What are you looking for?

With Valentine’s Day upon us, I thought Andy Gullahorn’s song “Give it Time” would be a fitting “Song of the Day.”  This song is wise, and I think rare, because it touches on the wonder and beauty of love that is tended to over time.  Songs about love bowling you over and filling you up in a moment are not to be trusted any more than the man who tells you his box of juicy-juice is as satisfying as a well aged, vintage bottle of wine.  My own comments below are adapted from one of my recent wedding sermons—and I have taken a few cues from Andy. Most roads good friends walk eventually diverge.  It’s not that our friendships are lost.  Usually it’s just that they’re changed by geography or circumstance.  Something. And it’s meant to be. This is even true of the relationships between parents and children.  Eventually, if everything works right, the road a parent and their son or daughter walks will eventually lead them in different directions in life.  This, too, is meant to be. But there is only one human relationship we come know in life that is meant by God to defy this pattern—the marriage relationship.  This one is meant to be intimate in affection, proximity and purpose until death itself separates you.  Though the people in your lives change, in marriage you are given a gift from God of incredible worth—a sworn partner for life.  That’s what we promise at the altar, anyway. When the Puritans used to talk of marriage, they’d say you got married in order to fall in love.  Their thinking went a little like this: how could a man and woman possibly hope to really know the wonder, joy and depth of real love—the kind where you are truly loved and truly known at the same time— without sharing in the waking and the sleeping, in the ordinary and the extraordinary, in the comedy and the tragedy? Without marriage? The truth is the two people standing at the altar or before the justice of the peace don’t really know each other very well yet.  Of course they think they do—and probably know each other better than they know most anyone else.  But still, how well could they really know each other? I had a seminary professor say on the occasion of his 25th anniversary that the things he loved most about his wife were things he didn’t really even know were a part of her when they were first married.  Did you catch that? There was a time I would have rolled my eyes at a statement like this—like during those first years of my own marriage.  But now, almost 14 years in, all I can do is nod in delighted agreement and wonder what the years ahead are going to reveal about the girl I married. We stood at the altar and we recited vows that painted us into a corner.  And before God and witnesses, we declared our intention to live within the boundaries of selfless love.  We swore to things we had never really tested—like how we’d stay together in sickness and in health, in plenty and in want and in joy and in sorrow until one of us dies. Who makes such promises without the anticipation that such polarities will, in fact, come along?   These vows are based in reality. And it looks so different for each couple.  For me, I’m not called simply to be a good and faithful husband.  I’m called to be a good and faithful husband to the particular woman I married.  That looks different for us from the couple across the room. Along the way, we pray we’ll learn to argue well.  God willing, we’ll learn to be wrong and long for humility when we are. We learn to bear with one another and forgive where there is injury.  We discover there are buttons you can push that deliver predictable reactions.   Sometimes we push them.  Sometimes we hurt each other because we’re mad and we mean to.  Most of the time though, we hurt each other because we didn’t know how not to. Understand the reality of marriage; it is two sinners under one roof. We should expect conflict.  And since we can’t avoid it, we should pray for the grace to avoid resentment and to not use offenses against each other, forgiving as those aware of the forgiveness we’ve been shown by our God who loves us as His bride. How can we survive?  How can we heal?  Certainly not by rushing these things.  I pray for time.  And for grace.https://rabbitroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/GiveItTime.mp3

When we come to know the forgiveness of God in Christ and accept His life into our humanity, there’s one thing that doesn’t seem to change right away – we still carry the wrong Tree in our minds, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. We still carry the lie that we are autonomous beings determining our own destiny by our actions, choosing good or evil. The Devil loves the continual promotion of his worn out idea from pub to pulpit.. It doesn’t matter which path we follow in this false idea; like the unbeliever’s path, these two seemingly divergent roads of “good” and “evil” end up in the same place, though for the Christ-indwelt it is not Hell as in the case of the Christ-rejector. In the believer’s case, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is superimposed over our Christ-indwelt, Tree-of-Life life. Like this: James spoke of wavering in faith: “A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways,” and “He that wavers is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.” Jesus, in speaking of the necessity of trusting God, said in Matt 6:22-24, “The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness…No man can serve two masters….” There again is the either/or, the two, the choice between two options. The single eye or double-think. If our spiritual eye is singular, centered upon God and His Word, abiding in Christ, our whole body will be full of light. But if our eye is evil, bad, not centered upon God and His Word but upon the Devil’s way of doing things, our whole body will be full of darkness. We’ll have just enough of Christ and just enough of the world to make us miserable. Whether this means legalistic Churchianity or chicks, booze, and bongs doesn’t really matter too much. They both come to the same end – less effectiveness here, fewer lives changed, fewer of our loved ones saved, and less reward in eternity. Our one shot will be shot. Here’s the thing: Any self-directed activity which is not based on a renewed mind achieves no eternal impact and does not please or honor the Lord Jesus Christ. It sounds unfair to say that a licentious believer and a legalistic believer will meet the same bonfire of the vanities. Isn’t the legalistic one at least trying to be “like Christ”? But that’s how the wrong Tree in our mind deceives us. The double-minded man, having the Tree of Life now within himself but never accessing it, chooses to be his own source, and really, what does he do? He connects back to the satanic mind-stream of Genesis 3 and Isaiah 14 and operates from that false source. “I’m not a vessel or cup, indwelt by Christ and operating by trusting His life in me. Instead, I am an autonomous self, choosing good.” Trying to be “like Christ” in our own effort echoes Satan’s boast of Isaiah 14, “I will be like the Most High.” It attempts to elevate a human being to godlike status, rather than being a vessel designed to be in willing cooperation with an indwelling God. Faith-ing in a lie, he lives the lie. The Me4God@aol.com mindset is not Christ-directed but Satan-driven. The false-tree man does not abide in Christ, and therefore sins; whether by legalism or license matters not. The licentious one simply changes it to, “I am an autonomous self, choosing evil.” Choosing good in this satanic mind-stream results in pride, self-commendation, Satan curing our cold to give us cancer. Choosing evil results in self-condemnation. Jesus becomes mere fire insurance in both cases. We are to take heed to overcome and keep Christ’s works, His life working through us, until the end. Holy Spirit indwelling must be followed by Holy Spirit expression. This theme runs throughout the New Testament and is beyond debate. Those who bear fruit, who overcome and keep Christ’s works to the end, will be given many things: a crown of life; the second death will do them no harm; hidden manna; a dazzling white stone with a new name; authority over the nations; the Morning Star; acknowledgment before the Father and the angelic hosts; we will take our seat beside Christ on His throne. These huge promises are fulfilled to those who overcome. Jesus says to those hard-working people in Matt 7:23, “I never knew you; depart from Me, ye who work iniquity.” These are folks who were without relationship with Christ but with lots of “good” works. As believers we understand God will not recognize works coming from the false god of Ephesians 2:2. What we miss is that God will not recognize any human activity, even the activity of redeemed humanity, which springs from that false source, the wrong Tree, no matter how good it looks. Legalism is just as satanically-driven as license. The only activity the Father will recognize and reward is that which springs from the headship of His Son in our hearts, bursting forth into true expression of God’s abundant life and love. “There is only One who is good – that is God,” says Jesus. That means there’s only one source of goodness in the universe, and it isn’t the human cup. As Jesus said of His humanity, “I can do nothing of Myself.” If we don’t repent of this doublethink we are in for a rude awakening. The Christ-indwelt person is not an autonomous being, and neither is the unbeliever; human beings were never created for self-directed autonomy and are actually incapable of it. But how do we spend our lives in Spirit-expression and not in this false Tree? We’ll begin to take a good look at this in Two, Part III.

Remember the movie “Big Fish” from 2003?  I recall sitting in my living room as the credits rolled, being struck by a thought I had never considered: my mom and dad had lives before I was born that were rich, complex and virtually unknown to me except for some basic details like where they lived, went to school, what they drove, etc. The other day I was asked to be the speaker at a men’s breakfast at our church.  The format was “Ask the Pastor,” so I didn’t prepare anything, but just presented myself for interrogation.  It was fun.  My friend who hosts these events introduced me by way of asking the first question: “When you’re gone from this world, what do you hope people will say about your life?” Much of my professional life right now is devoted to a pretty detailed study of the last week of Jesus’ earthly ministry.  So as soon as he asked, the words of the apostle Paul welled up within me and I replied, “That I was a pastor who knew nothing but Christ and Him crucified.”  Then I thought about it a bit more and said something about my relationship with my wife (which I’ll keep out of cyber space) and added, “That my kids will be able to say, by the grace of God, that they never wondered where they stood with their dad.” Since then, the question has been nagging at me.  I’ve been thinking about “Big Fish” and the more existential questions of what makes a life and how we’re known. The film, if you haven’t seen it, is about a son coming to terms with his father’s final days and the fact that all he feels he ever got from his dad were tall tales, exaggerations and in many cases, out and out lies.  Tim Burton did a masterful job of keeping me in the dark about where all this was headed.  But by the time it ended, I wanted to call my parents and apologize for what–I didn’t really know.  Maybe for not paying closer attention.  Maybe for presuming it was my world and they were only living in it.  Maybe for failing to appreciate that their lives were dense, complex worlds of wonder, passion, faith, fear, hope, resolve and tenacity. When we’re young and thinking about what we want to be when we grow up, most of us think of things like a fireman, or a famous singer.  But then, for example, you go over to Jill Phillips’ blog (she’s a famous singer, right?) and there are pictures of her with her husband and kids, and they’re at the zoo so she can run a 5K (faster than Andy Osenga, though no one’s gloating.)  You’re probably at her blog as a fan.  But she’s more than a famous singer.  She’s also a mom, wife and friend.  She runs.  She writes.  She cooks.  She cleans.  She disciplines her kids.  She serves in her church. I ask you, is there a chance that the best parts of her life that people will remember are going to relate mainly to her music?  What about for her husband Andy?  For her kids?  For her closest friends? Then I see Andrew Peterson’s boys in Ecuador meeting the Compassion Kid they sponsor.  Or I hear Pete tell the story about trying to tow his motorcycle from Florida to Nashville while in the middle of relocating his entire world.  Or I hear stories about friends standing in the smoldering ruins of each other’s lives as they sift through the rubble to see what might be salvaged.  And I think about that question my friend asked and wonder, how will the true answers to that question materialize? I believe the answers won’t come down to just one or two things.  I am not living a life populated by only one or two things.  It’s a full plate.  There’s the work, the family, the marriage, the hobbies, the failures, the epiphanies, the transitions, the fears, the hurts, the quirks, the lies, the baggage, the resolutions, the faith, the prayers, the needing and the giving.  And the sanctification.  Thank God for the sanctification! And they’re all happening in real space and real time this very moment. I used to lead a college Bible Study, and I cannot tell you how many students (mostly guys–so if this is you, listen up and repent) who were spending their parents’ money for college courses, skipping class and homework only to withdraw before their GPA took a hit, though still forfeiting their parent’s money and a semester’s worth of progress. I’d get on these guys about this, not so much because of the money, but because of the fact that they had wasted a year of their lives that they couldn’t get back.  It was gone.  Poof.  And they had nothing to show for it.  And they were no closer to graduating.  I’d tell them if they were going to live to be 70, now it might as well be 69– and the year they lost was during their physical prime too. Tragic. I mean, come on!  If you’re not going to pay attention to your own life, why would anyone else? Our lives are happening now, and they only happen once.  This is it. These are the days when the stories people will tell about me after I’m gone are being lived out.  And they stack, one upon another, to tell a bigger story in relief–one that will take many voice to tell well and true.  Some will tell more about what I withheld, others about what I gave. I suspect we’re fools if we think there will be one moment that will define our lives.  Or one success.  Or even one failure.  I guess it is possible to have defining moments, but even still it will be the rest of our lives that will provide the context for understanding. After I’m gone, I don’t know what people will have to say about me.  Will they say, “He died too young?” or “Man, I thought he’d never get his ticket punched.”  God only knows.  And He does know.  And that is unspeakably comforting to me. Here’s what I know.  I’m working on the answer right now.  My kids will have a say.  So will my wife.  And my friends.  And the congregation I serve.  And countless others– maybe even grandkids one day.  If they’re paying attention, am I giving them more than just my stories?  Am I shooting straight? The final scenes of Big Fish tore a hole in my heart.  As a great cloud of witnesses emerges literally out of the woodwork, the truth is told.  Maybe the thing about my friends’ question that still nags at me is that regardless of what I hope people say of me after I’m gone, they will say something, regardless.  God be merciful.

