What are you looking for?

I wrote this a few months back, but it came to mind today because I spent hours this week wrestling with a song. Knowing that I’m recording it in a matter of days ramps up the pressure to get it right–or, as right as I can get it. It’s a relief sometimes to remember that, as hard as I try to say what I mean to the listener, in the end, the song (or poem) is going to do whatever it wants. DISTILLATION It’s hard to choose, Among all that is And all that is not, One small thing To make much of: One cell, One star, One wind, One wound, One old broken truck, One undeniable infatuation With one untouchable soul; To pen a span of words With myriad meanings, Arranged just so, in order That they might mean That one single thing Which can mean A million things– Depending on The reader, And the hour He or she reads it, And the angle of light, And the heart’s condition, And the temperature of the air, And the presence (Or absence) Of demons Or angels, Personal Or impersonal, And the song that played In the bakery and mingled Perfectly with the aroma and Aerated the anger, just enough That the poem might seed the soul With a fleeting, sacred silence– Just enough to plant the secret God is telling–the one thing We’re all dying to discover– Even if we have to find it In a poem.

It goes beyond knowing that we’re not alone. It’s not even summarized in having a place to belong. The desire for the artist to hold membership within a creative community moves past the pain of loneliness or the need for identification into a real longing for stimulation. We yearn for like-minded sojourners to help shape and form our words, our music, our work. And yet outside of circles equally beautiful and rare (like the Square Peg Alliance), many of us find it difficult to locate others we can partner with. One of the common threads at Hutchmoot last fall was this very desire. I met artist after artist (although so many are reticent to name themselves as such) who used words like “isolated” and later terms like “afraid” came rolling after. The two are linked — fear and isolation — and so many of us hope and wait for someone to join us, to help us shed our fears and create without obstacles. As Thomas and I shared in a breakout group about building co-creative communities, it actually felt like we were poised to share bad news. In my own experience, there’s no formula to build any community — let alone a creative one. I came to Hutchmoot and heard the words, “Are you ready for your session?” My initial thought was “No. Well, yes. Perhaps?” The reason was that I was without either PowerPoint or worksheet titled with anything remotely helpful (i.e. “Chia Community”). Instead, the only thing that both Thomas and I knew to tell people was to pursue what was inside of them with the utmost excellence and discipline — to move beyond their fears and put something, anything, out there. The only way to start a creative community is to first be a creative community of one. There’s a quote about this that I’ve read attributed to both John Wesley and Charles Spurgeon over the years (thanks to Google). Perhaps it’s Roseanne Barr. These things are impossible to tell in the Internet age. That said, it doesn’t change the meaning of the quote: Set yourself on fire and people will come to watch you burn. I could not be more proud of the church community that I’ve pastored over the last 8 years in the Indianapolis area. The Mercy House has been a haven for the most unlikely people creating the most unlikely organizations, ministries, artwork, and more and we’re often asked about the origin of the mess we call our community. “How did you do this?” My answer is easy. I point to the people who set themselves on fire. Steve was a college senior who had a passion for guys coming out of prison systems or addiction recovery programs, but he also noticed that every “shelter” sort of program had staff that went home to their own lives and kept a distance from the men. It became a language of “us” versus “them.” Some referred to those they were serving as “clients.” Long story short, Steve did his research, formed a non-profit and decided to create the Exodus House, a men’s transitional shelter where the “staff” live with the “residents” and obey the same rules. Others have followed suit and now a vision is emerging for multiple houses to serve a myriad of people in need. He set himself on fire. Megan was a 20-something girl who loved making handmade journals. I’ll never forget the tear-filled conversation as her heart welled up and she described to me a dream she had to teach oppressed women in Uganda how to sew the journals and she would work stateside to sell them. The dream felt so fragile she rarely shared it for fear it would fall apart like a house of cards. I told her, in so many words, “Set yourself on fire and see what happens.” She made an announcement the next week at our Sunday gathering and eventually partnered with several girls to form Bound 4 Freedom. A non-profit organization was born and over the course of a couple of years, the girls were making trips to Uganda to teach HIV-positive women how to make their own living and they’re sold in boutique stores locally. They’ve now grown to include jewelry and other programs. She set herself on fire. Fans of the Rabbit Room, myself included, can trace this same story in the songwriters that we listen to and the authors that we read. They write books without an audience in mind. They write songs without ears to listen to them. While we are now witnessing the payoff of those moments, the early days are easily forgotten when things felt as fragile as Megan or Steve felt in those early days of fear and wonder. Hutchmoot is described in 100 different ways by 100 different people. It’s difficult to pin down. Yet when I’m asked what it’s about, for me it’s a very simple answer. The beauty of Hutchmoot is found in the freedom that people hopefully feel as they leave Nashville — a freedom to follow their passions beyond their fears and begin to call others alongside them. There are always those waiting in the wings to join in, as long as someone is willing to be the spark.

Back when The Rabbit Room first went live, part of our mission was to indulge in the pleasure of good and beautiful art. We launched with the understanding that there would always be plenty of sites online where readers could form a community around picking apart and criticizing what they didn’t like about certain music, books and film, but that this wouldn’t be that sort of place. Here at the Rabbit Room, we would focus our energy on the books, music, film and ideas that made us want to gather our friends, sit them down and oblige them to discover the Josh Ritters, Hurt Lockers, and Peace Like A Rivers of the world. Another unspoken, but pretty obvious reality concerning our DNA can be summarized by slightly modifying that wonderful Buechner quote Eric Peters likes to put before us—“the story of any one of us [here at the Rabbit Room] is in some measure the story of us all—[we’re nerds of varying degrees].” So I don’t need to draw anyone’s attention to the fact that in one year Peter Jackson is giving the world the first installment of his two film cinematic version of The Hobbit. He just released the first trailer, and friends, it took the interweb less than two puffs of pipe-weed to start complaining about the suspected inconsistencies, apparent mangling of the book’s storyline, and unnecessary inclusions of characters who don’t belong in The Hobbit. I presume the majority of these criticisms spring from a genuine love of Tolkien’s book and a reverence for not just the truth and beauty found in its pages, but also for the nostalgia it awakens in us. And I respect that. So it is to that love that I will direct this humble appeal. I remember, like it was yesterday, sitting in the theater watching The Fellowship of the Ring for the first time and being struck by this thought: “I have never seen anything like this before! How in the world did what’s his name who made this film create such a realistic and dangerous world?” I had no idea I was entering in to what would become far and away one of the best movie-going experiences of my life. I had no idea this Peter Jackson guy was about to make 90% of the movies I would see afterward so, how should I say this, average looking. I had no idea that a Hobbit could make me cry or a rising king could make me examine my own attitudes about adulthood. Did Jackson change some things up in those first three films? He sure did. Were all those changes necessary? Probably not. I don’t know. But can anyone accuse Peter Jackson of being careless with Tolkien’s masterpiece? I think not. And can anyone say those movies are anything less than a labor of love from an exceptionally gifted filmmaker? Come on. To me, The Lord of the Rings films are, in themselves, amazing works of art. And they are the fruit of countless hours invested by hundreds of people each working in the areas of their skill and talent. For me, Peter Jackson has more than earned the right to tell the story of The Hobbit in the way he wants to as a filmmaker. I don’t presume to know much about what it takes to turn a book into a film—not to mention doing so more than half a century after the books were written. But I imagine that since Jackson is working in such a different format that he has to make certain adjustments to tell the story the best he can. As an artist, he has to trust his visual instincts. And I give Peter Jackson the benefit of the doubt that whatever editorial decisions he made in the first three films that deviated from the book were because he wanted to strengthen (not weaken) the cinematic version of the story he so obviously loves. So Peter Jackson, I know you don’t need me to say this, but still I want you to know one thing: I’ve got your back. Thanks in advance for making The Hobbit, for taking your sweet time doing it, for loving Tolkien’s books so much and for being such a good steward of the story of Middle Earth. But so help me, if you fabricate a tawdry love affair between Gandalf and Galadriel, I take back every word.

In the twelve years that Philip and I have been married, there are only two New Years Eves we’ve spent at home. Once, early on, we had my parents over for a formal dinner. We toasted with champagne cocktails and set off a few decorous little fireworks, and Daddy chased Philip around the backyard with a flaming Roman candle, laughing all the way. The other saw me in bed with a cold, asleep well before the stroke of midnight. Every other year we have been in company of lifelong friends, gathered about a familiar hearth for an evening as comfortable as it is refined. But this year I was too sick to go out. The kind of sick that called for soda crackers and painkillers. Philip picked up takeout that I couldn’t eat and a bottle of champagne at the grocery store, just in case. We played backgammon by the fire and listened to a stack of Christmas records and reminisced rather drowsily over the highlights of 2011. I kept threatening to go to bed and Philip kept nudging me to stick it out. Nearing midnight he disappeared into the kitchen and came back with toasting glasses: Coke for him and ginger ale for me. The perfect accompaniment to my saltines. In many ways, such a quiet, reflective evening seemed to me an appropriate way for this year to go out. It was a wonderful year, rich and heavy with blessings, and we had many treasures to turn over in our talk by the fire that night. But 2011 also saw the continued deferment of a hope long-cherished, one which the very marrow of my soul was worn out with waiting for. January after January I have seen the new year as a fresh chance, a clean slate upon which the Lord just might create the desire of our hearts—a miracle, no less, but one which His lovely character has given me courage to keep looking for. But this New Year’s I just couldn’t seem to find my hope. It was exhausted: buried away like a tired bird in its hidden nest, head tucked under its wing and a veritable thicket of impossibility screening it from view. I had been asking the Lord all that afternoon to show me what faith looked like in this place I am in, what shape hope might take as a symbol for her beleaguered campaign. I so wanted to end the year on a positive note; to know the radiance and splendor in the darkness, even if I couldn’t see it. I didn’t want this Christmas season to go out—and thereby be defined—by sadness and disappointed hopes, but by joy, and by a confident expectation in His ultimate goodness. I wanted the statement of faith I had endeavored to make with this holiday, the deep confession it had been of His perfect love and faithfulness, to shine out strong, not in spite of disappointment and deferred hopes, but in the face of them. But I was so tired. “If I can’t run to You,” I told the Lord, “then at least I can lift my head and hold out my arms.” So midnight came, and not a moment too soon for my taste. We listened to the clock in the hall roll out the long chimes and clinked our soft drinks and laughed about how tame it all was. And then I said I was going to bed in earnest. I hoisted myself up and took a last glance at the Christmas tree, all stars and magic in the gloom. And it was then that the fireworks began. It has been so long since we have been home on New Year’s, we had no idea what a spectacle our neighbors had cooked up in the interim. I dropped back down beside Philip on the sofa and we sat there listening for a while, expecting it to end any moment. But the bangs and reverberations only escalated. Philip suddenly sat up. “Those are big—I’ll bet we could see them!” So we jumped up and hastened outside into the cold, and there, across the road and all along the winking line of neighboring house lights, we saw the blooming explosions of color and light flaming out above the trees. Red and green, blue and gold: all profusions of falling stars with joyous booms to accompany. It was glorious, and completely unexpected: fireworks that had undoubtedly crossed the state line from vacations and holidays, flung recklessly out into the night for weary, unknown souls to feast upon. I could hardly conceive of such benevolence. Joy simply blazed up in both of us—it was as if we had never been tired; I had never been sick or sad. Philip ran to gather all the fireworks we had and I ran in the house and came back out on the front porch (in my coat this time) with the bottle of champagne and two glasses. “I don’t care if this makes me sick,” I laughed as Philip poured mine and the bubbles foamed up and ran down over the sides of the flute. It didn’t. I sat and watched the show over the trees and the beautiful little spectacle that my husband was staging for me there on our own front walk, sipping my champagne and looking up at the real stars overhead in the clear, cold sky. Our fireworks were not as impressive as our neighbors’, but they were exquisite to me. They were radiance in the darkness and a splendor in my own heart. Glory flaring out with a sudden beauty that made us laugh, and also made me want to cry a little bit. A bird woke in our holly hedge and protested all the noise. I shushed her back to sleep with a smile. Joy and sorrow—twin eggs of the same nest. They make their home together and sorrow will always wound and ply her merciful steel upon the human heart. But it’s the joy that breaks it. It wasn’t the New Year’s we had planned or expected—even a few moments before. But there we were, sitting out in the cold on our own front steps in coats and pajamas, drinking cheap champagne and watching a New Year bloom in a sudden exultation of falling stars and kindling hopes. And although this January was scarcely half an hour old, my mind was filled with the words of The Innocence Mission song July: the man I love and I will lift our heads together… the world at night has seen the greatest light: too much light to deny…

