What are you looking for?

[Note: This has been adapted from the Hutchmoot 2011 session of the same name. Click here for a portion of Travis Prinzi’s contribution to that same session.] What does the shape of a story look like? A lot of people might say it looks like a Bell curve: setup, rising conflict, and resolution. That’s the typical answer, and there’s nothing wrong with that, in fact, there’s a lot that’s exactly right about it, and there are a thousand and one books on the subject to prove it. But I don’t think that’s the whole picture. The reason for the question is that we want a way to predict whether a story is going to work. We want a pattern for our creation. We want rules to write by. So what makes a story work? Every critic’s got a theory, me included—or you wouldn’t be reading this. The usual suspects are character development, plot structure, good research, snappy dialog, or loud noises and explosions (if your name is Michael Bay). We could all probably sit down and make a list of films and books that we think did or didn’t work, couldn’t we? Transformers—didn’t work. District 9—did work. Star Wars—worked. Battle Beyond the Stars—didn’t work. Interview with a Vampire—worked. Twilight—well…I say it didn’t work. It’s harder to play this game with books because books that don’t work quickly fade into obscurity and we never even hear of them, but trust me, for every Gilead there’s another diary-based memoir out there that’s an interminable bore. I’d be willing to bet that if we all made a list right now, a list of books and movies that did or didn’t work, we’d find a lot of common ground. We’d find a wide overlap of opinion indicating that there is a pretty clear consensus of what has worked and what has not. So the question is why? Why specifically. To say that answer is “good writing” is too easy, too vague. And, after all, a tale can be told in lean, exquisite prose and still not achieve any great literary height. Bookstores are filled with essentially well-written books that tell essentially good stories and 99% of them will be utterly forgotten. We can attribute some of that to bad marketing, bad timing, bad cover design, or even just bad luck. But for many, I want to suggest that the prime culprit is bad form. I don’t mean that they are rude or tacky (though that’s sometimes the case), but that there is some flaw in the formation of the work that allows it to rise only so far and no farther. Well, oddly enough, as an author I spend a lot of time thinking about this kind of thing. I don’t exaggerate when I tell you that what runs through my brain while I’m in the shower, or driving down the road, or pulling on my socks, is usually the problem of why The Adjustment Bureau was so bad when it had so many good ideas, or why Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is so darn good even when it’s doing nothing more than describing Jane Austen-style English socialites. This stuff haunts me. I kid you not. But I’m keen to understand these things because when I sit down to write my own stories, I’m anxious to avoid the pitfalls of the one and take advantage of the sure ground beaten by the other. Very early in the writing of The Fiddler’s Gun, I stumbled onto something that has been a continual source of revelation. It seems obvious to me now, but at the time it took me by complete surprise. It first happened while I was writing a scene about halfway through the book. Fin, the main character, had grown up angry and reckless and had suffered a lot of hurt, and just when she thought all that was about to be redeemed, just when she thought she knew the path her life was going to take, just when she thought things were going to go her way, everything changed—violently and dramatically. She found herself backed into a corner, thrust into an untenable position, and she did some awful things that she scarcely thought herself capable of. When she emerged on the other side of that crisis, she had blood on her hands, and she was faced with the absolute certainty that her life had changed completely. While writing this one particular scene, and the one following it, in which she has to come to terms with the consequences of her actions, I was an emotional wreck. I felt the pain of that character so keenly, as if it was my own, and I wondered then, for the first time, if this peculiar feeling might not be a dim reflection of the nature of God. Like God, I had created a thing, this character, I gave her life, will, desires, and then she cried out in pain and I wept with her. That was the beginning of a new way of thinking for me. After that, I cherished my characters and the story I was creating in a far more personal way than I ever had before, and I began to imagine that maybe the power inherent in a good story had less to do with proper punctuation and clever plotting than it did with reflecting the image of its creator. What, I thought, if the ideal shape of the story I’m telling, is me—my shape. My creation in my own image. What moves me, moves the story. My emotional and spiritual shape carves out the tone of the story. My knowledge and my experience inform the story, reflect me. Much of this happens unconsciously, of course, but to know it, to dwell on it, is, I think, to really own it and develop it as a tool for effective use. This thought persisted in my mind for a long time and then one day, at the urgent behest of my far more intelligent wife, I sat down and read a book by a formidable looking woman named Dorothy Sayers. The book is called The Mind of the Maker. It’s certainly not a book for everyone. There’s a lot of difficult to penetrate philosophy involved and, understandably, that’s not everyone’s cup of tea. But she struck a chord in that book that resonated with me deeply and personally. The central focus of the book, as indicated by the title, is the way in which the creative process of the artist acts as a sort of conduit by which we can better know and experience the mind of God. She sets up an analogy that she uses throughout the entire book and it is this: That an act of creation can be represented as a trinity in the same way that God is revealed in the Holy Trinity. The Holy Trinity, of course, is made up of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each serving specific functions and each definable in different ways, yet all still part of one unified whole. Sayer’s analogy sets up a creative trinity like so: Idea (Father), Energy (Son), and Power (Holy Spirit). As soon as I read that I started nodding my head, thinking, “Yes. Yes! YES! That’s it exactly!” And then she proceeded to blow my mind wide open, taking the inkling I’d had for years and carrying it in all sorts of directions that I’d never imagined. She’s really quite something . . . and funny too. So how does this idea of the creative trinity work? Here’s an excerpt from a play called The Zeal of Thy House by Dorothy Sayers: “First, there is the Creative Idea, passionless, timeless, beholding the whole work complete at once, the end in the beginning: and this is the image of the Father.” Have you ever awakened in the middle of the night having just dreamed the most brilliant story, or song, or painting, and thought, “Man! If only I had time to sit down and capture that, it would be amazing—the next Wizard of Oz, or Mona Lisa, or ‘Sound of Silence!’”? Essentially, that’s the Idea—aptly named, too. Like God the Father, we can’t see it, it hasn’t any form that we can know, and yet it’s perfectly formed, perfectly whole. In creative terms, it’s not just the Idea—it’s the ideal.  But to communicate the perfection and wonder of our Idea we define it in human terms that others can partake of and understand, which brings us to the second person of the creative trinity: “Second, there is the Creative Energy begotten of that idea, working in time from the beginning to the end, with sweat and passion, being incarnate in the bonds of matter: and this is the image of the Word.” This is the creative act. This is the butt-in-chair work. This is the incarnation of the Idea brought into the world for all to see. It’s separate from the Idea, it looks different, acts different, but is still one with it—is the expression of it. Luke 10:22 says: “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son…” Obviously, this is Jesus, the Incarnation of the Father, talking. But let’s plug in Sayers’ analog and look at the same verse. “All things are committed to the Energy by its Idea. The artist cannot know what the Energy is except through Idea, and no one can know the Idea except through the Energy…” Are you following me? As a writer, I have ideas all the time. I’m driving down the road and out of the blue an idea pops into my head out of nowhere. It arrives fully formed. I see it in its entirety. I feel the emotion of it, the sound of it, the pace, everything, all in an instant, all perfect. And that Idea, that otherworldly vision is what I hold onto in order to inform the story when I begin the act of incarnating it. Every scene, every word, is chosen such that it will serve that greater Idea. So all things are committed to the story, to the Energy, by that over-arching Idea. And no one can know my Idea except through my work of writing the story down, incarnating it. “Third, there is the Creative Power, the meaning of the work and its response in the lively soul: and this is the image of the indwelling Spirit.” (She just said “indwelling.” Ron would be so proud.) This one is slippery. It’s the power, the gift given to whoever accepts the Energy, the Word, even when that’s the artist himself. It’s the reaction to the work, the interpretation of it, the personal, individual way in which each reader, or listener, or viewer is moved by it. The Holy Spirit is always a slippery thing to talk about because people experience it in so many different ways, and that applies to this part of the analogy too. I love what Sayers says here: “We cannot follow the movement of our own eyes in a mirror. We can, by turning our head, observe them in this position and in that position with respect to our body, but never in the act of moving themselves from one position to the other, and never in the act of gazing at anything but the mirror. […] The eye is the instrument by which we see everything, and for that reason it is the one thing we cannot see with truth. […] This is why books about the Holy Ghost are apt to be curiously difficult and unsatisfactory—we cannot really look at the movement of the Spirit, just because It is the Power by which we do the looking.” She’s right isn’t she? The Holy Spirit is always the most mysterious person of the Trinity. And in the creative analogy it’s the same. The Power is the gift given by the Energy. When I watch a movie like Magnolia and I’m so deeply moved and wrecked emotionally, that’s the Power of the Idea and the Energy at work in me. The Power is what other people take away from a work of art. It’s even the gift given back to the artist that created it. So that’s the basic analogy. She goes into a lot more detail that I don’t want to get into here, but if you’re a writer or sub-creator of any kind, I encourage you to read the whole book. It’s dense sometimes, but it’s worth it. Let me sidetrack a minute to talk to those of you who don’t consider yourself artists. Sayers speaks to you too, and I don’t want you to think there’s nothing for you take away from this. I think it’s fair to say that we all, even the non-artists, have ideas, whether it’s for a book or a song or a movie. Most people just think, “Ah, I’ve got this great story, but I’m not a screenwriter—so darn.” Sayers points out that the very act of imagining the Idea is a form of the Energy itself and though no one else is ever privy to it, the Power still flows back to you, the artist. Every human is a creative being because we are created in the image of the creative being. So this creative trinity is at work in all of us, all the time. That means that those ideas of yours are worth having, worth pondering, worth day-dreaming about, because the Power they give you is a gift. Those creative sparks are reflections of the mold that made you. And who knows, maybe one day you’ll sit down and start writing, or painting, or dancing. To create, even in your own mind, is part of the natural state of your being. So embrace it, even if only in the privacy of your own dreams For me, as a writer, a sub-creator, Sayers’ system rings true, very true. I see in it exactly a reflection of what it feels like to create. When I sit down to write a scene I feel the Idea, and I express it in Energy, and then by the Power I perceive how clear that expression has been achieved. But this still hasn’t told us why some stories work and some don’t. So far we’ve only described the creative process, we haven’t talked much about the result. And this is where I think Sayers’ analogy really comes in handy. When we talk about the Holy Trinity, we’re always careful to insist that the three are one, there is perfect unity, no part is greater than, or less than, any other. Therefore a picture of the Trinity is rightly an equilateral triangle—a triangle in which all sides are equal. But when we are talking about the creative trinity of Idea, Energy, and Power, we are talking about a human process. And humans, of course, are imperfect, as are their creations. So it follows that when we engage the creative trinity and created a work of art, a diagram of our own trinity will not be equilateral. It will be a scalene triangle. The perfect trinity is the ideal, but a scalene trinity is the reality. This means that a work might be strong in Idea, but weak in Energy and Power. Or it might be strong in Power and Idea, but weak in its Energy. The trinity is lop-sided, imperfect. That probably sounds really confusing, but let’s look at some examples and I think you’ll see what I mean. The Adjustment Bureau was a movie that came out last year. Did anyone see it? I was really excited about it. It starred Matt Damon and Emily Blount and based on the trailer it looked like exactly the sort of philosophical sci-fi I geek out about. The basic premise is that a rising politician has a chance meeting with a girl one day and falls in love with her—but it was never supposed to happen. The mysterious Adjustment Bureau is in control of everyone’s lives, dictating their every move and this one slipped past them and has caused all sorts of potential chaos. It aimed to be a movie about fate versus free will. It was terrible. It was full of logical problems and dead end storylines and abandoned ideas. For the entire two-hour running time I felt like it was constantly on the verge of becoming good—but it never did, it kept letting me down. It didn’t work. So what does a movie look like if you plot its trinity as a triangle? I suggest that it would have a strong Idea (this would be the longest side of the triangle), but because its execution (think script) is weak, its Energy side is about half the length of its Idea. And the result is that its Power side is necessarily shortened as well. You can do the same with any book or movie or work of art. The Lord of the Rings, for instance, is one that I’d suggest is strong in all three areas of the trinity and is, therefore, approaching equilateral. Opinions will vary (on any piece of work) but the method is useful. So what we’re doing here is looking at the shape of a story, and as the shape approaches the equilateral ideal, it grows in overall effectiveness. If we consider great works of art—A Tale of Two Cities, Godric, Paradise Lost, Bach, Beethoven, Rembrandt—what do we find? We find works whose trinity is strong, mighty even, in all three persons—in the Idea, the Energy, and the Power. This is what we as creators are aiming for. We contend with our Energy to perfectly express an Idea so that its Power can be fully realized. Now, remember what I said at the beginning? That perhaps the ideal shape of a story ought to be my own—my shape? The closer we bring our creative trinity to perfection, the more perfectly we are creating in our own image, and the better and more effective our work will be. But what does that mean exactly: to create in my own image? First let me say what it does not mean. It doesn’t mean narcissism. Creation is not an act of self-worship. And it doesn’t mean mere self-expression. What I mean by creating in my own image is that when I create, it is right that what I make will be true, as near as I can make it, to what I know of my own Self. I will not create in a way that runs contrary to my own person (unless I do so in irony). Sayers’ has this to say: “A writer cannot create a character or express a thought or emotion which is not within his own mind…What happens is something like this. When making a character he in a manner separates and incarnates a part of his own living mind. He recognizes in himself a powerful emotion—let us say, jealousy. His activity then takes this form: Supposing this emotion were to become so strong as to dominate my whole personality, how should I feel and how should I behave? In imagination he becomes the jealous person and thinks and feels within that frame of experience, so that the jealousy of Othello is the true creative expression of the jealousy of Shakespeare.” So if I create in my own image, I create from within myself in a way that is true to my own being—my own humanity, my own experience as a man, as a Marine, as a teacher, a brother, a son, a sinner, a child of God. In other words, write what you know, write what you are. You must invest your own shape into your story, even if you do so unconsciously. But wait, there’s another level here isn’t there? We ourselves are created. Created in the image of the Creator. But we live in a fallen world. We exist within the context of a fallen and imperfect creation. The result is that even if we achieve a perfect image of ourselves in our work, a perfect unity of Idea, Energy, and Power, that can only be a perfected image of an imperfect being. We are warped, and therefore so will be our efforts in creation. I want to suggest that for our work to be truly great, we must first bring our own lives into a more perfect Trinitarian alignment. Just like the stories we create, we are all lopsided, scalene triangles, but as we grow in our faith, in our understanding, in our reliance on the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, our lives, too, become more perfectly shaped. And when we are, ourselves, more perfectly formed, so, then, will our creations, made in our image, more clearly reflect the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. This is ought to be the goal of every sub-creator, every artist: To align himself so truly with his Creator, that we may present in our own creation a true image of Him. Is this, then, the shape of a Great Work? A work aligned with the image of its creator, who is, in turn, aligned with the ultimate Creator? I don’t want to imply that only a staunch Trinitarian Christian is capable of creating a great work of art. That is clearly not the case. An artist of any belief, or even no belief, may create powerful and lasting works of immense strength in Idea, Energy, and Power and it is through such masterful realization of the creative trinity that they often reveal something of the true nature of the world, or even of God himself. I suggest, though, that as Christians we ought to be more likely than most to reflect the true nature of things in our art, simply because we ought to be more closely aligned to our own Creator. The reality, however, is that far too often, Christian works tend to be much stronger in Power (emotion) than in Idea or Energy. A great work requires that its creative trinity be as near equilateral as the artist can make it. Strong in Idea. Excellent in Energy. And, finally, potent in Power. As artists we cannot forsake our craft in pursuit of its power. So do not take any of this to mean that the “best” Christians (whatever that may mean) will become the best artists. This is the ideal but it is not necessarily the reality. The “best artists” are generally the “best artists” and I fully expect things to remain that way. What we can hope for though is that those artists may one day, through Christ, find themselves in full alignment with their Creator, and then go on to create the great works of the next millennium. And we Christians ought to go on working late into the night, perfecting our craftsmanship, incarnating our Ideas more effectively, and wrestling those triangles of ours ever closer to perfection. We each have this hope, though: that every stitch of Creation itself is one day coming new. And in the dawn of that new creation, all of our lopsided triangles will be set right. We will all find ourselves in perfect alignment with the Father, through the Son, and invested fully with the power of the Spirit. And in those coming days, we shall all create Great Works, and they each, every one, will bear a true reflection: a flawless image of God.

