What are you looking for?

Have you ever read Hans Christian Andersen’s original The Little Mermaid? Not that Disney introduced us to an inadequate interpretation. It’s just there’s something special about Andersen’s fairytales, how he captures sweeping hope and sharp sorrow without muddling a story’s simplicity. Many of my friends would object by saying Andersen’s Mermaid in particular is wickedly depressing and weird (without spoiling too much, I will at least give you a hint by saying it does not end like the movie). But I think there is something to be said for stories about more than getting everything you want exactly how and when you want it. Original fairytales are often darker than their 20th century cinematic makeovers suggest, and this darkness has much to do with the depth of despair and sadness their authors employ during the process of transporting their protagonists and villains from “Point A” to “Point B.” Despite every hero or heroine’s best intentions, the adventure never goes as planned. Usually, there is a mess of hardship before anyone achieves wisdom or peace. But then, even the plot of a Disney or Don Bluth film romps through heartache and disappointment before the victorious, happy ending arrives. It comes off playfully, since usually there are animals singing and at least one ensemble musical number. Even so, no hero or princess or talking animal reaches their destination unscathed or shielded from necessary sacrifices. No one makes it through without being changed. We were playing a house concert in Chicago when I first understood that People, People is a fairy tale. We wrote every song in the thick of growing up, discovering for ourselves that trying to live a hopeful life often looks and feels more like a shot in the dark, much more so than it did when we were younger. Consequently, People, People narrates humans embarking, weaving, and lurching this way and that, sniffing out shortcuts through life to avoid the pain of transformation. Like any unlikely hero trekking toward glory or treasure or true love, we set out with the naïve wish to grow and gain without losing something first. Unable to relinquish our hold on what makes us feel secure and known, we shudder in the face of pain and discouragement, our shame and our pride, our utter helplessness, things most certain to draw us from ourselves and redefine us in ways we could never imagine on our own. These things we swallow, silence, and deny. We reprogram our minds to forget them. We dive headlong into them with every intention of rewiring ourselves and our circumstances, only to find that we dove alone and can’t resurface without help, and furthermore did not possess the proper tools for rewiring to begin with. This writhing and wrestling for victory despite obstacles is not only at the heart of every fairy story, but every human story. This is the heart of the Gospel, in which something arduous and seemingly insurmountable happened by necessity so that an impossibly joyful conclusion would occur. People, People is a compilation of songs telling the story of healing and marking various stops along the road to redemption. Each song contributes to the story differently. “Inside Your Head” spurs a spiral of doubts and fears, a winding realization that life is not what it should be and people are powerless to overcome evil when attempting to do so on their own terms. “Fall” mimics an actual fairy tale, describing a personified snowflake as she launches herself into flight before realizing she is plummeting to conformity, lamenting her shattered sense of identity before finding freedom in it. “Common Sense” darkly parodies pop punk music, declaring isolation and insecurity with a laugh so the weight of choosing to live in one’s own shame and loneliness might be less noticeable. “Drink It Down” begins with a confession of weakness in the face of one’s own sin and darkness, but then revels in the wisdom that experiencing life’s brokenness is an integral part of knowing the character and power of Jesus. Every song walks further and further into a mingling of light and darkness. At the end of the narrative, the title track concludes that the only way to find resurrection for lost and dying things is by first plunging into loss and death. From this, the truest gifts and the fullest life are found. J. R. R. Tolkien writes that fairytales are not certifiable fairytales unless a miraculous reversal of evil and sadness abruptly takes place. It’s more than a happy ending. It’s a healing. My favorite thing about People, People is its vibrant declaration that such a thorough restoration for humanity is not only possible, but promised. When our story ends, there will be a tangible banishment of every sad thing. The victor has already risen up, and the enemy is already vanquished. So we can set off on our adventure with full confidence in the hope and love and wholeness we’re after, despite our weaknesses, despite the monsters lurking ahead and behind and within. We can set off with assurance and rejoicing, because there’s so much more than a happy ending awaiting us. The Orchardist’s People, People: Act I is available here.

I was maybe 12 when I first saw the movie on TV. It featured cartoon rabbits, but there was nothing cute about their story. They experienced danger—from man, predators, and other rabbits. They fought, bled, and died. It was unexpected and shocking, but also compelling. When I found out it was based on a book, I had to read it. And while the movie was good, I realized for the first time that movies often fall short of their source material. Watership Down was one of the most exciting and enjoyable books I had ever read. Now that I have children, I’ve read it to my oldest son and daughter twice, the second time at their request. It’s one of our favorites. I rank it with Narnia, Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter. It’s that good. And I’m not alone—Jeffrey Overstreet gives the book similar praise;[1] Andrew Peterson named his home “The Warren” in honor of it.[2] Christian readers especially will enjoy its themes of story, community, leadership, and sacrifice. You may be thinking, “An adventure about rabbits? No thanks.” So instead of saying, “Just trust me,” I’ll try to explain why I love this novel so much. An Epic Adventure Reviewers have compared Richard Adams’s Watership Down to Homer’s Odyssey and Virgil’s Aeneid. I’m not competent to evaluate that claim. But I can make my own assertion: Watership Down is an epic adventure. It’s a journey to find a home, a quest to overcome adversity, a struggle to form community, and a battle against tyranny. A shadow falls on a peaceful rabbit warren when a small, nervous rabbit named Fiver, known for being something of a seer or prophet, senses imminent danger. He warns his brother Hazel that they all must leave before disaster strikes. When the warren’s Chief Rabbit won’t listen, Hazel and Fiver convince as many others as possible to go with them to find what Fiver says they need: “High, lonely hills, where the wind and the sound carry.” That destination is Watership Down, a hill in the English county of Hampshire (where Adams had grown up). But reaching this peaceful place isn’t easy. The sojourners face predators, obstacles, their own weariness, and a strange warren of rabbits with something to hide. And all of that is simply Part I. The book consists of four parts—each is its own adventure, inching toward the climax. It’s all here: beauty, humor, mystery, terror, action, and heroism. There are even maps. Realism The novel began as stories that Adams told to his young daughters on long road trips. To make his characters realistic, he borrowed ideas from R. M. Lockley’s nonfiction work, The Private Life of the Rabbit. Of course, Adams’s story is pure fantasy with talking, anthropomorphic rabbits. Nevertheless, it doesn’t describe an imaginary world; it’s our world. Adams’s characters don’t walk on their hind legs, dwell in houses, and eat at tables. They hop and bolt, live in burrows, and feed on cowslip. Adams has even created a modest “Lapine” language (e.g., rabbit enemies are elil; when a rabbit becomes frozen with fear, it goes tharn). In other words, these aren’t fantasy characters that happen to be rabbits (but which could have been squirrels or groundhogs). First and foremost, they are rabbits. You get the feeling that this might actually be how rabbits behave. The realism is captivating. Mythology, Story, and Community Adams gives his rabbits their own mythology or folklore, expressed in stories they share. The sun is Frith, personified as a god. When Frith created the world, he made all of its creatures, including the prince of rabbits El-ahrairah. Because of El-ahrairah’s disobedience, Frith gave him enemies with a desire to hunt and kill rabbits. When the prince rabbit realized Frith was too clever for him, he hid in fear. Still Frith loved El-ahrairah. So he blessed him with powerful legs and speed. Then Frith said, El-ahrairah, your people cannot rule the world, for I will not have it so. All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed. This is the rabbits’ creation story, and El-ahrairah is their hero. As their journey unfolds, the rabbits regularly gather together to hear stories of the tricky El-ahrairah and his adventures, told by Dandelion, the rabbits’ chief storyteller. These stories provide, in Overstreet’s words, “identity, purpose, and inspiration for troubled creatures.”[3] As Stanley Hauerwas observes, the rabbits are simply a group of individuals when their journey begins—“all they share in common is the stories” of El-ahrairah.[4] But through this shared narrative and their shared exploits, the rabbits form a genuine community—even as they sojourn toward their hoped-for home. Leadership and Sacrifice As their quest continues, Hazel emerges as the clear leader of the group. He isn’t the strongest or the smartest, but he becomes their Chief Rabbit because he knows, writes Hauerwas, “how to make the decisions that [make] best use of everyone’s talents.” Hazel isn’t threatened by the abilities of others. Rather, for the survival of the warren, he learns from and depends on others—even, at times, non-rabbits. Though the rabbits reach the safety of the down, they have no does—a reality that everyone seems to overlook except Hazel. A warren of bucks without does clearly won’t survive. When an injured gull named Kehaar is temporarily stranded, Hazel inexplicably befriends it and instructs the others to care for it. His plan is to have the bird do what they cannot: search for a nearby warren so that they might find does willing to join them. Kehaar becomes a trusted ally. What Kehaar discovers is a totalitarian warren called Efrafa run by a tyrant—a powerful Chief Rabbit named General Woundwort. His cruel officers maintain Efrafa’s discipline and safety at the expense of freedom and happiness. So Hazel decides they must help some does escape Efrafa. But he knows he must depend on the clever Blackberry to come up with an escape plan and the courageous Bigwig to infiltrate Efrafa and lead the does out. If any member of the group is a possible rival to Hazel as Chief Rabbit, it’s surely Bigwig. A former officer in their home warren, Bigwig is powerful and bold. Yet, in time, he’s won over by Hazel’s leadership—so much so that he is unwilling to back down when Woundwort attacks the Watership Down warren. “My Chief Rabbit has told me to defend this run,” a severely wounded Bigwig declares, “and until he says otherwise I shall stay here.” Hearing this, Woundwort is thunderstruck. He had assumed a strong rabbit like Bigwig was the Chief Rabbit. But if not, what kind of rabbit must Bigwig’s chief be? Woundwort can’t comprehend leadership that isn’t dependent on brute strength. Yet, the reason the others, like Bigwig, are prepared to sacrifice for Hazel is because he is prepared to sacrifice for them. When weaker rabbits are unable to cross a river to flee from an approaching dog, Hazel refuses to leave them. When the warren’s salvation calls for an extreme plan, Hazel himself leads two others on the deadly mission. This sacrificial leadership is evident to all the rabbits. Again Hauerwas is right: “Hazel’s primary gift is his willingness to accept responsibility for making the decision when it is not clear what it is that should be done” and being “willing to pay the price.”[5] One of the stories Dandelion tells describes El-ahrairah’s love for his people and his willingness to suffer and give his life in exchange for theirs. Hazel proves to be a worthy descendant of the Prince of Rabbits. Trembling Pleasure Beyond all of this, though, Watership Down is simply a fantastic story. After the book’s publication in 1972, the reviewer from The London Times wrote, “I announce with trembling pleasure, the appearance of a great story.” That’s exactly what the book gives me: trembling pleasure. I love the characters: Fiver’s eerie premonitions, Kehaar’s comical impatience, Bigwig’s defiant courage, and Hazel’s hopeful perseverance. Woundwort is a terrifying antagonist. Who knew a rabbit could be so frightening? When I read the book aloud to my kids (both times), I frequently had a chill down my spine or a lump in my throat. In the latter chapters, the tension that builds as the plot unfolds is nearly unbearable. When asked by a young reader why he made it so scary, Adams responded, “Good stories ought to be exciting and if they are exciting they are inevitably scary in parts!”[6] In a later interview, he said, “Readers like to be upset, excited and bowled over.”[7] They do. And Adams delivered. Richard Adams died on Christmas Eve last year at age 96. This year Netflix and BBC will release a four-part, animated Watership Down miniseries, featuring the voices of James McAvoy, John Boyega, and Ben Kingsley.[8] I hope it turns out well. Regardless, a film can never replace what only a book can do. As the rabbits know, real stories are meant to be told. [1] Jeffrey Overstreet, “Remembering the Eucatastrophe of Richard Adams’ Watership Down.” https://thinkchristian.reframemedia.com/remembering-the-eucatastrophe-of-richard-adams-watership-down [2] Andrew Peterson, “What in the World is a Hutchmoot?” http://wingfeathersaga.com/what-in-the-world-is-a-hutchmoot [3] Overstreet, “Remembering the Eucatastrophe.” [4] Stanley Hauerwas, “A Story-Formed Community: Reflections on Watership Down,” in A Community of Character: Toward a Constructive Christian Social Ethic (University of Notre Dame, 1991), 13. [5] Hauerwas, “A Story-Formed Community,” 29. [6] “11 Fascinating Facts about Watership Down.” http://mentalfloss.com/article/63054/11-fascinating-facts-about-watership-down [7] Alison Flood, “Watership Down author Richard Adams: I just can’t do humans,” The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/04/richard-adams-watership-down-interview [8] John Plunkett, “BBC and Netflix team up for new Watership Down production,” The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/apr/28/bbc-and-netflix-team-up-for-new-watership-down-production.

