What are you looking for?

I’ve sometimes wondered if many of the books I read are not just piling up more perceptions in my dusty mind cluttered by too many options. Parenting books are a good example. I’ve got a shelf full, and I’ve learned a lot from them – I think.  But in applying those principles I’ve often fallen short. There are certain scenarios with my children that too often have tripped me up, and occasionally my will seems frozen in place as some old reel-to-reel tape appears on my tongue and spits out its ratta-tat-tat song and dance. A revelation I had awhile back about deep seated fear for my children, and its subsequent healing, went a lot further and deeper into me than any parenting book ever could. As my life goes breathlessly on the only way I seem to really learn by is experience and those inner bursts of knowing called revelation or epiphany. Experience is a hard teacher, but a good one. 20 Steps to Becoming More Like Jesus just never seems to work out for me. I start out fine, but the Bic runs out of butane at around step three. I think part of the problem is in having thousands of bytes of often contradictory information in my brain; my thought processes just can’t handle that much analysis to spit out the proper action. So I hit a hard situation, try to get through it on my own butane, and the flame goes out because I keep vacillating between dozens of mental options. Joni Mitchell sang of “the crazy you get from too much choice, the thumb and the satchel or the rented Rolls Royce.” That wide variety of options causes brain-freeze in me. This is why mere mental process and logical thought can’t get me through even a single day. Trying to do it all right isn’t the same as living in the Now. “Trying to get it right” involves the underlying opposite assumption: “I am going to get it wrong unless I try really hard.” Now, what we take by faith takes us. We manifest that which we really believe. If I believe something is going to be hard, say, parenting, or a gig, or some household job like fixing a door, it will be. My seeing will drive the circumstance, and so my experience will reflect my negative faith. In that sense we often do create our own reality. I believe wrongly, and then strive in my effort against the reality I have created by my wrong believing. But here’s the crossroads choice. I can live in the Now, in the moment, and expect God’s revelation for that moment. I can see my kids fighting and contact that place inside me where God is love, where Christ is faith, and rest, and wisdom and understanding, and I can know exactly what my children need in that moment without my mind short-circuiting on dozens of options. In any situation I can throw negativity out on the trash heap and know I can do all things through Christ. All it takes is to get out of the future of “what might happen” and into the Now of “What is the need of this moment?” I’m all for reading books. I love to read. But the inner attitude I allow determines what I do with all that information, determines whether it short-circuits me or is used by God as a means of opening my mind to deeper revelation, deeper life, and a deeper and more joyous Now.

Okay, seeing as how we have had posts here on the Rabbit Room about westerns, vampires, rock stars, chimps, Michigan, fame, banjo players, apples, poetry, and who knows what else, I figured it was high time for a post about classical music. So as a starting point, I would use the word epic to try to describe Mahler’s symphonies. At the performance I saw there were one hundred and eight players on stage, and the piece is almost eighty minutes long. Compare that to another piece on the same program that evening, Haydn’s “Fire” symphony, for which thirty-two players were required and lasted a brief seventeen minutes. The sixth symphony is sometimes called the Tragic Symphony, a title Mahler himself attached and then later removed, desiring the work to be experienced on the basis of the music itself, without the aid of a program. The concluding paragraph from the program notes that night offer a concise summary of Mahler’s work. “Mahler excelled at plumbing the depths of tragedy, in part because the tragedy is not unrelieved. Even in this, his most tragic work, he presents love, nostalgia, serenity and ecstatic vision, which is what makes the tragedy so excruciating when it is all subsumed by the hopelessness of the conclusion.” The ending evoked the same visceral reaction in me as did the ending of one of the best films of 2007, No Country for Old Men. I have argued – and will continue to do so – that No Country for Old Men ends on a hopeful note. An uncertain note, yes, but still a hopeful one. Mahler ends his sixth symphony on what could easily be called a nihilistic note, which makes the beauty and peace of the ending of his ninth and final symphony so breathtaking. (Warning: I am now stepping fully into music nerd territory.) All throughout the piece, over and over again, you hear an A major triad, held for two bars, changing to an A minor triad – hope and despair, if you will. Sometimes the A major to A minor chord is played by the full orchestra, and other times it is providing a foundation for a melody played over it, always changing from major to minor, major to minor. But then, in the last minutes of the piece, we hear only the A minor chord. The presence of hope, the major chord, is gone. And the ending, a strong fortissimo with everyone in the orchestra playing the A minor triad, quickly dying away under a timpani cadence to a final string pizzicato on a soft unison ‘A,’ is devastating. As I was reflecting on the despair of the final bars of the piece, Psalm 88 came to mind. Quick Hebrew lesson (with thanks to my friend Michael Card for this information): We’re all familiar with the Psalms where the author cries out against God, demanding to know what on earth He is doing. The questions that most of us find ourselves asking, at some point in our lives, are there expressed: Why does evil exist, why do the wicked prosper, why am I oppressed, where is God, and on and on our questions go. All of these Psalms, Mike told the small Bible study he was leading, have the “vav adversative,” usually translated “and” or “but,” somewhere in the Psalms. For example, in Psalm 73, after reading the psalmist’s complaints, we find, “but then I entered the sanctuary of God,” and, “saw the whole picture.” The one thing they all have in common is that the “vav adversative” does not appear in the same place. Sometimes we see it at the front, sometimes in the middle of the psalm, and sometimes not until the very end. But they all have it. All, that is, except Psalm 88. Psalm 88 starts out with a plea to God for salvation, saying, “God, you’re my last chance of the day.” After a heart-rending cry for help – “I’m written off for a lost cause,” “You’ve dropped me into a bottomless pit… I’m battered senseless by Your rage,” “Why, God, do you turn a deaf ear?” – the psalm ends with a soul-rending cry of despair, “The only friend I have left is darkness.” No resolution, no hope, no rest. Only darkness. Only despair. I’ll end this with a song featuring Andy Osenga, Jeremy Casella, and Sandra McCracken, written by Jeremy, based on The Message’s rendering of Psalm 88, “Last Chance.” And next time you have an hour and half to immerse yourself in the listening experience, check out Mahler’s 6th on iTunes. If you have a chance to hear it live? Do whatever it takes to get there. [audio:LastChance.mp3]

Adam, in his original state, was not a sword but just an untempered hunk of metal. He had to be hammered out in the fire and on the anvil of his wrong choices, like Moses, like Abraham, like Paul. Is it my will that my children make wrong choices? No. In my father-feelings I want them to make right choices and undergo no suffering. If this feeling is given its head it is called “spoiling my children.” I will either let them off the hook or be a drill sergeant and make their choices for them. In such a case they stay like Adam and Eve, pre-Fall, as babies, expecting everything, learning nothing. But suffering induced through consequences for actions produces a good harvest in the end. Now, I’d rather my children always made right choices. But quite often some of the greatest pastors were some of the worst sinners. Truth – Reality as defined by God in His multi-dimensional seeing – exists to our finite minds as paradox. Adam and Eve chose to disbelieve God (the first human sin). Their choices have worked out the predestined plan of God to purify a people who will trust Him and rely on His word no matter what. Someone once wrote to me, “…my quest for righteousness has, to some degree, been for the purpose of pain avoidance rather than out of the wellspring of love for God.” We all start that way. Quite often our conversion to Christ comes from a desire to avoid Hell. On the surface, in our soul-life, we may have some fear/unbelief issues somewhere that the Devil uses as a handle. He may get us to have mixed motives. But as we get more and more in contact with who we really are in Christ, and who He is in us, we see a love for God and neighbor begin to explode outward in and through us. That love is the implanted Christ in these human temples. We’ve got to get past self-consciousness to see Him in ourselves. But in order to do that we have to “be no longer conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” We do not think we need mind-renewal until all our old ways of coping begin to break down; our wrong choices begin to breed a multitude of bad consequences. When we finally cry out to God like the Israelites in the Babylonian captivity, that’s when mind renewal can begin. We don’t think we need it until we really see our desperate state, until we are hungering and thirsting for righteousness. Mind renewal is simply setting our minds in accordance with what God says about reality, regardless of what we feel or think about it. When we start doing that, we see that our “false motives” and all that are just a bunch of devilry designed to keep us in the old-man consciousness. The sword is being heated and hammered into shape for Heaven’s use. But these human swords have a choice: Will we continually surrender to the Blacksmith? What will be the eternal cost of not surrendering? What will be the eternal reward of a consistent, total surrender? We are called to count the cost. Will we?