One of the great benefits of reading fiction is the experience we often have of deep empathy for a character. Like a charm, we don’t even realize we have become immersed in someone else’s perspective, loving what they love, hating what they hate, riding shotgun in their hearts. This is dangerous, of course, because we lay our hearts open to things in stories we never would if we were acting with our mind in charge. But it is also a wonder. It’s fantastic to experience someone else, to love and be united to some one so closely in spirit. Perhaps more wonderful is the miracle, if only for a moment, of not being consumed with ourselves. “Sir, you forget yourself.” Thank God. Keep it coming. Maybe it’s not a big deal that the people in stories are often not people in the sense that you and I are. I would argue that they are real. As Chesterton said, “Fable is more historical than fact, because fact tells us about one man and fable tells us about a million men.” It must be admitted they are not real in the primary creation the way we are, but still, we forget ourselves and see through new eyes. Perhaps a million eyes. It’s easy when we’re kids. The ecstatic transport of being another someone in imaginative play is as easy as one-two-three–easier even (math is hard). I have been many other someones, mostly to my advantage. I take on their courage, their generosity, their gentleness, and heroic mercy. When we are children, we can imagine ourselves as pure characters and not betray our hearts. But “we have sinned and grown old,” as Chesterton (once again) said. We are grown, and long for the magic of childhood. We long for an old self that was more of a self, because it was perhaps less self-centered. We long, as Rich Mullins sang, to “grow young.” In great stories we may be children again. We are vulnerable, happy, selfless. One of the sadnesses of the teenage phenomenon is the tragic joy of self-awareness. It is as if, as we grow, we recapitulate the Fall. We realize what we are, and we set about sewing those fig leaves. I do not intend to advocate the Pelagian view that we are born sinless–it’s St. Augustine for me–only that, as we age, the sin at work in us seems to deepen, entrench, and in our minds there grows a terrible awareness of who we are and what we are becoming. Stories can be an escape from this. But they can do more than just remind us of who we were. Great stories whisper to us about who we truly, deeply are. Or may become. It’s hard as adults to rediscover the joys of self-forgetting, and fiction is an avenue back. “In reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like a night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad eyes, but it is still I who see.” –C.S. Lewis The irony is that our deepest, truest self will awaken when we have stopped being so obsessed with ourselves. To find your life, you must lose it. So we travel in tales, but in the best ones we arrive home. There will be the inevitable charge of escapism. Tolkien had a characteristically insightful reaction to people who dismissed fairy stories, or “fantasy,” as escapism. “Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if, when he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailors and prison-walls? The world outside has not become less real because the prisoner cannot see it. In using escape this way the critics have chosen the wrong word, and, what is more, they are confusing, not always by sincere error, the Escape of the Prisoner with the Flight of the Deserter.” –J.R.R. Tolkien Of course the worst prison we are faced with is our terrible self-obsession, which is the idolatry at the heart of all idolatry. So, stories give us a heart of empathy. Or, they can. They let us outside ourselves, if only for a little while, to see with new eyes. This cannot help but change us. And if they are the right sort of stories, we shall not be changed into dragons (as Eustace Scrubb was), but into–or along the way to–our very best selves. Fiction does help us with this. We do develop deep empathy for the characters we read of and, for a while, whose hearts we inhabit. But I find it’s easy to love theoretical people. It’s the real people I have the hardest time with. And so, though I love it and stand by its virtues, I am forced to admit literature is not the miracle we need. It is a beautiful, mystical wonder. But what I need to love my neighbor as myself is more than a literate empathy. I need the Holy Spirit of God giving me a new heart. I need to be fully awake to the Kingdom coming in terrible beauty and power. I need to become a Kingdom person, that herald of a new creation that I am myself an exemplar of. I want to honor and celebrate all human flourishing. But corpses cannot finally flourish. I need new life. I find I cannot be like Jesus without saying Yes to Jesus. I can imitate on my own, but I cannot be recreated by my own hand. The new birth is, like creation, an act of God. Like all acts of God, insurance will not save us. And reading even the very best literature can be a little like lousy insurance. It’s great to have, but it will not save you from the tornado. It will not cause you to live again. God is in the storm, breathing on the face of the new creation. His story is reanimating heaven and earth. We are invited to do more than read and learn, but to step inside the tale and become fully alive. —————————————————— Featured image from the Hubble Telescope

If it seems the Rabbit Room has been abuzz with a lot of new music lately, that’s because two of our favorite artists have just released their best albums to date within a short span of each other. Both Eric Peters and Andy Osenga have graced our ears with beautiful, inspiring albums in the last few weeks that we just can’t get enough of. For Peters, Birds of Relocation is a hopeful, joyous refrain that warrants repeated listens. For Osenga, Leonard, the Lonely Astronaut finally showcases the fantastic rock artist that had yet to emerge — all encased in a sci-fi theme, of course. We recently took some time out to talk to Osenga about his new record and what it meant to finally release an album comprised of music he’d want to listen to. Osenga’s journey is a frightening but compelling one about the freedom of realizing that you can’t please everyone. In the process, he’s crafted his finest music yet. Matt Conner: It seems the overall buzz is that this is your best album yet, and I would have to agree wholeheartedly. This is a great album, but I’m curious about your take. I’m sure it’s hard to say that an entire collection is better or the best. Andrew Osenga: Oh no, I’d have to agree. This is absolutely my best record. [Laughs] You just get a sense like, “This is working.” There was just no other game in play other than making a record that I wanted to make. I know what I do when I’m by myself and making music for nobody and it’s always my favorite stuff. Then when I work on a record I think, “Well, I know I’ll need something because I’ll play shows with this guy. I gotta have a couple of acoustic songs I can play with [Andrew] Peterson shows. I need something to pitch for film or TV.” You try to please all of these different things. But it was different on this one. With the Kickstarter project, you realize that these folks have no song that they’re buying it for. They just want to hear what I will do. So I thought I would just do what I wanted to do. I wanted it to be my favorite record and not worry about anything else. What kept you from pursuing that level of freedom before? I don’t think I’ve ever felt like I was not being myself or like I was holding anything back. Instead, I think I was just aiming to please certain people. I really think it was the fact that there were hundreds of people who had already given money that made me feel, “Hey, they already believe in me.” That freed me up from that pressure. I think some of that was a spiritual thing by having that burden lifted. Plus a lot of it has to do with the concept. You can’t go halfway. I mean, once you start to go down this road…[Laughs] I also knew people were going to love it and some were going to hate it. They were going to hear about it and just not get it or not care. I knew I would lose some long-term supporters just because of the weirdness. You think so? I know I did for a few. Someone would comment on Facebook and say, “That’s the coolest thing ever.” Someone else would then say, “I don’t get it.” [Laughs] I totally understand. I really do. I’m playing to the margins here. I just wanted to do something that if I heard about it, I would really want to hear it and support it. You hear about these things, but you usually don’t do them. Just that aspect, that there are people who will love it and others who won’t, so why worry? I’ve been doing this for fifteen years now. If I fail, I will still have a job. Let’s just go for it. One of the biggest questions I had was about being on the other side of the entire set. You built the spaceship. You wore a uniform. You put all of this effort into it, so I’m curious if that affected the songs. Could you have made the songs on Leonard away from the whole set-up? Some of the songs I’d written beforehand — maybe four or five. I wanted to make sure I had a few songs so I didn’t get in there and say, “Oh, crap.” [Laughs] But even now, to me, hearing those songs, I can’t picture them elsewhere. I think it just put me in the mindset, and that was the whole idea behind it. It was method acting. The truth is that I still worked in the same way. Even in a spaceship, there are seven notes within a scale. There’s only so much that’s different about it. Then again, there is a mindset. When you’re looking around, you begin to play the part. You think, “Why not?” I was able to be a lot more creative musically and lyrically. You look around and realize, “Why pull back?” The whole thing just set me up to feel like there were no limits on what I could or could not do–outside of the limits I gave myself which were really strict. But that’s always my way of operating. This seems the right time to ask what might be an odd question. Do you learn something about yourself as an artist after going through a recording process like this? [Pause] I’m sure that I have. [Laughs] I think a lot of the writing of this record put words to a lot of floating thoughts and feelings, so I think in some sense it gave me a concrete way to look at the reason why I will often pull away from people. It helped me figure out why I do that. I’ve done that in my real life, so there’s a lot of me taking stock of that aspect of my life. I know myself better now. I think embracing the camp — building the spaceship and all of that — made me realize just how worried I’d been about what other people think. That has nothing to do with the lyrics of this record probably. It just comes when you do something like this. It’s certainly not cool to go all in like this. To embrace something is always at the exclusion of every other possibility. You have to say goodbye to a lot of things that you might want. That’s the case with any choice, and that’s been an interesting thing about this. It’s great when people get it. [Laughs] But when they don’t, it kind of hurts even though I totally understand why they wouldn’t. I get why someone wouldn’t be into it. It makes perfect sense. But it’s amazing how much stock I put into that. So I guess I am in the process of learning that. I know you have the limited release here at the Rabbit Room and then you’ll pulling it. Can you tell the story there and what the overall release looks like? The hope is that I can get the record into the hands of people who care about it. I don’t have a label or marketing budget or any of that stuff. But since no one will review a record will that’s already been out for four months, I hope people can help me get it to a larger audience. That’s the idea of closing it and then taking four months before it comes back out. It’s only for people at the Rabbit Room and then my own web site. So it’s all of the people who actively support art. I feel so strongly about this album that I really want it to be heard by people outside of my sphere — outside the usual group of people who buy my records. The best way I can do that is to get these people by my side and then say, “Hey if you’re with me, give me a couple hours a month on the Internet. Tell your friends. I can’t do this without you supporting me” [Laughs] That’s not a fake “I couldn’t do this without you guys.” Instead, it’s a very legitimate statement. If people don’t feel like helping with it, the record will be dead in the water. #AndrewOsenga

https://youtube.com/watch?v=vA1HU_ldWcc%3Frel%3D0 Since late August I’ve been co-writing songs with Rebecca Reynolds (aka “Becca” here on the RR). As a songwriter, never prolific, and often completely mired in a swamp of doubt when writing, I have read many books on art and creativity; Art & Fear by Bayles & Orland, The War of Art by Pressfield, On Writer’s Block by Nelson, On Writing by King, Walking on Water by L’Engle, The Music Lesson by Wooten, along with books like The Success Principles by Canfield, and The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Covey. In talking with Rebecca I quickly became interested in her research on creativity and how it operates, due to my personal search and frequent sense of lack in certain areas. The first fact I noted was that her findings on creativity were similar to the principles of reliance, surrender, and trust I’ve found to be crucial in living the Christian life. Secondly, I realized that in certain areas I had applied these principles, but in songwriting I had not. I was still mired in Romans 7: “The songs I want to write, I’m not writing. The songs I don’t want to write, I keep writing.” Wretched songwriter that I am! Rebecca has patiently hammered all those principles right back into my creativity where they belong. Romans 7 is the self-effort chapter, a chronicle of a self trying to be good by its own steam, rather than faith in the Source. In my creative life in the past few years, I had been on the same treadmill from which I’d been freed in other areas. The main thing I have learned to do is relax, rest, “be of good courage,” and leap into the dark. Rebecca comes up with some beautiful images culled from years of sensory input and reflection, especially from nature. These images are often subtly combined with Biblical allusions. Since August we’ve written the 12-14 songs for my next recording, a largely secular bluegrass and acoustic music collection, plus many more. I’m still learning how to do “frequent songwriting” rather than grabbing an inspiration or two once every six months and being primarily a player, but I’ve learned a lot. This song may be used in the future on another cd, but I did this quick demo in my studio just for fun with two guitars and vocal to put on on Facebook and the Rabbit Room. For guitar and recording geeks, the guitars were recorded with a pair of Neumann KM54s, through a Millennia Media dual preamp, a Millennia Media EQ, using Black Lion converters. The Black Lion converters were the best thing I could have done for my studio.