When someone unfamiliar with Rich Mullins asks me where to start, I always tell them A Liturgy, a Legacy, and a Ragamuffin Band. The irony is, when that record released in 1993 during my freshman year of college, my roommates and I were a bit cold to it at first. We were connoisseurs of the rest of his catalog and had been covering his songs at youth events and in special music slots for a while, so it was with a lot of excitement that we tore off the cellophane and put the CD in the player. We liked it, but were a bit underwhelmed. But some of the best works of art play hard to get—sometimes you have to spend some time, give the songs space, live some life with them at your side, before they open themselves up to you. So it was with the Ragamuffin album. Now I put it up there with Paul Simon’s Graceland, Counting Crows’s August and Everything After, and Marc Cohn’s first record as one of the finest albums ever made. It was the last album that Reed Arvin produced for Rich, and feels like the culmination of everything they were working towards for all those years. Those lush strings, Chris McHugh’s massive drums, Rich’s dulcimers (lap and hammered), Jimmy Abegg’s tasteful electric guitars, Reed’s piano playing, Billy Crockett’s ridiculously pretty acoustic guitars, were the perfect undergirding for Rich’s raspy voice and those gorgeous, epic lyrics. Almost 25 years later, I still marvel at their power. Last year my friend Scott Mulvahill put on a tribute show for Paul Simon’s Graceland, and it was one of my favorite nights of music ever. No exaggeration. A bunch of stellar musicians who loved Graceland learned every note, every background vocal, every word, and invited their friends to celebrate it with them. We weren’t there to celebrate Simon so much as this thing, this work of art, that he helped to put into the world. In a town where everybody’s trying to get noticed, there was something magical about the fact that everybody on the stage was there to draw attention something else. That was the night I had the idea for this show. That’s why we’re going to try to replicate the album note-for-note. Because the Ragamuffin album isn’t just about Rich. It was his songs, yes, but it’s also about Reed Arvin’s production, about Jimmy, Chris, Rick, Billy, Matt, Danny, and the other musicians and vocalists and engineers who came together in community and happened to make something that’s as powerful now as it was twenty-four years ago. Most of all, though, we hope the gift the Lord gave to Rich will spill out into the audience, and that all of our attention will be drawn past the beam of light that was that record and to the source of the light, whose name is Jesus. I think that’s what Rich would want. The first half of the concert will be much like the Behold the Lamb shows. We’ll have some special guests play their favorite Rich songs, tell some stories, have some fun. Then after the intermission we’ll play through A Liturgy, a Legacy, and a Ragamuffin Band. One more fun fact: the first time I ever saw Rich live, it was at the Ryman, with Carolyn Arends and Ashley Cleveland on the tour for this album. This is me geeking out. I can hardly wait. Tickets are on sale now.

Well friends, I’m about to go all academic on you – or at least as academic as art, story, song obsessed me can get – by giving you a taste of what I’ve been working on in the past couple of years. I yearn to write here, to have time to work out more creatively the ideas I’m discovering academically. That will come –  and this season of study is so rich. But I hate to leave a static silence, so I’ll let you see where my curiosity has been roaming in the past year. (And you can pray for me as I study for my exams – three more weeks!) This essay was one from last year in which I looked at different models of atonement theology through the lens of art. I will admit, I have combined theology and art or literature in as many of my essays as I could because I so believe in the imagination as a ‘truth-bearing faculty’ (thank you, Malcolm Guite). I deeply believe that theological truth can be encountered and known in a ‘language without words’, and the power of this shapes us in a further and different way from doctrinal statements alone. In art, story, or song, we are given the chance to see theology afresh, to encounter its power and beauty in image. So. It’s a bit technical. But I’ll work it out someday in poetry and story too. Let us begin: In the opening to his book on the subject of beauty as ‘a category indispensable to Christian thought’, David Bentley Hart observes that ‘the church has no argument …more convincing than the form of Christ.’[i] Hans Urs von Balthasar echoes this by describing the ‘beauty’ of the Cross, noting that it is ‘unbearable’ to a worldly aesthetic.[ii] Yet one of the primary ways that the Cross has been presented throughout history is in countless works of art, created both for the sacred realm of church, and the wider arena of culture. That these works of image and imagination are also ‘arguments’, able to communicate theological truth, is where this essay begins. For as John Ruskin, the great art critic observed, ‘great nations write their autobiographies in ‘their deeds…their words… and the book of their art…and the last is the most trustworthy’[iii]. Replacing ‘nations’ with the institution of the Church, this essay will open with a brief exploration of the way in which the form of Christ is presented in the autobiography of its art, presenting both theological claims and the history of the Church in a language without words. Our specific focus will then turn to artistic depictions of Christ’s death, and the theologies of atonement that they embody. We will survey major models of atonement theology, using this basis to explore what two specific pieces of art communicate regarding the death of Christ. The pieces of focus will be the ‘vine cross’ mosaic in the apse of the church of San Clemente, in Rome, and a lithograph by Walter Spitzer, created as an illustration for the French writer Malraux’s novel, La Tentation de l’occident (The Temptation of the West). To open, we must briefly examine the validity of art as a means of theological communication. In a modern context shaped by Enlightenment empiricism, truth, even theology, is commonly regarded as the transmission of objective statements that can be analysed and argued. This concept of knowing is one that grew concurrently with the scientific age, in which materialism and objectivity moulded our understanding of knowledge as something observed and quantified. But as postmodern theory, not to mention theologians like Rowan Williams, Hans Urs von Balthasar, and generations of our ancestors would instantly recognize, some knowledge cannot be reduced to stated information. In evaluating the potential of art to communicate theology, we must first recognize that truth can be present in a language other than words, whether of image, emotion, or experience. In Richard Viladesau’s explanation, the communication of art is ‘nonverbal, but… not for that reason pre-rational or pre-spiritual’[iv]. Art can actually be ‘a way of thinking’[v] theologically in and of itself, allowing us a qualitatively different understanding via image and symbol from the knowledge gained by ratiocination. Jeremy Begbie says that ‘the arts give expression to a metaphorical way of perceiving the world… which reminds us there is always more to the world than we can name, control, and grasp’[vi]. Rather than standing apart from the doctrine we wish to understand, quantifying and describing it, we can look through a piece of art, gaining a ‘symbolic apprehension’ of ‘theological truth’[vii]. This immersive knowledge is precisely the alternate view that a piece of art can offer us as we look through its portrayal of Christ. Gerardus van der Leeuw gives this theological shape with his assertion (quoted by Viladesau) that ‘a theological understanding of the arts must begin with soteriology,’ with Christ’s incarnational representation of God giving ‘art and religion their common essence as answers’[viii] or responses to the startling fact of the Incarnation. In this, one hears echoes of Tolkien’s idea that artists are ‘co-creators’, makers made in the image of a Creator, or the poet Madeleine L’Engle’s concept of the artist as participating in the ‘courageous obedience’ of Mary, mother of Jesus, becoming a ‘bearer of the work’[ix] at the request of the Holy Spirit. Both writers recognise that art shares in the incarnational task of Christ as He comes to live in all believers so that the believing artist can participate with the Holy Spirit in revealing Christ to the world. The resulting multifaceted presentation of Christ powerfully conveys the reality that theology is not static nor wholly contained in one doctrinal system. In a mode profoundly different from stated truth, art allows us to ‘see’ the crucifixion through another’s eyes, enlarging our own perspective while helping us to recognise the limited nature of our view point when it remains in isolation. When centuries of artistic portrayals of the same theological event are set side-by-side, we immediately grasp the various ways in which the artists have seen this event, and the theological ideas shaping their aesthetic communication. Art is thus inherently a portrayal of church history as well, enfleshing the doctrinal arguments and developments of the Church in the imagery of its devotional, architectural, and popular art. As witnessed in Richard Harries’ book examining ‘the passion in art’[x] through the centuries, artists of every age ‘could not avoid making a doctrinal point’[xi] in their works. The art of the catacombs, of church basilicas, or prayer books and privately commissioned paintings, is a unique record of theological debate and imagination. Art is thus uniquely suited to a discussion of differing theological viewpoints in that a picture offers a literally alternate point of ‘view’, not a differently worded or argued statement. We encounter their particular theological emphasis in the immediacy of image. [Read Art & Theology pt. 2.] ‘Vine Cross’ in apse of San Clemente, Rome [i] Hart, David Bentley The Beauty of the Infinite (Grand Rapids: Eerdman’s, 2004), p. 3 [ii] von Balthasar, quoted in Viladesau, Richard, Theological Aesthetics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 149 [iii] Ruskin, John St. Mark’s Rest: The history of Venice, written for the help of the few travellers who still care for her monuments, (Oxford: 1879), pg. vii [iv] Viladesau, Richard, Theological Aesthetics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), pg. 16 [v] Viladesau, Richard, Theological Aesthetics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), pg. 16 [vi] Housley, Kathleen L., ‘A Conversation with Jeremy Begbie’ in Image Journal, retrieved from https://www.imagejournal.org/article/a-conversation-with-jeremy-begbie/, 17 July 2016 [vii] Guite, Malcolm Faith, Hope, and Poetry (Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2012) [viii] Ibid [ix]  L’Engle, Madeleine, Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art (New York: North Point Press, 1980) p. 18 [x] Harries, Richard The Passion in Art (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2004) [xi] Ibid, 29 Source: Art & Theology | Thoroughly Alive