In one of the early scenes of The Wrestler, Randy “The Ram” Robinson (Mickey Rourke) shows off his scars as Cassidy the stripper (Marisa Tomei) responds with sympathy by whispering, “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities, the punishment that brings us peace is upon him and by his wounds we are healed.” “What’s that all about?” says Randy. “Huh.  Tough dude.” If it wasn’t clear before this scene, it’s in that moment made plain that this is a movie about much more than simply the comeback of an aging wrestler.  Like director Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream, it’s a hard film to watch.  It’s about guilt and self-destruction and the often horrible emptiness of being human. Rourke’s character is a man that’s hard to look at but equally difficult to look away from.  He’s scarred and bruised and wrecked by a lifetime of pro wrestling.  Drink, drugs, and steroids have all taken their toll and now he’s a failure, living in a trailer, unable to pay the rent, unable to maintain relationships, and looking to salve his loneliness down at the strip club.  Yet he’s a legendary wrestler with his own video game and action figures, and he’s humble, likable, and so often noble and gracious that I found myself desperately wanting him to succeed. It’s this spark of genuine goodness in the character that makes it so difficult to watch when Aronofsky shows us his wounds.  He cuts himself in the ring, he lets another wrestler use a staple gun on him and tear him with barbed wire and through it all the “Ram” comes up smiling as if with each cut and each drop of blood he can somehow atone for his disastrous life outside the ring. In the ring he’s Randy the Ram but outside it he’s reduced to grocery store clerk, Robin Ramzinsky—his real name.  His life is a constant struggle to bring those two aspects of himself together or to keep them apart and his belief that wrestling defines him is the central lie of his life even though he can’t see it.  When he makes mistakes and things begin to fall apart, his answer is to retreat to the ring to hurt himself and those around him until in the end he believes that the only place he can find salvation is in his own pain and destruction. It’s heartbreaking to watch him fall, both in the ring and out, but it’s even more painful to see him get back up because he’s the saboteur of his own life and we know it.  As he climbs into the ring for the big match at the end of the film I wanted to plead with him to stop, to make him understand that he doesn’t have to do it anymore.  He doesn’t realize that no matter how much he bleeds it will never be enough.  He doesn’t know that someone else has already been cut and pierced and bled and suffered so that he can live in peace.  The Gospel of “The Lamb” is that Randy is an illusion and Robin Ramzinsky never needs to go back into the ring again. The ultimate tragedy of the film is that Randy the Ram wants his sacrificial rite to be seen as an act of courage when the reality is that he’s running from his life rather than owning it.  He’s giving in to the clamor of the crowd because he’s not strong enough to let himself or anyone else try to forgive him. Aronofsky has crafted a brilliant work in The Wrestler.  It’s a moving and authentic look at the things we do to ourselves and to those around us when we can’t reconcile who we are with who we want to be.   When the theater lights come up, we are, each one of us, like Jacob, and even Randy the Ram, wrestlers of conscience and identity. I recommend this film with the greatest praise but I also have to caution you that it is certainly not for everyone.  Not only is there a lot of disturbing bloodshed in the ring, but Marsia Tomei’s stripper is portrayed very frankly.  There is a lot of nudity and while it’s every bit as important to the film as Rourke’s exploitation in the ring, it is definitely going to be distracting to some viewers. If you can handle it, don’t miss it.  It’s a film for the ages.

The concept of two runs throughout Scripture. The storyline of Genesis 2 speaks of two trees in Eden: the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Jesus speaks of two “ways”; the narrow way leading to life, and the broad way to destruction. Paul speaks of two vessels: mercy and wrath. There are two spirits – the Spirit of Truth and the spirit of error, and two “gods” – the one true God, and the false god: He that is in you (Christ) and he that is in the world (the god of this age). There are also the two soils of Matthew 13. “But wait,” you say, “Aren’t there four soils?” Well, yes, but they are really two sets of people – those in whom the seed takes root and those in whom it doesn’t. There are many more sets of two in Scripture but now of all things because of Russ I’ve got to think of brevity. God said to Adam in Gen 2:17 “…but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.” ” I looked up the Hebrew phrase “you will surely die.” What it actually says is “dying, you shall die.” That’s one more “two.” Death, and then death. Two deaths – a first dying, and then a second dying. Revelation 20:12-15 speaks of this second death: “And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire” (Emphasis mine). According to their works. The second death comes from being judged according to our works, and then our name not being found written in the book of Life. “Sorry, Perfection is required. Are you in Christ?” Eden’s death-death tree can be charted like this: This is the unbeliever’s choice between good and evil on this temporary plane. Worldly success or sensual sin. His identity as a person comes from what he does or doesn’t do; it is based in his performance. Thus we have people who get their identity from being “good” (“I am successful” or “I do a lot of community service”) or “bad” (“I’m a Hell’s Angel” “I am an alcoholic”). The unbeliever has no other options until his mind is illuminated by God choosing to bring the man’s will to its knees. The lie of “human potential” on this chart is obvious. The potential only goes so far, which is not nearly far enough. This is “the spirit of error,” the mindset that drives the “vessels of wrath.” It is a performance-based, avoid-pain-and-find-pleasure mindset. Whether that means indulging forbidden sensual pleasures or the intellectual and spiritual pleasures of “being above the sensual rabble” is of little consequence in the end, though of course societally it makes a big difference. But Pharisees and philanderers alike will face the second death. Those on the left of the chart are actually in more danger, because worldly success and “goodness” of any kind can blind us to our need for redemption. Those on the right of the chart are often aware their lives are not working out; that’s why Jesus hung out with “such awful people.” The unbeliever can opt out of this system: Jesus said in John 3:3, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” If we have been doomed to die twice in Adam, we must be born again in Christ to die only once, to escape the second death. This satanic system, this kingdom of death-death, is shown in the first two soils of Matthew 13:18-21 – those from whom the Word is stolen, and those who don’ t go deep enough to have the Word really take root. These first two soils are unbelievers; the next two are believers. We’ll dig into how this satanic mindset infects the thought life of the believer and the third soil of Matthew 13 in Part II.

Browsing the shelves of wicked-cool used bookstore here in Nashville, McKay Books, I happened upon Kathleen Norris’s (The Cloister Walk, Dakota, Amazing Grace) latest, Acedia & Me. Though I had no idea she had a new book out, the cheap sticker price for a primo first edition (Note: you will recall from a previous post that I have a more than slight affinity for used bookstores and, especially, first editions) was an easy decision. The title itself was mildly intriguing since I was vaguely familiar with the word, “acedia”, but of which I knew very little. The subtitle, “A Marriage, Monks, and A Writer’s Life”, though hardly an enticing, round-em-up, gather-em-in slogan, is true to Ms. Norris’ midwestern style, neither flamboyant nor melodramatic. The tedium of daily routine, whether you are a writer, an athlete or a garbage collector, can grate on the westernized image of living life to the full, souring the tinseled concept in such a way that daily repetition of just about anything breeds in us contempt. After all, repetition is not very glamorous. We get bored and despair in the seemingly mundane task of being, wondering Why even bother?, seeking salvation from unromantic drudgery at those times when we see our lives as being anything but full and robust. Surely Jesus meant the “abundant” life to be more than this?, we think. As Norris points out through her experiences as a writer, Benedictine oblate, a wife and caretaker of her dying husband, it is that same daily repetition – the redundant, monotonous splendor – which holds the seeds of that very salvation. Learning the true name of the enemy gives us greater advantage, even granting a degree of freedom. I, admittedly, am an undisciplined writer, writing whenever I feel like it, when inspiration strikes, or when the trees and skies themselves take to writing me their own message. In other words, I enable the acedia in me, by failing to embrace repetition – that “monotonous splendor” – and the creative discipline. Languishing with nothing to say, I lay the guitar aside for months at a time wanting nothing to do with its steel and wood language, because more often than not that language is as foreign to me as a lust for life itself. I lay aside pen and paper for a writer’s millenium, choosing instead to blame it on those familiar culprits, writer’s block or depression. As Ms. Norris states, like marriage and faith, writing is a mystery. The “person” you’re committed to spending life with is known, yet unknown. It is strange when, after years of being together,  the one you thought you knew all too well seems a sudden and complete stranger. I am compelled “to either recommit to the relationship or get the hell out.” In my own torpor and despair, I seek to avoid both blunt writing instruments because, in a very real sense, it is my way of avoiding the physically manifest representations of spiritual mistrust, doubt and my failure to ultimately believe that the things God once declared about me as being good, actually and truly still are. Acedia, as the author observes, “always takes the path of least resistance and attempts to go around, rather than through, the demands that life makes of us.” Throughout the book Norris continually draws from the early monastics as well as a slew of modern writers, both religious and secular. She often quotes fourth century monk and writer, Evagrius Ponticus, who states that “endurance cures listlessness, and so does everything done with much care and fear of God.” I can only hope Acedia & Me will serve and inform you, fellow hopeful despairer, in your own wobbling journey as it has given identity to that which has hounded me, personally, for many years. A Name is more than just a name.

Tuesdays are for music, and this week, it’s David Wilcox. David has long been one of singer/songwriter-dom’s luminaries, one of those guys who generates anecdotes as often as songs.  There’s the one about how someone looked down an alleyway in Nashville and saw him playing a song for someone. Or the one about how he and Allen Levi played a show where each answered the other guy’s song with a song until a story had been told. Or the time he met James Taylor and James was the nervous one. David was a special guest at the Behold the Lamb of God Christmas concert at the Ryman Auditorium in 2007, and one of my proudest moments was sitting beside him on the stage and hearing him enjoy, one after another, the music of my dear friends. He said, “Ahh” and “Mmm” in all the right places. It was a delight. The other night he spoke in Franklin about songwriting for a few hours.  He fanned the flame of my love for stories and music and the way they come together in songs–not because of some clever line or hook, but because songs have the power to connect one heart to another. They even have the power to connect one heart to Another. He said that when he sings a song for an audience, it’s like there are these wheat fields before him that need water. Behind him is an enormous reservoir. Playing a song that is True is like opening the tap and allowing some of that water to spill out. A beautiful picture, and the reason playing concerts and writing books thrills me so. That picture is what my song “Let There Be Light” is all about: using our gifts to speak light into the darkness, love into the loneliness, music into the clamor. There are a lot of songs–a lot of songs–that I could choose, so I decided on the title track to the first Wilcox album I ever bought, with one of the best first lines I’ve ever heard.  It’s called “Underneath,” and features Alison Krauss and Union Station.  Here’s the iTunes link. Underneath I know that compassion is all out of fashion, and anger is all the rage… Grow up and give in to that cynical spin that you see on most every page We all know what’s wrong with the system how the people are puppets and fools. If they’re not strong, it will trick them, they’ll get used up like factory tools: The kids just give up in those schools… …yeah, but what is it, really, that’s keeping me from living a life that’s true? When the worries speak louder than wisdom, it drowns out all the answers I knew, so I’m tossed on the waves on the surface. Still, the mystery’s dark and deep, with a much more frightening stillness… underneath Hopelessness always comes easy. But “easy” does not make it right. Courage can look past that surface, but fear will still put up a fight. When I get scared and scattered, and I don’t know where to begin, why even care; it doesn’t matter. Why fight when you know you can’t win? It’s easier just to give in.

