What are you looking for?

Last night I wrote a fable. It’s fabulous. And by that I mean it’s a fable. With me? Words really mean things. I want to be someone whose appreciation of this fact fuels more intentional investigation into word origins. I only have one book on my shelf that I can think of right now about word origins in English. That book is pretty amazing (now I’m thinking of what amazing history the word “amazing” might have), but I ought to have more. I almost have aught. I remember hearing Ken Myers talking to some fellow about how he was grading a student paper where it was said that a boat had “arrived half-way across the ocean.” The fellow was objecting to this use because the word “arrive” has in it the notion of coming ashore. So one cannot arrive half-way. It means to get there. Specifically to “come to shore.” So, at Hutchmoot this idea of the power and origin in the original power of words arrived on the sandy beach of my mind. Courtesy of Walter Wangerin, Jr. Walt (I call him Walt, because I was close enough to yank his pony tail–but I didn’t, amazingly) was amazing. <—–  I haven’t looked that up yet. I felt a thousand things as he spoke, which I feel incapable of putting into adequate words. I feel like a clever monkey trying to explain to Beethoven (who is deaf and dead) the joys of flinging poo. I felt validated, inspired, full, hopeful, peaceful, joyful and the list goes on and on like a long, long list. But here is one thing. Walt knows words. He inhabits language like the oldest local. He speaks as one with authority, as if in his naming the thing may finally–again–be itself. It was not that words were used by him, or that he was commanding with them. I can aspire to that. It was more. He cooperated with words. Co-operated. He and the words were on the same side. He has arrived on their side after a long, literate life’s journey. His relation of the history of schap (forever on the chalkboard of my mind) was a significant life event for me. Because, in so many words, he told me who I am. I am a schap. A shaper. This is how he talked about storytellers. And words are the tools of my trade. I will use them, care for them, add more to my bag and hope that one day I will do more than use them. I will inhabit them. Know them like an intimate friend. Partner with them. Conjure up with them a vision for those without eyes to see. And tell stories. Like Walt.

This is an attempt to collect all the posts out there referencing the inaugural Hutchmoot. It also attempts to present websites/blogs of Hutchmoot attendees. It further attempts links to those weirdos what made some kind of presentation at the 2010 Hutchmoot. I’ll continue to update it, so just comment if you wish to be included. I hope it’s helpful. –S.D. Smith Hutchmoot-specific Posts Hutchmoot 2010, from Christina Szrama Telling the Old, Old Story, from Bernie Walt Wangerin Teaches: Hutchmoot Keynote, from Word Lily Entering the Hutchmoot Fellowship, from Heather Ivester Hutchmoot in the 2nd Chair, from Dan K Hutchwhat?, from Kate Hinson Waiting for the Artist, from Lanier Ivestor Artist v. Dreamer, from Katherine Still Here, from Leigh McLeroy Hutchmoot Recap, from The Aesthetic Elevator I Can, from Jodi AP and Eowyn, from Christina Szrama (pictured above) Dripping With Holiness, from Laura Boggs Hutchmoot 2010, from The Grouchy Ladybug Taste and See That the Lord is Good, Dan K Counting Stars, from Dan K Sigh, from Kelli A Bit More, from Kelli Hutchmoot cartoon pt 1, from John Haney Hutchmoot cartoon pt 2, from John Haney Hutchmoot, from Tricia Prinzi What a Weekend, from Andrew Mackay Hutchmoot Explained. Mostly, from Team Redd Ripe, from Brandy Hutchmoot, from Mark Geil Hutchmoot: Hutchmeets?, from Mark Geil Hutchmoot: Starting to Listen, from Mark Geil Hutchmoot: Composed Experience, from Mark Geil Hutchmoot: Marching Orders, from Mark Geil Hutchmoot, from My Friend Amy Epiphanies, from Sarah Clarkson Happy Monday Morning, from S.D. Smith Facebook’s Hutchmoot Group Hutchmoot: Reflections on Comunity, from Jason Gray *RR Post Hutchmoot #1, from Andrew Peterson *RR Post Hutchmoot Pics, from Andrew Peterson *RR Post Apples of Gold in a Setting of Silver, from S.D. Smith *RR Post My Best Laid Plans…, Luaphacim And Websites/Blogs from Hutchmoot Attendees (I know I’m missing a bunch here) Lanier Ivestor Leigh McLeroy Heather Ivester Ryan Szrama Christina Szrama Eowyn Szrama My Friend Amy The Grouchy Ladybug Aaron Roughton Dan K Kelli John Haney Andrew Mackay Leigh McLeroy Team Redd Brandy (I’m Just Sayin’) Mark Geil Word Lily The Aesthetic Elevator Shedding Velveteen Are We Here Yet Biblical Counseling Through Song Tony Heringer Hutchmoot Presenter Blogs/Websites Travis Prinzi Thomas McKenzie Matt Conner Jason Gray Randall Goodgame Sarah Clarkson Jonathan Rogers Chris Wall Evie Coates Curt McCley Pete Peterson Eric Peters S.D. Smith Ron Block Andrew Peterson Russ Ramsey Kate Hinson John Barber Janna Barber Andy Osenga Andy Gullahorn Jill Phillips Note: I probably left people out of each section. If so, let me know who/what/whereupon. I just put up all the ones I could find/think of. It’s not an authoritative list. But you will be disciplined if you don’t obey it.

Here are a few of the pictures Grant Howard took at the ‘Moot. Ron Block, Randall Goodgame, Jason Gray, and Andy Gullahorn’s Shoulder during the songwriter panel. Chris Wall, a good friend who produced several VeggieTales films at Big Idea (including the ones featuring the Goodgame/Peterson silly songs “Monkey”, “The Biscuit of Zazzamarandabo”, and “Sneeze if you Need To”). Chris was a part of the storytelling panel. The infamous Eric Peters, who is much more road weary than this picture suggests. He drove straight to Hutchmoot from his summer Young Life stint in Georgia. Russ Ramsey, who only hours after Hutchmoot concluded moved his sweet family from Kansas to Nashville to a little house right down the road. He’s the newest pastor at our church, Midtown Fellowship. The songwriter panel, featuring Ron Block, Goodgame, Jason Gray, Andy Gullahorn, Jill Phillips, Andrew Osenga, Eric Peters, and me. Matt Conner moderated, and made the comment at the beginning that we looked like a Caucasian version of Leonardo’s Last Supper, at which point we all struck the pose pictured in Jason’s post yesterday. This was taken at the Counting Stars release show at Fellowship Bible Church on Friday night. That’s Kenny Hutson (lap steel), Ben Shive (keys), Ken Lewis (drums), me, Andy Gullahorn (guitar), and James Gregory (bass). It was a packed house, a great gift never taken for granted by a bunch of singer/songwriter folks like us. S.D. Smith, who led a session titled “Perfection in Weakness” along with A.S. Peterson and Travis Prinzi. Sam, his brother and a few friends showed up early and helped a TON with the weekend. Thanks, West Virginians. The book table. Ah, one of my favorite things in the world. We had a lot of new books by our favorite authors, along with a lot of used treasures (nearly all of which were sold). That’s Brannon McAllister in the foreground, a good friend over the years who is responsible for designing my last three or four album covers. Jonathan Rogers, who with Russ Ramsey led a session on Annie Dillard and Flannery O’Connor, two of the Rabbit Room’s favorite writers. Jonathan’s newest novel The Charlatan’s Boy releases later this year. Randall Goodgame, the brains behind Slugs & Bugs & Lullabies and its super-cool tour. Randall drove through the night from Arkansas to make it to the ‘Moot in time to be a part of the songwriter panel. Ron Block, the Rabbit Room’s resident banjo-theologian. Ron and I spoke about George MacDonald and C.S. Lewis’s immersed imaginations. He’s also the only Rabbit Room writer who can totally pull off that moustache. Jill Phillips’s Shoulder, Andrew Osenga, Eric Peters, and me on the songwriting panel. Andy Gullahorn, Jill Phillips, Andrew Osenga, Eric Peters, and My Hands. Eric closes his eyes when he’s being super brilliant. After everyone left this was the crew who ended up in the kitchen cleaning up the last bits of Evie’s feast. Ron Block, Russ Ramsey, Pete Peterson, Aaron Roughton, Kate Hinson, me, Lindi Roughton, and Whit Elam. Evie was off somewhere collapsing. Thanks for your unexpected help, Roughtons. We loved having Charlotte Crawford set up shop Saturday morning to serve free coffee drinks for the Hutchmooters. Not only was she awesome to have around, her drinks were really, really good. She runs a business called Latte Elegance. More elegance. Lattes of it. Finally, I leave you with Scott Rinehart and his Awesome Shirt. Which sounds like a movie featuring Michael Cera. I got a few more pictures emailed to photos@rabbitroom.com, which I’ll try to post soon. Send ’em on if you have ’em. Thanks to Grant for taking such great pictures. He also took a lot of video, which we’ll put together to promote next year’s event.