I was sitting backstage with Jill Phillips on the Behold The Lamb of God tour when she said, “Well, it’s about that time–time for the end of the year ‘best of’ lists to start popping up.” And since Jill brought it up, I thought it might be fun to ask my Rabbit Roommates to submit their favorite movies, music, and books lists. To ring in the new year we look back for a moment (so I can make a list of movies, books, and music to buy with all my Christmas loot). After reading ours, share your own list with us: Jason Gray Music So Beautiful or So What – Paul Simon This is my favorite record of 2011. (I wrote a review here.) I’ve turned to this record and its life-giving reflections on love and tenderness over and over throughout the year. Favorite tracks: “Rewrite” and “Love And Hard Times.” Invisible Empires – Sara Groves Sara’s one of the best lyricists out there. This collection of songs is at once deeply personal and globally philosophical. Topics range from the miracle of forgiveness in our most intimate relationships to questions of modernity. This is one of her best records, I think, and that’s saying a lot. It’s healing music. It also offers one of the most naked glimpses into the heart of a woman with the song “Finite” written by Sara and Jill Phillips. Favorite Tracks: “Miracle” and “Open My Hands.” Mylo Xyloto – Coldplay My kids have discovered a love for music in a deeper way this year, and Coldplay rose through the ranks to become one of their favorites and a rock band that we all enjoy. Mylo Xyloto may not be my favorite Coldplay record, but the anticipation of its release with my sons and our shared enjoyment of it make it one of my favorite music experiences of the year. Favorite Tracks: “Charlie Brown” and “Paradise.” Bad As Me – Tom Waits Though my favorite Waits record may always be Mule Variations, I think this one is his best in many years and a worthy entry in his always strange and often beautiful catalog. More than writing just songs, Waits conjures characters and then sings songs from inside of them. Favorite Tracks: “Bad As Me” and “Pay Me.” Movies There were so many more movies that I wanted to see this year, but it just wasn’t in the cards. Here’s a list of a few I did see and enjoyed: Punch Drunk Love I’ve had this on my must see list for years and finally got around to it in November. Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (Magnolia, There Will Be Blood) and a poignant and unlikely leading role for Adam Sandler (don’t let that scare you away, it’s not an Adam Sandler movie), I loved this film. The use of the song “He Needs Me” from the old Popeye movie was brilliant and the kind of thing that I love about Anderson’s genius. The Descendants In my mind, George Clooney’s best role and one of the most moving stories of forgiveness and coming alive that I’ve seen a long time. Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part II I feel sheepish including this one because of it’s ubiquity, but I and my family thoroughly enjoyed this movie. The Best Worst Movie A Documentary about Troll 2 that Andrew Peterson introduced me to and that we watched on the bus during the Christmas tour. It’s delightfully weird and even offers a revealing glimpse into human nature by the end. The Muppets Having grown up on the Muppets, I found this a delightful and often poignant return to a world of characters that I’ve always loved. How the Muppets manage to be both so unapologetically sincere and slyly subversive at the same time is a mystery that I enjoy thoroughly. Books: I’ve always been a fan and have read many of his books, but this was the year of Walt Wangerin Jr. catch up for me, and these are his books I read that deeply nourished me: Miz Lil And The Chronicles of Grace – This is my new favorite Wangerin book. This book is made up of stories of the deconstruction of his faith from childhood to adolescence and the later rediscovery of it in his pastoral ministry. I either laughed or cried on nearly every page. Wangerin’s bravery is inspiring here as he shares stories where more often than not he is the fool or the villain. Beautiful. As For Me And My House – Wangerin’s book about marriage is distinctive in that his pastoral and storytelling vocations combine to offer storied, humble wisdom about our most sacred relationship. More than a “how to” marriage book, it reads like a great story that you can’t put down. In Walt and Thanne’s story you may find your own. The Manger Is Empty – Wangerin’s book of reflections around the idea of Advent. The chapter about his adopted son Matthew’s stealing problem and the moment that changed his heart is one of the clearest and most beautiful gospel moments I’ve ever read. I also reread C.S. Lewis’s space trilogy this year and LOVED it. Lewis’s understanding of sin as rejecting the good that is because it isn’t the good you hoped for began to shift continents of understanding in my heart. Eric Peters Movies The Muppet Movie – One of two movies I’ve seen in an actual theatre this year (Cars 2 being the other). So moving and funny that my four-year-old son vomited on my wife at the high point of the film. What I did get to see of Muppets was superb. I hope the gang got their $10 million. Maniacal laugh. The Simpsons (on DVD) – Mock me if you must, but I still really like this show. After getting the boys to bed at night, I often watch an episode or two in those moments when I desperately need a good laugh. Which is, to say, often. Books My Name is Asher Lev – Andrew Peterson recommended this book to me years ago, but only recently did I purchase a copy and read it. Originally published the year of my birth, I read and saw in this moving and poignant story a portion of myself and my own personal artist leanings. It did me much good. In The Heart of the Sea – Nathaniel Philbrick is among my favorite living historians. He has a tremendous gift for writing narrative history (i.e., non-school-book style), especially on the topic of seafaring and whaling. An absolutely incredible story of whalers lost at sea for ninety days, and how/if they survive. Music David Mead – Dudes – His music continues to slay me. I’m a geek of a fan. Though lyrically crude at times, “Dudes” seems to be a light at the end of a dark tunnel for David. This album is a return to David’s pop-rock leanings to which I was first introduced and fell in love with ten years ago. Mead has a gift that few possess: an uncanny ability to write maddeningly catchy melodies and hooks, along with an unmistakable voice to deliver said goods. “I Can’t Wait” is a prime example. Thomas McKenzie Movies (so far, but I haven’t seen all the Oscar contenders yet) Drive: I loved this film and wish I could recommend it to everyone, but I can’t due to the violence. I loved its stillness, its existential movement, its beautiful picture of self-giving love, its humor, and its perfect twisting of convention. Super 8: Yes, the monster was lame.  But the acting was tremendous, the story was superb, and I left the theater wanting to make my own zombie movie. The Descendants: A small film about the biggest questions. Some of the minor characters were lacking, and there is a storyline that never really develops, but I consistently believed the main characters. I felt like I was in the room with a real family, and I empathized with their anger, resentment, and heartbreak. And yes, I saw Tree of Life, Melancholia, and The Help.  And no, they are not on this list. Books (that I read this year, not that came out this year) The Power and the Glory – Graham Greene – The broken, incomplete, and triumphant glory of the Church lived out in the life of one drunken priest. Brought me to tears more than once. Empire of the Summer Moon – S.C. Gwynne – The terrifying and heartbreaking story of the Comanche Nations. It had a particular poignancy for me because their reign ended almost exactly where I grew up, and their greatest American enemy was a distant relation of mine. Under the Banner of Heaven – Jon Krakauer – I read this in an attempt to figure out what is going on with Mormonism. I walked away with a deeper sensitivity to the danger of blasphemy, especially in my own religion. Music – This is where I always get into trouble because I have to play favorites among my friends. But I’m just going to suck it up and say what I think. The best new music in 2011 came from these three sources: The Civil Wars – You take two musicians who were often overlooked, you stick them together, and you get the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup of music. Totally, utterly beautiful. Florence + The Machine – I flipped out when I first heard their rendition of “Addicted to Love,” and I still cannot get enough of them. Florence is like a druid/dervish Amy Winehouse with, I hope, less drugs. Pete Peterson Movies Drive – This was one of those movies that arrived completely unannounced, no fanfare, no trailer, and no hype, and it pretty well blew my mind. It manages to deserve both the classic and modern definition of the word “awful.” It’s filled with as many beautiful moments as it is horrifying ones, and one enhances the power of the other. It’s never less than mesmerizing. It’s also got one of the best and weirdest soundtracks ever. Rise of the Planet of the Apes – One of the best sensations I know of is that of watching a story unfold while not only being captivated by it and desperate to know what happens next but feeling the elation of genuine surprise when that next thing happens in a way I didn’t at all expect. If you don’t know what I mean, go watch this movie. The word “No” has never carried so much dramatic weight. Tree of Life – This isn’t a perfect movie, but it’s such a singular vision of a film that it wipes away some of my cynicism about the Hollywood machine and reminds me that it’s still possible for one man to communicate in vision and poetry without the anchor-weight of blockbuster commercialism dragging behind him. Or if, as is more likely the case, that anchor does drag, he drags it mightily along. Midnight in Paris – A love letter to art and literature. Hemingway, T.S. Eliot, Dali, Fitzgerald–how can I not love it. Thank you, Woody Allen. Honorable Mention – Troll 2 – Wow. Just wow. Popcorn will never be the same. Books A Tale of Two Cities – I think I read this (or maybe part of it) when I was in high school. It didn’t make much of an impression, and I didn’t remember anything but those famous first and last lines. I read it again this year (for the first time, you might say) and it’s become my favorite book, maybe my favorite book ever. It’s so good on so many different levels that there’s no way I’m going to attempt to do it justice here. I’ll be re-reading it for the rest of my life. Amazing. Music Mylo Xyloto – I really don’t know what to say about this except that I love how bright the music is. I’m not sure yet if I like it as much as Viva la Vida, but at the very least it’s my favorite “pop” album of the year. Love & War & the Sea in Between – I just discovered Josh Garrels this year, and thank goodness. This record is in permanent rotation at our house. I’ve never heard anything quite like it, and I can’t get enough of it. Maybe the highest compliment I can give Josh Garrels is that he has done what no other artist on earth has ever done: He has made me love a rap song. The Cymbal Crashing Clouds – I love every inch of this album. It’s almost like Ben Shive reached into my brain and pulled out exactly the kind of songs I’ve always wanted to hear but had forgotten existed. And on top of the great record, there’s an amazing book to go along with it. S.D. Smith, maker of lists. Listmaster Monthly‘s top 5 Listmasters Listmakers five years running. Books (in no intentional order). The Harry Potter Series – J.K. Rowling – I finally got around to reading these over the last six months. Actually, Jim Dale read them to me. I listen to a lot of audiobooks and Jim Dale is in the top three (reading) performers I’ve ever heard. Brilliant. On Rowling’s series: A few quibbles aside, this was really amazing. I thought book 3 was exceptional and the ending to book 7 transporting. The ending is thoroughly beautiful and brilliant on so many levels. It truly was a delight. Also, she is an amazing writer. Some of the features of the series were so convoluted (which is a huge problem anytime limits are vague –as with magic), it amazes me she was able to keep us engaged and bought in so thoroughly. But she did. What an incredible performance she accomplished in these books. She excelled at both of the main jobs of a novelist. The story was fantastic and the performance was equally so. I’m sure she’s delighted to hear of my approval a thousand years after everyone else. It was excellent. I loved the triumphal ending. So true to the way God is telling the story of mankind. Beyond Smells & Bells – Mark Galli – A very helpful little book on the beauty of the Christian liturgy, a subject I’ve been on a slow train towards understanding for twenty years. The train has sped up in the last few years and this was a help. That Hideous Strength – C.S. Lewis – This was a reread, but I mention it because it is so fantastic. It is the novelization of the ideas in The Abolition of Man. Here is a thorough demolition of much modern (and post-modern) absurdity in a terrific tale. Did you know this is novelist N.D. Wilson’s favorite novel? The Prodigal God – Tim Keller – This was a fantastic little book. Like a lot of Keller’s work, it reveals the Gospel as a third way between the approach of the younger and elder brothers. He rightly points out the target of the parable is the elder brother and constitutes a challenge to him to stop his own manipulation of the father (Father) and to enter into the shocking welcome he has for those who don’t deserve it. Picking just a few is impossible, but I shall stop there. I’m saying nothing about Walking on Water by Madeleine L’Engle? What is wrong with me? Movies I don’t know. I can’t remember anything too amazing except that Cars 2 was disappointing. Pixar!? I don’t go to the movies very much and I honestly can’t remember one movie that amazed me. Oh, I loved Jane Eyre. And the last three Harry Potter movies were really excellent. If I remember any more, I’ll call a press conference and people can start camping out in a line, sleepless and breathless and brainless with anticipatory anticipation. Music I’m an incurable homer. As Nacho Libre (hey, that’s a movie) sort-of-almost said: “All the Rabbit Room music-types and The Square Pegs are my favorites too!” Everything I attempt to write about them seems weird for some reason, so I’ll leave it at that. Or… I love them like I love the sound of rivers dancing like tulips on the streets of my cobble-stone heart in a hat with wet tulips in it on drugs. <—not weird at all. Otherwise, I loved Josh Garrels. And I’ve really enjoyed Hutchmate Zach Smith’s The Walla Recovery. Fernando Ortega keeps getting played in my car regularly. I love Dan Zanes and he got plenty of plays in our home in 2011, especially his Sea Songs. I really like Jacob Dylan’s Women and Country, which is new to me in 2011. I keep listening to Rich Mullins all the time. I’ll never get past that. Live: We had Randall Goodgame up in here in West Virginia for a Slugs & Bugs show and it was amazing for our community. We saw Behold the Lamb of God again in Charlotte and that is so special for my whole family (almost literally). The Square Peg show and the Jason Gray release show at Hutchmoot were sweet. But the coolest: I got to be acting road manager for my man, Eric Peters, for a short leg of his tour through West Virginia and Pennsylvania. That was simply smashing. Eric is the berries. Jonathan Rogers Books It was an unusual year of reading for me; in the first half of the year my reading revolved around the Flannery O’Connor biography I was writing, and in the second half of the year all my reading revolved around teaching literature and the history of the English language. But I’m happy to offer up my favorites: The Habit of Being. Flannery O wrote fiction in the morning and letters in the afternoon. The Habit of Being is a collection of those letters. She lived in isolation from other writers and intellectuals (she didn’t even have a telephone for most of her adult life), and yet she craved intelligent conversation. Her letters served that purpose. As editor Sally Fitzgerald wrote, we are blessed that Flannery O’Connor’s best conversation didn’t “go up in talk” as it would have if she had been able to sit down and talk with the people she wrote so many letters to. These letters are hilarious and smart and theologically rich. And every time I get to that last letter she wrote, I get weepy. She’s so alive in her letters, it comes as a surprise when she dies (at 39!). Dr. Faustus, Much Ado About Nothing. In the fifteen or so years since I finished getting educated, I’ve been on an overwhelmingly American diet of reading. Teaching literature this past semester, I remembered why I specialized in the British Renaissance. The richness and texture of the plays and poems–it really is astonishing. Much Ado is on the list simply because it is the most recent Shakespeare play I read. It could have been any of Shakespeare’s plays. Movies I didn’t see too many movies in 2011. The favorites on my list have all been listed above, and their merits better articulated. Nevertheless, here goes: Tree of Life – I’m crazy about this movie. It breaks several of my hidebound rules of storytelling, and it breaks rules I didn’t even know I had (no CGI dinosaurs in a family drama, for one). It’s an infuriating movie (twenty minutes of planetarium movie footage? Really?) And yet I love it anyway. It may be some kind of Stockholm Syndrome, where the movie maker beats me into submission, and yet I end up on his side. In any case, the fact that somebody even was able to make and distribute such a movie makes me happy. Super 8 – Just saw this last week and got very nostalgic for the Spielberg movies of my youth. The Muppets – Again, it makes me happy to know that sometime in 1970s, Jim Henson said, “I’ve got an idea: let’s do a prime-time variety show with puppets!” And that the idea still lives. Midnight in Paris – This one was just a ton of fun and not as annoyingly pseudo-intellectual as I expected it to be. Music The Cymbal Crashing Clouds – Ben Shive – Jason already hit the nail on the head. This is a guy doing exactly what he was made to do. Pete hit the other nail on the head. I love every inch of this album. Ben Shive is such a clever young man. In the Kids’ Music category, I have already written about how much I love Slugs and Bugs: Under Where? and Coal Train Railroad Swings. 2011 was the Year of Noisetrade for me. I have loved having the opportunity to sample music that I wouldn’t have otherwise heard. Here are two of my favorites that nobody has mentioned yet: What the Crow Brings – The Low Anthem – This isn’t The Low Anthem’s most recent album, just the one they offered on Noisetrade. What the Crow Brings is broody and dark and reflects the band members’ interest in the history of American music. The songs sound like they could have been written and sung in mining camps. Youth Is in our Blood – The Dirty Guv’nahs – This is just straight ahead Southern Rock, more of the runka-runka variety than the noodly-doodly variety. (To put that in Skynyrd terms, they’re more “Give Me Three Steps” than “Freebird”). Sometimes they start sounding like a Black Crowes tribute band. Which is kind of awesome. Matt Conner Movies Hugo – Martin Scorsese’s ode to cinematic history is an intimate, vulnerable story that showcases a beautiful side the celebrated director’s never before unveiled. Music Love & War & The Sea In Between – Josh Garrels – Garrel’s magnum opus is an expansive, dynamic 18-song collection that features some of the most soul-stirring lyrics I’ve ever heard. Books The Sense of an Ending – Julian Barnes – This 2011 Man Booker prize-winning novel is one of the finest releases in English literature in years. With beautiful prose, Barnes disarms the fears of not only his character but all of us as he ages. Russ Ramsey Movies Super 8 – I saw this film twice–once by myself (which is how I usually roll) and then with my son and AP and his boys. The second time I spent a good part of the movie watching my 11 year old son watch it– trying to see if he’s aware of girls yet. My findings are confidential. Drive – Brutal in places. But there’s this scene at the end where the hero lays everything down for the sake of love that struck a note of truth in me. Music So Runs the World Away – Josh Ritter – Call me late to the party, but man! Josh Ritter is an amazing songwriter. This isn’t a perfect record. But there are a couple of songs that are as close to perfect as you can get. Barton Hollow – The Civil Wars – I defer to other synopses in this post. A sonic rarity. Books Isaac’s Storm – Erik Larson – I love historical events told as story. This isn’t Larson’s best work, I’m told, but still its a pretty mesmerizing account of one of the most destructive hurricanes ever to hit the US (Galveston, TX) and the weather man who didn’t see it coming… or did he?