It seems as if indie movies were made for me. I’m wired for variety. In food, friends, experiences, books, and movies, I’m drawn to diversity. Independent film is the grab bag of moviemaking, the potpourri of cinema. (Cue the movie voice-over guy.) It’s a world in which cliche is forbidden, easy answers are rare, and truth is more credible. So as I sat down to list some of my favorite movies from 2008, it’s not surprising that most came out of the indie universe. Consider this post a mini brochure on the value of indie film, more so than a retrospective of 2008 in general. I’ve provided links for the trailers, so you can take two minutes to view a taste of those that hold some appeal. I know some of you share my passion for indie film. But for those that may not, I hope you will consider taking a dive into the agreeable waters of this underappreciated body of work. There are a few mainstream movie references at the end of this piece and no doubt, there will be further discussion of great blockbuster films from 2008 as Oscar time nears. Meanwhile, please consider these words as an attempt to recruit you to the universe of independent film. Like indie music, the search is more difficult, but the find often gratifying as discovering a long sought collectable. Momma’s Man – It’s about a grown man who has lost his way. When he visits his  parents in their artsy, have-to-see-to-believed loft, he insidiously decides to stay, first for a day, then much longer. As such, he’s left behind his increasingly leery wife and family in L.A. Days pass as Mikey (Matt Boren) loafs: playing guitar, scouring journals, memorabilia, and kid trinkets, tentatively visiting old friends. He squirms his way around his parents gentle questions. It becomes increasingly obvious that he’s lying. The script doesn’t provide standard paint-by-number movie clues, so we spend the entire film guessing. What’s wrong? Why? His journey is sadly compelling. There’s a scene with one of his parents that will inspire either laughter or empathy. I know, because I shed a tear, while another audience member laughed out loud. There are some lighter moments—which provide a reprieve from the vortex of pathos—but this particular scene wasn’t one of them. This is a quiet movie, though it resonates loudly. And though we never learn the specific source of Mikey’s palpable pain, we feel it just the same. The final scene is luminous, one of the biggest, “Whoa” moments I had in a theatre in 2008. Chop Shop – Like Momma’s Man, as an indie release, it fell below the mainstream radar. It features Alejandro, a tough street orphan, who lives and works in an auto-body repair shop on the outskirts of Queens, New York. He’s homeless, but has carved a meager “living” for himself and his sister in the shadow of Shea Stadium, which hovers high above the neighborhood as a representation of the American dream. In the confusing and complex world of adults, young Alejandro struggles to make a better life for himself and his sister, Isamar. We are surprised at the extent to which he succeeds and the glimpses of good we witness along the way. When Did You Last See Your Father? – It stars Colin Firth and Jim Broadbent, as father and son, both dependable acting pros. The film makes no attempt to disguise the father’s imminent death; so drama comes not from that, but from the evolution of the doleful father/son relationship—shown in flashbacks—and what either character may, or may not, do about it. In short, the father is an ass. But he’s an ass which casual observers may find half charming; he’s full of bluster, bluff, and perpetually inappropriate cheer. Those who know him best see right through him. He’s the life of the party, but no party to the life of those who share his home. He’s a liar and a cheat, but superbly gifted in camouflaging those things. The relevant question of the film becomes not, when did you last see your father, but when did you last really see your father?” Encounters at the End of the World – Werner Herzog is a grippingly quirky filmmaker who often profiles heroes with wide-eyed dreams or idiosyncratic ideas. You may know of his documentary Grizzly Man, which tells the story of a man who mistakenly thought he could live with bears and avoid being eaten. You get the idea. In Encounters at the End of the World, Herzog travels to the Antarctic community of McMurdo Station on Ross Island, the headquarters for the U.S. National Science Foundation and home to eleven hundred people during the austral summer. It’s a gathering place for people who want to step off the map and where everyone seems to be full-time travelers and part-time workers–people with an adventuresome spirit and an open mind. The beauty depicted is stunning, above and below the water. Under the ice, it’s literally another world, sometimes evoking what we might expect to see somewhere in outer space. Herzog’s soundtrack is marvelous. Gregorian chants and opera are tailor-made for such ravishing beauty. Unhappily, Herzog’s film takes an unfortunate turn when it begins to subtly promote global warming nonsense and the melting of the planet. Thankfully, because the political angle is advanced quietly, one can observe and enjoy the beauty of the film and simply ignore the cartoonish pink elephant hidden in the shadows. Son of Rambow – It’s a sweet, funny, and somewhat poignant British film, about friendship. Even as an indie film, it’s a little bit quirky, but that’s one of the reasons I enjoyed it. That my son took me as a Father’s Day present made it even better. The Visitor – Richard Jenkins character says, “I haven’t done any real work in a very long time. I pretend–pretend that I’m busy so that I’m working. I’m not doing anything.” And indeed he’s not. He’s stuck, a later in life version of Mikey in Momma’s Man. He’s fallen into a state of apathy after the death of his wife. The four major characters in this film are captivating and interact with delicate chemistry. While The Visitor is a dialogue driven film, the music and editing carry it during the times that characters fall silent. As we listen between the lines and spaces in this deliberately paced film, we can hear Walter Vale’s heart breaking and yearning. Jenkins, in a role that earned him an Academy Award nomination, makes a rare visit to a New York apartment he keeps, only to find it inhabited by a young couple. That’s the beginning of the film which shares the journey of a man who discovers meaning in a moving alliance of music and relationships. Happy Go Lucky – I nearly skipped this one, but I’m glad I didn’t. It’s a joyful character study on one of the most likable movie characters of the year. For many of us, perpetually happy people are suspect. But not Poppy, the character played fetchingly by Sally Hawkins in Happy Go Lucky. In this film it becomes incrementally clear that Poppy’s unremitting good cheer is not a result of dementia, mental illness, or a Tony Robbins seminar; it’s who she is. And as we watch her interface with those she meets, we observe a depth of kindness, charm, and good humor which leads us to quickly fall in love with her. The inevitable dramatic tension comes from her driving instructor Scott, played by British comedian Eddie Marsan. The driving scenes provide laughter, and later the aforementioned tension. Scott is tightly wound, controlling, and later downright mean. As is par for the indie course, don’t expect a tidy summary. Thankfully, movies like this don’t tell us what to think; they inspire us to think. In America (a 2003 release) – I rented this one as the result of a Rabbit Room recommendation. It’s obscure, but worth seeking out. It’s about an Irish family coming to America and the struggles they face (in NY City). Full of hope and inspiring love. I also enjoyed these more mainstream releases: Martian Child – Better than I expected. John Cusack rarely disappoints. His real life sister Joan Cusack plays his on-screen sister. Wall-E – The statement about mankind’s extinction–the animated version of Werner Herzog’s similar statement in Encounters at the End of the World–is advanced quietly and poetically. It’s also a charmingly sweet love story, which hearkens back to the purity of love found in some silent movies, where purity and congruency of emotion was necessary because of the lack of dialogue. Iron Man and The Dark Knight – Fun. That’s all. The Secret Life of Bees – Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. Besides Dakota Fanning, the movie is pretty good too, despite it’s reliance on overworked filmmaking conventions. For the record, I enjoyed The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Slumdog Millionaire, but not near as much as the Academy (apparently). Possible reviews to come … Doubt, Revolutionary Road, Man on Wire, and Wrestler, some of my favorite recent viewings. As usual, the most fun—at least for me—comes from our discussions. Agree or disagree, please weigh in. I saw a lot of films as the result of Rabbit Room recommendations in 2008. As I would have guessed, you have good eyes and ears. Thanks for sharing your good taste with me. Please don’t hold back your comments and recommendations for 2008.

On Wednesday I had the opportunity to hear Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian in New York City, speak to a packed house here in Nashville about his new book, The Prodigal God. After giving an outline of the book, he spent the rest of his time showing how his thesis applied to community. After exhorting us towards honest community and away from comfortable religion – “Religiosity presents no opportunity for people to be sinners,” he read us from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together – he said, “Most people haven’t been affirmed enough to be good repenters.” Put another way, all too often cries of judgement drown out the whispers of grace, and we respond by hiding our failures and forsaking the commandment to confess our sins to one another, an unavoidable facet of true community. When talking about the garden of Eden, Keller said, “Nakedness is a term used in the Bible about a lack of ease we have with ourselves.” There was one statement in particular Keller made that has stuck with me. In one of Frederick Buechner’s books, Buechner writes about a sermon that he “will always remember though I cannot be sure that is exactly the sermon he preached because of course it is the sermons we preach to ourselves around the preacher’s sermons that are the ones that we hear most powerfully.” The sermon that I was “preaching to myself” in between the lines of Keller’s sermon included a quote from Larry Crabb that a friend of mine, Tom Darnell, shared in a couple of sermons he preached last year: “The greatest lie believed today is that one can know God without being known by someone else.” Connecting the sermon I was “preaching to myself” with Keller’s sermon was a passage he read us from C.S. Lewis’ The Four Loves where Lewis explains why two is not the best number for friendship, because, “In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets.”  Keller then said, “If it takes a community to really know a human being, how much more does it take a community to know God?” It seems everywhere I look these days I’m reminded of the soul-searing danger of avoiding community and my absolute helplessness on my own.

Rolland Hein wrote: Myths are, first of all, stories: stories which confront us with something transcendent and eternal (Christian Mythmakers, p. 3). The fundamental assumption of the fairy tale philosopher is that there is more to this world than what the five physical senses can perceive.  Ask us for scientific evidence of this, and we can’t and won’t provide it.  We’ll only tell you that we reject the assumption that the scientific method can accomplish the task of knowing all things. Many Christian apologists point to the many things science can’t explain – including the origin of anything to begin with – to point to the need for an “unmoved mover,” or a “first cause.” The scientific fatalist rejects this “god of the gaps” method of explaining the unknown mysteries of the world. They claim that all religion does is to fill in the stuff science hasn’t figured out – but will! – with “God.” When science figures it out, we’ll be able to remove “god” from that realm, too. The fairy tale philosopher embraces neither, believing that in all things (not just in the gaps) there is mystery and wonder – that even the stuff the scientists have figured out and described with a scientific law of some kind has a greater meaning and existence than the law describes. We do not reject science; we reject science-alone. We are not anti-science, we are more-than-science. That is why the story is necessary – imaginative stories, like myth, and our own stories of when we knew heaven and earth were close, and we were lucky enough to be nearby when it happened. This is why the faith needs to be explained and defended as much in terms of mythic thinking as evidential defense. I remember sitting with a young Muslim college student; I was speaking at an InterVarsity retreat weekend. After some conversation, the young man, who was under great threat from family members never to convert from Islam to Christ, told me that he just needed some proof, some evidence. I launched into a defense of the historical reliability of the biblical text. His eyes glazed over. He told me that was not the kind of evidence he was looking for. I had no idea what to do in response. I prayed, of course. The next day, as everyone was piling into vans and getting ready for the drive home, I approached him one more time, this time equipped not with rationalistic evidence, but a story of mythic proportions: I know that what you’re going through is tough, and you’ve said that you’re looking for God, and just need to be sure that the Christian God is really God. I want to tell you something my dad said at his baptism. He said, “I spent years and years looking for God.” [He had. He had read the texts of many different religions.] “But when it came right down to it, God found me.” That’s a mythic story. No scientific evidence or rationalistic argument. Just a God who actively searches. The young man said, “Thank you. Thank you so much for telling me that. That’s exactly what I needed to hear.” He needed a mythic story of a God who would come and find him. We all need mythic stories, because we are more than what our five physical senses can perceive.

