle on the air. The river path I walk home at night in Oxford is a shortcut to my flat, but also a reprieve from the clatter of the streets. Sound is swallowed here, mostly, by the brooding water and untrimmed woods. Houseboats dock along this path and I cannot help but spy through the round windows as dusk falls and sets the inner rooms in bright relief against the night. They draw and, somehow, dismay me–these long, low dwellings with narrow rooms, docked low in the muddied stream, ever in a lilt and knock against the riverbank. Most are a clutter of cups and books, clothes and logs and old plants piled on the decks, whole lives crammed into a space too narrow to contain them. They remind me of myself. I am a gypsy soul, a restless-hearted wanderer. For far too long now I have sought my place on earth. My life, outer and inner, feels ever crammed in suitcases as I soldier on to one more new frontier. Though the journey is bright and the changing landscapes rich with adventure, come night, I am weary. My hope grows frail as I trudge alone, again, to a temporary home. The loneliness of my one, striving self far from home; the constant fight to work, to perform, to achieve; the sense of being adrift in an unsettled world: these cluster about me at night. The dread of my own unmoored existence is something I can almost taste. If only, I think, if only I could find my place on earth. But even then, would my heart arrive at home? In the blackness, I trudge on, stung by the memory of a talk with a friend. Her life is as settled as mine is transient. The hunger haunts her as well. The rest, or rootedness, the sense of belonging we both crave eludes her grasp as deftly as it does mine. The soul can be in exile even when the body has arrived. And in the dark, I wonder. Are all of us doomed to wander on and never arrive, body or heart, at the shelter we desire? To venture bravely forth but never make it back? Is life in a fallen world a houseboat existence? Are we confined to one narrow craft and shoved ever on down the river of life? I stop. A strong beam of light reaches out, like a gracious face turned to mine. I meet it and my eyes are turned from the darkness. Through one porthole window, round as a well-cut gem, the warmth of a long, low room peers out. Books line the walls of this houseboat. A marionette swings from the window ledge. A low red chair sits in a corner next to a table cluttered with bread and teacups, photos, letters, flowers. People sway back and forth through the slender spaces, and laugh as they catch the low shelves for balance. On the window sill, a single candle burns. The light of it sears the darkness like the sun risen fresh in the morning. And watching it, I know. Home is the shelter that I make on the river. A candle alight in a houseboat at dusk. The flame may gutter with the rush of the water, and darkness may fall thick as rain outside. But home is the room I carve out at the center of my journey, the space of self and time in which I light the candle of God’s joy and watch it fill the coracle of my heart. Yes, the river rushes on. No, I cannot escape the flow of time, the shove of hunger for a world beyond this, the journey and work to which every heart is born. But home I may craft wherever I go. Home may be made, the confines set, the shelter claimed, by my own creation within the narrow confine of my river-sped days. The joy with which I set a feast and light the festal candle, the hope I choose to light, like a dozen candles in the windows of my heart, the shelter of quiet I craft for my a soul, these make a home in which I may root and rest, even as I sail the rapids of this white-water life. I walk ahead again. The river sweeps me on into the night. But the light of that candle is in my eyes.

Oh, to have been present at San Diego’s Glorietta Bay on July 4, 2012. If I add up all the Fourth of Julys, Friday Nights at baseball stadiums, and New Years celebrations, I bet I’ve seen close to fifty different fireworks displays over the course of my life. I’ve seen them from my seat in the third balcony at Busch Stadium, from the bed of a pickup truck in rural Indiana, and from a community college front lawn in Kansas City. There was even the fortuitous occasion where I was sitting in the window seat of a Delta flight over St. Louis thirty minutes after dark on Independence Day. Dozens of bursts of light dotted the landscape below as far as I could see. I was surprised by how small they looked from 30,000 feet. Then there was the time I lay on the pavement of the casino parking lot on an Indian Reservation in central Washington where my suburban county’s zoning and safety laws did not apply. The rockets burst in the sky directly overhead, raining down little bits of acrid paper all around us. But nothing I’ve ever seen could come close to what the people of San Diego witnessed on July 4, 2012. What was supposed to be a twenty-minute display ended up lasting just fifteen seconds as a malfunction in the detonators caused the entire display—hundreds of individual fireworks—to all go off at once. Here’s the thing. And I promise you this is true. I am not a fireworks enthusiast. I don’t buy them from roadside stands. I don’t angle for the best seat at the fairgrounds. I don’t purchase patriotic t-shirts. But when I think about those thousands who gathered at Glorietta Bay, I get a little jealous. Why? Because those fortunate folks in San Diego witnessed what will likely be the greatest fireworks display of my lifetime. And I wasn’t there. They got to see something no video or picture will ever do justice to. You can’t capture moments like that on film or phone. You just have to be there. So many things in life fall into this category—events you simply cannot bottle for later—like the birth of a child, the funeral of a loved one, a sunset, the presentation and enjoyment of a great meal, a surprise party, a concert, climbing out of a cold tent in the