He gets the words wrong, but his heart is in it as he sings. Andrew Peterson’s “The Queen of Iowa” somehow becomes “The King of Ireland” when sung by our two-year old son. Talk about progressive. His version goes beyond gender-neutrality into categorical inaccuracy and also breaks up those long-held biases about geographic specificity. I thank God our cute little boy doesn’t yet fully understand all the words he tries to sing. For this is a song about suffering and death. And, of course, life and light. I hope, as he matures, he does get it. I hope I do. This seems like a good song (and story –please watch the video) for some context on what we see as struggles and suffering and how we see them. It’s perhaps good for our New Year hopes. Are we wishing for a pain-free, suffering-free New Year? I’ll admit that it’s a deep longing for me. Part of that desire I view as righteous, longing for the Kingdom to come all the way and the world to be made right again. The other part is selfish, wanting to be spared the troubles God intends to use as tools to work good in me. Pain is often an avenue to graceful maturity. Two of the sweetest and most refreshing Christian friends I met this year had recently experienced the death of their only child. In the deep well of their suffering, they spoke of all the good God was doing in their lives. They did more than speak, though. They sang along to the God-tells-me-who-I-am songs of Jason Gray with passion. My friend wasn’t the greatest singer, he didn’t hit all the right notes, but it was among the most beautiful singing I’ve ever heard. Jason never had better accompaniment. I couldn’t sing along for the lump in my throat. This couple, so outfitted with reasons to surrender to bitterness and anger, radiated generosity and grace. Do miracles still happen? That is the mercy of God. That is maturity. God wants his children to have maturity–childlike faith and maturity. We will not always get the words right and we will not always sing on-key, but let us keep singing. So, Almighty God, do your work in us, frightened as we are. For we would be mature and childlike. We would be as you want us, for you are what we want and all our hearts need. Andrew says meeting the Queen “. . . helped me to believe the words of my own songs.” Maybe a good prayer for the New Year is that God would give us experiences, even painful ones if he must, that cause us to believe, and believe more deeply, all that we confess with our lips. Because sometimes we get the words right, but our hearts wrong. The reverse is better, I guess. But best of all would be both. May our hearts and tongues be in harmony this year and in the years to come. May they sing the same song, for the glory of God, Most High. Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me. (Colossians 1:24-29 ESV)

One of the best things I heard at Hutchmoot this year came from Thomas McKenzie during the session on cultivating artistic community. “Create content,” he said. Not “write the next great novel,” or “paint a really stunning portrait.” He did not advise us to compose Shakespearean sonnets or Bach-like symphonies. In fact, Thomas made a point of telling us that just because some people are professional artists, does not mean everything else regular people create is cow dung. “Simply create,” Thomas encouraged us. “The community will come. You just have to do your part.” I heartily agree, and I’d like to share more about the ways I’ve found this to be true. Last December, I watched a movie called Julie and Julia and I was inspired. Not to cook though, I wanted to learn something totally new. I hoped to give myself a challenge and set some parameters so I could be held accountable and maybe even measure how well I’d done. Funds were limited, and it needed to be something I cared about as well. I settled upon poetry, something I hadn’t done much of since college, but definitely something I felt passionate about. I launched a new blog called Poetry Padawan (combining my love for alliteration and my nerdy knowledge of Star Wars) and decided I was going to write one poem a week for the entire year of 2011. I started out rather slowly. I was too much of a perfectionist, and it took me awhile to give myself a break and just put the words down on paper. After talking briefly in an e-mail to Pete Peterson and writing through some of my fears on my regular blog, I was able to let go of some of that perfectionism. I began averaging about two poems a month in the spring, but the pace of my original goal was too strenuous and I got waaaay behind. Still, I was hopeful. There was a lot of year left to go. Maybe I would get faster and produce more the more I worked at it. Maybe I would be able to write two poems a week during the summer. When summertime actually came though, production slowed to a screeching halt. With three kids and myself at home full time, there just wasn’t a lot of time for poetry be it writing, reading, or even poetical thinking. Yet the summertime led me to another realization. Writing a poem is not exactly like cooking a meal. You can’t just go to the store and buy all the ingredients you need and come out with a savory dish three hours later. When I followed this analogy to its logical conclusion, I saw that I had started out with a bowl, a spoon, and the taste of tomato soup in my mind, when what I had really needed was to plant some tomato seeds. Still, I can’t call this project a failure, and though at times it was tempting, I never gave up on it. I just adjusted the parameters, and my expectations. But the fact that I set the goal at all is what led to the fifteen poems I’ve written this year, as opposed to the zero poems I wrote last year. And no, not all my poems are terrific. I really only like two or three, but I never would’ve made it to those few if I hadn’t challenged myself to write in the first place. The community wrought from this creative process showed up in a concrete way for me back in August. I finally worked up the guts to attend my first meeting of a newly formed Knoxville Writer’s Group. I took one of my poetry journals, just in case, but I was only planning on listening to everyone else, then deciding if this was a group I would be interested in joining. God had other plans in mind though, because the meeting ended up with exactly two people. Adam Whipple, a singer-songwriter, photographer, and aspiring novelist, and me. We talked for awhile so we could get to know each other a little better and passed the time in case there were any later- than-me comers. When it was painfully clear that no one else was coming, Adam read a few pages from his latest work in progress and asked for my opinion. I’m afraid I didn’t have much to offer him, but he graciously considered my advice and then he asked if I had anything to read. It was one of the more embarrassing moments of my life as I cracked open my journal, looking for the page with my latest creation. Yet Adam assured me that art isn’t very honest if it’s not embarrassing on some level. After I read my poem, Adam was so encouraging. He said he loved it, and that my poem had life. Then he told me about a friend it reminded him of and said the words felt true, like she could’ve actually spoken them. I left our meeting that night feeling like I’d just torn through the ribbon at the finish line of a marathon. That’s what community can give to an artist, exhilaration and the push to create even more. The whole experience reminds me of how I used to feel about singing. I love to sing, but I’m definitely a background singer, not a lead. See, I can pick up a melody, but I don’t have a great range, and I do not possess the spiritual gift of volume. I used to spend a lot of time wishing I could sing as well as other members of my family, or perhaps my favorite pop singer, and I was so worried about sounding good that I didn’t sing at all. And you know what was good about that? Nothing. It’s good to sing. People have a need to express themselves in song. Just think about the people you know who regularly sing aloud. Now, think about some other people you know who you’ve never even heard whistle. Can you see a difference in these two groups of people? Well, I can. The first group, in general, seems a bit happier. Perhaps this is a catch-22, and it’s the overflow of their hearts which causes them to erupt in song, but I happen to know that whenever I sing aloud, whether I’m in the car by myself, with a group in church, or just humming to my kids at bedtime, something happens inside of me. Maybe it’s a chemical reaction, maybe it’s simply a small rush of endorphins, but whatever it is it makes me feel good. And feeling good, for me, feels good. I don’t say that in a flippant, hedonistic way either, I’m speaking as someone who struggles with depression, both major and minor. I’m speaking from my own experience, where I’ve learned to pay attention to what things calm and soothe me as well as what makes me sad or down. And when I want to feel better, it’s good to know what things help, so I can use them offensively when I see myself headed in the wrong direction. Of course I don’t always see it, but that’s another post. One day several years ago, a friend of mine asked me to help out with the praise team at our church, and I decided to give it a try. I was still scared to sing in front of other people, but I trusted my friend’s opinion of my voice, and I knew this was a place where I could feel passionate about serving our church. Can you guess what happened? The more I practiced, the better I got. Now I never did sing an awesome solo, and since we’ve moved to a much larger church, I’m no longer on stage, but I wouldn’t trade those hours spent with my friends around the piano for anything. And the community I shared with those ten people that year is mine forever. Yet it never would have happened if I’d held onto my obsessive perfectionism. Sara Groves wrote a song a few years ago called “Setting Up the Pins” and there’s one line in it that gets to me every time I hear it: “Sing for the beauty that’s to be found,” Sara says. And we are living, here and now, in a beautiful world. No, it’s not perfect, and yes, there is much to be sad about, but if you’ll take a second or so to look for it, you can find beauty. Can you imagine the difference it might make if you then sing about the beautiful things you see? When we create art, whether it’s sculpting, scripting, or sautéing, we’re singing in celebration of the beauty we’ve found. What better way to imitate the Lord than to rejoice over all that we love with singing? Is there some small goal you could set for yourself that would inspire you to make more art in the year ahead? What will you do in 2012 to create content and foster artistic community? I believe there’s a spot for your unique voice in this great choir of the world. Won’t you please consider joining?

Luci Shaw is one of the most significant Christian poets of our time. She takes on topics of significance to people of faith, yet refuses to undermine her art with preconceived, didactic ways of thinking, or sentimentality. One important topic for Shaw is the incarnation. Since childhood, Luci Shaw has annually written Christmas poems; originally the practice was simply for inclusion with her Christmas correspondence. As her poetic skills grew, so did the quality and quantity of these poems. In 1996, she and her friend Madeleine L’Engle released the book Wintersong — a joint collection of Christmas readings. Ten years later Eerdmans published Accompanied By Angels, a book of Shaw’s incarnation poems, many of which had appeared in her earlier books. Since then, this tradition continues to result in fine Christmas poetry. In 2004 Luci Shaw sent me an early version of the following poem — followed by a revised version in 2005. The poem was further revised (as reproduced below) for inclusion in her 2006 collection What The Light Was Like (Wordfarm). Knowing how she continually returns to fine-tune her work, I would not be surprised to find she has since revised it further. Breath When in the cavern darkness, the child first opened his mouth (even before his eyes widened to see the supple world his lungs had breathed into being), could he have known that breathing trumps seeing? Did he love the way air sighs as it brushes in and out through flesh to sustain the tiny heart’s iambic beating, tramping the crossroads of the brain like donkey tracks, the blood dazzling and invisible, the corpuscles skittering to the earlobes and toenails? Did he have any idea it would take all his breath to speak in stories that would change the world? Posted with permission of the poet. *This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Luci Shaw. 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

[Editor’s Note: Laura Boggs has been a friend since I first met her at Hutchmoot, and she’s been a good friend and writing partner of Lanier Ivester for far longer than that. She’s a fine writer and you should bounce over to her blog and have a look around right after you read this fine Christmas meditation. -Pete Peterson] We do it every year. It’s always there, the unspoken expectation that this Christmas will be bigger and shinier and sweeter than the one before. By the end of Christmas Day, when the shreds of paper and ribbon are picked up off the floor and we can’t possibly eat another morsel, if the topics of politics and religion have been successfully dodged and no one got sick and everyone is feeling fat and happy, we might look at each other in triumph and breathe. We did it. We had the best Christmas ever. Again. But every Christmas has its cares. Sometimes the pain is acute and we feel cheated. Other years we find we can’t conjure up feelings of good will toward men, not when we’re in line at Wal-mart, at least. There’s always somebody or something missing, even if we can’t put our finger on it. What do you think about when the church lights are dimmed and you’re holding the little candle you’ve been issued and you’re trying not to get wax on your Christmas Eve finest as you sing ‘Silent Night’? Why the lump in the throat? After my grandfather died one December, I shared a hymnal with my Nana during service and heard her voice crack with fresh grief. A few years later, when she was gone too, my sad ‘Silent Night’ was for her. Or was it? Maybe it was relief, in some strange way, to have a reason to be melancholy. I’m not talking about being moved by the symbol of the Light in the darkness. I’m talking poor me, a sense that all is not right with the world at a moment when it should at least seem to be. During my self-absorbed teenage years, the awkward and lonely years that follow childhood wonder, the littlest nothing could put a dent in a perfectly decent Christmas. Those were the days of a boy not calling for a promised New Year’s date so aren’t all those sad songs on the radio just for me, and no one understands, and why aren’t I having as much fun as I used to—and what am I looking for? What I had not found, I could not name and, for the most part, knew of only through my sense of its precious and puzzling and haunting absence. And maybe we can never name it by its final, true, and holy name, and maybe it is largely through its absence that, this side of Paradise, we will ever know it. ~ from The Sacred Journey by Frederick Buechner I’ve since been crowned mistress of my household’s Christmas. Cares still come, of course. There was the Christmas three years ago when, Sadie, our special needs six-year-old became alarmingly lethargic, and we found ourselves in the emergency room on Christmas Eve. Never did Doritos from a vending machine taste more stale. But we got to go home and put Sadie to bed and eat a midnight meal by firelight, and she got well a few days later. I often wonder about those Whos down in Who-ville, who fah who forazed and dah who dorazed minus all the trimmings. Would I have it in me to do that? Last Christmas Eve, with my candle lit, I watched Sadie, who had a seizure at the service’s start and was content to rest her curly head on her daddy’s shoulder, her long, dark eyelashes framing sleepy eyes. I tried not to think about her seizures or her surgery scheduled for the next week. Who ever thought we’d need a neurosurgeon? But even on Christmas Eve, one can never entirely leave the world behind, and although the world is full of gifts and splendor, they are sometimes wrapped in sorrow and trials. I think we take stock of things at Christmas, whether we set out to or not. I took stock a few months after Sadie was born, and there was a flash of an instant when these shadowlands felt almost like home. The Spouse and I had come home late one Saturday night from a beautiful Christmas party, and I cradled my newest girl in my arms, sitting on the couch with my dress spilling around and the house quiet and the tree lights golden and I thought everything was strangely perfect. That was folly, and I knew it at the time, which marred the lovely moment a little. I resist the marred moments—doesn’t everyone?—trying especially hard to avoid them during the time of the year most wonderful. But something has finally sunk in this year, and I think it would make those Whos proud, though I’m ashamed it has taken this long to feel like I could fah who foraze with the best of them. At the risk of sounding like a simpleton, I’ll tell you what my mind has finally whispered to my heart: Christmas is not about me. We wish each other merry Christmas, and that is all fine and good. Then we ask each other, “How was your Christmas?” But at some level, we forget that Christmas just is, no matter how we celebrate or with whom or whether we altogether ignore the whole business. No matter what, a baby was born in a stable and God came and humbled himself and lived with us to serve and died for us to save. Love came down, and a free gift (no strings attached) is offered to everyone, even me. There’s not a thing I—or my circumstances—can add or subtract to that.

Todd and Christie Bragg gave me a gift, and I’m going to attempt to regift some of what they gave me with these words. Todd turned 40 the other day. It was Sunday, December 18—the day of the Behold the Lamb of God concert at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium. Christie put together a huge after party for Todd in the upper balcony of the Ryman. She invited what looked like at least a hundred friends. But it wasn’t just a party. It was a surprise party. Todd is a drummer in Nashville and he’s worked with countless musicians in this town over the years, so he knows a lot of people. But Todd is not just a drummer with a lot of connections. He’s a very kind and generous friend who, when you’re talking with him, treats you like you’re the only person in the world. So this party wasn’t just a room full of business associates. I imagine most all of them would call Todd not just a friend, but a dear friend. Christie is cut from the same cloth as her husband in this respect. These two serve others in the most beautiful way. After the concert I found myself up in that balcony with all those people, but because I hadn’t brought my pass to actually get in to the party, the Ryman security guards made me stand over by the stairs, apart from the gathering of friends. At first, I was irked by the security staff’s unwillingness to let me stand with the rest of the folks only 30 feet away, but when I began to assess my position, I realized I had a unique vantage point for what was about to happen—I stood in a place where I could watch Todd come up the stairs, see this throng of people for the first time and then react. It was beautiful. There’s almost no way to make a crowd that big stay quiet, but when they got the signal that Todd and Christie were on their way up, they went silent as a stone. They ascended the stairs, and then it happened—everyone yelled “Surprise!” People were laughing, waving, and eventually someone yelled, “Speech!” Todd tried, God bless him. He tried. But Todd had lost the ability to speak. Then Christie revealed a grace and strength that took this from being a surprise birthday party to a holy moment. She addressed her husband of 20 years in front of us. She spoke words of life and grace and affirmation and affection for him. She spoke these words to Todd, and also to the rest of us looking on. Strong. Todd looked at his wife and said, “You got me. Wow. Look at all these faces of the people I love. Wow!” I figure that given the best scenarios and the most closely kept secrets, most individuals will only step into one, maybe two properly executed surprise parties in their lives. If that. Either we’ll never have one thrown for us, or we’ll sniff it out and then just play along. I spent that morning preaching about how the angels visited the shepherds in the fields outside Bethlehem, and how it started with one angel appearing to the shepherds, but then as soon as he had told them that in the city of David a Savior—Christ, the Lord—had been born unto them, suddenly a great multitude of the heavenly host appeared praising God, singing, “Glory to God in the highest, and peace to those on whom his favor rests!” It was as if one angel had been chosen to bring the news of Jesus’ coming to the shepherds, so the others said, “Alright, but as soon as you spit it out, we’re bursting in—because this is the greatest news ever!” It was as though they were waiting behind the celestial corner of heaven’s door, and as soon as they were able they rushed in to celebrate what God was doing. Seeing Todd take in that celebration made me think of those shepherds and what it must have been like to have the host of heaven throw a surprise party for them. “This gift is for you!” the angels told them. There’s so much I think I know about what God is doing in this world. So much I think I have figured out. Todd’s party awakened in me a longing to be surprised by the joy of what I never suspected, much less understood. Advent invites us to consider our lives in light of God’s salvation. And one thing it awakened in me, thanks to Todd and Christie, is that in this life I am being led by the hand of God through the concert hall that is this world, and one day he will lead me to the stairs, and together we will ascend. God only knows what I will find there, but I’m certain my reaction will be something like, “You got me. Wow. Look at all these faces of the people I love. Wow!”

