What are you looking for?

A pearl-bright morning lit the sky my first Sunday in England as I set out to find the church in the village where I spent my first few days in the UK. A walk down deserted, cobble-grey lanes brought me and a few friends to the open door of the church. The main door, sturdy as fortress gate, was still closed for “choir practice,” so we turned through a narrow entrance to our right, thinking it would lead to the balcony. But the higher we climbed, the farther went the stair, and the narrower too. Lancet windows let in a cut of light now and then, but the passage narrowed and darkened as we climbed the chipped stairs until we were almost on hands and knees at each step. Go back? Never. The height and mystery egged us on, faster and faster, until, with a startle and stumble, we arrived at a square little room. It was crammed with people. We eight joined eight more, six elderly men and two women, all of whom stared wide-eyed at our accidental intrusion. The bell pulls looked like caterpillars. But there was no time to tarry. “Mind your feet,” rasped one old man with a wild halo of grey hair.  “Stand back against the wall!” cried another in a neat, fair isle vest, his pleasant, square face red with excitement. We obeyed in an instant, wondering what was about to fill that little room. The wild-haired man nodded emphatically, catching the eye of his comrades and with a sudden coordinated movement, they were off. And it was music that filled the room, for we had stumbled upon the village bell ringers. Each held a sturdy rope threading up through a small hole in the plaster and beam ceiling and with jerks of solemn purpose, they now tugged and released. The ropes sprang upward through their hands as the bells above leapt to life and bellowed a Sunday greeting. Rosy in face and panting a little more each minute, the ringers glanced back and forth at each other, eyes quick and lit by their effort. They began to call, back and forth, with words that sounded to me like sailors guiding a ship, merry sailors steering great bell ships to the port of fine music. “Heave one!” cried the bushy-haired man, his shirt now untucked so that it billowed with every vigorous lift and tug of his arms. Round and round they all went, brisk, business-like, all self and sinew given to their work until with one great lift of his eyebrows, the serious man cried, “and HOLD!” The ropes ceased their rodent like dart into the ceiling; the bells swallowed their music and the eight solemn ringers wiped their wet brows. We peppered them back with kindled curiosity in this rare, tower world into which we had stumbled. They answered back in slow, friendly words, passing a basket of candy round and round the room. The  man with the expressive eyebrows made an eager and kindly host, proffering a binder with countless sequences of six numbers, each a tune or pattern for the bells. “There are countless permutations,” he rumbled, his face still smileless, but his blue eyes flashing interest with every peek at us they got from under his brows. “We must practice hard once a week… when the village will let us.” He rolled his eyes and the rest of them laughed and the flashing of his eyes seemed almost to provoke a smile. One glance at the clock nipped that in the bud. The time had come for the next round of music and he made a rush for his bell. “Stand back!” they started again, but this time we needed no prompting. My eyes roved more freely this time as I stood in stiff-muscled silence in the corner. The room was tiny; we sixteen filled almost every inch, but it was a tower room with a high ceiling and narrow windows sliced through the stone so that the high cool walls were washed in daylight. The sun made a muddy gold of the dust on every surface; books and papers piled on sills, old pictures impossibly crooked on the wall, their frames filled with the proud, sturdy faces of ringers past. On the stone just behind me, I found this framed prayer: Gracious Lord, source of all skill and beauty, who has entrusted to us the ringing of your bells, give to us the needful skill and grace for the faithful performing of our art, that the sound of the bells may awaken in the hearts of all who hear them the desire to worship you in spirit and in truth: through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen This last round of ringing proclaimed the start of service, so we prepared to troop down the stairs lest we be late. Our hands were cordially shaken a dozen times, more candy was pressed upon us, and, if we could ever make it back from our studies, the offer to come of a Monday evening and learn to ring the bells ourselves. If I can ever defeat the mountain of essays to be written, I just might do it. To learn “a needful skill and grace for the faithful performing of my art,” is good practice for writing, for learning. For life. And the fun of joining that merry group would be a gift in itself. Bless those bell ringers. The Oxford Chronicles: Bod Card The Oxford Chronicles: The Tutorial

If you’re not familiar with Josh Ritter’s music, here’s a piece I wrote about my discovery and ensuing fandom of his songwriting. He just released a new EP of lullabies called Bringing in the Darlings, and this video from one of the songs was fairly mind-blowing. Here’s what one of the folks at Etsy.com had to say about the making of the video: The stop-motion animation for “Love Is Making Its Way Back Home” uses photographs culled from over 12,000 pieces of construction paper to animate a nighttime drive. A team of nearly twenty artists, editors, directors and product assistants ushered the video into being. The group started with storyboarding and computer animation before converting the digital graphics to paper cutouts (frame by frame), photographing those 12,000 cutouts and then stitching them together into four minutes of paper animation. As production designer Sam Cohen said, “We had to determine ahead of time which images to cut as positives or negatives, how to anchor the cutouts to the paper frame that surrounds it so the pieces wouldn’t fall out, as well as a host of other problems. It was definitely the most labor intensive video we’ve been a part of.” It was produced by Erez Horovitz. I haven’t heard the record yet (I bought it on vinyl and am awaiting its delivery), but I dig this song in all its moody happiness. The video is inspiring in the best way. Makes me want to get busy and make something beautiful. Check out Josh’s website here.

What Is Love? Part I – Definitions What Is Love? Part II – Gethsemane Jeanne Guyon wrote, “You must see the wisdom of God’s plan in allowing . . . troubles to happen . . . There are two ways of handling little children. One is to give them all they want when they want it. Another is to give them only what is good for them so that they will grow up into maturity and not be spoiled. Your wise Father chooses the best way for you.” (Intimacy With Christ) If we are parents, giving our children a strong sense of being loved through attention and affection is the foundation. But it is also imperative to allow appropriate suffering into our children’s lives. Without it they cannot grow; without it they will be left without empathy, compassion, self-discipline, respect for authority, and will not accept responsibility for their actions. Much of this suffering will have to do with their actions. Actions have consequences; in the lives of our children, negative actions must be allowed to produce negative results. Our love must not be conditional, but we make their circumstances contingent upon their actions. A child who whines continually must be shown that whining produces a negative effect, every time – removal from the society of dad or mom to sit alone on a bed. Some suffering will have nothing to do with their actions. If my son wants something very much, and I believe it would not be beneficial or even detrimental for him to have, I should say no, no matter how good it seems to him. Other suffering has much less to do with what is good for him. Ultimately, I want him to be a benefit to others. I want him to be loving, kind, strong, creative, because I want him to love others, and benefit the world. So he must learn to get up on time; he must learn to not leave his clothes lying on the floor. He must learn to help those younger than himself, even when he doesn’t feel like it. He must do chores of some kind, and learn to do good work with a good attitude, to be a benefit to his future wife and children, and others in the world. Suffering is necessary. Now, to my son, no suffering seems pleasant or even relevant at the time. He cannot see why he must go with me to take the trash to the dump. He is reading! I am interrupting! Why can’t his sister go? It doesn’t make any sense to him. But I know that some form of having to do what he doesn’t want to do is good for him, and good for the other people in his future – wife, children, friends, co-workers, and even enemies. I am an earthly father. I am looking to my son’s eternal future, yes, but I cannot fully see the circumstances there. Mostly I am preparing him for life in this world, knowing that a man cannot always do what he wants, cannot always follow the strongest impulse, cannot long avoid taking the garbage out or getting up at a certain time or being courteous to others. My son may be called on to do great things, like providing for and raising a family, and great things require great character. If I am not preparing my son for this (and in many moments I have not), I am not loving my son. As a parent I am often to sacrifice my son’s immediate wants and desires for what I know he can and must be for others in the future. The heavenly Father has eternal goals and plans for us beyond anything we could imagine. He may be preparing us to rule cities and judge angels, or to write the new royal score for the King’s symphony. Whatever it is, it will require love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faith, humility, and moderation (the ability to go the right length and no further with our desires) – and especially courage. Why did God put his Son through an earthly life of being colored as a bastard (“We are not born of fornication. We are children of Abraham!”)? He was given to a fate of no reputation, despised, a wanderer, no place here he could call home, driven by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness alone to be tempted personally by  Satan. He was hated and persecuted endlessly by the religious leaders. His short-lived adulation by the populace came to nothing; in no time at all they were shouting “Crucify him!” And of course we know his end: mocked, hit in the face, whipped, made to carry a heavy beam on a bleeding back, then thick, dull spikes hammered through skin, piercing hands and feet, smashing through flesh and bone, tendons, nerves. More mocking and cruelty. And finally the worst – “My God, my God” (not “my Father”), “Why have you forsaken me?” This was the love of God? The Father knew the end result, saw the end from the beginning. He knew the joy suffering would produce, not only in the life of Jesus but through him flowing outward to an eternal Kingdom of saved people. But Jesus, having set aside his omniscience, had to wrestle with his humanity, his own desires, and subject them to the Father’s will. All Jesus knew was that the Father is good, and works all things after the counsel of his own will, working all things together for good to them that love God and are called according to his purpose. Jesus said, “Not my will, but thine be done. In essence, “The Father’s will is my will, too, my deepest will.” In Gethsemane, when he finally stood and walked to meet the mob, he knew within himself that he was made for this moment, knowing he was not merely a human being but a unification of the human and Divine.

Some people take on the spiritual discipline of reading a Christian book during Lent. I have been asked what books I would recommend. Here is a short list of titles I would suggest folks consider. If you have a book you would recommend, comment and let me know.Non-fiction The Prodigal God, Tim Keller Abba’s Child, Brennan Manning The Prayer Life, Andrew Murray Life of the Beloved, Henri Nouwen The Cross of Christ, John StottFiction The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis Silence, Shusaku Endo The Power and the Glory, Graham Greene Gilead, Marilynne Robinson [Editor’s note: Also great for Lent–our own Russ Ramsey’s Behold the Lamb of God: An Advent Narrative.]