mountains and restoking the campfire as you watch the sun come up, sifting through the rubble of a flood or a fire, kissing your daughter’s forehead as the nurses wheel her off to surgery, asking your girlfriend to marry you, or watching a thunderstorm roll in. In our amazing era of digital immediacy, I can tell the world where I am and what I’m doing while I’m doing it. I can present myself as a busy man living a rich and full life. I can take pictures of my meals, log my locations, snap photos of the people I’m with, and weigh in on what’s happening around the globe 140 characters at a time. But none of these things mean I’ve been paying attention. The degree to which we are able to be present in the moment, psychologists say, is one of the chief indicators of mental health and security in our personal identity. I can buy that. And I would submit that this takes courage—courage to believe an experience itself is of greater value than documenting that it happened. Every day of my life is filled with moments that cannot be captured—moments more glorious than what took place on that San Diego night. We have to hold these moments with an open hand and pay attention. But it’s hard to pay attention, isn’t it? When it comes to wonder and glory, if we’re honest wouldn’t we have to confess that there comes a point where we run out of the energy needed to remain engaged, where we bounce back and hurry for the latitudes of home comforted by the fact that we took a lot of great pictures? Take all the pictures you want. They’ll only serve to instruct you in the truth that none of your clips or still images managed to capture what was really happening in the moment. Go ahead. Watch this pretty awesome video of the 2012 San Diego fireworks and you’ll know, as amazing as it is, that you’re not seeing anything close to what those who gathered there in the bay that night actually experienced. Life is filled with wonder and beauty. Tonight’s sunset is a gift we cannot preserve for tomorrow. But tomorrow, we’ll get a new one. And another the night after that. It’s okay to put away our cameras. “Beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.”  —Annie Dillard, Total Eclipse

Brian Wilson’s fingerprints are all over Ben Shive’s The Cymbal Crashing Clouds and perhaps nowhere are they more apparent than in “Sorry But I’m Yours.” Here’s an excerpt from the Cymbal Crashing Clouds companion book (which is amazingly awesome) in which Ben talks a little about the song: My poor, timid voice wants only to live a quiet life, tending little gardens of conversation. But instead he is made something of a sideshow, rudely shoved in front of microphones and made to sing my songs. But imagine my frustration. I work hard writing these things. Often they take years. Then I open my mouth and I’m something like the inverse of the singing frog in the cartoon. You see a man, but all you hear is “croak, craok.” I thought it was time we got some counseling. And I decided he should go first. So I wrote him a song of apology to sing to me from stage, and it has been surprisingly therapeutic for both of us. The phrase “I’m sorry, but I’m yours” could be taken to mean “I know I’m a hopless case, but at least I’m loyal,” or it could mean “I hate to break it to you, but the fact is that you are stuck with me.” Whichever you prefer. “Sorry But I’m Yours” Ben Shive The Cymbal Crashing Clouds

Stories always seem to go in circles, especially the real life ones. For a year now, I’ve had a fairly settled season of work and study. But I’ve come round back to the open-ended life, and with the close of my time at Oxford, I face an uncertain future. Again. I feel rather testy about it. Old prayers, old needs, old questions rear their heads as I enter the realm of home life. Often, of late, I find my heart tightening with the strain of trusting God. So in my daily devotional wanderings, I tend to head toward familiar places and I’ve camped, of late, in the old realm of Genesis. Today I read the story of the woman whose name I bear: Sarah. This was a woman who knew the weight of hope I carry today, the ache of many unanswered prayers. The story did nothing to reassure me at first. I struggled to suppress a sudden rush of bitter amusement, for the name seemed like a joke to me. What sort of princess is asked to wander the desert for decades, barren not just in heart, but in body, her arms empty of the son God promised her? I nearly stopped. I did not want to be reminded of how long Sarah waited for her own prayers to be fulfilled. But my eyes slipped down the page to the story of Isaac’s long-awaited birth and there, staring up at me, was a single word. Laughter. Isaac. The name of the promised child. What a name for such a baby. In the face of my own weariness, God’s little boy of laughter seemed almost cruel, as if a divine joke had been played. For oh, I knew how hard the waiting must have been. Years of wandering, years of hoping, years of disappointment as Abraham and Sarah stumbled through barren lands and dreams and wondered what God was thinking. After all those silent years without a baby, why would God give their child the name of laughter? But as I read, I was wooed into the story by that one, ironic word. Laughter. Like a hidden code, a secret message, it caught me unawares and forced me on. I found laughter woven through the Genesis story like a counter melody, a quiet theme in the symphony of the tale. Both Sarah and Abraham laughed at different times with startling results and I began to see that there was an intricate truth, a woven song in the use of that strange, mirthful name and the way it defined the identity of the promised child and the tale that Sarah and Abraham both walked to receive him. I read on. Abraham laughed first, right in the face of God’s promise. Out under the stars with the Spirit of God Almighty hovering over him, promising him descendants as myriad as the desert sand, he set his head down