Four years ago I wrote a song about The Beach Boys’ legendary lost album, Smile, as part of an assignment for a writing group I was in along with the Proprietor and a few other familiar Rabbit Roomers. At the time I knew very little about Smile, but I happened to be in the thick of a Pet Sounds renaissance, so I was already wading in the right waters for Smile to come wash over me. Back then, getting into Smile required fanaticism, a good deal of research, and possibly a little piracy. To be legal, I bought everything I could buy (Brian’s 2004 re-­recordings of the material and some original Smile tracks released on the Good Vibrations box set) and then I scrounged for every bootleg of the famed 1966 sessions I could find. The melodies, sounds, forms, chord progressions, and lyrics turned my brain inside out. Smile was a completely different way of thinking about composition and recording. I had never heard anything like it. Poor Andrew Peterson had to listen to me go on and on. But it was the story of Smile that really opened my heart to the music and made it resonate. The story of the album is one of creation, fall, and redemption. It’s a tragedy about a brilliant kid who wanted to make something beautiful, but who couldn’t face the fierce resistance he met within and without. Or at least he couldn’t face it alone. For years I have prayed very sincere prayers that Capitol Records would finally release the Smile sessions, and on November 1st of this year, 45 years after Brian Wilson began work on the album, they did. In celebration of this momentous (to me) occasion, it seemed fitting that I should distill the talk I gave on Smile at Hutchmoot 2011 into a Rabbit Room piece. It’s my hope to give you, dear reader, a means to approach the demanding musical oddity that is Smile, and also to recount, in brief, the great tragedy and triumph of one of my musical heroes. Brian Wilson, the Beach Boy genius, is deaf in his right ear. Many people believe his deafness was caused by a blow to the head from his father, Murry Wilson. Abused at home, Brian says that as a boy he walked around with one hand covering his soul. But for a cowering kid, he was also paradoxically powerful–a star athlete and an ambitious musician. As a teenager, Brian started the Beach Boys along with his brothers, Carl and Dennis, cousin Mike Love, and friend Al Jardine. Due in part to self-­appointed manager Murry Wilson’s ambition, the Boys quickly rose to the top. But it was Brian’s ear that made them great. Already a fine writer, he took quickly to the recording studio. Before long he was writing and producing for the Beach Boys as well as other artists. But recording and touring with the Beach Boys soon proved too stressful for him—and Brian’s inner landscape was no sandy beach to begin with. In 1964, he had a nervous breakdown on an airplane. After that, it was decided that he should stay home in LA and concentrate on writing and producing. Historically, it was the perfect moment in time for a talent like Brian to be set loose in the studio. In December of 1965, when Brian heard the Beatles’ Rubber Soul, he ran to his wife in the next room, shouting, “Marilyn, I’m going to do it! I’m going to make the greatest rock and roll album of all time.” But the Beatles didn’t only inspire Brian, they also made him see the writing on the wall. If he didn’t act fast, he realized, the Beach Boys were one day going to be remembered as that silly band that sang about cars, girls, and surfing. So Brian made Pet Sounds. Collaborating with lyricist Tony Asher, he wrote a cycle of songs that has been aptly described as “a plea for love and understanding.” In early 1966, while the Beach Boys were away in Asia, he recorded the backing tracks. The harmonies and melodies are stunning. The arrangements are lush, intricate, and unconventional, ornamented with harpsichord, bass harmonica, bike horns, strings, winds, and surfy guitars. The lyrics are plain-­spoken and vulnerable. In short, Pet Sounds is serious music. When the Boys returned from the road and heard what Brian was up to, their jaws dropped. But it wasn’t the kind of jaw­‐drop Brian was hoping for. Mike Love’s famous response was “Don’t f___ with the formula.” Brian’s band and his label were equally unenthusiastic about Brian’s self-­exploration, especially at the expense of a commercial sure-thing. And indeed, Pet Sounds flopped. The public didn’t know what to make of it. Where were the cute girls and sandy beaches? Brian had poured out his soul and now he had to watch as the contents were judged only on their commercial value. He had made a great record, maybe one of the greatest records ever. But it wasn’t a consumer’s record. It required something of the listener, which makes for great art, but poor sales. Luckily, Brian had an ace up his sleeve: a song that he had pulled from the Pet Sounds sessions, bookmarking it for a later date when he could spend more time on it. The song was “Good Vibrations.” Over the spring and summer of 1966, Brian threw all he had into the recording, and he went about it in a manner no one had done before. Working with LA’s famous “Wrecking Crew,” he recorded over 25 minutes worth of musical vignettes, studio-­composed variations on a theme. Then he meticulously pieced them together into what he described as a “pocket symphony,” a four-­minute song that feels like a complete musical journey. And, to everyone’s relief, it was a huge success. In fact, it made the Beach Boys the number one band in the world. The success of “Good Vibrations” bought Brian a little more trust and a longer leash, and he knew just where to spend the creative capital. He wanted to write an entire album after the pattern of “Good Vibrations.” And with the Beach Boys away again, he enlisted the help of lyricist Van Dyke Parks, who had impressed him at a party with his conversational eloquence. Brian was thinking of calling the project “Dumb Angel.” It was to chronicle a bicycle rider’s journey from Plymouth Rock to Diamond Head in Hawaii, touching on the great themes of American history (the plight of the Native American, westward expansion, the railroads, etc.) along the way. Brian wanted the lyrics to be oblique but winsome and funny, utilizing Parks’ gift for wordplay. And he wanted to make people laugh because he believed that when you laugh you lose control and let down your guard. There were to be two, perhaps three suites of songs: one about America, one about the loss and regaining of innocence, another about the ancient elements (fire, earth, water, air). Sitting at a piano in a giant sandbox in Brian’s home, he and Van Dyke quickly got on a roll and wrote some of my favorite songs in the world, referred to by many as “The Sandbox Songs.” Brian hurried to the studio to record the songs and, with the help of LA’s “Wrecking Crew,” to spin off a myriad of musical variations, which he planned to piece together later into his “teenage symphony to God,” which he was now calling Smile. To give you some idea of the scope and ambition of the concept, “Heroes and Villains” was the “Good Vibrations” of the Smile era, and Brian recorded over 50 minutes of musical sections and takes for it. In the beginning, Smile was a joy. In the Beach Boys’ absence, Brian had assembled a new team and found a new set of friends. He and Van Dyke were having a blast, and the studio musicians that made up the Wrecking Crew were more than capable of realizing whatever wild musical fantasy Brian invented. At the end of the day, when Brian played rough mixes of the music for friends, they wondered at the beauty of it all and imagined with him how it might all be pieced together. But the joy didn’t last. Brian was moving at breakneck speed and keeping insane hours, which was dangerous to his emotional state. Van Dyke and the other collaborators saw the first signs of paranoia on November 28th, 1966, on a tracking session for the fire component of the elements suite. He and the players wore fire hats that day. Fine. But Brian also brought a barrel of wood into the studio to burn in order to create the right ambiance for fire music. Maybe not fine? And afterward, when Brian heard on the news about a fire that started that night just down the street, he worried that somehow the music they were making had caused the fire. Then the Beach Boys came home. They found Brian surrounded by a new set of friends who were all excited about this music, but when they heard the material they didn’t get it. It was even weirder than Pet Sounds. They didn’t understand Van Dyke. What did lyrics like “columnated ruins domino” or “over and over, the thresher and plover, the wheat field” mean? They started working on the vocal tracks with Brian, but nobody was having a good time. Mike Love was always after Van Dyke to explain the lyrics. Van Dyke found this incredibly tedious and quit more than once. Brian was increasingly paranoid, calling secret meetings in his swimming pool because he believed his house to be bugged. His drug use had been a point of contention on Pet Sounds, and now the band (Mike Love in particular) seemed to feel drugs were behind Brian’s erratic behavior and probably the whole bizarre aesthetic of Smile. In early 1967, with Smile already past ­due, the Beach Boys filed suit against Capitol. This brought morale down even farther. In the spring of 1967, when Van Dyke finally quit the project for good, Brian decided to hang it up. He says that he ultimately gave up on Smile because Mike Love didn’t like it, because he thought the fire tape was too scary, and because he didn’t believe the world would understand it. But too much of Brian was tied to Smile. Hanging it up felt like leaving his soul unfinished and his heart broken. He disappeared to his room and pretty much stayed there for the better part of 30 years. He was in and out of radical therapies, on and off of controversial drugs. He gained a great deal of weight and grew a great deal of facial hair. There’s the famous Rolling Stone cover where he stands on a Beach in a bathrobe, holding a surf board. He looks like Moses come down from the mountain with the ten commandments, his face radiant with a weird light. But I don’t think Brian had seen the Lord. I don’t know what he saw. I know he heard voices. Brian had started taking LSD before Pet Sounds, back when it was legal. People told him it would broaden his consciousness and shatter his ego. It may have done that for him, but it also gave him auditory hallucinations, cruel voices that told him they wanted to kill him. But while Brian was lying half-­dead and tormented in the dark, Smile was becoming legend. Rumor was that, had it been finished, Smile would have dwarfed Sgt Pepper. The Smile story had a pathos and a mystique about it for having been so ambitious and, ironically, for having failed. People were drawn to the music. And the fact that the music was so hard to find made it that much more alluring. Bootlegs circulated. Fans began editing the pieces together to express their own visions of what Smile might have been. So when Brian had given up hope for himself, others were hoping for him. One was Darian Sahanaja, a skinny Indonesian kid who got picked on at school for listening to Beach Boys records. Instead of changing to try to fit in, he went back to his room and listened that much harder. Another was Nicky Walusko, who drove a hundred miles to a bootleg record store to buy a copy of the Smile bootlegs. The air conditioner in his car was broken and the vinyl warped on the way home. When he got back he was so desperate to hear the music that he attempted to iron the record flat. In 1995, Brian remarried and, maybe for the first time ever, he felt emotionally secure. It wasn’t long before he was ready to make music again. He hired a new band. Among them were Nicky Walusko on guitar and Darian Sahanaja on keyboards. This time around, it was the reverse of the Beach Boys. With the Beach Boys, Brian was always trying to drag a whole crowd of doubters around by the strength of his brilliance and ambition. But now it was Brian’s band who carried him. While Brian stared blankly at the wall, they rehearsed in hopes that the music would coax his soul back into his body. They gathered all around him on the stage, stepping up to the mic whenever Brian grew too weary or worried to sing. Together they even performed Pet Sounds live from beginning to end. Audiences flipped for it. Brian was ecstatic to find that Pet Sounds wasn’t a failure after all. It wasn’t obtuse and inaccessible, it was honest and brilliant and people loved it. But even with this new leaf turned over, Smile was still a dark chapter looming in Brian’s past, and he was afraid to open it again. If anyone were to bring it up, Brian would say, “It’s inappropriate music. I don’t want to talk about it”–end of conversation. So loving Brian Wilson meant making room for his old anxieties; it meant setting places at the table for his unfriendly ghosts. But the new cast of Brian’s story believed in him and gave him that kind of grace every single day. That’s why, when Brian and his wife Melinda arrived at guitarist Scott Bennett’s Christmas party in 2000, Scott invited Brian to just sit and play the piano for a bit. “We’ll be in the other room,” he said. “Join us when you’re ready.” So Brian sat down and started playing. And of all things, he played “Heroes And Villians.” A week before, you couldn’t even mention that song, and now here he was playing it like it was nothing. His friends rushed into the room, laughing and incredulous. The next thing they knew, Brian had agreed to perform the songs with his band at an upcoming tribute show. The audience was stunned to hear it and roared their approval. Also that night, Brian heard other Smile songs like “Our Prayer” and “Surf’s Up” performed by Vince Gill, David Crosby, and others. The songs were received with joy and enthusiasm. With the support of his wife and his band, and now with the positive reception of the music for the first time by the public, the lie that the world wouldn’t understand Smile was beginning to lose its hold on Brian. Next, to everyone’s shock, Brian announced that he and his band would perform Smile in its entirety at the Royal Albert Hall in London on February 20, 2004. The trouble was, there was no “entirety” to Smile. Even Brian didn’t know what that was. Whatever wind had been in Brian’s sails was now pushing him too fast toward the edge of his known world. He was scared to fall back into the abyss of Smile. The voices came back. But the saving grace in this situation was that Brian didn’t have to finish Smile alone. He had Darian Sahanaja, an angel with an able ear. Darian helped Brian to confront what he called “a stack of dirty dishes,” acting as a musical secretary to sift through the piles of music to find a continuous musical thread and to compose little bits of new music where sections were missing. Van Dyke showed up too, as kind and believing as ever. But even with good morale and a supportive cast, Brian was barely staying afloat. There was at least one episode that began with Brian becoming hysterical, throwing stacks of sheet music across the room and yelling, “Darian! They’re trying to kill me!” The session ended with a trip to the hospital. But somehow, February 20th came and Smile was ready. If you watch the documentary, Beautiful Dreamer: Brian Wilson and the Story of Smile, you can see footage of Brian walking up the stairs to the stage that first night of the premier. Understanding that this was a moment 38 years in the making and knowing the great deal of courage it took that night for Brian to face the audience, his demons, and Smile itself brings to mind the words of Philo of Alexandria (or some say Plato said it) which I’ve often heard quoted by Andrew Peterson: “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.” It’s remarkable how many years of struggle and turmoil can finally be consummated in a few small steps. Also in the film, you can see footage of Darian Sahanaja weeping with pride and relief for his friend. It’s beautiful to see. Smile was a great success. On the heels of the debut, Brian and his band completely re-­recorded the album in 2004, using nothing from the original sessions. I think you should listen to those recordings the way you’d watch a film with the commentary on. It’s not the same as watching the film, but you’ll learn something. There are moments I think are brilliant. There are moments I find a little awkward. Brian’s voice isn’t what it used to be, but it carries the weight of his years with humor and grace, the way I suppose it already did when he was twenty years old, emerging from an abused childhood. All in all, Brian Wilson Presents Smile, as it’s called, is worth hearing. More on that in a moment. A month ago, Capitol Records released The Smile Sessions in a number of configurations. The most basic is a two-­disc version. The first disc contains a piecing together of Smile in mostly the same sequence as Brian’s 2004 Smile, but this time using only the ’66 and ‘67 recordings. No new recording was done, and therefore the album still feels incomplete, though every song is present in some form. The balance of the first disc features some pieces that were left out of the final Smile, as well as some demos and rarities. The booklet contains a beautiful essay by Brian (much better than the one you are reading at the moment) as well as a great piece about Van Dyke Parks. The second disc provides a fly-­on-­the-­wall’s insight into the recording sessions, featuring multiple takes of a number of songs with studio banter in-­between. The boxed-­set (which I do not have…yet) also has the “completed” sequence of Smile, and a greatly expanded sessions portion, weighing in at five discs if I remember correctly. It also contains a book and some LPs and a few other joyous tidbits. If you’re completely new to Smile and find any of this fascinating, may I suggest a plan of attack? First of all, I think you need to hear Pet Sounds. Or at least you need to hear “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” “You Still Believe In Me,” “God Only Knows,” and “I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times.” I’ve heard it said that Pet Sounds is Brian’s blue period (a new take on traditional forms), while Smile is his cubist period (throwing traditional forms out the window). Or you could think of Pet Sounds as OK Computer and Smile as Kid A. In short, Pet Sounds is a step along the way to Smile. Then, as you listen to The Smile Sessions, I think you need to focus on the sandbox songs: “Heroes and Villains,” “Cabinessence,” “Wonderful,” “Surf’s Up,” and “Wind Chimes.” They are the real treasures of Smile. The series of vignettes that form the sequence of the album is what it is–it might be brilliant or it might just be scatter-­brained. But the sandbox songs (and for my taste, especially the middle three) are beautiful and incredibly complex in their composition. They are pop music believing it can be art. And if the hodge-­podge of sections is overwhelming and you feel lost (especially in the 2nd and 3rd movements), I think it’s worthwhile to reference Brian Wilson Presents Smile, because it fills in some of the missing melodies and vocals that simply weren’t ever recorded in the sixties, especially on songs like “Do You Like Worms,” “Child Is Father Of The Man,” and “Holidays.” Some of my favorite musical moments on Smile: -­‐Wonderful: Notice the way the melody jumps up and down. Try to sing along with this melody–it’s no Mary Had A Little Lamb! Also, the form is only 16 bars long and it changes keys five times without the listener even noticing. -­‐Surf’s Up: In the B section (“dove nested towers, the hour was strike”), Brian sings a chromatic melody and then repeats the same melody at half speed, getting every last bit of emotion out of it. And, of course, the “columnated ruins domino” melody is stunning. -­‐Holidays: The whispering wind vocal section at the end could go on for about 45 minutes and I’d be perfectly happy, especially with that little harpsichordy sound in the background. I have a bootleg of this section that’s dry as a bone and it’s even better that way. For all the writing I’ve done on the story of Brian Wilson and Smile–a song, a short essay for the Cymbal Crashing Clouds book, a Hutchmoot talk, and now this–you might be surprised when I tell you that Smile is probably not my favorite record of all time. It’s not really a record, after all. But I listen to it all the time and wonder what it could have been had Brian completed it in 1967. I’ll never know, and in a way I’m glad, because the story of Smile’s creation, fall, and redemption has been with me in moments of fearless creation and in moments of deep anxiety. So I think of it as my favorite idea for a record. And I love Brian Wilson for his fear as well as his courage.