[(Warning: Bad puns incoming) Launch is imminent for our faithful astronaut and his new record — sort of. What follows is Andy Osenga’s explanation of a new twist in the album’s trajectory. Read on, and get the record while you can.] Years ago, making a record and actually getting people to hear about it took one thing: a record label. These days, the labels are mostly gone, and in many ways they’re not missed. However, when you make a record that you feel has a ton of potential beyond your group of supporters, well, that’s when it gets tricky. Artists in my orbit, making a living but not selling out huge tours or getting on the radio, have a hard time getting their music heard outside of their normal spheres. You see, what record labels did wrong (took more than their fair share, tried to water down great artists, held records under lock and key) were the unfortunate side effects of the good that they did, mainly fronting the money for records to be made and then doing the work of getting the music out there. Well, I believe in this record. More than anything I’ve ever done before. And I want people to hear it, and I want to be able to get enough people to shows to do some really fun stuff with production and band. So I’m trying to figure out ways to get there. And I’ve realized something. You guys funded this record, and so many of you are linking, retweeting, blogging on my behalf… YOU ARE MY RECORD LABEL! You are doing what labels used to take a chestful of money to do. And, arguably, you’re doing a better job! All this to say, because I care about this record and want it to do well, I’m not going to release it yet. Not completely. Those of you who have kickstarted it will get Mp3s in the next week or so. Rabbit Room preorders will be filled shortly thereafter, and then it’ll go dark. Just like the label people had copies of our records months in advance, you guys will have it, can listen to it, get to know it, and then, if you like it and want to support it further, you can help out. Doing a full release (indie record stores, iTunes) in September gives us a few months to get reviews in magazines and on websites, gives us time to have stories about the concept and the building of the ship told in newspapers and local publications, gives us time to generate some excitement for the project. So thank you for your patience and support (some of you paid for this record A YEAR AGO!), and I hope you just love it. I do. I’ve never been more excited about a project. I can’t wait for you guys to hear it in the weeks ahead. If you haven’t preordered yet, you have about a week and a half left! CLICK HERE!

“Lemon, YESSSsss!!” I said aloud to myself just now. Yes, I’m alone in my dear little house and I’m talking to myself. Reading through a recipe for “lemony asparagus soup,” I was lamenting the fact that my produce bin (actually a drywall mud tray from Home Depot) holds only limes. But then I remember the three Meyer lemons that sit waiting in my grocery bag, destined for some spring-y dish. I just knew I’d need them. And this gives me much delight, the fact that I know the seasons and their flavors, that I know my cupboard, and that I know myself. It’s been a thoroughly enjoyable Saturday-before-Easter. I’ve potted herbs and re-potted formerly suffering succulents. I’ve swept the floors until the varnish threatens to come up with the bristles. I’ve folded laundry. I’ve put things prettily on display in the living room, livened up my vignettes with fresh blooms and a spit shine. I’ve pre-heated the oven for the meringue building block of our family’s favorite and ideal Easter dessert, Pavlova. Asparagus soup will soon commence. Evening’s dark has just now fallen, the ice in my bourbon and soda is clinking and cracking next to me, and Simon and Garfunkel croon in their tremolo harmonies, “April, come she will…” quite by chance, from the next room. This is my Father’s world O let me ne’er forget That though the wrong seems oft so strong God is the ruler yet I cling to this truth. My friend Rebekah and I drove down Highway 100 afterwards, on our way to our own Communion, a glass of wine and a plate of crusty bread. We were mid-conversation when she gasped and said “Evie, look at the moon!!” There it sat, glowing as brightly as a flood light and brighter, with the dark silhouettes of trees pulsing beneath its illuminating power. I slowed, to the chagrin of several drivers around me, to 30 miles per hour. We couldn’t stop gawking. I remarked after a moment, “Isn’t it so nice to see something beautiful and to have someone beside you to enjoy it with?!” We giggled in our perpetual single-ness, but in our hearts were so deeply gladdened to be enjoying God’s good creation with one another. (This post is totally writing itself, by the way, stream of consciousness is my preferred method tonight…come to think of it, that might be all I’ve got….) So I’ll close. God speaks to his children in countless ways, but He reaches me through beauty; He gives me the gifts of color and texture and taste and shared tenderness with those whom I love. He is real to me in these ways and so many others. I mark the rising of his Son tomorrow morning. I will celebrate it standing, drowning in gratitude. [Featured image: “Easter Moon Over Pond in New England” by Tracy Lee Carroll. All other images by Evie Coates.]

I want to tell you a story—a true story. The snow had draped everything in a pillowy blanket of white that looked like something straight out of a Thomas Kincade painting. As a country kid, I preferred being outdoors. So when the snow stopped, I layered up, put on my boots, gloves and hat and went out to stand in the middle of the glory God had put on display. I remember it like it was yesterday. The roads were all but impassable, so I stood alone and uninterrupted. It was bitterly cold—the dry kind that freezes the lungs when you breathe. Everything was so still that the sound of my boots crunching through the surface of the snow muted as though I were in an acoustically perfect concert hall. I stood at the end of my driveway looking as far as I could past the stand of blue spruces draped in snow to my right when out of the corner of my eye I saw something out of place. There in a 30 foot spruce I saw something amid the alternating layers of bluish-green and pure white that was the color of ash. Unable to make out what it was, I went over to investigate. It was a bird—a motionless, gray, speckled dove—nestled on a bough right at about eye-level. It wasn’t until I was only inches away that I realized the bird was dead—frozen as it had landed, preserved. With my gloved hands I picked it up and held it in such a way that if it wanted to fly away, it could. I thought about the Bible verses that say God knows the number of hairs on our heads, (Mt 10:30) how we are fearfully and wonderfully made, (Ps 139:14) how the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, (Ps 24:1) and how God cares for the birds of the field. (Mt 6:26) I thought about my bird and though it weighed next to nothing, it was all at once heavy in my hands. This was God’s bird. He made it. He was there when it poked its little beak out of its little shell. He aligned its DNA to produce feathers. He gave it instincts to find food. He gave it flight. And He numbered its days—a number now expired. I found myself caring for the little creature, even grieving a bit. I couldn’t shake the thought that in ways I couldn’t comprehend God loved that lifeless little bird. So I prayed. It started as a prayer of thanks for creation and for God’s attention to detail. But before I knew it, I was praying for the bird itself. Lifting it up like a priest with his offering, I prayed, “God of all Creation, You gave this bird life and You have cared for it all its days. Now it is dead, but if You wanted, You could bring it back to life, right here and right now. It would take nothing—just a word. Not even. If it be Your will, raise this little bird up and give it new life.” Then I looked at the bird in my hands through the vapors of my own breathing. What ending to this story are you comfortable with? Knowing I have already promised you this story is true, how do you hope it ends? How do you fear it ends? Is there a part of you pleading, “Please don’t tell me the bird came back to life. I don’t know if I have a category for that, other than doubt.” If I told you the bird awoke in my hands and flew away to God knows where, would that be okay? If I promised you I had no intentions of taking a shred of credit for it, and swore I’d recoil at even the slightest hint that I was in any way its healer, would it then be okay if I told you God raised that bird from the dead? How you answer matters, because if you are a Christian, all your eggs (no pun intended) are in the basket of belief in the resurrection of the dead—not just in Jesus’ resurrection, but in your own as well. Jesus Himself said, “This is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” (John 6:40) What is harder to believe: that God can raise a bird from the dead, or that He Himself has risen, and that He will also raise you? Does the bird take flight? You want to know. Some of you might even say you need to know. Whether the bird rose to newness of life or not, if you are in Christ, the guarantee of the Gospel is that you will. The Maker of Heaven and Earth will scoop you up, cold and still, and warm your Spirit to flight. How could I say such an audacious thing of the followers of Jesus? “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” (Rom 8:11) Easter is a time for us to remember that we know how the story will end. In Jerusalem 2,000+ years ago, we saw the first fruits of the resurrection. And it is a TRUE story: “IN FACT Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.” (1 Cor 15:20-21) This is not a promise I make to you today, but one God Himself has already made. And He has sworn by the greatest name in Heaven and on Earth—His own. Resurrection for the believer in Christ is God’s promise, and “it is impossible for God to lie.” (Heb 6:18) Easter is the guarantee that the story of the follower of Jesus ends in resurrection—eternal life in face-to-face intimacy with the Maker and Lover of your souls. Nothing less. Death has long since been defeated. Still, we wait with baited breath for the end to come. But for those in Christ, we already know what the end will be.

When my father was growing up, he knew a fellow called Deafy (pronounced “Deefy”). They called him this because he was deaf. When Deafy wanted to get somewhere, he walked right down the middle of the road. When the occasional car chuggered up behind him, he swerved nary an inch. When the driver honked his horn, he never startled. When the driver cussed him, Deafy never heard that either. The practice of nicknaming people by their infirmities seems to be on the wane. I get the impression that there used to be more Deafys and Stumpys and Shortys than there are now. I thought of Deafy as I was going through Russ Ramsey’s Easter Week in Real Time readings. Jesus’  last supper before the Last Supper was hosted by a man known as Simon the Leper. As insensitive nicknames go, Simon the Leper has Deafy and Stumpy beat all to flinders. But there Jesus sat, eating in the home of a man whose very name was his shame. Simon the Leper. Simon the Unclean. Simon the Outcast. To the very end, Jesus was pouring his life into misfits and losers, refusing to leverage the influence of the powerful and well-connected but insisting on doing things his way–a perfectly backwards way, by the world’s lights. This was the Savior from Nazareth, after all. The village wasn’t just podunk, but so mean that one of the disciples asked, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” When Jesus came home for a visit, the locals tried to throw him off a cliff. I picture Nazareth as a place with more than its share of three-legged dogs. Whatever was the first-century equivalent of a speed-trap, I suspect Nazareth had one. And a Deafy and a Gimpy and a Shorty. Jesus, no doubt, felt right at home at the house of Simon the Leper. And Jesus, of course, was readier than anybody else for the spectacle that would interrupt his next-to-last supper. A woman with an alabaster flask of perfumed oil busted the thing and poured the oil all over Jesus’ head and feet. In so many ways, it was an act of beautiful extravagance. The oil was worth a year’s wages, yet down it dripped, running and pooling all over the floor. The fragrance filled the room like a kind of grace, a beauty that nobody besides Jesus had earned. Yet there were those in the room who made themselves impervious to that beauty, who chose to judge and criticize and quantify the woman’s acFt rather than let themselves smell the sweet savor of what she had done. “She could have sold that perfume and given the money to the poor,” they said (and Judas–not just a traitor but a moneygrubber and a thief–was one of them). But Jesus smelled the perfume, and he knew the hearts of the critics. He defended the woman’s act of prodigality. “Why do you trouble the woman?” he asked. “For she has done a good work for me. For you have the poor with you always,” (though, he might have added, you’ve never seemed too worried about them before), “but me you do not have always. For in pouring this fragrant oil on my body, she did it for my burial.” I’ve been trying to picture the scene, and if I’m being honest, I’m pretty sure I would have come down on Judas’s side and suffered the rebuke of Jesus. Like Judas, I might have put my objection in practical terms, but I’m afraid that for me the real issue would have been the fact that the woman was creating a most uncomfortable scene. She showed no reserve whatsoever–no self-respect. John describes her as wiping Jesus’ feet with her hair. With her hair! I don’t suppose I’ve ever heard anybody say this before, but there was something tacky about the whole scene. I don’t mean any irreverence here. I mean only to say that according to the world’s ideas of what is acceptable and tasteful and what is tacky, the spectacle at Simon the Leper’s house comes down on the tacky side of the ledger. And yet Jesus was very clear: we should honor this woman’s devotion.  To an upside-down world, Jesus came with upside-down solutions. The lame shall enter first, he said. And the deaf and the leprous and the tacky and the not-quite respectable–those, like Deafy and Simon, who are the butt of the joke rather than those who joke at their expense. As Frederich Buechner wrote, Blessed are those who see that, all appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, [Jesus] is who he says he is and does what he says he does if they will only, at admittedly great cost to their pride, their common sense, their sad vision of what is and is not possible in the stormy world, let him do it. Blessed is he, in other words, who gets the joke.

I spent the better part of last year trying to write a poem a day as a writing exercise. When I began, the first thing I told myself was that it was okay to be bad. I knew there would be days when the best I could muster would be tripe unfit even for a Hallmark convention. And I was 100% correct as lines like the following will surely attest: “Life’s short in the mouth Of my dinosaur love But fail early and fail often, I say. Get the dinosaur love out of the way so something better can find its way onto the page. I’m not a great poet, nor will I ever be, but I did manage to wring out about 150 poems last year, and out of those I hope there will be a few gems worth going back to over the years to hone and polish. In early June, though, after writing the first hundred poems, something happened that I didn’t expect. My wife Jennifer and I took a short vacation to Florida, and near the end of our visit we settled on the beach in the late afternoon to wait for sunset. Jennifer spent her time quietly reading and dozing off for a nap, and I, bound by my resolution, cracked open my leather-bound poetry journal and scribbled out a dreary something about sunsets and wind and city lights. We got up after a while, went to dinner, and then drove two hours back to my parents’ house to stay the night before the long drive north to Nashville. The next morning when we packed up, my poetry journal was no where to be found. I went to the car, to the last place I’d seen it, and there on the red metal roof was a faint rectangular outline of beach sand. When we left the beach, I’d set the journal on the roof of the car and left it there. Somewhere in the intervening miles, it had flown off and there was nothing left of it but an outline, a sandy ghost. I told Jennifer and she turned white. She insisted we go back and look for it, but I knew better. We’d driven nearly a hundred miles and the journal could be lying beside the road along any one of them. I shrugged and said, “It’s gone. There’s nothing we can do about it.” And oddly enough, I was okay with that. After all, the point of writing hadn’t been to publish. The point of those 100+ poems had been discipline, and exercise, and practice. And those were things that, once gained, I couldn’t lose. So I went to the bookstore, and I bought a new journal. And I went on with my resolution. In a last ditch effort, however, I did post an ad on Craigslist. I described the journal and left my phone number and address–just in case. I also added this little vanity: There is nothing in it to entertain you And there is certainly nothing to learn So there’s no point in thinking of ransom Because it’s more than this journal deserves I can’t even offer a gracious reward A writer’s salary is less than you think The best you can do is return it by post And trust that I’ll pay you in thanks. Imagine my excitement when I had a Craigslist response in my inbox the next morning. It said: “If the poems you wrote in your journal are anything like this one, it’s in the trash where it belongs.” Ouch. At least I still had my discipline, if not my pride. And that really was the point after all. I was a better writer after those hundred lost poems than I had been before I wrote them. I didn’t regret writing them, and I didn’t regret losing them. It was exercise and the writing muscle was stronger for it. Move on. Keep writing. Make sure the work isn’t wasted. I went on filling the new journal with new lines and new poems, some good, some dinosaur lovely, and those eventually matured into a marriage proposal in verse that won me the hand of the woman of my dreams. Poetry has been a part of my relationship with my wife from the very beginning, and I have her to thank for my love of Yeats and his “bee-loud glade.” On one of our first dates, she gave me a suitor’s challenge. “There’s one line in one Yeats poem that perfectly describes how I think a man should feel about me. Find it,” she said. And I did, within hours, though I didn’t tell her so until months later, when I read it to her out of that new journal of poems and she said “Yes.” (The Yeats’ line, if you’re wondering, is: “But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you / And loved the sorrows of your changing face.“) A few days before the wedding, a package arrived at the house. It was covered in dozens of differently sized stamps and my name was written on it in a bright, jubilant script that I suspect only bubbly, hippie girls master entirely. I tore open the package and inside was a banged up leather journal, its pages filled with lost poems. A stranger had found it on the roadside. Was I glad to have them back? You bet. There’s something beautiful and possibly even mysterious in the fact that they came back to me only after I’d learned that I could let them go. In losing them I perceived a valuable lesson. There’s high value in taking the time to sit down and create something when you least want to, when you’d rather watch a movie, or take a nap, or read someone else’s words. And sometimes the artist’s greatest reward may be in his creating rather than his creation. April is National Poetry Month. Create something. It’s worth the work, even if it’s not Yeats, even if it’s never read by another, even if you lose it. Here’s one of the “lost poems.” I wrote it about this time last year and it’s evidence, I think, that I did eventually make it beyond “dinosaur love.” Share your own–if you dare. In the early sun, I awake I move through the city And the city moves beside me From each doorway, a rivulet runs Winding down to the river rushing We gather, washed up like Deadened wood at the foot Of a timeless oak I stand in a line and shuffle forward Before me a saint Behind me another coming We kneel at a table We strip off our rags Naked, we wrestle ourselves down To still and quiet And take hold of the broken loaf And water our roots with sanguine wine I rise and look behind me A chain of saints stretches unbroken Back to the beginning Before me they vanish into the light Linked by blood and flesh Undying, eternal, a memorial Settled ‘til time and memory No longer have need Of our withering rites