I was browsing my copy of Letters of C. S. Lewis (a British first edition, of course!)  and happened upon this little gem. Those of us who write would do well to heed this advice—especially the part about not listening to the radio, for which we should substitute Netflix, Facebook, and bingeing on podcasts. It’s not that those things are necessarily bad, but if you’re going to indulge in them you forfeit your right to ever complain about not having time to finish your book. I’m preaching to myself here, of course. I also had a hard time with number seven, because computers. On with the list! TO A SCHOOLGIRL IN AMERICA, who had written (at her teacher’s suggestion) to request advice on writing. 14 December, 1959 It is very hard to give any general advice about writing. Here’s my attempt. Turn off the Radio. Read all the good books you can, and avoid nearly all magazines. Always write (and read) with the ear, not the eye. You should hear every sentence you write as if it was being read aloud or spoken. If it does not sound nice, try again. Write about what really interests you, whether it is real things or imaginary things, and nothing else. (Notice this means that if you are interested only in writing you will never be a writer, because you will have nothing to write about. . . .) Take great pains to be clear. Remember that though you start by knowing what you mean, the reader doesn’t, and a single ill-chosen word may lead him to a total misunderstanding. In a story it is terribly easy just to forget that you have not told the reader something that he wants to know—the whole picture is so clear in your own mind that you forget that it isn’t the same in his. When you give up a bit of work don’t (unless it is hopelessly bad) throw it away. Put it in a drawer. It may come in useful later. Much of my best work, or what I think my best, is the re-writing of things begun and abandoned years earlier. Don’t use a typewriter. The noise will destroy your sense of rhythm, which still needs years of training. Be sure you know the meaning (or meanings) of every word you use.

Last weekend I got to see U2’s Joshua Tree anniversary tour, which was epic and amazing, but it wasn’t the only incredible thing I saw that day. As we waited for the show to begin, a constant stream of poetry scrolled across the giant screen. At first I wasn’t paying much attention. I saw something by Walt Whitman, something by Solomon (I think), and other fascinating snatches of verse, mostly things I hadn’t encountered before. Then about five minutes before showtime, I caught an opening line that jumped out and captivated me with its strangeness: “Moth-force a small town always has, given the night.” I don’t know about you, but I can’t read something like that and not wonder what the next line is going to be. I mean, moth-force? Really? This is either going to be a poem about an epic Kaiju battle or something more in line with G. M. Hopkins. If I’m honest, I can get just as excited about either of those things. Matt Conner was sitting next to me and trying to say something (probably a pun), but I held up my hand and said, “Wait a minute, I’ve got to read this.” It wasn’t about Kaiju. When the final line scrolled out of view, I was almost breathless. I’ve rarely read a poem and been so captivated by it on the first reading. The poet is James Dickey. The title is “The Strength of Fields.” I may be in the minority in my ignorance of Dickey, but I’m so glad U2 made the introduction. (He’s also the author, and screenwriter, of Deliverance.) Below is the poem in full. I hope you are as a baffled by it and as moved by it as I was. I’m including it first without Dickey’s line-breaks and spacing, since that’s how I encountered it. But I’m following it up with his intended formatting (which I don’t pretend to understand). If you like this one, you should also check out “The Heaven of Animals.” “The Strength of Fields” by James Dickey … a separation from the world, a penetration to some source of power and a life-enhancing return … —Van Gennep: Rites de Passage Moth-force a small town always has, Given the night. What field-forms can be, Outlying the small civic light-decisions over A man walking near home? Men are not where he is Exactly now, but they are around him Around him like the strength Of fields. The solar system floats on Above him in town-moths. Tell me, train-sound, With all your long-lost grief, What I can give. Dear Lord of all the fields What am I going to do? Street-lights, blue-force and frail As the homes of men, tell me how to do it How to withdraw How to penetrate and find the source Of the power you always had Light as a moth, and rising With the level and moonlit expansion Of the fields around, and the sleep of hoping men. You? I? What difference is there? We can all be saved By a secret blooming. Now as I walk The night and you walk with me We know simplicity Is close to the source that sleeping men Search for in their home-deep beds. We know that the sun is away We know that the sun can be conquered By moths, in blue home-town air. The stars splinter, pointed and wild. The dead lie under The pastures. They look on and help. Tell me, freight-train, When there is no one else To hear. Tell me in a voice the sea Would have, if it had not a better one: as it lifts, Hundreds of miles away, its fumbling, deep-structured roar Like the profound, unstoppable craving Of nations for their wish. Hunger, time and the moon: The moon lying on the brain as on the excited sea as on The strength of fields. Lord, let me shake With purpose. Wild hope can always spring From tended strength. Everything is in that. That and nothing but kindness. More kindness, dear Lord Of the renewing green. That is where it all has to start: With the simplest things. More kindness will do nothing less Than save every sleeping one And night-walking one Of us. My life belongs to the world. I will do what I can. “The Strength of Fields” by James Dickey [Original formatting] Moth-force a small town always has, Given the night. What field-forms can be, Outlying the small civic light-decisions over A man walking near home? Men are not where he is Exactly now, but they are around him    around him like the strength Of fields.    The solar system floats on Above him in town-moths. Tell me, train-sound, With all your long-lost grief, what I can give. Dear Lord of all the fields what am I going to do? Street-lights, blue-force and frail As the homes of men, tell me how to do it    how To withdraw    how to penetrate and find the source Of the power you always had light as a moth, and rising With the level and moonlit expansion Of the fields around, and the sleep of hoping men. You?    I?    What difference is there?    We can all be saved By a secret blooming. Now as I walk The night    and you walk with me    we know simplicity Is close to the source that sleeping men Search for in their home-deep beds. We know that the sun is away    we know that the sun can be conquered By moths, in blue home-town air. The stars splinter, pointed and wild. The dead lie under The pastures.    They look on and help.    Tell me, freight-train, When there is no one else To hear. Tell me in a voice the sea Would have, if it had not a better one: as it lifts, Hundreds of miles away, its fumbling, deep-structured roar Like the profound, unstoppable craving Of nations for their wish. Hunger, time and the moon: The moon lying on the brain as on the excited sea    as on The strength of fields. Lord, let me shake With purpose.    Wild hope can always spring From tended strength.    Everything is in that. That and nothing but kindness.    More kindness, dear Lord Of the renewing green.    That is where it all has to start: With the simplest things. More kindness will do nothing less Than save every sleeping one And night-walking one Of us. My life belongs to the world. I will do what I can.

It’s rare for me to impulse buy a brand new book the year it comes out. But it was hard to resist the minimalist cover and absurdly long yet awesome title The Way of the Dragon or The Way of the Lamb: Searching for Jesus’ Path of Power in a Church that has Abandoned It. Provocative? Yes, but underneath the stark claim is a gentle, thoughtful, and essential message to a church culture that can easily fall into a power-driven, celebrity-loving trap. “But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic… But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.” James 3:14-17 The Way of the Dragon is part theological inquiry, part travelog, and part friendly wisdom to anyone in ministry. Pastor Jamin Goggin and theology professor Kyle Strobel begin with a question — What does Christian power look like? As they confronted their own temptations to leverage the world’s way of power, new questions arose: “What happens if the church rejects the power of Christ? What happens when Christians embody a worldly approach to power and try to use that to advance Christ’s kingdom?” Scripture calls us to reject  selfish ambition and boasting and embrace the humble “wisdom from above,” but how does that work in a world of social media maneuvering and rock star pastors? Weighty questions, for sure. And who better to ask than people who don’t look like powerful leaders, but who have have lived and served in relative obscurity and humility for decades? Rather than fumble for an answer themselves, Jamin and Kyle spent five years traveling the world to interview seven “sages” of the faith, people 70 or older who have quietly and faithfully lived the way of Jesus. Some are well known, like Eugene Peterson, J. I. Packer, and the late Dallas Willard, and some have lived behind the scenes of larger movements, like John Perkins and Jean Vanier. As they introduce us to the quiet wisdom of these sages, Jamin and Kyle explore power found in weakness, and how that revolutionary humility can change the world. “We choose: we follow the dragon and his beasts along their parade route… taking on whatever role is necessary to make a good show and get the applause of the crowds in order to get access to power and become self-important. Or we follow the Lamb along a farmyard route… in order to become, simply, our eternal selves in an eternal city.” – Eugene Peterson If you’re looking for writing that criticizes evangelicalism, calls out bad leaders, or laments shallow faith, well, there are plenty of blogs and books to scratch that itch. The beautiful thing about The Way of the Dragon is how the authors refuse to take cheap shots, maintaining love and hope for the church. Learning about these sages is an encouragement that lifelong faith and hope is possible, whether in John Perkins choosing non-violence over hate in the fight for civil rights, Jean Vanier’s gentle recollections of serving the disabled, or the tenderness exchanged between James Houston and his beloved wife Rita as she struggled with dementia. In this spirit of love are sobering warnings though, exposing the power structures lurking behind business-like church culture and calling us to give up control to embrace humility and suffering. While especially aimed at folks in pastoral ministry, anyone who loves the church enough to know how good intentions often go awry will find plenty to think about in these pages. Recommended for… Readers of Slow Church by John Pattison and Christopher Smith will find a similar mix of convicting insights and generous spirit. You might even say the vision for “slow church” begins with humility and service. I’m also currently reading Falling Upward by Richard Rohr, and though they have little in common, Rohr’s exploration of hitting the bottom of yourself before you rise and grow resonates in a similar way for me.