Oxford may produce cool-minded academics, but I think most new students are all jitters at the first tutorial. The system of learning here is different, individual, and oh so intense at first. There are very few lectures and even those are optional. Almost all learning happens in once a week, one-on-one meetings with a professor who is an expert in your area of interest. During the tutorial hour, the student reads aloud a previously assigned essay, hears the professor’s critique, and is given a reading assignment for the next week. The day of my first one was chill and bright when I set out. A week before, I received an email instructing me to find my way to Dr. so and so’s rooms “in college,” on “this day week.” I left far too early, but this was grace, for I was swiftly lost. I wandered at least two wrong lanes in my hunt for the right college. Oxford is a series of narrow cobbled streets threaded twixt creamy, high stone walls. Massive oaken doors etched by iron studs rise every block or two amidst the stone, and behind these, like tiny, hidden cities lie the colleges. Square gardens and cloisters framed by mossy walls wait behind those doors. Cut glass windows framed in ivy look down on quads that seem set entirely apart from the world. These become fairy walks in the starlight, I’ve seen them. But as I pattered down the street that first day, I forgot that. No fairy tale was coming my way until I figured out which wall hid the right group of gardens. I finally arrived at the porter’s lodge, having hit upon the right oaken door and asked for the rooms of Dr. so and so. I was given kindly but rather vague directions. Miraculously, I found the right staircase and two minutes later, knocked with feigned confidence at my tutor’s door. Steps up to the “Rad Cam,” or officially, “The Radcliffe Camera,” my favorite study spot. A stern, but kindly guard greets you at the door and every backpack (rucksack here) is inspected lest you try to steal a book. When I gasped back to life, I ran to the library, sure that I needed to start immediate reading in order to finish by next week’s tutorial. For the next five days, I worked feverishly, turning every so often to a notebook in which I hoped my thoughts might eventually cohere into an essay. Two days before the tutorial, I wondered how I got myself into this. One day and I stayed up to ungodly hours, trying not to repeat the same phrase in a hundred different ways. The day of the tutorial, I yielded to a sense of doom, give the paper a last edit, and walked to my tutorial feeling that I had taken my life in my hands. I had to read my paper aloud. (I saw every punctuation error as I did.) I came to the last full-stop (what they call a period here in England) and held my breath. This, I thought would be the point when my tutor would express shock at my lack of knowledge and point out the dozen errors I was sure I had made in my paper. “Hmmm,” was all my tutor said. Then, “now that part about MacDonald’s landscapes, that was intriguing. Tell me more.” Slightly dazed, I did. Lo and behold, the axe never fell. There was no great criticism to be faced. A few “footnoting issues” of course, but then, a simple discussion of the ideas I had presented. I was pointed to a book that might set my thinking straight. I was asked what interested me, and assigned a new essay. I walked out, feeling somehow reprieved . . . and a little disoriented. This felt more like tea with a friendly mentor than the academic rigors I expected. I set back to work and found my study a little easier this week – at least I knew what was best to include in the essay this time. I still stressed until the absolute last minute on getting my paper done. But when I read it aloud, there was an extra note of confidence in my voice – my tutor was interested in what I had to say, genuinely curious to see what conclusions I had drawn from the huge amount of reading offered. The next week, I actually claimed something apart from the books I read. Now, I find myself almost on a treasure hunt as I begin the work for each new essay, for the quality of what I learn is dependent on me; if I read well and articulate clearly, the tutorial will be a further adventuring into new realms of study. A glimpse from my study perch in the “Uppper Radcliffe.” I have to be surreptitious about photos, they’re not exactly allowed. This is all so different from what I expected. My initial sense of the tutorial as a meeting with a mentor is far more correct than I thought because of a simple, underlying idea to the Oxford mode of education: every student is a scholar. This is not a title conferred upon you at the end of your studies, it is what drives and defines you amidst them. The experts are simply farther along. This sense of your status as an independent learner is the underlying assumption of every tutorial, the reason that the iconic building of Oxford is not a classroom, but a library. On orientation day, when we new students were first shown our own college, and then shown around town, my friend made an astute observation. “They always show you the libraries first,” she whispered, “they’re the center of everything.” And she’s right, because the discipline of independent, thoughtful reading is what it means to become educated here in Oxford. I have held a muddled idea of what it means to be a student – probably a common misnomer. I have considered a student to be one who collects information. One who is informed by an expert on the right views of the right books. Because of this, I have often felt inadequate because I never took the time to complete my college degree. I felt as if I were somehow lacking a certain amount of information that three or four courses in the right lists of English literature might grant me. Oxford is refreshing my view of education. This is not a place where some “expert” will systematically flood you with a set amount of facts. I do most of my own learning here – I read for around three full work days a week and write for two more. I am guided to the right books in my tutorials, my false ideas corrected as they surface in my essays, but the whole process is one in which I am the active party in my learning. To be a student here is to be a scholar in training, to have my skills honed in the arts of reading, writing, and the intricate consideration of ideas. In the end, education is not the conferral of a set number of facts upon the mind of a student. Education is simply the process by which you are equipped to learn. And once you start, it doesn’t ever have to stop. That’s the gift. I can continue in scholarship no matter where I am, as long as I can read. That is ultimately the education I will take home from Oxford. It’s a good one. The Oxford Chronicles: Bod Card

One of my greatest joys as a writing pastor is that every year I am obliged to spend several weeks focusing on the two most earth-changing events in history–the birth of Jesus Christ, and his death and resurrection. You cannot make sense of one without the other. I’m currently working on a Lenten Narrative to follow last year’s Behold the Lamb of God: An Advent Narrative. With the season of Lent starting this week, I thought I’d offer here a chapter from Behold the Lamb of God: An Advent Narrative that looks at the incarnation of Jesus through the lens of his purpose for coming: to defeat the death I deserve and raise me to newness of life with him in his resurrection. Behold the Lamb of God: An Advent Narrative Chapter 24: The Hearts of Many Revealed The old man was a member of the old guard, the last of a generation of faithful ministers in Jerusalem’s temple. He was something of a fixture—the kind of man who seemed to have always been there. It was hard to say whether Simeon smelled like the temple or the temple smelled like Simeon, but the minds of those who passed him in the street would often drift to notions of smoke and blood and a guilty resolve to attend to their worship more regularly. The old guard to which he belonged was on a permanent watch. They were waiting for something in particular, something unique, something wonderful. The years had taught Simeon patience, so he was good at waiting. Still, he felt an unrelenting sense of urgency. He always had. He was waiting for the consolation of his people Israel. He had been waiting a long time, and his people even longer. They were a nation of sorrows, acquainted with grief. They were despised, afflicted by God. They were wounded. They’d been crushed. They were like sheep that were better at getting lost than staying near their shepherd. And they needed consolation. God would send it. And when he did, Simeon would be at his post, watching and waiting, poised to respond. This was his life’s work. Simeon was a case study in the benefits of careful examination and devotion to the word of God. He was devout—a description best reserved for the aged. He knew how to want what God had promised. He knew how to delight in God’s goodness. And he knew how to wait. He worked in the temple because he believed God was near. He knew God was near. He knew this because God had visited him, telling him he wouldn’t die before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. (Lk 2:26) And at his age, it would have to be soon. Joseph and Mary were young, but they were believers. The generations before had taught them well. They journeyed to the temple for two reasons, both ancient—Mary’s ritual purification after childbirth and the redemption of their firstborn son from the Lord. Why did they need to redeem their son? Because God said in his law, “Consecrate to me all the firstborn. Whatever is the first to open the womb among the people of Israel, both of man and of beast, is mine.” (Ex 13:1) The consecration of the firstborn son was much more than a shallow routine asking God to give the child a long and happy life. They were recalling their history of slavery and deliverance from Egypt, where God traded the blood of a lamb for the blood of their firstborn sons—a life for a life. This was the basis of God’s claim that the firstborn sons belonged to him. When the parents accepted the sacrifice of the lamb on their son’s behalf, they forfeited their son’s life to God, along with every generation that would flow from him. From that point on, when any first son was born to a descendant of those families, the parents brought that boy to the temple to present him to God because he belonged to God. The parents presented the boy in order to purchase his release and buy him back. (Ex 13:13-15) Joseph and his wife answered the call of their ancient faith to observe the rite of purification for Mary and to redeem their son. Dark flecks of iron-scented blood spattered Mary’s garments as the priest sprinkled her. Stained now with the fresh blood of her sacrifice, she was pronounced clean by the priest. Then she and her husband took up their boy. It was time to purchase his release with more blood. As they moved toward the place where he would be redeemed, they passed an old man with searching eyes and purpose in his step. He clearly belonged in the temple. He looked official. He smelled official. But as he drew near, they could hear him mumbling. He reached for the child. Mary, surprised but willing, handed over the boy. Simeon’s joyful hope was in the promise of a glimpse of the Christ, but God had something better in mind. Simeon actually got to hold him. This mumbling member of the old guard took this new life into his arms as his words rose to a cry of praise. “O Lord, my God! Father of all blessing and honor and praise, you have been so good to your servant. You have been so good to your servant! I’m an old man, my days have been long, but I’m your son. And today, you have blessed me. I can’t believe how good you’ve been! Do you see this boy? Do you see him? Because I see him, Father. And what’s more, I know who he is. As surely as I live and breathe, I’m holding in my arms the Redeemer. With my very eyes I’m beholding your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of a dark but watching world. He will be the light by which the Gentiles will see you and come to know you. He will be the light by which your people Israel will again see the glory of how you have loved them with a love that will not let them go. O great and glorious King, Shepherd of My Soul, Captain of My Guard, I have kept my post. I have not turned my eyes from the horizon because you have promised that your Messiah would come on my watch. And I have seen him. I have held him. I have kissed him. Now I can die in peace. So honorably retire your watchman, O great and glorious King, and bring me home.” (Lk 2:29-32) Joseph and Mary were speechless. They weren’t expecting Simeon, and his blessing wasn’t the standard fare. Most blessings were marked by warm petitions for success in life, but Simeon’s wasn’t a petition at all. It was a proclamation. He wasn’t asking for what might be. He was declaring what was. Every word spoke to this child’s purpose. There was something this child had come to do. They had brought Jesus to this place to redeem him, but before them stood a man proclaiming that this baby would, in fact, redeem them. As his words sank in, Mary and Joseph marveled at what he had said. This moment was a meeting of hearts. For Simeon, the white-hot coal burning in him was finally exposed and began to die out. This was a happy moment. But his smile faded. The joy never left his eyes, but gravity pulled at his countenance. He grew serious. There was more to say because there was more to this little life than met the eye. All that Simeon had said so far was about what Jesus would do. Now it was time to broach the subject of how he would do it. Simeon had a sense of what awaited Jesus. He told Mary a truth she must have already sensed: that Jesus would turn this world on its ear—and it would come at a great cost. Her baby would facilitate the ruin of many in Israel. Like a stump from Jesse’s root, he would jut out and break the toes of any who dared tread upon the purpose for which he had come. Jesus would reveal the hearts of all mankind. The light of the world would shine in every dark corner of every dark heart, exposing every dark secret. And this was a world that had grown quite fond of darkness. It was no surprise that he would be opposed. (Lk 2:34) He told her all these things, but she couldn’t help suspecting that he was holding something back. There was something else on his mind. Something less general, more pointed—pointed at her. And she was right. He had something to say, something that would hurt. But it had to be said, and he was the one appointed to say it. Simeon leveled his wrinkled face to look directly into the young mother’s eyes. “Mary, what awaits your son will be like a sword that will pierce through your soul.” (Lk 2:35) If Mary kept things spoken about Jesus in her heart, this must have been one of them. A sword would pierce her soul. It was the price of being the mother of the Christ. She had to raise this baby, knowing that he belonged to the Maker and had come for the purpose of saving God’s people from their sin. Everything in her culture told her that sin offerings were a bloody business. And thirty-three years later, she would find herself at the foot of the cross on which her son hung. With her own two eyes, she would watch him die, despised and rejected, a man of sorrows acquainted with grief. (Isa 53:3, Jn 19:16-27) If her son was the salvation of Israel, then he was her savior too. Later, when he was a man, she must have thought about the way he talked of God’s salvation. The way he spoke with such authority. “No one takes my life from me. But I lay it down of my own accord. And I alone have God’s authority to lay it down and his authority to take it up again. This is why he sent me.” (Jn 10:18) There was purpose behind everything her son ever did. It was in his words. It was in his ways. It even seemed that he hung on that cross because he meant to. Her son wasn’t simply dying. He was doing something.

