What are you looking for?

I walked down our gravel drive along the fence and saw a little fruit-pod on a vine. God started me to thinking about it. A tree grows in good soil. It produces fruit. The fruit carries the seeds. The fruit hangs over other ground. It falls, and bursts open. If the ground is receptive, another tree begins to come up. The fruit, the flesh of it, is the thing that carries and eventually nourishes the seeds as the fruit falls and time goes on. What if in the church we were often rejecting real, full-on spiritual fruit production and trading it for a little fruit mixed with a lot of self-effort and busy-work? What if we were so infected by the way the world thinks and operates in its “Just Do It” attitude that we are missing out on the miracle of being branches dropping love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness, humility, and faith into the lives of those around us – effortlessly, easily, freely? What if our thinking is so permeated by the world’s performance-based thought system that we are afraid of actual Reality, of real Love, of real Joy? In place of depending on the Vine, we think we are the Vine and even the Gardener, and that we have to keep ourselves, manage ourselves, and cause ourselves to bear fruit, asking God for a little help now and then. We think we are independent selves who must be good, so we build Law-fences and sin-boundaries to help keep ourselves on course. What if the plan of God was so much freer than that? What if his plan is to so bind us to himself in spirit, soul, and body that we no longer need to have Law-fences? What if his intention is to make us his total, complete bond-slaves so that we can be ultimately and finally free, not someday with Heavenly pie-in-the-sky, but here, now, productive in endless love, effortless joy, here and now?  What if we were unequivocally free from having to worry about sin because we are so taken up with the love and joy and power of the Lord Jesus Christ living in us and through us? If we put ourselves under Law, under self-effort, trying to produce righteousness by our own striving human will (even “with God’s help”), we make Christ ineffectual in us. Romans 7 says this is the attitude which causes us to sin. We hinder or completely stop fruit production when we rely on our own strength, on rules, law-fences, and refuse to put our full-hearted reliance into the One who lives in us. Galatians says that by trying to do a single thing in our own strength, we make Christ of no effect to us, of no real-time use, saved from Hell ultimately, but living in it here and now. God “works all things after the counsel of his own will,” and “works all things together for good.” He will let legalism stir up sin in us, because that is what independent self-effort does. It cuts us off from the effectual expression of Christ-life through us. Eventually, we begin to see the truth: none of us can live the Christian life by any measure of our own steam. Until we “bet the farm” on God’s ability to keep us, use us, and bear fruit through us, we live sub-Christian lives. “My yoke is easy, my burden light.” Are we pulling a hard yoke? Is our burden heavy? If so, we’d better check to see whose yoke we’re pulling, whose burden we’re carrying. We’ll talk about what “betting the farm” looks like next time.

With Jason Gray’s recent release of his single “Remind Me Who I Am,” it seemed the perfect time for another Rabbit Room interview. One beautiful facet of the Rabbit Room lies in the direct access to the artists that we love so much and the opportunity to hear them expound on their own feelings, behaviors, or experiences. Yet from time to time, a conversation will illuminate more than merely an essay. Here, Jason talks about the violent “one-two punch” of fear and shame and why he wanted to sit apart from heavy hitters like Third Day and Michael W. Smith. Matt: You gave us a first taste of the album in your recent post featuring “Remind Me Who I Am.” Is that pretty indicative of the rest of the album — that theme of identity? Jason: You know, identity is a big focus in my life right now, it’s the thing I most want to talk about, and originally I set out to have it be the focus of this project and wrote several songs around it. But at some point I kind of released myself from writing around a specific theme and decided to let in whatever wanted to come. But as other songs emerged, so did themes, specifically the one-two punch of fear and shame. But I still think identity takes center stage. Understanding who we are as God’s loved children and the place we hold in his heart is, I think, the answer to every question being raised on the album. The idea of our essential belovedness kind of bookends the record. “Remind Me Who I Am” is the first track and lays claim to the rest of the songs by setting up the terms of the conversation that unfolds. The last song on the record is a hymn-like song I wrote called “Jesus We Are Grateful” and it closes with this lyric: “Jesus who gathers us like children in his arms You are the lamb of God who shepherds us from harm We will follow into family And be seated at your table Where matchless grace Of an orphan makes A child of God in full…” And so the album ends where it began: with the security of knowing that we belong, that we are no longer aliens and strangers–King Lear’s “poor naked wretches…that bide the pelting of this pitiless storm.” We are held by the great love of a father who makes a place for us at his table. So though the concept of identity may not be the specific theme of every individual song, I think it’s still the crucial revelation for the album and haunts the rest of the songs. Matt: I love that you call it a one-two punch, because that definitely insinuates a level of violence–something we might not correlate with the issues that attack our identity. Jason: It is a violence, isn’t it? Fear and shame rage like storms inside of us that, if not for God’s grace, can destroy everything that’s most important to us. One of the songs on the album is called “No Thief Like Fear”, and that’s just how I see it, fear as a thief that threatens, bullies, and knocks us around before finally binding us and taking everything we care about most. I suppose a part of the irony is that it’s our caring for these things that makes us most vulnerable to fear. I am learning to be grateful for scripture’s guidance on keeping first things first, enjoying the good things while holding them loosely, treasuring my relationship with Christ above all else. I’ve heard people say this kind of thing for years and I admit it has often sounded like white noise to me, like Sunday school smarm, but I’m experiencing it these days as a crucial revelation, the kind of thing that defines a life. To love a thing too much is to drive it away. The commandments to love the Lord above all is a mercy to us. The problem of shame runs even deeper and causes even more damage, I think. It can be harder to diagnose because it finds really good hiding places behind our virtues like humility, service, and places like that. This past year, I feel like the Lord has led me personally on a journey of discovering shame that has long been hiding in my heart and that has, invisibly, infected every corner of my life. It’s that thing in us that always makes us afraid that we’re outsiders, and therefore causes us to act like outsiders. So yeah, I experience shame and fear as a violence in my soul. Matt: You discuss that journey of discovering shame, and certainly that must contrast with the life of a performer. Are you learning things about the tension that can exist there of the self on stage and the self inside that you didn’t know an album ago? Jason: I’m not sure if it certainly must contrast. Most performers I know are often tempted to use the stage to compensate for their deep sense of unworthiness. Maybe performers are so good because they’ve been performing all their lives, hiding their shame and hurt behind a persona they’ve developed. It’s like how so many comedians are profoundly sad people. There are few better hiding places than the stage–maybe the pulpit comes close. But as for me, shame is a theme I’ve kind of danced around for a long time, especially in songs like “The Golden Boy & The Prodigal” and “I Am New” from the last record. I think I’ve just been thrust deeper into it this time around. It’s been the most challenging couple of years of my life, with many circumstances that have forced me to look a little harder in the mirror. It has also been the most blessed two years of my ministry with the radio success and touring opportunities that we’ve had. God has used both of those things to peel back layers in my life and expose things that I didn’t even know were lurking in the shadows of my heart. One of the most remarkable experiences–that probably deserves it’s own blog, but I’ll skim the surface of it here–was the Make A Difference Tour with Tobymac, Third Day, Michael W. Smith, and Max Lucado. The trouble came every night when I would join them all on stage to sing Agnus Dei together before an arena full of people. Every night I was confronted with my deep, deep discomfort with being up there with those artists. Come on, I didn’t belong there with those heavy-hitters, right? There’s a rich story in there that I don’t have space here to talk about, but suffice it to say that I think that moment and that discomfort was why the Lord put me on that tour. About halfway through the tour I nearly stopped joining them for the last song, telling myself that I didn’t belong there and I was only doing it to be seen, to promote myself, etc. I was feeling mighty pleased with my humility–that I would choose to not join them on stage, instead trusting the Lord to promote me (never mind that he was the one who made it possible for me to be on the tour in the first place.) But the Lord didn’t let me get away with that and I was practically forced into this discomfort every night. You know how we’re told that it’s his kindness that leads us to repentance? I had some deep-rooted shame in my heart that had found a decent hiding place behind my humility and the Lord got to it by putting me on the biggest tour to go out in a decade and putting me on stage with a lineup of the most successful artists of the last twenty years. By the end of the tour, I realized that a lot of my discomfort was on account of wounds I didn’t even know I was carrying around in me related to my history with the fathers in my life. It was the Lord’s kindness that revealed the shame and unworthiness in my heart. It’s funny, too. I’ve been singing “I Am New” for about 4 years now, and I felt like I finally understood the song this year. Of course I thought I knew it when I wrote it (with Joel Hanson), but it means something different to me now to sing “Forgiven, beloved, hidden in Christ…” So yes, I have deeper access to the brokenness of my own condition – the Lord has been leading me there, surfacing deep wounds to bless them with a kiss and begin healing them. There’s a song I wrote that didn’t make this record that kind of sums up the past couple of years called “Love Is Going To Break Your Heart” – it may end up on a future project.  The chorus goes: Love will only let us go so far This love is gonna break your heart Break it open, open wide Kiss the wound deep inside You may try to run, but you can’t hide From the love, the love that’s gonna break your heart… That’s where a lot of these songs came from — and I imagine there are more to come. “Remind Me Who I Am” is all about that. “Nothing Is Wasted,” “I Will Find A Way.” Others, as well. “The End of Me” is about that, too–about coming to the end of your self, your hiding places, and finding grace waiting there for  you to offer a new beginning. “It’s okay, this is just the end / don’t be afraid, this is where it begins…” You can pre-order Jason’s upcoming release, A Way To See In The Dark, here. With your order, you’ll receive an instant download of his new single, “Remind Me Who I Am.” #JasonGray