on the dry earth and laughed. He was, after all, nearly a hundred. And Sarah, his beautiful, grieving wife was but ten years younger and had always been barren. I wonder if it seemed half cruel to him, a promise from God that defied fulfillment. His laugh might have been of cynicism, or it might have been the catching of a sob, a willful turn from grief to a worldly wise acceptance. After that night of covenant, Abraham set his disbelieving laughter to action and decided, perhaps with resignation, that God’s promise was symbolic and what he really meant was that Hagar, the maid, would bear Abraham’s son. Yet God, with incredible patience, watched the child be born and then said “No.” Very simply. A true son of Abraham and Sarah’s blood would be born, and he, said God, would be the child of promise. Abraham didn’t laugh that time. Sarah laughed second; a harsh hilarity of unbelief that echoed with the ache of her barren years. All those wandering days of emptiness, punctuated by the scorn of Hagar and the whispers that rustled amidst the women of her clan when she walked by. Was she cursed? Had she sinned so that God had dried up the life within her? Perhaps she had counted the coins of her forgotten hopes that day when those strange men strolled up the horizon and into her home. She must have seen the light kindled in their eyes, must have caught the bluster and excitement of her husband. Perhaps she tried to pray as her hands beat out the bread and formed the cakes. She must have hovered close as she served them, her shawl pulled round her head, close to her eyes so that her soul was concealed as she listened. Plying them with cake, meat, wine, her hands quick, her ears alert to the prophecies spoken. Her heart must have given an exquisite leap of joy at the words that she would bear a son. But then must have come the wrench of long-accepted grief, and then, the cold of incredulity. For she too, heady with a hope she could not allow herself to hold, stumbled back to her tent and laughed. Oh how she must have laughed and wept and when her tears were dried, laughed again. Her whole body must have ached with her laughter that day. She denied it when her husband’s guests accused her. She could not risk offending the wild, desert God who spoke his crazy promises into her aching heart. Yet that God came near to her sorrow with never a word of condemnation and sang a promise, a beautiful prophecy over her grey head: Is anything too wonderful for the Lord? When the time revives next year, I will return. And Sarah will have a son. And then, it seems that God must have laughed, and his was the very last. God’s laughter shook the stars with its glad finality as it ran to bring life coursing into the barrenness of Sarah’s old body. For Sarah did, in the new life of the next year, bear a son that God himself named “Laughter” because God’s life confounded her skeptical faith, renewed her fallen trust. The life of her child embodied the goodness of a God entirely unbound by human frailty or despair. When Isaac was born, can anyone quantify the unbounded gladness that filled the hearts of Sarah and Abraham? They must have laughed again then, laughed without pain, laughed with abandon at the miracle of the baby that squirmed in Sarah’s arms. I wish I could ask them if at that moment, they understood the waiting, the yearning, the pain through all those years of hope deferred. Did they forget it all in their joy? Did God ever explain himself? Or was his answer simply the child and that was all that was needed? Was God’s grand answer simply a child whose very life echoed with Almighty laughter? The laughter, I realized, rings on. For Isaac was the child of a far larger promise. Isaac was the answer, not just to Abraham and Sarah’s desire, but to the promise God had made to bless all the families of the earth. Isaac’s birth confirmed God’s covenant to redeem us all, to bring eternal grace through another little baby, a promised, long-awaited child named Jesus.  I find it a thing of wonder that God gave the name of “Laughter” to the child who foretold our salvation. The child who became a comforter to all people. There must be a mad impossibility in the way of God’s redemption, even as it reaches even into my own little life. I feel it today as this story answers my restless, despairing heart. It helps me to remember that God has never left me and goodness beyond what I could have imagined to request has met me at every turn. God’s tenderness bewilders my human wisdom with its illogical and undeserved grace. It is, however, a grace that never follows my schedule. I am tempted to tread my dusty circles with loud lament at the slow way of God’s work, fix my eyes on the desert barrenness of hearts and broken bodies. I hear echoes of grand promises from this merciful God and yet want to hide in the small shadows of my tent and weep, like Sarah, with a barren laughter lamenting the impossibility of all I hope. But into that comes God, laughing at the melodrama of my despair even as his gladness remolds my heart, kindles my hope afresh, and sets unexpected gifts in my hands. Unbound by despair, unbridled by human impossibility, God’s goodness, begun in a child called laughter, courses new through the earth every day. It doesn’t always make sense to me. I don’t understand the waiting, the days and months of unfulfilled yearning when everything seems dark. But I am beginning to see that somehow there is a glory to God in the last-minute answering of prayers. A death-defying grace springs up when we believe God’s impossible promises, whether for miraculous babies or daily bread. A wild, glad laughter must sound in the heavens when we choose to believe in what we cannot see. So today, I choose to set aside my fear and simply laugh. Let gladness fill and overflow me until my faith joins that of Sarah and Abraham, our voices one more affirmation of the God who lives and loves . . . and laughs. Forever.