In part one, I talked about the outset of the journey. Part two was a look back at the lack of pattern over the years, which explains the appropriate lack of readiness, which, while uncomfortable, can be very good thing. In this post, thanks to your excellent feedback, I’m going to try and get more specific about the process and try to answer some of your questions. Right off the bat, let me address this question a few of you asked: Which comes first, the lyrics or the music? This question has been asked of songwriters for as long as there has been songwriting, I imagine. The answer isn’t very satisfying, I’m afraid, which may be why it keeps coming up. The answer is “Yes.” Or, if you prefer, “D) All the above.” Sometimes the lyric comes first, sometimes the music comes first, and sometimes they come all at once, like the doorbell and the phone ringing at the same time. When someone claims to have discovered a foolproof method for creating art—other than a willingness to work very hard at it—I doubt either their honesty or their skill. I’d dig into that more, but I want to get us back to the studio. Reading through your questions, I realized the best way to approach this may be to choose a song from the new record and give you a play-by-play of what we ended up doing. On the Steven Curtis Chapman tour last fall, I was desperate to write songs. I knew we would be hitting the studio in a matter of weeks, and I didn’t have a single new song written. Being the opener on a tour is a great opportunity to write because of the abundance of free time. Not only that, it’s inspiring to be rubbing elbows with other songwriters and musicians. I remember hearing Billy Joel say once that when he faces writer’s block he puts on a tweed jacket, brings a notebook to a smoky bar in New York, sits in a corner and pretends like he’s a songwriter; sometimes it’s enough to convince himself. There’s something to be said for that, especially when you’re susceptible to certain voices in your head. It reminds me of George MacDonald’s admonition to know God by obeying him. If you want to know the mind of God, do what he says. Jesus, who knew the Father completely, also obeyed the Father completely. Similarly (though I know it’s a stretch), if you want to know what it’s like to be a songwriter, put on your tweed and write a song. It’s as simple and as difficult as that. Back to the tour. Every time I found a few hours of free time I ducked into a choir room or Sunday School classroom with my guitar and tried to find a song. By the middle of the tour I had written one and started about seven, but I was on the hunt for more. Then one day in soundcheck, one dropped out of the sky. Ben Shive started playing this really cool piano part, then Ken Lewis started drumming to it, and in moments everyone in the room stopped what they were doing. Everyone in the band hurried over to their instruments and without a word started playing along. Brent Milligan put on his bass. Josh Wilson and I started strumming. Harold Rubens at the soundboard stopped tweaking and started listening. Something cool was happening. If you’re a musician or a songwriter, chances are you know what I’m talking about. I’m not usually one for jamming, but sometimes someone discovers a chord progression or a melody or a rhythm that’s like a magic key. It opens an invisible door to a wide field of inspiration and beauty. It’s a rare occurrence, and I imagine it feels quite a bit like the Holy Spirit descending on the house, and we’re suddenly speaking the tongues of men and angels. Lest you think I’m claiming that something I’ve written is that kind of inspired, let me make a disclaimer. First of all, who knows? God can do what he wants, with whomever he wants. But the song as it’s written is never as beautiful as it was in that fleeting, exhilarating moment of inspiration. The song’s potential is shimmering beyond the veil somewhere, while the song that you finally write is almost always haunted by a feeling of disappointment. When people talk about a book or a song being not so much finished as abandoned, that’s what they mean. They had a picture in their minds or a feeling in their heart that they’re trying to bring into space and time, and there’s just no way (yet) to deliver it in fulness. The song in reality is as different from what you imagined as a portrait is from the painter’s subject. At some point (usually thanks to the mercy of a deadline), you have to put down the brush and give thanks for the chance to have made an attempt. This has caused me some grief, and a lot of frustration. There are songs on my older albums (I won’t tell you which) that I had dreams about, but even as we recorded them I could feel the magic fading. It was like trying to shave as the battery in my Norelco died a slow death and left me half-whiskery. (I thought of that analogy because it happened to me about an hour ago.) The songwriting process for me is about trying to find the words and melodies that will get me as close as possible to the summit of the mountain I first glimpsed through the clouds. Most often, I’m nowhere close. I end up in the desert somewhere, turning the map this way and that. But sometimes I end up at least in the foothills, and I go to bed happy; I haven’t summited, but I can at least see the peak and imagine what it would be like to stand there. Those are a few of the thoughts that went through my noggin as we vamped Ben’s chord progression. Over the mic I asked Harold at the soundboard to record what we were doing, and he gave me a thumbs up; he didn’t say a word because he didn’t want to break the spell. Right away, for reasons I don’t know, I thought of Cormac McCarthy’s book The Road. It’s an amazing (and amazingly dark) book about a father and son trying to survive the apocalypse. They’re traversing the wasteland of America with hunger at their heels and man-eating wretches on their heels, too, trying to reach the ocean where the father believes they’ll find help. Along the way, he tells his little boy again and again that they have to “carry the fire”. It’s a simple, beautiful metaphor that can mean quite a few things. I started singing that phrase during soundcheck, and pretty quickly staked my claim on Ben’s piano part by asking if I could write something to it. Here’s the recording from that day. Listening to it, you may wonder, “Why all the fuss?” It may not hit you at all. All I know is, it led me to a song. (That’s Josh Wilson playing the pretty acoustic guitar stuff.)https://rabbitroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/CarrytheFireSoundcheck.mp3 It was about a month later that I finally managed to write the verses. They came after a long, hard conversation with a dear friend whose marriage was foundering. He wept, and I ran out of words. I finally tried to put down in a song what I wanted to say to encourage him, and came up with this: Carry the Fire I will hold your hand, love As long as I can, love Though the powers rise against us Though your fears assail you And your body may fail you There’s a fire that burns within us And we dream in the night Of a city descending With the sun in the center And a peace unending I will, I will carry the fire I will, I will carry the fire Carry the fire for you And we kneel in the water The sons and the daughters And we hold our hearts before us And we look to the distance And raise our resistance In the face of the forces Gathered against us And we dream in the night Of a King and a kingdom Where joy writes the songs And the innocent sing them I will carry the fire for you Oh, sing on, sing on (Light up the darkness) When your hope is gone, sing on And we dream in the night Of a feast and a wedding And the Groom in his glory When the bride is made ready I will carry the fire for you A few words might be tweaked here and there before all is said and done, but that’s more or less the lyric. Caitlin asked about getting too comfortable with formulae or song structures, as opposed to (I assume) pushing yourself into unfamiliar territory. I think this is where exercising good old fashioned discernment is the thing. If you’re a lover of good songs, and a student of good songwriting, you’ll eventually learn how and when to break the rules. There are conventions we all recognize (i.e., verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge/verse/chorus, or if you rewind to 1989, verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge/ELECTRIC GUITAR SOLO/chorus), and most popular songs these days fall into some version of that. It’s not a bad place to start, and it’s a tried-and-true way to structure a song. But you also have to be willing to follow your nose. You have to be willing to let the song go where it wants. I think that’s the best question to ask, when you come to a writing crossroads: “Where does the story want to go?” I got home from a weekend of touring yesterday and my daughter Skye (9) had written me a song. It was a sweet, sad song about how she misses me when I’m gone, complete with a verse, a chorus, another verse, a chorus, and a pretty hook of a la-la-la melody. She’s pretty brilliant, and is already saying things like, “I was going to do another chorus, but the la-la-la felt better there.” She’s too young to care too much about song structures, or to feel pressure to conform to the confines of a radio single, or to get hung up on the coherence of an idea. She just sits down at the piano with an emotion and tries to fashion it into a song, without self-consciousness or hubris—just freedom.  It’s a great reminder to me of how best to approach the process. The Kingdom belongs to such as these. This new song, “Carry the Fire” isn’t much like anything I’ve ever written. I’m fine with that. Actually, I’m excited about it. To answer Caitlyn’s question another way, the way to push yourself into new territory isn’t about pushing yourself as much as it is allowing yourself to be pulled along. I was talking with Sally Lloyd-Jones last week, and she described the way she felt going into her new project: “I feel like I’m following clues.” Exactly. Here’s a snippet of the song as it its early stages in the studio. This is a scratch vocal, scratch guitars, and no bass—so there’s a lot more that has to happen before I even start singing the keeper vocal. Then comes background vocals, guitars, mixing and mastering. So don’t judge too harshly. (Pretty please.)https://rabbitroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/CarrytheFireSoundcheck.mp3 ————————— Well, I’ve run out of room here. I guess there’s going to have to be a part four, and I’ll try and get to the rest of your questions there. Thanks for reading, folks!

Christian Storytelling: Part I Christian Storytelling: Part II Christian Storytelling: Part III In Part III, I proposed N.T. Wright’s view of the Scriptures as the first four acts of an unfinished drama as a potentially profitable alternative hermeneutic to the normal ways evangelicals handle the biblical texts. Since I only included a brief paragraph from Wright’s thought on this method, I’ll take some time today to put some skin and muscle on the skeleton.  I’ll note some of his own remarks and push them a bit further myself. Wright quotes will come from his lecture, How Can the Bible be Authoritative? (or PDF, if you’d like). First, let’s allow Wright himself to explain a bit more: Consider the result. The first four acts, existing as they did, would be the undoubted authority for the task in hand. That is, anyone could properly object to the new improvisation on the grounds that this or that character was now behaving inconsistently, or that this or that sub-plot or theme, adumbrated earlier, had not reached its proper resolution. This authority of the first four acts would not consist in an implicit command that the actors should repeat the earlier pans of the play over and over again. It would consist in the fact of an as yet unfinished drama, which contained its own impetus, its own forward movement, which demanded to be concluded in the proper manner but which required of the actors a responsible entering in to the story as it stood, in order first to understand how the threads could appropriately be drawn together, and then to put that understanding into effect by speaking and acting with both innovation and consistency. The next obvious question is, “Where does the Bible stop and where do we pick up?” Let’s lay out the four acts given to us: Act I: Creation Act II: Fall Act III: Israel Act IV: Jesus Wright continues: The New Testament would then form the first scene in the fifth act, giving hints as well (Rom 8; 1 Car 15; parts of the Apocalypse) of how the play is supposed to end. The church would then live under the authority of the extant story, being required to offer something between an improvisation and an actual performance of the final act. Appeal could always be made to the inconsistency of what was being offered with a major theme or characterization in the earlier material. So the Bible takes us as far as Act V, Scene 1, but there is much story ahead.  There is no question that this is more difficult than extracting principles and applying them. Wright notes the difficulty well: How can an ancient narrative text be authoritative? How, for instance, can the book of Judges, or the book of Acts, be authoritative? It is one thing to go to your commanding officer first thing in the morning and have a string of commands barked at you. But what would you do if, instead, he began “Once upon a time . . .?” But the difficulty of the approach is not what matters. What approach is most faithful to Scripture? Here’s the biggest advantage to this way of thinking about Scripture: It puts us in our proper place in the story. It invites us into the story. The story of Scripture is the story of the world, and therefore the story of every person who ever lived. Think of the film Stranger Than Fiction. Harold Crick has no idea he’s a character in a story. But how much does everything change when he becomes aware of it? When we recognize that the story of Jesus is our own story, that there’s a writer, and that this writer is good, merciful, and loving and can identify with our weaknesses, struggles, and temptations, everything changes. When we understand that we’re part of a story with a happy ending, an irreversible, unchangeable happy ending that no amount of danger or evil can thwart, it makes all the difference. Who wants a set of instructions from a commanding officer, when your day can begin with “Once upon a time…?” Especially when you have direct access to the story’s author. In Part V, we’ll explore the concept of “Faithful Improvisation.”