I am currently making my way through Frederick Buechner’s masterwork Telling the Truth. The subheading is “The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy and Fairy Tale.” Upon a friend’s recommendation, I found the book online for cheap and set a course once received. I was only a few pages in before audible gasps and sighs were heard by my wife trying to sleep. It’s no secret ’round these parts that Buechner’s abilities are wonderfully poetic – a salve in my currently dry reading time (most books lately have left me wanting). In the midst of this piece, I found something particularly moving for me as a pastor and something I This is from the chapter entitled “The Gospel as Tragedy”: The old ones and the young ones. The smart ones and the dumb ones. The lucky and the unlucky. The eggheads and potheads, the Gay Libs and Hard Hats. They all listen as they may listen even to the preacher if he will take the chance himself of being embarrasssing, appalling us by exposing the nakedness of the poor naked wretches and his own nakedness. The world hides God from us, or we hide ourselves from God, or for reasons of his own God hides himself from us, but however you account for it, he is often more conspicuous by his absence than by his presence, and his absence is much of what we labor under and are heavy laden by. Just as sacramental theology speaks of a doctrine of the Real Presence, maybe it should speak also of a doctrine of the Real Absence because absence can be sacramental, too, a door left open, a chamber of the heart kept ready and waiting. I was so moved by this – the reflection upon absence (that goes on for several more paragraphs) and also the artistic responsibility to accurately and honestly portray that absence as much as the presence. That every poet and writer and pastor and artist and friend and neighbor and family member would be so bold as to proclaim their abundant faith and their crisis of faith, their joys and their sorrows. It’s a sweet, sweet endeavor Buechner describes and something I long to aim toward. #FrederickBuechner

Back, back, back.  Back before the compact disc, back before the personal computer, back before the existence of the mini-van, there was a public library in Tipton, Indiana with a brand new laser disk player, complete with about seven film choices. In my mesh football jersey and yellow swimming trunks, bike resting unlocked in the rack outside, I made my way to the circulation desk to ask for the same thing I always asked for: Would they please issue me a pair of headphones and cue up Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid? The short walk from there to the carrel where the TV was wired to the player gave me just enough time to feel something I seldom experience anymore–expectant joy at seeing a movie again. Don’t get me wrong.  I will see a film more than once on occasion these days, but it’s usually for a utilitarian purpose–like I missed something or fell asleep in the middle or thought I hated it only to hear of a trusted friend who loved it–so I go back to have my mind changed. But seldom do I go back because I want to experience the same joy I felt the first time I saw it.  And that’s mainly because lately that feeling of joy is hard to come by.  With a couple of notable exceptions, it seems like movies these days are much more disposable than they used to be–like can openers. Remember how growing up, your mom bought one can opener and it stayed in that same drawer, opening thousands of cans until you graduated and left home?  We’ve been through maybe five already in our first fourteen years of marriage, and they’ve all been mostly plastic and mostly defective– under the pretense of being ergonomic, as if the can-opener people know anything about what makes me comfortable. We don’t really expect that much from our can openers anymore.  And in that little oddity, I see a parallel to movie-making. But Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is on TV right now and I tell you this film must be one of the most perfect movie-making accomplishments of all time.  It’s not my favorite movie.  But I can’t think of many others that beat it in terms of the pace of it’s storytelling, or the way it doesn’t look a bit dated, or the chemistry between Redford and Newman. Or the ending. Oh, the ending! I watch this film now and I’m that kid on his way to the pool stopping off at the public library real quick for a two hour detour.  Again. Except there’s one thing I have added to my experience these days that couldn’t have been further from the mind of the yellow haired boy at the study carrol. Worry. See, these days we live in the land of the Internet Movie Database.  And not only that, it seems Hollywood is short on original ideas. Those two realities, friends, make me wonder how long it will be until some studio genius with a “green light” button thinks Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson should connect for a killer remake of the 1969 original? So I check.  Nervously, I check. Nothing in pre-production.  Whew! Then I go to the Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid page to investigate any message board rumors.  And sure enough, someone’s clamoring for a Matthew McConaughey/Brad Pitt remake, only to be corrected by another that Clooney and Pitt would have more chemistry. Thankfully, almost everyone else has the good sense to remind these yahoos that the film has no need to be redone, since when they made it the first time, they made it as close to perfect as any film of the past 30 years. So I ask you two questions today.  Answer either or both, or even one I’m not asking. 1.  Is it accurate to suggest films are much more “disposable” these days than they used to be–and by that I mean, do you suppose the mentality behind making them is that no one really expects a film to carry across generations anymore, so why not just settle for pleasing the current audience? 2. Of which films should we say, “Leave it like it is.  A remake would be a desecration?”

Thunder is rolling behind me like a boulder down a mountain. The lightning is so frequent it feels like there are only flashes of darkness to interrupt it. Appalachia is alive at evening time. Like the stomach of a starving giant, the sky growls. I take cheating glances back through the broad, open windows. Trying to work. Trying to write. I look again. An inelegant tree silhouetted against a blazing peach band of evening sky. Charcoal clouds above and surly earth beneath. Uneven edges –like life. The window-framed beauty entices me away from the false light of this monitor. Monitor? I am watching the images of my mind appear before me in insufficient words. I am feeding this hungry screen with the little somethings of my soul. This machine receives my humble offerings like an understanding woman. Behind me the day fades in glory, trumpets of thunder announce its passing. The king is dead, rest in peace. Tomorrow you rise again. So many things I have put behind me belong there. But here is wondrous thunder and bursts of brightness. Here is sunset. Words can wait. Mine can wait. Here is the evening song of the first Poet. Here is the next line in an undying verse. Before me is my sub-creation. Behind me is Evening by God. Turn around.

I sat in the theater Friday night waiting for the lights to go down and I pondered the possibility that UP might be Pixar’s first flop.   I’ve come to feel about that moment when the Pixar logo appears much the same as I once did about the glittering green of a Lucasfilm logo.  When it flashes up on the screen, the theater quiets and I can almost hear someone bending low to pull the covers up around my chin and whisper, “Ssshhh, I’m going to tell you a story—and this is one of the good ones.” Ten years ago I realized that the Lucasfilm icon of my youth had tarnished and lost its glitter and become no more than the color of money.  So once bitten and twice shy, I enter the cinema halls of story and light with more skepticism than I once did. I watched the crowd filter in and find their seats and I wondered at what an eclectic pilgrimage they were.  Young boys and girls came hand in hand all covered in blushes, laughter and delight.  They came in families, by the dozens, herding children with candy and eyes peeled wide.  Groups of young men sauntered in adorned with attitudes like costume jewelry, their pants slung low and clattering with chains.  Elderly couples stepped down the aisles deliberate and slow to settle themselves patiently into their seats.  The middle-aged, the old-aged, and the barely aged at all filled the theater and hushed to hear the whisper when the lights went low. What a privilege it is to have the trust of your audience.  Such is Pixar’s legacy that people who would otherwise turn up their nose at a mere ‘cartoon’ came in droves to fill the house based on the trust of a studio’s name alone.  It’s a precious and delicate thing and with each successive film I fear the spell will finally shatter. But UP isn’t a flop.  The integrity of the Pixar name is well intact and may it be so for years to come.  There’s nothing I can write here that can say more eloquently what has already been said in theaters across the country.  UP’s reviews are written in a communal grammar built of gasps, and happy tears, a language filled with the sighs of the long-lived, the breathless wonder of cynics like me, and best of all the laughter and joyous exclamation not only of children but of those who dare to come and sit in the darkness and hear the storyteller’s whisper and remember how to be child-like once more. So if UP moved you the way it did me then I hope you’ll tell us how.  It’s UP (har har) to the audience to write this review.