Pierce Pettis’s new album officially releases today. He’s been selling it at his concerts for the last few months, so many of us can attest to its grooviness. As on every Pettis album that I’m aware of, he opens with a cover of a Mark Heard song. That, friends, is not just extremely humble, it is the finest way I can imagine for one songwriter to honor another. I’ve listened to the album enough to know Pierce has once again delivered excellence, but I haven’t had the time to dig in just yet.  The title track alone is worth the price of admission, though.  At the Ryman Christmas concert last year, Pierce played “That Kind of Love” and leveled us all.  I had a live recording of it from the show, but my computer died last year and I’m just now realizing that’s one of the things that was lost.  Instead, please enjoy the album version, then go buy it, either at his website or on iTunes. (Note from the Proprietor: As of 1:27 am on Tuesday morning, the song samples on iTunes strangely aren’t Pierce Pettis songs.  Not sure what to make of that.) This is the title track: That Kind of Love (Pierce Pettis) Slapfight Songs (ASCAP), admin. by Bug Music Can’t be bought or sold or faked That kind of love Always gives itself away That kind of love Wiser than the wisest sage It’s innocence makes me ashamed Til I’m not sure I can take That kind of love Pride and hatred cannot stand That kind of love Greater love hath no man Than that kind of love Won’t be kept unto itself Spreads it’s charm, casts it’s spell No one’s safe this side of hell From that kind of love Love rejected and ignored Held in chains, behind closed doors Stuff of legend and of songs Deep down everybody longs (for) That kind of love . . . oh, that kind of love Some people never know That kind of love Though it only takes a child to show That kind of love Widows smile and strong men weep Little ones play at it’s feet Deaf can hear and blind can see That kind of love Love triumphant, love on fire Love that humbles and inspires Love that does not hesitate No conditions, no restraints That kind of love . . . oh, that kind of love How could anyone deny That kind of love Every heart is measured by That kind of love Even stars fall from the sky Everything will fall in time Except those things that cannot die That kind of love Oh, may you be remembered by That kind of love Also, Paste Magazine is streaming the entire record on its website, which is pretty cool.

Two years ago I had a chance to sit under the instruction of one of my favorite fictional authors, Orson Scott Card. Well, he isn’t fictional, his books are. Except the non-fiction ones –which is pretty self-explanatory. (Now exiting the vehicle is My Brevity -wave to the camera.) OSC is the author of Ender’s Game, an outstanding book in the speculative fiction genre. While his religious views are far from orthodox (he is a Mormon) his angle on the art of writing is compelling. Among the myriad of helpful impartations about the craft of writing he shared, I’d like to share one which challenged my thinking about the author and his work. OK, here I go…sharing. Card made the case that the writer should be invisible. He explained that when we are reading a story the last thing we want is to be distracted by superfluous prose, or convoluted description. If you have read Ender’s Game you’ll notice that very few scenes are described in detail, but a significant depth of penetration in the mind of the point-of-view character, along with dialogue and action, carries the story. He wants the plot, the story itself, to be the focus of the reader -without the reader stopping every few sentences to utter breathless praise for the style and prowess of the writer. The story is the thing. He spoke about how many authors write scenes cinematically. That is, they see the scene like a movie, and then describe the scene from the outside, trying to help the reader see what the author sees. In contrast, Card’s view is that the novelist has a few advantages over the filmmaker and one of them is the chance to go into a character’s mind, in deep penetration, and let us see the story from the inside. Movies don’t often do that very well. Consequently many modern authors, raised on cinema, try to duplicate that cinematic feel, nullifying one of the few advantages of a novelist. I, for one, tire quickly of extravagant language in a novel. I want to be given enough to stir my imagination, but not overrun it. Let me participate as a reader, I want my mind to fill in the images based on clues, not be busy trying to get the details of the author’s endless description just right. I balance this thinking (of the invisible author) against my experience of books where the writer is very much apparent, and almost a character in the story. One example is the great P.G. Wodehouse, creator of guffaw-inducing yarns about the declining British aristocracy (with his Bertie Wooster and Jeeves characters) and the golden age of Hollywood. Brilliant stuff. In those stories, Wodehouse’s voice and descriptive genius are probably the principle draw of the books. The plot is interesting, but mostly as an avenue for comedy. The stories become a way for Wodehouse to express his irrepressible humor. But they are not great stories -at least not as stories alone. So, I’m not sure what the conclusion of the matter is. I have a working hypothesis that when the story is the thing, the writer’s gifts are used best when he is more or less invisible and the story isn’t interrupted by frequent, insistent demonstrations of his great use of language that ultimately is distracting. However, in comedic stories, the writer has more opportunity to “show himself,” especially since it’s not just about the plot, but about a comedic flow. After all, we mostly notice authors when something is written poorly, it stands out when standing out is not desired. It distracts. So I call this the Invisible Hand Dilemma. How much do we want to be aware of the author’s presence – and I mean actively? The author is always there, of course, but how visible is his hand? Some authors in some books seem to straddle the line amazingly well. One is a book none of you have ever heard of called On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness, by the popular, European, petty-coat and scarf tycoon Andrew Peterson. When I began the book, I thought it was very funny, but was pretty convinced that it would have no room for gravity, or a compelling story. I was wrong. Andrew’s voice was there all along, with his signature humor aplenty, but somehow I still managed to get lost in the story. As for the Invisible Hand Dilemma, I don’t know the answer. I am a very inexperienced writer and my own first novel is certain to fail most tests of excellence, even my own. So I write this partly to steal advice from wiser writers -and readers. Help me out. It seems like the tastes for books from the Rabbit Room crowd is more toward literary fiction than my own tastes are inclined. Maybe that signals a lack of refinement on my part (I actually did grow up in a “holler” in West Virginia). More likely it’s just that these people are a bunch of snobs. They wouldn’t know a good book if’n a polecat come up and bit ’em on their high horses. Snobs or not, any thoughts are welcome. Help me out here.

Today I bought my first Beach Boys album: Pet Sounds. For the past year or so, Ben Shive and I have been having an ongoing conversation about the virtues of the seminal 80’s new wave band The Talking Heads (and have been threatening to make time to watch their classic concert film together, “Stop Making Sense,” but to no avail – yet).  During one of our conversations where we were comparing notes on artists and bands that have meant something to us, he extolled the virtues of The Beach Boys and even made me a sampler to help whet my appetite (which I misplaced hours after he gave it to me…) But I was starting to suspect that there was more to this supergroup than I was accounting for and that I should give them another chance. So when they came across my radar the other night when I happened to catch their song “God Only Knows” playing over the opening credits to HBO’s “Big Love” – a series about polygamy – it caught my attention and with one song I became a fan. I downloaded Pet Sounds from iTunes that very moment.  I laugh at what an unlikely catalyst (a tv show about polygamy that was playing in the background!) finally pushed me into the Beach Boys camp, but sometimes you just have to the moment, however it presents itself, lead you.  And so here I am, late to the party, but finding myself a beach boys fan at last.  On my flight today, I’ve already listened to the album all the way through 4 times, and so here I am writing about it. I’m no expert on the subject, so rather than me try to get up to speed, I thought I’d invite you to eavesdrop on a conversation I’ll have with Ben about why this music represents so much more than just a day at the beach. JG:  Why did you think I would and should enjoy the beach boys? BS: First of all, thanks for doing this. I’ve been working on an essay called “How to Smile; the fine art of loving Brian Wilson” for some time now, but it’s been difficult to finish, so this seems like a less daunting opportunity for me to vent about my love for the Beach Boys. Second, I want to make a distinction between Pet Sounds and the Beach Boys. Pet Sounds is a Beach Boys record, but barely. It’s really Brian Wilson’s record. It marks the moment when Brian broke from the stifling “cars, girls, and surfing” gimmick that the band was notorious for and set out to make a great record. The CD I gave you (thanks for losing that, by the way) had highlights from Pet Sounds as well as some gems from the original 1967 Smile sessions. So, though I hope you like the Beach Boys’ earlier recordings (“Don’t Worry Baby” is one of my favorite songs ever), it’s Pet Sounds that I was hoping you’d really dig in to. That said, I actually wasn’t sure that you’d like Pet Sounds. It’s an odd record and can be pretty tough to get a handle on. I think of you as an avid listener, though, so I knew your curiosity would eventually lead you there and I wanted the credit for turning you on to it. Then you’d owe me. That’s how I operate. JG:  I love how you used my love of music for your own gain.  But before we talk about what I owe you (and I do owe you), let me just say that this little interview doesn’t let you off the hook for writing “How To Smile.”  I can’t wait to read that and hope you’ll finish it.  But on to the next question: I’ve always loved the Beatles – their sense of melody and chord structure that always sounds surprising and yet inevitable – and I’ve also loved most music that was influenced by the Beatles as well as most Brit-rock/pop in general.  But upon listening to Pet Sounds, which I remember being referred to as America’s Beatles, I was surprised to hear that much of the music I love right now, including Brit-pop like Keane and even neo-folkies like Sufjan Stevens (who has hinted that his next album may be about the beach boy’s own California), seems to my ear to have more in common with the Beach Boys’ melodic and musical sensibilities perhaps than they do with the Beatles. The Beatles have left a big musical footprint.  What do you think the Beach Boys’ legacy is and what kind of influence have they had on popular music in general and your own music in particular. BS: Well, I think Brian Wilson’s melodies are pretty well unmatched in pop music. They have this breathtaking, transcendent quality and they effortlessly pull these mind-blowing chord progressions around with them. For example, “Wonderful,” one of the songs from Smile (I’ll say more about Smile in a minute), changes keys THREE TIMES over the course of its eight bar form. But you don’t even notice the modulations because the melody moves so gracefully through them. And “God Only Knows,” which you mentioned earlier, has these moments of counterpoint (multiple melodies happening at the same time) that are just euphoric. So I think a great melody writer–like a Rufus Wainwright, or an Elliot Smith–simply has to stand in awe of Brian Wilson. As for influencing my music, I think you can hear the blatant Beach Boys reference on “Do You Remember.” “Nothing For The Ache” is probably the closest thing to a Pet Sounds song on the album. But I actually didn’t REALLY get into Pet Sounds or Smile until after I had finished writing for The Ill-Tempered Klavier. Since then I’ve been kind of obsessed and have learned a handful of Brian’s more serious songs on the piano. I wish I could convey to you the amazement I felt as I figured out those chord progressions and learned to sing the melodies. Cason Cooley (producer for Derek Webb, Jill Phillips, etc.) walked by me when I was learning “Surf’s Up” (a particularly complex Smile song) and he saw me throw my hands up involuntarily when I figured out this one really amazing bit of the chord progression. So the songs I’m writing now are definitely reaching for the kind of inventiveness I find in Brian’s melodies. JG: I was mostly only exposed to the seemingly trivial songs of teenage love and frivolity by the Beach Boys, but as I listen to them now–though those elements are still present–I also hear a melancholy and depth that I didn’t notice before.  I also hear a self-awareness as well as a firm grasp on the human condition in these songs all deceptively couched in these gorgeous and bright melodies.  What in your mind is the strength of Brian Wilson’s lyric writing? BS: Well, Brian wasn’t really confident as a lyricist on his own. He collaborated with a jingle writer named Tony Asher to write Pet Sounds. But his soul really shines through the songs. Pet Sounds captures this youthful idealism that Brian felt, and there could hardly be a better voice to convey that kind of emotion. “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” “God Only Knows,” “Don’t Talk,” and “I’m Waiting For The Day” all portray the purity and optimism of young love, while “Caroline No” laments the loss of those same qualities. “I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times” (my second favorite song on the record), and “I Know There’s An Answer,” seem to be about Brian’s frustration with all the negative and cynical people surrounding him, presumably his father and his own bandmates. People often use the word “spiritual” when they talk about Wilson’s writing. He certainly thought of it that way. He called Smile a “teenage symphony to God,” and hoped that people would someday pray to his songs. And I think Brian may have been very “spiritual,” but in an eastern sense of the word, having more to do with personal enlightenment and much less to do with peace with God by grace through faith. So as a Christian I’m not really bowled over by a sense of spirituality in Brian’s writing. He does, however, pour out his heart and soul on Pet Sounds, and I think that’s very beautiful. JG: Many call Pet Sounds the greatest rock record of its era (some go so far as to say ever).  What do you think it is about this record that has earned it this status? BS: Well, I think the gorgeous melodies and Brian’s soul coming through in the lyrics are at the center of it, as I’ve said. But also, the sound is so unique. It’s really the first and only animal of its species–so singular that it can be hard to get a hold of at first. I think that people initially relate to new music by making correlations to something more familiar. When I first heard the Weepies, for example, I compared them to Shawn Colvin and Patty Griffin. Those correlations seem kind of vulgar to me now, but they helped me get my foot in the door until I could understand the music on its own terms. But it’s really difficult to do that with Pet Sounds, because it simply doesn’t sound like anything else. To my knowledge, nobody has ever really emulated the sound of it well. Maybe nobody can or maybe nobody wants to! It’s truly strange-sounding music. The rhythms are unconventional, with barely a hint of the standard rock and roll backbeat. There’s more harpsichord than piano and as much bass harmonica as electric guitar. It’s definitely a kitchen sink record, complete with bass clarinet, people beating on water bottles, and a theremin solo (tannerin actually, just in case there are any nerds reading). I’d say the arrangements don’t have the same kind of poise and refinement as George Martin’s work (“Eleanor Rigby,” for example). Rather, they’re beautifully ungraceful and exuberant, like an awkward teenager. Like Brian Wilson! And of course, the Beach Boys’ harmonies are truly amazing on this record. By the way, you can buy a version of the album with just the vocals soloed and drool. I think there might be a bit of “I know something you don’t know” snobbery in calling Pet Sounds the greatest album of all time, but you can’t blame people for being a bit indignant that it’s so generally unknown. When the album released in ’66 (I think) it was hailed by critics but shunned by Beach Boys fans. Heck, it was shunned by the Beach Boys! It never sold well. I read somewhere that it still hasn’t gone gold, though I’m not sure if that’s true any longer. I think if Brian had finished Smile, the intended follow-up album, the Beach Boys might have been recognized as the Beatles’ worthy opponents and Pet Sounds would have taken hold retroactively. But when Smile was shelved in mid-production due to Brian’s illness, the window closed and the Boys all but vanished. So maybe people are probably overcompensating for its obscurity by calling it the greatest album ever, and maybe I’m not sure it’s the greatest album ever, but it certainly deserves a little reverence. You gotta give it that. JG: What’s your favorite beach boys song and why? BS: Am I allowed to not have a favorite? Let me give you six, in chronological order. Don’t Worry Baby God Only Knows (from Pet Sounds) I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times (from Pet Sounds) Surf’s Up (from Smile) Wonderful (from Smile) Cabinessence (from Smile) Note: You can hear all the Smile songs I’ve mentioned here on the second disc of the Good Vibrations box set (tracks 18 through 28). And speaking of Smile: as I said, I’m working on an essay about the album, and it’s mostly a guide to help people appreciate the drama surrounding it and to know how to approach the available recordings. All I’ll say about it here is that I advise you not to listen to the 2004 release of Smile until you’ve heard the original recordings, if at all. The 2004 release was “finished” and re-recorded by Brian and his current touring band, and I like it but I don’t love it. Smile will always be an unfinished album, in my opinion. No offense to his band, either. Those guys are insanely talented and I think the way they support him is a beautiful story in itself. Well, Jason, thanks again for doing this. It’s been fun and I hope I’ve said something that’ll help you appreciate what’s great about this music.