Left His seamless robe behind Woke up in a stable and cried Lived and died and rose again Savior for a guilty land It’s a story like a children’s tune It’s grown familiar as the moon “There’s Only One (Holy One)” Written by Randall Goodgame, performed by Caedmon’s Call) A few nights ago I was driving up Franklin Road with the top down. It was a clear, unseasonably warm November night. The moon, high and bright, seemed to chase me over the hilltops. My car stereo was cranked up loud; my iPod shuffled to Caedmon’s Call performing “There’s Only One (Holy One).” The story of Christ, summed up so beautifully in word and music, unearthed a surge of emotion. It started in my gut and welled up through my throat into my eyes. Those true words: “it’s a story like a children’s tune; it’s grown familiar as the moon” seemed to flow in me. That moon–the one the band sang about, the one that chased me–is as ancient as anything I know. But the One who crafted it and set it spinning is more ancient still. His story was the first of stories, the one that started them all. All our stories, even the story of the moon, will culminate in his great ending. That great ending will be Christ’s Second Advent. As far as I can tell, the Church has told the story of Advent for 1631 years. Surely we have told it for longer, since the earliest days of the Church. I mean that by about 380 A.D. the Latin speaking Church had begun to observe this time of preparation before the Christmas Festival. Consider that for a moment. 1631 years. More than eighty generations of Christians gathering on Sundays, and throughout the week, telling again and again the story of the Second Coming of Christ. Yes, I meant to say “Second Coming.” For that is what Advent is about, at least in part, certainly in these early days of the season. But it’s Christmas time, why tell that terrifying story? When you’ve been waiting for something for a long time, it can be easy to forget what you are waiting for, or that you are waiting at all. When you’ve been waiting for someone to come back for 380 years? 2000 years? It may be that you need to set aside some time to remind yourself. The story we tell every Advent, like the story we tell every Sunday, is an old one. It is familiar like a children’s tune, like the moon. But it must be told again. We share the story of Advent every year at this time. We share it with the older generations as well as our children and grandchildren. We share it to remember whom we are waiting for. We share it to remind one another to wait with hope. We share it because it is worth sharing, worth repeating, worth telling. As familiar as the story is, it is still true. And one day, one of these Advents will be the last one. [audio:TheresOnlyOne.mp3]

Although we may believe Jesus died for our sins, and has given us Heaven, we often carry the weight of a lie within our hearts, thinking the commands are there to obey by exerting the power of our will; we attempt to find our identity in obedience. We think success in obeying means we are “good,” and failure means we are “bad.” This is the living death of which Paul wrote in Romans 7. It is the wretched-man existence, not the new creation life of union with Christ. It is a Christian saved from Hell in eternity by grace but trying to get free from the hell of his present sins by the exertion of his own will power. This is the backwards Christian life. To oversimplify, we think erroneously that we’re saved from Hell so we’re to try by our will power to show God how grateful we are in return by being good, by trying to keep his commands. This must be reversed. The commands are there to reveal when we’re not abiding, not living from our present-tense, God-given identity. They shine the light when we have tripped up in our trust and have started again to try being righteous by our own steam. Failure to abide, to rest, to remain, to faithe, to rely, leads to the frustrating life of Romans 7; we do what we hate, and don’t do what we love. We self-condemn, see ourselves as wretched sinners, and start again into trying to overcome the mess. The cure is to go back out of Romans 7 via the narrow gate called No Condemnation in Christ and get back into living in the faith-life of Romans 8. How do we do that? In Christ there is now no condemnation. Now. We recognize our identity no longer comes from performance. We have been given a gift of sonship. It is something bestowed by God; we had nothing to do with it. We have been washed, and cleansed, and filled by the Holy Spirit. That is given to us by grace. We are partakers of the divine nature. That gift doesn’t diminish or disappear based on performance. We recognize that even when we sin, there is no “I have to get back to God.” He is there, in us, present, available, even though we have not recognized him as such, haven’t drawn on his resources; instead, we have lived from a false idea of our own independent, fleshly ability to be good. Exerting such ability ends either in Pharisaic pride or self-condemnation, because we are attempting to live from a mentality which thinks it can be good independently from God’s power within. Our real identity simply is. It is a non-negotiable gift from God by his grace. When we step out of it, we thank God for the Blood, make necessary  apology or reparation to others, and move back into reliance on our real identity of being partakers of the divine nature. Of course, we want to be good. How, then, to be who we are? Playing music at a high level involves a lot of background knowledge and practice, years of it. Undergirding that, though, is an attitude of faith that drives perseverance in learning and growth. If a person doesn’t have that, much of his work will come to nothing. “If you are going to be a Christian, it is going to take the whole of you, brains and all,” wrote C.S. Lewis. Also, an old pastor of mine often said, “You don’t have to park your brain at the door to be a Christian.” So, knowledge is involved. But undergirding our growth in knowledge of “What is a truly Christian life? Who is God? Who am I? Why am I here?” is a faith which continually goes to God for the necessary resources – the God who claims to live inside us, in Christ, by the Holy Spirit. From God and God alone proceeds all necessary virtue: love, joy, peace, patient endurance, gentleness, goodness, faith, humility, moderation. The varied fruits of the Spirit are just that – fruits proceeding from the Holy Spirit into and through the abiding branch. Without this reliance, much of our Christian life will turn to dust and ashes on that Day. We have to begin to know who we are, and that means a Biblical definition. Not what the world says, not what the flesh says, not what the devil says. Not even what our friends say, or what our pastor says. Who does God say I am? The New Testament epistles are a litany of our real identity, and a word-picture of what that identity will look like when expressed. How to live from our real identity? How to be what we are meant to be? Dig. The Word is full of it, and the Word spoken in faith causes the invisible to become the visible. Seeking, and the subsequent right seeing, will bring the goodness we desire. Knowing our identity, not just theoretically but in practical experience, brings a love-life through us, as 1John 4:12-13 says: “If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. 13 Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.” We know that we are dwelling, abiding, relying if our life is showing forth love. If our eye is single to our real identity in Christ, that Christ within us is the source and ground of our being, our body will be full of light. If we are doubleminded, seeing our identity half from God’s Facts and half from the world’s definitions, we will be full of darkness, and manifesting that darkness. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these will be given to you as well.” We will gain energy from the sustenance of the Spirit, and be walking clothed in his righteousness and not our own striving. So, we must ask ourselves this question. “Do I see myself as God sees me? When the Word says I am dead to sin (Rom 6:2), do I agree with it, or hedge it about with all sorts of mental reservations? When God says I am a new creation, that the old man was crucified (Rom 6:6), do I eat that and say it is true, within myself? When the Word says I was buried with Christ through immersion into death, and raised to walk in newness of life (more Romans 6), do I faithe that as true, count it as fact, regardless of how I feel? Faith is conquered doubt. Do we doubt God and his Word? Then something has to give.

Jesus said “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”

 –John 14:27 There are two seasons taking place right now. Both are filled with hope and expectation. Both have music and candles and sparkling lights. Both seasons are building up to December 25th. One is the Holy Season of Advent, the other is the Christmas Shopping Season. We live in both seasons at once, but they are not the same. 

The Christmas Shopping Season is an anxious place. It is anxious because everything about it all depends on you. You have to buy the presents. You have to go to the party. You have to send the cards. You have to cook the food and hang the lights. You have to pay the bills. You have to make sure not to forget anyone. If you mess up, people will get their feelings hurt. Will you have enough time, enough energy, enough money? Advent, on the other hand, is a peaceful place. It is peaceful because none of it depends on you. Christ came, and you can’t change that. Christ is coming again no matter what you do or don’t do. You can participate by choosing to pray for his grace, by choosing to keep your eyes open. But whether you choose to stay alert or not, he is likely to interrupt your life. You and I experience two seasons at once. We live in Advent and the Christmas Shopping Season. By God’s grace, we can focus on one more than another. We can set aside a little anxiety today and ask for a little more peace. We can choose to turn our attention to the coming Christ rather than the coming crisis, even just for a moment. Perhaps, a little at a time, we may find ourselves living for a minute or an hour or even a full day completely in the Holy Season. Henri Nouwen, one of my personal heroes, wrote a prayer that I would like to share with you. I commend it to your use in midst of these seasons. An Advent Prayer
 by Henri Nouwen Lord Jesus, Master of both the light and the darkness, send your Holy Spirit upon our preparations for Christmas. We who have so much to do, seek quiet spaces to hear your voice each day. We who are anxious over many things, look forward to your coming among us. We who are blessed in so many ways, long for the complete joy of your kingdom. We whose hearts are heavy, seek the joy of your presence. We are your people, walking in darkness, yet seeking light. To you we say, Come Lord Jesus….
Amen.

One of the best things about life in Nashville is that I often find myself saying things like: “I’ll be right back, I’ve got to go to the spaceship for a minute.” How often do you get to say something like that while being completely matter-of-fact? It’s true, there’s a spaceship next door to my office and there’s a lonely astronaut inside it making awesome music. There’s a spacesuit and everything. I drove past it a few days ago while the door was open and it looked so cool I thought it might have actually been a tunnel into tomorrow. The record will be finished sometime this spring, and while Andy–I mean Leonard–isn’t ready to unveil the full-production tracks yet, he’s been awesome enough to record acoustic versions of three of the songs as a sneak preview. Here’s one, and you can download this and the other two when you pre-order the record in the Rabbit Room store. “Beat Of My Heart” by Andrew Osenga