In the last couple of weeks I’ve seen some very poorly executed movies.  Is there anything more frustrating than going into a theater with high expectations and watching for two hours as those hopes are slowly dashed to pieces?  Why yes, I’m sure there are things more frustrating but it’s definitely near the top of any reasonable list.  It’s right up there with forgetting to do laundry over the weekend and discovering on Monday morning that you’ve got to go to work in whichever clothes are least dirty.  Maybe that’s just me. The frustrating thing with these critical flops is that they often get a lot of things right.  They have solid ideas behind them that promise great stories and they’re often drawn from source material full of complex and interesting characters. In the case of blockbuster-style summer movies, action and special effects play as big a part as actors.  But flashy special effects do not a good movie make.  Nor do cheesy effects a good movie ruin.  You’d be hard pressed to bring down a good movie with bad effects, although a distressing number of bad movies succeed solely on the quality of the effects work. The story is the same with music, cinematography, editing, lighting and all the other technical aspects of filmmaking. So where is the disconnect?  Why does a movie with a good concept, good actors, and competent technical prowess fail? The issue is that among blockbuster level filmmakers there often seems to be a general lack of understanding of the fundamentals of good storytelling.   The basics are not being covered. One of those basics is Character Arc.  Every character needs to have his or her own particular story within the greater whole.  Each character must start with a problem, struggle with that problem, and find some kind of resolution by the end of the story.  Each character ought to have grown and changed and come out at the end someone other than who he was in the beginning. What many storytellers seem to forget is that this applies not only to the main character but to every single member of the cast.  If a character doesn’t struggle and change then it’s one-dimensional.  Either beef it up or cut it out. Another basic: Scene Structure.  Scenes are the building blocks of a story whether in a book, on stage, or on screen.  A scene doesn’t serve merely to pass on information, a scene must have a beginning, a middle, and an end.  It has to pose a problem and find a resolution to that problem through conflict.  If a scene doesn’t do that then guess what?  It isn’t a scene. That doesn’t mean that scenes can’t be intercut and it doesn’t mean that they have to be shown linearly, but they have to satisfy those conditions.  They must not only show conflict, they must move toward resolution. When I sit down to write a scene there are several things that go through my mind.  The first is that I need to know what the scene is meant to accomplish.  Maybe it needs to move the action from one location to another.  Maybe it needs to set up a subplot.  Maybe it needs to introduce a character.  Once I know what the scene needs to do, then I go about learning how it does it. The ‘how’ is the job of the characters.  Every character in a scene wants something.  The audience doesn’t necessarily need to know this but the writer does.  Once you know what a character wants, then you decide how they will go about trying to get it.  Maybe a character wants acceptance, maybe he wants to go to sleep, maybe he wants to kill someone.  No matter what is going on, every character wants something.  The storyteller’s job is to figure out what that desire is and use it to propel the scene forward. When you put two or more characters together that want different things or, even better, that want the same thing, you’ve got conflict.  Now you’ve got a scene going. But the scene can’t end with conflict.  Someone has to get what they want and there have to be consequences, a new problem has to be encountered.  If no one gets their way then there’s no forward motion and the scene falls flat.  If no new conflict is introduced then the story is over, you’ve dropped the dramatic ball. These aren’t revolutionary ideas.  These are the bare bones basics:  Character and Scene.  If writers and directors followed those simple guidelines they’d have a much harder time making bad movies.   It’s heartbreaking to go to the theater and see the work and sweat and passion of so many people falling apart because the writers and the director didn’t cover the basics, they didn’t adhere to the most foundational concepts of storytelling. I don’t expect every movie to be great.  I do, however, expect that if millions of dollars and years of work are going to be put into something that it should at least betray evidence that you understand the fundamental concepts that make a story work.  Pixar understands this.  What excuse does the rest of the blockbuster machine have?

We can’t read white letters on a white page. Light needs a dark background; think of all the nuances of shade an artist uses.Without the human race falling into sin, grace would not be apparent. God has purposed to use the Devil as an unwitting errand boy; “Those who will not be God’s sons become His tools,” said George MacDonald. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. He made man, made woman. He placed the two Trees in the Garden. Since He knows the end from the beginning, He knew Eve would take Satan’s bait. Why didn’t He show up and rescue her, or give any prompt to Adam? God knew exactly what was going to happen, since He is omniscient. He created the first man and woman knowing full well they would fall, since Jesus is “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” This doesn’t mean God authors sin. He gives freedom, and creatures in their freedom choose to misuse it. But He “means evil for good.” Joseph said, “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good,” and later Joseph says, “It was not you (his brothers) that sent me here to Egypt – it was God.” He saw God working in all things and even in the completely evil actions of his brothers. Job – Satan took God’s bait (again, God’s omniscience knew that he would) and ran off to wipe out Job. This was meant by God to purify Job of the last little bit of self-righteousness. There are other passages in the OT that are odd. God says, “Who will be a lying spirit in the mouths of the false prophets for me?” A spirit speaks up and says, “I will.” Imagine what this world would be like without any suffering at all. We’d never experience hatred of evil. We could not choose to love even though we felt like hating the person. No one would ever go on a mission trip. Without the potential of suffering, courage cannot be exercised. Jesus would never have been born. The Devil is our resistance training. A sword has to be heated to white hot levels and then hammered out on the anvil again and again before it gains an ability to be trusted by the swordsman. God is building a people He can trust to never do what Lucifer did. They will become the Bride by seeing firsthand the results of Lucifer’s mindset: “I will be like the Most High.” That mindset can be summed up in one word: Separation. “I am a separate being from God with my own purposes and wants and desires. Not Thy will, but My will be done.” That’s the mindset we as believers have got to burn out on. That’s the source and wellspring of sin in the believer: “I am a separate self who must find fulfillment, worth, meaning, security by my own devices.” Rather, the mature believer sets his mind in this way: “I am an indwelt cup who has been given everything I need for life and godliness. Worth, meaning, security, fulfillment – all are mine, here and now, in Christ, because I am a new creation, Blood bought and washed son of God, an heir of righteousness.” These truths must be eaten and digested and become part of us.

I bought this bench for twenty-five dollars. I searched the papers and called the seller, Drove to her house, and offered her twenty. She raised her brow and wouldn’t budge a cent. I came home with one less fast food combo In my future and a bench in my truck. My wife helped me carry it to the woods, Along the trail I cut through junipers, Thorns, and clover, where slabs of native stone Rise, green with fungus, from the leafy earth, Like petrified sea turtles or sperm whales, Statues buried a thousand years ago. We placed the bench at the bend in the trail Where there is little to see but the trees And the brown footworn path curving from view, Disappearing to the left and the right. Straight ahead is a young hackberry tree With two knots facing east, narrow windows In a castle turret where snails stand guard. There are days when my children remember The forest, and I can hear in the trees The magical sound of faery laughter. They round the bend brandishing sticks, march past, And vanish. I watch with joy and envy. Now, I have gone through all this trouble, Lord, To sit, and to watch, and to listen here On this old bench at the bend in the trail. Your humble servant has but one request: Would you please cast into outer darkness, For all eternity, these mosquitoes? Your servant will return when this is done.

As our new, real self in Christ emerges from the prison of years of false self-activity, we more and more realize that because Christ is in us we have no needs. We literally have “everything we need for life and godliness” (2Peter 1:3). That means, resident within our inner holy of holies, we possess love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness, humility, faith – in short, all of the various fruits of the Spirit are already inside us and readily available to the man or woman who trusts the power of the indwelling Lord. He is Virtue itself, and we possess Him. To work out this present-tense salvation into our daily life we do one thing: we abide. That means to trust, to rely on, to put all our faith in, and to rest in the Lord Jesus Christ – not only what He has done for us, but what has been done to us in Him, and who He is in us. We died on the Cross with Him; Romans 6 makes that clear. We were immersed into His death; the old man died. Still in Him in the grave, we were raised in His raising; the new man was raised to walk in newness of life. These are incontrovertible facts of the Word of God, and let no man “positionalize” them as if they are not actual, once-for-all realities. So, as was said in parts I and II, we have no needs. Everything we need is there, waiting for us inside our spirits, where Christ dwells. He is our All in all. That means we don’t need love or approval from other people. We don’t need others to respond to our love for them. And of course it is a process of trust and reliance, and of God using circumstances to discipline us, to get ourselves to the point where we see that. All that said, we do need other people – especially those in the Body of Christ. The foot cannot say to the hand, “I do not need you.” We need others; not to give us an identity, but to point us to our true identity in Christ. We need others to point us back in the right direction when we are going wrong. We need mentors; we need our wives; we need our husbands, our friends, and even sometimes our enemies to make us realize who we aren’t, and who we really are. We need others to love us in the midst of our failures, so that by their love we are pointed back to the source of all love. But this need for other people is not an emotional need for approval, or acceptance, or to feel good about ourselves; we do not need to establish an identity. We already have one in Christ. This need for others is largely corrective. It is a great help to have a mentor point us straight back to Christ as our Source, to point out where we are walking according to the flesh. Without others, we cannot be shaped, sharpened, or shined. And further, we need others to love. God is other-centered; without others, we cannot learn to love God and love our neighbor. We can’t learn to love and forgive our enemies if there are no other people around us. Other people give the atmosphere in which the love of God can be shown. But we do not need them to give us an identity. We all try that road. We have all held other gods to our chest. Wife. Husband. Job. Talent. Temperament. Money. You name it, we’ve held it – even as long-time Christians. As we burn those idols, grind them to powder, and throw them into the river of living water, we are given something much greater – the recognition of the true God sitting on the throne inside us. He has given us our real identity because He has given us Himself as our power Source, our Life, our All. We are complete in Him, and need no idols; we need no false sources of security or power or acceptance or identity, because we’ve been given all things, once for all time, in Christ.