My son plays happily. He flits easily between two worlds: the world that is and the world he imagines. His conversation assumes the extraordinary. His play is an adventure in make believe. How like faith. Perhaps nothing is more like faith than play. This “admission” would no doubt make Christians raised in an era of apologetic zeal begin to sweat. It may also delight anti-theist scolds, those champions of unhappiness and pretense. But it is no great surrender to say faith is like play. If in a young boy’s imaginative play he sees himself brave and trustworthy in the good fight, then we are glad if he grows into a man who is like that in “the real world.” Likewise, if a little girl tenderly cares for a baby doll, devoting herself to its care while at play, then grows up to become a loving, tender mother, we are happy. And we should be. I call that good. So child’s play is braided into the lifelong chords of faith. Part of life is anticipating, by faith, the right-side-up world. And it is deadly difficulty when it feels like the ceiling’s coming down all around us. Part of the Christian life, perhaps the heart of it, is praying “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” This is holy imagination at work. This is a life of imaginative anticipation. Faith is play. It is playing at the most deeply true articles of the human charter. Imagination is an essential capacity of faith. Does our conversation assume the extraordinary? If it doesn’t, can we be Christians? Jesus told us that children show us the way to the Kingdom. I believe he meant to commend both their lack of personal standing (they cannot cling to accomplishment as merit) and their capacity for deep dependence. Children are suited for the Kingdom in their imaginative play. “Make believe” is one of the clearest avenues along the way to making us believers. So, let them play. And join them.

Like I said in part one, this isn’t meant to be a definitive piece on record making, because there are a zillion ways to approach it. I just did the math and realized this is my eighth studio record. That doesn’t include live stuff or Walk or the Slugs & Bugs CDs, nor does it include occasional shorter recording sessions like “Holy is the Lord” (for City on a Hill) or the appendices A, C, or M. I only say that to say that as I look back at all those sessions, one of the only patterns that emerges is a lack of pattern. This may be super-boring, but just for fun I’m going to try and remember a thing or two about the making of those records. Back to pre-production. It was hard work. Since I was so unused to playing with a band, it freaked me out to suddenly hear drums, bass, and perc on my little acoustic songs. I thought they would lose any hint of their acoustic folkiness, which in hindsight is silly in light of how big the drums can be on some of my favorite artists’ songs. Now I’m used to imagining a rhythm section on the songs even as they’re being written, but at the time it was unsettling. (Side note: this album has always been a bit of an underdog, partly because it released on 9/11/2001, and partly because, though I fought it tooth and nail, the label insisted that my face be on the cover—something I swore I’d never do. Still, every now and then I hear from a listener that this is their favorite of my albums. Those same people are probably Cubs fans, like me.) I don’t remember there being much pre-production on this record, either, but we did record the demos at Andrew Osenga’s studio. I barely knew Osenga at the time. He was finishing up an album called Photographs, and played me a song called “High School Band”, which was only about half finished, as I recall. After we finished recording the demos, I asked Osenga offhand if he had any extra songs lying about; I felt like I needed one more for the album. He shrugged and played us an unfinished version of “After the Last Tear Falls”. On the way home from his house I pulled into a mall parking lot, sat in the back of my van, and worked out the chorus. One of these days, for my own jollies, I’m going to put down everything I remember from each record. For now, that’s a quick look at the beginning of the process for each. This album, though, has me feeling delightfully less comfortable for a few reasons. 1) A few years back we watched a documentary about Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (one of the best music docs I’ve ever seen), and Tom’s producer joked that every three records you should fire your producer, lest things get stale. There’s no way on earth I’d fire Ben or Andy G., but in light of that comment we all thought it would be fun to see what would happen if we invited our friend Cason Cooley into the process. Cason’s a great producer and a great friend, and he and Ben have wanted to work together for years. I’ve grown really comfortable with Ben at the wheel. Gullahorn’s input is vital, too. Andy and Ben are both amazing, AMAZING songwriters, but their approaches to songs are really different. They hear different things in my songs, and different aspects resonate with them. That makes for a wonderful tension. We don’t always agree, but because of a deep mutual respect, we always truly consider the other guy’s ideas. Bringing Cason into the mix stirs things up a little. He’s listening in a totally different way than I’m used to, and I think it will bring a new color to the paint on the wall. 2) The other thing is, none of these songs have been road-tested. Usually, I’m touring during the writing process. That means I can test the new songs out to see how well they connect. Playing a song for someone tells you volumes about the song. So often, I finish a song in private, feel great about it, then as soon as I play it for someone I see a thousand weaknesses I was blind to before. I think most songwriters feel the same thing. But since I was touring with Steven last fall when I was writing these songs, then I went straight to the Behold the Lamb tour, which doesn’t afford me much time to play my own stuff, and now I’m on the road with Steven again, I haven’t had a chance to play any of these songs live. (I played an unfinished version of “Shine Your Light On Me” at two Christmas shows, but that’s it.) 3) Finally, while Counting Stars was made in concentration (nine days with no distractions), this new album is practically the opposite. We started three weeks ago, then we stopped because of scheduling conflicts. For the rest of the spring we’ll be working here and there, on our days off from the tour. The bad thing is, we can’t gain much momentum. The good thing is, it gives me time to listen to the songs fifteen thousand times, tweak lyrics, mull over arrangements and instrumentation. It also gives me time to write. We have eleven songs, but it’s nice knowing that, should inspiration strike, I have time to add another few to the pot. I said this in the last post: as soon as you think you know what you’re doing, you’re in big trouble. It brings to mind this quote from Rich Mullins, one of my heroes: “I would rather live on the verge of falling and let my security be in the all-sufficiency of the grace of God than to live in some kind of pietistic illusion of moral excellence.” Sometimes it is at the edges of things, at the brink of destruction, at the love-drunk moments before that first kiss, that we feel most alive. Maybe that’s where God wants us: where we’re most vulnerable, and thus most willing to ask for help, to cry for rescue, to joyously admit defeat. Then we know the work is his, not ours. —————————————————— I had a few things in mind for part three, but I’m curious: what would you guys like to hear about? Would you rather I dug into the specifics of the process? Would you like a play-by-play of a day in the studio? The interplay of songwriting and song-production?

On the second-to-the-last day of September, in the year of our Lord 2011, I came into possession of a hill in the English countryside. I marked the event that evening with all due solemnity and appropriate honors. My husband and I had ostensibly walked out in the late afternoon to watch the sunset from a neighboring slope, but with a few quick modifications, and all the young joy of a first-time hill-owner, I adapted it into a celebration. I cut a few swinging strands of ivy that hung over the rutted path we took from our cottage, and as soon as we had spread our blanket on the grassy prospect, I sat down and began weaving them into a coronet. Philip grinned a little ruefully as I studded it with tiny thistles—the bane of any pasture-keeper’s existence; the amethysts and jasper of the woodland lapidary. But when I opened our tea caddy and produced, not the expected and well-traveled thermos and tin cups, but a bottle of champagne, his smile registered genuine surprise. “This is a momentous occasion,” I said gravely, attempting to loosen the cork and then passing it to him in a sudden fear of flying consequences. “It’s not every day you come into property.” I had wanted it the moment I had seen it: that green, sweeping hill, mounting in an undulation of gentle swales to a point dark among the hedges. The longing had leapt up in me with a thrill of pain and joy and I knew it had to be mine, right down to the least blade of grass. And not the hillside only, but the lane by which I had reached it, overarched by chestnuts and wizened holly trees, and the cottage it led from, buried in a steep fold of the Dorset hills. I wanted the orchard I came through and all its ripe burden of sun-warmed fruit. I wanted the sunlight itself, falling dapple-dazzling in pools of wealth upon the landscape and I wanted the blue bowl of sky arching cloud-swept above. I was inexorable in my demands: I even required the very lambs and ewes with which it was populated, grazing in ceaseless content upon its verdant slope. The transaction had gone through without a hitch—and completely unbeknown to the thoroughly lovely and gracious couple that occupied the land. The husband, a gentleman farmer of the old school, even witnessed the proceedings from afar, hailing me from his tractor as he chugged off down into the hollow, and hadn’t the least suspicion what I was up to. It wasn’t the first time I had experienced such an overmastering and irresistible passion for ownership. In like manner, I had snatched up every last Canova in the Louvre, and the Alpen-crowned sapphire of Italy’s Lake Como. I had collected a red sandshore on Prince Edward Island and a time-forgotten homestead in the Shenandoah Valley and an entire jewel of an island off the coast of Georgia. I had even managed to purchase, in a happy circumstance of exceedingly good fortune, a certain majestic cedar tree, gleaming out from a dawn-lit mist and hung with diamonds of rarest dew. This last was a steal, and genuinely rare, for I found it in my own backyard. The cork flew off the bottle with a festive pop and we watched it soar straight over our heads like a springing lark. I retrieved it from the grass at my side and dropped it into the tea caddy as a souvenir. “I’m landed gentry,” I told Philip, lifting my glass to a level with the departing sun and watching the rose-tinted light flit and sparkle among the bubbles. “In good standing and by all the inviolable laws of fairyland.” In his elegant collection of essays, The Art of Travel, Alain de Botton observes that this insatiable yearning for acquisition in the face of overwhelming beauty is common to the human condition. “A dominant impulse on encountering beauty,” he writes, “is to wish to hold on to it, to possess it and give it weight in one’s life. There is an urge to say, ‘I was here, I saw this, and it mattered to me.’” I had never heard it expressed that way, but de Botton’s words were a wind upon the Aeolian harp of my deepest sensibilities, and I knew by the hints of that far-off song that he was on to something. Perhaps something bigger and truer than even he imagined. He went on to recount how John Ruskin had considered this phenomenon and had concluded that there was an effective and thoroughly respectable means of satisfying such an insatiable craving: to look deeply enough into the beauty to gain an awareness of its specific elements and impressions, and to make the attempt to express it artistically. In other words, to see, and to describe what you have seen. This was Ruskin’s motivation, both in his teaching and his drawing manuals: to help others to see. To open their eyes and to loosen their fingers. To “direct people’s attention accurately to the beauty of God’s work in the material universe.” He espoused two particular mediums for this endeavor, sketching and “word-painting.” (Photography was initially advocated, as well, until it became apparent to him that the general enthusiasm was leaning all-too-precariously towards the temptation to let the camera do all the seeing.) And in both cases, he was adamant on one point: natural aptitude and talent were secondary—even inferior—to open eyes. To teach a person to draw, with strokes of a pencil or with words, was to place a golden key in their hands—they would never look at the world around them the same way again. The old indifference which is the curse of familiarity would give way before the staggering particularity of nature and design. And in the effort to produce a creative response, howsoever imperfect, the beauty could be owned in a way that even physical possession could not guarantee. My contract on the hill was drawn up in the form of a poem. Candidly, I don’t know the first thing about writing poetry; it would be generous to call all previous attempts awkward. But when I saw that hill, when I knew I must have it, I knew with equal conviction that the payment had to be made in verse. It was so far beyond my powers that the added humility of ineptitude seemed appropriate. For three hours I sat there in the sun, a blue English sky above and the beloved, satiny English grass beneath, and waited upon that work. I was aware of every flick of a bird’s wing in the hedges behind me, and the deep, concentrated indigo of the bloom-frosted sloes tangled thick within the branches. A cockerel saluted the world from some unseen farmyard far below and the uniquely pastoral, slightly ovine scent of the countryside rose up to greet me like a friend. I watched the shadow of a tree travel over the velvet surface of a mounded hill to the south and saw the wood doves fling themselves skyward with a bustle of feathers and matronly complaint. And when, at length, I collected my things and started back down towards our cottage and my tea, I could almost hear my own heart pounding in my chest, I felt so alive. I had come to inquire and I was leaving in possession. But ownership is not all, of course, even in this imaginative sense—there is a much deeper magic at play for the child of God. For the true apprehension of beauty, like faith itself, is an exercise in laying claim to what is already ours. There is a low door in the garden wall, and it opens on an inheritance: this is my Father’s world, and He has given it to me. All of the beauty in this astonishing universe of ours has already been lavished by a self-giving Creator. Wakefulness and effort give forth upon our birthright; seeing becomes receiving. Of this sublimity the Restoration-era minister Thomas Traherne waxes exuberant in his masterpiece of meditation, Centuries: “Your enjoyment of the world is never right,” he says, “till you so esteem it, that everything in it is more your treasure than a King’s exchequer full of Gold and Silver…till the Sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens and crowned with the stars: and perceive yourself to be the sole heir of the whole world, and more than so, because men are in it who are every one sole heirs as well as you.” In short, if we find ourselves wandering through this beautiful world of ours with ink-stained fingers and dreamy eyes and a slightly lopsided ivy crown, gazing about like we own the place, it’s because we do.