The “Plays” category of my iTunes and Spotify lists fails to adequately represent my musical tastes. While I would claim Radiohead (circa ’97-07) as my there’s-a-gun-to-your-head-so-pick-one-now musical favorite, it’s not even a fair fight between the most-played artist among my list of albums. That title belongs to Ólafur Arnalds. Sometimes I might listen to Arvo Pärt. Other times, Sigur Rós hits the spot. Mostly, however, Arnalds fits the bill. Any time I write, which these days is most of the time, Arnalds is the background music of choice, the lingering arrangements perfectly framing thoughts and phrases as they come or soothing me when they fail to arrive. For those who are unaware, Arnalds is a mid-20s Icelandic composer and I wanted to pass this along to you as a gift from my background to yours. I’ve a near-borderline obsession with anything Scandinavian/Icelandic when it comes music, but I believe anyone will appreciate the mood created by the simple recordings of Living Room Songs. All of the tracks are free downloads offering snapshots of the quick takes he put together in his tiny Icelandic apartment. But this is not just a post about free music. Instead, since this is a community made up of so many artists and appreciators, I’m assuming that we all have our favorite background music. To that end, I’d love to hear your favorites. For such a prominent aspect of our creative lives, it’s something rarely discussed. Do you have a favorite way to fill the silence or do you prefer to avoid any unnecessary noise? “Þú ert sólin” by Ólafur Arnalds from …and they have escaped the weight of darknesshttps://rabbitroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/thu-ert-solin.mp3 #OlafurArnalds

Thanks to everyone for participating in our Birds of Relocation listening party. For those who missed the event, here’s Eric’s song-by-song commentary of each of the tracks. The complete album is now available in the Rabbit Room store. Track 1: “The Old Year (of Denial)” This song began the writing process for Birds of Relocation. I wrote it, largely, in retaliation against the year 2009, a psychologically brutal season for me. I see this song as an “I’m staking my claim” pivotal core from which the rest of the album branches. Fear reduces us. To hell with fear; we should refuse to live there any longer, living instead like living souls. Track 2: “Lost and Found” For a number of years, I have been involved with a high school outreach ministry called Young Life. For many summers I’ve had the great opportunity to spend a month sharing my music with the students who attend. Each night, the speaker and I share the story of God’s severe mercy for us, the speaker often using humor and stories to communicate, and I through the songs I’ve written over the years. But I’ve always felt that I lacked a certain topical song to play on the night that the cross is explained to campers, many of whom are hearing the very Good Story for the very first time in their lives. In talking with a dear friend of mine on the Young Life staff, I agreed that I needed, and wanted, to write a song to fill that particular gap in my repertoire. This song, I hope, is my way of telling that story. Track 3: “Don’t Hold Your Breath” I wrote this a couple of years ago in a Sarasota hotel room during a spring run of Florida concerts I was playing. A week or two before this particular tour, a Florida State University student, Patrick Gines, wrote me asking if I would consider writing a commissioned song for his final thesis undergraduate project, a short film he was directing. Patrick had heard me play years before, and, somehow, had remembered me and my music. Randomly, and unbeknownst to either of us at the time, I was scheduled to play at his home church in Tallahassee later that very same week. “Random” seems never an accurate enough word for these sorts of occurrences. We eventually put two and two together and realized that we would be able to actually talk face-to-face about the possibility. The night of that show, he handed me a copy of his script. I took it with me to my next event in Sarasota, read through it a few times, and quickly honed in on an intentionally sarcastic line, “Don’t hold your breath.” Though sarcastic the character’s comment, I took it in a different direction, and later that evening in a Sarasota hotel room, I wrote the vast majority of “Don’t Hold Your Breath,” though it lacked a solid, well-defined chorus. The following morning in Sarasota, I was scheduled to play a couple of songs for the host church’s services. The pastor spoke of waters rising and falling, and, there in my seat, I scribbled out the final bit of the chorus. (Apologies to that pastor if I seemed distracted. It was for a worthy cause.) Track 4: “Where Would I Go?” I hope you hear this song as a smile and a hug. This song is an IOU to a group whose music I adore, The Weepies. I wish I were a Weepie. This is the first of the album’s three love songs for my wife of nearly fifteen years. Track 5: “Voices” I started seeing a counselor (Al Andrews of Porter’s Call, a blessing and a gift to many full-time artists here in Nashville) in late 2010. It was crucial for me to seek help. He and I talked through my many issues, the biggest being my terribly low self-esteem, a result of my haste to listen to the foul, belligerent voices in my head that speak to and yell at me. I was at a point where I could no longer tell the difference between God’s voice and those that lie to me. I had been suffering anxiety and an inability to think clearly, to physically move, or to make any actual decisions. I was a frozen, confused monster. At one point during these counseling sessions, Al noticed and remarked that I was choosing to love the things that hate me the most. For homework, he asked me to write down all the things the plaguing voices regularly tell me and write a song about them. This is that song. I suspect that if the vile voices haunt me, there’s a good chance they haunt you too. Track 6: “Today Dream” I’m really very talented at daydreaming, at wishing away the days, at allowing my mind to wander, at avoiding or ignoring reality. Just ask my wife. In a dangerous and perhaps ill-advised move, I sought to put myself in her shoes, reminding me — hubby and friend — to snap out of false worlds, to return to and bask in reality (as plain, stale, or frustrating as it may be) and to appreciate what is here and now: the gifts in front of me awaiting the polish of recognition and attention. Track 7: “Soul and Flesh” I wrote this song for my wife (of nearly fifteen years now). On every album I record, I’ve tried to include at least one song specifically about and for her. I remember writing this on a late-night drive home through the dark Appalachian foothills after a show in Knoxville, Tennessee. Every now and then Danielle will comment on my eyes’ “crow’s feet,” both of us wondering and remarking on what they’ll look like when we’re eighty and have grandkids. It’s good that she knows the crap in my life and all the bitterness I hold in my heart at times. She also knows how hopeless I can be, how I shrink into darkness, how I hide from my friends. It is good to be known. It’s even better to be nurtured back to life. Behind every halfway decent man is a far superior woman. Track 8: “Different, Separate Lives” I started writing this song several years ago while I was recording Scarce (2006). I had the melody and the first lines “We don’t got money, we don’t need fame, but we all want something like it anyway,” but that was all I could muster at the time. I was never able to figure out what to do with it or where to go from there. Clinging to that melody over the following years, I worked it into shape for Birds of Relocation, determined to make something of this little poppery song. This, in my estimation, is a song about community. As Kathleen Norris says in her most excellent book, Dakota, “Community is being together while leaving each other alone.” Track 9: “No Stone Unturned” This song is a case of marrying old lyrics to new music. I wrote these words in the summer of 2000 and originally proposed that it be on Scarce (2006), but that album’s producer didn’t seem interested in it, so I shelved it. Having always liked these lyrics, I brushed them off while writing Birds of Relocation, set them at eye level, and lovingly affirmed them–I still believe in you. After trashing an earlier, older, and, honestly, outgrown chorus, I rewrote the music entirely, and with the guidance of Andy Gullahorn, gave these lyrics a chance to finally be heard. This song, though written over ten years ago, thematically seemed to fit so well on this album. Funny how time works. And flies. Track 10: “The New Year” This is the surprise song of the bunch for me. Going into our pre-production meetings at producer Ben Shive’s studio, I knew I really liked this one. But I was absolutely floored by the treatment he gave it. That guy knows me so well. It’s good to have friends who happen to be incredibly gifted producers, and it’s very good to, every now and then, have an opportunity to write a song like this, an anthem, a song that looks at the horizon and smiles. Track 11: “Fighting for Life” Honestly, I didn’t know what to think about this song when I first introduced it to Ben in our earliest pre-production days. I felt it had a strong skeleton, but it lacked a face, a personality, or at least one recognizable. It really wasn’t until Andy Gullahorn, with whom I recorded the main vocals, helped me write — or at least dredge from the well — the bridge and the outro that I realized this was no longer a middle-of-the-album sort of song, but was instead THE ending to the album. It’s the epilogue, a benediction to those who listen: “Go into the world, be brave, and don’t give up.” We fight for life because hope is worth fighting for. And without hope, my God!, my God!, what on earth have we to live for?

Eric Peters’ Birds of Relocation was released on Tuesday and a brief scan of Twitter and Facebook reveals a snap shot of what people are already saying about it: “. . . one of the most beautiful records I’ve heard in a long while.” –@Nickliao “Another amazing album . . .” –@FMcButter “I’ve been thru the new @ericpetersmusic album 4 times this morning already. Love it!” –@andycheely “Listened straight through the new @ericpetersmusic record. My soul is soaring.” –@danielchristian “One of my favorites of all time by anyone.” –@sdsmith_ “We are loving these songs . . .” –@EnCorpsMusic “. . .this is great music.” –@AndrewPeterson “It will bless you abundantly!” –@lightenupgear “All I can say is WOW!” –@Cam__ “@ericpetersmusic’s new album, BiRDS OF RELOCATiON is amazing!” –@bgum728 “. . . just awesome: full of hope, gratitude, and beauty.” Bret Welstead via Facebook “It’s seriously all kinds of good.” Andrew MacKay via Facebook “This is a fabulous album.” Rebecca MacKay via Facebook But if you’re still on the fence, you’ve come to the right place. For the next eleven hours we’re going to premiere Birds of Relocation song by song, one song in its entirety each hour between 9am and 8pm CST. For each song, Eric will give some insight into the writing process, and answer any questions you might have. Enjoy the record, folks. You’re in for a real treat.

We made our way through the streets of Falmouth, Jamaica, and as we looked back on the entire episode, the only descriptor that came to mind was “gross.” And even that term seemed inadequate. If you’re new to the world of cruises, as I once was, here’s a bit of info up front: the corporations that own the ships also own the ports and much of the real estate in the cities where they dock. In short, they own both sides of the cruise experience—the vessel and its destination. Since they’re selling a “good time,” every port has a Disneyfied feel that removes any trace of authenticity from the experience and leaves little at all resembling the actual country you’re visiting. My wife and I wanted to escape the glossy sheen of this particular Jamaican port and explore the “real” Jamaica, whatever that might mean. From the boat, we could see old stone chapels and other interesting architecture beyond the tourist trap, and we were anxious to explore. From the outset, it was a disastrous idea. Within five minutes, I had four separate men asking if they could “take me to the girls.” Street vendors were not only forward but forceful. It took me back to similar marketplace settings I’d visited in Palestine, but this moved beyond the typical street frenzy and into uncomfortable territory. People groped me to get my attention when their calls didn’t work. One man stood in my way and commanded, “Stop and give me a real look, man.” My strategy was to look far ahead hoping to ignore the intrusion long enough for it to subside. It didn’t work. We turned around after several minutes and went back to the comfort and familiarity of what I was so excited to escape in the first place. The reason was simple: we felt violated. We are likely all familiar with spatial violations. We all know the feeling of lingering eye contact when the person across from us doesn’t look away. We’ve felt the unpleasant sensation of someone who’s a bit too touchy-feely. Even Seinfeld had the gag of the “close talker,” that acquaintance who stands a bit too close for comfort. In short, we know when our space has been violated. We also know enough to get away. But what about the dimension of time? In the same way that our space is violated, is it possible for our time to be violated as well? If so, how should we respond? It’s clear that we were created as inhabitants of both space and time. Our initial dwelling wasn’t simply a garden, but a rhythm inside of that garden. The beauty of creation is all around us spatially and rhythmically. When we speak of Eden’s harmonious relationship, we rarely think of the rhythms of time being in sync with one another as well—a rhythm of rest and work, of participation and reflection. On the seventh day he rested from all his work. God blessed the seventh day. He made it a Holy Day Because on that day he rested from his work, all the creating God had done. -Genesis 2 (The Message) The beauty of rest. The joy of sabbath. The blessing of reflection. These are things we so often miss because we are rarely cognizant of the realms of time. Space is something we know how to inhabit. We are consumed with the elements of space, striving every day to better the spaces in which we live and create larger kingdoms for our dwelling. Yet when it comes to time, we remain immature and unaware—content to live an unbalanced life only concerned with one dimension. As encroached upon as I felt stepping into the streets of Jamaica, I am numb to the same violations of space. The demands of the day contend for one another without caring for what we have left. The dashboard reads “empty” and still we insist on moving forward, citing the excuses that space has taught us. Perhaps much of the time, we don’t even know if our time has been violated. Unlike spatial violations that immediate set us off with antennae-like responses sensing something amiss, we often succumb to the violations of our time as if they don’t matter. We attend to trivial matters while ignoring the projects we should be working on. We work endlessly to enlarge our domain, increase our influence or develop our security yet rarely spare much effort for rest. In short, one dimension ends up serving another—time for sake of space. We have phrases for this, sayings that easily roll off the tongue as if they are not an offense to who we were created to be. “Time is money,” we say without consideration that it’s costing us something far greater. But time is not money. Time is time. The dimension of time does not serve the dimension of space. Both are necessary. Yet when we bend one to inhabit the other, we ignore the rhythm of life as it was intended to be. Perhaps no one violates our space or sabbath more than our own selves. I am the enemy. I am the instigator. I am typically to blame for my own off-kilter life, for the unbalanced feeling that lingers. When I cater to “the tyranny of the urgent,” I need to stop and realize that I have sacrificed one dimension for the sake of the other. When I cannot recall my last full day of rest, it should signal a forced irregular rhythm on my part—one that I was not created for. The writings of Abraham Joshua Heschel have been foundational for me in many ways, but mostly in the realms of sabbath and time. One of the most prominent Jewish theologians of the last century, his work The Sabbath is, for me, the most influential. He writes, “We cannot solve the problem of time through the conquest of space, through pyramids or fame. We can only solve the problem of time through sanctification of time. To men alone time is elusive; to men with God time is eternity in disguise.” In other words, we can only begin to find balance in our lives by entering into that which frightens us. If we are afraid to be alone, then we must allow God to meet us in that space. If we are workaholics, we must confront what it is that drives us, be it ambition, pride, or fear, and set down the tools of our trade. The silent violation of our time robs us of an essential dimension of our created being. To be whole is to develop a heightened level of sensitivity to the violations of both time and space around us and respond accordingly. A different rhythm is waiting for all of us if we will only stop to listen.