Last Sunday I was a visitor hiding on the back pew of a church in Houston.  It was an inconspicuous little place filled with quietly ordinary people and a sensible lack of grandeur.  After the sermon and the closing hymn and the benediction, the pastor held up his hand and told us one last announcement had slipped his mind.  He was hosting a Pierce Pettis concert in his home the following weekend and we were invited. I shot upright in my chair and looked at the man sitting next to me. “Did he just say Pierce Pettis?” The man next to me nodded and shrugged as if to say, ‘Yeah, whoever that is.’ After church, lunch ensued (a glorious concoction of bread, cheese, basil pesto, and who really cares what else) and I shuffled the matter of buying concert tickets to the back of my mind.  When I got home, though, I visited the website the pastor had directed us to for tickets and found that, while pleasant to look at, it was rather confusing and didn’t seem to be offering up any information about concerts or shows or the genius of Pierce Pettis.  Bah, I thought, I’ll figure this out later. So the week went by and I procrastinated like the champ I am until Friday afternoon.  I called the church only to find that no one would answer, so I left messages telling of the urgency with which I intended to purchase tickets, and of course I blamed my failure to buy them sooner on the confusing website and it’s lack of information.  No one called me back. This was getting serious. So I go back to the website in search of clues and–ah hah! A phone number.  I dialed the number and a pleasant gentleman answered and offered to help.  Pierce Pettis, I told him.  I must have a Pierce Pettis ticket, forthwith. “Do you have the password?” he asked. This was not the response I was hoping for. Password?  Since when do concerts have passwords?  My first reaction was to tell him, “I don’t want to steal his Facebook page, you twit!”  My training intervened. “It is a private show, sir.  You must have the password.” So I patiently explained to him that I’d been invited by the pastor and had met with all manner of obstacle and distress in my quest.  Bless the man, he had mercy and told me the password. So, rejoicing, I proceeded to the confusing website and entered the secret password and was in short time the owner of a shiny new Pierce Pettis ticket. Saturday night I plugged the address of the pastor’s house into my trusty iPhone and I was off.  Thirty minutes later I pulled up to the house and realized that I had failed to account for one troublesome matter.  I didn’t know any of these people.  I’m very uncomfortable around groups of people I don’t know and generally avoid such situations at all costs.  Sitting in a room full of strangers and trying to be civil makes me sweat buckets and spew the stupidest things in attempt to be social.  Things like: “Hello, you have a lovely home, I’d rather be anywhere than here right now!” or “Why no, I’m not married, how old is your daughter?”  Statements like these, you must understand, leap out of my mouth without the slightest intent or forethought and typically are the source of the sweating and awkwardness I feel for the rest of the night.  I need more training to subdue those first reactions, I suppose. So I walk up to the door in a state of complete dread and nearly turn back two or three times.  I have to reassure myself that once the show starts, people will stop talking to me and I will stop saying preposterous things and everything will be fine and it’ll all be about Pierce Pettis and his particular genius. “Welcome!” says the doorman.  I try to convince myself he’s sincere, his smile suggests he is, but to me his greeting sounds like the rasped invitation of a vampire into his looming castle filled with shadows and lurking menace.  Gulp. I step inside and there are charming people everywhere. It’s worse than I thought. I can already feel some horribly mispoken “Hello, so nice to meet you and, wow, you’ve got huge hands” gathering at the back of my throat and threatening to jump out at the first unfortunate person to greet me. I spot an empty chair in the back corner of the room and navigate myself toward it.  I dodge a cackling blond lady who might be tempted to turn and say hello.  Then I slyly evade a tall gentlemen in a Rockets t-shirt and achieve my seat without incident.  Out comes the iPhone and I’m safely checking my email, Facebook, and Twitter pages until the show starts.  Whew, made it. Finally, I can relax unaccosted by hand-shakers and how-do-you-doers and wait for the music to begin.  An emcee dressed like a barista steps to the microphone beside the fireplace and gathers everyone’s attention. “We’re going to start the show in about fifteen minutes just to give folks time to get some coffee and get to know each other.” When he’s done he walks right past me with no idea of how narrowly he’s avoided my violent first reaction to this announcement.  I’m tempted to leave.  Fifteen minutes in a stranger’s house filled with people being pleasant to each other is an eternity to a man of my particular oddities.  Maybe I’ll get some coffee. I get up and angle my way toward the coffee pots in the next room but I don’t get far.  A short man wearing glasses and a button-up a shirt that looks like it’s part candy-cane makes eye contact and won’t let go.  He pounces and the next thing I know I’m shaking his hand and telling him my name and lying about how happy I am to be staring at his shirt. When he’s done with me I try to get my coffee but the line is filled with people chatting and threatening to greet me.  Don’t they know how lines are supposed to work?  The whole purpose of a line is to stand, facing forward, quietly, eyes ahead, shuffling in silence until you reach the front, acquire your coffee and exit the line in the most efficient manner possible.  Nowhere in the ‘Coffee Line Handbook’ is there mention of chatting happily, turning to shake hands, or speaking before first being spoken to. Screw it.  The line is a disaster.  I go back to my seat.  Phone out.  Facebook.  Twitter.  Email.  Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.  Finally the barista guy is back at the mic and introducing Pierce Pettis.  Home stretch. But wait.  An Asian guy with a rat-tail and red Chuck Taylors taps my shoulder and asks if he can sit next to me.  I answer yes—by which I mean no—and he sits.  At least he doesn’t try to talk to me. At long last, people are clapping and the great Pierce Pettis is standing at the mic.  He tunes his guitar and plays a Mark Heard song called Nothing But the Wind and finally I can relax and enjoy myself. If you’ve stuck with this little tale for this long, you’re probably wondering why I felt the need to tell you all this.  Here’s why.  I suffered—suffered, I tell you—to go to this concert.  And why?  That’s easy.  Because it was worth it. Pierce Pettis is an elemental force of a songwriter.  He spends his words with thrift and sets them down precisely where they belong so they illuminate everything around them.  He places words like stones in a wall, each supporting the other, until the entire edifice would crumble if even one was out of place.  He writes songs that twist and whirl and move things inside me and they’re better each time I hear them. But Pierce is a paradox.  I’ve found his music is difficult to pass on because it’s the kind of treasure you’ve got to work for.  It’s not bright and shiny, or radio friendly, or always particularly catchy but it’s got depth and luster and is cut with so many facets that it’s something new from every angle. It’s great not because his records are easy to listen to or easy to hum along with. They’re not.  And it’s not because his live shows are the best you’ve ever seen. They aren’t.  No, his music is great because the best things in life are often the ones you have to work the hardest for.  It’s great because it’s a hidden thing you have to seek out, and suffer for, and take a chance on.  It’s magical because it’s the age-old and dying art of the songwright working long and hard in the heat of the forge. A Pierce Pettis song is a fine gem on display, cut by a master that’s gone into hidden places to delve and polish and bring something glimmering and sharp out of the chaos of language. With Pierce’s songs, the first reaction isn’t always the best but diligent training will show them for what they are.  They are worth the phone calls and the passwords and the confusing website purchases and it’s worth the handshakes and the sweating and all the awkward hellos to go and sit for a spell at the feet of a master and see him spinning gold. If you don’t know Pierce’s songs, go out and find them.  Train yourself not to trust your first reaction.  Let them work on you.  Allow those gold-spun words to settle down inside you and reveal the treasures they hold.  They are worth the effort. ———————– Here’s a song from his 1998 album Everything Matters, “Love Will Always Find its Way”. [audio:LoveWillAlwaysFindItsWay.mp3] LOVE WILL ALWAYS FIND IT’S WAY (PIERCE PETTIS & FRED KOLLER) CAN’T STOP A RIVER DON’T EVEN TRY IT’LL CARRY YOU AWAY CAUGHT IN THE CURRENT SWEEPING YOU ALONG RUNNING DEEPER EVERY DAY OH, MY LOVE, LOOK AT YOU I LOVE YOU MORE THAN I CAN SAY NOW I KNOW THAT IT’S TRUE LOVE WILL ALWAYS FIND ITS WAY HELLO AND GOODBYE DIVIDED BY A LINE DOWN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD BUT THE SAME ROAD THAT TAKES YOU SO FAR AWAY IT CAN BRING YOU BACK HOME OH, MY LOVE, IF I GO IT WILL NEVER BE TO STAY I WILL COME BACK I KNOW LOVE WILL ALWAYS FIND ITS WAY I CANNOT ESCAPE THE FACT THAT I HAVE MADE SOME TROUBLE FOR MYSELF TROUBLE SO DEEP BUT THE WATER WAS SWEET BY THE RIVER WHERE I KNELT OH, MY LOVE, WASH ME CLEAN LIKE A SIDEWALK IN THE RAIN TAKE MY ARM, WALK WITH ME AND LOVE WILL ALWAYS FIND ITS WAY –TO MY BRIDE MICHELE