As I write this, Taya and I are on our flight home from Hutchmoot 2010, set to arrive just in time for our twin boy’s birthday party. The Hutchmoot was delightful! We feel so privileged and grateful to have been a part of it and for all the people who came from all over the country to participate in the weekend. Our only regret is our exhaustion that made it difficult for us to be as present as we would like to have been (this weekend was the last stretch of a marathon summer schedule, and Taya and I remarked that we can’t remember a time when we felt more exhausted than this week). I wish I could have given more of myself, and for all of those I wish I could have been more present for, I do apologize. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. (Taya just said to me, “I’m afraid I may have disappointed just about everyone at the Hutchmoot. I was just too tired to have a conversation with anybody.”) But in spite of that we met some wonderful people and enjoyed our conversations, though too brief. In preparation for the Hutchmoot, I kept trying to think of what we were aiming for. What were we gathering around? The Rabbit Room is such a varied place it was hard to say–were we gathering around the arts? Books? Music? Storytelling? Cultural commentary? Jesus? Yes on all counts, I’m sure, but as we gathered to pray for the weekend on Friday, the larger answer began to emerge for me. I think for all of our talk about music, stories, and whatever else it is that Rabbit Roomers are inclined to talk about, we were gathering around Christ centered, story focused community. Maybe that was clear to everyone else all along, but I’m often late to the party on these kinds of things. During the song-writing session, when someone asked about how to replicate the kind of community that they perceived we on the panel shared, it was nearly all I could do to swallow the lump in my throat. I recognized the longing in that question, the longing to belong, to have friendships that bring you life, that remind you of who you are, of who God created you to be, that invite you to set aside your masks and be known. I had given up on this long ago, having failed to find it time and time again, experiencing disappointment and often hurt every time I entrusted myself to another person in my continuing misadventures in seeking community. And yet here I was. It occurred to me to think of how the bond we shared as the people on that panel looks different to me now on the inside than it used to on the outside. Less the romantic idealization I might have made of it at one time, and yet all the richer for that, I think. At one time I sat on the outside looking at these very people I was now on stage with, wishing I could have what it seemed like they had. And then somehow, over time, without hoping or asking for it, one day I found myself there on the stage with them, talking about our shared passions at a thing called a Hutchmoot: Randall Goodgame seated on my right, singing his new Christmas camel song in my ear moments before the panel started because it was bursting to come out of him and he just couldn’t keep it to himself; Andy Gullahorn seated on my left, conspiring with me to whisper sophomoric color commentary to each other while other panel members addressed the audience; my good friend Andrew Peterson at the end of the table asking me to share a story of a moment we shared together in an art museum. He cried when he greeted Taya and me upon our arrival on Friday, which was perhaps the greatest gift of the weekend for me. “What am I doing up here?” I’m thinking to myself, counting my lucky stars. “The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places,” the psalmist says. Yes, yes. Amen. How did I get there? I’m certainly convinced that it’s not because of my credentials. I have to resist the fear of being discovered as an imposter most of the time when I’m with these people. I’m delighted to discover that most (if not all) of them feel the same way. It’s good to feel lucky, to feel blessed. Russ Ramsey, one of the rabbit room community members of the pastoral variety (I don’t know about anyone else, but I’d like to see a preach-off between him and Thomas McKenzie, followed by a one-minute review assessment of how it went) invited us to his church that Sunday morning, and he shared a sermon about community, with communion that we the congregants served each other afterwards. It was Taya who called my attention to the personal significance of this moment. We were seated with friends from the Hutchmoot that consisted of Elsa, a friend from Minnesota who has known our family for 13 years; Breann, who we met on tour a couple years ago and has become a friend; and Evie and Whit, friends who represent the artistic community we have in Nashville. The different communities of our home, our ministry, and our passion all converged as we walked to the front, knelt down, and shared the body and blood of Christ, broken for us. What does it mean? I’m tempted to try and extract some applicable take-away from the moment, but am grateful to find that I’m unable to reduce it that way. It is blessedly enough to say the moment was pregnant with ineffable meaning. It was a grace. The text Russ preached on was the closing verses of Colossians, a passage dealing with greetings and personal instructions for the community of believers in Colossi. A seemingly irrelevant portion of scripture came alive that morning as Russ helped us see the beauty of it, which of course is the fact that it reveals that theirs wasn’t a romantic idealization of community, but instead a messy, organic, community rich with conflict and humanity. One by one Russ went through the names Paul lists at the closing of this epistle: Tychicus, Epaphrus, Demas, Mark, Luke…names that remind us that the holy scriptures were human documents first, letters lovingly written to friends, not unlike the way I write to you now. By asking us to pay attention to these names Russ showed us how they help us see what it means to be in community with others. What Paul writes at the end of Colossians 4 reminds us that these letters were written to real people with names like we have names, histories like we have histories, and who loved each other as much as they failed each other. There’s Philemon whose house is where the fledgling church gathered to meet, Russ told us. Some time before, his slave Onesimus had stolen from him and hightailed it to the big city. While on the lam, Onesimus ran into Paul, became a follower of Christ, and now Paul has sent him back to his master with two letters in hand: one for the church, and one especially for Philemon himself, appealing to him to forgive Onesimus, “who has become like a son to me,” Paul says, and to receive him no longer as a slave, but as a brother in the Lord. Russ imagined for us the awkward moment: the knock on the door of the church at Colossi, the door of Philemon’s house, and who would have answered the door but perhaps Philemon himself (with no one else to answer the door since his servant ran off, Taya suggests)? And who is standing there with two letters in his hands but the wayward Onesimus? And all of a sudden this brief book of the Holy Bible becomes earthy, taking on flesh, becoming part of the larger story of the human drama of betrayal and forgiveness. As my friend Eric Peters said in our session together, this human context takes the text “off the mantel and brings it down to earth.” And then there are the names that represent their relationship to Paul–messy relationships that tell the tale of the joys and heartbreak of entrusting your heart to others in community. As much as I am tempted right now to recite the major insights of Russ’s sermon for you so you might partake of the richness of the image of community that he painted for us, I know this post is too long as it is. Perhaps we could entice Russ himself to share these thoughts with us in the form of a post? Russ, what do you say? Are you out there? The point, to me anyway, is that community is messy and wrought with human drama: betrayal, joy, disappointment, and forgiveness. Real community will never be the romantic idealization that I’d like to make of it. In other words, it’s not for sissies. Few could blame you for saying to hell with the whole affair and holing up in a shack in Montana. It’s all too risky, with too much potential for pain and disappointment. And yet we long for it, all of us, because we were created for it: a place to belong, a people to belong to, a chance to be named at the end of somebody’s epistle, for good or ill. And that’s why we gathered at the Hutchmoot, I think. Sure, it’s fun to talk books, music, and listen to the brothers Peterson make nerdy Tolkien references every chance they can. But I suspect that it’s for the longing of a place to belong that we all gathered, myself included. To the question that the man asked the song panel regarding finding community, I never felt like we offered a, well, satisfying answer. But Andy Osenga came closest I think when he said that it was all about keeping our hearts open to the kind of community that might present itself to us. Maybe it’s people in our church or down our street–we just have to try to hang out with them and see what happens. It’s an ambiguous and unsatisfying answer, but the truth often feels that way. At least at first blush. Keeping your heart open to the community that presents itself to you. Maybe that means that beggars can’t be choosy, and who among us doesn’t feel like a poor beggar in this regard? Maybe part of it means that we need to do the hard work of valuing those currently around us that the Lord has already presented instead of wishing for more “suitable” candidates. Maybe it means making the best of a messy, less than ideal situation. You know, like Paul had to, and Philemon, and even Jesus. “On the night he was betrayed,” Russ began as he introduced communion–those familiar words from the holy text–“Jesus took the bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.’” And then all of a sudden, there they were: the lump in the throat, the tears gathering at the corners of my eyes–those blessed signposts that alert me to pay attention, because something holy is asking to be recognized. And then I saw him, Jesus, there in the upper room giving to his disciples, and to all disciples ever after, the communion table–the greatest symbol of community in all of human history–a place to come, gather, and share in common our need for the body and blood broken and given for us. Not just for me, but for us, the community–ourselves broken and bloodied, if by nothing else than by the hands of others in the community who have betrayed us or broken our hearts. And when did Jesus do this? On the night he was betrayed. There he is, knowing full well Judas was soon to betray him to a grisly execution and that within hours these his friends would all abandon him. Yet he holds nothing back in self preservation, giving his feckless friends then and since the grace of community–the means to come, gather, and share our humanity in common: the gift of a meal together. Come. Take. Eat. Drink. It is at once the holiest and most human of moments. It is an act of superhuman generosity on Jesus’ part. I couldn’t have, wouldn’t have done it. Jaded, bitter, hurt, I would have withheld community, passive aggressively punishing them for how I knew they were going to break my heart. I know this because this is what I always do. This is my broken way of circling the wagons and protecting myself. But to keep my heart open to the community that presents itself–imperfect and messy as that might be–is at least part of what it means to have community, isn’t it. “His body broken for you” we said to each other as we knelt and served communion to each other. But it must have been His heart that was broken first. And so it was with a broken heart that Jesus showed us how to make community with each other. I think now of all my failed attempts at community, the loneliness over the years of feeling misunderstood by those around me, how it made me circumspect and inward, how at times I even rejected the community that presented itself to me for fear of being rejected. I wrote a chorus recently that challenges me to “bring my heart / to every day / and run the risk of loving completely without running away…” I think this is what community–wherever we may find it–requires of us. “Do this in remembrance of me,” Jesus said as he presented himself to the community that was present to him. Understanding that this is part of the daunting task of being in community makes the ease by which we all gathered together and enjoyed each other’s company at the Hutchmoot an even richer delight, don’t you think? Hutchmoot 2011 anyone?

And lo, in the year 2010, an idea stepped out of the realm of theory and into the realm of time and space. I’ve been sitting here trying to think of what to say about the weekend, but my heart and brain are still so jam-packed I don’t know how to do it. I’m waiting on some pictures from Grant Howard (the guy with the fancy camera who walked around all weekend) before I write an official play-by-play, but in the meantime I thought I’d ask you guys to post your thoughts. What did you like best about the weekend? What were the surprises? What did you learn? Did you make any connections with future good/best friends? If you have any photos, would you mind emailing them to me at photos@rabbitroom.com? I’ll pick the best ones and include them in a post for everyone to see. What a weekend. I’m grateful to each of you. Stay tuned for info about next year. The Proprietor

As I sling imperfect measurements of flour and brown sugar into a big enamelware bowl this morning, as I sip my coffee out of the Swede coffee cup (“you can always tell a Swede but you can’t tell him much”), as I drag my brushes through the vibrant liquid colors and commit them to the paper, my grandma is with me in the kitchen today. Hazel was my mother’s mother. Her middle name was Fern. She loved her family and was a consummate homemaker. She loved the nothingness of the Arizona desert. She loved the pink, cloudy evening skies of the West. In her opinion, the Tetons were God’s most extravagant gift to his children. S When my grandfather first saw her, he was dumbstruck by her raven hair, her smooth, dark skin and her tiny waist. (His name was Philip Oscar.) Hazel was a profound beauty. Her deep, rich, lolling laugh was unmistakable and filled the air. She had able arms of Biblical proportions; she worked hard alongside her husband and supported him in his endeavors as a farmer and a carpenter. She certainly wasn’t afraid to speak her mind. She was a creative thinker. She took apart the children’s clothes and made more clothes out of the fabric. Mom said that one year she made a Christmas topiary tree out of spray-painted tumbleweeds. Her homemade butter was always sweet and much fresher than Aunt Berneece’s because she pressed every bit of water out of it, the story is told. She kept her soap in a little red plastic flower-shaped dish by the kitchen sink which I always thought was beautiful. She taught me how to read in the back seat of the Ford which carried us to California in the summer of my fourth year. One of the first phrases she helped me identify and sound out was “extraordinarily long arms” from the book “Mr. Tickle.” She had soft skin — the very pillow-softest. When she held me her neck always smelled powdery and clean. She made clothes for my baby doll using patterns she made by tracing her form onto paper towels. One piece was a double-breasted, winter white overcoat with a Peter Pan collar. She even made matching nightgowns of pink flannel for me and my doll. She was a faithful woman. She loved Jesus with all of her self, trusted in him wholly, and lifted her family up to his care daily. She left us when I was ten years old, and her lasting gift was this brilliant, shimmering collection of so many glad memories. I was given grandma’s art supplies when she passed away. Every time I hold one of her drawing pencils in my hand, I wish that she could know me today as a grown woman. She would laugh that marvelous laugh and shake her head at how alike we are and how I am, most definitely, Hazel’s granddaughter.