Some twenty-years ago a friend gave me a book called The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice.  It’s a lushly written tale about man involuntarily damned to an eternity outside salvation and his struggle to define his own morality in a world he believes is beyond the reach of God.  He’s a rebel, a braggart, and a murderer but he’s also a man in search of his soul, a monster grieving his lost humanity, a sinner longing for an absolution he knows he doesn’t deserve and is convinced that no one can ever provide. To this day it’s a book that shapes the way I write and the way I think about story and character and despite Anne Rice’s public façade as an atheist and staunch opponent of the Church, I’ve always felt that there was more to her story than she led the world to believe. A few years ago, I was startled to discover her book Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt in a bookstore.  My first reaction was, “Ah-HAH!  I knew it!”  But I never read it, in part because I was afraid I’d find out it was just a gimmicky way for her to capitalize on some controversial new idea. Since then that book has received a sequel called Christ the Lord: Road to Cana, and I’ve heard here and there that she’s accepted Christianity.  As much as I wanted to believe it, I was still very much a skeptic.  Such was my mindset when I cracked open her ‘spiritual memoir’ Called Out of Darkness. I am a skeptic no more.   Her memoir is equally a confession, an explanation, and a proclamation.   Her own words describe it best: “What I must do here is convey to the general reader—the member of the mainstream who is my brother or sister in the mainstream—how the Incarnation has become the central overwhelming and sustaining mystery of my life. “ Such an about face of worldview surely came as a shock to some fans her vampire mythology and there is a sense that she wants to lay out the pieces of the puzzle to provide insight for those to whom the final image was a surprise.  She also aims to lay to rest the suspicions of those that may think her conversion is flighty, shallow, or spur of the moment. It’s a rare pleasure to hear an author whose work you’ve loved talk about her life and career as she looks back on it from the wisdom of her years.  She recounts memories from her childhood as a Catholic in an edenic New Orleans and her eventual falling away as a young woman.  Anyone familiar with her writing will be thrilled to see how the events, people, and places of her formative years have shaped her stories for three decades.  Not only did I gain a wealth of understanding about why she wrote her books but I found myself thinking, “Of course she wrote these books, how she could have done anything else?” And all the musings I’ve had over the years about the questions and longings bound up in her stories, about the struggle of her characters, finally found an answer: “These books transparently reflect a journey through atheism and back to God.  It is impossible not to see this.  They reflect an attempt to determine what is good and what is evil in an atheistic world.  They are about the struggle of brothers and sisters in a world without credible fathers and mothers.  They reflect an obsession with the possibility of a new and enlightened moral order. Did I know this when I wrote them? No.” What a joy to hear her tell the world how she came to the realization that her entire life and work were pointing toward Christ, and better yet, to hear how she has embraced the challenge of the cross and is proclaiming it to the world.  Truly, this is a rare thing in popular culture. There are certainly points where I disagree with her but she is a woman of fierce intellect and much like C.S. Lewis she has come to Christ after years of scholarship and critical thought.  In the years before her conversion she says that she was hounded and even “haunted by Christ.”  She makes clear in her writing that her faith is something she has accepted with the utmost sincerity and seriousness.  There is no lightness in her undertaking and she makes a point of rejecting any form of ‘prosperity gospel’. What drew her finally to Christ was, I think, the story: the sense that God is the Author and Christ the eternal hero.  In the loving of that great, universal, and infinitely personal narrative she has committed herself to using her own sub-creative gifts in the service of the Creator.  She intends to write for Christ, and only for Christ, and the outpouring of that commitment is the Christ the Lord series, a realistic narrative of the life of Christ.  There is no gimmickry involved and no scandal.  She intends her books to be absolutely faithful to the Gospel in word, deed, and doctrine. I have not read these books yet but reading Called Out of Darkness has convinced me that I must.  If you are a longtime fan of Rice’s work you owe it to yourself to read the memoir and if you have never read a word of her writing, I suggest that it may well be a fine place to start. Anne Rice’s books and characters often fail to find the answers they seek, their stories are invariably tragic and full of longing, grief, and brokeness, they often refuse to resolve in a way that is comforting to the reader.  In that context it is incredibly moving to me that those tattered threads seem to have at last found resolution, not in the arc of the story, but in the life of the author.

I’m a one guitar man.  Have been from the beginning.  And I’ve secretly been suspicious of those who have numerous guitars as one would have steeds in a stable.  I’m faithful to one woman, and I’m faithful to one guitar.   At least that’s what I’ve always told myself since I couldn’t really afford a second guitar. But lately I’ve been hoping and praying to add at least one more steed to my stable.  I’ve written a lot of new material in alternate tunings and have resorted to borrowing spare guitars from the worship leader at whatever church I’d be playing so that I wouldn’t have to take as much time tuning during my performance. Such was the case for my first performance of 2009 with my good friends at His Place Community Church in Washington.  His Place is one of my favorite places to play because the people there are crazy enough to have adopted me for some reason and it’s one of the few places where the people make me feel kind of like a rock star (which is good since it’s in the same city as my in-laws and it casts me in a pretty good light). His Place is full of good people led by an exceptionally sharp staff. My friend Ken Beane is the worship leader there and he kindly obliged me by loaning me his black Martin acoustic guitar for the morning that I took the services.  It looks like something that Johnny Cash would have played and has a deep, rich tone, and when I made a percussion loop with it, something about the placement of the internal mic gave it a really cool and unique sound – very vibey.  It was my favorite loaner guitar that I’ve played and was a perfect compliment to my Taylor 714CE. That morning was tricky because I decided that my friends at His Place deserved something special, so I decided to only play my brand new material that I’ve been working on for my next record (coming soon, by the way :-).  I played songs that I had never played for people before and spent the whole weekend agonizing over whether these songs were ready to be unveiled yet and whether I was ready to play them!  It was like cramming for finals, but when the first service started I began to share the stories and songs that will shape the next season of my ministry and had one of the funnest times I’ve had playing music in a long time.  It was a gift to me to have a place where I could risk something like this and the people graciously allowed me to fumble through these baby songs that still hadn’t learned how to walk yet, let alone crawl. At the end of the service as I was packing up to hit the road for a concert in Renton, WA that night, Ken asked me if I would like to use his guitar for the next show.  I said that would be great, but unfortunately I wouldn’t be coming back this way and therefore wouldn’t be able to return it to him.  He simply said, “I know, that’s okay” and then just asked me if I wanted the guitar.  I can’t really recall the specifics of what was said after that since everything kind of went white for awhile as he told me that he wanted me to have this guitar.  For keeps. I was speechless!  Ken is one of the most affable and kind men I’ve met, but I also know he’s not necessarily wealthy, and though this is exactly the kind of thing you might expect Ken to do, a part of me was concerned about how he would replace this guitar that he was parting with.  I lamely protested for lack of knowing what else to do, but in the end accepted his offer with a mixture of shock and profound gratitude. I packed up the rest of my gear, my guitar, and then packed up his guitar that was now mine.  Still uncomfortable with the whole thing, I told him that I would be the keeper of the guitar for as long as he liked, but that if he ever needed it back, I would be happy to get it back to him.  In retrospect I think I said this because I couldn’t bear this kindness and it was some strange kind of self-defense.  Then I loaded it in my car and tried to clear out of the church as fast as I could.  I noted my discomfort with the whole thing and my increased urgency to vacate the premises.  I just had to hurry up and get out of there. From WA I met up with Taya in Nashville where we participated in a writer’s retreat and marriage conference.  Every day was packed with the kind of insight and wisdom that opens up the world to you and puts you back in touch with your own life, and frankly by the end of day two our heads and hearts were full to the rafters.  The best part of the week was the marriage conference with Dan Allander – an incredibly wise, and gentle man with a forceful intellect and deep reservoirs of insight.  I could write pages and pages of what we experienced and learned from this man, but for now I just want to share one thought he shared which was this: in relationships it isn’t really rejection that we are afraid of, but rather love. Taya and I talked afterward about how rejection is much easier for us to manage.  We know how to deal with rejection and have a thousand different modes we go into when we encounter it: anger, depression, self-righteousness, retreat, tears, the martyr complex, etc.  Rejection sets into motion an emotional machine we keep well oiled to counter it.  So though rejection isn’t any fun, it’s relatively safe and predictable.  We know what to do to defend ourselves. Extravagant love, however, is another matter altogether and is a force so upsetting and unpredictable that it renders us defenseless against it.  We have no idea what to do, it’s chaos to us and it leaves us disarmed and feeling naked.  When it comes to us we feel awkward, uncomfortable, self-conscious, and we don’t know what to do with ourselves.   The well-oiled machine we use to protect ourselves breaks down before extravagant love. It’s why most of us prefer God’s rejection over his love.  It’s why we choose legalism over grace.  Obeying God’s law puts us back in the driver’s seat where we can imagine that we’re in control.  We have our list of obligations to check off, and though we know we can’t meet all of the Law’s demands, we still like to feel like the ball is in our court.  When we fail, we know what to do: pay our penance by feeling the requisite amount of shame and then vow to try harder the next time.  Grace is terrifying because it is completely beyond our control and our efforts to manage it. I’ve always had a hard time receiving gifts from people, and I always thought it had to do with my fear of feeling indebted – if someone helps I feel like I owe them something.  But as Taya and I talked about all this, I thought of Ken’s kindness to me and realized that I didn’t feel one bit of indebtedness to him.  In fact he eased the blow when he said “it feels weird, doesn’t it?  I know,” implying that someone had given him a guitar (maybe this very one) and he was now paying it forward.  Whatever I was feeling when I felt like I had to hurry up and get away from the church and Ken’s presence, it had nothing to do with indebtedness. I think it was extravagant love that I was fleeing from.  As usual.  And it occurs to me that this is the human story and has been for as long as memory.  Starving for love, we seek it out – more often than not in all the wrong places – and then when we find it (or rather it finds us), we are terrified at how naked it makes us feel, how vulnerable – disarmed of our best self-preservation mechanisms.  And so we flee. But it keeps finding us.  Thank God.

a piece on the discipline of brevity, and it was a ton of fun to hear your responses.  So today I’m sitting here tucked away in the corner of a coffee shop with free wi-fi, thinking about 2008, and wanted to bring an exercise to the Rabbit Room table.  What would it be like if we joined the discipline of brevity with the art of confession.  This post is an all-skate.  In other words, we’re going to write this one together. Here’s the assignment.  In two inches of text or less, tell us about something you have learned over the course of the past year.  If you can, try and stay in that 12 month time frame.  It can be something you learned in an instant or over the span of months.  It can be funny, scientific, theological, relational, tragic–whatever.  It can even by something you “unlearned”–something you thought you were certain of until 2008. I’d especially like to hear from all the Rabbit Room Contributors and also from first time posters.  I know you’re out there.  Come on in and pull up a chair.  The fire’s roaring, the beverages are flowing and the table is set.  What’s on your mind? Oh, one more thing.  For the sake of the purpose of this particular post, let’s limit our comments to 2008 Epiphanies only, and just hear from each other.  I’ll post mine as a comment below too.