I’ve never paid much attention to poetry. For example: At an uppity exhibit here in Nashville I stood in front of a 12″ x 12″ off-white canvas–painted white, nothing more–and read the docent’s statement on the plaque beside it with a mixture of amazement, frustration, and indigestion. It was hailed as genius, as a bold statement because of the “delicate egg-white tone”. The only thing about it that was ingenious was that the artist had made a ton of money on something that only cost him five minutes and a 2 oz. tube of acrylic paint. That guy drives his Maserati with a wide grin, I bet. Sometimes in the art world, the emperor has no clothes (There’s a great documentary about this very subject, called My Kid Could Paint That, about a little girl whose paintings fetched big prices and were later claimed to be hoaxes. Read a review by Jeffrey Overstreet here. I watched it twice in two days.) I realize as I write this that I’m wading in murky waters. I suppose there’s a chance that white painting might deeply move someone, or enhance their understanding of the world, or create a conversation about the nature of art–oops. It just did, didn’t it? Okay, so there’s a place in the world for the inscrutable and the absurd. That place just isn’t in my brain or in my house. No, I want art to mean something. I want to approach the beauty or the horror or the sadness of a piece of art (be it poetry or story or film–whatever) like Indiana Jones crawling through the Well of Souls, looking for the treasure at the end of the labyrinth because he believes the passageway actually leads somewhere. He’s willing to brave the snakes because he has faith that he’ll find something worth seeking. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel. All I saw in that little white canvas was darkness. There are other ways to appreciate art, too. The artist can create simply as a means of expressing the darkness and light in his own heart–but even then, I think he hopes to create resonance. His art’s consummation is when another soul finds communion in it. And art doesn’t have to be a riddle to be solved. If you don’t want spelunk, you can also experience it like a Sunday drive. Roll down the windows and breathe in the air of the work, looking for nothing but serendipity. I do that, too, and it’s a fine way to spend a Sunday afternoon. Beauty is reason enough for something to exist (just ask the daffodils). But I don’t see that happening with the aforementioned “painting”. Let me get to the point. I started out talking about poetry and my lack of interest in it. But that all changed when I heard my friend Al Andrews recite a poem by Billy Collins. The poem, called “The Revenant”, made me laugh. I experienced delight. In the space of less than a minute and about 300 words, a light flicked on in an internal closet and slipped through the crack under the door. This particular combination of words produced a physical reaction in a room full of people. It wasn’t anything soul shattering or theologically explosive. It was just a poem, but it lit the room like a roman candle. Listen: The Revenant by Billy Collins I am the dog you put to sleep, as you like to call the needle of oblivion, come back to tell you this simple thing: I never liked you–not one bit. When I licked your face, I thought of biting off your nose. When I watched you toweling yourself dry, I wanted to leap and unman you with a snap. I resented the way you moved, your lack of animal grace, the way you would sit in a chair and eat, a napkin on your lap, knife in your hand. I would have run away, but I was too weak, a trick you taught me while I was learning to sit and heel, and–greatest of insults–shake hands without a hand. I admit the sight of the leash would excite me but only because it meant I was about to smell things you had never touched. You do not want to believe this, but I have no reason to lie. I hated the car, the rubber toys, disliked your friends and, worse, your relatives. The jingling of my tags drove me mad. You always scratched me in the wrong place. All I ever wanted from you was food and fresh water in my metal bowls. While you slept, I watched you breathe as the moon rose in the sky. It took all my strength not to raise my head and howl. Now I am free of the collar, the yellow raincoat, monogrammed sweater, the absurdity of your lawn, and that is all you need to know about this place except what you already supposed and are glad it did not happen sooner– that everyone here can read and write, the dogs in poetry, the cats and the others in prose. Of course, you may read this poem and feel none of the fireworks or laughter. That’s fine. But try reading it again, aloud. (That’s a rule of poetry.) If you still don’t like it, it might be that you don’t have the advantage of Al Andrews’s baritone doing the reading. My point is, I’m a new fan of poetry–or at least, I’m a new believer in the power of it. Until I encountered the poems of Wendell Berry and Billy Collins, I assumed modern poetry was generally as self-indulgent as that white canvas, only available to the intellectual or artistic elite (or the fakers). But I’ve since read Berry’s A Timbered Choir and Collins’s Nine Horses, and have found my soul enriched by their careful and kind use of words. And I didn’t need a doctorate.

When we finally faithe in our real identity, that we are complete in Christ, whole, holy, new creations beloved by God, the weight of circumstances comes against us. We fight “a great fight of afflictions.” There will be people among our family, our friends, co-workers, who will dislike the changes God is making in us. True freedom means we are completely given over to Christ; His designs, His plans for our lives, His life in us. True freedom is to be a slave to Christ; we’ve heard this many times before. But what does it mean, this true freedom? To be enslaved wholly to Christ is to become detached in a healthy way from every other person, place, or thing. We no longer need them, in the sense of having to possess them. Take the case of a spouse. We fall in love, we marry, and we bond together. As a famous movie goes, “You complete me.” But that isn’t the case. A husband or wife does not complete us or fill us; Christ does. Col 2:9-10 says, “For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority.” The word “fullness” in Greek is pleroma, and it uses the image of a ship outfitted with sailors, rowers, soldiers, merchandise, cargo; think of a ship made ready with everything it needs for a long voyage. The word “complete” in Colossians is pleroo in Greek, and it comes from the same root. Christ is filled full of the Deity; everything that God is lives in Christ. We are filled full of Christ, outfitted with everything we need for life and godliness. Therefore we don’t need to be loved, accepted, approved by others. We don’t need approval from our boss, or co-workers, our friends. Our business is to give out of the riches we have been given; let reactions be what they may. If you think about this you can see why a wife, when her husband’s mere need-love or need to be needed is put to death by the Spirit, might feel unloved. In reality the husband is just beginning to learn to love her truly, without needing to be loved himself. If she is still under the sway of the false, independent self, trying to make life work on her own terms, you can see that she would bring all her resources to bear on the removal of her idol – her husband’s need-love for her. “What we call love on earth is mostly the craving to be loved” (C.S. Lewis). This of course applies the other way – of a wife who stands up in who she is in Christ and begins to realize she is no longer needy; why be needy? She has everything she needs for life and godliness already contained within her (2Peter 1:3). It also applies to other family, friends, co-workers. We don’t need to be needed. We don’t need to be cherished, loved; in fact we fundamentally don’t need anything from anyone, because we have been given everything. A billionaire heiress doesn’t need money; she has it. The false need-love inside those around us will respond to our new-found wholeness. Some will respond by trying to pull on us. Others will respond by being hurt and by their anger will turn from us. Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn ‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law— a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’ Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matt 10:31-39). Does this mean we respond in return with anger or manipulation? Absolutely not, though we sometimes will, especially in the beginning; the Blood is always sufficient when we fail to trust Christ within us. We are being brought to true freedom for a purpose: to love as Jesus Christ loves, to be reflectors, mirrors, lenses through which His love shines out unhindered by the false self. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water (John 7:38).

It was bound to happen sooner or later. Even my favorite magazine finally found itself the victim (hopefully not fatality) of the economic times we’re living in. Paste Magazine, beloved highlighter of wonderful music, film and books, recently announced their own financial issues and began a campaign simply titled “Save Paste” that asks fans to help them out by donating to the cause to keep it alive. Yet I also somehow hold a longing for the tangible, for the medium that you can truly taste and see and touch and smell and feel. I sometimes hate my virtual world and refuse to use Twitter because it seems the last great stand a person can make against the constant broadcasting of our lives. Ridiculous, I know, but a man’s gotta draw a line somewhere, right? I love a great book and the feel of it in my hands at night. I totally get the vinyl argument. And I hate seeing this part of the industry slowly crumbling like the planet Vulcan (sorry for the spoiler). So I wonder what balance will eventually be displayed, if any at all. Will all that is tangible and real decay in a landfill while virtual forms rule the earth? I’d like to believe that there will at least be a community of people who reject that in various ways to create a consistent market for things you can truly hold. It’s this community as well at the Rabbit Room where some of these things will saved, I believe – smaller niche communities where people appreciate the same common things. But I wonder what you all think. It’s an interesting shift in front of our eyes and I wonder what the artists and art appreciators among us see (and hope for) in the future. #future #media #PasteMagazine #technology