“This is your first lesson in shared dreaming.” Talk about a line to get a writer thinking. The minute Dom, a major character in the movie Inception, said it, I sat up straight and wished I had a pen in hand. I went to the theater expecting an action flick, I came out feeling that I had taken part in a swift, sparkling debate; the sort you have late at night with best friends, drinks and elbows on the table, eyes alight with big ideas. I love a movie that makes me want to be a philosopher. I love it even more though, when the movie is philosophizing about what I, as a writer, love best: the telling of a story. Inception, I realized, is a conversation in the art of imagination. This is a movie about the making of dreamscapes – worlds made in the mind of one person and offered to another. As a writer, this captivates me. Isn’t story the same thing? What is a novel, but a dream world built in the mind of an author? What is a storybook but a wide, new space of imagination into which a reader is invited? Inception is an excellent movie for writers. With this in mind, I returned, late last Thursday night, notebook in hand, to jot down a few of the ideas flung to me by the movie. Perhaps they will spark a new debate and keep the ideas flowing… I was struck first by the movie’s emphasis on the architecture of the imaginative world. In the beginning of the story, a brilliant young architect is hired to construct the landscape of a dream. As she begins her first exercise in creation, she is cautioned: the dreamscape must ring true. If it is to be accepted by the mind of another, it must taste and smell, feel and look, real. This is a challenge faced by all crafters of story. The scene must be set, the reader brought by words, almost unaware, into a world as personal, touchable as our own. We all have those books we have read where the scenes were so vividly wrought, we feel we lived rather than read them. Twenty years after reading it, I still remember a scene from The Wind in the Willows, where Mole finds his old burrow. The musty scent of his abandoned hole, the ache of homesickness suddenly relieved, the hominess of his fireside and newly swept rooms, I can see it all still because the imagined world was masterfully made. Yet a story world must also ring true to soul. There is a straight-shooting sense in our hearts of what is true about existence; hunger for beauty, need for love, our own frailty, the crying need for redemption. If a story lacks that truth, my heart will write it off as a dream not worth pursuing. I wonder sometimes if this is the element so many find to be missing in modern “Christian” stories, both in literature and film. They portray the good of Christianity, but neglect the dark that makes faith necessary. The world is thus incomplete. All elements of reality must be included in the soul world of a story, salvation and sin, grace and guilt. I found next that story is, truly, a shared dreaming. The dream worlds in Inception may be created by one person, but they are peopled by the subconscious of the others who enter them. I had never considered the idea that what I create as an author is, to an extent, unfinished until it is met by the imagination of a reader. I cannot transmit my creation, with all my own images intact, into the brain of another. To enter my dream, my reader must begin to dream himself. He brings his thoughts, the faces formed by his brain, his memory, his desire to the making of the story I have begun. Can a story be fully realized in isolation? I begin to think not. Inception reminds me that storytelling may start in solitude, but its end, its goal, is only realized in community. A shared dream. And what is the purpose of this dream? What do I offer the soul of a reader through my gift of story? Most authors write their stories with some idea in mind, some truth, some knowing they feel they must communicate. An idea for “inception” if you will. And so, I have always thought that some nugget of truth must be one of the main gifts I give in any story, even if it is subtly or symbolically given. While I can’t say much lest I give away the plot, I will say that Inception broadened my understanding of this gift. It helped me to see that sometimes the gift is simply the space of the story itself. An imaginary world creates a new room in the mind where the boundaries of material life fall away. In the reading of a story I inhabit someone else’s world. In it, perhaps I am freed to confront and recognize my own emotions and desires more clearly, as they are sparked to life and bumble into the story I am reading. Perhaps the gift of a good tale is the space in which to find and realize truth, to see it afresh, not merely have it imposed. Or perhaps, I make room so that another, more powerful Creator can implant an idea. Is it possible for one human to plant an idea, untraced, into the mind of another? Inception asks this question, and I don’t know about a human being able to do that. But the Holy Spirit sure could. The whole time I was watching the expert “dreamers” in the movie struggle to implant an idea in their subject’s mind, I thought of God, sparking knowledge in us as we are unaware. God creates ideas, as he does worlds, out of nothing, he is the kindler of every act of creation. He is the silent partner in every “dream” we create. What if God himself joins writer and reader to bring a new idea into being? What if our stories, our shared dreams, offer a space wherein God can bring about the inception of his own perfect ideas? So there you have it. Hamlet said he would “sleep, perchance to dream.” I think perhaps I’d rather write, for then I’m sure to dream, and the world I make is one that I can share.

We’ve already got one post on the subject and I don’t want to beat the issue into the ground but I read this on My Friend Amy’s blog and I think it provides an important second perspective. It’s a simple, thoughtful letter to Anne that comes pretty close to the way I feel. Here’s an excerpt: “I can understand wanting to disassociate but I feel like in so doing you lumped the rest of us together. Many of the reasons you cited for leaving I suspect I feel the same as you and it makes me sad that you’ve drawn a line and said “these are the things Christianity is.” I don’t believe that to be true and what is so beautiful and splendid about Christianity is that it’s an umbrella term for a group of people from all over the world who believe Jesus is God. That’s the tie that binds us together, the thread that pulls us close. We have many different theological ideas and beliefs, we practice and worship in a variety of ways, we speak different languages, and we experience life differently. Yes we argue. And yes we get things wrong and yes we need to learn how to give space to differing interpretations. But we’re a family, we share a heritage, and a common Father.” Read the rest of the letter on her blog.

Not only is this song exactly how I feel lately but one of my goals at Hutchmoot this weekend is to coerce Andy Osenga into playing a 27 minute extended version of the intro. If I’m successful, it will be awesome. I may have to bribe him with burritos.

My friend Russell Moore (I guess you’re friends with someone once they’ve bought you a Johnny Cash t-shirt) had some great thoughts in response to the furor over Anne Rice’s comments about Christianity. You may remember our own A.S. Peterson wrote a review of her newest books, which aren’t about vampires but about Jesus. Here’s a bit of what Dr. Moore had to say: “Yesterday the Internet was abuzz with news that Anne Rice has renounced Christianity. The best-selling vampire novelist, who professed faith in Christ several years ago and has since written several books about Jesus and her conversion, publicly quit Christianity on her Facebook page. There’s a real opportunity here that hinges on how we respond to this, or, rather, how we respond to her. Anne said that she was leaving Christianity b Anne Rice is, at best, our sister-in-Christ who is going through a dark night of the soul. She is, at the very least, someone who has encountered something of the light of Christ, is drawn to it, and is now “kicking against the goads.” In either case, she is not our enemy.” Read the rest here.

It’s a day that I look forward to. The first of its kind was three years ago when my brother and I harvested our first real batch of honey, about 10 gallons, from our beehives. Last year, we got about 20 gallons and we estimate that, today, we got around 24, a respectable yield for 4 hives. All year long, I saved glass jars in anticipation of this day, saved them as an act of faith that they would be filled with something sweet, beautiful and valuable at summer’s end if we did our part and the bees did theirs. And what I ended up with was an assortment of containers, in all shapes and sizes, each cleaned multiple times before being lined up, sparkling, to catch whatever honey might be extracted from the hives. From 9 this morning until almost 9 o’clock tonight, we worked in sweltering heat doing the messy but rewarding task of filling our jars, almost a hundred of them, with the sweetness of a year’s work from 200,000 bees. By day’s end, the empty containers glistened with pure gold – some darkened with the early nectar from the tulip poplar trees, some lightened to translucence with the nectar of wildflowers – each a monument to hard labor and a compelling instance of transformation. They represent millions of foraging flights and the microscopic contributions of no-telling how many blossoms from trees and flowers in the area surrounding our home place. The honeybee, and the harvest, is a tutorial in wonder. From empty to full; from barren to sweetness; from labor to rest. The season is over and a new one begins… Last night, my dear friend, Benjamin “Shorty” Floyd, whom some of you know from my album People in my Town, died, just a couple of weeks past his 86th birthday. He was, from every worldly standard, a poor man. He could not read or write, didn’t finish high school, and grew up when it was hard to be a black man in America. His laughter was irresistible. He cried easily when he felt joy. He spoke of Jesus as though they shared meals together. He repeated himself a lot as he got older – “I have been all over the world, all up to Spartanburg NC and Macon Georgia. The Lord been good to me.” He had an old dog named Queenie who must wonder where he’s been these last four days, since Thursday last when Shorty was taken to the hospital. He dearly loved me and my brother and proudly called us ‘his boys.’ As thankful as he was for it, his house was, by any grade, an old shack — drafty, dilapidated, small. This coming Saturday, a group of us had planned to do some renovation for him — to make his small porch more accessible, to fix his door, to chop his firewood and get it closer to his house. He sang with meager talent but huge enthusiasm. He usually wore farmers overalls, and had a habit of only buckling one side. He spoke a brand of English that was all his own and prayed in a gibberish that was barely understandable except for the dozens of times that he’d call the name of Jesus. He would talk back to the televison when he watched the evening news. He was an elder in every sense of the word at the Longstreet Baptist Church where, he said, “the doors (doze) is built on welcome hinges.” He trusted a God Who “sits high but bends low” and He loved the Christ Who taught that we should “do unto others as we wish to be done about.” Though he could not read it for himself, he loved the scriptures and quoted them frequently. When we sang happy birthday to Shorty last year, he expressed his reluctance to have “and many more.” He believed in and longed for a home not built by human hands. By the time he took his last breath last night, his body had long been worn out and tired. The same might be said of his heart, which was sensitive to and grieved by the brokenness of our world. He wearied of people who showed so little reverence to the Lord of Creation, and was stung at how cruelly we can treat each other at times. He was a glistening jar waiting to be filled. And last night, what was empty became full. What was bitter became sweet. What was weary found rest. What was common and unrefined became golden. The season is complete. And a new one begins. “He has crossed over.” “He’s home.” And, as a long tiring day concludes, I feel some fullness myself. A fullness of thanks, of sweetness, of sadness, of curiosity. A fullness that tells me I am rich to have the indelible memories of a rickety porch, some listening hours, and an old black man whose heart was pure treasure. I just returned from the worship service that celebrated Shorty’s life. At the family’s request, I edited a copy of the spoken words that i used for Shorty’s song on “People in my Town.” We played the recording at the gathering this morning and it was a perfect eulogy for the occasion. If you haven’t heard Shorty, here is the version of his monologue that we used this morning, complete with his singing of “Come and Go”. [audio:shortyfloyd.mp3]