For my family, like so many others, 2016 was a year punctuated by loss and grief. It was a year of watching as people we loved fought heroic battles, some ending with partings we prayed would not come. In the autumn, on the heels of all that had gone before, a new and unwelcome challenge came into our lives. Sometimes when a storm is gathering it is possible to read the signs. A dip in temperature. An increase in wind. A darkening sky. This particular storm was unleashed without warning, tearing at our roots in its attempt to carry us, disoriented, into the unknown. In September, at the end of what I believed was a pretty routine hospital appointment, a consultant took me into a private room and told me he was almost certain I had colon cancer. I’ve often tried to imagine how I would feel in such a moment. I think, with the ignorance of a melodramatic introvert who spends too much time thinking, I had almost romanticised the grief. The three months that followed were anything but romantic. I found myself plunged into a world of tests, surgery, uncertainty, ugly words, and a stripping away of dignity that made me want to curl into a ball and cry. There are undoubtedly seasons when you are ready to read about triumph and perseverance but there are also times when you just need someone to sit with you in weary sorrow. I think that’s why I found myself in the book of Lamentations. Strangely, it was amidst the apparently hopeless grief of God’s people that I found a reminder of Truth that is bigger than any individual circumstance or emotion, no matter how overwhelming it feels. Lamentations gives me hope because it is real and raw. Its inclusion in Scripture assures me that God is not oblivious to my tears and that my weakness does not in any way compromise His strength. It gives me hope because it reminds me that one story of pain should never be read in isolation. Lamentations opens with these words, “How lonely sits the city That was full of people! She has become like a widow Who was once great among the nations.” (NASB) The story continues in a similar vein. Grief. Suffering. Loss. Fear. Jerusalem is empty and desolate. God’s people are in exile. On every side there is death and oppression and pain. The groans and cries of the dying are met only with the silence of Heaven. The language is haunting. For a widow, pain and loneliness are heightened by the knowledge of what has been. The seat beside her was not always empty. The bed was not always cold. The questions were not always met with silence. Solitude is mocked by the memory of intimacy and the knowledge that it is gone forever. It must have seemed that way to Israel. The old stories were too painful to tell. The temple was destroyed, the walls were broken and their shame was complete. On my second reading I noticed something that changed my understanding of Lamentations. In verse two Israel is not described as a widow but like a widow. In that one small word is the seed of hope. If Israel is a widow then God is dead, hope is gone and despair is the only reality. If she is like a widow then the rich and raw language simply describes the viewpoint God’s people have in that singular moment. A view that is limited by time, experience and understanding. With no such limitations, God’s perspective is entirely different. There is a beautiful passage in Isaiah 54 v 4-8, written over one hundred years before these events took place. Not only does it provide an insight into God’s heart for His people, it also serves as a much-needed reminder that He can see beyond the enormity of our circumstances. Looking ahead, with full knowledge of all that was to come, He warns His people of the danger they are in. He reminds them that, even when the shadows come, they have not been abandoned. Long before the storm clouds start to gather, this is His reassurance, “Fear not, for you will not be put to shame; And do not feel humiliated, for you will not be disgraced; But you will forget the shame of your youth, and the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more. For your husband is your Maker, Whose name is the Lord of hosts; And your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel, Who is called the God of all the earth”. (NASB) In Lamentations 1 v 4 the streets of Jerusalem are abandoned and the gates are desolate. The place of feasting is filled with groaning, affliction and bitterness. If the story ends there then it is a bitter conclusion indeed. Through the window of history we can look ahead, setting the grief of theses verses alongside the rejoicing of Nehemiah chapter 8. The once empty streets are ringing with joy as the people return from exile. While the pain of Lamentations was undeniably real, the truth of Nehemiah 8 turns it from a bitter and hopeless ending into a painful chapter in a story that is far from over. Within the sorrow of Lamentations there is a bigger truth unfolding. If truth depends simply on what the eyes can see or what the heart can feel then the grief of Lamentations is total. Hope is narrowed until it is hemmed in by the limits of basic human understanding. If we are to survive in the dark days, perhaps even with hope and peace that sit comfortably in tension with our sorrow, we need to catch a glimpse of God’s perspective. To immerse ourselves deeply in His character, His promises and His story in a way that allows us to live honestly in a broken world without surrendering to hopelessness. His goodness is neither proved nor called into question by my story. Heidi Johnston On December 16th, the day before my fortieth birthday, I was told that my original consultant had been mistaken. While some pre-cancerous cells were removed during surgery there was no further treatment required. Throughout the many tearful conversations that took place that day, one theme kept recurring. Again and again I spoke and heard the words, “God is good!” It wasn’t until some time afterwards that I began to reflect on that instinctive response. God is indeed utterly good and I am so thankful that this chapter of my individual story ended well. Having said that, I can’t help but wonder how often I measure God’s goodness by the outcome of my particular circumstance. If my story had ended differently, requiring me to walk the path I feared most, my heart may have faltered and my courage given way but God would still have been good. His goodness is neither proved nor called into question by my story. The truth is, God was good before the answer came. He was good in the uncertainty and the fear, just as He was in the rejoicing. He was good when I received the news and, while I almost hesitate to say it out loud, He would have remained good had the outcome been all that I feared. His goodness is a fact that is bigger than my circumstances and can be relied on as absolutely true. We live in a world that is increasingly hostile to the idea of truth. So much so that the Oxford Dictionaries selected post-truth as their “word of the year” for 2016. In their explanation of the choice, post-truth is defined as ‘relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief’. My problem is that if truth depends on my experience or my feelings then my strongest anchor point is myself. Back in September I expected that the journey I was facing would change me in some neat, definable way. I thought I would be asked to prove my faith, emerging stronger and wiser, more patient and less broken. It turned out that my emphasis was wrong. There was a test but I was not the one to prove myself. Inevitably, I stumbled and failed in so many ways, confirming little more than my own weakness. God, however, was proving Himself to be all that He had claimed. Walking with me into the shadows, He showed me again that He can be trusted. He could still be trusted a month later when I stood at the funeral of one of my closest friends, helpless in the face of her grieving husband and five teenage children. He could be trusted when I got a call to say that someone else I love had been diagnosed with cancer. He can be trusted when the evil and suffering spilling from my television is almost overwhelming and He can be trusted when I am tempted to believe the whispered suggestion that He has forgotten us. I came out of 2016 infinitely more aware of my own weakness. Yet, even as I felt myself unravelling, I was at the same time sinking more deeply into a truth that is bigger than all my fears. Even as I write this, I have no idea what the future holds for me or for the people I love. I don’t know what storms we will find ourselves walking through or what I’m going to hear the next time I turn on the news. However, if God’s character and goodness are determined by circumstance then my peace and security are held hostage by a frankly terrifying world. In the midst of the lament we need truth that is stronger than our feelings in any given moment. We need it in moments of courage, when we pin hope to our breast like a shield and we need it when we find ourselves face down in the dirt, broken by grief and afraid that God is nowhere to be found. Regardless of circumstance, truth assures us that we are not alone. It reminds us that the God who is present in our pain can see beyond the shadows to the moment when this brokenness will be redeemed forever.

The song “I Am Hidden Away In The Bosom of Christ” began with Rebecca Reynolds’s poignant lyrics that speak of having peace and assurance in troubled times. She sent them to me in an email, and one day I was up at Jeff’s studio and we skyped with Rebecca as we came up with the melody. Jeff and I recorded this at Wildwood Studio on their big Yamaha grand piano, and I used a 1937 Martin D-28. We had Barry Bales play bass, Lisa Forbes and Suzanne Cox did a stellar job on the harmonies, and Tim Crouch’s strings round everything out perfectly. [This song is available in the Rabbit Room Store both on In the Round Vol. 1.] I Am Hidden Away In The Bosom of Christ Music: Jeff Taylor/Seek 1st/ASCAP and Ron Block/Moonlight Canyon Publishing/BMI Lyrics: Rebecca Reynolds/Wynken Owl/BMI When the bright hope of youth, Heaves a lonely grey sigh, I am hidden away, in the bosom of Christ. When a brother betrays, When the black rumor flies, I am hidden away in the bosom of Christ CHORUS When I’m lost in the breaking When I break from the loss When the chaos unfurls And the low waters toss When He giveth and taketh Away in the night I am hidden away In the bosom of Christ When darkness prevails When reason betrays When faith is eclipsed When answers give way Through tremor, and echo, and censure, and blight, I am hidden away, in the bosom of Christ. CHORUS When I’m lost in the breaking When I break from the loss When the chaos unfurls And the low waters toss When He giveth and taketh Away in the night I am hidden away In the bosom of Christ [This song is available in the Rabbit Room Store both on In the Round Vol. 1.]