“I don’t think it will really work. Do you really think it will work?” If Mark heard me, nothing in his demeanor showed it. He knew it would work. I was still fuzzy on the details, and I was pretty sure Mark was too. But his confidence had nothing to do with niggling details. Mark was an idea man. His confidence came from his grasp of the big picture. And we all agreed on the big picture: when a radioactive spider bites you, you get super spider powers. From the cartoon on Channel 17, I never really understood how Spiderman got his powers, but Mark had the more authoritative comic books. He explained the whole thing: Peter Bannister was in a science lab, and a radioactive spider got loose and bit him, and then he got spider powers. We ate this stuff up. Mark was the youngest of several brothers, so even in third grade an air of worldliness attached to him. He knew things the rest of us didn’t. It wasn’t just that he knew things; it was his casual, can-do attitude toward life’s great mysteries. This was a young man, after all, who had baptized his own dog. So when Mark came to school with a plan to give us all super spider powers, he had our attention. He had a spider in a jar. All we had to do was to get the spider radioactive and let it bite us. I thought getting the spider radioactive would be the hard part, but it wasn’t really. Mark had checked out a book of optical illusions from the school library. On the back cover was a swirling spiral that seemed to spin when you rocked it back and forth. He held it a few inches from the spider’s jar and set the spiral spinning. This seemed mighty low-tech and dubious to me, and I said so. But the words were hardly out of my mouth when the spider collapsed in a curled-up little heap. Mark raised his eyebrows and gave a knowing nod, as if to say, “This is to be expected.” “Is he dead?” asked one of the boys. “Not dead,” Mark answered. “Radioactive. Now, who’s going to go first?” We all looked at each other. In principle, super spider powers were a good thing. But actually to let a radioactive spider bite you…none of us were very sure about that. Even Peter Bannister hadn’t let a spider bite him. It was an accident. “Look here,” Mark said. There was impatience in his voice. “When this spider wakes up, he’ll only be radioactive for a minute or two.” I’m not sure how he knew this. “We need to decide who’s going to get bit. William, why don’t you go first?” William appeared to be weighing the pros and the cons. “So what kind of super spider powers will I get?” “You know, like on the TV show,” said Mark. “You can walk up walls. Jump over buildings. Shoot webs out your wrists.” William looked carefully at his wrist. “Where’s it going to come out? The web.” Mark had to think on that one. “We’ll have to cut a little hole. Right there.” He swiped a thumbnail across the soft white underside of William’s wrist. That’s where he blew it. William wasn’t going to let Mark cut him, and neither were any of the rest of us. Mark cajoled another boy or two, and we all argued back and forth for a while, but negotiations broke off with the recess bell, and we mostly dropped the whole thing. I don’t know what became of the spider. But I like to imagine him awakening from his swoon and stalking across the Miller Elementary playground, his eyes aglow with radioactivity. He’s looking for an unsuspecting grade-school hero—one who won’t be made to choose greatness or choose against it, but rather will have greatness thrust upon him in the form of a spider bite and the dawn of super spider powers.

When we begin to faithe in our true identity in Christ, that we are kings, priests, holy, beloved, having no more neediness but having everything we need for life and godliness in Christ who dwells in us, we step into “a great fight of afflictions.” Our false self, that collection of fears and ungodly ways of coping with life, begins to fall off like old grave clothes. Quite often the people around us – family, friends, co-workers – will subconsciously try to keep us in the old, false self. We might think that they would be thrilled to see us change and not be emotionally dependent on them. But bear in mind that these people have learned to cope with us, as we have learned to cope with them, by the machinery and devices of the false self – passive-aggressiveness, aggressiveness, manipulation, control, fear, etc. They will fight to keep the old order; if we have been enslaved to needing their approval, or of lording it over them, we can be sure it will not be easy to extricate ourselves from the tangle. Most people dislike change. But change we must, if we are to be everything Jesus Christ means us to be. This change of course does not come about by trying to change, but by abiding – resting, trusting, relying on Christ within us as the source and ground of our being. If we are “complete in Christ” and have “everything we need for life and godliness” in Him, what do we need from other people? What can they offer to those who have everything necessary and complete? When they sense we are no longer operating on the ground of neediness the heat often gets turned up; they’re looking for their own coping mechanisms to work. This is the cocoon from which we must emerge. Just as we received Christ by faith, so this struggle is by faith; it is the faith-labor by which we enter His rest. It is meant to be exactly what it is; people are meant by God to wrap us in this cocoon of their own thinking, their own ways, their own desires, their own coping mechanisms; it is God-ordained that we struggle to emerge from this cocoon. This makes us strong in faith and enables us to fly. So if you have begun to step out in faith by relying on your real identity in Christ, do not be confused or angry or disheartened; be encouraged. Things often have to get worse before they get better; the way to renovate a house or room is often to first put it in seeming chaos, to pull things off the wall, to knock walls down, to take doors off, to strip the carpet. The house may not like this stripping, but it’s the only way to remodel and restructure the house. We will feel this stripping in our life as God shows us who we really are in Him – that the new creation “I” does not need to puff or raise itself up on human approval or love. That new creation you, in Christ, can fly. Don’t hold Him to the ground by caving in to the subtle manipulations, control, and fears of others; trust Him in you, continuing in patient faith. And by faith don’t retaliate; if they are not walking in the power of the Holy Spirit themselves, they are doing as they must. “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” That Spirit of forgiveness and love is Who lives in us. Christ in a man is a majority.

I have big dreams for the Rabbit Room. I dream of a place with a roaring fire and a stone hearth. Books line the walls. The air is full of the sound of happy chatter and the smell of warm drinks. There’s a little stage where songwriters and storytellers can work their magic. Also, there are desserts. Hot apple crisp, per the Proprietor’s request. So far, the Rabbit Room only exists online (and in Oxford, England). But behold, the gates have swung wide on the virtual back room where the virtual printing press steams and clatters and spews grand works of (virtual) genius into the world. What, Proprietor, is this first book? Is it an illustrated edition of Chesterton’s Orthodoxy? Is it a graphic novel of George MacDonal’s Lilith? Is it our own Pete Peterson’s swashbuckling adventure (and romance!) novel The Fiddler’s Gun? All in good time, dear readers! All in good time.Proprietor No, the first ever Rabbit Room Press publication is none other than an Epic Space Adventure compressed into a Ten Page Children’s Book. I present to you Revenge of the Birds. (The cover, featuring genuine 1983-era faux wood wallpaper and blue punch-tape lettering.) It features a courageous main character named Geolly (pronounced gee-olly). It is fraught with foiled plans and daring infiltrations and a race of alien birds. It is a limited edition pressing of Eric Peters’s harrowing tale, written in 1983, when the author was in the 5th grade, and beloved by fans ever since. In all seriousness, the book is an exact page-for-page facsimile of the book Eric wrote and bound for his dad. For an autographed (and personalized, if you wish) copy of this luminous work, visit the Rabbit Room Store. It’s the perfect addition to your Eric Peters library, and it would make a grand Father’s Day present. Hurry, because the first printing is only a hundred books, and they’re going fast. Your kids will love it. And you will laugh. When you read the touching dedication from a 10-year-old to his dad, you might cry too. But you’ll probably just laugh.