To journey for the sake of saving our own lives is little by little to cease to live in any sense that really matters, even to ourselves, because it is only by journeying for the world’s sake – even when the world bores and sickens and scares you half to death – that little by little we start to come alive. – The Sacred Journey, by Frederick Beuchner Before Rainbow Dull I had a short lived blog on which I posted only a handful of times. This was about ten years ago, when blogging was just getting going. A couple of old college friends had emailed me links and invitations to their own blogs, so I read several entries and decided it might be something I could do – maybe a way to take all my daydreams and turn them into actual words. I’d been obsessed with an Annie Lennox song in college, so I lifted a line from it and The Cultures of My Head was born. I showed it to my husband and he seemed to think it was cool. He can be a little vague in his encouragement though, and I didn’t realize he never cottoned on to my illusion. About six months later, I shared the site with a good friend, who was a huge Annie fan and when I told her about the title, she pointed out that the line actually said “contents” and not “cultures.” We had a good laugh about it though I was rather embarrassed, but in my defense, I was thinking about the people kind of culture, and not the science experiment kind. I only remember a couple of entries from that initial blogging attempt. The first is about some long lost friends from junior high and was inspired by a viewing of Stand By Me. It’s pretty passionate, but it lacks structure and assumes too often that the reader already knows what’s in my head. The other post I remember well was the late night letter kind. It was written to the picture in my head of a little girl that I never got to meet, the miscarried product of my second pregnancy. I began writing it a year and a couple of months after the miscarriage, but I didn’t finish until ten more months had passed and ended up posting it on the two year anniversary of that loss. The post was a way of finally saying goodbye and letting go so I could move on and take care of the four year old boy we already had as well as the baby girl I’d gotten pregnant with a month after that miscarriage. Two years later, we moved to Tennessee. Our kids, Sam and Laney, were seven and three by then. We’d sold our house in Maryland, paid off all our debt and moved in with my in-laws because we didn’thave jobs yet, and my husband John was thinking of returning to school for a master’s degree. It was there in my in-laws’ basement that I decided it was time to get serious about my writing. So I returned to blogging and came up with the name Rainbow Dull. I remembered that old doll, Rainbow Brite, I’d had when I was a kid and how her very essence was cheerfulness. I’d also been taking an antidepressant (for the first time) for about five months and was beginning to feel positive enough about my melancholic personality to try and make a joke about it. But like all good jokes, there was some truth behind this one. You see I wasn’t just popping happy pills, I’d also been to see a therapist (my second one) and together we had identified a few depressed episodes before this latest one. We talked about what depression meant for me – there are actually different kinds – and how I wanted to begin fighting it. Somewhere inside I knew that this tendency to analyze and get lost in the details was not simply how I “got stuck,” but could also be my way out. Once I got the analysis out of my head and all the details onto paper, I could examine it better – maybe even find joy and color, life on the underside of those clouds. I was also quite ready, after twenty-nine years of crying on the inside, to tell the world that being a Christian did NOT mean peaches-n-cream, roses and sunshine, all the time! My childhood in the preacher family fishbowl had taught me to paint on smiles and stuff away sadness. The hellfire evangelical tradition I’d been brought up in made me feel responsible for the salvation of the entire world. And if one member of that world saw me with any sort of doubt or less than one hundred percent perfection, he or she wouldn’t want what I had and would remain lost and damned. It had always been up to us to convince everyone that having Jesus makes you happy.It was a lie much, much older than me, but I had learned the truth the hard way and was more than ready to share my discovery. When I first began to write, I hoped to come up with a collection of stories about growing up in a nomadic preacher’s home: how our family got through the tough times, how we moved nearly every two years, how we all dealt with bitterness toward the church without ever losing our faith. I hoped it could be, in some way, the church girl’s version of Traveling Mercies, with a lot less cursing. But when I actually sat down to type I ended up writing whatever was on my mind at the time; I didn’t have a real plan or outline of which stories I should be trying to tell. I wrote when my son was at school and my daughter was napping, or after they’d gone to bed at night and my husband was job hunting. And one day I looked at our Narnia movie themed calendar and saw that the month of May had a picture of the White Witch: baring her teeth, sword and cold, pale arms. I’d been dreading the month anyhow because I knew the nineteenth would come and I would be forced to remember what I thought was the worst day of my life,but when I saw the picture I knew I had to write about it. So I found another picture, one I’d kept of myself, from Mother’s Day the year before.I posted them both and explained how it felt like the witch in the first picture had come for the girl in the second, how it felt like she was coming once again and the best way I knew to fight her off was to tell the story myself. So I made myself remember what had started the bleak episode I was coming out of, another miscarriage. I forced myself into the sad memories, and I couldn’t help but compare this one with the first. My experiences had been exact opposites. The first miscarriage seemed so completely in my head that I sometimes wondered if it happened at all. The second one was so physical that I still had photographic evidence. So the theme I decided to explore was senses. My plan was to devote five posts, the week leading up to the nineteenth, to each of the five senses. I never made it to smell and taste, as the grief work turned out to be too big a plate for just one meal, but the essays I wrote exploring the other three senses have long been some of my favorite posts, and I occasionally try to come up with ideas for the final two. If I ever came up with any, I wonder if I could pull them all together someday, either in a book solely about grief, or maybe as a chapter in the memoir I still daydream about. Writing time is scarce these days with three kids, (we got pregnant again the month after I wrote those memorial essays) ages 11, 7, and 3. But I know I’m still supposed to do it, and I’ve come to see over the years how writing helps me puzzle out the pieces of my life until they make a picture I can see. In some ways writing is my new form of therapy, although I would not say it has completely replaced it – I’m wary of claiming any kind of cure as there are many days when a listening ear is still the best medicine. Lately I’ve been questioning the justification of my blog, thinking perhaps it’s time to shut her down in favor of a more long term, less instant gratification type of project. I’m not sure what I will do yet, and I’m not really asking for an answer here. Rather I simply wanted to share what I have learned over the past few months of thinking about my writing and my life: certain themes have emerged. Kind of like when you pick what you thought was a unique name for your kid, then suddenly you meet twelve people with the same exact name. Is it simply that our awareness is heightened by our own experience, or is God actually lining these things up toward some greater purpose? Depression, loss and grief are the subjects I keep returning to again and again in my writing. There are days I want to run from those topics, as any sane person probably would. I worry that people are tired of hearing such morose ponderings. But then I hear of yet another woman dealing with the loss of a child, or I find myself in the middle of another conversation about loneliness and depression. Even when I concentrate all my efforts to write something a little more palatable and sweet, I inevitably end up with dark and savory. I hesitate to label myself or cast some grand mission on my life, but I cannot deny that life’s questions pulled me into a search for answers, and wrestling with them has become a near daily task. Blogging helps me mark the miles, for now. When I look back at the flags I’ve planted, I see a lot of the same color and can’t help but wonder if all of our Sacred Journeys are being shaded just so? Some green and lively, others muted and grey. Each playing the light off another, accenting hues in a band that spans the horizon, ‘til all is beautiful and bright.

Rabbit Room favorite Melanie Penn wrote these kind, necessary words on her blog recently and let us re-post them here. Melanie’s album Wake Up Love (produced by Ben Shive) is available in the store, and we’re certain you’ll love it. –The Proprietor ———————————– I’ve been thinking about words. I’ve heard that the two questions below are good ones to ask before saying anything. In life-in-general, I agree. If I were to ask these two questions before speaking I’d probably spare myself a lot of conflict and a lot of gossipy nothingness that I tend to regret. But what about as an artist? What about the artist’s life-in-general? Some would argue that art isn’t necessary (they’re wrong) and some would argue that art can be unkind (it can be). A dear friend recently stumbled upon something written about him on the internet. It was hurtful and scathing and a little bit true. It was a result of a l Talking with him about it made me wonder about songs and the lyrics to songs. What makes a lyric art? And what makes a lyric little more than a venting of personal frustrations and feelings? I can’t help but think that every word–no matter the setting–should be justified and weighed to see if it will do damage. I can’t help but think that artists have a unique call to be careful with words. Is each one necessary? Is each one kind?

Here’s the thing about Andrew Peterson: he’s never content to let ordinary things be ordinary. Vast meanings, cosmic meanings pulse beneath the most familiar facts of everyday life. In“World Traveler,” from AP’s new album Counting Stars, an act as common as looking in on the kids after bedtime becomes an encounter with the divine: Tonight I saw the children in their rooms, Little flowers all in bloom— Burning suns and silver moon. And somehow in those starry skies The image of the maker lies Right here beneath my roof tonight. This moment is emblematic of the whole album. AP marvels at the marvelous. It’s the sort of miracle that we learn to ignore, but AP insists, “Look at this! Can you believe it? The image of God himself—right here beneath my roof!” Or consider the hour of dusk in “The Magic Hour”: Here in the magic hour, Time and eternity Mingle a moment in chorus. Here in the magic hour, Bright is the mystery, Plain is the beauty before us. Could this beauty be for us? For all the wonders of the Magic Hour, the most wondrous, perhaps, is the fact that it happens every single day—usually while we’re fixing supper or ortherwise paying attention to something else. And yet God beckons out of a beauty that says—every day of our lives—“Psst…what do I remind you of?” We are full participants in the grand and overwhelming story laid out in Scripture. The God of Abraham is the God of our fathers and of us and of our children too. If we believe any of it, we must believe that. God told Abraham to count the stars if he wanted to know how many descendants he would have. We are those stars, suns burning hot and bright with the image of God himself. It is a great mystery, yes. But we don’t choose the mysteries we find ourselves in. As for my favorite songs from this album, it’s hard to know where to begin. “Dancing in the Minefields” is one that deserves its own post. Its honest portrayal of marriage gives me new courage and makes me want to kiss my wife square on the mouth every time I hear it. “The Reckoning” is an astonishing song in which an approaching thunderstorm isn’t just a metaphor for God’s fearsome power; it is God’s fearsome power. There’s a stark, Old Testament feel to this song that, like so many songs on this album, reminds us that this world we live in is the same world that the Scriptures depict. As surely as it ever was, this is our Father’s world. Two songs on this album are worthy of the darkest of David’s psalms—“You Came so Close” and “The Last Frontier.” I’m afraid we won’t be hearing either of these songs on the “Safe for the Whole Family” radio station I see on the billboards. These songs aren’t safe. They hunker down and wrestle around, and they come up limping. The hope they express is hard-won. But the whole album prepares us for these songs. Counting Stars is about the the great mysteries in which we live—beauty, marriage, redemption. And what is so mysterious as hope? To hope is to be open to the possibility that, however grim things look, you don’t really know how they are going to work out. Despair, on the other hand, is a false certainty that you already know how things will end—badly. What I love about Counting Stars is the fact that it causes me to know again what I forget too easily: I’m a part of something huge. My joys—even the small ones—are a faint echo of the deep hilarity of the divine comedy. My struggles—when I’m willing actually to struggle—are no less momentous than Jacob’s wrestling match with the angel. And while it’s true that I’m a jackass, it’s not the truest thing about me. The truer thing, as AP puts it in “Fool with a Fancy Guitar,” is that “I am a priest and a prince of the kingdom of God.” Hallelujah.