What Is Love? Part I – Definitions No discussion of love can be complete without regarding Gethsemane. In this second Garden, the divine love of the Father in the spirit of Jesus wrestled with the soul of Jesus, a war inside one body. This Man who had gone around saying “I and the Father are one” and “When you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father” saw a separate will within himself, self-preservation rising up, self-love. “If there is any other way, let this cup pass from me.” I don’t want to die by execution, have my soul be despised, rejected, and to become sin and have my spirit separated from my Father. Anything but that. Was it wrong to feel this way, wrong to desire a way less painful? Obviously not. Temptation is not sin. “Let this cup pass from me.” He wrestled, like Jacob with the angel, but Jesus wasn’t saying, “I won’t let you go until you bless me.” It was, “Please, if there’s any other way, get me out of this.” The Father wouldn’t let him off, because Jesus was born to be a blessing for others, broken bread and outpoured wine. In the end Jesus took the sword of the Spirit and ran it through his own desire to be happy, pain-free, and comfortable. “Neverthless, not my will, but Thine be done.” “Who, for the joy set before him, endured the Cross, despising the shame,” the joy of seeing others freed, renewed, made alive, made fit for the company of Heaven. What choice happened in Gethsemane? All we have are the words of Jesus: “Not My will, but Thine be done.” But we also have the witness of James, who delineates the exact nature of temptation. “Every man is tempted” (including the Man, Jesus) “when he is drawn away by his own strong desire, and enticed.” If there is temptation, there is a Tempter, exciting those desires and pulling on them, stirring us up. To be enticed is to want to do something, to feel the pull of desire, of want. Jesus was enticed to want something other than God’s will for him. He wanted to escape the spirit, soul, and body suffering of the Cross. This was not sin. To want something, and be enticed toward it, is not sin. James continues. “Then, when strong desire has conceived, it brings forth sin…” Strong desire has to be married to something in order to conceive – a choice of the will to have the desired thing, to turn from faith in the sovereign, loving God and instead to reach for what we think is best. It is the choice of Eve in Eden. God hath said, but I am choosing otherwise. We trust our own temporary tunnel vision rather than God’s perfect and all-encompassing sight. In Gethsemane, this second Garden, Jesus made the opposite choice. He gave up the soulish desire for self-protection, for comfort, ease, and gave in to the divine nature within himself: “I can do nothing of myself” (that is, of his own human power). “The Father in me does the works.” In temptation, Jesus always gave in to the divine nature as the Source and Ground of his being, as the sovereign Director who ordered his footsteps. When Jesus meets up with Judas and the guards, we see a completely different man than in the preceding hours – human still, potent with passion and feeling, but his humanity subjugated to the eternal plan and purpose of the Father within him. The divine nature within Jesus won out, as always, even in the most intense situations. The essential questions, “Who am I” and “Why am I here?” were answered in a very definite and final victory as he laid down his soul and body life, allowing Jesus to walk as a King through the torture and death of the Cross. To be continued.

Sydney Lea is the author of ten collections of poetry including Pursuit Of A Wound (2001) which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He has also published a novel, A Place In Mind (1989), and two collections of essays. Lea is the founding editor of New England Review, where he served from 1977 until 1989. He has taught at several colleges, in Europe and the United States, including Yale, Wesleyan, and Dartmouth. He is the new poet laureate of Vermont. Jeanne Murray Walker wrote of his new collection, Six Sundays Toward a Seventh, “In this book Sydney Lea invites us to take a spiritual journey . . . By the end of Six Sundays, the narrator and the reader step together into radiant light. What is so moving about Six Sundays is not only its wrestling with spiritual questions, but also Lea’s affirmation that life is a spiritual journey and that this journey is of paramount importance.” I was given the privilege of assisting him as editor for his new poetry collection Six Sundays Toward a Seventh – which is the first book in Wipf & Stock’s new Poiema Poetry Series – released the first of January 2012. It is available from Wipf & Stock. The following poem is included in this new book. Barnet Hill Brook Here’s what to read in mud by the brook after last night’s storm, Which inscribed itself on sky as light, now here, now gone- And matchless. I kneel in the mud, by scrimshaw of rodents, by twinned Neat stabs of weasel. I won’t speak of those flashes. Here by my hand, The lissome trail of a worm that lies nearby under brush, Carnal pink tail showing out. Gnats have thronged my face. I choose not to fend them off. Except for my chest in its slight Lifting and sinking, the place’s stillness feels complete. Its fullness too: in the pool above the dead grass dam, The water striders are water striders up and down: They stand on themselves, feet balanced on feet in mirroring water. How many grains of sand in the world? So one of my daughters Wanted to know in her little girlhood. “Trillions,” I said. “I love you,” she answered back. “I love you more than that.” Lord knows I’m not a man who deserves to be so blessed. I choose to believe that there’s grace, that the splendid universe Lies not in my sight but subsumes my seeing, my small drab witness. Tonight my eye may look on cavalcades of brightness, Of star and planet. Or cloud again. And when I consider, O, what is man, That thou art mindful of him, it’s proper For me to have knelt, if only by habit. Pine needles let go, And drop, and sink to this rillet’s bright white bottomstones. To tally them up would take me a lifetime. And more would keep coming. A lifetime at least. And more would keep coming, please God, keep coming. Posted with permission of the poet. Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the award-winning author of the poetry collections Poiema (Wipf & Stock) and So The Moon Would Not Be Swallowed (Rubicon Press). They are both available at: www.dsmartin.ca

Christian Storytelling: Part I Christian Storytelling: Part II In our journey through the Christian story and Christian storytelling, we have to take a look at the Bible. Since we’re all big fans of Sally Lloyd-Jones here, I don’t think I’ll have to do much convincing when it comes to talking about the Bible as a story. But whenever the subject of interpreting Scripture comes up, lots of very strongly-held opinions clash. I want to say that at the outset, because I think we can have a very gracious and charitable discussion about how to approach the Bible. What we think of the Scriptures will dictate how we interpret them. I want to propose some ideas (mostly not my own) about how to approach the Bible as a story, but first, I’ll start with two often-held views of the Scriptures and their interpretation. 1.  The Bible is God’s personal letter (or “love letter”) to each of us. The method of interpretation that usually follows this point of view goes something like this: A small group Bible study sits around with Bibles open and reads a verse or a passage. Then the small group leader says, “Let’s go around the circle and share what this verse means to you.” Then each member says a few things about how that verse touches his or her life, and the whole group sits around in amazement that the Scriptures can mean so many different things to so many different people. Now, I don’t want to disparage this outright, because undoubtedly, the work of the Spirit can and does apply the Scriptures to our hearts, even in a given moment in a small Bible study. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be honest about the potential problems, or the incomplete nature of this method. The Bible is neither addressed directly nor written directly to you or me. Genesis 1 doesn’t start, “Dear Travis.” It is not a letter, but a collection of a wide variety of literary genres, all of which communicate truth in a different manner and require a different set of rules for understanding. You would totally misunderstand Dickens, Shakespeare, or any other writer if you took their book as a personal letter to you; the same is true of the Scriptures. This method can really mess up our theology and Christian practice. So let’s conclude this: The Bible is definitely to us and for us, but it is also a collection of writings in a wide variety of contexts and needs careful consideration for understanding. Taking the Bible as “God’s love letter” lends us to the idea that “It’s just me, my Bible, and the Holy Spirit, and that’s all I need.” In fact, we need the whole community of believers and those who have gone before us. 2. The Bible is a sort of “Guidebook” for our lives here on earth.  It is God’s instruction to humanity. While many would not word their view this way, many folks who reject view #1 hold some form of this view. We’ve all heard that the B.I.B.L.E. is our “Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth.” The Scriptures are all too frequently employed as a rulebook or a topical guidebook to get through life here on earth. Have a problem with patience? Look up every verse that mentions patience. You’re aware of this method. It’s the medicine cabinet method, or the magic book or grocery list method. The method of interpretation that follows is usually centered in some way around the grammatical-historical principle. We understand, contra view #1, that the Bible was written at a certain time and in certain genres.  So we apply a two-fold method of interpretation: (A) “What did this passage mean when it was written?” and (B) “What does it mean to us today?” If we follow step A, we will arrive at “biblical principles.” Once we have extracted the biblical principles out of the biblical narrative, step B will apply the principle to our lives today. The problem with this is that it misses key elements of the purpose and nature of the Scriptures. The Bible is not a book of life principles or “keys for living.” It is not a self-help book or a systematic theology book. It is, by and large, a narrative about Christ told in various forms and genres. This undoubtedly makes interpretation and application more difficult (more about that in Part IV). Now, on to an alternative approach to Scripture and its application. 3.  The Bible is an unfinished drama.  This is the view of the Bible I plan to expound upon in a coming post. N.T. Wright has offered, I think, a much more helpful view of the Scriptures than either of the two views above. Here is how he summarizes this approach to the Bible: Suppose there exists a Shakespeare play whose fifth act had been lost. The first four acts provide, let us suppose, such a wealth of characterization, such a crescendo of excitement within the plot, that it is generally agreed that the play ought to be staged. Nevertheless, it is felt inappropriate actually to write a fifth act once and for all: it would freeze the play into one form, and commit Shakespeare as it were to being prospectively responsible for work not in fact his own. Better, it might be felt, to give the key parts to highly trained, sensitive and experienced Shakespearian actors, who would immerse themselves in the first four acts, and in the language and culture of Shakespeare and his time, and who would then be told to work out a fifth act for themselves. While there are obviously potential weaknesses with this approach, I think there is much to commend it as well. I will explore its strengths and weaknesses in Part IV. In any case, we must keep one thing primary, and this is really the whole point of this post: The Scriptures are about Christ and his story. And it’s about our invitation to participate in that story, which is why this third view is attractive. The Scriptures are meant to show us Jesus and lead us to Jesus. Any approach to the Scriptures that is not centered around seeking Him “that we may have life” will result in the error of the Pharisees. We can extract principles and apply the Bible personally all day long, but if we haven’t started with the understanding that the Bible is the story of Jesus, and that “every story” in the Bible “whispers His name,” we’ll miss the real magic of the Scriptures.