In Genesis 15, God speaks to Abram and says “I am your shield and your exceedingly great reward. Abram says, “What will you give me, seeing I have no children? At this point my servant Eliezer is my heir!” God then reiterates the promise made to Abram in chapter 12 of making him a great nation, with descendants as many as the sand and stars. Abram faithes in God, and God counts Abram’s faith as righteousness. But then God says, “I’ve brought you from Ur to give you this land as an inheritance.” And Abram pulls a Gideon on God: “How do I know this is true?” So God makes a covenant. Animals are killed, and the pieces divided, and normally both parties would walk between the divided pieces, amidst the blood, to make a covenant together. But God puts Abram to sleep, and walks the covenant alone. He was making a point; this was to be a one-sided promise, God keeping his word, not based on whether or not Abram fulfilled his side of a contract. It was a covenant of grace to Abram which did not depend on Abram’s performance, the promise of an heir. In the very next chapter, ten years later, Abram and Sarai are getting impatient. They’ve waited ten years and are getting older. So they decide to help God out on keeping his promise, through their own thoughts, ways, and effort. Sarai suggests that Abram go into the tent with her servant Hagar, and a child is born, Ishmael, the child of their own effort, their own striving to help God fulfill his promise. Years later, when they are long past childbearing age, God speaks to them again and reiterates his promise of a child. In doing this, he is saying, “Ishmael is not the one I promised.” Fast forward. Isaac is born, and grows from baby to child. Sarah sees Hagar’s son Ishmael taunting Isaac, and says, “Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman.” When Paul wrote the epistle to the Galatians, a very similar circumstance was happening. The Galatian children of promise, born by faith, were suddenly caving in to the idea that they were to add self-effort rule-keeping to reliance on Christ. Paul says, “I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?” Theny were adding rule-keeping, human effort, to reliance on Christ. Paul goes on to tell them, “…the Law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.” In chapter four he digs into Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar, and their children; he says, “Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law? For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise.” Later he goes on, “….what saith the Scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman. So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free. Stand fast therefore in the liberty with which Christ has made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” He ties the self-effort of Abram and Sarai, striving to attain God’s promise by their own effort, with the believers in Galatia, who were believing they had to add their own human effort to help God out on his unilateral promise in Christ. What is this yoke of bondage we’re to avoid? It is to use our human effort (Gal 3:3) in the pursuit of being accepted, justified, sanctified, or glorified before God. We began by relying on the Spirit, who revealed Jesus Christ to us. Are we now going to be make ourselves holy by our effort (even combined with God’s help)? Are we eating from the wrong Tree, like Adam and Eve? Are we bringing the fruit of our works to God, like Cain? Will we strive by effort to help God fulfill his promises, and produce our own Ishmaels? Will we try to do it our way, like Saul? Will we begin with wisdom and end with futility, like Solomon? Do we begin by reliance on Christ as our redeemer and then introduce our own effort to “be like Christ?” Does a tree branch strain to produce fruit after it is grafted into the tree, or does it just sit there and rest in the Vine? We are to continue the same way we began – by reliance, by faith, by trust. If the Spirit of Christ dwells in you, you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. We’re to walk according the Spirit, trusting his life in us, seeing him working in us, knowing him as our life, our source of every virtue; he is the power of easy conquest over every temptation. That’s the branch in the Vine. Do we in our human effort, with God’s help, have to keep the commandments? The Pauline answer is “No.” If we abide in Christ, trusting his life in us, will he cause us to walk in his ways and keep his statutes? Absolutely. By reliance/trust/abiding, the fruit of the Spirit is expressed in our lives. Should we read and meditate on the commandments? Of course. Reading the whole Bible, not just a few favorite passages, is a prerequisite to getting our minds and hearts in tune with the Eternal. But as faithers in Jesus Christ, who now lives within us, we have a new identity – new creations, holy, beloved, accepted, one spirit with the Lord. We are sons of the Kingdom. The commandments tell us who we really are, and if we are relying on Christ within us, the fruit that comes is love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness, humility, and faith. Everything we need for life and godliness is given to us in Christ, not in our human effort, striving to be good. Christ is our indwelling righteousness, and in the end, he will get all the credit, not us. Our focus as the Christ-indwelt is to faithe in that Power within us and expect him to cause us to walk in his ways, and keep his statutes. Pressure off the human vessel; pressure on God within the vessel. “There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.” (Hebrews 4:9-10). A branch doesn’t try to grow fruit. It just sits there up in the tree.

When I was on the 2010 Behold The Lamb Of God Christmas tour, I debuted one of the new songs from my upcoming record, A Way To See In The Dark. I was encouraged by how warmly it was received, and people have been asking about it ever since so I thought I’d share it and the story behind it here. The song is called “The Sound Of Our Breathing” and it was inspired by a teaching I heard a few years ago about how God’s name, YHWH, is comprised of aspirated consonants that, spoken, are the sound of breathing. It was a big concept that proved challenging to turn into a succinct lyric. I could have written it as a folksy singer/songwriter kind of song with twelve verses that took time to expound the idea, but when I was fishing for a melody and came upon what would end up being the pre-chorus (the name of God is the sound of our breathing / hallelujahs rise on the wings of our hearts beating), I fell in love with the idea of writing it as a pop/rock radio kind of song. That was the most challenging way to write a challenging song, but I get excited about that kind of thing. The kind of songs we’ve come to expect to hear on the radio can sometimes be disappointing, but I haven’t given up on it and its listeners just yet (see my comment 27 below for thoughts about radio singles). So it felt very missional to me to write it this way and it was also an invigorating creative challenge. Pop/rock anthem = less lyrics = really challenging when you have a big idea to convey. I’m not sure it has radio potential – time will tell – but it was an good challenge creatively to write the song in that direction. I was at a songwriter’s retreat a year ago in Eastern Washington and I brought the song to Doug McKelvey and Seth Mosely who were willing to tackle the challenge and bring it across the finish line with me. “The Sound Of Our Breathing” is the fruit of our labor and I hope you like how it turned out (you can listen to it at the bottom of this post) For the special edition of the record, I wrote a piece about the idea that inspired the song and I’ve included that for you here. The song follows: The Sound Of Our Breathing Take a breath and breathe it out. Do it again, slowly, and try to mean it. Breathing – of all things maybe we take it most for granted. Do we ever wonder why we are built this way, this soft machine of ours always pumping oxygen in and out? In sadness, we breathe heavy sighs. In joy, our lungs feel almost like they will burst. In fear we hold our breath and have to be told to breathe slowly to help us calm down. When we’re about to do something hard, we take a deep breath to find our courage. When I think about it, breathing looks almost like a kind of praying. I heard a teaching not long ago about the moment when Moses had the nerve to ask God what his name is. God was gracious enough to answer, and the name he gave is recorded in the original Hebrew as YHWH. Over time we’ve arbitrarily added an “a” and an “e” in there to get YaHWeH, presumably because we have a preference for vowels. But scholars have noted that the letters YHWH represent breathing sounds, aspirated consonants that in the Hebrew alphabet would be transliterated like this: Yod, rhymes with “rode”, which we transliterate “Y” He, rhymes with “say”, which we transliterate “H” Vav, like “lava”, which we transliterate “V” or “W” He rhymes with “say”, which we transliterate “H” A wonderful question rises to excite the imagination: what if the name of God is the sound of breathing? This is a beautiful thought to me, especially considering that for centuries there have been those who have insisted that the name of God is so holy that we dare not speak it because of how unworthy we are. How generous of God to choose to give himself a name that we can’t help but speak every moment we’re alive. All of us, always, everywhere, waking, sleeping, with the name of God on our lips. In his Nooma video, Breathe, Rob Bell (a pastor whose obvious gifts of curiosity and a knack for asking provocative questions can get him into trouble) wonders what this means in key moments like when a baby is born – newly arrived on planet earth, must they take their first breath, or rather speak the name of God if they are to be alive here? On our deathbed, do we breathe our last breath? Or is it that we cease to be alive when the name of God is no longer on our lips? The most ironic of his questions is also the most beautiful: he wonders about the moment when an atheist friend looks across the table at you and says, “there. is. no. God”. And of course what you hear is “Yod. He. Vav. He.” There are few better illustrations of both God’s largesse as well as his humility, his omnipresence as well as his singular intimate presence within each of us. Breathe in. Breathe out. “He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs… the word that saves is right here, as near as the tongue in your mouth…” (Romans 8:28, 10:8 The Message) [To pre-order A Way To See In The Dark in either the standard or special edition (which features stories like this and 8 additional tracks including an acoustic version of “The Sound Of Our Breathing“, go to jasongraymusic.com. Pre-ordering will give you an instant download of the current single, “Remind Me Who I Am”.] The Sound Of Our Breathing Jason Gray, Doug McKelvey, Seth Mosely [audio:soundofbreathing.mp3] Everybody draws their very first breath with Your name upon their lips Every one of us is born of dust but come alive with heaven’s kiss The name of God is the sound of our breathing Hallelujahs rise on the wings of our hearts beating Breathe in, breathe out, speak it aloud Oh oh, oh oh The glory surrounds, this is the sound Oh oh, oh oh Moses bare foot at the burning bush wants to know who spoke to him The answer is unspeakable like the rush of a gentle wind The name of God is the sound of our breathing Hallelujahs rise on the wings of our hearts beating Breathe in, breathe out, speak it aloud Oh oh, oh oh The glory surrounds, this is the sound Oh oh, oh oh In him we live and move and have our being We speak the name as long as we are breathing So breathe in Breathe out… Doubters and deceivers, skeptics and believers we speak it just the same From birth to death, every single breath is whispering Your name