“Jack” Lewis (1898-1963) wanted most of all to be known as a poet. Today we know C.S. Lewis as a great literary scholar, for works such as The Allegory of Love and EnglishLiterature in the Sixteenth Century Excluding Drama, including his scholarship on such poets as John Milton and Edmund Spenser—as a Christian apologist for dozens of titles including Mere Christianity and Miracles—for his fiction, including the seven books in The Chronicles of Narnia, and his critical success, Till We Have Faces. He was also famous for his Oxford lectures, and for his skilful debates against prominent atheists—but he is not well known for his poetry. Too often Lewis is trying to win an argument—something that just doesn’t work in a poem. He had developed such a love for the form and subject matter of medieval narrative verse, that he could not relate to the poetic techniques of the twentieth century. In one poem he mocks the famous opening of Eliot’s “Prufrock” with the lines: For twenty years I’ve stared my level best To see if evening—any evening—would suggest A patient etherized upon a table; In vain. I simply wasn’t able… Despite this short-coming Lewis understood medieval poetry better than perhaps anyone. He wrote many beautifully poetic passages in his other writings, and did successfully (though little acknowledged) write some fine poems. The following poem captures his desperation, like a trapped animal—as he describes himself in Surprised By Joy as “the most dejected and reluctant convert in all of England”—when he realized the truth of Christ. I find the honesty he permits himself here—perhaps because it was written for a character in his book The Pilgrims’ Regress—most refreshing. Caught You rest upon me all my days The inevitable Eye; Dreadful and undeflected as the blaze Of some Arabian sky; Where, dead still, in their smothering tent Pale travellers crouch, and, bright About them, noon’s long-drawn Astonishment Hammers the rocks with light. Oh, but for one cool breath in seven, One air from northern climes, The changing and the castle-clouded heaven Of my old Pagan times! But you have seized all in your rage Of Oneness. Round about, Beating my wings, all ways, within your cage, I flutter, but not out. (To read my blog about why C.S. Lewis had such a timeless quality in so much of his writing (other than his poetry) visit: Canadian Authors Who Are Christian) Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the award-winning author of the poetry collections Poiema (Wipf & Stock) and So The Moon Would Not Be Swallowed (Rubicon Press). They are both available here.

When I was a boy my dad consistently called on a wrinkled old sage named Mortimer Hawk to offer the closing prayer at church. He was so old that the congregation’s stillness deepened as soon as he opened his mouth. “Most Holy Father,” he quietly boomed. (I know that sounds impossible, but that’s how I remember it; he boomed—quietly. Honest.) “We thank Thee for Thy bounty, and humbly seek Thy guidance as we depart this place to proclaim in word and deed Thy merciful affection.” So he began. That’s not verbatim, but it’s the general vibe of Mortimer’s weekly supplication. The way he pronounced every “Thee” and “Thy” assured me that in his mind they were capitalized. He transported the whole church back about a hundred years, and reminded us how rich and humble a prayer could be. And that was the weird thing—he didn’t speak that way in normal conversation; he reserved his King James prayers for church, but somehow it never struck me as pretentious or put-on. It was merely this humble old saint’s way of honoring the King to whom he spoke. He didn’t pepper his prayer with mindless repetition (“FatherGod, we pray, FatherGod, that you, Jesus, FatherGod, Jesus, would be with us, Jesus, God”, etc.), a habit many of us have acquired which strikes me as dangerously close to “babbling like the pagans do” (Matthew 6:7). My guess is that this odd repetition that’s so pervasive in our prayers is either nervous habit, an oratory device employed to buy us time to think of what to say next, or maybe we’ve grown up thinking it’s just what you’re supposed to do. I’m sure someone out there will demonstrate that I’m wrong to reference that verse here—but hopefully you see what I’m saying: sometimes our public prayers are padded with nice sounding words and phrases that don’t mean a whole lot. (This is what is known on the Internet as “opening a can of worms.”) I admit that it might just be a matter of preference. I’ve voiced my opinion about this stuff to a few people and have noticed when they pray afterward that they feel awkward and self-conscious. That’s not what we’re going for here; I don’t want to be the prayer cop. I may have a hard time with “prayerspeak”, but we can all agree that it’s the heart that matters. I doubt God is up there rolling his eyes just because someone keeps repeating (and repeating) “FatherGod.” He adores us. He can see through our habits and foibles