A bird in flight is a beautiful thing. We watch and are captivated by its elegant cooperation with the wind, its effortless sailing set off by broad, beating wings. Reversing the fate of the living room canary, we are caught, if only for a moment, by the wild grace of its art. Would it draw us further in to know where it began its flight? What if the tree had been in flames and it only just got out alive? What if every cheerful chirrup was a thanksgiving hymn? Eric Peters has crafted his greatest album to date. I am almost confident enough to say “by far.” That would be saying an awful lot and only time will tell. The story Eric tells on Birds of Relocation is his own escape story. It’s the airborne travelogue of a grateful, singed survivor, the record of one songbird whose shining eyes are turned suddenly skyward. It begins with “The Old Year,” the proverbial bough from which this bird has flown. And he has two words for that past, that burning bough, that old year of denial: “Ha ha.” “Ha ha to the old year, goodbye to the cold fear, Gonna cry when I need it, smile when I need it, Goodbye, denial.” “The Old Year” is not quite anthemic, but it’s close. It’s artful affirmation is a theme threaded throughout the record: “I’m gonna live like a living soul, I’m gonna write it on my wretched bones, And stop waiting for happily ever after.” And we’re off. Eric’s faithful fans won’t be disappointed with either the sound or the substance of the record. Bird of Relocation features the best weapons in Eric’s arsenal: that voice, those words, and their melodic marriage. That voice, migrating a wider range than ever before, is the central pillar. The words are made in the image of their maker, a pilgrim poet who seems surprised that he’s made something beautiful. The melodic issue is musical magic. The second song is fun. “Lost and Found” might cite Paul Simon and The Chieftains as sources, 80s pop and Irish echoes. It’s likely the most catchy song on the record–and that’s saying a lot. Eric’s brand of folk-pop, where often desperate sadness will dress up in the happy clothes of a catchy tune, is best observed here–only the theme isn’t a bit sad. It’s a celebration of turning away from the darkness and embracing the bright sunshine of a resurrected reality. “This is the world turning upside down,         When the light that was lost is found.                 Come see the dawn with the darkness refused,         Today is yesterday made new.” “Don’t Hold Your Breath” is another catchy song that you’ll be singing for weeks. It’s been widely shared as a music video (here). No doubt many of you have already heard it and experienced the happy impossibility of getting it out of your head. “Where Would I Go” is the first love song on the album. Eric always has a song for his wife, Danielle, on each record. These tend to be some of my favorites in the EP catalog. I’ve seen Eric play many concerts and he always plays at least one of them, singing about the love he’s left behind at home. But she can never really be left behind while he carries her with him in these songs. “Where Would I Go,” is Eric at his catchiest and most caught. Anyone who has been through the minefield of matrimony will appreciate this heartfelt, happy homage to his true love. “Voices” relocates Eric back on the burning bough, battling with the darkness and doubt that he had hoped to fly away from. It’s a war we understand if we are awake enough to see, alive enough to feel, frail enough to fear, and weak enough to sometimes doubt–especially ourselves. When we listen to the voices that tell us we are worthless, we recapitulate the Fall. In an aching verse, we travel back: “In the garden when we lived inside the garden, Creatures bright and shining, we were dust brought to life. In the silence when we lean into the silence, We choose the things that hates us most and rest upon its lies.” We follow him in and–very importantly–out, as he emerges listening, not to the voices of condemnation, but instead to the saints’ and angels’ song. Here is an apt allusion to that great refrain of hymnody. “Oh love of God, how rich and pure, how measureless and strong. It shall forever more endure, the saints’ and angels’ song.” “Today Dream” is another occasion to meet domestic Eric, a funny and poignant picture of a present-absent father. This is the Eric of escaping daydreams. In the song, he takes his wife’s side in an argument against himself, against his tendency to disappear and disengage. Never one to shy from self-examination, it’s a mirror he holds up to his own face, but many of us will see ourselves and be moved to move on, more awake than before. It’s a call to being present everywhere you are, especially at home. “Soul and Flesh” is another lovely tribute to Danielle, one of my favorites. It echoes Johnny Cash’s “Flesh and Blood” with its premise and features a wonderfully simple chorus. “She loves me for my smile,             And for the crow’s feet on my eyes.             She loves the song deep inside my chest, She loves me soul and flesh.” “Different, Separate Lives.” This is a rollicking, Americana exploration of how separate and together we all are. If you are the dancing type and the cowboy hat-wearing type, then this is your moment. I neither dance nor cowboy, but this song is just plain fun. “No Stone Unturned.” I got a sneak peek on this one a few weeks back and it’s been sliding around inside my head and heart for that entire time. Like so much of Eric’s music, it grows on and in you. This is another love song, only this one is aimed heavenward, a touching tribute to God’s power to name us, claim us, and never give up on us. It’s one of Eric’s most spiritually searching, deeply truthful songs about God’s character, revealed in fitting metaphors with a stirred voice. Like so much of this record, there’s a thankfulness underlying every note. “We are rough and ready, We’re primed to steal the show, And though we’re prone to doubt it We’re selves of our former shadows. I was listing and listening in the wind It was not that God was enemy But that I had not been friend. I am ashamed (of my less-wild lovers),                 Deserted was my name (until you gave me another).     But you pursued (all the torches left to burn),         In the midnight searching you leave no stone unturned.” “The New Year.” Again, many have heard this excellent song from the preview posted recently. If “The Old Year” looked back, this song, appropriately enough, looks forward to a brighter horizon. The lyrics say it best. Here is a small section: “This is the year when laughter douses charred and burnt-out dreams, This is the year when wrens return to nest in storm-blown trees. Is this the year of relocation from boughs of old despair? This is the year to perch on hope’s repair. Oh, oh, oh it’s a new year.                     Oh, oh, oh it’s a brand new light.                 Oh, oh, oh can you believe it?                     It’s the skies that we dream of. “Fighting for Life” is a perfect ending for this record. For a moment the music makes you believe you have literally ended on a sad note. But it’s a song that gathers momentum to become a final broadside against the darkness, a declaration of interdependence. Here is an acknowledgment of the realities of pain, of the sometimes unsettled, unsettling future. But in the face of this inevitable struggle, Eric Peters is finally defiant. “I go into the darkness carrying a light, I will have no fear because I’m not alone, I got angels’ voices and friends who love me for who I am. So when the waters come, I fly above this flooded earth looking for a sign of life, And I relocate on boughs of hope, Like a living soul, remembering: In a little while, in a little while, The ghosts return to noise. Oh, but not right now, not right now, The sky must be enjoyed.” This song, and the record, resonate deeply with me. I don’t have a life verse, but if I did, it would be this passage from Ecclesiastes. Maybe that’s why Eric has always felt like a kindred spirit. I suspect you might be one too. “Light is sweet, and it is pleasant for the eyes to see the sun.     So if a person lives many years, let him rejoice in them all; but let him remember that the days of darkness will be many. All that comes is vanity.     Rejoice, O young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes. But know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment.     Remove vexation from your heart, and put away pain from your body, for youth and the dawn of life are vanity.” (Ecclesiastes 11:7-10 ESV) Just in time for spring, this songbird is loose and eying bright blue skies. For Eric Peters, it’s the flight of his life, but you’re invited to come along. There is so much to see, hear, and appreciate if you do. There are predators lurking, a darkness along the corners of our eyes. We may be troubled where we perch, but this is the year for relocation. It’s finally plain:  “The sky must be enjoyed.”

When I walked into the theater on March 9th, I was a skeptic. I’d seen some really weird looking previews that I filed into the “what the heck was that” drawer and tried to forget about, until a friend pointed me to a few facts that the trailer failed to mention. First, the movie was directed by Oscar-winner Andrew Stanton of Wall-E and Finding Nemo. Second, the script was co-written by Pulitzer Prize and Hugo Award-winner Michael Chabon of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and The Yiddish Policeman’s Union. Third, the film is an adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Barsoom series which was the direct inspiration for Star Wars, Flash Gordon, Dune, Avatar, and basically every space opera trope of the 20th (and 21st) century. As weird as it looked, I had to give it a chance. When I walked out of the theater on March 9th, I was teetering on the verge of conversion. I felt a little like I’d just seen a new Star Wars movie, with a dash of Indiana Jones thrown in, but I was bothered by some perceived second act clunkiness, some thinly written scenes, some general goofiness, and, oddly enough, a nagging suspicion of its “almost-greatness.” My reaction was ambiguous, but I couldn’t shake the film. I couldn’t shake the feeling that for two hours, I’d been a kid again, peering wide-eyed into a fantastic world just beyond the world I could see. I went home that night and lay in bed, kept awake by visions of four-armed Tharks, warrior/scientist princesses, tall ships that sail on light, and the possibility that somewhere there was a world where I could be more than the broken man I am. I started to wonder if anyone else was feeling the same way. After all, the film hadn’t gotten very good reviews and the media was calling it the biggest flop since Ishtar (ouch). To my great relief, I discovered I’m not the only one. A quick perusal of Twitter and a few internet haunts quickly revealed that the film was connecting with audiences on a worldwide scale. In fact, it was the biggest movie in the world, despite the fact that it opened with split reviews and a baffling marketing campaign. It took in over $100 million in three days. But you wouldn’t know that from what you see reported in the media, because American audiences didn’t know what to make of it. The film cost a whopping $250 million to make and it was being cast as a box office flop. Sadly, those headlines seem to have colored many peoples’ perception of the movie, even if they haven’t seen it. All the bad press got my hackles up because 1) John Carter, while imperfect, is a far cry from a bad movie, 2) I’m tired of seeing great tales like Serenity fall by the wayside because of poor marketing or the failure of studios to understand their own films, and 3) I’m a sucker for an underdog—especially an underdog that looks, sounds, and feels like a good old-fashioned Star Wars movie. But during the past week, I began to doubt myself. I must have enjoyed it primarily because I wanted to enjoy it. Right? I decided to find out. So this weekend I went to see it again, and this time I took my wife. I intended to watch with a critical eye, to put it under the microscope, so to speak. And because I trust my wife’s judgment of such things, I wanted to pay attention to how she was reacting. She knows a good story when she sees one, and she knows a bad story when it’s falling apart. So off we went. And this time I was paying attention. The result is that I’m now a wanton convert. What I found on the second viewing is that, once more, it turned back the clock and made me a kid again. I recall very clearly how I used to watch Star Wars over and over and over again and each time I’d pick up on some nuance or some missed mention of a race, or place, or character, or motivation. And each of those small things hinted at the vast world lurking beyond the story on the screen. I remember picking out the scant mentions of Alderaan and wondering what those clues hinted at, thinking that if Leia was a princess then surely that implied a king. I remember studying every scene on the Death Star and trying to puzzle out the rank insignia on the uniforms. I remember listening to every mention of Jabba the Hutt and trying to work out what might happen to Han in Return of the Jedi. I loved how much detail there was and how it drew me into the story and the world and the people who lived there without ever trying too hard to explain itself. And so this weekend there I sat, paying rapt attention to hints of Thark history, to the use of the word “Jeddak,” to the cultural significance surrounding the river Is. I found myself wondering what sort of life Dejah Thoris had led as a scientist in the moments just before she appeared on screen. I geeked out a little when I realized that the airships, sailing on sunlight, were positioning themselves to cast an opponent in shadow in order to deny maneuverability, just like real ships on the sea cast one another in a wind-shadow for the same effect. Andrew Stanton has somehow managed to remember what George Lucas, Michael Bay, James Cameron, and countless others have forgotten in the last thirty years. He’s put into John Carter a sense of wonder, and pure-hearted adventure, and realness, not only of the world, but of the characters. They hint at things that the story brushes past, they imply relationships and histories that we can only guess at. Not everything is explained, and not because the story is incomplete, but because Stanton is trusting his audience to keep up. He doesn’t always succeed, but I’ll take that trust over the on-the-nose storytelling of Avatar or the Star Wars prequels any day. I came away from that second viewing with the sense that I could watch it over and over again and each time catch something new, some fresh perspective, some previously unrecognized reference that can enlighten everything around it. And the ending left me breathless. It left me wanting nothing more than to be taken back to Barsoom as directly as possible. Och-ohem och-tay wyees—Barsoom (yep, I’m a nerd). And I was delighted to turn and find my wife with a similar grin on her face. (I haven’t even mentioned the C. S. Lewis references!) I can’t remember the last time I’ve been so refreshed by a movie. It’s good, clean fun. No sexual overtones. No gore. No pointless, stylized, slo-mo violence. No bathroom humor. Just good adventurous storytelling. Princess Deja Thoris is the best female lead this kind of movie has seen since Leia, or Marion Ravenwood and, as anyone who’s read my books knows, I’m a sucker for a strong female heroine. It’s the kind of movie that makes kids want to grow up and be storytellers themselves, and I can think of no higher compliment than that. Let me leaven some of this praise by saying that, yes, it does have its problems. No, it’s not a perfect movie. It drags a bit in the middle. It’s full of strange, hard-to-pronounce names that are hard to tell apart from one another. It’s goofy to a fault sometimes (which was endearing on a second view). It makes no scientific sense. But all those things are true of Star Wars too, remember? I dearly hope Andrew Stanton gets a chance to address those issues and give us a proper Empire Strikes Back. But despite the great word of mouth and great viewer ratings, and despite the fact that it’s made nearly $180 million dollars in ten days (still the number one movie in the world–outside of the U.S.), it’s being labeled a flop and it’s not getting nearly the attention it deserves by an entire generation of young boys and girls. We constantly rail against the Hollywood machine for churning out the same old sequels and tired action movies and morally bankrupt comedies, and yet here we’re presented with something that’s potentially timeless, and by virtue of dollars spent, Disney is being told that no, this isn’t what the public wants. What the public wants is Transformers IV, and Twilight, and Saw XI. That makes me sad. If I had kids of my own, we’d be off to Mars—-no, Barsoom—-this weekend. And I’d spend half the movie watching them watching it, just to remind myself how great it was to be a child lost in an adventure. Thank you, Andrew Stanton, for making me young again, even if only for two exhilarating hours. Here’s a fan-made trailer that does a much better job of encapsulating the movie than any of the official trailers did.