The first rule of improvisational comedy, as I understand it, is as simple as it is profound. The rule is summed up in two modest words—three letters each–that together form a key that can open a door between heaven and earth. The words? “Yes, and . . .” Here is the basic gist paraphrased from wikipedia: In order for an improvised scene to work, the performers involved must work together responsively in a process of co-creation. It begins when the first performer makes what’s called an offer, throwing out a word or phrase that defines some element of the reality of the scene. It is the responsibility of the next performer then to accept the offer that their fellow performer makes; to not do so is known as blocking, negation, or denial, which usually prevents the scene from developing. Having accepted the offer of the first performer, the next performer then adds to it, building on what was offered, contributing to the scene while being shaped by it. And thus he or she makes a new offer to the next performer, who repeats the cycle. This is a process improvisers refer to as “yes, and…”–I say yes to what you offer me, and I add my part to it–and it is considered the cornerstone of improvisational technique. Every offer accepted (yes) and every contribution to the offer (and) helps the improvisers to refine their characters and progress the action of the scene. Next time you watch reruns of Whose Line Is It Anyway watch for it. I’ve been thinking about “yes, and…” lately and the way this simple idea can invite the Kingdom of God into my daily life. In any given moment am I blocking or negating God’s offer and thus preventing the scene, or the ways that heaven breaks into my world, from developing? Or do I humbly accept what comes my way as an invitation to add my part and thus progress the action—his work in and through my life. By the time you read this we will have wrapped up the Called To Love Fall tour (but don’t worry if you missed it, we’re taking it out again in the spring) featuring Downhere, Aaron Shust, and yours truly. All of us are on the same label—Centricity Music—and released new albums within a week of each other, so it seemed like a good idea for us to take our new songs on the road together. When the tour began, Aaron’s song “My Hope Is In You” was already climbing the charts to become the #1 song in the nation (and still holding as I write this) and my own dark horse in the race, “Remind Me Who I Am,” was just beginning to find its stride. And then something remarkable happened. After years of being told how much he sounded like Queen’s Freddie Mercury, fate caught up with Downhere’s Marc Martel. Earlier this year Roger Taylor of Queen decided to put together a special tribute band to celebrate their music for a summer tour called the Queen Extravaganza and announced they were taking auditions on YouTube. So at the urging of all of his friends, and after much consideration, Marc threw his hat in the ring and uploaded his rendition of “Somebody To Love.” What followed was more than anyone—even Queen—could have predicted. Marc’s audition went viral with four million views in only a few weeks. With the internet buzzing, Marc became an international media phenomenon, even landing a spot on The Ellen Degeneres show during the first week of our tour. Queen fans felt like they got Freddie back. And it’s true – Marc’s vocal and even physical resemblance to Freddie Mercury is Even Queen’s Roger Taylor mentioned him in an interview, strongly suggesting that he’s a shoe in for the Queen Extravaganza tour–which is exciting! And kind of surreal. And even a little disconcerting. It raises a lot of questions: What does all this mean?  If Marc wins, what does it mean for Downhere? Can Marc, a gifted songwriter, be content singing someone else’s songs (even if they are some of the most beloved songs in rock’n’roll history)? If he wins, will Marc have to wear a unitard when he sings “Bohemian Rhapsody” (I won’t lie, I kind of hope so. I want pictures.) There isn’t a clear roadmap for an adventure such as this and there are more question marks than there are signposts. But I’ve been grateful to have a front row seat for it all, and I’ll tell you this: I’m daily impressed with Marc and the rest of Downhere—Jason, Glenn, and Jeremy—for their humble, God-honoring, and faith-filled response to all that’s happening. I see Marc and his band mates saying, “yes, and…”—prayerfully receiving these events as though they are from the hand of the Lord—with courage, respect, and humility as they wonder what part they’re supposed to add to it, trusting that though a man “plans his way, the Lord directs his steps.” This is where the rubber meets the road (forgive the cliché) of how you work out your theology of God’s sovereignty with fear and trembling. And here is where I see the beauty of “Yes, and…” To say “Yes, but…” is an argument and is to stand in judgment of a moment, to hazard measuring it by our own self-righteousness and risk blocking the scene from developing. “Yes, but…” is conditional and is something that I and so many of us in the Christian community are often guilty of. It is fundamentally defensive, fearful, and reactive. “Yes, and…”, however, is the fearless and humble acceptance of the offer of an adventure. “Yes, but…” kills the moment before it even has a chance to come to life. “Yes, and…” is pregnant with possibility. But it can also get messy. Or maybe I should say and it can also get messy. To walk the line of being sensitive to his church audience and his own Christian convictions while at the same time honoring Queen music lovers is a delicate balancing act that I see Marc and co. walking out with grace, kindness, and a generosity that imbues the conversation with the aroma of Christ. The question that usually comes up in interviews from Christian and non-Christian media alike is how Marc as a Christian feels about singing the songs of a renowned hedonist. Marc replies by gracefully bringing the conversation back to the heart of the matter (as well as the heart of the man) by reminding them that some of the best of Queen’s songs, like “Somebody To Love”, are born out of the same spiritual longing that is common to all of us. My favorite moment is one that I understand might offend the sensibilities of some, but for those who might see it, as I did, as inspired, funny, and gracious, I’ll risk sharing it. For whoever wants to seriously engage it, Marc doesn’t dodge the question, but one interview required a different kind of sensitivity. A shock jock seemed to want to corner Marc by asking him how he, a Christian, felt about singing the songs of a celebrated bi-sexual. It was, of course, a no-win situation and a question sure to stir up trouble and degrade the conversation into fruitless controversy. Marc, a French-Canadian, answered, I believe, with an inspired and artful Chestertonian dodge perfectly tailored for that audience: “Well, I’m bi-lingual, do you think Queen fans will have an issue with that?” Well-played, Marc. But wherever there has been an opportunity for fruitful and dignified dialogue, Marc has graciously engaged the question. Whether he’s talking with a secular deejay or a Christian news outlet, it’s been inspiring to eavesdrop on Marc’s many interviews. I’ve been grateful for how he represents Christ and my faith. I’m proud of him. With all of this attention, clearly the tour had to respond, and so our “Yes, and…” took the form of adding “Somebody to Love” to the set as a way of honoring the curiosity of those who might attend the shows after discovering Marc on YouTube. Some churches have cancelled future Downhere dates because of Marc’s association with Queen, which I think is a shame. It shines a spotlight on one of the failures of a particular segment of the Christian community. We have the unfortunate reputation for naming people for what we see as their sin and brokenness, as though that were the whole of their identity. To see Freddie Mercury, or anyone for that matter, solely based on their sexuality (or any one thing) is to miss seeing what God sees, which of course is the heart of a person and the story that shaped them. And let’s not forget that every heart is filled with enough hurt and disappointment to ruin the best of us. Compassion should always be our first instinct. Isn’t that what we hope for when our own brokenness rises to the surface of our own lives? Are we only ever the sum of our failures, brokenness, sin, or other’s worst estimation of us? I think of Jesus and the woman at the well. I think of the way that Jesus gave her dignity by receiving her and asking her for a drink of water, breaking with the cultural mores of his time and acknowledging her as a fellow human being. It was only after this that he helped her to see her own story and then invited her into a better one. There are other churches who, in the spirit of “yes, and…”, made use of Marc’s notoriety by advertising our tour on local classic rock stations. One of our shows was made up of about one third of people who may not otherwise have set foot in a church. Jesus was proclaimed, God was worshipped, and the scene progressed. Ah, the fruit of “yes, and…” Some people are concerned about Marc and ask me if all of this attention has changed him. I’m grateful to be able to say that from where I sit he’s the same Marc I’ve always known. In fact I’d say he’s as in touch with the moving of the Holy Spirit as I’ve ever known him to be, with a heart at the center of him that is increasingly humble, kind, and hungry for God’s leading. Which brings me to the part of the story that I most want to tell. The most beautiful moment of the tour put Marc’s heart front and center. You see, there was one night when a young man with Down’s Syndrome was in the front row, beside himself in fits of enjoyment, dancing ecstatically through all of our sets. It was delightful. During the final song, an anthemic worship chorus where we all took the stage to close out the night together, this young man was overcome with joy and stormed up the steps to take center stage with Marc. These kinds of moments are precarious and require the most careful and caring touch. As the artist, you’re the captain of the ship in a sense and you have a responsibility to manage any factors that threaten to throw the evening of course. But you also don’t want to hold the wheel so tight that you choke out the chance for God to walk through the room. I was standing right behind Marc when the young man took to the stage and it happened. It was a small thing, and yet a gesture so pregnant with grace that it still moves me to remember it. Marc kept singing and gently put his arm around the young man—his hand on his back—drawing him in, assuring him. Marc’s arm around him said this: “Yes… I receive this moment from the hand of God, I receive you. You are a gift of God and have a place here.” “And… Sing with me, let’s sing together. You have a voice! And you should sing with it, you so alive with your love for your heavenly father that you couldn’t stay in your seat!” Yes: An acceptance of the offer of a potentially awkward moment, an adventure. And: A contribution that progressed the scene, a beautiful scene that looked like Kingdom come. In a moment like that, it’s hard to tell who the first or the last or the least among us is, isn’t it? I don’t think there was a dry eye in the house. If you’re concerned about how Marc will navigate this unlikely adventure he’s in, pray for him. But when you do, don’t pray out of fear, suspicion, or judgment. Remember the heart God has given him, and pray that the same God who is shaping the heart within him will also guard it. Check out this video, Marc’s second round audition of “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” His brother David is an amazing artist, too, whose music is reminiscent of Fleet Foxes. This is his audition of “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”: And why shouldn’t Glenn, Downhere’s bass player, join the fun? Here’s his bass audition for “Another One Bites The Dust”: And don’t forget to check out Downhere’s website UPDATE: Marc and David are proceeding to the final round! You can watch or listen to it live this Monday, Dec. 5th at http://www.queenextravaganza.com/ UPDATE #2: I was just made aware of a great piece that Jeremy, the drummer of Downhere, wrote as the father of a son with Down’s Syndrome. Beautiful: https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150432691026355

I didn’t know it, but I loved jazz when I was a kid. I was a huge fan of the Vince Guaraldi trio. I didn’t know that either. I only knew that the music for A Charlie Brown Christmas was one of the best things I had ever heard. It was a risky move to pair grown-up jazz music with an animated children’s show in 1965; it would be a risky move now, in the era of Thundercats and Sponge Bob Squarepants. But the Charlie Brown specials have always made it seem that jazz for kids is the most natural thing in the world. The jazz combo Coal Train Railroad–Katy Bowser, Chris Donohue, and a rotating cast of exceedingly talented instrumentalists–works on that very assumption, that jazz is great music for kids. More to the point, they demonstrate that jazz and kids are a natural combination. Their new record, Coal Train Railroad Swings, releases today. Musically, this is the real deal. Inspired by traditional swing jazz and seasoned with a dash of polka and a little bit of Tom Waits, the musicianship is stellar. Katy Bowser’s vocals are a miracle–expressive and very fun, but also technically astonishing. She performs a vocal run at the end of “Get My Wiggles Out” that is positively pyrotechnic. One wonders if she could possibly do it the same way twice. That’s Coal Train Railroad Swings! for you: genuine virtuosity in the service of a song about getting one’s wiggles out. The same virtuosity is exercised in songs about going to the pool, leaving a lunch bag out in the rain, suffering from the common cold (“I Hab a Code”), and getting dirty (of dirt, Katy asks, “What am I supposed to do? This stuff is everywhere!”). The subject matter is perfectly relevant to the toddler set, but there is no condescension here. I have heard Katy Bowser speak of “inviting children into the conversation” with her art. To put it another way, Coal Train Railroad says to kids, “Jazz is your music too.” Indeed, in many ways, children are more ready for jazz than adults. For a baby learning to speak, talking is a lot like scat-singing. A baby plays with the sounds and rhythms of words before he knows exactly what to do with their meanings. Katy tells of her baby daughter Story’s ongoing riffs on the words “broccoli” (“bockly”) and “book,” repeating them over and over with different intonations and pronunciations and cadences. The great revelation of Coal Train Railroad’s music is that jazz, which seems urbane, highbrow, and frankly intimidating to many grownups, can be entirely accessible. I don’t even own a turtleneck, but still I love this music. Watching my own children enjoy Coal Train Railroad Swings! has reminded me that jazz, that great American form, is my music too. [Here’s the first track from the record, in which a girl in Wonder Woman Underoos and a boy with inflatable Hulk muscles do battle with Godzilla and a toothy cow. The album is available in the Rabbit Room store.] I’m Diggin’ Me by Coal Train Railroad [audio:DigginMe.mp3]

This past weekend I watched a documentary that I haven’t been able to get out of my mind. It’s a sign of a good movie when I’m still thinking about it three days later. It’s an even better sign when I’m still mulling it over in bed at night after reading T. S. Eliot (though I suspect one could mull over just about anything after reading T. S. Eliot and make a good argument for doing so). The movie was called Life in a Day. We watched it on a whim and I wasn’t sure what to expect. All I knew was what I’d read about it a few months ago when it was making the festival rounds. The story goes that on July 24th 2010, nearly 80,000 people in over 190 countries, individually shot 4500 hours of video documenting a single day in their lives. After what must have been a small eternity in the editing room, the result is a 90 minute film that builds a sort of quiet epic out of the most ordinary thing in the world: us. Every shot was made by an ordinary person with an ordinary camera and most of them were submitted via YouTube. To ensure that the entire world was represented, the team behind the project also sent out over 400 cameras by mail to parts of the world too far flung for internet access—or even electricity for that matter. People were free to film anything they wished of themselves and their lives, but the filmmakers asked them to answer a few simple questions: What’s in your pocket? What do you love the most? What do you fear the most? The film flows from the pre-dawn quiet of city streets and back country moonscapes through the entire cycle of a day here on earth, encompassing our joys, faults, fears, and hopes from cradle to grave. The moments captured are honest, funny, and overwhelmingly ordinary. Not boring, mind you, merely ordinary—moments we’ve all known and cherished or dreaded or forgotten. A child wonders and fears what it would mean if God wasn’t real. A group of eastern European farmers laugh together while they milk their goats. A “Love Parade” turns deadly and selfish. An elderly couple renew their vows after fifty years of marriage. A man professes love for his refrigerator. A crowd of faces animate with joy over a thing as simple as light in darkness. An old woman stands before the camera, spreads her arms and proclaims: “This is me. This is what I look like. This is what I’m most afraid of.” It’s a snapshot of a single moment in time, a portrait of a world, a family photo of our entire human race. As I watched, my mind kept circling back to the idea that what I was seeing was only a single day. One. One day plucked out of a continuum of millions, and since the beginning each and every one of them has been filled with the same sense of struggle, joy, love, pain, and loneliness. This is what God sees of us—and what more besides? As I watched Life in a Day roll by, I felt like I was catching, however slightly, a brief glimpse of divine perspective. And the smallness of that glimpse hinted at the vast wideness available to the eye of God for, as T.S. Eliot says, “human kind cannot bear very much reality.” I’ve been reading Eliot’s Four Quartets lately and I won’t dare profess understanding of half of what I’ve read. But I do have glimpses of understanding. And in the context of Life in a Day, I think those glimpses have, at times, lengthened into meaningful stares (though amiable nods of recognition are, I fear, still years off). Eliot talks of the “still point” where past, present, and future come together, and of the futility of dwelling anywhere other than in the eternal stillness, the ever-present dance at the intersection around which the cosmos spins. If he could see a film like Life in a Day, if he could see humanity caught in its wondrous, scandalous swirl for one, brief fleeting moment of presence, I wonder if Eliot might not have thought of a passage like this from his poem Burnt Norton: At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is, But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity, Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards, Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point, There would be no dance, and there is only the dance. I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where. And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time. The inner freedom from the practical desire, The release from action and suffering, release from the inner And the outer compulsion, yet surrounded By a grace of sense, a white light still and moving, Erhebung without motion, concentration Without elimination, both a new world And the old made explicit, understood In the completion of its partial ecstasy, The resolution of its partial horror. Yet the enchainment of past and future Woven in the weakness of the hanging body, Protects mankind from heaven and damnation Which flesh cannot endure. July 24th, 2010, captured on film. There the dance is. Everywhere. Around us always, at all times. And the incredible present-ness of the film urged me onward, of course, toward the further hope of the dance’s resolution. Again, as Eliot puts it: These are only hints and guesses, Hints followed by guesses; and the rest Is prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action. The hint half guessed, the gift half understood, is Incarnation. Here the impossible union of spheres of existence is actual, Here the past and future Are conquered, and reconciled. . . Life in a Day is a snapshot, a guess, a whole picture partially seen, a partial picture wholly present. And, hallelujah, Christ, the Incarnation, is the intersection of all things, the resolution of past, present, future. In him the beginning and end are made one. Every loneliness uttered in the flickering light of a laptop screen on July 24, 2010, and every day before and since, is answered. In his stillness, love and companionship are given. Every joy is rejoined and given substance beyond mere apparition. War is made safety. Sickness: health. Each life, in each day, exists most fully at its intersection with the Incarnation. In the words of Abraham Kuyper: . . . there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine! Life in a Day is a tattered corner of the map of that domain, filled with ordinary miracles, regrets, failures, laughter, violence, hate, love, and beauty. But hallelujah, the Ancient of Days knows and keeps them every one, ever since the dance began. And all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well, because the tale is not over until its end is again its beginning, all things intersecting, all things beheld, from first to present to final, in the eye of the One. We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. Through the unknown, remembered gate When the last of earth left to discover Is that which was the beginning; At the source of the longest river The voice of the hidden waterfall And the children in the apple-tree Not known, because not looked for But heard, half-heard, in the stillness Between two waves of the sea. Quick now, here, now, always— A condition of complete simplicity (Costing not less than everything) And all shall be well and All manner of thing shall be well When the tongues of flame are in-folded Into the crowned knot of fire And the fire and the rose are one. –from Little Gidding by T. S. Eliot