The more I study this image, the more I find. The whole of creation is caught up in this presentation of the Cross as the cosmic renewal of life, love, and fellowship. I especially love the detail of chickens and flowers and little animals; these are charming but also a powerful image of incarnational life reaching into the very tiniest corners of the ordinary, intent to redeem. Thus, continued: The image central to our first piece of art, the apse mosaic in the church of San Clemente in Rome, is that of the Cross as a living tree whose burgeoning life is a living vine encircling the world in total renewal. Though dating to a later period, this piece robustly embodies the vision of quickened life inherent in the spirit of the early church and its emphasis on Christ’s victory over death. Constructed in the twelfth century and dedicated to Pope St. Clement (supposed to be either first or third in the line of St. Peter’s successors), the mosaic sits over the high altar, drawing the eye to the central figure of a peaceful Christ on a living cross, with the apse filled by the tendrils of the vines that grow from the foot of the cross, each circled vine picturing an aspect of human culture, work, or creation, the whole of the picture crammed with human and animal life and activity. It is fascinating to note that in early Christian portrayals of Christ in art, Jesus was not pictured on the Cross until the 5th century. The early church was intent upon the portrayal of Christ as risen, the victor over death and redeemer of creation. Even in the earliest extant images of the crucifixion (in a series of ivory panels dated c. 420, and a rougher image on a church door from Rome, dating c. 432) the Christ portrayed is alive, alert, and muscular, not defeated by the cross, but defeating it by his very presence on it. The vine cross in St. Clement reflects that life-affirming portrayal. Also worth noting is that though the image of the Cross as the tree of life isn’t frequent, there are other luminous examples, including the 14th c. painting by Pacino di Bonaguida, as well as the much later image created by Sir Edward Burne Jones in 1888 for St Paul’s Within-the-Walls in Rome, suggesting a recurring fascination with this symbolic image.  Christopher Irvine describes it as ‘ubiquitous’ in Christian ‘liturgy and iconography’, alluding to a phrase of the Venerable Bede ‘about the cross being planted at the centre of the world’[1]. The cross, in this great work, reflects exactly that, sitting in the centre of the apse and the centre of what can be seen as a garden, the self-giving of Christ in Gethsemane making it a second and renewed garden of Eden. Furthering this reading are the four streams portrayed as flowing from the foot of the Cross, the four rivers of Eden renewed, with harts portrayed quenching their thirst, a clear allusion to Psalm 42, and also perhaps to the water that Jesus offered to the Samaritan woman. These images of life rooted in and springing forth from Christ’s death communicate several theological ideas. First is the incarnational emphasis on Christ’s given body as restorative of, not just the soul of mankind, or even of peace between God and mankind, but rather the whole of creation. As Torrance made clear in his magisterial work on the Incarnation, the work of Christ was to ‘assume our human nature as we have it in the fallen world that he might heal, sanctify and redeem it’[2]. Christ was the second Adam, Gethsemane was the Garden of Eden renewed, and because of Christ’s already redemptive life, his death accomplishes the victory in which Paul exults in Romans 15:55. ‘Recapitulation’ is the reality pictured in the apse mosaic, a model of atonement drawn from the writings of Ireneaus ‘whose ‘central element is… the restoring and perfecting of creation’ [3]. Indeed, the whole world appears to be framed in the whorled leaves stretching round the apse. Within their circles are images of every aspect of human culture and endeavour; medicine, law, agriculture, religion, right down to the delightful addition of a housewife feeding her chickens in the left hand corner. The vines rooted in the cross directly suggest Jesus’ words at the Last Supper of ‘abide in me’. They present a profoundly Incarnational picture, portraying the whole of creation renewed by its rootedness, its ‘abiding’ in the given body of Jesus. The kingdom of heaven thus comes in the local, particular spaces of daily human life as they are rooted in the Incarnational life of Christ. Second is the cross as a place of life renewed and death defeated, with the emphasis on what is created afresh, rather than what is lost. There is no hint here of God’s wrath or of Christ as punished, elements inherent in a penal view of the atonement (to be discussed below), but rather as God and Christ both participating in the total self-gift of Jesus to restore the lost creation and humanity. The underlying idea is one of victory as a symbol of excruciating torture and violent death has been transformed by Jesus’ sacrificial death into the enduring symbol of verdant life. The atonement emphasis in this work is upon Christ’s self-gift as restorative rather than punitive. His hands are opened upward as he gives his body as the seed from which the new life of humanity and creation grows. His eyes are closed, not in resistance or agony, but in what appears to be quiet acceptance. Irvine observes that though this is not the ‘open-eyed victorious Christ of earlier liturgical art’, his death is portrayed as ‘release…to the new and burgeoning life’ of ‘God’s redeeming work’. [4] Third is the presence of God the Father in this crucifixion and renewal. A strong theology of Incarnation makes God the Father active and present in the person of Christ, not separated from Jesus, but participatory in his redemptive life. God is both ‘the reconciler and the reconciled’[5], and in the mosaic he is represented by the great hand that reaches out of heaven (and the ceiling of the apse) to hold the top of the Cross. There is here, in the words of 20thcentury theologian Gustave Aulen, ‘no cleavage between Incarnation and atonement’[6]. Rather, as Hebrews has it, Christ is the very image of God, and that image, as the contemporary theologian Hans Boersma poignantly argues, is that of a welcoming Father, a hospitable God imaged in the apse by the opened hands of Christ and the protective hand of the Father. The imagery of the apse mosaic is thus of an all-encompassing redemption accomplished in the very person of the incarnate God as his life, and willing death, renews every aspect of humanity and creation. [Read Art & Theology pt. 1.] [1] Irvine, Christopher The Cross and Creation in Christian Liturgy and Art (London: SPCK Publishing, 2013) pg. 163 [2] T.F. Torrance, The Incarnation, (Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2008) pg. 62 [3] Aulen, Gustaf, Christus Victor (London: SPCK Publishing, 2010) pg. 21 [4] Irvine, Christopher The Cross and Creation in Christian Liturgy and Art (London: SPCK Publishing, 2013) pg. 152 [5] Aulen, Gustaf, Christus Victor (London: SPCK Publishing, 2010) [6] Ibid, 21 Source: Art & Theology (part 2) | Thoroughly Alive

In the last few years I’ve had an increasing fascination with hiphop music. (Yes. You read that right.) I suppose it started when I was working with teenagers and one of them was a fan of Lecrae (this was years before his Grammy wins). Christian rap? No thanks, I thought. But I listened, and after a while I found myself interested. It didn’t win me over at the time. It was mainly a means of finding common ground with kids, but it got me started. A couple of years later, Coldplay’s Viva La Vida album became a favorite and that led to a fascination with Jay-Z’s mashup Viva La Hova. I was secretly addicted to that album for several weeks, and I had no idea what to make of it. I just couldn’t stop listening. Then Josh Garrels Love and War and the Sea in Between came along. I played “Farther Along” and “Ulysses” and “Beyond the Blue” a million times like every other folk/acoustic-steeped, middle-aged guy, but my other favorite track on that record was “Resistance.” I love that song. I think it completed the bridge for me. It was clearly hiphop, yet it was also clearly something else, something closer to what I was used to. And after I admitted to myself how much I loved that song, it got a lot easier to look for similar stuff elsewhere. A few months ago I talked to Randall Goodgame about the new Sing the Bible record he’s working on and he told me a hiphop artist named Propaganda was coming to the studio to record something for the album. That name rang a bell, and it didn’t take me long to remember that when we premiered N. D. Wilson’s short film The Hound of Heaven at Hutchmoot, Propaganda was the man at the center of that, the narrator reciting the text of the poem. I remember Nate telling me I should listen to some of Prop’s work, but I never followed up on it. I’ve rectified that now. Check out this video of one of his spoken word performances. The more I listen to and learn about Propaganda, the more I like him. Spend some time on Youtube and you’ll see what I mean. Even if you aren’t a hiphop fan, check out his spoken word videos and interviews. And if you do much digging, you’ll learn he’s part of an organization called Humble Beast, which is an awful lot like the Rabbit Room. Here’s their mission statement: Humble Beast exists in humility to disciple God’s people and advance God’s kingdom through beautiful acts of creativity and theology for the worship of the triune God. Out of this mission comes Humble Beast’s four major distinctives: Creativity, Humility, Theology, Doxology. Check out their website here. It’s home to my other favorite hiphop artist, Sho Baraka (more on him in another post, I hope). Last Friday, Propaganda’s new record, Crooked, was released. I listened to it straight through, twice—and it made me cry both times (seriously). It’s an album about problems and anger and frustration and the complicated nature of relationships, but it’s not only about how crooked the world is, or about how crooked our hearts are, it’s about making things right. Prop’s ability to paint a landscape of America in all its darkness and light reminds me of the best of Springsteen, and his ability to diagnose social issues with appropriate anger yet without losing hope recalls the best of U2. And it’s all done in his own unique and articulate style mixing spoken word, rap, and R&B together into a symphony of sound and words. If you love poetry and wordplay, you owe it to yourself to pay attention. I realized a few days ago that the reason I’m drawn to hiphop is the same reason I’m drawn to storytelling in general. Storytelling is the most powerful way in which I experience the perspective of others. Whether I’m reading a novel, or a poem, or watching a movie or documentary, or listening to a hiphop album, I’m in the skin of another person, seeing the world from their eyes, feeling the tension of their particular lives and struggles. And through the process of seeing better what others see, I better understand what I see myself (and what I’m blind to). This is what art does. It has the power to transplant us into the mind and experience of another, and if we’re paying attention, we might learn something of ourselves—we might change something of ourselves. Crooked’s messages are hard to hear at times, but that’s as it should be if we’re looking at the true nature of the world (or of our hearts). But what makes the album great is its acknowledgement that the brokenness of the world is systemic to all creation and answerable, reparable, only by the coming of the Kingdom. In an album full of ironies and arguments, the consistent underlying theme is that we’re all broken and in need of the Gospel. And in that, Crooked reminds me of Light for the Lost Boy more than anything else. Musically, the connection might be tenuous, but emotionally and thematically, both of these albums tickle my soul in the same way. We wake in the night in the womb of the world We beat our fists on the door We cannot breathe in this sea that swirls So we groan in this great darkness For deliverance Deliverance, O Lord –“Come Back Soon” by Andrew Petersonhttps://rabbitroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/01-Come-Back-Soon.mp3 Longing for escape and hoping in salvation Yeah, hoping in salvation Waiting for the day He make the crooked way straight [Chorus: Audrey Assad] We march on a crooked road And we raise our eyes And we raise our eyes Justice is going to roll Like a river wide Like a river wide —“Made Straight” by Propagandahttps://rabbitroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/13-Made-Straight-feat.-Audrey-Assad.mp3 Did I even mention that Audrey Assad makes an appearance? If you’re like me, you’ve got an iTunes library full of acoustic folk-rock music that you’ll love until the day you die. So I get it if you’re skeptical about branching off into something as musically foreign as hiphop, but I’d encourage you to stretch your boundaries. There’s good music being made out there, and I’m glad I’ve discovered the Humble Beast artists. They’re doing good work. Check them out. Crooked is a fantastic place to start. Crooked is now available for free at Humble Beast.