This weekend I saw two movies that I’ve been looking forward to all year.  The first was Star Trek and I’m sure everyone has read the reviews and more importantly heard from all their friends that it’s a great movie.  No need for me to expound on that.  Despite a few warts, it’s great.  Go see it.  The other movie is the one that needs pounding–X-men Origins: Wolverine. We were studying Benjamin Franklin in school at the time and I figured that if Wolverine could quote him and sound cool then maybe I should sit up and listen a little closer to see if history class had any other snarky one-liners to offer (it did). So in Wolverine I found a superhero that didn’t pull the final punch and give the old line of: “I should destroy you for your evilness but if I destroy you then I will become as evil as you are.  Therefore I will let you live to continue your evilness when you break out of prison in issue #395.” Wolverine had chutzpah.  He destroyed.  I liked that. But twenty years later, my favorite hero, who was so fantastic in the first two X-Men films, has at last gone the way of Obi-Wan and Yoda.  The Star Wars gang were the first to go, of course, killed by their own father, George Lucas, who it turns out also managed to put Indiana Jones to death (doesn’t that make Lucas the most diabolical bad guy in all of cinema?) The third X-Men film effectively insulted another piece of my adolescent mythology:  The Dark Phoenix Saga.  The story was about a being of uncontrollable power and beauty that consumed worlds and wiped out entire civilizations before Jean Grey could make her ultimate sacrifice to save our world from destruction. What did director Brett Ratner do with that epic character?  I imagine there was a meeting that went something like this: Art and Visual Effects Teams: “Mr. Ratner, this is a story of epic scope and we’ve come up with some stunning visual ideas that will reflect and reinforce the dramatic moral and personal struggles of Jean Grey and the X-Men team and we also need to coordinate with the scriptwriters to make sure they understand the cosmological, theological, and philosophical facets of this legendary storyline.” Brett Ratner: “Hey guys, I know the Phoenix is like made of fire and energy and all giant and stuff and carries the ultimate power of both creation and destruction and all that.  So that’s cool I guess but I think we should just make Jean Grey wear a leather coat and look all dirty and slutty like some kind of floating goth-mother.” Art and Visual Effects Teams: “Say what?” Brett Ratner: “So let’s make that happen, it might be as good as Rush Hour 2!” I didn’t like that movie. But at least Wolverine kept his cool factor and I suspect that’s why someone decided to make another movie—to finish off my childhood memories of him. The following list is dedicated to the writers of X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Here are a few screenwriting tips that will hopefully allow you to stop killing off my childhood heroes. 1.    It worked in Conan the Barbarian and Highlander and Moulin Rouge but that’s where it’s got to stop.  There’s just no excuse for a death scene where the girl lays in the hero’s arms and whispers, “I’m so cold.”  (Please don’t take this to mean that it would be acceptable for her to whisper “I’m so hot,” even if it’s true.) 2.    Don’t make the credit sequence cooler, more fun to watch, and more dramatic than the rest of your movie. 3.    Don’t make naked men jump off waterfalls. 4.    Don’t use the old, “I only gave her a potion that made her look dead” device.  That only worked for Shakespeare. 5.    Don’t introduce characters only to kill them five minutes later and expect us to care.   And no, doing this three or four different times in the same movie still doesn’t make it work. 6.    Do try to have the plot make sense. 7.    Don’t introduce forty-seven characters and imply that they might be important when they are, in fact, not. 8.    Don’t show important scenes and dialogue in the trailer that aren’t even in the movie. 9.    Please refrain from writing dialogue until you actually know how to do it. 10.  Never, never, ever make someone say, “I should kill you, but if I kill you then I will become as evil as you are,” because writing that line and making an actor say it actually makes you more evil than either of them. Should you then choose to delve deeper into my childhood memories in order to mine such rich desposits as Thor, Voltron, The Dragonlance, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, The Avengers, The Justice League of America, The Green Arrow, The Showbiz Pizza Bears, Ultraman, the A-Team, or Manimal, I am available for consultation and will be happy to guide you to away from the sins of your past. Should you choose otherwise? SNIKT!

Start from zero. Try to forget your presuppositions. What do you say to someone who doesn’t seem to have any of the same questions you do about life and religion when they ask you what and why you believe? In a conversation I had about relgion with a friend, he started out by describing himself as a “flaming atheist,” later backing down from that descriptor and saying that more than anything he didn’t really think about the subject. Rob Bell, pastor of Mars Hill in Grand Rapids, author of Velvet Elvis and Sex God, and coauthor of Jesus Wants to Save Christians, was asked a similar question in a recent interview with Christianity Today. The question was, “How would you present this gospel on Twitter?” and Rob’s answer is a more fleshed out version of the answer I’ve started to give. Remember, Rob is not defining the Gospel here, nor giving a full explanation. He is presenting an introduction, calling the hearer into the journey. “I would say that history is headed somewhere. The thousands of little ways in which you are tempted to believe that hope might actually be a legitimate response to the insanity of the world actually can be trusted. And the Christian story is that a tomb is empty, and a movement has actually begun that has been present in a sense all along in creation. And all those times when your cynicism was at odds with an impulse within you that said that this little thing might be about something bigger—those tiny little slivers may in fact be connected to something really, really big.” Of course, G.K. Chesterton said many of the same things when talking about the need for fairy tales, like in this quote: “Exactly what the fairy tale does is this: it accustoms him for a series of clear pictures to the idea that these limitless terrors had a limit, that these shapeless enemies have enemies, that these strong enemies of man have enemies in the knights of God, that there is something in the universe more mystical than darkness, and stronger than strong fear.” And much of our discussion here in the Rabbit Room revolves around this conviction that art matters and points to something better, that it has the power to stir up questions and desires in us that are otherwise drowned out by the noise and busyness of our everyday lives. What about you? What answer do you give when asked why you believe? #GKChesterton #Belief #Presuppositions #Story #RobBell #Gospel

There’s been some disagreement from time to time here at the RR about this or that. One such debatable item is to what extent we should expose ourselves to the toxicity of the world in art. Some say more, some say less. Pretty much everyone believes we should be thoughtful about it and remembers that we are called to be holy. Without holiness no one will see the Lord. One area where I find it pretty soul-destroying to be in the toxic waste is in the area of music about love. We’ve pretty much boiled ourselves in a slow stew of erroneous notions of love for quite a while. So much so that if we aren’t intentionally counter-cultural we develop many horrific assumptions. Some of these are pornographic, some sentimental, but the field is full of lies and it’s hard to walk anywhere without being inundated with selfish messages which, if ingested, are a poison pill for us and those we ought to love. I actually heard a song on the radio once (what I was doing listening to the radio I don’t know) and it was a song dedicated to extolling a mistress, even containing the phrase, “the entrée’s not as good without a little something on the side.” Wow. That’s not helpful. OK, that’s a downer. But I am writing to commend. In the wasteland of love-songs which feel like the coordinated efforts of hell, there is a break in the fog. There are some grown-up love songs. And by grown-up I mean mature, in the sense of that great, biblical objective. There are songs which encourage a sacrificial and committed love. There are songs that admit weakness, but foster passion for the wife of your youth, for the woman of your vows. There are songs that speak the truth with beauty, and I love them. I’m certainly not someone who insists on message music, or message art in general. But messages are everywhere, and I’ll just say that it is much better for me in every way to hear AP’s “Don’t Give Up On Me,” than the “A Little Something on the Side” song “Don’t Give Up On Me” is perfectly expressive of real, grown-up, married love. Not sentimentalized for a sort of emotional pornography, or celebrating intimacy of body and detachment of committed life. It doesn’t take an advanced degree in a social science to see that everyone does better when mom and dad are committed to each other, faithful, passionate for each other, not lied to about the cost of messing with God’s design. I think songs like “Don’t Give Up On Me” help us maintain the necessary antithesis with grace, something that’s sometimes pretty hard to do. I have to mention one other song and that is Sara Groves’ song “Loving a Person.” Sara has many songs that fit in the category of “grown-up, truthful love songs,” but this one may be the best. (Plus it’s right after my favorite Sara song, “Why it Matters.”) Check out the simple profundity of the chorus: “Hold on to me I’ll hold on to you Let’s find out the beauty of seeing things through” That’s grown-up love. That’s the kind of song I want my kids to think of when they think of love.  And myself. That’s the song I want stuck in my head while I’m at work, or when I’m walking past a Victoria’s Secret store. So my question for you, kids, is what grown-up, truthful love songs do you love?  I call “Don’t Give Up On Me” and “Loving a Person.” And I’m fighting the urge to name some other favorites. What are your favorites? Why?