In my dialogues with others about grace, forgiveness, and our new identity in Christ, the question is often raised, “What about the commandments? Don’t we have to keep the commandments?” Let’s look at the Ten Commandments for a moment: 1. You shall have no other gods before Me. 2. You shall not make any carved images to bow down to. 3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. 4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 5. Honor your father and mother. 6. You shall not murder. 7. You shall not commit adultery. 8. You shall not steal 9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. 10. You shall not covet what belongs to another. A fairly daunting list, but that’s only ten, and in very simplified, easy form. Jesus came along and said that to hate someone in our heart is the same as murder, and to look upon someone with intent to sexually desire them is the same as adultery. Then the Apostle Paul comes along and says, “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself for her.” That makes “Don’t commit adultery” look like child’s play. Husbands, love your wives sacrificially, patiently, lovingly, never giving in for a moment to selfishness or being a tyrant or passivity or a harsh word. Likewise, “Do not steal” in the New Covenant becomes “give, give, give,” the opposite of stealing. The Law as given in the Old Covenant is actually a condescension on the part of God. He makes a lot of concessions. He doesn’t say that ruminating on a thing like sexual desire for someone not our spouse or hatred of another human being is wrong. He deals largely with actions at that point, except for a few key points – coveting (ruminating on desire for what others have), and having no other gods before God (inner atittude). Note that none of these commands say, “Try not to commit adultery” or “Husbands, try to love your wives…” They clearly and absolutely give the imperative. If you are one of those who has tried to be good, giving it your all, either you have not reached your saturation point, completely crumbled, and given up on your own effort, or you have hit that wall. If you haven’t, it is likely you won’t fully hear what I am saying here. But it may become relevant later when trying to “Be perfect, as your Father in Heaven is perfect” has done its full work. If you have hit that wall and been broken of thinking you can be good by your own effort, then what I have to say is for you. Jesus Christ fulfilled the Law perfectly. He lived out each one of these commandments, the living embodiment of God’s Law – God’s living Word, the Logos. Now, Jesus makes a lot of statements in the Gospels, saying odd things like, “I can do nothing of Myself” and “The Father in Me does the works” and “If you’ve seen Me, you seen the Father.” Paul echoes these statements in his epistles, saying equally strange things like, “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me, and the life I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God…” and “All the fullness of the Godhead lives in Christ in bodily form, and you are filled full in Him.” Romans 6 says we died in Christ on the Cross – we were put in Him, and we died to the old life; the old man literally died. We resurrected in Christ, and the new man became operational. The old man was a union between the false spirit in Eph 2:2, and the new man a union between the one true God and man, a gift from God to anyone and everyone who will take it. So what does this mean, as new creations? For us, the old has gone, the new has come. What does it mean? It means that now we have a new inner Source – God Himself. The Word of God is God-breathed. Therefore only God can unlock and reveal its mysteries. Likewise, the goodness, the righteousness stated in the Bible’s commandments is really a statement of who God is. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the Church. That kind of love. Where does that kind of love come from? It comes from God alone, for God is love. Wives, respect your husbands. Where does that respect come from? It comes from the Spirit of the Son, who respects the Father. So as a new creation being, we have the indwelling Spirit of the Father, Son, and Spirit. That Trinity is the core of our new identity, the God who has come to us to live in a co-operative union with us, a unity. But unless I know I am completely weak, unable to do any eternal good in and of my human effort, I cannot know God as my Source. God’s power is perfected in weakness; in order for God to flow from us, we have to come to the end of thinking we’re independent selves who can be good like Christ if we just try harder. So what are the commandments? They now become promises God makes to us. I will have no other gods before Him. How is this possible? By putting my faith in Christ within me to make that unseen Fact a temporal reality. To not only refrain from stealing, ever, but to give, give, give? How? By relying on Christ as my provider and sustainer, the Source of everything I need for life and godliness. If I trust Him, I won’t have any need of stealing; in fact, I’ll be able to give and give, because His resources are limitless. Who needs the commandment “Thou shalt not commit adultery” when he is trusting Christ within himself to love his wife as Christ loved the Church, to cause him to give himself for her? So “Do not commit adultery” is superseded by something which goes beyond the mere behavioral command. Christians should read the Old Testament, but in a new mindset – the mindset of a new creation man. The commands tell you who you really are, even if your behavior does not always show it. Ask and trust the Lord of your behavior to change you in that area, and persevere in faith, and He will always be faithful to do it. The Spirit of God intends to take us far beyond commandments in loving God and others.

God’s Grandeur By Gerard Manley Hopkins The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod. And for all this, nature is never spent; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; And though the last lights off the black West went Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs— Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings. I stumbled on this poem last night and I couldn’t stop thinking about it all day. A collection of Hopkins’s poems is on my nightstand, so I looked it up again as soon as I got into bed. I read it again just now, then forced it on Jamie (a professed poetry hater, unless that poem is about her, by me). She said, when I finished, “What–in–the–world was all that about?” After I stopped laughing she said, “Give it to me again. I’m ready now.” I read it again, noticing some of its nuances for the first time, then she said, “So God made this beautiful world, and man’s made a mess of things, right? But the Holy Spirit is still present, and God’s beauty is stronger than the mess. Is that it?” “Yeah, I guess so,” I said, wondering how Hopkins would feel about his verse being summed up that way. “But a poem isn’t just a puzzle to be figured out. It’s also about how it affects you.” I shrugged. “Then again, you’re someone who likes things explained. So yeah. I suppose that’s what it’s about.” For me, it’s about the way he said it, about the beauty of a lovely thought expressed with love. Jamie’s not crazy about questions. She wants the comfort of answers, and I like the adventure of mystery. But spouses, like good poems, aren’t easy to sum up in a sentence or two; I like answers and comfort too, and she’s one of the most adventurous, trusting people I know. She’s a poem written in a language I’m only beginning to learn. I thought, “A poem this good deserves a third read-aloud.” So I read it to her one more time, loving it even more than I did before. Her silence was the silence of a soul inspired, the silence of someone whose husband had just read her a grand poem about God’s grandeur, a silence of—sleep? Yes, sleep. She was long gone by the end of the third reading. Not everyone is a lover of hundred-year-old poetry, and neither the poem nor my wife are any less wonderful because of it. I love that the last thing she heard as she drifted off was about the bright wings of God’s Holy Spirit brooding over us; whether you’re a poet or not, that’s good news. Here it is again. (And you have to read it aloud.) The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod. And for all this, nature is never spent; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; And though the last lights off the black West went Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs— Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings. I’m not familiar with Stanley Kunitz, but this video of him reading this, his favorite poem, brought tears to my eyes. His description of stumbling onto the poem is worthy of its own Rabbit Room post. Here’s a snippet of what he says: “Back in 1926, I was roaming through the stacks of the Widener Library at Harvard. When I was walking through the section on English poetry of the nineteenth century, I just at random lifted my arm and picked a book off the shelf. It was attributed to an author I was not familiar with—Gerard Manley Hopkins. The page that I turned to and began to read was a page devoted to a poem called ‘God’s Grandeur.’ I couldn’t believe what I was reading. It really shook me, because it was unlike anything else I had ever read before. Suddenly that whole book became alive to me. It was filled with such a lyric passion; it was so fierce and eloquent, wounded and yet radiant, that I knew that it was speaking directly to me and giving me a hint of the kind of poetry that I would be dedicated to for the rest of my life.” So how does this poem hit you? Have you ever been stopped in your tracks by a poem?

Josh Garrels’ new record, Love & War & the Sea in Between, has been steadily blowing my mind since I first downloaded it last month. I just can’t stop listening to it. It’s heartbreaking, invigorating, beautiful, and hopeful. I really can’t say enough good things about it. And Josh is giving it away for free so there’s no excuse not to check it out. Trust me. Go download it, listen to it for a week and let it do its work on you. I think you’ll be glad you did. This is one of the songs that just won’t leave me alone. It’s called “Farther Along” and it’s epic. “Farther Along” by Josh Garrels Farther along we’ll know all about it Farther along we’ll understand why So cheer up my brothers, live in the sunshine We’ll understand this all by and by Tempted and tried, I wondered why The good man dies, the bad man thrives And Jesus cries because he loves ’em both We’re all cast-aways in need of rope Hanging on by the last threads of our hope In a house of mirrors full of smoke Confusing illusions I’ve seen Where did I go wrong, I sang along To every chorus of the song That the devil wrote like a piper at the gate Leading mice and men down to their fate But some will courageously escape The seductive voice with a heart of faith While walkin’ that line back home So much more to life than we’ve been told It’s full of beauty that will unfold And shine like you struck gold, my wayward son That deadweight burden weighs a ton Go down into the river and let it run Wash away all the things you’ve done Forgiveness alright Farther along we’ll know all about it Farther along we’ll understand why So cheer up my brothers, live in the sunshine We’ll understand this all by and by Still I get hard pressed on every side Between the rock and a compromise Like the truth and pack of lies fighting for my soul And I’ve got no place left go ‘Cause I got changed by what I’ve been shown More glory than the world has known Keeps me ramblin’ on Skipping like a calf loosed from its stall I’m free to love once and for all And even when I fall I’ll get back up For the joy that overflows my cup Heaven filled me with more than enough Broke down my levees and my bluffs Let the flood wash me And one day when the sky rolls back on us Some rejoice and the others fuss ‘Cause every knee must bow and tongue confess That the Son of God is forever blessed His is the kingdom and we’re the guests So put your voice up to the test Sing Lord, come soon Farther along we’ll know all about it Farther along we’ll understand why So cheer up my brothers, live in the sunshine We’ll understand this all by and by

My good friend, the able Doug McKelvey (who, you may recall, also had a hand in making the music video for Remind Me Who I Am), came to my house in Minnesota for a weekend to talk with me about my new record, my life, and…baby squirrels, among other things, in order to bring you a series of song diaries that offer stories behind the songs as well as a peek into the life of the Gray family. The first one is for the song, “Good To Be Alive” and is less a video about the song specifically than it is a peek into my world. Doug also pitched an idea to our label several months ago about a series of webisodes featuring Centricity artists as a memorable way to promote the new singles to radio music directors. Each webisode was written and directed by Doug and stars John Mays, the head of A&R at Centricity, as well as the featured artists in five minute situational comedies. I have said it many times and I’ll say again how grateful I am to be a part of Centricity – these webisodes are a great example of the outside of the box kind of thinking that is establishing this label and their artists as unique and memorable. And who knew that John Mays was such a comedic force!? If you like my episode, you may want to check out the others (and rumor has it that there may be a webisode featuring our own Andrew Peterson in the works.) I hope you enjoy these! And I’d be irresponsible if I didn’t remind you that you can pre-order my new record, A Way to See in the Dark here (and get an instant download of “Remind Me Who I Am”) Thanks for watching. Grateful. Song Diaries – Good To Be Alive Jason Gray Centricity U Webisode