The first snow fell in Nashville this morning–though it might be a disservice to snow to call it that. It wasn’t anything more than a few wet flakes floating around in the miserable rain. But it was snow nonetheless, which means, of course, that there’s a reasonable need for Christmas music to go along with it. Until I listened to this song again a few days ago, I had forgotten just how awesome it is. I’m thinking of writing Zooey Deschanel a letter to let her know that regrettably, the original song will no longer remind me of her shower solo in Elf, or of a cotton-headed ninny-muggins, or even of Santa deposed from a throne of lies, but instead of Andy and Jill’s priceless duet. “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” by Andy Gullahorn and Jill Phillips

[Editor’s note: You may have missed Hutchmoot this year, but Jennifer Trafton’s session was so good that we talked her into turning it into an post so we could share it with the rest of the world. Thanks, Jennifer.] I grew up in a book-loving family. Bookshelves oozed over the walls of our home, spreading farther and farther into the unused spaces as the years went by. We went to the library on Saturdays and brought home towers of books. One of the books my mother read aloud to me when I was ten was The Neverending Story, but this was one of those rare occasions when the movie version actually left a deeper imprint on my imagination. It was one of the defining films of my childhood—with its wonderful hint that those stories I was reading in books had an immense and fragile and beautiful reality behind them, and that I was always on the verge of falling into that other world, or seeing it fall into mine. My father read The Chronicles of Narnia to me (many times), and it filled me with a sense of the grand Story-ness of life—a feeling reinforced years later when I read The Lord of the Rings for the first time as a college freshman. I spent hours curled up on my bed with a profound longing in my heart, as if the veil had been pulled back for an instant on the Epic that I knew the world really possessed, if only I could live always in this glorious awareness of it. “The supreme adventure is being born,” said G. K. Chesterton. “Our existence may cease to be a song; it may cease even to be a beautiful lament. Our existence may not be an intelligible justice, or even a recognizable wrong. But our existence is still a story.” I think there is a sense in which the story of my own life and of my vocation as a writer is the story of one who is desperately trying to grow up without ever becoming a grown-up. One of my favorite writers when I was a child was Madeleine L’Engle, the author of A Wrinkle in Time. In her essay “The Key, the Door, the Road,” she talks about the difference between childish and childlike: A childish book, like a childish person, is limited, unspontaneous, closed in . . . But the childlike book, like the childlike person, breaks out of all boundaries. And joy is the key. Several years ago we took our children to Monticello, and I remember the feeling we all had of the fun Jefferson must have had with his experiments, his preposterous perpetual clock, for instance: what sheer, childlike delight it must have given him. Perhaps Lewis Carroll was really happy only when he was with children, especially when he was writing for them. Joy sparks the pages of Alice [in Wonderland], and how much more profound it is than most of his ponderous works for grownups. . . . But in the battering around of growing up the child gets hurt, and he puts on a shell of protection; he is frightened, and he slams doors. Real maturity lies in having the courage to open doors again, or, when they are pointed out, to go through them. This courage to keep reopening those doors, to break out of the adult shell of protection, to let joy loose in all its childlike messiness, is a daily struggle for me. But that is precisely why I will keep reading children’s books until the day I die, and why I know that I must keep writing them even if no one ever reads them. L’Engle said elsewhere, “My work is real work, and real work is play, not drudgery.” I have thought about this concept a great deal, because I am often asked why I am writing books for children. Sometimes it is with the implication that I have an ulterior motive—such as presenting a “message” or getting my foot in the publishing door by writing an “easier” kind of book (ha!). Sometimes people have sincerely thanked me as if I’m committing some noble act of benevolence. But the fact is, my motives aren’t nearly so heroic. I write children’s stories because when my imagination sits down to play, that is what comes out. It’s simply one of the best ways I’ve found to be myself. As a child I spent hours surrounded by my dolls and toys, scrunched between a bed and a wall, or under a desk, or in the bathroom. Barbie got kidnapped by a witch, and the Purple Pie Man commanded a pirate ship. Towels draped over chairs and boxes became a house or a hideout. I loved that magical space of time between turning off the light and going to sleep, when the whole earth was a blanket of silence around my shoulders, and I could drift into the next chapter of a secret story. These years of childhood are the last years of true imaginative freedom (because that’s what play is), the years when pure comedy is possible, without the bite of satire or the burn of cynicism. So it is primarily on paper now, in the act of creativity, that the child in me comes out to play again. When I am writing a story, I am back in my old bedroom, sending the creatures of my imagination off on wild adventures, stretching the universe into goofy new shapes with complete freedom, away from adult eyes and the chattering criticism of the world. If I kept thinking, “I am doing something that could shape the character and virtue of a child, redeem the brokenness of their world, teach them important lessons about life, etc.” the playing would stop, the grown-up mind would reassert itself, and the art would end. All of those other things are happy byproducts if they happen, but that is not my business. My job is to play with the pieces of the world I’ve been given, find the delight inherent in them, make something delightful out of them. Even if the only one delighted is me. I have read many theological discussions and defenses of the arts, and I am always torn in my response to them. For one thing, it saddens me when we feel the need to justify art by making it serve some other non-artistic purpose like teaching morality. But also, many of these defenses of art (think of Christian justifications for fantasy) seem to be afflicted with excessive seriousness, even self-importance. Do I believe that art can be a catalyst for social change, a commentator on the human condition, a conveyer of truth, a powerful agent of transformation in people’s lives? Yes! But to have to go about our business as artists while wearing that heavy mantle of responsibility seems crippling to me. And here is where I think the world of children’s literature has much insight to offer to these discussions about faith and the arts, because, perhaps more than any other genre, it reminds us of the redemptive power of a pure and holy silliness. Take Edward Lear’s poem “The Jumblies”, which I read regularly to jump-start the creative juices in my head. There is a kind of reckless, joyful dancing with words there that reminds me of another favorite poem by Lewis Carroll: `Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe. “Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch!” I love poems and stories like this that stretch the boundaries of what could be, almost as if they were thumbing their noses at a world that insists, This is how life is, and saying instead, Not necessarily. Imagine if it were different. Imagine lovely monkeys with lollipop paws and bandersnatches and places with names like the Chankly Bore. Imagine little people with green heads and blue hands embarking on epic adventures in unpredictably leaky sailing vessels. How can we possibly grasp the mystery of God and heavenly realities unless we have first allowed stories to take the lid off of what we think of as reality so that the stuff of creation can bubble over in shapes beyond our expectations? My favorite stories—and the stories I hope to write—provoke the question, “What if there is more to the world than what I see on the surface?” They make me more open to a world where the marvelous and the miraculous are possible. And they do it in a way that is delightful. That is what I mean by a holy silliness. Yes, there is a profound need for art that plumbs the depths of human depravity and suffering and shows that redemption is possible within that darkness. But there is also a profound need for art that creates spaces of innocence—innocent play, innocent joy, innocent beauty—in a world where innocence is violently stripped away from even the youngest children, and where adults have spent so long choking in the smog of corruption that they have forgotten what it is like to breathe pure fresh air. I will defend and defend the belief that the deepest reality of human life that we must impress upon children is not that life is hard and death is inevitable and they need to get used to sadness and darkness and make the best of it. The deepest reality is joy. The prize hidden under the scratch-and-win card of life is a beauty so big that no happy ending in a story can even come close to approximating it. War is a horrific stain on the floor of an extravagant ballroom. Tears are temporary; laughter is eternal. I am so grateful for art that takes us to the emotional place of the Cross—that place where we are forced to face the agony of evil in this world and walk through the door of pain to the other side. The courage and honesty of such artists is breathtaking to me. I long for more art that offers me Resurrection . . . Eden regained. The beauty of children’s literature is that it allows space for both—innocence and redemption, pain and silliness, honesty and happy endings. I think of the blending of joy and grief in E. B. White’s classic Charlotte’s Web, Katherine Paterson’s The Bridge to Terabithia, and Kate DiCamillo’s novels. Beside these I hold up the playfulness of Mr. Popper’s Penguins, James and the Giant Peach, Winnie-the-Pooh, and The Wizard of Oz. There is something about such books that cleanses me, like a baptism. Jesus did say, after all, that we must become like little children in order to enter the kingdom of heaven. This attitude of playing—does that mean writing is easy? No! It is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I am not a garrulous talker or a prolific writer; words trickle out slowly. Laughter fights every day against fear. There are many, many times when I feel anything but playful. The work still has to happen. But I work in the trust that the delight is merely temporarily submerged. The times of playing make the other times of painful slogging worth struggling through and overcoming: The joy is the fuel for the hard effort. Every day when I sat down to write The Rise and Fall of Mount Majestic, the writing felt like trying to strain Mount Everest through a sieve. I was paralyzed by the fear of what other people would think, how the world would receive my little story that had been so private and dear to me for so long. That was the grown-up in me forgetting that I was supposed to be playing. And one of the things that encouraged and challenged me during that time was the story of King David dancing before the Ark of the Covenant—unselfconscious, unashamed, childlike, his whole being thrust into the simple joyful act of the dance, caring only about the eyes of God upon him. I have a friend who is a ballet teacher, and she tells me about the great difference she sees between the children she teaches and the adults. Children dance as if they had burst out of the womb with the uncontrollable urge to wiggle in front of the universe; they dance with complete freedom. But as we grow up, the need to Not Look Silly in Front of Other People stiffens our limbs and shrinks our ability to express ourselves freely with our bodies. We move through the world in limited, socially acceptable patterns. We stop dancing. Creating something, like praying, is one of the most vulnerable, self-revealing things we do in this world. And if we are embarrassed to be caught in the act in front of other people, or if we cover our raw hearts in crowd-pleasing dress, we will kill the soul of our creation. Instead, we should let our art dance with reckless abandon, and if only God sees and loves it, we have no need for another audience; all other appreciating eyes are unexpected gifts. The moments when we achieve that state of complete unselfconsciousness—those are the moments when we are children again, innocent, naked and unashamed in the Garden of Eden. Pablo Picasso said, “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” I heard a story about a college art teacher whose seven-year-old daughter asked him what he did at work. He told her that his job was to teach people how to draw. She stared at him, incredulous, and said, “You mean they forget?” In J.R.R. Tolkien’s essay “On Fairy-Stories,” he talks about Recovery as one of the things that reading fairy tales offers us: “We should look at green again, and be startled anew (but not blinded) by blue and yellow and red. We should meet the centaur and the dragon, and then perhaps suddenly behold, like the ancient shepherds, sheep, and dogs, and horses—and wolves. This recovery fairy-stories help us to make. In that sense only a taste for them may make us, or keep us, childish. Recovery (which includes return and renewal of health) is a re-gaining—regaining of a clear view. . . . We need . . . to clean our windows; so that the things seen clearly may be freed from the drab blur of triteness or familiarity—from possessiveness.” This recovery reminds me of G. K. Chesterton again: “At the back of our brains, so to speak, there was a forgotten blaze or burst of astonishment at our own existence. The object of the artistic and spiritual life was to dig for this submerged sunrise of wonder.” This is why adults should read children’s books. Go back and reread the books you loved when you were a child. Dig for that submerged sunrise of wonder. Remember. Not to dwell in sentimental nostalgia, but to exercise a muscle that tends to go flabby with age. And then: Go out and be creative the way you were when you were a little girl or a little boy. Play. Make a beautiful mess. When I write, when I play on paper, I’m practicing. I’m practicing for the day when the world will be turned right side up again. The day when God will set aside my paper dreams and teach me how to make a star. The day when human life is revised and polished and the true story finally emerges—a story of freedom, fresh air, laughter, and children playing. [The Rise and Fall of Mount Majestic by Jennifer Trafton is available in the Rabbit Room store.]

Charles Kingsley (1819—1875) was an English priest known for such novels as Westward Ho!, for his political essays, for his poetry, and for his collections of sermons. Kingsley was involved in the Christian Socialist movement, and often wrote his novels to expose injustice. Kingsley is best known for his children’s novel, The Water-Babies (1863), which he wrote to teach Christian values. The main character is a ten-year-old chimneysweep named Tom. Due to mistreatment, Tom is chased out of town where he drowns in a river. Fairies turn him into a creature called a water-baby, and assign him a task. This book helped lead to an act of Parliament which prevented children being forced to climb chimneys. He was appointed the Queen’s chaplain in 1859, and became a professor at Cambridge University in 1860. Kingsley was also friends with the Scottish novelist George MacDonald. A LAMENT The merry merry lark was up and singing, And the hare was out and feeding on the lea; And the merry merry bells below were ringing, When my child’s laugh rang through me. Now the hare is snared and dead beside the snow-yard, And the lark beside the dreary winter sea; And the baby in his cradle in the churchyard Sleeps sound till the bell brings me. And here’s another: THE DEAD CHURCH Wild wild wind, wilt thou never cease thy sighing? Dark dark night, wilt thou never wear away? Cold cold church, in thy death sleep lying, The Lent is past, thy Passion here, but not thine Easter-day. Peace, faint heart, though the night be dark and sighing; Rest, fair corpse, where thy Lord himself hath lain. Weep, dear Lord, above thy bride low lying; Thy tears shall wake her frozen limbs to life and health again.