Yesterday afternoon, I loaded up the tour bus (i.e., minivan) with guitars, gear, iPod and a cello. Genial cellist and all-around cordial gentleman, Hitoshi Yamaguchi, offered to tag along with me for a show I had in Pinson, AL last night. As I’ve grown weary of the long, lonely hours of solo trips, I was all too thankful for not only the company, but the musical sonic glue as well. For this trip, however, I would not require the person sitting in the so-called navigator’s chair to actually do any navigating thanks in large part to this year’s Christmas present from my wife, a GPS unit. This particular GPS has several vocal options available, anything from one very sterile, digitized voice, a clear and concise male voice, or that of a British woman. I chose the latter. Can you blame me? What shall I say, I’m a fan of the Brits. It is hard to imagine that a mere 150-200 years ago, this fledgling America and the British Empire, from whence we parted ways, wickedly and violently despised one another and were sworn enemies, which is too bad. Time heals. I must confess that I absolutely love my mobile GPS. I also confess that I have a crush on the woman – or at least her voice – inside the GPS who, with tonal silk in her throat, guides me to destinations both near and far. The world is a strange place, yes? My new British navigator – I hereby dub thee, Genevieve – has been a delight. On this particular trip she calmly, but firmly, proceeded to guide Hitoshi and myself down narrow, pothole-riddled Alabama minifares I never would have suspected existed, but Lady Genevieve delivered us safe and sound both to the venue and back to my front door again without error or blemish. Though I had my moments of doubt (“You’ve GOT to be kidding me. Turn here?”), as compared with the online directions I printed out just in case (which would have added an additional half-hour to our drive, I might add), Genevieve surely, in my mind’s eye, is some sort of robed, gilded queen seated and fed like royalty upon her digital throne exalted inside the sealed confines of my GPS. If not, she sure ought to be. I’m glad we Yanks are close allies with our English kinsmen today, and can enjoy their wonderful accents and inflections. It’s good to be kin. And it’s good to be playing music again. Cheerio.

Myth is scoffed at because reason has disproved it, so they say. It’s interesting as far as sociocultural studies go, but where’s the evidence? If there’s no real, empirical, demonstrable data that shows there are such things as gods, supernatural heroes, fairies, elves, and the like, then how can one possibly believe in the supernatural? If we’re on the quest for truth, and there’s no evidence for the reality of myth, isn’t it subversive to the quest? Shouldn’t we put Tolkien on the shelf and pick up an apologetics book? This only works if humanity is only physical. If we’re seeking truth, and there is truth that can only be perceived in a spiritual-mythic realm, then Imaginative Story has its justification – indeed, its necessity in our truth-quest. Empirical evidence usually can’t prove the supernatural. And even when something supernatural stares an empiricist in the face, they often deny it because of the assumption that empirical evidence has already disproved the supernatural.  Now, an empiricist need not be this way but the fact of the matter is, if there is supernatural involvement in the world, if humanity really is “fundamentally mythic” (Kilby, “What Is Myth?“), then empirical evidence, logic, rationalism, etc., are incapable of attaining this knowledge alone. Faith, myth, fairy tales, etc. are a part of grasping what it means to be human. Clyde S. Kilby writes: “Myth is necessary because reality is so much larger than rationality. Not that myth is irrational, but that it easily accommodates the rational while rising above it.“ Or, as G.K. Chesterton put it: “My first and last philosophy, that which I believe in with unbroken certainty, I learnt in the nursery. I generally learnt it from a nurse; that is, from the solemn and star-appointed priestess at once of democracy and tradition. The things I believed most then, the things I believe most now, are the things called fairy tales. They seem to me to be the entirely reasonable things. They are not fantasies; compared with them other things are fantastic.“ Unsatisfied with the explanations? That’s as it should be. If humanity is “fundamentally mythic,” then the truth-criteria of the scientific fatalist will always find mythic explanations unsatisfying. But the scientific fatalist’s truth-criteria is painfully limited because it can only discover the physical aspects of earth, not the mythic dimensions of heaven.  Learn to think mythically, and you will have a more human – which is to say, more complete – experience of the True Myth. References:  Clyde S. Kilby, “What is Myth?” in Rolland Hein, Christian Mythmakers.  G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, Chapter IV.

I don’t watch the evening news. The white noise of so many busy-body blabbermouths saying the same things over and over again usually lacks luster for me. I’d rather have quiet or music. This evening when I got home, mom called and said, “Evie, I know you don’t watch the news, but you have got to turn on the TV and watch some of what happened today.” She proceeded to give me the Cliffs Notes version of the crash of US Airways Flight 1549 out of LaGuardia. “What?!!” I said with a breathless smile on my face. Since the larger part of the American population actually do watch news and own computers, I will spare you my version of this incredible story. But do you know how relatively narrow the Hudson River is?? Or how close the plane came to the George Washington Bridge as it flew overhead? Or that the plane was at just the perfect angle to avoid an end-over-end catastrophe? Or that it’s possible for geese to take down an entire aircraft? Or that there were business men in their nice suits aiding the people in quickly escaping the frigid water? I find myself straining to comprehend the thrill in the hearts, the lumps in the throats and the cries of relief of the survivors’ family members and loved ones. It’s truly a miracle that occurred today — the fact that all 155 passengers made it out alive, and mostly healthy — and the life of the heroic pilot Chesley Sullenberger will never be the same. Now this is the kind of news I want to hear — the kind that moves me to happy tears and gives me hope for the way human beings treat one another with kindness, empathy and love. There are hundreds of photos already flooding the internet and the news programs. A few of them show the survivors standing knee-deep in water on the wings of the submerged plane, waiting calmly for rescue. Although I know the physical truth of the matter and I know that there’s an explanation for how they appear there, reflecting in the surface of the shimmering, icy river,  I can’t help but smile at the sweet irony of that imagery — God’s trusting children walking on water.

Yellow onions, garlic and fresh ginger are sfubzling away over a low heat on the stove. (Sfubzling: (the “s” is silent) a little-known culinary term, used only by cooks with their ears truly to the ground, describing the noise which emanates from the cooking vessel and seems much like a mix of sizzling, bubbling, and fizzing. It’s a delightful and promising noise. Good smells most usually accompany.) I cue the music, step into the kitchen, light a candle in the window, sharpen my knives, crank up the stove, pour a glass of “Prosperity Merlot” and place my brand new, shiny-sunny yellow Le Creuset soup pot on the front burner. It was a Christmas gift from my sister and brother-in-law and I can only dream of all of the hundreds of wonder-full soups, stews and braises it will hold in its belly as it goes through this life with me. A few glugs of olive oil and I’m off and running. I chop, chop, chop with my sharp knife (an immeasurable pleasure), hum along with the groovy Nat King Cole tune, sip my wine, and in a hair’s-breadth of a minute, I am revived — brought home to myself — by a pretty soup pot and a prayer. For somewhere in the neighborhood of the last three months, I have not felt quite like myself. The curious, creative and industrious wedge of the Evie Pie, which is usually the predominant, has not been so active. She has been wandering off blindly into traffic while chasing illusory butterflies, whistling out of tune, distracted by shiny things in the underbrush, picking useless weeds, picking her nose…. Wha….?, you ask? That’s just it. I don’t know how to make much sense out of where the buzzing, artistic side of me has been for the last quarter of a year. I know, this seems a little silly since I’m am ART teacher for heaven’s sake, but that hardly gets me out of this conundrum. I mean, sure, I did a nice job of gift-wrapping my Christmas presents. That qualifies as “creative.” But largely, I’ve seemed to be on the outside looking in on that lovely, blessed bubble of creative and divine inspiration. This happens to me from time to time, and I find all sorts of things to blame it on. I complain about my cramped, un-feng-shui studio situation and how the kids just wore me out at school, I need to go to the grocery store, I have to catch up on my DVR’d shows so that I can free up space (have to be considerate to the housemate, you know), I must update my Netflix queue, there are magazines to be perused. Oh, it just takes so much brain power to sit down and write. I will, I will find anything and everything to cloud the instinct and urge to create. I, I…I….I am a lazy wretch. So I just found a two-month-old sweet potato (similarly wretched) in the bin under the sink, and I’m not ashamed to say I peeled it and threw it in with the previously sfubzling ingredients. Also added a can each of chickpeas and petite diced tomatoes. (You see, I’m working with the dregs of the cupboard tonight. Call me Mother Hubbard. I over-spent, over-ate, over-did pretty much everything I could have possibly over-done over Christmas holiday and I sure had a fun time over-doing it.) And now I have added the holy trinity of spices: chili powder, cumin and cinnamon, then a hefty pinch or two of red pepper flakes for heat, a few springs of fresh rosemary from my winter-hardy herb bed by the front door, and it continues to sfubzle happily. It looks to be turning into something worthwhile. Perhaps it’s three rounds of strep throat (Merry Christmas to me!) that have taken me on this ride through unfamiliar-feeling territory. Perhaps it was the busy-ness of the holidays and not enough time spent focusing on the very true Center of the holiday. Perhaps it’s that I haven’t been to church in a month of Sundays (quite literally, I’m sad to say) and I haven’t seen any of the people — God’s gifts to me — who encourage me, hold me up and keep me corralled and headed in the right direction. Perhaps it’s my detached, denying heart to which I have been comfortably applying a numbing salve. There are too many reasons I could name; so many questions about how and why I endlessly repeat this particular dim and lonely cycle. But all of these reasons and questions bleach of color and lose their nagging voices when held up to the light of our Good God who says gently, “My dearest, I love you. I created this yearning in your chest to tell my story in your own voice. Listen to it. Get up. Try again.” And so I am beginning with soup. (I guess you could call it a Moroccan Peasant Stew of Sorts?…) Because, for this artist, cooking leads to dreaming, dreaming to writing, writing to drawing….it’s a pretty lovely cycle I go through. The final ingredients have been tossed into the glossy pot with the cheerful, sunshine-colored enamel: quartered artichoke hearts, chopped kalamata olives, and orange zest. An unlikely list of ingredients, I know, but I have a feeling it’s going to work nicely. A final tasting for salt and then it’s suppertime.