This is last entry of a three-part series. You can read the first and second entries here: Cultivating Discipline Conquering Doubt Every day I live, I must decide if I am still a writer. The way I decide is by what I do. If I sit down with a pad of paper and pen and put my thoughts in paragraph form, I’m affirming the name placed on my lapel. If I read good books about writing, I’m showing concern for my craft. If I take time to think about the topics I wish to address and if I organize scatterbrained thoughts about my book, I’m performing the functions of my calling. If I pray about the words I choose as I sit at my computer screen and type those words into life, I’m focusing on the steps as I take them, but more importantly I’m taking those steps. Discipline: it’s a daily decision, but I never really understood what that meant until I sat down to write about it. It seems obvious to me now that discipline is formed by daily habits. Of course, it has to be; I don’t know how I missed that before. Maybe I knew on some superficial level, but now that I’ve struggled with words to describe the act, there’s an experiential connection to go along with those thoughts and it feels like the idea has sunken in a little more so that some sort of change is finally beginning to take place. I certainly hope so. I also never thought doubt could be connected with discipline until I began writing about doubt. During the writing process I stumbled onto this fact: the discipline of writing as often as I can helps conquer the doubt I feel about claiming the writer’s title for myself. Doubt is a harder battle for me because even after I do the work of discipline – pushing doubt into the corner – once the words are on the screen, he hops up swinging madly. So whether I struggle with who I am or what I’ve done, the questions are there every single day. Like I said, the discipline helps me fight him better, but I have yet to figure out how to get him out of the ring completely, which leaves me with yet another daily decision: do I care enough to fight an opponent today that I will face again tomorrow, and maybe for the rest of my life? When I first sat down to write this, I didn’t know it would turn into three separate posts. I knew I wanted to share the vision I have for a long-term project. I knew I wanted to start a discussion about how these visions get turned into realities. Then almost immediately, I began thinking about how my idea would be received in this forum. Actually, I worried about it. A lot. The familiar feeling reminded me how much I doubted myself when I first began to write, so I gathered a few of my favorite defenses and pieced them together in ways I hoped you could all relate to. I also wanted to tell you what I had learned in the throes of developing discipline, and hoped you all would have a few more tips for me on a subject which is much easier to talk about than to actually do. But the Rule of Three dictates that I come up with one last category which will inspire all of us toward more and more love and good deeds, right? So I’ve thought long and hard about this last writing tip and let me tell you, it’s a doozy. Are you ready? Here it is: care deeply. What? You mean, like–to quote one of my favorite movies, Reality Bites–be “a deep person who cares about things deeply”. Sounds a little vague, huh? Well, let me try and explain. It was the day after Christmas, 2009. I woke up early in the morning after a fitful night of sleep, with the strangest feeling of peace. In my mind I saw two distinct contrasting images: one representing how I used to feel about my conversations with God, and one representing my current view. In my head, I began to write a story where the backdrop changed from one to the other, and as I tried to pray and think at the same time, there was a passing thought about getting up and making myself a cup of tea. And the reason I ignored the thought and continued to lay in bed was this. I knew we only had Chai tea in our house and I just wasn’t in the mood for anything spicy. We were all going to be getting up and driving for ten hours that day to meet with family at a beach house in Virginia to celebrate the holidays. I wasn’t really looking forward to the drive, but knew it was going to be a really nice get-away once we got there. Finally, I reached a stopping point in my swirl of ideas and got up to have that morning cup of tea and try to capture some of my thoughts at the computer, and you’ll never guess what I found. Nestled in among the burgundy foil packs of Chai was a single red one. I pulled it out and read the front, English Breakfast. My mind jumped back to that passing thought, had I even formed a request? What sort of coincidence could this be and when did that foil packet materialize? I could have spent all day trying to come up with a reasonable solution or trying to convincing myself that I imagined the memory in response to the surprise of finding an out of place tea bag. Instead, I boiled some water and pulled out a mug. I decided to believe Jesus cared enough about me to send me a caring message, in a physical, tangible way. Maybe it’s too romantic a notion for you to believe but if you only knew the images I saw that morning and the complete conviction I felt of being seen, known, and heard by God. I sat down at the computer and pulled up a passage from Haggai, of all places. This is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build the house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored,” says the Lord. – Hag. 2: 7-8 And I think that’s when it began to sink in for me. I began to care more about writing as a means of communing with my maker, and creating a record of our relationship, than I cared about making a name for myself. Sure, I’m still tempted to seek out praise for my words and wit, but overall, I’m finding much more joy in this journey as I realize all the answers he’s led me to as I struggle with questions through essays, poems, and stories. The writing is there for me first. What a gracious blessing! The mind and imagination he gave me is worth conquering doubt and cultivating discipline, so I can give back to him my faith and trust through the words I write. Anything else that comes, if it ever does, will just be the icing on top, and never so sweet as the cake underneath. So care deeply for your talents, your gifts, and the processes that get you there. Care enough to work with them for God’s glory, but remember often just how deeply he cares for you.

When Philip and I were in Paris a few years ago, he took me to the Annick Goutal shop on the Rue Bellechasse to buy me some perfume. With a characteristic twist of City-of-Light-magic, we stepped off the bustling little street and into what seemed for all the world like a nineteenth-century parfumerie. The walls were lined with open shelves painted buttery-cream and touched with gilt, all bearing the same simple offerings of iconic ivory boxes, and in the center of the tiny store stood a mahogany display table, ranged with ribbon-topped bottles of scent like debutantes lined up for a dance. I was enchanted, and, despite the close quarters, completely overwhelmed. At that moment a clerk in a smart black dress appeared from behind a velvet curtain and proceeded to welcome us in her mellifluous tongue, and to ask how she could be of assistance. Philip answered her at once, with that utterly un-self-conscious ease of his that had been continually amazing me from the moment we’d touched down at Charles de Gaulle. He speaks French beautifully, though he’d be the first to deny it, and I loved watching him banter with the crepe man at his cart on Saint-Germain and the vendors of roses in the Marché aux Fleurs. (There was the little incident at the Rive Gauche café wherein the woman waiting on us stoutly declared—in English, no less—that there was no such thing as a “croissant with chocolate inside of it”. She must have been having a bad day, for the customer next to us at the counter simply laid down her newspaper and remarked quite calmly, in French, “I think he means a pain au chocolat.” Which, of course, he did. Without her intervention, I fear we might have gone breakfast-less that morning.) I smiled rather lamely at the bright Frenchwoman as she showed us around the parfumerie, chattering away over the various top notes and essences. In Paris, as in other places we’ve traveled, it has been my code to wear black and keep my mouth shut, endeavoring to avoid the quintessential stereotype of the American abroad—which is itself a stereotype, I am well aware. Nevertheless, I maintained my credo with a modicum of dignity, sniffing the samples she provided, enjoying the melody of the language as she and my husband conversed over roses and jasmine and honeysuckle, picking up the bottles in turn to read their bewitching names. All was going well until the shopkeeper turned to me with a direct question, her eyes alight with friendly inquiry and her words falling out in a rill of beautiful incomprehensibility. I blushed and blurted that I didn’t speak French, and without batting an eye she repeated her question in English. Something must have snapped in me at that moment, I remember it with such crystalline clarity. I didn’t want to be on the outside of such a magical language—I wanted to learn the spell that would put such beauty into my mouth, give me the savoir faire to move among the people of a world so different from my own. A latent desire sparked awake in that little gilt and crystal shop and I wanted it so bad I could taste it. Philip picked up a bottle and grinned at the name. “’Ce Soir ou Jamais’,” the shopkeeper laughed, then turned to me with arched eyebrows and a very Parisian tilt of her head, “Tonight—or never!” We all laughed together at the melodrama implied and I dutifully wafted the sample under my nose. The breath of Turkish roses was intoxicatingly tempting, with its slightly grassy balance and hints of jasmine and pear—a bit more daring than anything I’d worn before. In the end, however, I went with the lovely La Violette, exquisitely uncomplicated in its old-fashioned reserve. I think Philip could have seen that one coming. When I told him later of my resolution to learn French he was delighted. It was something we could share, another cord of communion to tangibly express the great mystery of making one life out of two. I have to confess, I am continually humbled by the enthusiastic sympathy with which he greets my desires and the practical ways he accommodates my ambitions. Marriage to him has been a flourishing in good, rich ground; a growing into dreams I didn’t even know I had. Nevertheless, with all his encouragement, with the boon of a French-speaking husband upon which to try out my halting attempts, year after year slipped by without my acquiring much more confidence or vocabulary than a few highly useful phrases like, “Would you like some ice cream?” and “The chickens are in the henhouse.” I chalked up my remarkable failure to a computer program that didn’t work, an audio series that was missing the book, and general busyness (most mauvais of all). But the fact is, I was just too scared. I blushed when I said things to him, across our own kitchen table. What sounded like music in his mouth got stuck in the back of my throat. I psyched myself up, at his laughing pep talk, to order in French at our favorite boulangerie and then punted at the last minute, asking for “a couple of coffees and two croissants with chocolate inside of them”. It seemed hopeless. “You have to be an actor,” Philip told me again and again. “You have to just throw yourself out there—overdo it. Play the role of a French person.” Of course, it’s what the best language teachers will tell you. (And most other teachers in their own way, I’d imagine, from writing to sky-diving.) Adventure presupposes risk; a step in the direction of a dream is often a deliberate revolt against a comparatively snug complacency. The desire accomplished may be sweet to the soul, but it often exacts a steep price from our ego. The jolly Chesterton said it best: “Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.” If there’s anything God has been teaching me in the past year, it’s that flying in the face of fear is one of the best ways to shock my soul awake, like a plunge into cold water after a wild flight on a rope swing. Impracticability forces me to rely on Him in practical ways. To be sure, the gremlins I’ve endeavored to stare down might look more like Gizmo to stouter souls than mine. But God knows my weakness, and I believe He knows just where to kindle my heart with desire to flame light into those dark places of insecurity and self-reliance. “Delight yourself in the Lord,” the Psalmist urges, “and He will give you the desires of your heart.” God often grants desire, astonishingly and miraculously. But perhaps it’s more wondrous still that He gives it, employing even the lesser yearnings of our nature to keep us alive to that sehnsucht we’re all so blessedly cursed with. In the light of this charge towards a more holy recklessness, my husband threw down a dare a few weeks ago. He had listened patiently to the latest installment in the Lanier-wants-to-learn-French saga, had assured me for the eleventy-first time that I could do it. Then he looked me straight in the eye. “I’ll give you one week to find a tutor.” A tutor? A thousand excuses rushed to my lips: too expensive, too time-consuming. Too terrifying. But instead I took the hand he offered and shook it solemnly. “Alright.” In the end, the tutor God provided was not the one I would have initially approached. I would have been way too intimidated, though I’ve known him most of my life. An erstwhile missionary to France and an extraordinarily gifted linguist, his French is so perfect even the French admire it. He’s the kind of person I would have been happy to practice my conversational skills on—after about twenty years of study. And instead, not two weeks after my challenge, I was sitting with him in the courtyard of a coffee shop in town, telling him I preferred thé vert over café noir and whether I was going to the supermarket en voiture or à pied. I think God thought it was hilarious. “For an hour and a half, I’m going to speak pretty much nothing but French to you, Lanier,” he told me. “And you’re going to speak French to me.” It seemed so preposterous—and conspicuous. I have a horror of looking stupid and my self-conscious sensibilities quailed at the thought of being overheard in my incompetence by the other patrons. I felt like everyone would be staring at me—bemusedly. (As if they were all writers, or something. Writers stare at people. And they write things in notebooks, which can be very disconcerting to highly-sensitive individuals. I should know.) There were evidently no writers among the clientele that afternoon, however, for no one paid us the slightest attention. Several people were smoking and a couple of dogs barked at each other across the courtyard. A delivery truck pulled up in the cobbled alley we were facing with a snort of diesel exhaust. “This feels like Paris!” my friend laughed, settling back in his chair with a smile of satisfaction. “Vas-tu à l’église ce soir?” Ce soir—that I knew, and I think I replied that, yes, I was going to church that night. But “ce soir” inevitably summons the words “ou jamais” on its heels, Philip and I have laughed about it so many times since our afternoon in the parfumerie. And out of the jumble of ballet French and random vocabulary I’ve pocketed over the years, I pulled out another adverb, coupling it with the one I had in hand as a sort-of motto for my aventure en Français: Maintenant ou jamais. Now or never. And while I’m throwing caution to the winds, it might just be the time to try out a new scent. Pourquoi pas?