and silliness to what we’re really saying, or trying to say, or ought to be saying—he can hear the Spirit’s groaning on our behalf. Still, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t think about it. As I said in an earlier post (the one about “Creatives”), this is me raising my hand in the back of the class and asking if there’s a better way to think about the issue. Allow me to pick on myself for a moment. Almost every time I pray with my family before we go to bed, I find myself saying, “Be with us, Lord,” or “Please be with Jody”, as if God isn’t already with us. He’s told us in scripture again and again that he’s with us. I can’t tell you how many times my kids have heard me say, mid-prayer, “Why do I keep saying that? I know you’re with us, and you’re with Jody. What I mean, Lord, is, ‘Help us to believe that you’re with us; give us an overwhelming sense of your presence.'” It’s not a huge difference, I know, but little things matter. I find that when I’m no longer pleading for God’s presence but thanking him for it, my heart rests a little more. And yet, tonight when I prayed with the kids, I did it again. Old habits die hard. But old Mortimer Hawk wasn’t using empty words. To the contrary, each word seemed full to the brim, spoken with purpose and beauty. It seemed as though he were alone in the room, speaking with his King and Father, and we were eavesdropping, affirming his quietly booming words. I remember as an eight-year-old boy wanting to write down his prayers, thinking how cool it would be to tell my dad on the day Brother Hawk finally died that I had written down his last prayer. I tried to transcribe a few of them but there was never enough room in the margins of the bulletin. Now that I’m all grown up I don’t often pray in public, and when I pray in private I tend to keep it simple and straightforward. I converse with God with as little pretense as I can manage, though I try to maintain an attitude of reverence. I confess, I don’t know what I’m doing. Many times I find myself fresh out of words, and instead let my mind wander, mustering an awareness of God’s presence and reality. But when it comes down to it, I need words. That’s why the Psalms are such a blessing. They give voice to the feeling in our bones. We need the ancient, vast community of the saints to teach us to pray, to trumpet our unutterable longing. That’s why the Mortimer Hawks of the world are a blessing, and the authors we love, not to mention songwriters and poets. The Lord has put in his church people who are blessedly bereft of self-consciousness, who can stand in the assembly and pour out their hearts with all the eloquence of a statesman and none of the political posturing—the rest of us whose prayers falter are grateful to mutter, “What he said.” Or, “Amen,” if you like. A few years ago some good friends bought me a book called A Diary of Private Prayer (1936), by Scottish theologian John Baillie (1886-1960, pictured above). I’d never heard of it, but it’s since become indispensable to my devotional time, partly because I’m so bad at having devotional time. The book makes it easy. It’s divided into morning and evening prayers for each day of the month, each prayer is a page long, and each is different enough in focus and theme that they don’t get old. And the writing is beautifully old school. It’s like I’m hearing the ghost of Mortimer Hawk in my head. The problem was, I kept getting hungeth uppeth on the (truly beautiful) language, kept forgetting it was supposed to be me praying, not him. So now when I read, I jettison every “Thee”, “Thou”, and “Dost” and replace it with “your”, “you”, and “do.” What’s amazing to me is that the prayers are just as stirring. That tells me he wasn’t using the language to trick me into thinking the prayers were more eloquent than they were. He was saying something, and saying it beautifully, regardless of how many -eths he used. This morning I read these words: Dear Father, take this day’s life into your own keeping. Guide all my thoughts and feelings. Direct all my energies. Instruct my mind. Sustain my will. Take my hands and make them skillful to serve you. Take my feet and make them swift to do your bidding. Take my eyes and keep them fixed upon your everlasting beauty. Take my mouth and make it eloquent in testimony to your love. Make this day a day of obedience, a day of spiritual joy and peace. Make this day’s work a little part of the work of the Kingdom of my Lord Christ, in whose name these my prayers are said. Amen. “That’s what I want, Father. I don’t think I’d have quite known how to ask for it without John Baillie’s help.” A prayer like that is as beautiful in Nashville, 2012 as it was in Scotland, 1936. What a joy it is to be a part of this timeless congregation of saints, whose need, longing, and adulation for the Lord is as deep and desperate today as it was when King David wrote his poems and read them in the temple courts, perhaps in a quietly booming voice.