This post should really be called, “How We Make a Record”, or even “How We’re Making This Record”.  There are a thousand ways to skin a cat, or to write a song, or to make a chocolate chip cookie–this just happens to be our recipe. That said, in some ways I’m still as mystified by it as I ever was. I remember lying on my bed in high school with two cabinet speakers on either side of my head, listening to Pink Floyd’s A Momentary Lapse of Reason, getting delightfully lost in the music and wondering how on earth this band of Brits transferred their music to two-inch tape, then to cassette, then to the record store, then to Lake Butler, Florida, to my speakers, to my ears, and finally to my adolescent noggin. (That album is still one of my favorites, by the way, and features a mind-blowing cover photograph. Yes, those are real beds, on a real beach, pre-Photoshop.) So with just a few chords under my fingers and a whole lot of ambition, not to mention the absence of enough guys in my little town to really start a band, I decided to try and figure out how to make music. I saved up four hundred bucks that I earned mowing yards and stocking shelves at the local IGA and bought a Tascam four-track recorder, a machine I was certain would revolutionize my life—not just musically but relationally, since now I would be able to prove to the girls in school that I was worth something. “You see,” I imagined myself explaining to them, “I can record four separate tracks onto just one cassette, which allows me to play the bass, the guitar, the drums, and sing, then mix it all together for your listening pleasure, ladies,” at which point their eyes would flutter and they would faint to the floor in a pile of crimped hair and leg warmers. But that was just the recording gear. I also needed a studio. Enter my pal Wade Howell, also known as the Conundrum. He was a football player who was also a part-time atheist, a sax player, guitar player, and Dungeon & Dragons player. Needless to say, we were fast friends. (For the record, Wade ended up going to seminary and is now a professor and a fine family man.) Wade’s grandfather died and left him a single-wide trailer in the woods, where we set up an old drum kit and a few mics I scavenged from the church sound cabinet. After school, while Wade was at football practice, I often sped down the sandy road to the trailer in my Dodge Omni, plugged in his electric guitar, and pretended I was David Gilmour or Tom Petty. Once, because my girlfriend liked Garth Brooks, I used my trusty Tascam to record the drums, piano, bass, and vocals for the song “The Dance”. Oh, what wouldn’t give to know where that cassette is now. But after the first few months with the Tascam, the magic was gone. I didn’t want to just record Skynyrd songs. I wanted to make my own. But I had no idea what to sing about, and the few songs I managed to write were even worse than I thought they were at the time. I played them bashfully for my buddies, enjoying the feeling of having made something even though I was inwardly discontent. It strikes me now that I was in possession of an inner-critic even then, which agitated me. I wanted to be content with my lame songs, but I couldn’t be. Whatever pride I felt was in having made something—anything at all—not necessarily in the quality of what had been made. So I shared my songs with the few friends who cared to hear them, and felt good when they liked them, but was discontent without knowing why. Not long after graduation, I joined a rock band and sold the Tascam, figuring that I’d leave recording to the experts and focus on rocking instead. Fast-forward two years. The rocking was safely behind me. I was now in college, married, and taking serious steps with our band Planet X to record a demo. At the time, I had no idea there was such a thing as indie music. As far as we knew, the game plan was to record a demo and shop it around in Nashville. (We were but babes in the woods.) So Lou, the only guy in the band with any money, bought some gear and we set out to record our stuff after-hours in the college practice rooms. It turned out fine enough, but it was a far cry from what it needed to be. Eventually the band broke up, I started doing my own concerts, and I realized I had enough of my own songs to record a short album. I borrowed $3,000 from my grandma, took a Greyhound to Nashville—just like they do in the movies—was picked up at the bus station by my old roommate Mark Claassen (who’s still my neighbor, by the way), and we spent the weekend recording my independent record Walk. It was terrifying, exhilarating, and exhausting. We were in a real studio. We hardly slept. We recorded, mixed, and mastered eight songs in 2.5 days. There were no drugs involved. I took the Greyhound home (a grueling 26 hour trip, what with all the bus stops and all), a 22-year-old kid with a shiny, $3,000 CD in his guitar case and not a dime to his name. Jamie, of course, was all-in, as she’s always been. That little eight-song CD was what I sold at concerts for the next three years, and I’ll be forever glad for the way it paid the rent. But the farther I got from it the more I loathed it. I became painfully embarrassed at my voice, my pitch, and my songs, because I had come to know better. I had toured with the Caedmon’s Call guys for fifty shows, which exposed me to some great music and a much better understanding of what it meant to be a songwriter; I was no longer doing the Florida church camp circuit, but was trying to make a go of a real career, and that meant I could no longer be content with my mediocre best. I had to work at it, learn to be objective, and—this is the big one—to ask for help, help, help. Which brings me to three weeks ago in East Nashville when I walked into Cason Cooley’s studio, a warm room strung with lights and fragrant with incense, jammed full of guitars and pianos and books, and sat down with the Captains Courageous to start a new project. I looked around, thinking about all the other times I had done this very thing, marveling at how little I still knew about it. What do we do first? Do we sit around and play the songs for a day? Do we record scratch guitars? Do we pore over lyrics first? In some ways, it’s like looking at a hoarder’s house and wondering where to begin the cleanup. It’s also like looking out at a fallow field, steeling your resolve to tame it, furrow it, and plant–but you know it’s littered with stones and it’s going to be harder than you think. I often think of Indiana Jones and his leap of faith in the third movie. I’m 37 years old. This isn’t my first rodeo. I shouldn’t feel that old fear, anxiety, or self-doubt, should I? Then again, maybe I should. As soon as you think you know what you’re doing, you’re in big trouble. So before we opened a single guitar case, we talked. I sat with Ben Shive, Andy Gullahorn, and Cason and told them I felt awfully unprepared. I doubted the songs. I was nervous about the musical direction the record seemed to want to take. I wondered if I was up to the task. I told them about the theme that had arisen in many of the songs: loss of innocence, the grief of growing up, the ache for the coming Kingdom, the sehnsucht I experience when I see my children on the cusp of the thousand joys and the thousand heartaches of young-adulthood. Then we prayed. We asked for help. Ever since I read Lanier Ivester’s beautiful post about Bach (if you haven’t read it, you must), I’ve written the words “Jesu juva” in my journal when I’m writing a lyric. It’s latin for “Jesus, help!”, and there’s no better prayer for the beginning of an adventure. Jesus, you’re the source of beauty: help us make something beautiful; Jesus, you’re the Word that was with God in the beginning, the Word that made all creation: give us words and be with us in this beginning of this creation; Jesus, you’re the light of the world: light our way into this mystery; Jesus, you love perfectly and with perfect humility: let this imperfect music bear your perfect love to every ear that hears it. We said, “Amen.” Then I took a deep breath, opened the guitar case, and leapt.