The first music video from Jason Gray’s upcoming A Way to See In the Dark album just hit the web. Enjoy.

Rabbit Roomers, I give you two reasons to be excited about the song you’re about to hear. 1) It’s about a superhero. 2) It’s by Ben Shive (also a superhero–of music). For the last several months I’ve been listening as Ben put this record together in the next room and I can’t wait for you guys to hear it. It’s going to explode your brain and leave you drooling on the floor (but in a good way). If you’re one of Ben’s Kickstarter supporters, you should be getting an email in the next week or so with download instructions. Everyone else should keep a eye right here on the Rabbit Room where you’ll be able to pre-order soon. Here’s your first peek at the goodness to come: Ben Shive’s “She’s Invincible” from The Cymbal Crashing Clouds.

It’s been a month since my body arrived back in Colorado from my time in England. My mind and soul have taken a little longer to settle back in the circles of ordinary life. But this doesn’t phase me, because I’m not restless, or angsty, or resistant to normal life. It’s more as if the taste of my time away tinges my time here at home. The peace of it lingers. I’m loathe to let it go. Who knows, maybe it will stay. Maybe the time I spent wandering amidst long, sheep-starred, dapple down hills and the mornings spent staring into an upside down bowl of limpid, blue light, and the early hours spent in reading, in pondering, and in a hushedness of thought I have not touched in months, changed me. Gentled my hungry soul. Calmed the striving of my heart. The blaze of my questions…as to future…to life…to purpose…died down. But a new warmth came. Like the crackle of a well-made fire in a cottage on an autumn day. When you come into a room and know yourself home. Home, as much as any body can be in this world. And for me, this time, it wasn’t yet a physical place. It was a state of soul. A healedness of sight. A gentlednesss. I found a bunch of truths that I had dropped amidst my struggle to figure out my future. That God is lovely. That the poor in spirit are blessed, that I am blessed when I need God’s help most. That the humble inherit God’s earth. And that God’s good earth sings, and thrums, and speaks his heart afresh each day into the people whose existence he wills, and holds, and never forsakes. That love—of God, and his people, and the beauty he has made—is the great, burning work to which we humans are called. That all else really is naught compared to him. (But I needed to quiet to say it and know that I meant it in truth.) And the joy of it all is with me still.

The setting for the story of our life is changing. We’re moving. It’s not the biggest, most daring move. We’re not traveling 8,000 miles to live in Africa (as my parents did with us when I was a kid). We’re moving about 100 feet. We are buying and moving into our neighbor’s house. (Insert coveting jokes here.) Boring? I hope not. The small story of our family moving is about more than more space, more than moving up the hill into a little bigger house. It’s about a dream, a vision, a story our lives are telling. Overstating it? We’re moving because we believe the setting of the new house will allow us to thrive in our passions. We believe it will help us be and do who we are and what we are called to. Space, the final frontier. We did not need more space. We have said, “we need more space,” and have heard others say it many times. It’s sort of true, but not really. We have more space than most people in the world and in history have had. (A good measure, I think. Especially to gauge thankfulness.) We could have made it work. We want more space. Why? We want to have people over. Hospitality has been on our hearts for a long time and we want to have a space that makes that possible/easier. The place we’re moving to is not huge, by any means. But the way it’s laid out allows for a lot more room to have people in our home. The fact that there’s more opportunity for easier hospitality figures into our plans for our children. We plan to have a lot of “home games” with their friends. We want our kid’s friends of all ages to want to come to our place and to have room to operate and have a good great time. This house gives us more of that. The place has a small hut that I plan to use for writing. A Writer’s Hut, which Chris Yokel –outstripping all competitors– has perfectly named “The Forge.” It’s kind of a dream-come-true. (Of course, it needs some work. Much like the novel I can’t wait to return to writing when things settle a bit.) I could go on, but you get it. We think this place will serve to aid us in our various vocations. And that’s the point of writing a little about this. The setting changes, the story proceeds. I could go on about our situation in particular, but I mainly just want to connect the move (an ordinary thing) with our calling and our story. So, here’s to the wild, wonderful adventure of moving next door! What’s happening in your life? What is God doing to advance the plot of your story?

Melanie Penn has been in the studio lately working with Ben Shive on a whole bunch of new songs that I can’t wait to hear and she’s just released the video for “Ordinary Day” from her first album Wake Up Love. Today you can pick up Wake Up Love in the Rabbit Room store for $10 ($7 download).

Farther along we’ll know all about it Farther along we’ll understand why Cheer up my brothers, live in the sunshine We’ll understand this all by and by A few tears streamed down my face the first time I sat, mesmerized, watching a video performance of Josh Garrels playing this song from his latest album, Love & War & The Sea In Between. It’d been a while since I’d checked in on Josh’s music, and I found a couple new tracks from a forthcoming album. “Farther Along” was the first listen and it reached me at a specific place that I didn’t even realize needed words of hope. I felt something beyond me saying things were going to be okay, yet it’s not that I was surfing the web looking for music videos to fill a void in that moment. That’s the beauty of Josh’s music–a musical gift that beautifully yet forcefully expresses the intersection where divinity meets humanity. And he’s been doing this for years. Yet Love & War & The Sea In Between is Garrels’ magnum opus. It’s a collection of 18 tracks that fully encapsulate the tension we feel between two warring kingdoms. Sometimes they’re siren songs birthed in a garden we’ve only read about (“Ulysses”); others are a call to arms, a musical summons to engage the world on behalf of a greater cause of love and truth and beauty (“The Resistance”). Taken as a whole, they remind us of the true nature of our calling and the far country of which we’re a greater part. Garrels’ comes by his folk-hop fusion honestly. His parents sold their possessions and joined a Christian commune of sorts where Josh was born. His family left after several years, and Josh found himself immersed in the worlds of hip-hop and skate culture through his teenage years. I’ve known him for nearly a decade, even venturing through Israel and Palestine together for a couple of weeks a few years ago, and he’s always obeyed the internal impulse of the spirit’s voice. Whether hopping trains or pastoring a church, I’ve never known Josh to care much about the expectations of others, and his music remains untainted because of it. For those who have yet to plunge into Josh’s music, the good news is that it’s free for the next year. Even though Love & War is the most expensive album he’s recorded, I’ll never forget the conversation where he told me that he and his wife both knew they were called to give away this music–both in digital and physical form for one full calendar year. While he relayed an initial apprehensiveness about the approach, any longtime listener to Josh Garrels realizes he’ll be fine as long as he’s following his heart. You can download Love & War & The Sea In Between for free at Josh’s website (JoshGarrels.com). Three of Josh’s other albums (Lost Animals (2009), Jacaranda (2008), and Over Oceans (2006)) are available in the Rabbit Room store. #JoshGarrels