[Editor’s Note: We want to take a moment to celebrate the release of Russ Ramsey’s first book. He’s worked long and hard on it we’re anxious for each of you to enjoy the fruits of his labor. So congratulations, Russ. I’m happy to add the title of “Author” next to your name on the masthead.] Here’s the first chapter of Behold the Lamb of God: An Advent Narrative. If you’d like to download a sample and see what the actual book looks like inside, you can do so here. –Pete Peterson.] He did not have a home. People said he survived on little more than wild honey and locusts, and by the look of him, it couldn’t have been much more. He wore a coat of camel hair he cinched together with a leather belt, just like the prophet Elijah had done. Normally he was the one people stopped to behold, but at this particular moment, as he stood waist-deep in the Jordan, anyone looking at him saw that his attention was fixed on the man from Galilee headed his way. His face wore a mix of astonishment and joy as the man approached. “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!” His voice trembled as water dripped from his outstretched finger and scraggly beard into the river where he stood. People might have dismissed this wild man as they would have any other tortured soul driven to live in the caves and wadis of the Judean wilderness—were it not for the fact that people knew his story. Or rather, they knew his parents, Zechariah and Elizabeth. These were honorable people. Zechariah had served many years as a priest in the temple, Elizabeth faithfully at his side in spite of the fact that, well into their old age, they had been unable to conceive any children. Being a priest, Zechariah knew the old stories of the barren women God had worked through to deliver impossible promises to an unbelieving people—to their people. When Zechariah and his wife were young, these tales gave them hope. God could break through her barrenness if he wanted. He had done it before. But that was a long time ago, and the stories were about people whose lives were central to Israel’s identity. Zechariah and his wife hardly regarded themselves as that important. Eventually they accepted that they would be childless, though they wondered why the God they loved and served had determined, in his infinite wisdom, that they wouldn’t know the blessing of children. Then one day the Lord sent his angel down with a message. The Author of Life was going to open Elizabeth’s womb and give Zechariah a son. But this son wasn’t given merely for his father’s legacy. This boy would have a specific function in the unfolding story the people of Israel had been living and telling as far back as anyone could remember. The angel told them, “He will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just. He will make ready for the Lord a people prepared.” And they were to give him the name John. As a boy, John grew and became strong in the Spirit. His little mind was filled with wonder as he turned over the stories his parents told him about his birth. Angels were involved, and miracles. He was their miracle, a gift given by God himself not only to his grateful parents, but to the world. Everyone knew John as the boy with an intensity beyond his years—as though his entire boyhood was a time of preparation and he knew it. Not long after the boy became a man, he moved out into the wilderness of Judea. It was an inhospitable place— windy, craggy, and hot. It was also the sort of place where God had dwelled with his ancestors during the Exodus. There, without the simplest of creature comforts, John was left to find solace and companionship with God alone. Though his days in the desert could be lonesome to the point of pain, wilderness life suited him. It was a contemplative way to live, but one that strengthened him. He had no basic needs that he could not meet. Many of his days were filled with simple tasks such as finding water, scrounging food, staying out of the heat of the sun, and gathering wood for fires at night. Living off the land meant he needed to travel light. He needed to be able to go where the resources were and move on when they were spent. But it wasn’t just minimalist living that brought John to the desert; it was his call from the Lord to proclaim the message he had been born to tell. John didn’t move to the desert to withdraw from his people. He went to prepare for his role among them. Soon he emerged as a man with a voice and a clear con- science about how to use it. Wild and fearless, looking like he had grown out of the banks on which he stood, he called to all who passed, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!” And he did it as one who seemed to possess the authority to demand such a response. He was, as the prophet Isaiah had said, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord. Make his paths straight.’” Prepare for what? A collision of worlds. Like a meteor falling to the earth, heaven was bearing down on the land of his forefathers. An old promise, so old that it had become little more than a legend, was about to be fulfilled—and nothing would ever be the same. The Messiah was coming. The very fact that so many people considered the Messiah’s coming more of a fairy tale than a future event was, in itself, a cause for repentance. It wasn’t just that God had promised to do it. It was that the reason he promised to do it was like an intimate promise between lovers. God’s promised Messiah was a merciful gift of love to a people who needed both mercy and love. He would come to them in all their pain, brokenness, and struggle, and make everything new. They were desperate for this, and the proof of their desperation was perhaps most evident in the fact that they couldn’t bring themselves to live as though this promise was real. Repent! The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand! There was something magnetic about John, something in the way he suspended those he attracted between the poles of preparation and perdition until they understood that without repentance, there they would hover—not necessarily feeling lost perhaps, but not assured that they were found either. Hope began to rise in the hearts of the hopeless. Even in the call to repent, they heard the promise that if they confessed their sins, admitted their doubts, and acknowledged how their hearts had become cynical and jaded, God would hear them. God would hear them. People came from all over to the Jordan to step into that water with John the Baptizer. They confessed their failures, their lust, their greed, their pride. They admitted to him things they swore they would never tell a soul. But why? Who was he? Israel’s religious leaders had no answer, so they sent priests to investigate. Did this man think he was the Messiah? Or Elijah come back from his celestial chariot ride? John was clear in his answer. He was neither Elijah nor the Messiah. So the priests asked him, “Then why are you baptizing, if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?” John told them, “I baptize with water because there is a man, one who stands among you, and the strap of his sandal I’m not worthy to untie. Though you do not know him, he lives among us even now, and he is the Messiah!” Should they have known him? Or, if nothing else, should they not have been surprised at John’s rebuke? These were the priests of Israel, experts in the law and lore of God’s chosen people. Israel was a nation with a story, a well-rehearsed narrative these priests were sworn to preserve and pass down. John himself was a part of that tale, and so were they. And yet, like so many of their countrymen, they had begun to forget the story of God’s promises to them. But it was such a beautiful story. It was the story of how their holy God had cut a covenant promise in blood to redeem and restore the children who had rebelled against him. It was the story of how Jacob’s line came to be a nation—sometimes mighty, sometimes fragile, but always prone to wander and forget their God. It was the story of generations of war, infighting, and exile that should have wiped them off the face of the earth. The fact that they survived all this and so much more testified to God’s fidelity to his promise never to leave them or forsake them. That alone proved God was not through with the story he was writing. And if that was true, it meant he wasn’t through with them either. Even though it was still unfolding, it was already quite a story to tell, and it was the priests’ job to tell it. But in order to tell it, they had to know it. And to know it, they had to listen—which was why, since their earliest recorded history, every time the people of Israel gathered before the Lord for worship, the first word spoken to them was a command: “Hear!”

Christian Storytelling, Part I: The Right Stories I have always loved systematic theology.  I own four (Grudem, Oden, Hodge, and Reymond).  Ironically enough, I am going to continue my discussion of Christian Theology as Storytelling by quoting from a systematic theology, because Thomas Oden gets it right, I believe.  I’m going to let Oden do a lot of the talking here, but stick with it: It’s good stuff.  (Quotes are taken from The Living God: Systematic Theology, Volume One). The value of Oden’s already great “systematic” theology is increased by the fact that it realizes its own limitations.  Oden writes: The vitality of the biblical history of God’s acts does not easily boil down to the clear, consistent formulations about God attempted by systematic theology.  Try as we may, the biblical history resists systematization (p. 40). One might wonder why Oden writes this in the middle of a systematic theology. He rejoins: Yet since the Bible wishes to address each hearer as a whole person, it invites and to some degree requires that each believer bring its loose ends together, to listen for its unity, and to try to see it integrally.  In that sense the Bible invites systematic, cohesive thinking about its varied events and messages (pp. 40-41). Good answer.  Oden cautions that we do well not to pretend to be able to resolve the tension between the Bible’s inability to be easily systematized and its invitation to think about it cohesively.  In other words, we do systematic theology with a constant awareness of its own limitations, because the Bible is history and story, not a systematic theology itself. Oden’s ability to see the limitations of systematic theology is rooted in his accurate understanding of how God is revealed in the Scriptures: In the Hebraic religion, God is known by what God does.  What God does is remembered and recollected as history – the history of God’s encounter with humanity…That remains a constant frustration to our systematic attempts to get God safely boxed into our changing linguistic packages (pp. 40-41). So God is revealed to us in story form.  It’s not a made-up story like a fantasy fiction or a nursery tale.  Rather, it is God’s direct interaction with humanity within history.  Perhaps a personal insight will help me communicate the value of such an understanding. I recall the days when for me, biblical hermeneutics was about correct application of the grammatical-historical principle for interpretation, and then application to modern day.  “What did the Bible say then?  What does it say to me now? How do I apply that?”  As I operated on these three questions, it made much more sense to let the propositional truth statements be the key guide for interpretation, and the stories I relegated to illustrative material.  After all, if we’re making an attempt at systematic theology, wouldn’t it make more sense to read the “objective truth statements” of Paul and use Abraham, Moses, Acts, and even the Gospel stories as illustrative material of the Pauline corpus?  (Or the General Epistles, of course).  So my sermons generally consisted of the exegesis of a few verses from a Letter with OT and NT biblical stories as illustrative material. You’ve heard these sermons. Three propositional truth statements (with alliteration!), and a story to illustrate each point. There’s nothing wrong with this in and of itself, so don’t think I’m picking on your pastor. But when it comes to understand God and how He’s spoken to us, we need to let Him speak as He has chosen to speak, and not how we want him to. The way we handle St. Paul is a good example. We think of his letters as statements of propositional truth about God. Paul, however, built his theology the other way around, as Oden noted about Hebraic theology (“God is known by what God does.”) Paul did not start with a systematic theology of justification by faith and then tack on Abraham as an example or illustration.  The Abraham story and its culmination in the Jesus story is the foundation of the doctrine.  The story serves as the central point; justification by faith comes out of the story. To press this further, I used to believe the Romans was a good example of a sort of early systematic theology.  This was a terrible missing of the point.  As systematic as Romans may seem (and is, compared to the other epistles), even Romans is built on the framework of the story from Genesis to Paul’s time.  Creation-Fall-Redemption serves as the foundation of Romans.  Paul is explaining the story. It should be further noted that each epistle has its own story and context: the story of the humanity – the failures, questions, and struggles – of Peter, Paul, John, and their readers.  Some of these stories can only be speculated about, and this should lead to some humility on the part of the 21st century exegete. But the key point is this: in each epistle, all those truth statements are St. Paul’s bringing the Jesus story to bear on the historically situated, very human stories of the churches to whom he is writing. There is no question about it: this method makes theology harder. As Oden has noted, “History does not readily lend itself to systematic statement or definition” (p. 41; more on this subject in a coming post).  But it yields deep rewards in understanding a God who doesn’t just shout truth from on high, but enters into our world and our stories himself as the truth.

“I’ve seen Eric play his songs probably hundreds of times, and every time I’ve been struck by how blessedly peculiar he is. He’s self-effacing and passionate, he’s wry and gracious, he’s funny (especially when he doesn’t mean to be), he’s shy about his gifting and bold about his brokenness–and his songs are some of the most precariously honest songs I know. I need them. I think we all do–every peculiar one of us.”  –Andrew Peterson It seems like everyone who knows Eric Peters can articulate the unique genius of his music better than he can. It’s kind of strange, since he’s a lyrical alchemist, making gold appear mysteriously from the bubbling cauldron of his soul. I can remember describing his music in writing on one occasion and his response was something like, “Seriously? I never thought of that before. Well, I guess so.” I’ve always loved the music. Catchy and able to catch you off guard. Somehow, the careworn and carefree are often separated only by a soaring note from the most unique of all his instruments, his voice. That voice has always hooked me (and many others). Eric’s music is a burrowing owl, digging down into the earth of your heart. It lingers there, nestling deep. It breathes and sleeps and sings. Just when you think it’s confined and heavy, it takes flight, shaking off its clinging clods and soaring into a sunlit sky. I think that always happens with Eric’s records, but I believe this is part of what his new project is about. It’s one of many reasons I’m excited about supportting his Kickstarter campaign (which you still barely have time to help with). I’ve heard most of the songs that will be on this record and I expect it will be his best yet. You can be a part of making it. That is a pretty fun thing to do. Eric is migrating. The new record, Birds of Relocation, is your ticket to ride. Beetles will be eaten, new heights will be reached, new sights will be seen, and new nests will be built. (People will not be pooped on.) Perching at the intersection of catchy pop-folk and liberated introspection, this is one songbird you shouldn’t miss. Open your window. But don’t take my word for it. “The thing I love about Eric Peters is that he is a master craftsman with words; a poet, even in his prose. I’m always one to connect first with the lyrics of a song, like I have to trust where the artist is leading me before submitting to the spell of the music. With Eric, you have that unequivocal trust in one who both knows exactly where you are and calls you higher in the same breath. Like the best writers, he pricks you out of complacency with the exquisitely disconcerting reminder that we’re not yet all we’re meant to be—but we’re on our way. And we’re not alone.” –Lanier Ivester “Did you ask me to indoors Eric Peters? Oh sorry, well, I wholeheartedly endorse Eric Peters whether indoors or out. The vulnerable beauty of Scarce, Chrome or any of the Ridgely rarities I own are at home anywhere I go and I wouldn’t hesitate to put my money where my heart will inevitably be once I hear these tunes. –Matt Conner “The vast complexity of even Eric Peters’ minor and inchoate work puts one in mind of the greatest pillars of our musical landscape: Beethoven, Handel, Dylan, Esteban. That such a man, so small and so coarsely bearded, should alone possess power to rive asunder the very foundations of the acoustic/folk establishment and institute instead his own solitary and tyrannical vision of songcraft in a glorious Eric-ocracy of his own making, is cause indeed for raucous and limitless celebration and, in the end, unbounded hope.” –A.S. Peterson “A lot of people don’t realize this, but Eric Peters is younger than me. And yet he writes songs way better than I can. He supposedly cooks better than me too, but how would I know, since he’s never invited me over for his famous gumbo or étouffée or whatever it is? I’m pretty sure I’m better at board games than Eric. In any case, when he came over and ate my food, I beat him at a board game. I digress. This endorsement is mostly about Eric, not me. And from where I sit–a place of impeccable judgment and unimpeachable rectitude–I consider Eric Peters’ work to be brilliant. It grows out of an honesty and self-awareness that would terrify most other artists. But if the emotion in Eric’s music is raw, there’s nothing raw or unformed about the music itself. It’s thoughtful, challenging, excellent music. That’s just my opinion. But I’m rarely wrong.” –Jonathan Rogers, Ph.D. “Eric Peters doesn’t write songs as much as he opens up a vein and bleeds them. That’s why his songs feel more like a transfusion than anything else.  His music is most meaningful, I think, to others who have lost some blood of their own. To them his songs are life giving and saving. Not to belabor the metaphor, but I think we live in a culture that by and large refuses to bleed or otherwise enter the gift of our pain. But the slow death of denial keeps us from finding our hearts and ultimately from truly coming alive.  Into this world, then, comes the gift of Eric Peters’ music that wounds while it heals. Eric’s audience is likely to always be that brave but small group of people who aren’t afraid of the sight of blood because they recognize it as the life-giving force that it is. It often falls upon the living to care for the dying. Most of the hymns of our pop culture are broken anthems to self-indulgence and escapism that lead to a literal dead end. In a culture that sends Katy Perry’s ‘I Kissed A Girl’ to the top of the charts, the humanity of Eric Peters’ ‘Chrome’ is especially meaningful. The more I hear Eric’s music, the more aware I am of how generous he is, always giving away every bit of hope for the journey as he finds it. I’m grateful to be able to give back and help make space in the world for songs that bleed life, truth, hope, and beauty.” –Jason Gray Support Eric’s new project here.

When one of the kids is sick, or Amy is worn out, or the Goodgames just need a quiet Sunday morning at home, my family opens up The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones for “home church.” We read a chapter or two, mix in some singing, prayer, and bible reading, and it’s our kids’ favorite kind of worship time. Granted, the whole “service” only lasts around 30 minutes, which has its appeal across generations, but the kiddos really look forward to the JSB. Every time, my eight-year-old son asks if we can read “one more chapter?” and often we do. So naturally, when I heard Sally read from Song of the Stars (her new Christmas storybook) in Nashville last month, I knew my family would love it. I’m so thankful for Sally Lloyd-Jones and her commitment to bringing real craftsmanship to books for children. Here’s my review from the Slugs & Bugs blog. Clearly, Sally Lloyd-Jones has a way with words. Her award-winning best-seller The Jesus Storybook Bible brought depth and artistry to tiny Sunday school chairs around the world, and even transformed the way the gospel is taught to pastors in places like Uganda, Guinea, Senegal and Cameroon. This year Lloyd-Jones published a children’s book focused on the centerpiece of the human story: the Nativity.  And with Song of the Stars, Lloyd-Jones again blesses families like mine with her uncanny gift for powerful, beautiful simplicity. Her Christmas story begins: The world was about to change forever And it almost went by unnoticed… But the leaves, that night, rustled with a rumor. News rang out across the open fields A song drifted over the hills. Song of the Stars supposes that all of creation inhaled with anticipation as the Christ-child entered the world. The wind whispers, whales sing, sandpipers dance, and wild stallions drum their hooves, all to proclaim the coming of the King. The refrain “It’s time! It’s time!” resounds from forest to ocean to meadow while providing a delicious two-syllable repeating phrase for listening children to taste for themselves. And beneath the prose, Alison Jay’s paintings leap off the page. With smart use of perspective and detail, Jay paints scenes that are both intimate and sweeping within the span of your lap. Song of the Stars bursts with imagination and playful reverence. A great white whale sings to a starfish. Baby Jesus rests in the manger surrounded by adoring beasts. I could feel the author’s love for the little ones who’s eyes will fill with wonder as the pages turn, while we parents read and wonder ourselves at this greatest gift of God. The Savior of the world arrived as a baby . . . maybe we were the last to know. I’ve been a dad for eleven years now, and I’m so thankful we get to add Song of the Stars to our collection of Christmas books. The other night our oldest (my daughter) was reading it to her two younger brothers, and they were hanging on every word. Song of the Stars is available in the Rabbit Room store.