George Macdonald was the grandfather of us all. ~Madeleine L’Engle Ten pages into George MacDonald’s Lilith I was thoroughly entranced—there’s nothing like a memory-haunted library and a mysterious visitant and secret doors to get this girl to sit up and take notice. Twenty pages in I was right royally baffled. I found myself floundering and sputtering about as gracelessly as the book’s protagonist, Mr. Vane—and asking almost as many questions. “How am I to begin where everything is so strange?” he poses to his new-found and utterly unreadable guide, Mr. Raven. I wanted to know the same thing. Alluring as this new world was that he—and I—had been ushered into, I couldn’t quite find my footing. But after another forty or so pages of exquisite bewilderment a light began to spread, like one of the incarnate moonrises in the book itself: I was supposed to be confused. It was my journey as much as it was Vane’s and I had as much to be shocked and riveted by as he did. In short, I had as much to learn about living and dying and really living as the benighted hero stumbling about in a world that wavers behind the very thin scrim of this one. For if Lilith is about anything, it’s about losing one’s life to find it indeed. There’s a hazy distinction that materializes slowly between the characters that are actually dead and the ones that have merely ceased to live. The latter are pitiable things, whether walking around in the prime of life or rattling naked in their bones. The former—those voluntary dreamers that Mr. Vane encounters early on in Mr. Raven’s ‘cemetery’—have merely found what life is all about. “I am alive!” I objected, shuddering. “Not much,” rejoined the sexton with a smile, “—not nearly enough. Blessed be the true life that the pauses between its throbs are not death!” Stoutly refusing the invitation to exchange his image of life for the real thing, Mr. Vane embarks on a journey that is truly fantastical in every sense of the word. This culminating work from the very Grandfather of Fantasy is admittedly a wild ride, peopled with warring phantasms that knock each other to pieces and monsters so gloriously grotesque that I can’t help but think MacDonald secretly enjoyed describing them. But for every evil there is a beauty that dazzles and hurts with its flash of true and living fire. And as I watched Mr. Vane bumble along, tripping over his own efforts and misguided intentions, I couldn’t help but flinch at his stupidity. It just hit a little too close to home, all this workaday dullness to the unbearable realities of joy. With Lilith, I felt like Grandpa George picked me up by the scruff of the neck and gave me a brisk shake. And a kiss for good measure. Weaving the Talmudic myth of Adam’s ‘first wife’, Lilith, into a story about an ordinary person encountering the love of God is frankly something that only MacDonald would take on. I’m not even up to explaining how he did it. With his untrammeled imagination and wild faith in the goodness of the Giver of Life, he whisks us from the library of an ancient country house to the very feet of the Ancient of Days. And all with that impetuous joy that seems to wave back and hasten us along from the next hilltop he’s mounted, as much as to say, “Never mind all those loose ends and questions of yours—just wait till you see what’s ahead!” “You have died into life, and will die no more; you have only to keep dead…” [Editor’s note: Ron Block is another big fan of this book. Read his review here–from way back in 2007! George MacDonald’s Lilith is available in the Rabbit Room store.]

“Please don’t gush,” I was told as I set to write my first paper on the work of C.S. Lewis. I’m sure Oxford has seen many wide-eyed, all-too-vocal Americans awed at the books and town of their favorite author. I held my tongue and curbed my pen, but as I entered the realm of the man whose stories shaped my childhood, it was hard not to slip into amazement. The honored presence of Lewis, for those keen to notice, is everywhere in Oxford. He peers out from a portrait in the Eagle and Child where the Inklings are memorialized in a wall of old photos. He is discussed and debated at Tuesday night societies. His home is a short bus ride from the city center, and one may visit the very study where he composed the Narnia books. I even spotted his name in a Bodleian exhibit of medieval literature where a book of Old English poetry from his own library was on display, opened to a page of his meticulous notes. I knelt down so I could see right into the glass case and read those tiny lines of literary brilliance. I rose and sighed at the sheer amount of knowledge those lines reflected. The man basically footnoted his own footnotes. My formal study of his life for one tutorial only deepened my admiration. At Oxford, where it takes hard work and excellent grades to get a “first class” degree in even one subject (equal to a summa cum laude designation in the U.S.), Lewis took three “firsts” in difficult subjects: Philosophy, English Literature, and Classics. He read and wrote in numerous languages, including Greek, Latin, German, and French, and like the scholars of old, carried out entire correspondences in