From the Proprietor: I just stumbled on this post from Jason Gray’s website. In it he talks a little about Gospel Music Association week (GMA), a yearly convention in Nashville that has plenty to gripe about and plenty to be glad for too. ——————————- Tuesday of GMA was a great day.  It was filled with more good conversations and interviews, but with some great little detours, the best of which was mid-day when Andrew Peterson asked if I was done with my interviews, and if so if I’d be interested in sneaking out for a quick visit to the Frist, Nashville’s prestigious art museum.  We both had to be back by 5 for a Centricity showcase we were both slated to play for, but with an hour and half to kill, we went on a quick little field trip The Frist is only a few blocks away from the Renaissance hotel where GMA week is held.  A brisk walk and 10 minutes later we stepped out of Nashville and into another world.  One of the exhibits was from the Cleveland museum of art featuring relics from the Byzantine era and Christian art from the Antique Period, ca. 200 – 400.  We were looking at works of art and utility from nearly 2000 years ago – sculptures, vessels made for carrying water, coins and artifacts of the church, mosaics, and books made before the printing press, with elegant lettering and illustrations individually painted by hand with gold and tempura paints. It was breathtaking, to put it mildly.  The books especially moved me – the great care and detail that went into every page, to make it beautiful and singular.  The advent of the printing press with all its virtues has had at least one detrimental effect: it has made books common. But every piece in the exhibit that we looked at spoke of a time when artisanship and artistry were more than commodities and valued over pragmatic usefulness.  Care was taken to make things beautiful and lasting.  It was a stark contrast to the world I had just left, which can often feel transitory, ethereal and fleeting, where your worth is determined by how hot your song is on the charts or if you’re wearing the right kind of scarf (GMA 2009 was the year of the fedora and the scarf – I’m not knocking it, just making an observation).  Separated by only a few blocks, the contrast between the two worlds was startling.  I thought of how I wished it could be mandatory for everyone at GMA week to come and take a little walk through this historical exhibit, looking at art that has stood the test of time and let it call to something timeless in us. At some point, it seems that one of the engines that started driving Christian music was justifying its existence as music for youth groups, an alternative to secular music with all it’s sex, drugs, and celebration of every kind of hedonism.  And while I get why it’s good and useful for us to provide young people with positive alternatives, it does seem like there’s room to aim a little higher than only making music that imitates secular music but inserts wholesome lyrics. Jesus deserves our best, and I wish our market could be more supportive of great art made to the glory of God and is more about worship than it is about what is useful or what is marketable.  But greatness – like truth, is hard to market and often, Christian music – in order to survive – has been reduced to imitating the latest trends in its bid to be a safe alternative. Because of this, sometimes Christian music can have a flavor of the day quality to it.  Pop music is notorious for how disposable it is, but Christian pop music is even worse and hasn’t produced much in the way of great and enduring artists like Sting, Bruce Springsteen, U2, Billy Joel, Etc.  Christian Music’s brightest lights burn out quickly and there are very few cases of longevity in an environment that caters to youthful consumerism.  I think you can feel this especially at GMA week where everyone’s radar’s are trying to pick up on who’s going to be the new hot thing this year. To step out of this environment into the Byzantine world and experience Christian works of art that 2000 years after their creation still take your breath away and speak of the Glory and Mystery of God was quite inspiring – and convicting.  It also provided a blessed perspective. Andrew and I lingered a little too long and had to huff it back to the Centricity suite to get there in time for the showcase we were playing for.  As media and radio people gathered, I was first in the line up.  Again, it was literally unplugged and I belted out an acoustic version of “More Like Falling In Love” followed by the confessional and humorous (I hope!)“That’s How I Ended Up Here” (a portion of which ended up on the Acoustic Storytime record, but will appear in it’s entirety on the new record.).  Though the latter goes for a few laughs, it’s really a song about self-imposed isolation as we find fault in everyone we meet as a way of keeping everyone at a safe distance: “Building a wall so no one can bother me Living my life in isolation Opening up to only those close to me Nobody’s close to me, what have I done You see I really want to be known But I’m not quite as strong as the fear That you won’t understand The fool that I am And that’s how I ended up here…” I talked briefly about my own isolation and the ways I’ve effectively shut people out of my life, and it became more of an honest moment than I intended.  Next in the line up was High Valley, followed by Matt Papa, Lanae Hale, and then Andrew Peterson.  Andrew shared the story of hearing his father share the gospel for years as the pastor of his church before, as a 12 year old, he unexpectedly walked down the aisle and said the prayer.  He then talked about the intervening years of rebellion and what brought him back.  A quick summary here won’t do it justice, but trust me when I say that it was beautiful and that there wasn’t a dry eye in the house as he sang “The Good Confession.” Poor Jason Germain of Downhere was up next and, undone by Peterson’s song, introduced their first song through tears.  Jason shared his own moving story of all the years and steps in the journey that had brought them to this place, before singing “Here I Am”, just he and Marc Martel on acoustic guitars.  His tears were a moving benediction as they closed the evening. For all the negative things I have said about the state of popular Christian music, I can’t say enough how proud I am of my Centrictiy family and the artists I get to work with.  It was a short and sweet set of music with great heart and depth, and I felt affirmed – even after being reprimanded by the beautiful art I’d taken in earlier at the Frist.

A while back I gave the keynote address at the 2009 induction ceremony of the Houston County (GA) Educators’ Hall of Fame. Here’s part of that speech… I once had an ice cream cone with the school bully—a fifth-grader named Jay. I don’t remember how this came to pass exactly—maybe he and I just happened to be at the ice cream shop at the same time. But I remember that he and I and another boy ate our ice cream cones outside, in the grimy hindparts of a shopping center, among the dumpsters and discarded pallets. And I remember Jay swiping the last crumbs of the cone off his hands, then balling up his hard little fist and punching me right below my left eye. I remember the hot shame that burned on my face as I pelted home as fast as my bike would take me. When my parents asked about the hurt place below my eye, I made something up rather than tell them what really happened. Maybe I wanted to protect them from the knowledge of what a mean world they had brought me into. But I had a very special teacher that fourth-grade year—Mrs. Romero, a beautiful Cuban woman, so kind and generous-hearted that every kid in the class believed himself to be her favorite. In my case, of course, it was true. She was exactly the sort of person you could give your troubles to. I didn’t give my troubles to my teacher, however, and she didn’t give me comfort. She gave me something much more important—something I didn’t even want. Field Day at Miller Elementary fell a week or two after my ice cream outing with Jay. When the fifth-grade sprinters lined up to run the hundred-yard dash, my stomach churned at the sight of Jay taking his place. My loathing was magnified by the knowledge that Jay would probably win. The whistle blew, the boys bolted from the starting line, and my heart sank as Jay pulled into the lead like some sort of flying rooster. Above the shouts and squeals of children came a delicious Cuban trill: “Rrrrun, Jay, rrrrun!” Jay heard Mrs. Romero’s encouragement. The intent look on his face spread into a grin, and he ran faster, beating his nearest competitor by many yards. I glared at Mrs. Romero in hurt astonishment. Did she even know what kind of delinquent she was encouraging? If she had any idea what Jay had done to me, her favorite student, she wouldn’t have been so friendly. It was undignified—it was scandalous—for a grown woman to be yelling like that for a little criminal. But, of course, she knew and understood much more about Jay than I did. She understood that he was still a boy, that his course didn’t have to be set just yet. And she understood how badly a fatherless boy needs for somebody—anybody—to delight in him. The root of the word ‘educate,’ as I’m sure you know, means literally to lead forth or to draw out. Mrs. Romero drew something out of Jay that day. I had never seen what could happen to his face when he believed that somebody felt he was worth something. I had seen smirks and sneers and the occasional wicked grin on Jay’s face. But I had never seen happiness. Mrs. Romero drew something out of me too, though she didn’t know it. Quite by accident—just by doing her job incredibly well—she brought an ugly self-righteousness out into the open where I could get a good look at it. She was an agent of grace that day—for me no less than Jay. She showed me that there is a wideness in God’s mercy that is wider than the sea. I don’t think of Jay very often, but when I do, I try to remember not the beady-eyed sinner behind the ice cream shop, but the Field Day runner taking a boyish joy in the delight of a woman who loved him in spite of all.

In the interest of shameless, low brow self-promotion, I wish to make it known that I had a book come out (“releasing”?, “hitting the shelves”?) this Friday May 8. It is titled, Revenge of the Birds. Revenge of the Birds. Friday May 8. Soon available in the Rabbit Room. Until then, order your copy today in the Eric Peters Store. Thanks, and beware the birds.

I grew up in rural Indiana, in a small town where the only kids around who had long hair usually had reputations as trouble-makers as well.  And there weren’t many of them.  Back in Jr. High I decided I wanted to play electric guitar, and found inspiration from the glam metal bands popular at the time.  I was a big Stryper fan.  Go ahead and take a second to remember those days, if you can.  Ahhhhhhhh. Anyhow, one of the most vivid memories I have of that time in my life was when I decided I wanted to grow my hair out and get an ear ring.  We’re talking 7th grade here, 1987. My mom was always a very level person, and wise but never flashy with her dispensations of it. I remember going into my parents’ bedroom and standing near the vanity as mom got ready for work.  I said, “Mom, I think I’d like to grow my hair out long.”  She asked, “How long?”  I said, “Like the guys in Stryper, maybe.”  (Essentially, I was asking for a six year haircut break. This is a part of how I’m wired.  I don’t mind starting things I know will take years to accomplish.) She thought about it for a while and said, “Well, okay.  But you have to promise me two things.” I was excited, “All right.” “First, you can’t start acting like a punk or a trouble-maker.” She said. “Okay.”  That wouldn’t take a lot of work for a kid like me anyway. “And second, you can’t get upset with people when they look at you and think you must be a punk or a trouble-maker.” If I wanted to look a certain way, I’d have to be willing to extend mercy to people in my hometown who formed impressions of me based on my appearance and I’d have to work to change their minds—and mom was telling me I couldn’t get upset with them in the process because, in many ways, it was a path I was choosing and I needed to understand this. I can’t tell you how much of an impact that had on my sense of what I should demand from people who don’t know me.  It has also had a deep impact on how I approach misunderstandings.  It can be easy to presume misunderstandings originate because the people who aren’t getting what you’re all about are just too dense. I recently came across a blog post from Abraham Piper who said, “When misunderstood, my goal shouldn’t be to prove the misunderstander wrong, but to discover, own, and perhaps clear the confusion I created.” My mom spoke to my young heart that day and used my desire to have long hair as an opportunity to teach me about loving people well.  I have not always taken her wisdom to heart, but neither have I forgotten it. Thanks Mom.