I like to think that when Philip and I got married our wedding presents to each other were music. Like all true lovers we were extravagant with our gifts. He gave me The Sundays and REM, Tchaikovsky and The Beautiful South and Catbird Seat. I presented him with the total pageantry of Italian opera and the English choral tradition, Palestrina and the masses of Mozart and all the elegance of classic jazz. Beatles and bossa nova, Gillian Welch and Gilbert and Sullivan, we exchanged with the abandon of those who have no thought for the cost. But among the most priceless of all the gifts presented was one that Philip gave to me. It was the innocence mission. They have granted me, like the best stabbing beauties of Lewis and the singing prose of Tolkien, glimpses of heaven, and of the love of God brooding over my life. I’m certainly not the groupie type, and from what I know of the members of the innocence mission, they’d turn their faces with a modest shaking of the head from such adulation. But we do treat our IM with a sort of friendly veneration around here. So much so that several little rituals have sprung up surrounding the release of a new album. One is that we are nowise permitted to give it a first listen without the other present. Another is that it has to be memorable. When Befriended came out I greeted the shipment at the store and drove immediately to Philip’s office where we listened to it at his desk, the day being too long to wait for his homecoming at its close. We Walked in Song coincided with a trip to England we’d been dreaming of since the summer of Befriended and we managed to discipline ourselves to save it till we were there; I opened it on a morning in May on a green Surrey lane fringed with bluebells and fool’s parsley and slid it into the CD player of a little manual transmission coupe. Tears instantly filled both of our eyes at the first tender swell of sound. And I think that they always will. We both tried (and failed) to surprise each other for Valentine’s last year with the EP Street Map. But we were literally ticking days off the calendar for this summer’s release of My Room in the Trees. Teasers and free downloads on the band’s site had tempted us, but we held out. Once it arrived, we dangled it like a treat at the end of an intense but happily-occupied Saturday. I had two favorite English ales on hand for the occasion and glasses on ice in the freezer, and at the appointed time we settled into our chairs in the den with a cat on each of our laps and the volume turned up high. And when Karen’s trusting, ingenuous voice filled the room and embraced us with the affection of a true friend, I knew that no treatment could have been more fitting. My Room in the Trees seems, in many ways, the fruit of other albums. If Birds of My Neighborhood touched on the nerve of infertility and the yearning for a child with the gentlest vulnerability and precision, then Room celebrates the longed-for children with an answering grace. All beloved IM symbols are here, the daily figures illumined with the divine light of sacramental living: birds, green and growing things, water and car trips and rain. But there’s a markedly new perspective, an eye-level observance of wonders even more artless, like imaginary dogs and leaf boats coursing down rain channels in the street and children glittering off into the night sky like shooting stars. All this mingled inexorably—almost unbearably at times—with the theme of the very adult necessity of letting go. Releasing these young flares to their destiny; releasing oneself to the relentless love of God. If Karen’s candor is disarming, her humility is absolutely devastating. It’s impossible to listen to that deceptively fragile voice winging over unexpected cadences and lilts without being startled out of a sense of self-complacency. Handling the objects of the everyday, savoring concrete words for the joy of the life they image, she manages to lift the veil on the holiness shimmering just out of sight of our earth-bound eyes: splendors shed abroad and rained down upon the head of every child of God. Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but to thy name give glory, might well be the theme of their music as a whole. To truly engage with it is to bow one’s head in like acknowledgement. Here also is the throbbing warmth of sound and musical intimacy that lovers of the innocence mission know to expect. The opening track, “rain”, is a mesmerizing weave of Don and Karen’s guitars, Mike’s signature bass and the surprising texture of a violin that seems to set the poignant tone for the whole album, though it does not appear again. And throughout, with the unobtrusiveness of a true compliment, the instrumentation bears and sustains the sense of quiet celebration: a walk home from school is buoyed along by artful plucking in “the happy mondays”; “all the weather” literally pulses with the joy of returning spring; the merry rhythm of “mile marker” might well be skipping over the water in a sailboat as traversing the highway in a car. Pump organ, melodica, whispering drums and a wistfully tinny piano all vary and conspire among the tracks to create a sound that is at once nostalgia and hope for things to come. But if there’s one thing that characterizes the innocence mission, music and lyrics together, it’s a certain faith-borne melancholy. A sorrow for the pain and losses and lettings-go that this life exacts, and a rain-washed face lifted smiling to the love of God that recalls all the ‘bright sadness’ of the best art in the Christian tradition. In this respect, “God is love” might be one of the best tracks on the album with its gentle staring down of fear in a minor key. But it was the last song that overwhelmed us with all the sweet paradox of life bound in time and Life that is everlasting. It’s another tradition of ours that the we don’t read the lyrics on a first listen—we soak in the songs as a whole before dissecting them into poetry and sounds, and it’s often weeks or months later that we’ll be surprised by some hint or glimmer we hadn’t noticed before. And so we sat in silence and let the beauty wash over us, throats burning, tears close at hand. As it turned out there was no need for liner notes—or time—to receive the full wealth and richness of this one: Karen’s voice rang out, pure and true and full of something she couldn’t quite seem to contain: All we can do, in this deep summer hour, with the rain, the taxis and the flowers, walking between the dear ones holding on, is shout, shout for joy. Everything that has been broken you’ll mend, throughout the morning of one day, sleeves fluttering in the air, in the air, and we’ll shout, shout for joy. lyrics © 2010 the innocence mission The tears in my own eyes felt like a healing rain. And the wordless smile on my lips was a shout of joy.

For the past few months I’ve spent time writing Fiddler’s Green nearly every day. I like to plant myself in the back corner of Panera Bread (because it rocks), or my neighborhood Starbucks (where they know my name and give me free stuff), or the burrito shop down the road (chips and fruit tea all day long) and once I’ve settled in with something tasty to eat or drink or both, I crack open the Macbook and get to work. Some days it might be an hour, others it might be six or more. And there’s a lot of hand-wringing going on because now that The Fiddler’s Gun is in readers’ hands, expectations have been whetted for the next book and the conclusion has got to satisfy. I’m humbled by how emotionally invested many readers have become with Fin and her story and I don’t want to let anyone down. So the writing has been a meticulous process of trying to make sure that everything is firing in just the right direction in order to complete the story arc and deliver the emotional impact that I’ve been imagining in my dreams for over a decade. It’s worrisome work at times. And wonderful. Now the grueling labor of squeezing the first draft out of my head is over and it’s been a relief lately to be knee-deep in the editing. Don’t get me wrong, I love writing, but after 120k words or so of raw creation, it’s refreshing to know that the grunt work is behind me. It seems like I regularly hear of writers who love the creational phase of writing but loathe and fear the editorial. I’m the opposite. Editing might actually be my favorite part. I love massaging the seams in the narrative and developing characters and scenes that feel anemic or didn’t get enough attention. I love cutting out shudder-worthy adverbs and whittling down those over-written sections to get at their most vital core. I love deleting entire scenes and re-writing chapters. I even love the realization that something I’ve written is a god-awful mess that needs to go straight to the trashcan. It’s been said that good books aren’t written, they’re re-written. Believe it. It’s tempting to think once the initial writing is finished that the work is done, that it’s good, that it’s ready to be read by others. But it just isn’t true. There might have been great writers of the past that could churn out a brilliant first draft but I think I’ll remain skeptical. (Though it’s hard to imagine extensive rewrites before the computer age, they certainly happened.) The truth is that, in my case at least, the magic happens in the edits and the rewrites. The story doesn’t really shine until I start polishing it. And when I’ve rubbed the tarnish away and first start to see the luster come through, when I begin to see my reflection in the polish, that’s a great feeling. So I’m editing these days and I’m beginning to see sparkles here and there. I’m excited. I think there’s a great story at the heart of the mess. There’s certainly a lot of work that still needs to be done, and not just by me, but by my editor and by others who will read and critique and make suggestions. But the physical thing itself exists now; it’s no longer just a figment of my imagination. I can point to it as it lies on my desk and say, “That right there is the manuscript for Fiddler’s Green.” All that’s left to do is spit and polish.

A little boy approached me after a recent concert with something clearly on his mind. He had waited till the crowd dispersed, and his parents sat in the pews at the back of the auditorium, wanting to give him his space but unable to avert their eyes. He wrung his hands and shifted his weight from sneaker to sneaker. He wanted to ask me a question, he said. I said that was fine, and uncapped my Sharpie marker for the autograph I thought I was about to sign. Then he surprised me. He didn’t want an autograph, and he didn’t want to ask about songwriting. (I’m embarrassed at my presumptuousness.) He asked me, “How can I be sure I’m saved?” I blinked. I glanced across the room at his parents, then back at him, and saw that he was dead serious. I bought myself some time by answering his question with a question. I sat on the stage steps and asked him why he was asking. He told me he had been reading Jesus’ parable about the sheep and the goats, and also in Revelation about the final judgment. He was troubled by the parable of the sower, and said he was afraid he might be one of the seeds that fell by the wayside and was gobbled up by the birds. He told me he had doubts about his faith; he was troubled in spirit. By the time he was finished, his voice was shaky and he was on the verge of tears. What a burden for such young shoulders! I was overcome with admiration, and I told him so. That he was wrestling with these things was no indicator of a lack of faith, but an abundance of it. If he was wondering about things like salvation and judgment and the nature of Jesus’ love, he was farther along on his journey than I was at his age. Anne Lamott said, “The opposite of faith is not doubt, it’s certainty.” Faith is obedience in the face of doubt, which is to say, faith requires doubt in order to survive. Faith is a courageous act of defiance, not always a happy-go-lucky frolic. So the problem wasn’t his doubt; the problem was his fear. “There is no fear in love,“ says 1 John 4:18. So ask your questions, lie awake wondering, wrestle with angels, even shake your fist at the heavens, but don’t be afraid. Perfect love drives out fear, and Jesus’ love is perfect. It is strong enough for our doubt, our sin, and even our secret fear. Perhaps the most amazing thing about my encounter with this young saint was that after he left and I packed up my guitar, I felt a glow in my chest. My own faith was brighter, stronger, more vivid to me because of his trembling confession. The boy revealed his darkness to me, and God turned it to light. May I remember that next time I’m tempted to carry my burden alone.