The car in front of me swerved, and a bundle of long limbs flew up over its hood, tumbled across the roof, and slid down onto the hot August pavement. The car slowed briefly then sped away, leaving behind it a dying animal kicking and groaning in the dark. I parked my truck on the shoulder and got out. It was a seldom-trafficked road. No cars. It would have been quiet except for the drama in the southbound lane. The fawn’s legs wouldn’t work. It flopped and rolled, mewling eerily as it tried to right itself like a broken wind-up toy. When I knelt down beside it, its eye rolled toward me and stared. It stopped kicking and lay still, panting, blowing breath out of its mouth in sharp, hoarse heaves. I picked it up by the ankles, two in each hand, and carried it into the grass beside the road. What now? I thought. It stared back at me. Its eye was shot wide open, bulging, and rolling awkwardly back to keep me in its view. There was bloody spittle at its mouth and nose. Surely it would die. I ran my hand across its withers. Hot. I couldn’t believe how hot it was. Burning from the inside out–and wet, lathered with sweat and blood. I patted it gently and spoke to it. Easy. Easy. Sshhh. The panting slowed. The neck relaxed. The eye rolled forward and closed. Stillness. I knelt there a moment more, thankful the fawn was dead, then stood up and turned to leave. But as soon as I turned, the fawn began writhing again. It coughed and spit and panted and that frightened eye circled around to find me. I knelt back down and once more stroked its hot, blood-lathered coat. Under my hand, its panic passed and there it lay, silent and afraid. The eye kept me fast and I stayed a while. Easy. Easy. It occurred to me that the kindest thing might be to finish what the car began, but I hadn’t any means to do it. The best I could muster was a tire iron and I couldn’t see any kindness in a bludgeoning. I even considered using my hands but feared that snapping its thickly corded neck would prove more difficult than expected, and the last thing I wanted was to botch the job and leave it worse off than it would have been without me. So I tried to leave again. And once more, as soon as I stood up, the deer flopped and twisted and groaned. So back down I went. Easy. Easy. And there I was, knelt in the dark, lending a hand of comfort to a broken creature suffering nigh its end. How long? I prayed. How long, O Lord, will you let this go on? — — — In the 16th century, Portuguese missionaries tended a thriving Christianity in Japan. It’s estimated that there were between 200,000 and 400,000 converts. Churches grew, seminaries were established, and Portuguese priests were revered. But by the early 17th century, Christianity had been all but eradicated. The Japanese leadership feared the westernization of their country and saw Christianity and its missionaries as a prime threat. Persecution was institutionalized. Thousands were tortured and killed and the Church in Portugal effectively gave up. They would send no more missionaries to die. Shusaku Endo’s Silence is the story of two young missionaries who went anyway. The story is Shakespearian in its relentless tragedy and its effectiveness in asking questions that, if we are honest, have no easily manageable answers. Why do the innocent die? Why does God not break his silence and end suffering? When persecution ceases to be hypothetical and becomes torturous reality, have we any right to pass judgement on the man or woman who succumbs in the torturer’s keep? Can apostasy possibly be an act of love? When a naïve Father Rodriques sails from Portugal, intent upon a mission to Japan and his ideal of a glorious martyrdom there, he has no idea what is waiting for him. Those questions loom like muttering storms, half-seen on the horizon. The world he leaves behind is one of clear choices: pagan or Christian, apostate or apostle, fidelity or betrayal, black or white. But the Japan he discovers is a grey waste of unthinkable choices and faith-shattering cruelty. From the moment he sets foot in Japan, his ideals are slowly peeled back, layer by layer, winnowing his presuppositions away and laying bare the chilling truth that even the deepest certainty can be shaken when the only answer to the tortured groan of the Christian in the next cell is the harrowing silence of God. As a writer, Endo is deft enough to know that the answers aren’t necessarily any more comforting than the questions, and in fact I’d venture to suggest that some of the questions he wrestles with are essentially unanswerable. To attempt answers is to reduce the questions themselves to insignificance and reduce the people faced with them to something less than human. Like the author, the best we can do is to wrestle. Confronted with the reality of torture, doubt, weakness, and the suffering of others, the best we can hope for is a pugilism of conscience in which no one can contend unchanged. It’s a book that every Christian ought to get in the ring with. It’s a book that every missionary needs to confront. One of the many perspectives Endo presents is that which says Christianity has no place in Japan, that it’s fundamentally incapable of taking root there and rightly ought to be stamped out. That’s obviously the antagonistic view in the book, but it’s one with which anyone serious about missions work needs to grapple and overcome. — — — The fawn wouldn’t die, at least not according to my schedule. I gave up on it. What was I to do? Wait beside the road all night? Throw it in my truck and wait until morning to drive it to a vet? I didn’t have time for that. I left. I stood up and left it writhing in the grass coughing and sputtering and burning hot as a coal. I got in my truck and drove away—and about half a mile down the road I broke into tears because even though I’d done everything I knew to do, more than was required, I couldn’t escape the fact that leaving it there felt like a betrayal. I knew in my heart that I’d done the wrong thing. All it needed was my hand to comfort it, my voice to soothe it, my presence for assurance. And I denied it. The fawn died alone, writhing and screaming in the darkness. — — — Christ does not leave us abandoned to die alone like animals along the road. He abides with us. He stays no matter how long, feels each pang no matter how deep, and understands our betrayal even before we’ve given it a name. What thou dost, do quickly. What we do in the wake of his understanding is a choice of vital significance, because even in moments when, like Endo’s Father Rodrigues, we pride ourselves on being Christ-like, when we resolve ourselves to glorious martyrdoms of spirit if not of flesh, we’re often surprised to find ourselves driving away from the horror beside the road, having been no better than Judas after all. In the aftermath, do we tie ourselves a rope and go in search of a tree? Do we, like Peter thrice apostate, run headlong to the tomb and lay the foundations of something new? Or do we, humans that we are, go forth upon the middle ground veering wildly and desperate for guidance? Shall we do as Judas? Or shall we do as Peter? For we are none of us so strong as we think. We all shut out the Word, and none of us bear the silence well. The Fumie By A. S. Peterson Trample! Trample! To quiet the groan Trample the wretch In ragged repose Lying crushed underfoot While the morning cock crows From whom each hides his face In whose grime-crusted form The imprint of suffering Is e’er deeper worn Whose beauty has gone By each treacher defaced As each foot surrenders Its weight in disgrace “Your dirt for my beauty, My pain for relief!” The weeping king cries The unthinkable plea “Trample! Trample! For this was I born. For this crows the cock Each terrible morn Do quick what thou dost And trample again I’m crowned to lie down And be trampled by men.” Fumie – n. A device used to expose Christians after Christianity became prohibited in Japan (starting to an extent in 1587). Normally an image of Jesus, the Fumie was dropped on the ground and individuals made to step upon it in the belief that a true Christian would not commit such a sacrilege. [Shusaku Endo’s Silence is available in the Rabbit Room store.]

The world has a lot of definitions for love. Deep affection, fondness, tenderness, warmth, intimacy, attachment, endearment; devotion, adoration, doting, idolization, worship; passion, ardor, desire, lust, yearning, infatuation. Compassion, caring, concern, friendliness, friendship, kindness, charity, goodwill, sympathy, kindliness, altruism, unselfishness, philanthropy, benevolence. When I see the Jesus of the Gospels, I see the best of these definitions displayed, his deep affection for John, the tenderness toward Peter after his denial. I see his compassion and goodwill poured into the woman in John 8, and that little man Zacchaeus. I also see his anger toward the Pharisees, a love for sinners turned upon the self-righteous weapons of comparison and self-vaunting used to destroy lives. But central, always central, is his adoration for and wholehearted committal to his Father, a passion that spilled out in a flood to redeem a world of men and women cut off from God.There is a reliant trust flowing from the Jesus of the Gospels, which except for the wilderness and Gethsemane seems to flow spontaneously, easily, richly. There is an awareness of total weakness and ability: “I can do nothing of myself,” and an admission of total strength: “The Father in me does the works.” The paradox of humility and boldness within the same Man. The word “agape” has been often spoken of as “God’s love.” But in John 3:19 Jesus said, “…this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved (agapao) darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil.” To hate light is to love darkness. To love light is to hate darkness. Within the believer’s inner core is a new motive power; he is a partaker of the divine nature; it is the opposite of the Eph 2:2 spirit, “the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience” (apeithia, literally, the obstinately unconvinced). The Love which laid down his life for his enemies is now a pulsating light within the believer which has the ability to conquer darkness. This Power within us is for others, even at the expense of himself. Does that mean we never feel the desire to self-protect, or to strike back at those who hurt us, that we are never tempted? Of course not. Like Jesus, we are human, with all the capacities of feeling he possessed and displayed. We are temptable; it is a built-in characteristic of our humanity. Temptation is the very thing which gives rise to choice: So-and-so hurt me. I want to strike back. Do I? Well, who am I? I am a partaker of the divine nature. As such, I am energized and empowered at my core to forgive, to be for others, no matter what the cost. To plug into that Power  by faith brings life and peace through us to others. To fail to do so is to deal death to others. The agape which produces love for God and others, then, is a whole-hearted commitment to faithing in the Lord within us, trusting that his grace, his love, his power to love God and others inside us is sufficient for the job. It is trusting an inner Power for the needs of the moment. Does loving light and hating darkness mean we can never sin? No. What it does mean is that we can’t live there. Something eats at us, a sense that we are not being everything we are meant to be, a sense of failure, a sense of wrong that we cannot shake. 1John says if we are abiding in Christ we are not sinning, and if we are sinning we are not abiding. To abide, trust, rely, is to turn on Love’s switch and let the power flow that lights up the world. What is this love of light, then? What is agape? If it can be distilled down to one sentence, it would seem to me love is a wholehearted committal of oneself to something or someone, no matter what the cost. It is the love of a good mother and father for a child. It is the best of the love of lovers when divested of self-love. It is the love of Hudson Taylor for the people of China. It is agape, whole-hearted commitment-love which gives itself for the best of the beloved thing or person. It is not intellectual, or springing merely from feeling. But it engages the intellect, and awakens the other loves within the soul. To be continued.

My baby boy wriggles. Like many of us, he is impatient for food. He frets and fumes at the slow approach of his desire. But when it comes and he has taken a bite, a little dance follows. He shimmies in a thoughtless gesture of joy. He does not know the history of his food, how we come to have it. He only knows that it’s from his mother’s hand and he loves it. He is happily ignorant of all that goes into food, of the secret vocation of the farmer, the store clerk, the packagers, managers, and marketers all along the way. He does not know the hidden hand of God, working through vocation, to bring him daily bread. His prayers are random, giggling shouts of words he hears the rest of us offer up in thanks. As we grow up, our mystery somehow decreases. Confronted with unnumbered wonders, we sigh and chew in gladless presumption. Our knowledge increases, but our wonder evaporates. All of life is a kind of weary presumption. We have unspeakable kindnesses heaped upon us and we pout about the earth, grumbling under our breath. It seems to me that maturity (of the best kind: growing up in Christ) is mostly demonstrated by instinctual gratitude and unprovoked gladness. And unprovoked isn’t quite right the right word. It will only seem such. For as we grow, won’t our hearts be awakened to the wonders everywhere to be seen, so that everyday we live and breathe and have God’s unmerited favor we are overwhelmed with thankfulness? We will always be provoked. Paul writes (in Romans 1:18) of the unrighteous that they “suppress the truth.” The truth, like a helium-filled balloon, keeps popping up and must be shoved down again and again. These, to whom the wrath of God is being revealed, are intentional in their suppression… “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.” (Romans 1:19-21 ESV –emphasis mine) They knew God, but didn’t honor him as God or give thanks to him. It seems the underlying issue for every wicked act of rebellion we can do is failing to honor and give thanks to God. We do this in the face of plain evidence. We do this in spite of the clarity of truth. We have to go out of our way to suppress the truth. Thankfulness is more than simply another virtue, it is a key to almost all virtues. If we are thankful, what idols will tempt us? True enough, some of us are right now (and all of us have, or will be) suffering a hard providence. I don’t intend to make light of that, or act as though life isn’t hard. The world is broken, but there’s thanks to be given in the suffering. There’s good to be seen from the hand of God, as Job saw. It may make it harder if we see that the Bible doesn’t paint a picture of a feckless, far-off God during our suffering. We do not see a God who wrings his hands and sighs, “Oh, I wish there was something I could do.” I know this: He has good intentions for his own. He means good for us even in our deepest pain, even as the hammer falls. The Lord gives and takes away and is forever to be praised. That’s part of honoring God as God. The accommodating God of our bent imagination, the one who tolerates the sin we love, but hates the ones that personally annoy us–or are unpopular now with trendsetters, or media–is an idol. The God who is there is not silent. He is mysterious, but he is not tricky. He’s unfathomable but not capricious. When his son asks for bread, he will not give a stone. I want a thankful heart. I want a humble heart. I need a miracle. I want the wriggle of joy. I want the increased mystery that comes, paradoxically perhaps, with increased knowledge of and love for the God who is there. Jesus is amazing. He was tempted in the wilderness with thirst (he had no drink). Unlike the children of Israel, he did not grumble. He was tempted with hunger but did not bypass the authority of God the Father. He did not give way to presumption and ingratitude. He submitted. The Son of God submitted to his Father, waiting to be glorified by the Father instead of taking control of the kingdoms of the world ahead of schedule. Jesus is the first of the new kind of human that all who are in him become. Not those who grumble, but those who are deeply, joyfully, thankful. Thankfulness–intentional thankfulness–is the ancient avenue to wonder. Let’s toward that joy.