I have an aversion to anything that’s the subject of too much hype or popularity.  Such things are suspect and regarded with narrowed-eyes for a long time before I feel comfortable giving them any objective consideration.  Sometimes this hesitation serves me well, The DaVinci Code for example—groundbreaking and controversial, right?  The real story: old news and eye-rolling piffle.  It’s a defense mechanism, you see, and generally it serves me well.  Another case in point is Cheerios–lots of hype for something that’s really just tasteless cardboard byproduct floating in your 2%. So as I sit here, I find myself again outdone.  A few years ago when these Coldplay fellows showed up on my radar, I listened, I kind of liked, I raised one eyebrow and then read or heard someone say that they were the next U2 and I wrote them off.  “Clocks” playing thirty-eight times a day on every station down the FM spectrum didn’t endear them either. This summer I was at the movie theater and danged if one of the previews before the movie wasn’t a giant advertisement for their new album.  What’s not to hate about a movie-sized ad for some English pop record?  Imagine my distress when I discovered myself thinking that the music in the ad was really quite good.   I gave in to the hype and bought the Viva La Vida album.  I’m happy to admit when I’m wrong (mostly), so here goes: by Jove, this album cannot be done without. It’s rare for me to like an entire album of songs, and even rarer that I like an album enough that I don’t want to listen to one song without hearing the rest and in the correct order.  Any good record is put together in a deliberate sequence but I contend that part of the greatness of Viva La Vida is that it’s built in such a way that it tells a story, and can only be understood as the sum of its parts.  This is certainly true for other albums but it is such an essential part of this one that I think it bears special mention.  It had to grow on me though. I bought it and ran it through a couple of times, somewhat interested, though only mildly impressed.  I kept coming back to it though and each time I did, I listened to it a little closer, I heard something I hadn’t before, I understood something I didn’t before.  It’s been a couple of months now and I still keep going back.  There’s more every time.  It’s beautiful.  And every time it’s over I feel like I’m a little bit closer to figuring out what the band is trying to say. The album sounds amazing, full of light, but I’ll leave discussions of its musical merit to others.  What interests me about it is the way each song works together within the album to tell a story.  I get the definite sense that the work begins in uncertainty, with questions and struggles, and ends somewhere else.  The songs often answer each other.  They develop a dialogue amongst themselves and when the final notes of the album fade I feel like the writer (Chris Martin) has found answers of some sort.  Even though he might not tell us what those answers are explicitly, I’m impressed musically, and lyrically with the idea that something has been found, a destination has been reached. I’ve seen various interpretations of the album on the internet and in print and theories range from religious enlightenment to claims that its about the life and times of Louis VIII (and I mean the entire album, not just particular songs).  There’s certainly an abstract quality to it that leaves it open to interpretation.  I love that. Last month the band released a companion EP to the album called Prospekt’s March that has made me fall even further in love with it.  Some of the new songs on the EP are your basic B-side remixes but the new original songs line up perfectly with the Viva La Vida album and even shed more light on its themes.  One of the motifs from the full album, that of floating, or flying, or ascending is the words “my feet won’t touch the ground” and it’s carried on in the new songs beautifully.  The EP is a fantastic coda to what is becoming one of my favorite albums of all time. If you haven’t experienced this album, you need to.  And you need to spend some time alone with it, listening to it as a whole, without distractions.  The next U2?  I don’t know.  Maybe.  I’ve gone back and listened to Coldplay’s other albums since discovering Viva la Vida and I get the feeling that this might be their Achtung Baby, the album that took a lot of what was already very, very good, and reassembled it into something stellar, something off the charts, something that no one saw coming.  But don’t listen to me and don’t listen to the hype.  Listen to the music.

I have been a contributor here for a very little while now and I notice that some of these other blokes ask questions and then some very clever people answer them in the comments and elaborate upon their thoughts and it’s a kind of thing like what bespectacled scientists in lab coats call “interaction,” or “communication,” or “the brotherhood of man.” So here’s my question: If you were single, and you weren’t you, would you date yourself? OK, that’s not my real question, but it’s something worth considering in light of the fact that you probably want someone special to date you. Or court you. Or take you on a date to court. Date yourself? It’s the kind of question that might puzzle a person, but later they would understand. I read once where Rich Mullins said that if he wasn’t Rich Mullins he would be a Rich Mullins fan. Perhaps that is a good question for artists and thoughtful singles to consider. Also, there’s those on-line dating services which, if the commercials are true, are excellent places for male models and female models to get together for a lasting love where you never have to say “I’m sorry,” or “I’m not good-looking.” Personally I hope the Rabbit Room spins off into an on-line dating service focused on 3 dimensions of compatibility: 1. Are you OK with being discipled by Ron Block? 2. There are two kinds of people in this world, people who love Eric Peters’ music, and people who haven’t listened to it long enough yet. Which are you? Andrew Peterson a father-figure, a brother-figure, or an action-figure kind of influence in your life? By the way, have you seen Andrew’s new book? It’s the first in The Chronicles of the “Kill” Saga Trilogy. The second book is called Second to Kill and third is called, uh, um…I can’t remember. Third…something. But it’s going to be so amazing. Check the Rabbit Room Store now. If it’s not there, buy something else. But I digress (who else hates it when people say “But I digress?” When is it ever OK to say that?). My real question is this: Tell us one thing that you do (or wish you did) to foster creativity in your life? Example: Everyday I take a walk and soak in the inspiration of creation. Then I build birdhouses. Or: Everyday I talk to my soulmate whom I met on Rabbit Room Singles dot com. Then I tip my head backwards and laugh enthusiastically while a voice-over sells a product. Fill us in. Or, in keeping with AP’s astute perspective on Art as light in darkness, enlighten us. Help us ordinary people uncover the beauty ready to break over the surface of the still lake of our lives.

One of the foremost thinkers concerning the topic of Christians in the arts must be Steve Turner, author of the pivotal work Imagine: A Vision for Christians in the Arts. It was a work that moved me greatly and I’ve read it a few times to cement the truths found inside. Steve has also written several other books, ranging in subjects from The Beatles to Jack Kerouac and some poetry in between. Still the topic was the arts and the Christian engagement within them that we discussed the most in our conversation a while back. Matt Conner: To begin with, what would you say is the single greatest tension for the Christian artist today? Steve Turner: The biggest problem is knowing how to integrate the Christian view of the world. Christians often develop a Christian view of, say, prayer and scripture but don`t think of having a Christian view of the normal stuff of everyday life. If they do not have a Christian worldview, they will inevitably just take the dominant view of the culture they live in. In the West, this tends to be some form of humanistic materialism. So the most important preparation is the development of a Biblical world view. Matt: Would you say that not enough Christians involved in the arts have a Christian worldview? Why or why not? Steve: Christians have been used to dealing in ‘messages’ because preaching has been their main model of communication. This has prepared them to understand propaganda more than art. Having a view of the world is more subtle and complex. However, if you look at the work of The Beatles, they rarely indulged in propaganda. Maybe they did on songs like “All You Need Is Love” but they largely communicated what they believed by touching on a whole range of human issues and adding a spin that came from their way of seeing things. So they wrote about sleep and love and sunshine and doctors and taxmen, but in doing so they built up a picture that defined their viewpoint. Too often Christians know the Christian view on the Bible and prayer – in other words, on the overtly religious – but not on the things that take up our everyday lives. I think that has happened because Christians haven’t been encouraged to think Christianly. They think Christianly about worship on Sundays but switch to a normal, secular frequency during the rest of the week. Matt: You recently wrote a book entitled The Gospel According to The Beatles. Why write this and what can we learn from them? Steve: I spent my teenage years listening to the Beatles. The very first article I ever wrote was on the Beatles for their fan magazine The Beatles Monthly. I’ve always found them exciting and interesting so it’s a great pleasure to be able to investigate them in more depth. As a Christian I’ve always been interested in the way they fused their changing beliefs with their music and how the music in turn affected a whole generation. So this is what the book investigates and hopefully people will learn about the Beatles, the Sixties and how they affected each other. Matt: How did you go about writing the book? You mentioned investigating them in more depth… Steve: First I try to read everything available, not just in books but in papers and magazines. I’m obviously especially keen to find all old interviews with The Beatles. Then I set about interviewing people who were part of their lives. Then there are archive searches where you might find previously unknown material. Writing a book like this you can’t afford to just repeat all the old stories. You have to check them out to test whether they are true and, hopefully, to build a fuller picture. Matt: What exactly is the gospel according to The Beatles? Steve: The book goes into their changing beliefs starting with their upbringing in different churches and ending with what they believed before they died (in the case of John and George) and what they seem to believe today (in the case of Paul and Ringo). I explain their gospel as one of expanded consciousness. They identified the problam in a song like “Nowhere Man” (“He’s as blind as he can be…“). All the answers they came up with, whether it was drugs or eastern spirituial practices, had expanded consciousness as their goal. They believed that a child naturally has this consciousness and yet we lose it as we grow older. If we regain it, we see everything with a greater degree of clarity and are able to enjoy the present momenet rather than get hung up either on the past or the future. Matt: What did you personally take from your research in the book? How does their gospel affect you? Steve: It just gives me a deeper understanding of their view and how it did affect and continues to affect society. People who are now in important decision-making positions are people who grew up on The Beatles. I’ve just come back from India because I was able to do a travel story on The Beatles India. I went to Rishikesh where the Beatles studied meditation. I had previously read a lot about Hindu beliefs but nothing can quite match sitting and talking to many different people. I think it strengthens my Christian faith when I confront other belief systems. I’m not persuaded by The Beatles’ gospel but I hope that I understand it well enough to present it fairly. Matt: You mention trying to understand their gospel well enough to present it fairly. Going back to what we were talking about before with Christians in the arts, who do you think is presenting the Christian gospel well enough to present it fairly? Steve: I wasn’t meaning that The Beatles presented their gospel fairly but that I could understand it and then explain it to the public in a way that was fair to the beliefs of The Beatles. In other words, if Paul McCartney was to read the book, I would hope that he would think that I hadn’t twisted what they said to serve my own purposes but had presented a balanced and thorough picture. As to the Christian gospel, the best example is what U2 has done. I think the gospel impinges on all that Bono writes. I think he presents us with a picture of the whole of life as he experiences it and because he is a believer we get to see life in the 21st century [in the] West as experienced by a believer. Matt: But very few artists today are creating art that is truly holistic in nature. You mentioned before that it’s a worldview problem. Is that true of the lack of holistic art? And what do you even mean by that? Steve: I’m not sure what you mean by holistic. Worldview literally means having a view of the world and everyone has a worldview. Very often, people’s worldview is conditioned by their environment and so they’re not even aware of where it comes from. I am suggesting that Christians tend to have a Biblically informed view of, for example, prayer but not of economics, leisure, fashion, health, etc. Therefore, their views on everyday matters – that area of life they probably view as “secular” – are just borrowed from the surrounding culture. Reklama internete Eugenijaus Mockaičio Profesionalios SEO paslaugos gera kaina, el parduotuvių kūrimas, pardavimų skatinimas bei investavimas į bitkoinus https://seopaslaugos.com Eugenijaus Mockaičio Profesionalios SEO paslaugos gera kaina, el parduotuvių kūrimas, pardavimų skatinimas bei investavimas į bitkoinus. If you take an artist like Beyonce, she appears to have a Christian view of Bible reading, church and prayer (from what I’ve read) and yet her performance, rather than challenging the predominant culture, is a reflection of its current demands. There was a program about Britney Spears on TV and writer Chuck Klosterman was saying that when he interviewed her some years ago he asked her whether she thought her (then) defense of chastity before marriage was at odds with her stage shows and videos where she tended to dress in school girl uniforms and act the temptress. He said that it was one of the strangest moments he’d ever experienced in an interview because she was just dumbfounded. He said it was as if the thought had never occurred to her. Matt: OK, then I would say that Christian art tends to only reflect a Biblical view of very few aspects of life. For example, the Christian tends to completely avoid writing, painting, commenting, or sculpting anything to do with sex. Yet, sex is definitely a dominant part of our culture, therefore our worldview. How do you speak to Christians regarding this disconnection from the whole of life? Steve: I could only say to them what I have already said. Having said that, things are an awful lot better now than they were 30 or 60 years ago. There are now so many books that examine different areas of life from a Christian perspective. There is far more involvement in politics, both from the left and the right. In my book Imagine I trace this split back to Plato who thought that our aim was to connect to the spiritual world through our spirits and saw our bodies as an impediment to this. We often reflect this split by thinking that we’re most pleasing to God when we’re praying, witnessing or praising and least close to him when we’re doing something purely physical like running, eating, dancing or love making. We’ve tended to treat ‘the world’ as an interference, something that we have to put up with on our way to heaven. Matt: While you said things are a lot better now, what are some of the directions that you still think we need to take? Are there some immediate, tangible steps that we are missing? Steve: I think it has affected groups of thinking Christians, possibly mostly those in the major cities. I don’t think it has persolated down to the grassroots. It certainly hasn’t affected the fundamentalists. American “Christian” TV is a huge enemy of this worldview thinking, and possibly a huge enemy of Christianity. The CCM industry also stifles it by creating a genre of music where it’s possible for Christians to sing to Christians about Christian things in a Christian language. We have just developed a very narrow idea of what “Christian” is. I saw an entry in a directory for Christian artists where someone had advertised themselves as writing “poetry both Christian and non Christian.” I think he meant poetry that was specifically religious and poetry that was about everday life but he had unconsciously betrayed the fact that, when he wrote asbout ordinary events in his life, he thought of these things as somehow outside his experience as a Christian. As though God is not interested in us walking, eating, fishing, playing ball, shopping, etc. Matt: Can you speak on this further? This idea of God being just as interested in those last things you mentioned. I think this idea might even be new or at least uncommon to some of our readers and I would love to have you expand on it rather than assume people believe or know certain things. Steve: We have to remember that God made us as humans, not Christians. He created the human race and the environment of the world and was pleased with what he had created. He imagined us enjoying our lives in this space He had created. The actor playing the athlete Eric Lidell in the film Chariots of Fire is made to say, “When I run, I feel God’s pleasure.” That is a good doctrine of creation. When we do human things in the world God made for us, God gets pleasure. The need to be Christian entered with the fall. We needed to be redeemed. But, far from wiping out God’s orininal intentions, it confirms them. To be Christian is to be on our way to being fully human. Hank Rookmaaker the Dutch art historian used to say, “Christ didn’t die in order that we could go to more prayer meetings.” People would gasp at this. Then he would add, “Christ died to make us fully human.” That’s right. He didn’t die to make us religious, but to make us human. In our fallen state, we lack the completeness of our humanity. The monastic tradition makes the mistake of thinking that God is best pleased with us when we cut ourselves off from the world, deny ourselves pleasure, refrain from marriage and devote ourselves totally to religious activities. This almost assumes that God made a mistake in putting us in a world of pleasure, culture, art, nature, work, companionship, etc. Fundamentalists would hate to be compared with medieval monks but, in many ways, they suffer from the same split. Matt: So what is the responsibility of the artist in light of this? Steve: The main responsibility of an artist is to his/her own talent and to the art form they are working in. You can’t be responsible for how people interpret your art. First, you have to discover and then nurture your own talent. Don’t squander it. Learn all you can about what has gone before. Serve an apprenticeship. Secondly, you should try to make sure that your art form is kept healthy. Christians have so often ‘used’ an art form sinply to put over a ‘message,’ but have had no love for the art form. They haven’t wanted to leave film or the novel in a better state because they were there. But because these things are good and are pleasing to God, we should make sure that we tend and look after them. The arts help to preserve and invigorate language. They sharpen our vision. They make us notice things. They bring greater understanding between people. We have to respect them. Matt: What are some tangible things that other artists who understand this responsibility can do to nurture this growth and understanding in other artists? In other words, you mention apprenticeship and my mind goes to mature artists helping to mentor younger ones or experienced artists helping those who need to explore their craft. Steve: Those of us who have not only been thinking about these isues for years but have had opportunities to put them into pratice in the arts and media can pass on our expertise to the next generation. What often happens is the older people leave the big cities and find themselves overwhelmed with work and family so that they’re no longer at hand to share. I’ve had the privilege recently of being able to share with groups of artists not only in America and the UK but in Germany, Sweden and France. My book Imagine has been translated into many diferent languages including Chinese, Portugese and Spanish. There is a lot happening around the world and people are hungry to know how to proceed. I’m glad to be both a theoretician and a practitioner because they feed each other. If I just had the theories but had never been involved in the arts I would lack confidence. If I had just worked in the arts but hadn’t developed any theories I would feel that I hadn’t been faithful in my calling.