If you haven’t yet read Matt Conner’s interview with Eric Peters’, you should; it’ll give you a deeper appreciation of how important this recording is to Eric. Eric puts his heart and soul and, more importantly, his pain into his music, and that’s what makes it such a rich experience for the rest of us. For months now, I’ve been lucky enough to hear snippets of Birds of Relocation coming out of Ben Shive’s studio (The Bee Hive) next door, and I can’t wait for the world to hear it. I think it’s Eric’s best work. Read the interview, get the full context of the song you’re about to hear, and then wait anxiously for March 27th when Birds of Relocation takes flight. Here’s a first listen to one of the tracks. It’s still an early mix, but it’s already fantastic. “The New Year” by Eric Peters from Birds of Relocation.https://rabbitroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/TheNewYear.mp3

Birds of Relocation is the new album from Eric Peters and by his own description it is “shockingly bright.” Then again, the artist often described as authentic and vulnerable is quick to assure me that he’ll never be far from theshadowy valley. If you’ve taken in the beauty of albums like Scarce or Chrome then you realize just how beautiful Peters’ hopeful expressions amidst sorrow can truly be. Via Kickstarter, many of you enabled Eric to record Birds of Relocation, an album informed by an famous ornithologist that Eric relates to on a personal level. Here’s the story of Eric’s near-crippling journey between one album and the next and the joy he found in having you all along with him. RR: In the past year, your need to create has branched out quite a bit. Why do you think that is? EP: In 2010 and 2011, I read a couple of books that greatly affected, encouraged and, honestly, changed me, or at least drew me out of my self-built confines. My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok and Richard Rhodes’ excellent biography of ornithologist, failed entrepreneur, and artist, John James Audubon each revealed and awakened something in me that, because I was either too dense, too dark, or too oblivious, I had avoided simply on the grounds that I was afraid–or if not from fear, then from my penchant for lending an ear to the foul voices in my head. I was afraid to try something new, like painting. I’m drawn to color. I need light. Vincent Van Gogh’s paintings, with those bright, short, bold strokes, set off mesmerizing, vivid scenes of swirling, breathing movement. The shades, the textures, the colors, the light–my word. It was ultimately in reading Audubon’s story that I recognized a bit of myself: his love for birds and being outdoors, his early failure as a businessman, his fight to keep hoping amid depression post-bankruptcy, and, thankfully, his ultimate decision to lean into his talents of drawing and painting, which led to his self-publishing an immense seven-volume work, The Birds of America, an opus that took him fourteen years to complete. By leaning into the talent he loved and knew he possessed, he trusted himself to his art, to his craft, and, I believe, it made him a better man. At the very least, he left the world works of lasting beauty. “Hopes are shy birds,” he wrote in his journal, “seldom reached by the best of guns.” For me, painting is a new expression, one that I don’t profess to be particularly skilled or talented at, but one that’s a joy nonetheless. I’m finding that I paint very much like I write songs: big scenes, quick and short strokes, abstract and arcane at times, but with every new glance the work reveals a new layer that, at first, might have gone unnoticed. I’m so grateful for this season, this ripe, fruitful time, to proclaim, “To hell with fear,” to move–to MOVE!–this is such a vital aspect of my story, to hack away at the bonds of crippling mental paralysis. I might very well fail, but I’m going to try to move, for my movements dismantle hell, its lies, its plaguing voices, its breaths of fear. RR: In the past few years you’ve been through some dark places in your life and a lot of that went into your last album, Chrome. Do you feel like you’re on the far side of that valley now? Is this record an answer to those old struggles? EP: Birds of Relocation, in many ways, feels like a response, a bright and vibrant reply to Chrome. This is my ninth studio album, and it’s quite possibly the most thematically cohesive and consistent of them all. I look on these eleven new songs and marvel at their mere existence, how they came to be, the places and depths from where they came, their playful levity, their breadth, their thrill at being, their not giving up on me–their life. By now I’ve learned that I am never, and never will be, far away from that valley. For better or worse it’s the nature of who I am, the way of my brain’s workings, its faulty connections and misgivings. But light, as we know, can explore and explode its way into the darkest of darks, illuminating long lost, forgotten, or cringing hope. From the dawn of my songwriting days, I have written about the waxing and waning of hope–some things won’t change–but with this album I feel that presence, the reality of actual life, a contentedness of soul. There is a sadness that never ventures far from my side; I don’t know why, I don’t know where it comes from, but it’s always present with me, loitering. The question is a matter of what I do with it, how I respond, it’s the where and when of choosing to hope, which voices do I listen to and lean into. I see the songs on Birds of Relocation as heralding the beauty born out of struggle, grief, sorrow, sadness, and depression–all pointing and leading to the infiltration of long-awaited light. RR: You used the phrase that you never will be far away from that valley. Is this the first album that you’ve been settled into that idea? EP: I believe so, yes. Though it was not easily identifiable to me early on, it is a reality I have slowly been learning about myself since the writing and recording of Scarce (2006) when I felt my general depression began to clearly make its presence known in my songs. 2008-2009 was a mentally brutal year. Friends had affairs, there was a rapid trilogy of deaths in our family, there were hurricanes, I was struggling to find work even though I had just released a brand new album (Chrome, 2009), and I bore what, at the time, felt like the humilitation of having to take a temp job and having to deal with general career disappointment. Couple all that with my chronic low self-esteem and my learning how to be a parent to two very young boys who seemed more like wedges than bonds between me and my wife. I reached a low–though pivotal–point during the summer of 2010 when my anxiety and darkness crippled me nearly to the point of being unable to function. I remember at one point not being able to physically move, think clearly, or make any decisions, thinking assuredly–and believing it–that, with the exception of my wife and boys, the world would be better off without me, that I was inconsequential, and that no one would care if I were gone. I immediately called a very dear psychiatrist friend of mine who had reached out to me earlier that year, and I asked for help. To ask for help is humbling. I began seeing a counselor late that summer, and soon thereafter I went on medication. These actions changed my life. Though I’m still susceptible–I never expected to be cured–I have a clearer thought process now. I’m more consistent. I’m less prone to utter apathy and acedia. I’m able to enjoy my life more. In short, I’m able to be grateful. Seeing clearly is a new grace. The apostle Paul had his “thorn,” which he wrote would be with him his entire life; mine happens to be depression. I’m prepared to walk on with that thorn in my side, but now I’m armed with age, knowledge, hindsight, modern medicine, dear friends, and a wife whose grace has been incalculable. I have the necessary components to function. These eleven new songs are shockingly bright. I’m just glad folks are willing to go on the ride with me, to follow me through the dark. RR: That’s beautiful to hear about the songs being “shockingly bright”. Do you have a favorite example from the new album? EP: “The New Year” caught me off guard in a really pleasant way. The song feels like an addendum to another of the new songs, “The Old Year,” an exclamation point, a sort of “I’m staking my claim,” anthemic and epic. My producer, Ben Shive, was a huge part of bringing that out. RR: After Chrome, I’m assuming there was a legitimate thought of setting the guitar down. Was there a point where you considered leaving music, as a career, behind? EP: I’m always thinking I need to hang it up, or find a stable nine-to-five. And then I think, for good reason, that a cubicle job would ruin and crush me. Apologies for the melodrama, but in some ways I believe that would be true for me. I hear people speak of their “callings” and their assuredness in them. I can’t say I can always relate to that level of confidence. Some days I feel I am doing what I am absolutely born to do; then other, darker, days, when there are no shows on the calendar, or I go months without an adequate paycheck, I wonder what on earth I am doing wasting my life, or wasting anyone’s time with my so-called art. As narcissistic as this sounds, the reality is that I enjoy writing songs that I would want to listen to over and over again. It doesn’t make a bit of sense to me to write songs that cater to a certain crowd, group, or demographic. I can’t be that person. I can only be Eric Peters, a.k.a., Pappy, Eeyore, glass half-empty guy. Ha, that probably explains much of my commercial failure, eh? RR: Can you give us an idea of what you felt when the Kickstarter campaign became successful and you crossed that threshold? EP: Relief. The initial push during the first two weeks was thrilling, then there was about a week-and-a-half (of a four week campaign) where it nearly stalled, and I was only halfway to the goal ($12,000). In my typical Eeyore, Pappy way, I immediately conjured a worst case scenario: I was going to be the first of my friends to fail to reach their goal. Figuring nobody cared anymore, I would hang it up, get a job flipping burgers, and move on with life. Thankfully it didn’t play out that way, and I have this opportunity to share eleven new songs with people. It was probably more stressful than I should have made it, but in the end it was gratifying to know that folks do, indeed, care about my music. RR: Any concrete plans after the release? EP: No immediate, major plans, other than to embark on what I’m hoping will be a lengthy fall CD release tour, ideally with a small band to help bring these songs to form. In the meantime, I will continue painting, taking photos, and offering the fruit of that work for sale on my website. And let us not forget Good Neighbor Lawncare, my side business. #BirdsofRelocation #EricPeters

According to C.S. Lewis, a scholar faces three enemies during a time of war. As I was reading through those tonight, I realized they are also the three enemies most of us face in the “war” of our day-to-day lives. I’ve selected a few quotes for your perusal. If you want to read the rest, check out his essay “Learning in War-Time” collected in The Weight of Glory. The first enemy is excitement–the tendency to think and feel about the war when we had intended to think about our work. The best defence is a recognition that in this, as in everything else, the war has not really raised up a new enemy but only aggravated an old one. There are always plenty of rivals to our work. We are always falling in love or quarrelling, looking for jobs or fearing to lose them, getting ill and recovering, following public affairs. If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavourable. Favourable conditions never come. … The second enemy is frustration–the feeling that we shall not have time to finish. If I say to you that no one has time to finish, that the longest human life leaves a man, in any branch of leaning, a beginner, I shall seem to you to be saying something quite academic and theoretical. You would be surprised if you knew how soon one begins to feel the shortness of the tether, of how many things, even in the middle of life, we have to say ‘No time for that,’ ‘Too late now,’ and ‘Not for me.’ But Nature herself forbids you to share that experience. A more Christian attitude which can be attained at any age, is that of leaving futurity in God’s hands. … The third enemy is fear. War threatens us with death and pain. No man– and specially no Christian who remembers Gethsemane — need try to attain a stoic indifference about these things, but we can guard against the illusions of the imagination. We think of the streets of Warsaw and contrast the deaths there suffered with an abstraction called Life. But there is no question of death or life for any of us, only a question of this death or of that — of a machine gun bullet now or a cancer forty years later. What does war to do to death? It certainly does not make it more frequent; 100 percent of us die, and the percentage cannot be increased. [This post originally appeared on Rebecca’s excellent blog, Little Boots Liturgies.]

Have you ever read a book you enjoyed so much that you delayed finishing it, even to an absurd extreme? I’m reading a book like that now, The Dragon’s Tooth, by one of my favorite living authors, N.D. Wilson. It’s not really a life-changing book (as his Notes From the Tilt-a-Whirl is), but sometimes that’s better. It’s a really fun, true-hearted book. And that’s what I need right now. But do I need to end it? My full reading attention is not on The Dragon’s Tooth right now. We recently had a lovely baby girl. Well, I suppose it was mostly my wife who had her. But I was there, cutting cords like a very minor celebrity at the grand opening of a new human. (I had other responsibilities as well.) I’ll spare you the litany of excuses as to why I haven’t finished this book. But, for now, the last fifty pages hang out there like an unresolved note. A little tense, but playfully inviting. Promising. I love that it’s out there, waiting to be read. I don’t feel a great need to rush in and end it. But this isn’t exactly novel for me. I realize this is something I sometimes do. I am comfortable, at times, with not finishing some of my favorite books right away. I want the experience to extend, to freeze time in the grand, cooperative world of the author’s words and my imaginary visions. I find myself not wanting this union to end, forestalling the time when we once again break up into our various confederacies. Stay with me, Dear Story, just a little while longer. I hate spoilers. I will employ the irritating “La-la-la! I can’t hear you!” method of disrupting a person’s blabbing revelations of a book they wish to discuss in more detail than is appropriate in mixed company. (Mixed between the Have-enjoyeds and As-of-yet-have-not-enjoyeds –groups that should only be mixed under careful, sterile, laboratory conditions.) But hey, if you’re like me, and you sometimes don’t finish what you started, then no worries. Another Human Bean: “Have you read The Dragon’s Tooth by N.D. Wilson?” Sam Smith: “Yeah, I love that book.” Another Human Bean: “Don’t spoil the ending for me.” Sam Smith: “Don’t worry.” But really, there are very few books that fit into this category. The Dragon’s Tooth is excellent, but another part of my delay in finishing it is that the sequel is coming out soon. I’m shortening my inter-series wait every day that I don’t finish the book. But seriously. There’s one book in my library which I have read twice, and recommended to probably fifty people. But there’s something I haven’t told those fifty people. A small qualifier to my statement that I’ve “read the book.” I haven’t been able to read the last few pages. The book moved me, very deeply moved me. When I first read it, it got to me (masculine disguise language for you-know-what) multiple times. I felt like I couldn’t handle whatever she was going to say at the end. She had me in her heart, or I had her in mine, and she wasn’t even a scientifically “real” person. But she was and is real. Hannah Coulter is real. Am I crazy? Maybe this reveals an unwillingness to accept reality and the different stages of life, like the aging of children, the death of grandparents. I’ll ‘fess up to that. Maybe I’m a coward, unwilling to forgo the guidance of the author, saying, “Hold my hand a little longer, won’t you?” Lewis said, “We read to know we’re not alone.” And we’re not, but we can feel like it when we read, “The End.” Then it’s back to our own story, which is shaped by the one we just finished. We are all we have ever read, and more. Not alone, but sometimes lonely. I know the end is never really an end, but that we’re left to our own imagined ever-afters. I need to grow up and finish reading Hannah Coulter. I need to go to her deathbed and hear her last words. Maybe, as with Jacob, there’s an arms-crossed blessing to be had. But I think I’ll remain convinced that finishing a wonderful book, or a fantastic series, is one of the happiest sad things we do. Do you do this? Or, do you have any other reading quirks? I’ll read your comments to (hopefully) know I’m not alone. (Image above: Joel Courtney –he of Super 8– in a still from The Dragon’s Tooth book trailer.)