The Dream of the Rood (the Cross) is, according to The Norton Anthology of English Literature, “the finest of a rather large number of religious poems in Old English.” It is one of the oldest works of Old English surviving today. It was preserved in the “Vercelli Book” found in northern Italy in the 10th century, but may be much older. Its author is unknown, although scholars have often suggested either of two Anglo Saxon Christian poets: Cynewulf or Cædmon. The entire poem is about 1200 words, and was written in the alliterative style of Old English. The poem begins and ends with the story told by the dreamer; the central section is from the point-of-view of the Cross itself. The Dream of the Rood portrays powerful paradox. The Cross is a symbol both of shame and of glory. It is a place of defeat and victory. The Cross submits to God’s will — not bending or breaking, although it could have fallen and crushed the crucifiers — and is thus used to crucify Christ. The Rood suffers along with Jesus, feeling the nails pierce its cross-beam, being stained with blood, even feeling the mocking that was flung at Christ. The connections between the dreamer, the Cross, Christ himself, and ourselves are strongly felt in this poem. from The Dream of the Rood The choicest of visions I wish to tell, which came as a dream in middle-night, after voice-bearers lay at rest. It seemed that I saw a most wondrous tree born aloft, wound round by light, brightest of beams. All was that beacon sprinkled with gold. Gems stood fair at earth’s corners; there likewise five shone on the shoulder-span. All there beheld the Angel of God, fair through predestiny. Indeed, that was no wicked one’s gallows, but holy souls beheld it there, men over earth, and all this great creation. Wondrous that victory-beam—and I stained with sins, with wounds of disgrace. I saw glory’s tree honoured with trappings, shining with joys, decked with gold; gems had wrapped that forest tree worthily round. Yet through that gold I clearly perceived old strife of wretches, when first it began to bleed on its right side. With sorrows most troubled, I feared that fair sight. I saw that doom-beacon turn trappings and hews: sometimes with water wet, drenched with blood’s going; sometimes with jewels decked. But lying there long while, I, troubled, beheld the Healer’s tree, until I heard its fair voice. Then best wood spoke these words… The above translation is by Jonathan A. Glenn and may be viewed in its entirety here. 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

“Harry Potter is a Hobbit.” That was the title of a 2004 article by Dr. Amy H. Sturgis, friend and scholar. It was the thesis that captured my imagination about Harry more than any other. Rowling’s relationship to Tolkien is fascinating: Harry Potter is quite distinct from Tolkien, and also quite similar. It is distinct, in that you don’t see Tolkien’s direct influence all over the Hogwarts saga. In other words, apart from some superficial similarities, no one is going to read Harry and say, “Oh this is just a Tolkien knock-off.” It’s not. But she is writing in the same tradition of Faerie stories. That is Amy’s thesis, and it’s the heart of what I tried to do with Harry Potter and Imagination. It’s a tradition that can be traced back through great writers like L’Engle, Lewis, Tolkien, Chesterton, and MacDonald, and that great stream finds its source in the thinking of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. I’m not going all the way back to Coleridge in this post (though I hope to give him some serious attention here in the future). I’m going to summarize, as briefly as I can, this fantasy tradition, with reference to the five authors noted above. At the heart of it all is this: the imagination is a way of knowing. George MacDonald wrote that fairy tales are “new embodiments of old truth.” This comes straight out of Coleridge, who defines true poetry as that which “rescues admitted truth from neglect caused by the very circumstance of their universal admission.” We nod and accept certain things to be true, but we tend to neglect the weight of that truth until it is set before our eyes in something new and beautiful: a magical castle, the enacting of deeper magic, a humble hobbit, a Horcrux destroyed, a romp with a lion. Fairy tales tell the truth and open our eyes to its stunning reality – and to how much we’ve neglected it. We find this new embodiment of old truth in Albus Dumbledore’s lesson that love is the strongest form of magic. And we see how love transcends all magic played out before our eyes in Harry’s story. G.K. Chesteron believed that “the world is wild,” and that the philosophy of the fairy tale was far closer to truth than “realism.” We enter our mundane Muggle worlds each day with all the predictable things that bore us. We walk through our routines in a stupor, accepting the world as it is and failing to see it as the untamed playground God made it. When we walk into Hogwarts and find the paintings talking to us, the staircases moving, and ghosts popping up through the dinner tables, we’ve entered a wild world. And if we let Harry’s world affect us, we remember to look for the wildness that exists in our own. J.R.R. Tolkien called fantasy fiction the highest form of art, because it involves subcreation – the weaving of brand new worlds that have to be as consistent and believable as our own. Tolkien wrote, in “On Fairy Stories,” one of the most sophisticated defenses of the idea that we create because we are made in the image of a creator, and that our creative work is a fundamental part of who we are. Tolkien argued that in “escaping” to the world of Faerie, we often encounter truth in a more potent way than in non-fiction or in works of “realistic” fiction. As an example from Potter, perhaps it’s been hard for you to authentically address, in your own life, issues of racism and relating to the downtrodden in our world. You enter Harry’s world. You’ve never met a house-elf. You don’t know any in “real life.” But before you know it, you’re swept into the debate over house-elves, find yourself loving them and sympathizing with their plight, and you join Harry and Ron as they begin to understand the reasons for their oppression. Now, come back to your primary world; there are house-elves here, too. C.S. Lewis believed that in fairy tales, our imaginations allow us to grasp important truth about spiritual reality that our intellect alone, through reason and propositions, cannot fathom. Consider the long-standing, complicated issue of fate and free will, which has been endlessly debated in systematics and caused harsh and violent lines to be drawn between Christian groups. Now, watch the way events unfold in Oedipus Rex, or in MacBeth, or in Harry Potter, where free will and prophecy fulfillment interact and intersect and weave in and out of each other. The issue, in story form, produces mystery and wonder, whereas in our theological propositions, it tends to produce argument and frustration. Fairy tales give us imaginative access to truth in places our religion textbooks cannot go. Madeleine L’Engle is another writer whose literary “magic” got her in trouble in some circles. She criticized the idea that the “real world” was only found in “instructive books,” and wrote that “The world of fairy tale, fantasy, myth…is interested not in limited laboratory proofs but in truth.” She drives this point home when the divine teacher in A Wind in the Door challenges Meg’s idea that something is “just a dream” (and therefore not real) with the simple, repeated question: “What is real?” Proginoskes, the cherubim, follows up the Teacher’s question: “I’m real, and most earthlings can bear very little reality.” Rowling asks the same question and challenges the same laboratory-proof view of reality when Harry asks Dumbledore, “Is this real, or is it happening in my head?” And Dumbledore replies: “Of course it’s happening in your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean it isn’t real?” I hope you’re beginning to see where I’m going with this. Reality is bigger and deeper and wider than what we can perceive with the senses, prove with testing and logic, and document with footnotes. Christians who write fairy tales have, for years, been protesting a wonder-less, nominalistic view of truth by writing fairy tales. L’Engle dismissed the idea that stories were just distraction, and argued that story was part of survival in this world. J.K. Rowling stands in this Coleridgean tradition that flows down through these five authors. She’s a unique and quirky addition, to be sure. But I’m glad she’s there. She re-ignited in me a love for these five, and I have a seven-volume stack of Coleridge on the shelf that I intend to learn well. All because of a boy wizard and some chocolate frogs.

For years I’ve been making up stories for my kids at bedtime. It started with the two older kids when they were four and six and sharing a room, and at first all the stories were unrelated. Maybe a butterfly king was searching for his lost butterfly crown, or maybe two clouds were racing to see who could circle the world first, or I remember one where their toothbrushes came to life and danced in the sink while we slept. Eventually, I told a story about a boy and girl who lived in two castles on either side of a river. Being human, they naturally loved anything that seemed to revolve around them, and they started to ask for more of those stories. Standing between their beds, silhouetted by the hallway light, I made up dozens of twisted and half-baked plot lines. Every now and then, a smart story would emerge that needed a proper telling, so I’d leave them hanging with the dreaded “to be continued.” Cue the groans and pleas. It was a season, in the end. Eventually the big kids got separate rooms, then we added another young’un and nighttime creativity was trumped by a need for sleep. Sometimes I still make up stories for Ben (he’s 3 years old), when he has to go to bed earlier than the others, but the big kids have moved on to Harry Potter, The Wingfeather Saga, the Hardy Boys, and Calvin and Hobbes, and they want to read till the last second before they close their eyes. Then a few evenings ago, my eight-year-old son was tearing through The Rise and Fall of Mount Majestic for the second time and the other two kids were playing and winding down in the other bedroom. As I began to shoo them to bed, the three-year-old asked me to tell a story. His older sister joined in, “pleeeeease dad!” It doesn’t take much, really. I began as I always have – with the first thing that emerged from my mind. Two kids walking to school, older sister, younger brother. Little brother spots a beautifully glittering rainbow colored leaf, but all the grass around it is singed. Big sister sees that it is dangerous to touch so scoops it up into a small metal box little brother had with him. (Ben actually has such a box and sometimes brings it to school). At this point in the story, Livi and Ben are all smiles. Its like old times, but with a different little brother. They are completely caught up in the story, and I have no idea what’s coming next. The ideas come in real time. Big sister keeps box with the leaf in her backpack. When they part ways at school, little brother waves goodbye, big sister rudely sticks out her tongue. Big sister goes to class and is obviously not herself. She’s uppity to friends and classmates (I narrated a few snide exchanges), and eventually talks back to the teacher and gets sent to the principals office. On her way she sees little brother in the hall and he asks her for the box with the leaf they found so she digs it out of her backpack and says something like “here’s your dumb box.” Mom comes to pick up big sister who is suddenly back to her normal kindhearted self, they arrive home to a message on the answering machine from the school. Now little brother is misbehaving and is being sent home for the day. Big sister starts to piece together what is going on. At this point I see my daughter hiding behind the covers. I don’t usually keep a lot of eye contact during these stories because my brain is so preoccupied with figuring out the story. I peeked behind the covers to find her face all red and wrinkled and streaked with tears. She was silently bawling. As a parent, I was horrified. I immediately derailed the story, hopped on the bed, held her close, and quickly made up an ending where she saves the world from destruction. That did not help, so we just sat and hugged and I apologized. As you may have surmised, she saw herself in the character, and became emotionally overwhelmed when “she” started treating friends and loved ones with such venom. The evening’s sudden dark turn reacquainted me with the raw power of story, and reminds me now of the sacred burden storytellers bear. Good storytellers engage the imagination and have access to the entire range of human emotion, so we place our trust in them when we enter into their stories. For what on earth is more powerful than imagination? Could we even have love without it? Surely we could not have hate. Most of the memories from my childhood are the ones associated with deep emotion, so if she’s anything like me, my daughter will probably remember something about that night for the rest of her life. Do any of you have memories of visceral reactions to story at a young age? And if so, what were those stories about?