The Church is being ripped off. There’s a roaring lion out there seeking whom he may devour, but we’ve spent years promoting the half-gospel of “Jesus died to pay your sin debt” and have downplayed the total lordship, power, and authority of Christ over our lives (me in Christ) and His power in and through us (Christ in me) that is free for the taking. Really, we’ve let ourselves be ripped off. Like many of you, I read a lot. Sometimes that just involves standing in the bookstore and skimming books I don’t want to buy, especially anti- or substitute gospels. I continually see powerful Christian principles being marketed in success literature. I saw one the other day in a Franklin-Covey store that was about taking our thoughts captive, not allowing negative, fearful, or anxious thoughts into our consciousness. Of course, it wasn’t “taking our thoughts captive to the obedience of Christ.” But the principle was there, minus Jesus. Another principle I’ve seen is “act as if.” C.S. Lewis talked about this in Mere Christianity. “Very often the only way to get a quality in reality is to start behaving as if you had it already.” He then distinguishes between the bad kind, where pretense is there instead of the real thing, and the good kind, where the pretense leads up to the real thing. So Lewis says we are to “dress up as Christ,” which is a totally Biblical principle. And in so doing, he continues, we immediately begin to see ways in which we are not being our real self. Christ is there “at that moment beginning to turn your pretence into a reality.” The success book mirrors this: “One of the great strategies for success is to act as if you are already where you want to be.” This ripping-off has been going on for years. New agers like Blavatsky talk about developing “the Christ-consciousness,” that constant awareness of our true identity. But of course without coming through the Cross, dying in Christ and resurrecting in Him and being implanted by the new life, they are merely exalting the old, false, satanic life of Eph 2:2. I said to a fellow Christian in that Franklin-Covey store, “You can be successful all the way through life right into Hell.” Of course most of these books I’ve looked at and read talk about doing good, giving to charities, and all that, but that’s just a sugar-coated second death. Most of these success principles and many of the new age books are just a thick coating of truths hiding a big lie to keep people from entering the Kingdom of God. Now, there will likely be those who take me wrongly, but I’m not saying success literature is bad. There are several great books that have helped me change bad, disorganized habits into good ones. But that’s another story. As Christians, we have been given an ancient Power. This power is greater than “he that is in the world.” Should our lives not reflect and resound with this ancient power? Shouldn’t miraculous life change, victory, and the overcoming life of Christ within us be the norm? If this isn’t our experience, we must ask ourselves, “Why not?” A powerless church, a mere-forgiveness church, allows the devil to rip us off, letting him sugar coat his big lie with wonderful truths because the world doesn’t see us living from our true selves in Christ. We have mistakenly thought we have to live the Christian life – by our effort and programs and techniques. We’ve grumbled and complained, and been unbelieving about this powerful, conquering Holy Spirit that lives in us. This Overcomer, Christ Himself, lives inside each of us, and if we just begin to let Him do His work by trusting in Him it will change everything. The Hebrews could have entered the promised land and taken it over years sooner if they’d just trusted the God who wanted to be powerful on their behalf. Life change doesn’t have to take a long time. “He that abideth in Him sinneth not.” If we are abiding, we’ll love God and love people. We’ll be bold, strong, true-hearted. It’s not a works-trip, or a prompt to more effort. It’s a fact: it is impossible to abide in Christ and at the same moment be sinning. Simple, childlike abiding in Christ by faith will give the life change we – and the world – are looking for.

“A mistake constantly made by those who should know better is to judge people of the past by our standards rather than their own. The only way men or women can be judged is against the canvas of their own time.” –Louis L’Amour I don’t know what exactly happened to good old-fashioned Westerns, or why over the past 20 years they have been seen as somehow less erudite than the other tales we tell.  Maybe it’s because the stories are so familiar, even predictable.  Maybe it’s because the answers they give are too easy, what with the white hats and the black hats.  Maybe its because we don’t believe life could be as simple as all that. But what if things were just that simple?  What if we insist on complicating things that really aren’t that complicated?  What if this life was something where a good horse, being able to tell right from wrong, knowledge of where a man could find fresh water and how to handle yourself in a fight were among the most important things you could know, and you took everything else as it came?  Is there such a story to tell anymore? How many stories are there to tell, really?  Sure, I know the details change, as do the characters, places, customs and all.  But in the end, are they really all that different from each other? Louis L’Amour (1908-1988) wrote westerns–pure and simple westerns.  And he knew what he was writing about.  He grew up in rural North Dakota at the turn of the 20th century, a place and time where the wild west still held some claim in that part of the country.  Over the span of his eighty plus years, he had been a farmhand, cowboy, miner, lumberjack, professional boxer, hobo, merchant seaman and soldier.  If you are a boy, think about that list for a minute.  Not bad. Eventually L’Amour made his way to Los Angeles where he wrote over 100 short novels—most of which were tales of the old west.  I have a friend who said he used to keep a list of the Louis L’Amour stories he’d read, but somewhere in the seventies, he stopped counting.  The thing about Louis L’Amour is that he really only tells one story, more or less, but in a hundred different ways.  It’s the story of the just confronting the unjust, the right taking on the wrong, the strong serving the weak. As you spend time with L’Amour’s stories, you meet people—familiar people, simple people.  Most of his characters are “types” of people, generally lacking in subtleties, but still rich with personality, charm, courage, wit and moral fiber (or the conspicuous lack of it).  While his characters are “types,” L’Amour still manages to avoid type-casting the traditional cowboys and Indians routine.  Sometimes the Indians are hostile, but often they are the only wise ones around, and thus the only hope of rescue. His stories are straightforward.  L’Amour believed, “A good beginning makes a good end.”  Often, his heroes find themselves nose to nose with trouble, and have every reason and recourse to walk away, were it not for the pretty lady in distress or the young mother left alone in Indian country minding her farm with no one to help her but her eight-year-old son.  And while the hero could go on his way, it wouldn’t be right.  It’s just that simple.  So he stays, come what may. And do you know what always comes?  Trouble. And do you know what the hero does when trouble comes?  Neither does he until he’s pinned against the canyon wall staring down the barrel of trouble’s gun. L’Amour uses the trappings of the cowboy life to take us into another place and time where a man doesn’t simply ride a horse.  He rides a strawberry roan.  He drinks coffee out of a tin cup from a kettle of spring water brought to a boil over a mesquite fire.  He knows the difference between his Colt and his Winchester.  His knife is sharp and within reach.  He knows where the water is, or how to find it, and how much he has left and how long it has to last him. The landscape itself is another crucial piece of L’Amour’s stories, a character in itself.  At the beginning of his novel Sackett, L’Amour writes: It was getting close to sundown when I fetched through a keyhole pass into a high mountain valley without growth of any kind. Bleak and lonely under the sky, it was like a granite dish, streaked here and there with snow or ice that lay in the cracks. Timberline was a thousand feet below me, and I was close under the night-coming sky, with a shivering wind, scarcely more than a breath for strength, blowing along the valley. All I could hear was the sound of my horse’s hoofs and the creak of my saddle. Off to the left lay a sheet of ghost water, a high cold lake fed by melting snow, scarcely stirred by that breath of wind. It lay flat and still. Can you see it?  I can. In L’Amour’s world, winters are cold, deserts are hot, night skies are starlit and sunsets are colorful affairs.  Values are clearly delineated and the good guys always win.  The weak are served by the strong.  Liars are found out, thieves are shown for what they are and murderers never get away with it.  The problems of the moment don’t color or define the entire identities or the rest of the lives of those bearing up under them. Call his writing escapist if you want.  Say things aren’t that simple, that cut and dried.  But what if they are?  What if this is the promise of how the story we’re all in will turn out one day?  When I get to the end of L’Amour’s collection, I suspect I’ll just start again from the beginning until my story ends.  And I suspect it won’t be that different from Sackett’s, minus perhaps a little gunfire.