Latin alone. My stock of awe was increased by the accounts I heard of his excellent philosophical conversation at high table, his vast knowledge of literature, his ability to quote from various classics, and his fearless confidence in debate. I didn’t gush but I was awed. Overawed. My curiosity then, was quite piqued as I began to hear accounts of Lewis from those who actually knew him and encountered one unlikely word again and again: humility. Lewis, it seems, who went by the name “Jack,” offered a humorous, kindly, and decidedly humble face to the world. I heard these accounts of Lewis at the Oxford C.S. Lewis society. Becoming a member of that lovely group and hearing the weekly talks was one of the great treats of my time in England. My education in Lewis began with a talk by Walter Hooper, Lewis’s secretary at the time of his death. Hooper told us of Lewis’s dedication in answering almost every letter he received; answering children’s questions about Narnia, offering advice or book recommendations to curious students, extending hope and prayer to those in doubt. Lewis, he mentioned, also quietly funneled may of the proceeds from his apologetics books into a fund for the poor. At another meeting, we heard from Bishop Simon Barrington-Ward, chaplain of Magdelene College, Cambridge, when Lewis taught there. He described long conversations with the kind, hearty Lewis, and told us of Lewis’s almost childlike capacity for wonder at the natural world. Most memorably, he told us of the deep peace, something almost like light, that he found in Lewis’s presence near the end of his life. Like the peace that comes after a battle won, he said, Lewis’s calm came from the grief he knew and the doubt he overcame after the death of his beloved wife, Joy. The last account of Lewis I heard was from Laurence Harwood, Lewis’s godson. He read us excerpts from delightful letters, full of whimsy and humorous advice, that Lewis wrote to Harwood when he was a boy. But the best letter was one that Lewis sent when Harwood lost an academic prospect in his late teens. The way Lewis wove both compassion and challenge into that letter, comforting a disappointed young man, yet showing him countless new possibilities gives insight into the deep, prayerful care Lewis brought to his relationships. The common point to all these talks was the mention, at some point in the evening, of the kindness and humility that marked Jack’s life. Always, always, that one idea surfaced and with it, a host of small details adding up to a life of startling humility. As I heard these accounts, I began to wonder if it was, in part, a humble heart that gave him the ability to write so clearly to the heart needs of his generation, and those to come. For though his brilliance is undeniable, it is the comradely tone, the childlike love of story, the struggle with sin so compassionately described that wins him readers again and again. As I pondered this, I remembered an anecdote that I’d read, or heard (I can’t remember which) of a conversation that Lewis had with Walter Hooper, his secretary at the time of his death. One day, as they sorted through letters, they were discussing the knights of the Round Table who went out in search of fame, glory, and “worship.” Surrounded by letters to Lewis from dozens of smitten readers, Hooper was struck by the similarity of Lewis’s fame to those of the knights and asked the hard question: was Lewis was aware of the fame he garnered and did he have to resist the desire for worship? “Every day,” was the gist of Lewis’s quiet answer. In the daily prayer book I use, the morning prayer has a line that has come to my mind over and over as I consider the life and legacy of C.S. Lewis: “Christ this day be within and without me, lowly and meek, yet all powerful.” This is the power I see in the life and writing of C.S. Lewis. Christ in his startling genius, Christ powerful in the written and spoken words of a highly-trained mind. Educated, gifted in the art of rational thought, he had in addition the full blown beauty of a vivid imagination informing his view of reality and the way he described it. He was one of the best read and best educated men of his times, able to debate and converse with the experts in his fields. Yet he used this gift not to “gain worship” but to speak Christ into the world, to tell him into stories that shape us still, to defend him against the unbelief of his age. Yet his power was also that of Christ, meek and lowly, the servant of all who yearn and seek and need. Comforter of widows, writer of letters to the hopeless or confused, giver, helper, Lewis lived a live of private integrity that gave an unshakeable foundation to his presentation of Christian truth to the world. When I look at his continuing popularity I think it must be in part because the life he lived embodied and enfleshed the truth to which he called other people. And that is a model of life, belief, artistry, and influence that any writer, any academic, anyone with a hope of shaping the world should follow. I came away from my study of his life with a model for what I hope to become. Lewis, I saw unabashedly, is my hero. Oh dear, I think I just gushed.