In case you missed it, Sandra McCracken released a new record a couple of months ago. In Feast or Fallow is a mixture of Sandra’s own newly-written hymns as well as a number of old hymns re-worked. Here’s a song called “Give Reviving.” Take a minute to listen and if you like what you hear, we’ve got the entire album available in the Rabbit Room store.

I swore many years ago that I’d never make a music video. Back when my career began no one had ever dreamed of YouTube or Vimeo. If you wanted to watch a music video by a Christian artist you had to wait till the televangelists had gone to bed and the network couldn’t think of anything else to air, and so too few people would see it for the amount of money it would cost. But times have changed. Now people watch their computers as much as their televisions, and I figured a video like this might be good for somebody out there, even if they’re watching it at work when they’re supposed to be tweaking spreadsheets or something. I sat in a little coffee shop in Nashville with Ben Shive and director Grant Howard to brainstorm, and in about thirty minutes I went from being wary of it to being excited about it. My only stipulation was that I wouldn’t have to dance, even though the song is about dancing. We had the idea to shoot the video in an old house that had weathered a century of storms, and to invite a few luminous older couples who had weathered storms of their own to dance around in that old house. We wanted to make something that, like the song, would celebrate marriage in all its terrible beauty. Below the video is the little blurb I wrote about the song for the record label. Feel free to send the YouTube link to every human you know, as I’m pretty sure it’ll guarantee you a long, healthy life. ——————————————— https://youtube.com/watch?v=NtTa81LyuQM%26hl%3Den_US%26fs%3D1%3Frel%3D0 In December of 2009 my wife and I celebrated fifteen years of marriage. A few days later, we got in a silly argument and I wrote this song after she went to bed. Marriage, see, was God’s idea. It’s one of the most potent metaphors in all of Scripture for the way God loves us and the way we’re to let ourselves be loved by him. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. To the contrary, it’s fraught with peril. Any good marriage involves a thousand deaths to self—the good news is, in Christ that marriage involves at least as many resurrections. We lay our lives down and enter this perilous dance with another human being who has done the same. Why should we expect to emerge unscathed? (In case you’re wondering, two of the couples are my in-laws and Ben’s in-laws, and the other two are from Andy Gullahorn’s church and Todd Bragg’s church (both teach marriage classes in Sunday School, from what I gathered.)

I love my wife. I love my kids. And I love the call the Lord has on my life to proclaim His word in the context of the local church. Seriously, I feel like I’m getting away with something. I am one of the richest people I know, and I’m grateful for it.  Time with my wife nourishes me in ways time with no one else on this earth can. Time with my children brings to me a sweet mix of untold joy and sober reverence when I think of who they are and who I hope they become. Hours spent at my work reminds me again and again how precious and rare it is to be a man who is blessed to work at something I love. As it happens right now, my work has called me away from my wife and kids, geographically, for a season. One of the weird struggles I didn’t anticipate is the work of navigating how to explain why I am here apart from my family, without it sounding like a full-on plea for sympathy, or worse, a complaint. (in Olathe Kansas– great price, new furnace, awesome tree fort in the back yard… I digress), and unlike most of you, Dear Esteemed Rabbit Room Faithful, my family cannot manage two mortgages. Finding free temporary housing for one dude (many thanks, Osengas) is a different deal than finding free housing for a brood of six (plus a dog). Anyway, when I meet someone new (which is about a dozen times a day) the standard points of introduction usually get covered: Where are you from? Are you married? Kids? Where do you live now? Where are you working now? These are unavoidable points of context, and rightly so. How can you find me on a map without this information? How can I find you? But I’ve gotta tell you when I come to the place where I explain my family situation right now, I’ve covered a pretty impressive range of emotions to go with it. I’ve wept over it, shrugged it off, grimaced, laughed, drifted off into thoughts of those sweet people and how much I love them to the extent that I’ve half-forgotten what we were talking about. But I’m not looking for pity. And I’m not complaining either. God knows I’m not complaining. I know Team Ramsey is in a season of transition that will eventually reach its end. I know sometime in the relatively near future we’ll all be here, our stuff set up in some house in some neighborhood with a zip code beginning with the numbers 37. And I know that until then, I have a wife who is so on board with this move– so strong, encouraging, and eager to dive into this new community– that I can’t believe my luck. And I know many women here in this new city honestly expressing their desire to know her better– which will enrich their lives beyond their wildest imaginations! (Yes, that’s an exclamation point. Consider this a master class on where to use them.) Still, though I am not complaining about the distance, neither am I unaffected. I was talking with a friend the other day about this– a friend who is no stranger to similar seasons of separation– and he put to words something I was so thankful to hear: “When I’m with her and my kids,” he said, “the worst parts of me are diminished and the best parts are elevated.” Amen, friend. And thanks for that. My wife and kids bring out the best in me, and they have a subduing effect on those parts of me I wish weren’t woven into the fabric of who I am. The truth is that the version of me people are getting to know now is only part of the picture. It isn’t false, just incomplete like the picture above. And that is an important part of my context right now. Here’s what I really look like: Why am I telling you this? Because this season of transition is showing me parts of the depth of my own story I wouldn’t have seen otherwise. When I explain the distance, the house for sale, the transition from one place to another and all that goes with it– when I tell you about my weaknesses and strengths and how my family lifts me up, in the end this not a complaint. Its a love story. A true one.