Every Moment Holy is scheduled to print in just a few weeks. This past weekend at the Rabbit Room Writers Fellowship, we read through one of the liturgies to close our meeting. I thought I’d share it with everyone this morning so you can get another peek at what we’ve been working on. It’s written for writers of fiction, but I think it works well for writers of any kind. If you’d like to be one of the first to get your hands on Every Moment Holy, consider becoming a Rabbit Room Member (members will receive a free copy as their 3rd quarter thank-you gift). A Liturgy for Writers of Fiction from Every Moment Holy Writers: Lord, let me love this world into being Leader: Even as you, in the infinite poetry of your thoughts and the inexhaustible joy of your love, spoke a universe into existence, into life, into the complex motion of its myriad particulars, so grant the grace that I might trace by my thoughts and words the echoes of some infinite pattern of your creation. Take these my small offerings: my pen, my paper, my words, my willingness to be still and present. Fill my imagination. Be to me both fire and wonder, inspiration and guide. Take these my small offerings. Take and multiply them into a story that might stir or salve, that might shape or strengthen, that might name hidden wounds or secret hopes, that might open hearts to your mysteries. May your Holy Spirit meet me in the process of creation, for even as you called into being all things from nothing, so would I now step into the nothingness of an empty page, trusting that your Spirit might be manifest in this act of faith and stewardship. Lord, let me love this world into being, and let me love each of the characters I create, even those who choose to harm, who choose their own pride, their own strength, their own glory above what is right and good and true; let me love even those who turn from righteousness, who eschew grace. May I allow them the dignity to become themselves within the world I have created, and may I not impose my own will upon these creations, but leave room for them to make real choices of consequence to themselves and others. May they have something like a breath of life in them, and not be the shriveled fruit of my own moralizing. Shape me by these labors. May I return from sojourning in this world of the imagined, made—by the long practice of empathy—more fit for acts of mercy and service in this true world of your creation. Lord, let me love the reader, ever writing for their good, writing words that might, in the employ of your Spirit, bring life and hope and conviction. And when I have written lines that are but my own vain ramblings, or when I am too enamored of my own cleverness, grant me the humility and the courage to make the hard choices, to amputate my own ego. Reveal these deficiencies to me before I send my words out into the world, that I might not add to the noise. But if I do, may it please you by your grace to turn even my darkness to light so that even the fruits of my pride and insecurity would be redeemed for the good of your people and the furtherance of your kingdom and the glory of your name. Lord, let me love this world into being because you are the author of stories within stories within stories and of poetry within all of creation and you have made us lovers and stewards of this gift of story. We who live out our small stories within your greater story would also tell, by your grace, such stories as would somehow awaken hearts to wonder, to beauty, to truth, to love. It is in the name of Jesus that we ask this. Lord, let me love this world into being Oh Spirit of God, be active! Lord, let me love this world into being. Oh Spirit of God, breathe life! Lord, let me love this world into being. Oh Spirit of God, brood over the waters of my finite imagination! Call new worlds and stories into being. Oh Spirit of God, breathe life! Copyright 2017 by Douglas Kaine McKelvey

As you know, metaphor and simile are not at all the same thing. The distinction between the two makes all the difference in the world. Let’s compare them using the song: “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine You make me happy when skies are gray You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you So please don’t take my sunshine away” Ahhh. What a simple, sweet use of metaphor. Now imagine if this precious song were written using simile instead: “You are like sunshine, my only one like sunshine You make me happy when my mood is as gray skies You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you So please don’t take my one who is like sunshine away” Doesn’t quite have that same ring, does it? This is because, of course, similes use “like” or “as” to compare two different things while metaphors compare these things by declaring them to be the same, even though in a literal sense, they are not. I like to personify ideas in order to understand them. Please excuse the forthcoming use of metaphor to describe simile, but I can’t refrain. Simile is sensible. Simile walks into the room with a nicely ironed shirt and combed hair, and would be outraged at himself if you were to tell him he has a little bit of food stuck in his teeth. He is careful to regard the world just as it is, never letting his feelings get the best of him. He religiously abides by the law of analogy, fully aware of how all things are alike to one another, yet unalike. His world is ordered into a handsome hierarchy of Being, and he knows just where he fits in, because he has given it extensive thought. He gives everything extensive thought. He is, one might say, anal retentive. Metaphor bursts into the room proclaiming that she is a rag doll breaking apart at the seams, there’s a tempest raging in her heart, and everyone she has ever loved is a stranger. Clearly, Simile would have none of that. There is no quicker way to violate every one of his rules. One thing may share similarities with another, but by no means can one thing be another! He would tell Metaphor to calm down, that she is clearly not a rag doll and that it is an impossibility for the blood-pumping organ in her chest to contain within itself a tornadic storm. To which Metaphor would reply, “You don’t get it. You don’t understand me.” And this is crucial. Metaphor does not have time to arrange her world into neatly chosen comparisons; she has emotions to express. Implicit in this urgency is Metaphor’s wisdom: there is a truth to life truer than literal truth. She knows that when the situation calls for it, she must do greater justice to the truth of the moment than Simile will allow for with mere factual comparison. Metaphor knows that it is not enough to say, “You are like sunshine,” but that love compels us to say, “You are my sunshine.” This is called emotional intelligence. (Quick disclaimer: I have deliberately exaggerated both Simile and Metaphor to make a point here. Similes can be delightful, and very emotionally sensitive, while metaphors can be dry and boring. In addition, the gender roles implicated in each example are in no way meant to be prescriptive.) Now, when metaphors are constructed one on top of another in an overarching narrative, something wonderful happens. No longer are these comparisons constricted to momentary sentences—it becomes possible for characters, plots, and scenes to take on metaphorical qualities. Here we’re moving into the realm of symbolism, where entire stories become enchanted with layers upon layers of meaning. I’m a sucker for stories like these. One such story that has greatly influenced my imagination over the years is the Studio Ghibli film, Spirited Away, which illustrates the gifts and snares of commerce between the human and spirit worlds through the decisions of its main character, Chihiro. Throughout the story, Chihiro must protect and retain her own humanity by practicing the virtues of hospitality, courage, and wisdom towards the spirits she encounters, not all of whom are well-intentioned. By the end of the film, she has grown into a true poverty of spirit. I have found that, by analogy, Spirited Away has much to say about how I as a songwriter relate to the ideas and intuitions that enter my imagination, many of which are archetypes much older than me (timeless spirits in a sense). In this way, I believe it is an instructive film for those of us especially concerned with tending to our inner imaginative worlds. In my next post I will examine two vignettes from Spirited Away and make a few observations about what we can learn from them. I will then explore some metaphors for the imagination itself and ask specifically Christian questions about what it means to accept and embrace the poverty of our imaginations in the image of the cross of Christ. And, of course, Metaphor will accompany me for the journey and make some insights of her own along the way. Stay tuned!

Who was Martin Luther? What did he do when he nailed his 95 Theses to the Castle Church door in Wittenberg on Oct 31st, 1517? What did he intend when he sought to ground the Christian life in a theology of the cross, rather than a theology of glory? This seminar from our friends at Covenant Theological Seminary marks the 500th year of the Protestant Reformation by considering the late Medieval context of Luther’s Reformation. The seminar will explore his theological, pastoral, and biblical writings, seeking to make application for the Christian life in our “post-everything” culture. Through lectures, review of primary and secondary texts, and conversation in community, attendees will seek to understand Luther’s theological program, considering key features of his thought, such as the doctrine of justification, the theology of the cross, law and grace, prayer, hymnody, and vocation. Professor David Filson is a pastor-scholar who serves on the pastoral staff at Christ Presbyterian Church in Nashville, Tennessee. David is a graduate of Covenant Theological Seminary, a Ph.D. candidate in Historical and Theological Studies at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, and a visiting lecturer in Apologetics and Historical Theology at Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte and Atlanta. David blogs at www.christwardcollective.org, www.reformation21.org and www.teachinglikerain.wordpress.com. He is also a regular panelist for the podcast, East of Eden: The Biblical and Systematic Theology of Jonathan Edwards. This weekend seminar is part of a larger course which continues each evening the following week. Covenant Seminary students, alumni, and auditors are eligible for that week-long course. For more information about Covenant Theological Seminary Nashville and the Masters of Theological Studies degree offered in Nashville, please connect with the site director, Rob Wheeler at rob.wheeler@covenantseminary.edu. Times & Dates Friday Aug 4, 6–9pm Saturday Aug 5, 8:30am–5:00pm The cost to the public is $45, but Rabbit Room readers can use the discount code “rabbitroom” to register for only $15. For more information, and to register, click here. Source: We Are All Beggars: The Life & Theology of Martin Luther Tickets, Fri, Aug 4, 2017 at 6:00 PM | Eventbrite

When we invited Ned Bustard to illustrate Every Moment Holy, we asked him to embrace the look of medieval woodcuts with all their symbols and iconic imagery. But because the book is about recalling the sacred in our everyday lives, we also wanted him to find ways to take that old style and inject it with modern sensibilities and contemporary elements. Ned is fast at work carving the linocuts for the book and I thought it would be fun to show you a little of his work in progress. This first image goes with a liturgy titled “A Liturgy for Domestic Days,” and it perfectly captures the intersection of old and new, sacred and mundane. Note the image of Christ humbly scrubbing the bathroom floor. And here’s a look at the process of carving a linocut. This is the illustration for “A Liturgy for Arriving at the Ocean.” Each of the images in this piece have specific meanings in Christian symbology. Yes, even the mermaid. This is the final, carved block that will be inked and used to print the illustration. No one ever said it was going to be easy. Ned only has about twenty left to carve, and they are all going to be amazing. The book will be off to the presses in the next couple of weeks. Pray for us as we pull the final details together. Click here for more information about Every Moment Holy.