I don’t like ball games (baseball, football, or any other ball) but I’m forced to admit that they’re good fodder for movies (Field of Dreams), the occasional TV show (Friday Night Lights), and, in this case, an Andy Osenga song. “The Ball Game” by Andrew Osenga P.S. (Andy Osenga is getting ready to build a spaceship next door. That’s a sentence I never thought I’d write. Awesome.)

I recently wrote a piece for Art House America titled “Voices.” I hear voices. I suspect you do, too. With that sneaky suspicion in mind, I thought a handful of you Rabbit Roomers might care to read the essay. Here’s an excerpt: I have listened to inner voices for as long as my brain has had the ability to remember, recall, and, unfortunately, deliver psychological sucker punches. That is to say, for most of my life. The voices are debilitating. Most often laced with venom, despicable and cruel in all manner of punishing remarks, the voices that speak to me are old demons to whom I willingly lend an ear over and over again. The monologue is destructive and poisonous. This admission should not strike you as odd or maniacal, for I am convinced they are present in each of us. We lean in and listen, believing the voices to be true. They are with me from the moment I awake: as I brew a pot of coffee, each time I lose patience with my kids, when I see my stubbled face in the mirror, when I peek at my bank account balance, when I scrape my knuckle working on a project, when I am unable to make eye contact with another human in my perceived inferiority, until the moment I finally lay my head on the pillow at day’s end. Sadly, they are loudest when I write, when I seek to string together words and bring something beautiful into the world. Read the entire essay here: Voices

It’s a dangerous thing to be alive, where temptations to think we’re better than others are everywhere. Temptations to believe we deserve more, ubiquitous. Sinful pride is part of our awful inheritance, even when we’re depressed. Sometimes I think it’s all about me, that even my failures are more important than they really are, or ever could be. It’s the smoking gun of pretended sovereignty, of usurpation. I sigh, denied. And my sighs are the song of selfishness thwarted. Sighs pour forth from the fancy mouths of make believe monarchs, kings detecting treason in every ordinary frustration. Everyone is out to get the selfish man, because everything is about him. I sigh because I’m a thirty-four year old man and crying in public is bad P.R. If I sigh, a defeated, surrendering soul, I am blessed. If I sigh, a frustrated king, an idolater whose god just did nothing again, I am a moaning idiot. I am slapping back at the gift-hand of my Father. Who am I? Good question. It’s the only question and only the right answer will serve. Because from that answer I know my story and the danger then is in forgetting. We are skydivers all, but there is such a thing as a parachute. Remember? Sighs are so often the evidence of my forgetting. They are the heaving woes of wounded idols. They are the crying out for water now, bread now, a return to the slavery of Egypt now. But, though I am often a forgetter, I am never forgotten. That makes me happy. Don’t forget to remember who you are and remember not to forget it. And never never ever ever be redundant. Speaking of redundancy: When my brothers and I were kids, my Dad had one instruction when he dropped us off anywhere. He would always say “Don’t forget whose boys you are.” A good word. Whose child are you? The answer to that question, for those in Christ by grace, is a sigh of relief. Be relieved. Be happy. Sigh not so. Images from Alan Jacobs, The Gospel of Trees

Doubt usually springs on me right after I’ve finished writing. When I sit down to revise, I find myself thinking: You are only thirty-four years old. Who gives a hoot ‘n holler what you think or know about life? Why would anyone want to read your stories of a stay-at-home Mom who’s never published a book, whose life is radically unexceptional? Aren’t you supposed to DO something with your life, or at least live more than half of it, before you can write a memoir? And besides all that, how many days a week do you actually wake up believing everything you just said two paragraphs ago? Thankfully, and perhaps providentially, I’ve been reading Frederick Buechner’s Telling Secrets. Buechner has a few things to say that have helped me quiet those doubting voices. “But I talk about my life anyway because if, on the one hand, hardly anything could be less important, hardly anything could be more important. My story is important not because it is mine, God knows, but because if I tell it anything like right, the chances are you will recognize that in many ways it is also yours. Maybe nothing is more important than that we keep track, you and I, of these stories of who we are…because it is precisely through these stories…that God makes himself known to each of us most powerfully and personally.” When I let the questions get the best of me, productivity in writing comes to a crashing halt. Yet Buechner speaks again: “It is important to tell our secrets too because it makes it easier that way to see where we have been in our lives and where we are going. It also makes it easier for other people to tell us a secret or two of their own, and exchanges like that have a lot to do with what being a family is all about and what being human is all about. Finally, I suspect that it is by entering that deep place inside us where our secrets are kept that we come perhaps closer than we do anywhere else to the One who, whether we realize it or not, is of all our secrets the most telling and the most precious we have to tell.” Passages like these remind me of times when other’s words have helped me, and they give me hope that my words may one day do the same for someone else. It’s no wonder we lovers of words, we users of words, and those blessed by words are all plagued by doubt. Words are life, and life is opposed. A few years ago, I was struggling in a way that felt more supernatural than my usual lack of self-confidence. I had begun to see writing as a gift and though I hated to call myself “gifted,” I believed my ability was given to me by God. Yet, it seemed like the moment I tried to live and write from that reality I was attacked. After some time, I decided to pray about it and one day God spoke to me through a passage in Eugene Peterson’s translation The Message, where it was sectioned off differently than in my usual NIV. The passage was titled: Why Tell Stories? He (Jesus) replied, “You’ve been given insight into God’s kingdom. You know how it works. Not everybody has this gift, this insight; it hasn’t been given to them. Whenever someone has a ready heart for this, the insights and understandings flow freely. But if there is no readiness, any trace of receptivity soon disappears. That’s why I tell stories: to create readiness, to nudge the people toward receptive insight. In their present state they can stare till doomsday and not see it, listen till they’re blue in the face and not get it.” (Matthew, chapter 13, verses 11-13) God answered me, right where I was. In letters, words, and paragraph form, God told me part of what I was here for. A passage from his own book, recorded over a thousand years ago and composed before my first sunrise, explains the need for stories: to create readiness, to nudge the people toward receptive insight. In my writing I share bits of real life which (hopefully) plant seeds of hope and light; many of you write fictional stories which share real truth. Others of you sing your stories, and maybe a few of you use color, lines, or even organic life to add beauty in your own corner of God’s world. Whatever form our stories take, there will always be opposition to truth and life, and I have found some of the most devastating opposition sprouting in the exact places my stories come from. But this little post is one way I have taken heart, gone to battle, and determined not give doubt its sway. I hope it encourages you to do the same. I’d love to hear about the different ways you have battled the big “D” word yourself. What are your solutions for conquering doubt once and for all? Can it be done? Author’s note: The sketch for this post was created by John Haney, a fellow Hutchmoot 2010 attendee whom I met on Facebook. John conquers doubt with humor and has a cute little comic strip you should check out at www.beyondthedromedary.blogspot.com