The Peterson family just started reading The Lord of the Rings aloud this summer and I’ve been nerding out a bit more than usual (which is saying something). I thought I’d re-post this piece from four (four!) years ago. So my nine-year-old son Aedan just finished reading Tolkien’s The Return of the King for the first time. He came downstairs after he finished and we talked about the ending, about the mysterious Undying Lands to which the elves were compelled to go; about how happy and sad he was for Sam, who had a family and a home in a restored Shire but who had to go on without his dearest friend; the bittersweetness of Frodo’s farewell at the Grey Havens. I can’t imagine a more poignant or complete ending to the story. I told him that Ben Shive wrote a song about the Grey Havens, and I played him that song from The Far Country while he read through the lyrics. (I don’t normally push my own music on the kids, so he wasn’t too familiar with it.) I was impressed all over again at what a great writer Ben is, not to mention Tolkien. What is it about that idea of being wounded and ill-at-ease in our present condition that resonates with me so? Obviously, it’s because I’m wounded and ill-at-ease. Much of the time I feel content with my lot, and why shouldn’t I? Most of the people reading this have been blessed with the means at least to own a computer, and the leisure at which to browse websites with it. You have the ability to read, to see, to think, to type. What could we complain about? Well, about the fact that our hearts are crippled and weak. Our literal eyes may be able to see, but the eyes of our hearts are often so bloodshot and weary that our souls trip and fall. Sunday’s sermon was about Hope. Hope is not the same as optimism, the pastor pointed out. Optimism has its place, but it is at its core the name given to a way of looking at things. The glass is either half full or half empty–our opinion of it doesn’t change the amount of water in the cup. Sure, it changes our disposition, and of course an optimistic one is the better of the two. But Hope goes deeper. Hope gives thanks that there is such a thing as water, and remembers that whether the glass is empty or full, there is a greater story being told. If there is water in the glass, then somewhere beneath the earth, in cathedral caverns where no eye has yet seen, a clear river courses. I may cry out in pain or sorrow (which seems to me anything but optimistic), and yet have hope, though I cling to it feebly. Hope lies deep and silent. Aedan’s reward for finishing the book was that we all watched The Return of the King–all seventeen million hours of it–Saturday night. The book itself is so precious to me that the movies, though they’re perhaps as good as they could ever hope to be, pale in comparison. But I was moved to tears several times this Saturday night, sitting next to my wife and my boys with the volume turned up way too loud. The couch rumbled. I didn’t marvel so much at the movie (though it really is a marvel in so many ways) as the story itself. This has been beaten into the ground, I know, but–what a story! What a gift Tolkien gave us. I kept watching Aedan and Asher’s faces during certain parts of the movie, like when Shelob poisons Frodo and Sam feels that all is lost. The boys were looking upset, so I paused the DVD and talked to them about eucatastrophe. It’s a word Tolkien coined in his essay “On Fairy Stories” which means, basically, the opposite of catastrophe. He calls eucatastrophe the “sudden joyous turn”. It’s that moment when all seems lost, when evil seems to have finally overcome every good thing, when the hero can go no further. Then light prevails against the darkness. The good guys win. When you’re writing a story, like I am now, you realize that there’s not much story if there’s nothing at stake. If there’s no evil, no enemy, no point at which the hero is at the end of his rope, then the thing falls flat for some reason. But if we want the good guys to win (and almost universally we do), why do we put our heroes through so much? Because we grow into what we are meant to be by walking through the fire. I told the boys about how the story of Jesus’ resurrection is the ultimate eucatastrophe. When Jesus, the perfect man, God made flesh, cries out and exhales his dying breath, the sky is black and roiling, the ground shakes, the dead emerge from their tombs and haunt Jerusalem, and the sheep scatter. But Sunday morning, more than just the sun rises. Everything changes. It’s not just a story, it’s the story. A sudden joyous turn, indeed. Un-pause. Gandalf is sitting with Pippin beside a bulwark, a scared and weary Pippin says, “I didn’t think it would end this way.” Ian McKellen, who as far as I have read is hostile toward Christianity and Christ, speaks through Gandalf such a moving description of Heaven that I pause the movie again. Rewind. Turn on subtitles so the kids can read it. Play. Gandalf: End? No, the journey doesn’t end here. Death is just another path. One that we all must take. The grey rain curtain of this world rolls back and all turns to silver glass. And then you see it. Pippin: What, Gandalf? See what? Gandalf: White shores…and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise. Pippin: Well, that isn’t so bad. Gandalf: No. It isn’t. Then comes the sound of the door being battered down by trolls and orcs. Pippin and Gandalf are snapped out of the dream back into the present, and Pippin closes his eyes and swallows. How well I know that feeling, the feeling of taking a deep breath and bearing up a little longer for the sake of the hope and great joy that lies before me. The kids looked at me sideways, wondering why their dad was sniffling. Finally, Frodo bids his friends goodbye at the Grey Havens. I didn’t pause it this time, but as soon as the film was over I talked with Jamie about the wound that we all carry. Just like Frodo, we have wounds that are too deep to heal this side of that grey rain curtain; the wounds of the Fall, of our daily sin, of our loneliness and selfishness and tendency to believe the lie over the Truth. I ache to board that ship and sail away to those white shores and that far green country. Hope holds me up. It’s what I cling to, and all I ever want to cling to. “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.” (Romans) Lord, give us patience.