My Wendell Berry journey began with reading his essays. I was enthralled with his ideas of husbandry, his distaste for computers, and his reluctance to rely on coal for energy. But when I read Hannah Coulter last year as part of a church book group, I was less mesmerized. Although I found the book beautiful and sweet, it was also painful for me to read. It touched on some deep wounds from childhood regarding family and community. I grew up in a log cabin on twelve acres of woods in Georgia. I was homeschooled. I was very secluded from the world. It was both hard and joyous to leave that place. It was hard because it was everything I knew and loved. It was joyous because it was freedom from what at times felt like a prison. In Hannah Coulter, Hannah and her husband talk about the children that grew up and never returned to their family farm as if they were lost—to Hannah and her husband, to love and community, and maybe even to Christ. I’m not sure that I can get on board with Berry’s picture of staying. Yet at the same time, I do see in my friends and at times myself, a fear of commitment, a selfish desire to “make the most out of life,” and a worldly view that cheapens community and demeans the simple life of devotion to one’s family and place. My debut album is called In Search of the Sea, and it is all about leaving and going on an adventure. The longing for an exciting life is not hard to defend—our culture is saturated with it. “Make your life the best movie possible.” That’s what I hear from my TV and also from some of my favorite authors and speakers, many of them devout believers. But I find something missing from that view and almost sigh in relief when I read that it is not only okay but perhaps even admirable to look at life a different way—a slower way. The song “Hey, Annaliese” is about a girl who is always leaving. She’s been running away from being known and loved. The chorus says: Hey, Annaleise there’s a place you can land here, there’s a place you can stay, there’s a place you can grow.Don’t be afraid, afraid of the shoreline, afraid of the down time, afraid of slow years. In the end, I refuse to take a strong stance either way: I love adventure and travel too much to stay in one place, but I also long for deep relationships, commitment, and a physical place to call home. When I think of loyalty, I think of Ruth in the Old Testament. She was loyal to a person instead of a place. She clung to Naomi, but left her father’s land and religion. As a Christian, I know my first loyalty is always to Christ, and he might send me all over the known world. He might also ask me to stay in one tiny place for a very long time. Perhaps “a time to stay and a time to go” is a line that should be added to Ecclesiastes 3. Perhaps if we answered this question (to leave or to go) definitely, then we would be avoiding a real relationship with Christ and never learning to truly follow him. So what do you think? When have you left or stayed and what came of it? “Hey, Annaliese” Music Video: In Search of the Sea, will be available July 21st on iTunes. Until then, you can pre-order it at: http://www.hettymusic.com.

When we were rounding out the record at the end of the process Jeff mentioned this hymn written Frederick Whitfield in 1855 and recorded it as a short interlude to go after “Come Away With Me.” Jeff on piano, and myself on guitar. It’s a fitting melody after the thoughts of God’s love to us in “Come Away With Me.” It’s a short bit, only a chorus, because it’s meant as a response, but below are the lyrics in entirety. One of the things I love about many of the old hymns is how they speak of who God is and what he has done. When a modern worship song or an old hymn goes on too much about what we should be doing for Jesus, we’re not being fed with the very thing that stirs and empowers us to do: faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ, God the Father, and the Holy Spirit. This hymn, which sounds at first as if it’s all about how much I love Jesus, is really about who God is and what he has done; we love him “because he first loved me.” “O, How I Love Jesus” from Ron Block and Jeff Taylor’s Trouble Go Down (available here) There is a name I love to hear, I love to sing its worth; it sounds like music in my ear, the sweetest name on earth. Refrain: O how I love Jesus, O how I love Jesus, O how I love Jesus, because he first loved me! It tells me of a Savior’s love, who died to set me free; it tells me of his precious blood, the sinner’s perfect plea. [Refrain] It tells of one whose loving heart can feel my deepest woe; who in each sorrow bears a part that none can bear below. [Refrain]

You know we love our books at The Rabbit Room, so here’s a little help finding your next favorite. Welcome to Rabbit Reads, a new weekly series where we offer a recommendation from our overflowing shelves and open the floor for discussion. Anything can show up here: old and new, novels and memoirs, comics and kid lit. We just promise it’s something worth your time. Let’s get started with a book that’s been on our radar for months… Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson (Spiegel & Grau, 2014) Memoirs / Law / Social Justice Why We Love It: “Ms. Parks leaned back, smiling. ‘Ooooh, honey, all that’s going to make you tired, tired, tired.’ … Then Ms. Carr leaned forward and put her finger in my face and talked to me just like my grandmother used to talk to me. She said, ‘That’s why you’ve got to be brave, brave, brave.’” I don’t know how to begin talking about Just Mercy. Sometimes I could barely make it through a chapter because I needed to stop and let anger and grief do its work. Sometimes, I flew through the pages, spurred on by glimpses of hope. Bryan Stevenson’s dedication to living out justice and mercy through his vocation is inspiring, and his memoir gives us a front row seat to corruption and healing, fear and hope. Stevenson, a Harvard Law School graduate and founder of Equal Justice Initiative, has dedicated his life to advocating for the forgotten in American prisons. He’s argued multiple cases before the Supreme Court, defended the wrongfully convicted, and spent over 30 years challenging racial and economic inequities in the U.S. justice system. But the beating heart of the story is one of his early clients, Walter McMillan, an African-American man wrongfully convicted of a young, white girl’s murder in Monroeville, AL. (The irony that this takes place in Harper Lee’s hometown is not ignored.) Stevenson retraces Walter’s story in riveting, readable prose — the bizarre circumstances that led him to death row, the evidence for his innocence, and the six year journey to his exoneration. The story feels too crazy to be true, but it is, and interspersed throughout are stories of other clients — mentally disabled adults, poverty stricken families, and neglected and abused children serving time in horrible, adult prison conditions. Statistics and evidence abound (it is a lawyer’s story, after all), but the particular people, their names and stories, compel us to see the humanity we share. It hurts to read a story like this. Behind the author’s compassion for broken people, a rage burns against a broken system. Instead of murderers and thieves, he presents humans with resilience, concerns, families, a sense of humor. And though fear and prejudice is on full display, he shows us beautiful moments of healing— a racist prison guard broken by empathy, a couple who chooses to love a child convict. And there is the beauty, a hint of light through the iron bars. Go Deeper: Since its 2014 release, so much conversation has surrounded this book. Here’s the author’s popular TED Talk “We Need to Talk about an Injustice.” It gives a good 22 minute backstory to issues discussed more deeply in the book. Have you read Just Mercy? Feel free to discuss your thoughts in the comments. [Just Mercy is available here in the Rabbit Room Store.]