I’ve been writing about the music of Andrew Peterson for nearly ten years now. The first time was in an e-mail dated August 8, 2001. The tone of my prose was that of a breathless fanboy. I suspect Andy gets a lot of these notes: I listen to your music on my morning walks around the lake and in the car. When I walk, sometimes the converging of your music and the physical beauty of the scenery makes me feel like flying.  As I listen, mostly what occurs to me is the truth of your writing.  As much as religion has become part of pop culture today, it’s rare to find Christianity articulated in a profound and compelling way. Your music does that. I’ll admit to being a loyalist; once a supporter, always a supporter. I don’t shed my favorite artists like an old skin. Though I embrace variety and feel as if I’m on a perpetual quest for the next musical panacea–like the Lewis and Clark of the new music world–the songs of Andrew Peterson have been one constant. And a constant companion. I can tell you that Andrew has a thing about mountains. And thunder. Someday I’m going to count those musical references, just for fun. That’s the kind of thing that nerds do. With a prolific discography that extends beyond ten years now, there’s an impressive body of work from which lovely patterns emerge. We know, for example, that Andy is a family man. That’s not just a nod to the song from Love and Thunder, it’s one of the consistent values we observe from his discography: his uncles, his daddy and mama, brother, grandpa, children, and wife. Those are just a few direct references that come immediately to mind. More subtle is the living pulse of family that permeates so many other Peterson songs. In the early days of my fandom, I quickly learned that Andrew is an often contrarian writer, far more than his gentle nature might imply. But his words are contrarian only to the extent that they serve the truth, quite unlike a pedestrian praise and worship exposition. When his pencil meets paper, expect convention to be turned on its head. Consider, for example, “No More Faith,” a song that was misunderstood by more than a few: I say faith is a burden, it`s a weight to bear. It`s brave and bittersweet. And hope is hard to hold to Lord I believe, only help my unbelief Till there`s no more faith and no more hope, I`ll see your face and Lord I`ll know that only love remains. Faith, a burden? Who’d a thunk it? Brave and bittersweet? What’s that all about? And hope is hard to hold to? Why would hope be hard for a believer? These are the kinds of questions that come from those of us unwilling or unable to match the songwriter’s thoughtfulness. What some may not know is that Andrew has taken some heat for his sometimes contrarian style. “Mohawks on the Scaffold” and “Land of the Free” are two examples that come to mind. The latter became controversial because some critics thought it was inappropriate that the writer “is just a little jealous of the nothing that you have.” “He’s making light of poverty,” they said. The former apparently contained thicker sarcasm than some could digest. Or maybe it was the quote from Tommy Boy that people didn’t like. I don’t know. (For extra credit, what is the Tommy Boy quote?) So after a decade of listening to the careful, articulate observations of Andrew Peterson, I downloaded Counting Stars. I’m letting you know right now that I gave up comparing one Andrew Peterson project to another; I realized that comparing the relative greatness of a new AP release to earlier recordings was silly, like trying to compare kids, or mountains, or thunderstorms. Something else I’ve learned as a long-time supporter is that I can expect a nearly uncomfortable dose of candor from Andrew Peterson in every project. What this man has done for “Christian” music is not so much tell the truth, as it has been to tell the truth in a true way. Paint-by-number Christian songs that reveal some hint of darkness inevitably resolve, wrapped with a pretty red bow just in time for the last verse. There comes a denouement in which the birds suddenly sing like spontaneous combustion, and the writer is a good Christian again. Meanwhile, the protagonist in an Andrew Peterson song lies prostrate on the ground, bleating for comfort, wondering why the religious talk sounds hollow and inauthentic. Before my first listen, I watched the promotional video for Counting Stars and was moved to misty eyes when I began to sense the imagery of the primary theme. “God took Abram outside and said, ‘Look up at the heavens and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.’ Then he said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be.'”  Genesis 15:5 Hey, that’s the mother bear of all promises, no? And we’ve all been witnesses to the profoundly, unspeakably beautiful way in which he delivered on that promise. Can I get a witness? By the way, this isn’t a review. In all fairness, as of this writing, I haven’t listened to the record enough to provide fair perspective for a review. I like to give myself at least ten listens before I start typing. Because an Andrew Peterson project is so rich–especially this one–I need to double that. So please consider these words as a primer–first impressions, if you will–something to whet your appetite. My first listen to Counting Stars was on a trek through the freshly harvested wheat fields of Kansas last week. It brought back memories of my inaugural listen to Clear to Venus, which occurred on a similar drive to Kansas City, on a parallel track just a few miles to the east. As I slid the CD into the drive, an eagle flew high above a farm pond and a wild patch of cottonwood trees. As Counting Stars began to unfold, my earnest hope was validated. I realized with each line that Counting Stars was a rich celebration of God’s providence and promise. God uses the vehicles of the family and the Church to reveal his love and faithfulness in ways we might understand. And in Counting Stars we have an artful and skillful portrayal of that truth. The great challenge of any writer is to convey the complexity and intensity of emotion over time. There’s something about the passage of time which makes deeply held emotions more meaningful. It’s the difference between infatuation and enduring love. Infatuation is easy; love is hard. And like the final scene in Big Fish or Toy Story 3, the passage of time reminds us of skinned knees and broken hearts which left scars, but have somehow been patched and redeemed with patience, kindness, and forgiveness. The three-month giddy love of a twenty-something couple is cute; the wrinkled hands of Eric Peters’s aged couple in “These Hands” is profoundly moving because we have an idea of what went before, for so long. It was in that context that I realized Andrew Peterson and his buddies were about to tell the tale of the most enduring love story ever told. Further, I realized that they faced a profound challenge. Still, I couldn’t wait to hear them rise to meet it. “Many Roads” starts with a familiar Peterson cadence which he uses when he’s building to something beautiful. This guy knows his audience. He knows we come to his shows expecting something special. We want to hear that story again. And yes, we bring our hopes and fears. We also bring an expectation of a certain humility because that’s what we’ve seen in the heart of this songwriter before. In “Many Roads,” that humble bearing comes in the form of some inside humor and a twist worthy of M. Night Shamalama Ding Dong. I won’t spoil the moment of Act 3. Discover it yourself. I wish you a fraction of the joy I received from it. “Dancing in the Minefields” is a picture of the wide contrast between unmitigated joy and homespun reality. It’s what happens after the honeymoon. Veteran Andrew Peterson fans take note: this project–though wholly original and compelling–is full of nods to earlier AP projects, which is not only fun, but moving. Seek and you will find. One of the first references are the echoes of “Don’t give up on me,” in the background vocals of “Dancing in the Minefields.” It’s a sublime nod (yes, nods can be sublime, thank you) to “Don’t Give Up on Me” the track from Resurrection Letters Vol. 2. This song cleverly meshes promises echoing from earthen vessels with the divine promises made to Abraham and his descendents. “Planting Trees” is a musical cousin to “Windows in the World,” from Resurrection Letters, Vol. 2, with a nearly identical guitar picking pattern, but in a slightly lower key. “Windows in the World” provides lyrical evidence of God in the world; conversely, “Planting Trees” isolates human creation as a reflection of God in the world. As the moon reflects the sun, so believers are called to reflect Christ. Andy uses the metaphor of planting trees to illustrate. This song begins with the universal and moves to the personal, the opposite of “Dancing in the Minefields, which begins with something personal and ends more broadly. “The Magic Hour” is my kind of praise and worship song. It begins with what I thought was a beautiful Ben Shive piano introduction. Turns out, Andy does more keyboarding than usual on this project and it’s his piano playing that we hear. I couldn’t help but think that while others are celebrating happy hour, the writer celebrates “The Magic Hour.” Is there any doubt that the place described in this song is a real place? The beautiful bridge integrates the eternal with the temporal and the divine with humanity. Sara Groves’s harmony, in my mind, symbolizes the integration of the two. “Watching the children laugh” is reminiscent of the line in “Don’t Give up on Me” from Resurrection Letters Vol. 2, about the golden dream with “angel voices in the rooms where the children run, all covered in light.” “World Traveler” takes us on three kinds of journeys, one literal, one figurative, and one eternal. For newbies, please find here exhibit one as evidence for the songwriting wisdom of Andrew Peterson, who routinely consolidates related but separate verses into a literate, consolidated whole. It began with “All the Way Home” from Carried Along, and continues on Counting Stars with “World Traveler.” The “wade into the battle” line could be thought of as a concurrent nod to C.S. Lewis and “Little Boy Heart Alive,” from The Far Country, which contains a similar line. “Isle of Skye” is a microcosm of the simple, elegant production character of Counting Stars. With such rich ingredients, the song doesn’t need to be long, either in words or instrumentation. It may be a decade or more before this little girl understands the depth of the love seeping from each measure of this song, but when it dawns on her, it will be something to behold. This is another Ben Shive arrangement, with the intermittent instrumental spice of John Painter’s horns, David Henry’s cello and violin, and keys from Peterson. If the introductory piano lick sounds vaguely familiar, check out Ben Shive’s “4th of July” from Ill-Tempered Klavier. In fact, you may not be surprised to find more than a few moments that remind you of The Ill-Tempered Klavier, since Ben shares producer credit with Andy Gullahorn. The beauty of these collaborative efforts is the extent to which the whole is enhanced by the contribution of the individual parts. “God of My Fathers” is an ideal theme song for this collection as the promise of the past is realized in the truth of the present. If you don’t have a copy of Carried Along, get one and check out a song called “All the Way Home,” which comes from the same genealogical lyrical line of “God of My Fathers.” Ya wanna feel good? I mean really good? Just lock this inspirational ditty on repeat. You say it’s been years since you’ve danced? This one may just impassion you enough to grab a partner and do-si-do in your living room. But don’t let this song’s perky demeanor make you lose sight of its thankful, prayerful, hopeful, personal wish for generational synchronicity. “Fool with a Fancy Guitar” is a song about who we are in Christ. Rabbit Room readers may wonder if Ron Block was the passive theological influence of this song. He often reminds readers that as believers, we are in Christ, and Christ is in us. In “Fool With a Fancy Guitar,” we find the screaming paradox of faith. Truth isn’t always tidy. Even in God the Father, we find apparent contradictory characteristics, which are also explored in the flagship song “The Reckoning.” “In the Night My Hope Lives On” has an old west vibe underlying its referenced Bible stories: everything from the Old Testament to the prodigal son, prostitutes, and Christ himself. Stuart Duncan’s fiddle is worth whatever they had to pay him. It embellishes, punctuates, and highlights the song. In the fiddle we feel the hopeful tune rising like the mist on the day of resurrection, revealing the victorious, risen Christ. “In the Night My Hope Lives On” is a first cousin–both musically and lyrically–to “High Noon” from Love and Thunder. “You Came So Close” feels so personal that it’s a little uncomfortable to hear. It’s a song about a person who broke his wedding vows. It feels scary, sad, and dark. Apparently, the man finds some measure of redemption, but as the song ends with the echo of the word “hope” we have the sense that the final verse of this song is yet to be written. “The Last Frontier (A Lament)” is another masterpiece (with yet another mountain reference). We inevitably contrast “Nothing to Say” with “The Last Frontier” and despite Andy’s habitual candor–to which I should be accustomed–I am still left with my jaw on the floor. You have never heard the timbre of this man’s voice more stark, deep, and real than on the performance of this song. You think “The Silence of God” from Love and Thunder was full of candor? You haven’t heard anything yet. Benjamin Disraeli said, “There is no wisdom like frankness.” Placing this profoundly mournful song as preparation for the next song,”The Reckoning,” was a good choice indeed. “The Reckoning” starts out with Andrew Osenga’s wandering, pondering electric guitar. Then, as if the writer suddenly summoned the courage to proceed with the boldness of tough questions, it takes off like a rifle shot, with an urgent, arresting tone, a musical intimation that the songwriter means business. It begins with a humble acknowledgment of the power of God. If I were getting ready to pose some of the questions that arise in “The Reckoning,” I think I’d provide a preface of humility too. The perfectly logical questions will no longer be suppressed. Faith without questions isn’t a mature faith. Humans were created with an intellect. So we ask questions like, “How long?” “How long before this curtain is lifted?” “How long before this burden is lifted?” “How long until the reckoning?” The bridge is an intellectual acknowledgment of the paradoxical character of God (the God of Love and Thunder), which we won’t fully understand this side of heaven. Apparently, that’s why they call it faith. “The Same Song” is dedicated to the Square Peg Alliance and the kinship of community that results when believers realize that to some extent, we are all the same. It’s fun hearing references that might only be apparent to those that have supported the SPA as long as some of us around here have. Not surprisingly, we see that the threads which solidify the Pegs are the same threads that inspire those of us who buy the records. Counting Stars is a paradox in that the songwriting is perhaps as personal as we’ve heard from Andrew Peterson. On the other hand, there’s a clear theme which examines the promises and faithfulness of a timeless God working his will in time and through humanity. Andrew Peterson’s most dedicated supporters understand his gift for writing poetically, with thoughtful double entendres and rich literary allusions. Still, despite being written and recorded expeditiously, the project may turn out to be as fertile as any of his projects, with levels, vistas, and perspectives which overwhelm our senses. Counting Stars is a love letter to someone and everyone. It’s personal, yet universal. It’s candid and clear, yet mysterious. It illustrates a promise made and a promise fulfilled. The stars Abraham saw when God made the Promise are the same stars that guided the three wise men to Jesus, the same stars our fathers and grandfathers witnessed on the night that we were born. Those stars represent the faithfulness of the one true God, the Father of the risen Christ, who loves and redeems us despite our rebellious nature and our intermittent unbelief. Pre-order the album here.

While I was happy with “Better Way To Live” as a pretty solid pop/rock song built around one of the hookier choruses I had at the time, it wasn’t necessarily a song that I was particularly passionate about including on the new record.  I didn’t think there was anything wrong with it, but I think maybe it felt to me like a song that I would have expected from my previous record, and I wanted to go to new places.  It also didn’t hit me as an especially singer/songwriter kind of lyric.  But everyone else involved in the project was really excited about the song and it seemed like it could be a potential single, so it made the cut.  It’s the kind of song I rarely do well: a punchy pop/rock song with few words and a big old hooky chorus. I wrote it with my friend Chad Cates and have been blessed to find that my lack of enthusiasm was misplaced as I’ve gotten numerous emails back from people who are fans of this song in particular.  I love being wrong in cases like this. It turned out to be one of the songs that the players were most excited about and even Jason Ingram, the producer, told me afterward that this song was his favorite drum performance.  I think for the players the song provided the best opportunity for a groove to happen and their enthusiasm and investment in it elevated the merit of the song in my mind, making me grateful for it’s inclusion. I loved Gabe Scott’s dulcimer and lap steel flourishes, too.  Paul Mabury, an amazing drummer from Australia, set up his flip camera to record his performance while we were tracking and sent it to me.  Hearing/seeing this song from the perspective of the drum room gives me a different perception of the song.  Watching Paul play this brings back good memories, I remember how wore out he was after this track – he laid into it, giving every hit everything he had in order to get the tone he wanted.  Here’s his video, I hope you enjoy it! Better Way To Live Jason Gray and Chad Cates How long have you been dreaming Of a life bigger than the one you lead Your hurt has left you guarded But hope is tugging at your sleeve You were meant for something more All I know is there’s a better way to live We were made for so much more than this It’s not the love you have but the love you have to give All I know is there’s a better way A better way to live All my life looking in the mirror Praying for the will and wings to fly But when I saw the world out my window With a broken heart I came alive Cause I was made for something more Chorus When we step aside From the center of our lives When we learn to love mercy More than being right Pursuing peace and honesty Starting down the road of selflessness And seeing where it leads Chorus