Last summer I was at my trusty Starbucks working on a Rabbit Room post when I got a phone call that changed the last five months of my life. It was my manager, Christie, asking if I’d be interested in going on tour with Steven Curtis Chapman. I remember pacing outside, processing the invitation. I knew I had to say yes, but I tried to play it cool and told her I had to think about it. In truth, I did have to think about it, but only because I was so excited; knee-jerk excitement can lead to bad decision making, and I wanted to be sure that it was the right thing for my family. I came home for lunch and told Jamie about it, and her knee-jerk excitement affirmed my own. A day or two later I accepted the invitation and not long after that the Songs and Stories tour with Steven and Josh Wilson was confirmed. To make the deal even sweeter, Steven asked Ben Shive to be his piano player for the tour, which meant I would be on the road with one of my best friends. I spent the rest of the summer and fall swinging between disbelief and mounting excitement until the day I showed up for rehearsal. Contrary to my cynical expectation that the tour would somehow fall through, I was undeniably there, in the rehearsal studio with Steven and Josh and a world class band. The Crew Today I’m sitting in Starbucks again, this time in Lakeland, Florida, a day away from the end of the tour, trying to think of a way to sum up the last forty-five shows. It would be easy to write a full post about each of the 12 other guys on this tour: Tyler Cook, the guitar tech (and member of the band Neulore), who, when he’s not tuning one of the 5,000 guitars, is usually reading something by Dostoevsky; my friend Harold Reubens, who runs the front-of-house audio with astonishing skill and humility (as he does on the Behold the Lamb tour); Michael Pierce, one of the production crew, who’s as quick with his one liners as he is to serve; Jesse Blinn, Show Hope advocate and road manager, who never seems to run out of kindness or energy; Casey Webber, who has been my own road manager off an on for a few years, managed the ridiculous amount merchandise and joyfully coordinated all the Show Hope volunteers; Tony Fransen, the lighting designer and production manager, whose burst of laughter could be heard from almost anywhere in the building throughout the day. The Band Then there’s the band: bass player Brent Milligan, a crazy talented, artful producer and player, who encouraged me more than he knows; drummer Ken Lewis, who never missed a beat and never failed to crack me up, inspired me with his passion for the church and his family; and of course, there’s dear old Ben Shive whose friendship and camaraderie to me are impossible to overstate (as are his talents). Josh Wilson, he of the incredible beard and mad guitar skills, was delightful. He’s a fellow preacher’s kid, so I have a feeling he and I would have been friends in junior high, and would have probably gotten in a lot of trouble together. One of my favorite parts of the tour was the deep conversations we had about songwriting and community, about doubt, and faith, and gratitude. The Point Man The point man on the tour, though, was Steven. He’s the one carrying a 3 hour show, doing interviews every day, talking about Show Hope, meeting adopted families every night, recording, writing, and treating each of us kindly in spite of his crazy schedule. Quite a few people have asked me how on earth I ended up on this tour. If you read the first paragraph of this post, you have the short answer: I got a phone call. The longer, truer answer is that the Lord out of his great goodness, blessed me with the friendship of a good man. I’ve jokingly referred to this tour in interviews as my own personal “Steven Curtis Chapman Appreciation Tour”. I didn’t grow up paying much attention to Christian music, but it’s hard not to know who Steven is. At some point, most of us have heard his music, whether it was someone singing “I Will Be Here” at a wedding, or a duo covering “Listen to Our Hearts” at church, or cranking “The Great Adventure” when it came on the radio. He’s had more number one singles and more Dove Awards than any other Christian artist, which is truly remarkable, whatever you may think of those kinds of stats. The Third Option And yet, though everyone seems to know him, I’ve never heard a single negative story about the guy. I’ve been in Nashville for 15 years now, and, well, you tend to hear less-than-flattering stories about folks from time to time (I’m sure there are a few about me floating around out there), but I have yet to hear one of those about Steven. What that might lead a rascal like me to conclude is that either a) Steven is so squeaky-clean he must be hard to like or b) he’s a complete wreck and he’s hiding it. I didn’t realize until this tour was underway that there’s a third option. Here it is: Steven is a wreck, he’s not hiding it, and because of the mighty presence of Jesus in his life, grace abounds to those around him. It’s the great, confounding reversal of the Gospel of Jesus. If the word we preach is one of attainable perfection, of law, of justification by works, then when we fail, our testimony fails with it. But if we preach our deep brokenness and Christ’s deeper healing, if we preach our inability to take a single breath but for God’s grace, then our weakness exalts him and we’re functioning as we were meant to since the foundation of the world. Steven isn’t super-human. He’s just human. But what a glorious thing to be! An attempt on our part to be super-human will result only in our in-humanness–like a teacup trying to be a fork: useless. But if the teacup will just be a teacup, it will be filled. Humans were made (as was everything under the sun) for the glory of the Maker. Why should we try to be anything but fully human? Let God fill us up and pour us out; let him do what he will, let us be what we were meant to be. That gives us the freedom to sing about what’s really happening in our hearts without being afraid of sullying the good name of God. If our hearts are contending with the forces of darkness, clinging desperately to the hope of a Savior, then to sing boldly about the battle is no shame to us and all glory to our King. The proof is in the pudding. Everyone I know in Nashville who knows Steven has said to me something like, “I love Steven. He’s a good man.” But from the first week of the tour I discovered that Steven isn’t a good man. He’s as sinful as the rest of us. He wears his weakness on his sleeve. He’s quick to share his pain and his struggle. That doesn’t make him mopey–he’s quick to share his joy, too. But what’s so wonderfully subversive about the Gospel is that our ability to honestly bear our grief and woundedness just makes room for God’s grace to cast light on all that shadow; it makes room for us to love each other. When we encounter that kind of grace we come away remembering not just the sin but, overwhelmingly, the goodness, and the grace, and we say, “I love that guy. He’s a good man.” What we’re really saying is, “I love that guy. God is so good.” The Vav Principle Most of us know about the accidental death of Steven and Mary Beth’s daughter, Maria. It’s a tragedy that didn’t just happen four years ago, but as anyone who’s dealt with grief will tell you, it’s a tragedy that’s happening now. Death has no place in this world, and it’s right for us to feel its wrongness. But every night for more than forty concerts I’ve stood in the wings and watched Steven sing (often through tears) about God’s trustworthiness. I’ve watched him tell thousands about his pain, heard him remind the audience of the promise of Heaven and the peace of Christ. He rewrote a verse for his song “Yours” after his daughter’s death: I’ve walked the valley of death’s shadow So deep and dark that I can barely breathe I’ve had to let go of more than I can bear And I’ve questioned everything that I believed But even here in this great darkness There’s a comfort and a hope that’s breaking through So I can say even in life or in death, God, we belong to you It’s hard to imagine more honest writing. But it isn’t just honest. It’s faithful. And that’s what’s inspired me that most. Father Thomas McKenzie said in his recent Rabbit Room Podcast that there’s a faithful kind of doubting and an unfaithful kind of doubting. The unfaithful kind sees doubt as evidence that Christianity is a farce and should be dismissed. The faithful kind of doubting costs us something. It harnesses the questions like a sail in the wind and drives us on rather than away. It reminds me of Chesterton’s quote: Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried. One of the beautiful paradoxes of Christianity is that it is at once incredibly simple and infinitely intricate. Faith bridges the chasm between our understanding and the truth we feel in our bones. Michael Card’s book A Sacred Sorrow talks about the Hebrew word vav. It’s a word that means “and yet”, and is a crucial ingredient in almost every lament in scripture. Again and again, when you read the psalms, you hear the psalmist crying out against God, shaking his fist at the skies, demanding justice, wailing and abandoned, all but accusing God of being unworthy of our worship–basically, the psalmist is throwing a fit. Then, as if he’s exhausted himself, he says vav. “And yet, I will praise the Lord.” In spite of all evidence to the contrary, I believe in my bones that you are good. Your intentions for me are loving and kind. I believe in your presence though it feels like you have forsaken me. And yet. And yet. And yet. Those two desperate words may be the most faithful prayer we ever pray, and our most triumphant battle cry, though we whisper them through tears. That’s been the greatest gift of this tour to me: Steven’s example of faith and faithful doubting. He doesn’t just stand on the stage and talk about the death of his little girl and his family’s continuing pain–he follows it up with vav. Every night when Steven closes the show with “Blessed Be the Name of the Lord,” it’s like he’s bellowing “And yet!”, and he does it with authority, because we can all sense what it costs him to say it. “You give and take away! Blessed be the name of the Lord!” More than once I have thought, “This wouldn’t make sense if the Gospel weren’t true. But there it is.” I have felt more than once that we’re in a battle, and that Steven is the commander of our little unit, waving the flag of God’s goodness in the face of the darkness. And I have felt more than once that I would take a bullet for him. I’m grateful beyond expression that Steven invited me on this tour. Let this meandering post be my thank you to him and to the band and crew that worked so hard and so well to make every concert happen, if only to make space for the “and yet” to be proclaimed every night. It was my honor to have worked with such good men to tell such a great story.

I am fickle. I am also dramatic. The combination of the two often leads me to make inane decisions and impulsive choices. That’s the reason I took four full months to make the decision to leave the church that I founded eight years ago. The Mercy House has provided my identity for almost a full decade now: serving and shepherding and living life alongside the most creative, missional, loving community of people I could ever hope for. The Sunday morning gathering was often the last thing we worried about in leadership meetings because everyone was so busy with ministry throughout the rest of the week. In short, I had the easiest job any pastor could hope for. But my time had been coming. For the last couple of years, I’ve journaled about a longing to write full-time. Book ideas were written down but never spoken aloud. New endeavors were silently hoped for as an introverted side began to emerge–much to the surprise of my extroverted, church-planting, social butterfly self of old. Those thoughts were always deemed foolish, selfish, childish or, at the very least, something to get to later. But for the last four months, I’ve considered the leaving that just happened this last Sunday. “More than a season” is what I knew I needed if I were going to be able to trust my instincts. And for four full months, I wrestled silently and maintained a steady resolve that it was time for me to go. The church was in great shape, new leadership was ready (and desiring) to take over. The exit would be seamless. Then came the last two months of notice I gave the church. The date that I would leave my post, March 4, was coming up. From the outset, everyone was so supportive. “We’re so excited for you. We love you. We support you. Can’t wait to see what God has for you in this new phase of life.” Those were the statements from all corners of the church community coming in the form of cards, e-mails, phone calls, and meals together. It was echoed this last Sunday when I felt the love and support of a community telling me it was my turn to step out and follow a calling that God had for me, even if it took me away. Then came the fear. Yes, the fear. I knew it would come. I told those closest to me to expect it. They would ask, “How are you doing with everything?” I would respond, “I’m excited about this new step, but I know I won’t always feel that way.” Why? Because the fear always comes. Forty-eight hours ago, I was giddy with excitement to finally be able to write about long-held ideas. In fact, I recently read through an old journal from five years ago. On a trip to Ireland, I’d marked the exact same “Write This Someday” list that I still have today. But now everything feels different. It’s hard not to cave to the fear. I’m sure you know the questions: What have I done? Did I make the right move? Even worse are the statements: No one will care what you do next. Nice job. You just abandoned any platform or influence you have. It was all enough to make me wonder if I could secretly run in on my last Sunday and declare, “Just joking!” Could I get my job back? Can I take a mulligan? While I knew that was silly, I also wondered whether I should start looking for another ministry job or even a “regular job.” Never mind that I had built up enough freelance work to write full-time in the first place (so it’s not a total faith-filled leap with me at a desk in a cabin in some woodlands wondering where I’ll find my next meal), I just know that I am scared of it all. Quick aside: This is nothing new for me. I once went away for a four day monastic retreat to pray, write, and create some space in my life. I fled after ninety minutes. (I wrote about it here at the RR about four years ago.) For the first time since I can remember, I now have space. For the first time, I will have the room to chase all of the goals I say that I’ve held. For the first time, I have to follow through. I am always so inspired when the rest of you follow through. I read posts about a man writing songs about being an astronaut and know that I have my own ship waiting for me to board. The songwriters, poets, authors and creators here of all types have been a source of inspiration for me since the outset of the Rabbit Room, but only to the point where I nodded my head and thought, “Someday.” Now that I’m past the point of excuse, I find that I don’t want to do this after all. Only I know that I do. Today is the first day of my new life, and here I sit: coffee in my Rabbit Room mug, The Murph is in the printer (my weird cat who oddly sleeps inside the printer tray anytime I write), laptop ready. Suddenly I don’t want to be here. I know enough to know that we often don’t want to be in the place where obedience becomes necessary. I also know this is where I am supposed to be. At this point all I can do is trust and hope the things that I write find their own platform. And even if they don’t, I have a feeling that it wouldn’t be the worst thing if they end up as text files on a hard drive on some old computer. The point here is about the journey and I suppose it’s time I start my next one.