The room where I now sit is pleasantly dim. A fire burns in an old black grate nearby, its light painting gold over the dark wood wainscot on the lower walls of this square room. The bee hive hum of a pub is all round – people hunched over pints and good conversation as the evening draws to a close and the windows fog up with breath and cold. I too have my pint of cider and sit perched on a stool at a small wooden table, my eyes in a wander over the honey-toned walls with their black-and white photos in weathered frames. But one small sign catches my eye. It hangs at the archway entrance and and has two rather marvelous words etched upon it: Rabbit Room. That’s right folks. I greet you tonight from that Rabbit Room, the one in the Eagle & Child Pub, right in the heart of Oxford. The room where C.S. Lewis and Tolkien and a small host of thinkers like them tossed thoughts and growing tales back and forth amidst many pints and much laughter. The room in which the stories that shaped us all had at least a little of their making. I’ve been absent from the virtual Rabbit Room for quite a long time, so it feels quite fitting to pick back up and say a new hello to you all from this place. The story of my past few months is a long one, but the short version and end of it all is that I am here in Oxford for a term, the “Hilary term” as it is so dubbed by those in the know. The program I have joined gives me temporary standing as an official Oxford University student, and I am now an official member of Trinity college (the little one next to Blackwell’s bookshop for those of you who have been here). I have two tutorials, one in fantastical children’s literature, and one in a study of C.S. Lewis himself, and I live in a teensy student flat overlooking the Thames. I intend to breathe in as much Oxfordian brilliance as I can while I’m here, do as many C.S. Lewisy things as possible (do you think it will make me be able to write like him?), and soak up whatever magic it was that produced the imaginations of my favorite writers. I also propose to report a good bit of it to you. How would you feel about having an Oxford correspondent? I would love to savor the curiosities and old-world splendor of this time with you all here in the online RR. Thus, I will be posting a series of short reports from the ground here in Lewis’ grand old city. The Oxford Chronicles begin today. As a first taste of life here then, I must tell you about the “Bod” card. The granting of your Bodleian library card makes you an official student and member of Oxford University. With it, you can access almost any book you can imagine. In order to obtain this card however, you must go through a delightfully medieval ceremony which includes a very solemn recital of these words: I hereby undertake not to remove from the Library, or to mark, deface, or injure in any way, any volume, document, or other object belonging to it or in its custody; nor to bring into the Library or kindle therein any fire or flame, and not to smoke in the Library; and I promise to obey all rules of the Library. Thus did I solemnly swear at dusk two weeks past. Walls of darkest wood gleamed in the low light as we students stood in pew like stalls at the hour when the sky pearls with starlight. Shadows loomed large in the dusty corners of the old library wing, and gathered like flocks of black sparrows in the myriad panes of the high, cut-glass windows. I held up my hand before a long faced man in academic robes and swore I would protect the books of the Bodleian Library of Oxford. In return, I was handed what is probably the best library card I’ll ever own. Thus was I made a scholar in good standing with the university. Thus did my studies in Oxford begin. Thus was I tickled pink. This is Sarah, reporting from the Rabbit Room. St. Giles street, Oxford. Over and out.

Do you ever listen to a record and think, Wow, why doesn’t everyone know about this? That’s what comes to mind when I listen to Jill Phillips’ In This Hour album. It’s crazy good. Here’s one of the ten reasons why. “Find The Way” by Jill Phillips

A few weeks ago a friend passed me this excellent article from the New York Times by Marilynne Robinson (the author of Gilead). My meager agreement isn’t going to do justice to Miss Robinson or her article, so I’m simply going to pass her words directly on to you. Here’s an excerpt: Old Jonathan Edwards wrote, “It has all along been God’s manner to open new scenes, and to bring forth to view things new and wonderful.” These scenes are the narrative method of the Bible, which assumes a steady march of history, the continuous unfolding of significant event, from the primordial quarrel of two brothers in a field to supper with a stranger at Emmaus. There is a cosmic irony in the veil of insignificance that obscures the new and wonderful. Moments of the highest import pass among people who are so marginal that conventional history would not have noticed them: aliens, the enslaved, people themselves utterly unaware that their lives would have consequence. The great assumption of literary realism is that ordinary lives are invested with a kind of significance that justifies, or requires, its endless iterations of the commonplace, including, of course, crimes and passions and defeats, however minor these might seem in the world’s eyes. This assumption is by no means inevitable. Most cultures have written about demigods and kings and heroes. Whatever the deeper reasons for the realist fascination with the ordinary, it is generous even when it is cruel, simply in the fact of looking as directly as it can at people as they are and insisting that insensitivity or banality matters. The Old Testament prophets did this, too. Read the complete article here.

The painter, my husband, considered the primed surface before him. He made a decision, selected a brush, and began. It was his fourth year of undergraduate study, and already our home was filled with the offspring of his education. His taste was bold and abstract. Chromium oxide green and cadmium orange, large format, palette knife, and heavy strokes – these were his signature elements. On this new canvas, he melded the tendencies of his favorite artist with the professor-prescribed style: abstract expressionism. And as visions of Jackson Pollock danced with Wayne Thiebaud in his head, all the best of his skill and style came together. Color, composition, and technique – he wielded them well, and the result was his finest work yet. The painting was highly favored. We deemed it too valuable to sell. But in time, a high school art teacher asked to buy it, and her offer was high. After some discussion, we reluctantly sold what my husband had made. I was surprised at my own sadness when his masterpiece left our house. I really did love that painting. It would now hang on a strange wall, admired by some and ignored by others, but never so deeply cherished as by the one who made it and the one who shared the joy of seeing it made. It was still ours. Not in ownership, perhaps. But in the stretching of its form and the cutting of its frame, in every sweep of color, in every bend of line, in every choice of making, it was ours. In affection, it was ours. Years passed. The painting hung in a teacher’s lounge. We moved away. My best hope was that we might one day produce a print of it from slide film. A month before Christmas this year, my husband crowed that he already had my gift. I complained at not knowing what to get him. He assured me that he needed no gift. In fact, he said, my gift was really for both of us. It had been that costly. On Christmas morning, he waited while the children gaped at their gifts and ravaged their stockings. And when the excitement had faded, he presented me with a small box. Inside was a postcard, and the photograph upon it brought a flood of memory. The university quad. A white pickup truck. A diamond ring. This was our painting. He’s finally done it, I thought. He’s made a print of his finest work and framed it for me. Sure enough, on the back of the postcard was a note: “Look in the garage.” I knew what I would find. It would be like his painting, but it would only be a shadow. Too flat, too sterile, and pressed behind too-perfect glass. I felt a flicker of fear that I would not be able to react well enough. In the garage, a blue blanket concealed a 3-foot rectangular form. Here goes, I thought. While he watched, I pulled back the blanket at its corner. Brush strokes. I couldn’t help it – I thought of Thomas Kinkade. Had my husband made one of those add-a-few-brush-strokes-on-top prints? Had he really made a cheap copy of his own work, and then tried to dress it up? To hang in our own house? The idea seemed obscene to me. What I had feared was going to come true – I was not going to react well. The blanket fully fell. Hang on. I knew that cherry frame. And there was no glass. And this was more than a few brush strokes. And no printer could dream of daring to lay down color that rich. It was home. Our beloved image was home from across the miles and the years. We joyfully prepared its place and raised it up to glory and to rest. I imagined that if this painting could speak our language, it would have quite a story to tell. But it does speak our language. Beheld once again by the ones who first knew it, the painting tells how it was wrought of glory, and owned, and loved. It whispers of when it was lost. It creaks and moans at the memory of the long solitude, the greenness of fluorescent light, the eerie red glow of the exit sign at night. It shudders at the noise. It grimaces at the memory of cold cement on its back. It never belonged there. Now it sings, telling of warm hands on its frame. It is covered and carried. Voices speak from behind the veil. It has heard these voices before. It laughs, for it has not been forgotten. It is still known. It is still loved. It shouts, for it has been sought. A distance has been closed. Someone has come to close it. And now it weeps, for a price is paid. It is no small price. The painting sighs at the touch of new hands – oh, but not new at all. Firm, sure, and so blessedly familiar. And now it stops and says no more, for no more need be said. It simply is, and just by being, it tells a story. Of being made. Of being known. Of being loved. Of being home.

T.S. Eliot is the only poet to be both featured in my copy of The Norton Anthology of English Literature, and its American counterpart. He was born in St. Louis in 1888, but moved to London — becoming a British citizen in 1927. He is such a significant figure that both nations claim him as their own. Perhaps Eliot’s greatest accomplishment is Four Quartets — four related, but separate poems published over a six-year period. They deal with the connection of time and eternity — of Chronos (linear time) and Kairos (“the timeless moment”). Like in Eliot’s early works, the poem connects to numerous earlier writings — such as, in this case, to the early Greek philosopher Heraclitus, the scriptural account of Pentecost, a Hindu text, and the Christian mystics John of The Cross and Julian of Norwich. He also makes allusions to both Milton and Dante. The fourth section of Four Quartets, “Little Gidding” was published in 1942. The dove descending breaks the air With flame of incandescent terror Of which the tongues declare The one discharge from sin and error. The only hope, or else despair —Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre— —To be redeemed from fire by fire. Who then devised the torment? Love. Love is the unfamiliar Name Behind the hands that wove The intolerable shirt of flame Which human power cannot remove. —We only live, only suspire —Consumed by either fire or fire.

It’s grey and wintry here in Nashville. What rightfully ought to be snow has been showing up as plain old rain for the last few days. I’m riding out the winter with Buddy Greene and his harmonica and some musical dogs (not to mention my blankets and my cornbread). “Riding Out The Winter” by Buddy Greene

When I asked the kiddos at the lunch table today, “What are your plans for the long weekend?”, I was pleasantly surprised to hear things like: “I really don’t have any plans.” “We’ll probably eat pancakes.” “I just got a puppy so we’ll play, I think.” Around here, four-day trips to Paris or horse shows or all-weekend basketball tournaments are not unusual, so when I think that a handful of these dear ones have a few days of open air and unstructured time, it makes me so glad. One girl, when I asked what they did last weekend, said (roughly, as I recall), “Well, I stayed in bed even though I was wide awake. And I drew a lot — I had this dream that I lived in a village by the sea where the streets all ran right into the water! I tried a lot of different times to get it right, and the best part was that my house was the closest one to the water so I had the best view. There were shops and restaurants that went out over the water, and I wished I really could visit a place like that so I drew it. It took me pretty much all day! And then it was dinner time.” And so my weekend lies ahead. I would like to pattern mine after hers. When I consider how often I dreamt and drew and colored (and just plain lollygagged) on the weekends when I was younger, it’s shameful that I don’t use those gifts or that time the way I used to. I admit that the quest for perfection sometimes trips me up and I slam into its cold wall, and I find I’d rather not start something that doesn’t have a purpose (or a commissioner’s cash) at the other end of it. Just today, in fact, I challenged my third graders to drop their defenses and join their memories with their imaginative powers while drawing some preliminary Chinese dragons. Man, it was an uphill battle. They’re only in third grade and they have a hard time remembering how unhindered they were just a mere three years prior. I know that my weekend will also have to include un-decking the house from its twinkly Christmas state (but only partially, because “Winter” is the current official holiday that I like to celebrate). My weekend will also include taking out the trash, cleaning my bedroom which is yet a total wreck from the action of the past two weeks, and I’ll also need to bundle up and get outside for to move my body around and try to turn around the delicious damage that was done to my waistline over the holidays. I’ll also need to wield my trusty pruning shears and cut the tree branches that scrape scarily across my bedroom window, sounding much like the witches’ fingers from my girlhood nightmares. So many adult-ish things must be seen to, but here’s hoping that I might take some time, stay in my pretty bed with my new, cocoa powder-colored fur blanket, my coffee and my Moleskine book, some pencils and paints, some music. Lollygagging is a gift too, see.