Folks, I don’t know if you remember Allen Levi’s previous posts here in the Rabbit Room, so I’ll reintroduce you. He’s a southern gentleman from Columbus, Georgia, a singer/songwriter, a lay farmer (if there is such a thing) and is one of my all-time favorite people. In light of Lanier Ivester’s recent post about work and art, I thought it was appropriate to steal this post from Allen’s blog. (Also, since I happen to know Allen’s at least 12 feet tall, that makes the pictured sunflower a freak of nature.) ——————— I taught Sunday School this morning for the high school class. It was me and one student, a bright and inquisitive 10th grader named Kiana. We talked about heaven, in keeping with our lesson text from 1 Thessalonians K: “What do you think we’ll do there?” Me: “It’s hard to know isn’t it, but i rather think that we’ll work.” K: “You think we’ll work in heaven? I thought there wasn’t supposed to be anything unpleasant or difficult there.” Me: “Well, maybe work isn’t unpleasant or difficult. We were created to work, and its original design was one of blessing. Think about it; do you remember when Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden, before they disobeyed God and ate the fruit? When everything was still good and God walked with them every day? Before there was any sin in the world?” K: “Yes.” Me: “That was life in a still-perfect world, wasn’t it?” K: “Yes.” Me: “And what did Adam and Eve do then? How did they spend their days? They worked. They had a job. They were caretakers of the creation around them. In Genesis it says that ‘The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.’ And the work was good, pleasurable, God-honoring. I think we could say that it was even worshipful.” K: “Okay.” Me: “But then Adam and Eve messed up, right? And after sin had entered the world, then, and only then did work become cursed, a hardship, a grind. It is pure conjecture on my part but maybe, in heaven, work is restored to what it is supposed to be and it will be a part of our life there. It’s hard to imagine how good it might be, but even now, there are days that I labor and have a deep sense of love for it, whether it’s songwriting work or weeding the garden. And maybe, in some way, that’s why we’re told to work with all our hearts at whatever we do; because it might help to prepare us for our return to the Garden, to ‘Paradise Regained.’ Anyway, it’s just a thought.” I sleep really well at nights in the present routine. A short bit of reading is usually all it takes to put me under.

This says it better than I’ve ever heard anyone say it. From Biblical Ethics: The Bible does not deal with sin as a disease; it does not deal with the outcome of sin, it deals with the disposition of sin itself. The disposition of sin is what our Lord continually faced, and it is this disposition that the Atonement removes. Immediately our evangelism loses sight of this fundamental doctrine of the disposition of sin and deals only with external sins, it leaves itself open to ridicule. We have cheapened the doctrine of sin and made the Atonement a sort of moral “lavatory” in which men can come and wash themselves from sin, and then go and sin again and come back for another washing. This is the doctrine of the Atonement: “Him who knew no sin” (not sins)—Him who had not the disposition of sin, who refused steadfastly, and to the death on Calvary, to listen to the temptations of the prince of this world, who would not link Himself on with the ruling disposition of humanity, but came to hew a way single-handed through the hard face of sin back to God—“He made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (rv). The disposition of sin that rules our human nature is not suppressed by the Atonement, not sat on, not cabined and confined, it is removed. Human nature remains unaltered, but the hands and eyes and all our members that were used as the servants of the disposition of sin can be used now as servants of the new disposition (see Romans 6:13). Then comes the glorious necessity of militant holiness. Beware of the teaching that allows you to sink back on your oars and drift; the Bible is full of pulsating, strenuous energy. From the moment a man is readjusted to God then begins the running, being careful that “the sin which doth so easily beset us”does not clog our feet. I believe that God so radically, so gloriously, and so comprehensively copes with sin in the Atonement that He is more than master of it, and that a practical experience of this can take place in the life of anyone who will enter into identification with what Jesus Christ did on the Cross. What is the good of saying, “I believe in Jesus Christ as the Saviour of the world” if you cannot answer the blunt question, “What has He saved you from?” The test is not in theories and theologies, but in practical flesh and blood experience. Jesus Christ is our Saviour because He saves us from sin, radically altering the ruling disposition. Anyone who has been in contact with the Lord when He alters the ruling disposition knows it, and so do others. But there is a painful, tremendous repentance first. The whole teaching of the Bible on the human side is based on repentance. The only repentant man is the holy man, and the only holy man is the one who has been made so by the marvel of the Atonement. And here comes the wonder—let the blunders of lives be what they may, let hereditary tendencies be what they like, let wrongs and evils crowd as they will, through the Atonement there is perfect readjustment to God, perfect forgiveness, and the gift of a totally new disposition which will manifest itself in the physical life just as the old disposition did (see Romans 6:19). Jesus Christ comes as the last Adam to take away the abnormal thing (which we call natural), the disposition of my right to myself, and He gives us a new disposition, viz., His own heredity of unsullied holiness, Holy Spirit.

(Note: I wrote this post after the release of The Happening two years ago. I thought it might be interesting to continue the conversation now that Shymalan has again sabotaged his once-promising career.) M. Night Shyamalan’s new film, The Happening, opened this past weekend and as a big fan of most of his work, I made sure I was there on opening day to see it. When I left the theater, I was dumbfounded. I was shocked and horrified. Is it that good? Well…no, it’s that bad. It’s a train wreck, a film so inconsistent, so incoherent, so poorly shot, edited, directed, and resolved, so carelessly crapped onto the screen that it’s a mystery to me how it came out of the same creative well as movies like The Sixth Sense and Signs. Something has gone seriously awry in the land of Shyamalan. Why is this happening? First let me tell you why I like Shyamalan’s work. It’s very distinct, and no, I don’t mean it’s marked by a ‘twist’ at the end. I think his success with The Sixth Sense unfairly set up an expectation that all of his films would have that same sort of shocking reveal in the third act. When I say distinct, I mean in style. His dialogue (full of pregnant pauses), framing (long reaction shots), and pacing (slow burn) are all very recognizable, very quirky, and for the most part (for me) very enjoyable. And then there are his undeniable spiritual themes and focus on character detail. I could dial in the Theolo-vision(tm) on his movies all day long. His rise started with The Sixth Sense, a movie I admired for its cleverness and execution but didn’t really care for on any emotional level. It wasn’t until Unbreakable that I realized that Shyamalan was someone whose work I was going to get attached to. Unbreakable was not only truly unique, it was emotionally powerful. There are all sorts of truths in it about embracing who we are born to be, becoming the hero within, that sort of thing. Of course, it starred Samuel L. Jackson too, and seriously, how can you not love that guy? Then there was Signs. This is one I can watch again and again and again. It’s just a great movie. Well acted, well directed, well written. And it had to be, because if it hadn’t been all of those things, then the entire film could have collapsed under that huge logical problem of aliens invading a planet made up of 70% water, a substance that is lethal to them. I mean seriously, all they had to do was wait for it to rain. But that didn’t matter to most of us because we cared about the people in the movie, the aliens were just a device providing conflict for the greater story of a man’s struggle with his own faith. The Village is my favorite of his films and one of my all-time favorite movies period. It awed me and moved me to tears the first time I saw it and it gets richer and deeper with every viewing. It’s just a stunningly beautiful film. I’d love to have a poster of the shot of Ivy’s hand held out into the darkness as the monsters are coming and she refuses to withdraw because she knows Lucius will come for her. And when he does, at the last possible moment, and that incredible violin piece in the score plays…wow, it’s just transcendent. Once again, it works because I care so deeply for Ivy and Lucius that I’m willing to trust the storyteller to take me anywhere so long as he remembers to come back to what’s actually at stake. On the heels of that, I couldn’t imagine what on earth he could do to top it. Lady in the Water was his attempt, and the beginning of his fall.I wanted to love this movie and in some individual parts, I did.But it didn’t hold water (har-har).It was too many pieces trying to fit into a cohesive whole.The mythology was too foreign, too complex, the characters were too many to get to know individually.At the end of the day, it didn’t work because I didn’t care enough about anyone and, in my indifference, I was left to see the holes in the rest of the film. Some people may not have heard what happened during the making of the film. From what I’ve read, a lot of people told Shyamalan that the film had serious problems but he ignored their advice. Sometimes, I think the best thing an artist can do is ignore the critics and go his own way, but sometimes the critics are right. This was such a case. There was a good film lurking in the script but Shyamalan smothered it. On one hand I applaud him for going his own way, but on the other, I wish he’d listened to the people that tried to advise him otherwise because I feel like we, the audience, were robbed of a good story. Okay, he stumbled. He put out a stinker. No problem, happens to us all. Time for the comeback. The Happening.The movie starts out wonderfully.It’s creepy.It’s a great set up.It’s got everywhere in the world to go. But all those quirky shots and that stilted dialogue that worked so many times before are broken in the extreme here.I can see how this movie was supposed to work conceptually, I can imagine it taking form in his brain, I can see what he wanted and where he wanted it to go but it didn’t translate onto the screen at all.The performances are bad across the board, the dialogue is almost pure exposition, shots are framed wrong, cut together wrong, it’s funny where it should be frightening, and eye-rolling when it tries to be funny, it tries to be scientific but is so full of logical problems that you can’t buy into it on any level. Outside of two or three creepy shot sequences, the film is completely broken. It’s Battlefield Earth broken, Mystery Science Theater 3000 broken. By the end, I almost felt like it was bad on purpose. There is a scene with an old woman near the climax that is so bizarre that I honestly had no idea whether it was supposed to be funny or disturbing. And when we finally do get to the climax of the story, it’s supposed to be emotional, but it’s not. We don’t care anything about the characters. I don’t blame the actors for this, Zoe Deschanel and Mark Wahlberg are fine actors. I blame the director. It’s the director’s job to see the performances and know whether or not they are working. So I want my Shyamalan back. What’s the solution here? Here’s my advice, I think it’s time to get back to basics. Forget all the weird set-ups and get back to making movies about people, about how they act and interact. Maybe it’s time to collaborate. As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. Some smart guy said that once. Personal style is well and good but maybe it’s time for Shymalan to step outside his own little box and relearn some things. If you can sell a relationship between two people (and he has) then you can take your audience anywhere. Forget about selling the premise, sell the people in it. If you want me to care about Mark Wahlberg walking across a field to die with the woman he loves, then I need to believe he loves her more than anything else on earth. I can’t even remember her name. That’s how much I cared. It would be really be interesting to sit in a room with M. Night and watch The Happening with him just so I could pause it every few seconds to ask him what on EARTH he was thinking. How can a person that has clearly demonstrated an understanding of cinema put together a film that misfires at every opportunity? Hopefully the experience of making something as abominable as The Happening will be a catalyst for some sort of creative rebirth. I’ll still look forward to his next film because I think he’s capable of more goodness like The Village and Signs but I don’t know how his career can stand another event like The Happening.