I could tell by the tone of my mother’s voice that something had happened–-even over the phone I sensed the gentle sadness–-and I knew with a pang of kindred sorrow what it was. Aunt Ruth had died. Quietly, my mother told me, in her sleep. 104 years old and the last of my grandmother’s sisters. The last of a generation that was mighty upon the earth. I never thought the Aunts would die. It never seriously occurred to me to fear it–they were too foundational to the proper functioning of the world in general and my life in particular: like Corinthian columns fluted and lovely and made to bear the enormous weight of life with seemingly effortless grace, especially in such a precision of placement as these five sisters had aligned themselves. Even frail little Aunt Ruth, an invalid these forty years, had borne her load manfully, with a core of iron and steel beneath her thin housecoat. Out of all these mighty pillars only she had remained, her faded, almost transparent little body but thinly veiling the light and fire of a still-vibrant mind within. And now she was gone, too. The last time I saw her was on a broiling day in late August, nearly as stifling indoors as out in typical Deep South fashion. But it was a warmth that enveloped me like an embrace and distilled with it the essence of summer days long-ago but not lost. We came in through the kitchen and the scent assailed me even more potently than the heat had done, for it was precisely the smell of every other Aunt’s kitchen, a kind-of incense of sausage and cornmeal and Wesson oil, with simmering field peas thrown into the mix. (Grandma’s kitchen always seemed heavier on the sausage-side for some reason, and Aunt Tiny’s, of course, was imbued with the perfume of caramel icing.) Though there were no field peas simmering that day, nor any other indication of domestic activity, there had been enough over the years, I imagine, to steep the very walls with nourishing aromas so that they exuded a collective memorial of the sovereigns in print aprons that had presided there for so long. Aunt Ruth was lost in a recliner and a pale green afghan and her eyes wandered listlessly while the conversation went on because she could hear so little of it and see nothing at all. But the minute my mother asked for a tale or a reminiscence from the past those eyes came to life. They sparkled; they shone like a girl’s in the first headiness of youth. The little hands worked excitedly and the honey-sweet voice droned on and on about the old days with a lilting that was like music. She told us about the first automobiles that they saw down on the river roads, and how every time a car went past their old farmhouse it would honk for sheer neighborliness and all the children would come running out to see it and wave. How the first time she drove a car herself she was twelve years old and her mother was sick and she had to go and get her daddy. How on her honeymoon in ’29, she and Uncle Bugg drove to Washington D.C. in a red Ford Roadster and went up for a tour in an airplane. She spun a magic that afternoon in her simple words so fraught with happy remembrance, so that the steamboats on the Altamaha wavered into existence once more and plied their course through the murky waters. And the live oaks that arched over the deep tram road down in the swamp rang with the voices of children long-since departed, swinging across the chasm like so many monkeys. Even the terror of the stunt flier that crashed into the Number One bridge before their very eyes when they were picnicking on the river as a family had a certain conjuring of grotesquerie about it, like something one might encounter within the pages of Flannery O’Connor. Her manner changed with the telling of that tale; her voice dropped low and the bright eyes were hooded with an unforgotten horror. A dark thread amid the brighter ones, throwing color and joy and light and goodness into sharp relief. Philip fed her just the right sort of questions, shouting politely across the room, and the glances he and I exchanged expressed our mutual enjoyment. How often, after all, does one have the opportunity to spend the afternoon with someone who can boast of over 100 years’ worth of experience in this world? And yet, as we sat in Aunt Ruth’s parlor that day we could have been in the ‘Front Room’ of any of the Aunts. There were the same 1950’s-era portraits of long-since grown children on the wall, the same best furniture, the same aura of gentility and dignity. Each of the sisters’ homes had their own unique stamp, but some indefinable likeness in Aunt Ruth’s parlor invoked all of them at once. From this distance they all seem to have been painted the same pale, limey green, though I know they were not: Aunt Tiny’s was splashed with the color of her bold and vivid oil paintings, and Aunt Babe’s had pale carpet which was stiff on bare legs and religiously unsoiled. Grandma’s had marble-topped tables and a beautiful antique lamp dangling with crystal prisms which was the absolute only thing in her house she ever worried about us breaking. Nevertheless a uniform impression of coolness reigned on those sultry afternoons when we’d sit in state in one or another of them and give an account for ourselves: our grades–first in preeminence–and then our music and perhaps our ballet recitals or tennis matches. (Too many ‘extra-curriculars’ were somewhat suspect, the general consensus being summed up in my grandmother’s fear that we might be ‘jack of all trades; master of none’.) And they wanted to know about our friends, which says the world of their genuine interest in our lives. My grandmother knew every one of my friends by name, though she’d never met most of them, and she kept such a detailed mental account of them that whenever we talked she could ask me if Jenifer was still in the marching band or where Ann was going to school or if Amanda and her new husband had bought a house, a fact which, naturally, I took for granted at the time, as we do some of the most precious and genuine things in life, but which strikes me now with a sweet stab of belated gratitude. (We didn’t always sit in the Front Room, of course. Only on such calls of ceremonial reckoning. On other occasions we’d settle comfortably in rockers and recliners under the ceiling fan in the den, or in aluminum folding chairs out in the back yard. But no matter where you ended up, you always came in through the kitchen. No one ever entered an Aunt’s house any other way. And no one ever knocked–a bang of the screened door and a trilling “Yoo-hoo!” was the only announcement that was required.) I was in a state of resolute bliss that August afternoon at Aunt Ruth’s, overwhelmed alike with her memories and my own, and every sense sated with time-erasing impressions. I clung to the moments almost desperately, dreading the time when we had to go, back on the highway, back to the city and the present age and the noise and confusion and hurry. I wanted to be a little girl again with a new piece to perform on Aunt Ruth’s piano–always a bit trying as I was constantly reminded that Aunt Ruth had done the very elegant and appropriate thing of going to Conservatory. (Though I really think as a child that I had some nebulous notion of Aunt Ruth sitting in a starched white dress in a room of potted palms and tall windows.) It would have been wildly inappropriate for any of her sisters to have done something so purely ornamental; but for Aunt Ruth it fit her personality like a fine, kid-leather glove. The whole afternoon was a gift, a window opened mercifully, if briefly, upon my past, granting me glimpses of things I thought vanished forever. Aunt Ruth was enough like my grandmother, in voice, in appearance, even–though so shrunken and tiny–to make me believe for one sweet moment that a beneficent Providence had brought her before me once more. I wanted to throw my arms around Aunt Ruth’s neck that afternoon, and kiss her wrinkled cheek in tearful greeting, for Grandma’s sake, and for her own self-effacement in looking so much like her to me. That’s what I was doing inside as I knelt beside her chair and pressed the beautiful claw-like hands that were once so proficient in Chopin and Schubert in my own young ones. For even now, so many years after Grandma’s death, it’s only the irrefutable sight of her tombstone that makes me realize she’s really gone. And Aunt Babe laid to rest just down the way. Aunt Mary Mac nearby and Aunt Tiny over the hill. And now, at the last, little Aunt Ruth, sleeping beside her parents till that trumpet of the Lord rouses them all together. It just cannot be. These were the Immortals. These were the Amazons: diminutive ladies with their cool, fresh front parlors and their very decided opinions on the cut of a roast and the year’s crop of mustard greens and the latest Washington politics and the dispensations of the young lives in their charges–lives loved better than their own. They are the stuff of legend, and fittingly so. For the world will not see their like again.

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

Someone pointed me to this letter the other day, and the author (James K. A. Smith, Professor of Philosophy at Calvin College) gave us permission to re-post it here. As someone who has been in hundreds of churches over the years, I resonate with much of what Smith says. I’ve wanted to write something similar before, but didn’t because I didn’t want it to be seen as some veiled critique of my own church—a church I love. This is a touchy subject, and it’s easy to get opinionated without affording much grace toward the music leaders. I agreed to lead the songs one Sunday at our church a few years ago, and by the time I had chosen the songs, learned the songs, chosen the keys, prepared the slides, called the band, rehearsed with the band, soundchecked with the band, and played in the service I was exhausted. My week was shot. I learned two things: 1) music leaders at churches work harder than most people realize, and 2) never agree to lead songs at church again if you hope to get anything else done that week. However, it doesn’t do to keep silent if something’s really detrimental to the spiritual nourishment of the church. I’ll just come right out and say that I happen to agree with all three of his main points. What do you think? An Open Letter to Praise Bands, by James K. A. Smith Dear Praise Band, I so appreciate your willingness and desire to offer up your gifts to God in worship. I appreciate your devotion and celebrate your faithfulness–schlepping to church early, Sunday after Sunday, making time for practice mid-week, learning and writing new songs, and so much more. Like those skilled artists and artisans that God used to create the tabernacle (Exodus 36), you are willing to put your artistic gifts in service to God. So please receive this little missive in the spirit it is meant: as an encouragement to reflect on the practice of “leading worship.” It seems to me that you are often simply co-opted into a practice without being encouraged to reflect on its rationale, its “reason why.” In other words, it seems to me that you are often recruited to “lead worship” without much opportunity to pause and reflect on the nature of “worship” and what it would mean to “lead.” In particular, my concern is that we, the church, have unwittingly encouraged you to simply import musical practices into Christian worship that–while they might be appropriate elsewhere–are detrimental to congregational worship. More pointedly, using language I first employed in Desiring the Kingdom, I sometimes worry that we’ve unwittingly encouraged you to import certain forms of performance that are, in effect, “secular liturgies” and not just neutral “methods.” Without us realizing it, the dominant practices of performance train us to relate to music (and musicians) in a certain way: as something for our pleasure, as entertainment, as a largely passive experience. The function and goal of music in these “secular liturgies” is quite different from the function and goal of music in Christian worship. So let me offer just a few brief axioms with the hope of encouraging new reflection on the practice of “leading worship”: 1. If we, the congregation, can’t hear ourselves, it’s not worship. Christian worship is not a concert. In a concert (a particular “form of performance”), we often expect to be overwhelmed by sound, particularly in certain styles of music. In a concert, we come to expect that weird sort of sensory deprivation that happens from sensory overload, when the pounding of the bass on our chest and the wash of music over the crowd leaves us with the rush of a certain aural vertigo. And there’s nothing wrong with concerts! It’s just that Christian worship is not a concert. Christian worship is a collective, communal, congregational practice–and the gathered sound and harmony of a congregation singing as one is integral to the practice of worship. It is a way of “performing” the reality that, in Christ, we are one body. But that requires that we actually be able to hear ourselves, and hear our sisters and brothers singing alongside us. When the amped sound of the praise band overwhelms congregational voices, we can’t hear ourselves sing–so we lose that communal aspect of the congregation and are encouraged to effectively become “private,” passive worshipers. 2. If we, the congregation, can’t sing along, it’s not worship. In other forms of musical performance, musicians and bands will want to improvise and “be creative,” offering new renditions and exhibiting their virtuosity with all sorts of different trills and pauses and improvisations on the received tune. Again, that can be a delightful aspect of a concert, but in Christian worship it just means that we, the congregation, can’t sing along. And so your virtuosity gives rise to our passivity; your creativity simply encourages our silence. And while you may be worshiping with your creativity, the same creativity actually shuts down congregational song. 3. If you, the praise band, are the center of attention, it’s not worship. I know it’s generally not your fault that we’ve put you at the front of the church. And I know you want to model worship for us to imitate. But because we’ve encouraged you to basically import forms of performance from the concert venue into the sanctuary, we might not realize that we’ve also unwittingly encouraged a sense that you are the center of attention. And when your performance becomes a display of your virtuosity–even with the best of intentions–it’s difficult to counter the temptation to make the praise band the focus of our attention. When the praise band goes into long riffs that you might intend as “offerings to God,” we the congregation become utterly passive, and because we’ve adopted habits of relating to music from the Grammys and the concert venue, we unwittingly make you the center of attention. I wonder if there might be some intentional reflection on placement (to the side? leading from behind?) and performance that might help us counter these habits we bring with us to worship. Please consider these points carefully and recognize what I am not saying. This isn’t just some plea for “traditional” worship and a critique of “contemporary” worship. Don’t mistake this as a defense of pipe organs and a critique of guitars and drums (or banjos and mandolins). My concern isn’t with style, but with form: What are we trying to do when we “lead worship?” If we are intentional about worship as a communal, congregational practice that brings us into a dialogical encounter with the living God–that worship is not merely expressive but also formative–then we can do that with cellos or steel guitars, pipe organs or African drums. Much, much more could be said. But let me stop here, and please receive this as the encouragement it’s meant to be. I would love to see you continue to offer your artistic gifts in worship to God who is teaching us a new song. Most sincerely, Jamie You can read more from the author at his blog. Many thanks to James for allowing us to re-post his letter.

“Yes, I have tricks in my pocket. I have things up my sleeve. But I am the opposite of a stage magician. He gives you illusion that has the appearance of truth. I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion.” –From The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams I sat in the theater, huddled around the stage with a hundred strangers, and watched as the narrator sauntered out of the darkness and smirked at us. Those words, the first of his opening soliloquy, made me nod and smile and whisper to myself, “I’m going to enjoy this.” I’m not sure what it is that keeps me from the theater. Every time I go, I’m glad I did. But it seems I usually hear about productions after they’ve come and gone. There’s no marquee next to the mall to remind me of what I’m missing, and there’s no stage version of a Fandango app to feed me show times and reviews. So, too often, plays by local theater companies slip by under my radar until I hear about them from someone else long after the curtain has fallen. But seeing Studio Tenn’s production of Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie and most recently, The Miracle Worker (now playing), reminded me once again what I forget all too easily: that the stage is a magical place. For all the explosions and special effects and cinematic trickery that movies offer, there is no substitute for sitting twenty feet from a cast of actors and watching their lives unfold and fall apart right there in the room with you. It’s easy to maintain emotional distance from an eighty foot movie screen, but when you sit in front of a gifted actress and watch her weep, hear her heaving breath, see the quivering of her lips, the redness in her eyes, and the pain in her voice, there’s no getting away from it. That’s the power of the stage. It’s right in front of you. It’s inescapable. In demands your attention. Tennessee Williams knew that when he gave his narrator those words. He’s telling us that the stage may not look like a St. Louis tenement, the room may not have walls, the actors may be mere pretenders in the end, but despite all of that, something real is about to happen. Something important is going to be said. He’s going to paint a picture of the truth with a palette of illusion. And he’s going to do it right in front of our eyes. That’s a bold goal but it ought to be the mission of every storyteller no matter the medium. My job as a writer is to whittle my story down to the bare truth at its heart and then build around it the best illusions I can muster, illusions that support and even illuminate without distracting. The failure to understand this is precisely why so many films fall flat—the storyteller is enraptured by his own illusion and forgets to paint the truth. If there’s not a kernel of truth at the heart of the story, then all the action sequences, precise prose, and emotionally manipulative music on earth can’t save it. And the opposite is true as well. If your story has a solid foundation, then the audience will want desperately to believe in your illusions. They will want to believe because they’ll see the truth in the story. They’ll forget that the set doesn’t look like a St. Louis tenement or an Alabama mansion. They will pay no attention to the props as they roll onto and off of the stage. They may even forget that the theater around them exists at all, because for a precious few hours the truth is unfolding before them, inescapably, right in front of their eyes. When the lights come up at the end of the show, they’ll feel like they’ve returned from some far away place, having briefly been voyeurs at the window of another life. The truth of the story has sold the illusion. And they believe it. That’s great storytelling. That’s what every teller of every tale ought to aspire to. If you’re in the Nashville area, check out Studio Tenn’s website (www.studiotenn.com) and find out what’s playing; they’re casting spectacular illusions.