I’m a fan of the Harry Potter books. There. I said it. Whenever I visit a bookstore I can’t resist a walk through the Young Readers section, where my heart flutters at cover illustrations of dragons and detectives and ghosts and kids dashing across fantastic landscapes. I’ve always loved those stories, and many times I take the books from the shelves and, with chills running up and down my arms, thumb through them. Sometimes I even smell them. (There. I said that, too.) Years ago, on one of my trips through the kids’ section I noticed a book called Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. It looked cool, and the jacket indicated that it had won a few awards. A year or so later I saw the second book, this one on display. By the time I spotted Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban on the shelves the buzz was loud enough that I decided to buy the first book. I read it, and although it had some great moments, I wasn’t hooked. But at the time I was writing On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness and was learning so much so quickly about writing, I already knew North! Or Be Eaten would be a better book. I desperately hoped my readers would stick with me through my first faltering attempt at fiction because I had a much bigger story to tell. So I decided to give this “J.K. Rowling” person the benefit of the doubt, as I hoped my readers would do for me. I read Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and liked it better than the first book. I began to get glimpses of the scope of this story, sensed a gigantic framework beneath its surface, and bought Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban as soon as it released. That was the book that did it. Rowling was no longer messing around. She convinced me with that book that she could tell a story, that Harry, Ron, and Hermione were characters I cared about, and I realized that she had created a world I adored. I’m as enchanted by Hogwarts as Rivendell. At the end of each book, when Harry found himself stuck again at the Dursleys, I grieved with him, because his time there was like my time waiting for the next story, waiting for Hagrid to show up and sweep me away into a magical world again. Opening the first page of a new Harry Potter book was like boarding the Hogwarts Express. I’m being totally serious. Well, after reading book three, I was one of the first in line to buy each new one. Then one day about ten years ago, when I was on tour with a singer/songwriter named Fernando Ortega, I spent a few hours at a Barnes & Noble in Oregon (I think) and a guy in a bowtie was giving an author talk to a smattering of people. I slipped into the back row and listened as he lauded the virtues of the Harry Potter books, and even—gasp!—went so far as to argue that they were distinctly Christian in theme. I was fascinated, especially in light of the rumblings and grumblings I’d heard about the books from Christians. It helped me to understand why my spirit seemed to tingle when I read the books. That day I met John Granger, bought his book The Hidden Key to Harry Potter, and was even more hooked than I was before. He pointed out so many interesting themes, archetypes, alchemical nuances, and even direct quotes from Rowling herself about the Christian content in the books that I became more frustrated and mystified than ever by the outcry from Christians against the books. As weird as it sounds, I felt bad for Rowling. She was working hard, telling a great story, lighting up my imagination like few authors ever have (I’ll let you guess which), and she was being demonized by the church I love–the church of which she was supposedly a part. I kept wishing there was a way I could send her a message that said something like this: Dear Ms. Rowling, I think it’s remarkable what you’ve done. I love your imagination. I love your characterization and your sense of humor. I love that you’re telling a story about choosing the right thing, even when it’s hard. I love that you’re telling a story that is full of wisdom, a story that reminds me how evil Evil is. Most of all, I love that your story reminds me that light is stronger than darkness, that the best way to love is to lay your life down, and that Death will not have the final say. By the way, I’m a follower of Christ, and I see him in your story. I don’t know if that’s intentional or not, but you should know that he’s in there. In fact, it wouldn’t be a huge stretch to say that reading your books has helped me to praise him even more for his courage, his sacrifice, and his strength to conquer the hosts of hell to save us. Sincerely, Andrew Peterson I don’t think the Harry Potter books are perfect. I don’t think they’re the greatest books ever written. Whether or not they stand the test of time like The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings remains to be seen (though I suspect they will). But I was swept into the story in a way that very few books have ever done for me. When Ben Shive and I were touring in Sweden I actually heard him crying in the next room as he finished Half-Blood Prince. (Don’t tell him I told you that.) Some of you may have heard me tell this story, but for the sake of those who haven’t: when I finished Deathly Hallows I was opening for Fernando again (this was years and years after the tour I mentioned earlier–creepy how this all revolves around Fernando). I read the last, bittersweet pages of the book and was deeply moved. But it wasn’t until later that I broke. I finished my opening set that night and settled in to listen to Fernando. He was playing piano along with a string quartet, marching through a stirring arrangement of “Crown Him With Many Crowns”. In the back of the dark, crowded room I sang, Crown him the Lord of life, who triumphed o’er the grave, and rose victorious in the strife for those he came to save. His glories now we sing, who died, and rose on high, who died, eternal life to bring, and lives that death may die. I couldn’t get Harry’s story out of my head. I doubled over in the back of the auditorium and sobbed with gratitude to Jesus for allowing his body to be ruined, for facing the enemy alone, for laying down his life for his friends–Jesus, my friend, brother, hero, and king–Jesus, the Lord of Life, who triumphed o’er the grave–who lives that death may die! Even now, writing those words, my heart catches in my throat. In that moment I was able, because of these books, to worship Christ in a way I never had. Let me be clear: Harry Potter is NOT Jesus. This story isn’t inspired, at least not in the sense that Scripture is inspired; but because I believe that all truth is God’s truth, that the resurrection is at the heart of the Christian story, and the main character of the Christian story is Christ, because I believe in God the Father, almighty maker of heaven and earth and in Jesus Christ his only begotten son—and because I believe that he inhabits my heart and has adopted me as his son, into his family, his kingdom, his church—I have the freedom to rejoice in the Harry Potter story, because even there, Christ is King. Wherever we see beauty, light, truth, goodness, we see Christ. Do we think him so small that he couldn’t invade a series of books about a boy wizard? Do we think him cut off from a story like this, as if he were afraid, or weak, or worried? Remember when Santa Claus shows up (incongruously) in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe? It’s a strange moment, but to my great surprise I’ve been moved by it. Lewis reminds me that even Father Christmas is subject to Jesus, just as in Prince Caspian the hosts of mythology are subject to him. The Harry Potter story is subject to him, too, and Jesus can use it however he wants. In my case, Jesus used it to help me long for heaven, to remind me of the invisible world, to keep my imagination active and young, and he used it to show me his holy bravery in his triumph over the grave. C.S. Lewis had some strange theological ideas. I still read and love his work. George MacDonald was a universalist. His book are still instructive and beautiful. Tolkien had his own theological failings. After watching the fiery debate over the Harry Potter books, I wonder if any novel, Christian or otherwise, could withstand the theological nitpicking that’s been inflicted on Rowling, either in the work itself or the author’s worldview. Of course the books aren’t perfect; of course, in a seven-volume saga, there will be inconsistencies, theological inaccuracies, moments of inconsistency; of course Rowling’s worldview isn’t going to align perfectly with yours. If you only read books that met those criteria your list would be short indeed. But listen: we’re free to enjoy the good and the beautiful, even from the most unlikely places. We’re free—and this is huge—to look for the light in people (and things!), to give them the benefit of the doubt, to laud their beauty, to outlove unloveliness–in short, to love as Christ loves us. That includes billionaire authors like J.K. Rowling. She didn’t grow up in the Bible Belt of America; she grew up in England. And yet, in defiance of a culture that tends to snub its nose at Christianity, she wrote a story that contains powerful redemptive themes, stirs a longing for life after death, piques the staunchest atheist’s suspicion that there just might be something beyond the veil, and plainly shows evil for what it is—and not just evil, but love’s triumph over it. As for the witchcraft debate, I heave a weary sigh. No, God doesn’t want us to practice witchcraft. Of course he doesn’t. I’ve read arguments on both sides of this, and believe we could spar for days without doing a lick of good. (By the way, no debate is raging over Glenda the Good Witch of the East in The Wizard of Oz. Most Americans have probably seen that film and/or read that book, and didn’t start conducting seances on the weekends—though the flying monkeys have creeped me out for years. And Oz, when compared to Potter, is practically bereft of Christian meaning.) I have a lot of friends who have quite different theological opinions than I do, but we extend each other grace in matters of baptism, communion, predestination, etc. We do our best to love each other well, and celebrate Christ’s lordship over our differences. Life works better that way. They’ll know we’re Christians by our love–for each other and for famous authors. If I have to choose between grace or law, there’s no question where I’ll make my home. It’s possible to win an argument and still be wrong, just as it’s possible to lose an argument and be right. When I got out of Bible college I thought I knew it all. I thought my calling was to be a watchdog for my faith and the faith of those around me. I thought Scripture was for prooftexting, as if 1) I was smart enough to nail it down and 2) it could be nailed down at all. Don’t get me wrong; I’m glad there are systematic theologians out there. Theology is important. But so is poetry. Math is important. But so is painting. Truth is important. So is grace. We should be people of both. All truth and no grace is no better than all grace and no truth. That means we keep our discernment and wisdom, but we do so without fear or anger. In all things, love. In all things, Christ—who is full of grace and truth. So in my post-Bible college years, after getting into a few humbling (and humiliating) debates over doctrine, I realized that my calling wasn’t to proof-text or to argue. I washed my hands of it. “What is truth?” asked Pilate. Jesus himself was the silent answer. So in my music and my writing and in my daily life, I want to learn to let Christ’s very presence—the fact of it—be my answer. His last promise before the Ascension was that he would be with us, to the end of the age. That promise gives me a great deal of peace. What have I to fear? Early on in the Rabbit Room I decided this wouldn’t be a place for negative reviews (Thomas’s occasionally negative film reviews nothwithstanding—though those are usually for the sake of saving you money and/or brain cells, or, let’s face it, making us laugh). That’s not just so we can be touchy-feely and nice. It’s because, of the millions of websites in the world, I want this one to be about beauty, truth, and goodness. It’s a site dedicated to finding those things in the unlikeliest places, and praising God for the infinite reach of his Word, the tremors of his death and resurrection shaking the foundations of the universe so that the dead (like us) climb out of their tombs and walk around. For us in the Age of the Church on earth, we get the privilege of proclaiming his story, of looking for its glimmers like men hunched over a river and panning for gold, pointing it out, whooping for joy, glorying in the grace of the King.

It’s been a weird 14 years. Way back in 1997, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (or Sorcerer’s Stone, for Americans, because Scholastic thought we were too dumb for philosophy) was released. In a few short weeks, the final film will hit the big screen. While Warner Brothers will undoubtedly attempt to keep the hype alive, and J.K. Rowling is playing her part in that, we’ve come to the end of an era. I’ve no doubt Harry Potter will live on for many years to come, both because of its fan base and the quality of the story. But as we reach the beginning of the end of the boy wizard’s pop culture hype, it’s a good time to look back at what we’ve learned from Harry – particularly what we Christians have learned from Harry. And perhaps there’s no greater lesson at the outset than that we actually can learn from Harry. You remember the late 90s and early aughts. (I love the word “aughts.”) Christians were warned about the dangers of Harry Potter, the draw to the occult, to witchcraft, the likelihood that Satan existed in the very pages of Rowling’s novels. Some, perhaps even some reading this, still wonder whether we should be concerned about in the Potter books. I’m not intending to tread on those concerns; we should always be discerning. But at this point, reviewing the history of the debate, the content of the Potter books, and the professions of faith from their author, it’s hard to come to any other conclusion than that those of us who were once concerned about or opposed to the series were wrong. It’s edifying literature, deliberately full of Christian symbols. Which leads to two lessons that I’ll follow up with: (1) We should probably stop believing every Christian warning spam email that comes across our inbox, and (2) We’ve lost touch with a very Christian tradition of writing and need to re-connect to it. The first one I’ll address here, the second in a later post. I remember being a pastor of a small Baptist church in 2004 and leading the youth group. Five Harry Potter books were out. I had, without ever reading them, concluded that they must be dangerous, because I’d heard that, and because it seemed kids liked the magic a lot, and they might be drawn into witchcraft. So I read the first book. And then the second. And I barely slept as I flew through the next three. At that time, I had just enough intelligence to respond, with amazing clarity and originality of thought, “This is what people are upset about?” Profound, I know. By the time the 6th book had come out, I’d re-read the first five and started blogging about the series. I joined John Granger in his work to demonstrate the place of Potter in the Christian fantasy tradition, where it belongs. To that, I will turn on the next post. But to conclude this one: Let’s always be careful and responsible about the information we take in and pass around. J.K. Rowling was never a witch and did not write the books by “channeling.” These are things I was told. When we react to hype, we may just be missing out on some really great stories that point the way to Jesus.