I recently had the privilege of editing a manuscript for my friend, the artist and writer Kari Gale. Kari writes a lot about pilgrimage and her forthcoming book describes the ten weeks she spent on Iona, a small island off the western coast of Scotland that has become nearly synonymous with Celtic Christianity. Though the island measures only one by three miles—an area smaller than my town of Silverton, Oregon (pop. 10,000)—Iona was the heartbeat of monastic life in Scotland and northeastern England for hundreds of years. It was the adopted home of Saint Columba, who arrived from Ireland in A.D. 563, perhaps as penance for taking up arms as a monk. Over the next three decades, Columba oversaw the foundation of some sixty monasteries in Scotland. The Book of Kells, the famous illuminated gospels dating from around 800, was probably begun on Iona. Also familiar are the high stone crosses, which some scholars believe first came into popular use there. In one passage in her manuscript, Kari recalls sitting on the rock ruins of a medieval nunnery and feeling welcomed into the ongoing spiritual life of a community that hasn’t been officially active for hundreds of years. I could easily imagine the women who for generations had quietly gone about their lives of daily prayer, work, and worship in that place. The spirit of those nuns—as well as the monks and laypeople of ancient Iona—seems to have permeated the island’s very soil and stones. What animates the whole project is a hunch that we still live in a God-saturated world. John Pattison Which got me thinking: What is the half-life of holiness? Does holiness accumulate in a place over time, and can it be felt by the people who live or visit there, even many years later? And is this part of what Celtic Christians meant by “thin places”—those sites where the membrane between earth and heaven, the visible world and the invisible, seems especially porous? My New Project As I mentioned in a recent blog post, I am working on a book project about the re-enchanting of ordinary life. Prior to finding clarity on the project, there were weeks when I sensed I was writing “around” a central theme—in blog posts, in my journal, or on whatever scrap of paper was close at hand—but I couldn’t articulate what that theme was. Reading the above passage in Kari’s manuscript flipped a switch for me. I wrote down a string of questions I wanted to explore further. Those became the book’s superstructure and, eventually, a chapter-by-chapter synopsis. What animates the whole project is a hunch that we still live in a God-saturated world. Celtic Christians believed that even the most common tasks (washing dishes, milking the cow, baking bread, etc.) were performed with the help of the Trinity and in the company of angels. A walk to and from the fields was an opportunity to talk to God with the intimacy of Adam and Eve in the Garden. We too can meet God in the “thin places” of our everyday lives. This is the spirituality that animates Slow Church within the day-to-day stuff of life. My book may start in Ireland and Scotland but it moves progressively closer to home. The wilderness, the neighborhood, the Church, our families, our bodies, the borderlands of our own souls: if we are attentive, these are seams through which we glimpse firsthand the presence of the God who still pervades and sustains all things. The Half-Life of Holiness My new book isn’t about Celtic spirituality, though it is profoundly informed and inspired by it. Learning about my spiritual ancestors—not to mention my actual ancestors (the name “Pattison” can be traced back to a Gaelic kingdom that included Iona)—has given my project clarity and momentum and enthusiasm. For example, Kari’s simple, quiet, lovely recollection of the nunnery spurred weeks of my own writing. My initial question, “What is the half-life of holiness?” was stuck in my head for weeks. Contemplating it invigorated my thinking about place, time, impact, and the Church…so much so that I had created separate pages in my pocket notebook to capture the stream of questions, quotes, and thoughts on those subjects. To give you a sense of where the book is going—and to reveal a little about my own process—here are some of those notes I made in my pocket notebook. (Pretend they are handwritten.) Each represented a trail to be explored in more detail later: Place I’m fascinated by the idea that Spirit-filled care for a particular place leaves a trace. It’s the fingerprint of God left by Christians who see themselves as the hands of God on earth. What’s just as thrilling is the belief that what is true for Iona is possible for my own community: Silverton as a thin place. Wendell Berry wrote in one of his poems: “There are no unsacred places; / there are only sacred places / and desecrated places.” Those of us who pledge allegiance to Jesus are invited to join God in the re-sacralization of our places. This includes our homes, our neighborhoods, our common spaces, our places of business and education, and everything in-between. It includes people as well as the built environment. It also includes the water, air, soil, and rocks, and everything that lives in, on, and above them. Sometimes our job is to actively cultivate those places into a new flourishing, reclaiming our Edenic vocation as thoughtful stewards of Creation. At other times our role is to exercise self-control and to leave well enough alone. Time We are engaged in work we didn’t start and won’t see the end of. God was here before us and will be here after. We know the past, hope for the future, and try to live faithfully in and to the present. One of our hopes is that people will come after us who want to love our places as much as we did. Emily Dickinson: Forever – is composed of Nows – ‘Tis not a different time – Except for Infiniteness – And Latitude of Home – “Forever…is composed of Nows…” This doesn’t diminish the importance of the present moment but rather sanctifies it. This reminds me of the distinction made in Greek between chronos time and kairos time. Chronos is chronological time, kairos is the right or opportune time. (Richard Rohr describes kairos as “deep time.”) Is chronos time contained within kairos time, is it the other way around, or are they both contained in each other? Can time be a thin place? Impact Taking the long view is a reminder to cease my striving, slow down, and, when necessary, to submit my desire for “impact” and “legacy” to the requirements of the person and place right in front of me. Wendell Berry (again): Suppose we did our work like the snow, quietly, quietly, leaving nothing out. Church The nuns, monks, and laypeople on Iona—as well as the saints that were their traveling companions—are part of a “great cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1). I want to take this as an invitation to learn about the “saints of Silverton.” These are the mostly anonymous men and women who loved well a place I hope to call home until I’m called Home. Life for Celtic Christians was an ongoing conversation with the supernatural. I’ve seen this dismissed as quaint superstition even from some spiritual writers I respect. That seems arrogant. What if God, in God’s generosity, meets us in the times, places, and ways in which we expect God to meet us? Some Christians in the U.S. today meet God in a great worship set, in the speaking of tongues, or by rehearsing the evidence that demands a verdict. For Celtic Christians, Christ, Mary, and the saints were present realities—and I have no reason to doubt them. RNS headline: “Author of Slow Church believes in ghosts” I also wrote down “The Columba Option,” though I doubt it will get as much traction as the original. Thankfully, we don’t always have to wait hundreds of years to experience the impact of someone’s quiet faithful presence. In Part 2 of this piece, I’ll introduce you to my friend James Helms, whose family has been working with neighbors to weave a fabric of care in northeast Portland. But, as we will see—and as James would be the first to tell you—he and his family are part a continuum of faithfulness that began long before they moved into the neighborhood. Image Credit: A painting of the Iona nunnery, by Kari Gale. From her forthcoming book and used with permission. Go Deeper: I’d love to connect and hear about the work you’re doing in your own neighborhood. You can find me on Facebook and on Twitter. If you enjoyed this article, please consider subscribing to the Slow Church blog. As a way of saying thank you, you’ll also get a free copy of the ebook, Growing Deeper in Our Church Communities. #CelticChristianity #ThinPlaces #Church #Iona #Place #BenedictOption #FaithfulPresence #Time

Once a month, our resident comics expert Jonny Jimison will weigh in on a graphic novel you should add to your library! Comics are more than superheroes, explosions, and ever expanding universes. There are imaginative stories, beautiful art, and compelling characters to discover hanging out in the graphic novel section of your favorite bookstore. Here’s Jonny . . . Nightlights by Lorena Alvarez (Nobrow Press, 2017) Graphic Novels / Kids and YA Why We Love It: Imagination is a powerful, magical force—but the more I understand that, the more aware I become of the ongoing battle for the control of its limitless power. Offered to God and sparked to life by truth and beauty, our imaginations light up the night—but there are dark forces fighting to warp imagination into a self-serving, self-destructive perversion. Nightlights by Lorena Alvarez is the story of a young girl named Sandy who faces that battle for the first time. And what a battle it is. When the attack is parried—when the enemy fails to control my imagination on his own terms—he has other strategies. One is convincing me that flights of imagination aren’t significant, but frivolous and unimportant. Another is getting my imagination hooked on the addictive affirmation of others. Both of these attacks are addressed in Nightlights. These are heavy, heady concepts, but Alvarez delivers them in entrancing, thoughtful, lovely, horrifying, wildly inventive images. This is cleverly constructed, cinematic visual storytelling that carried me on a wide-eyed journey and left me thinking and growing. Adults, read this book before showing it to children. It doesn’t pull punches, so it might not be for younger readers. And your imagination will appreciate this story too— as a reminder of the battle you’re in, and a reminder of what you’re fighting for. It’s a reminder of the wild, joyful power of the imagination you wield.

Take a few moments to scroll through Facebook or watch the news, and it’s tempting to despair. That’s how I’ve felt over the past week, with every new bit of information about last weekend’s violence in Charlottesville. Clashing ideologies, supremacy, racism, hate, power, and so many images of people doing violence not just with bodies, but with words. Some days it’s all too much to take. Some days, it’s hard to believe brave souls are out there doing their part to heal the wounds, dismantling oppression one merciful act at a time. It’s hard, tiring work, but it’s worth knowing about. It makes us all a little bit braver. That’s the kind of story told in Just Mercy (see our Rabbit Reads recommendation). Bryan Stevenson’s account of judicial inequality is compelling and eye-opening, but most of all, his thoughtful arguments and steadfast dedication give me hope. And if you’re like me, you could use a little bit of that right now. There’s a lot to say in the conversation about race and justice, and we want The Rabbit Room to be the sort of place where those conversations flow freely. That’s why we’re inviting you to read Just Mercy with us this fall. Starting September 5th, Laure Hittle and I will be hosting a conversation as we read through the book. Every Tuesday, we’ll share some questions to spark discussion about the stories in the book and ways we can practice reconciliation and justice in our families, churches, and all the places we call home. Here’s the reading plan: 9/5 – Intro, Ch 1-4 9/12 – Ch 5-8 9/19 – Ch 9-12 9/26 – Ch 13-16 10/3 – Break for Hutchmoot / Catch-up 10/10 – Epilogue and Post-Script, Wrap-up week We hope you’ll join us! Pick up a copy in The Rabbit Room Store, and invite your friends to join the conversation. See you on September 5th!

One of the new additions to the Hutchmoot program this year is Nashville artist, Wayne Brezinka, who will be leading a couple of art workshops. Wayne is not only one of the most talented visual artists in the city, he’s also one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet. This story was recently featured on Nashville Public Radio and it’s a great introduction to Wayne’s work. In a portrait of a young Elvis Presley, painted by Nashville-area artist Wayne Brezinka, there’s something odd going on in that trademark pompadour — 40 years after the superstar’s death. The three-dimensional hair is striped with green, yellow, blue, red and white wires. Those wires were ripped from a 1950s-era phone system in the home and office of Elvis’ manager, Colonel Tom Parker. In fact, it’s likely they’re the very wires that carried the voice of Ed Sullivan, when he called Colonel Parker to discuss Presley’s now-famous appearances on Sullivan’s TV show. Click here to read the full story.

In Part 1 of this piece I talked a bit about my new project on the re-enchanting of ordinary life. I also reflected on whether faithful presence might leave a trace that can be felt many years later. Thankfully, we don’t always have to wait hundreds of years to experience the impact of someone’s quiet fidelity to a place. My friend James Helms and his family are working with neighbors to weave a fabric of care in the Madison South neighborhood in northeast Portland, Oregon. But as we will see—and as James would be the first to tell you—he and his family are part of a continuum of faithfulness that began long before they moved into the area. From Madison South… Madison South is situated near the confluence of two interstates. This probably isn’t the neighborhood you think of when you hear about “Portlandia.” It hasn’t been overrun (yet?) by hipsters, bagpiping unicyclists, or artisanal knot stores. At a time when low- to middle-income neighborhoods are disappearing inside the city limits, Madison South is, by-and-large, still a working-class neighborhood. Most of Madison South is on the “wrong” side of 82nd Avenue, a street that is seen by some—when it is seen at all—as a kind of dividing line between “desirable” and “undesirable” Portland. Madison South does have its challenges, some of which, including prostitution, drugs, and inadequate infrastructure, are worn on its sleeves for all to see. James and his family moved there in 2005 after he got out of the military. “Coming from a cloistered base,” he told me recently, “it felt like we’d moved to the slum.” He and his wife bought a house on the internet, planning to flip it. But one thing after another slowed their progress until all of sudden it was 2008 and the housing market was in freefall. There were other changes too. In particular, God was softening James’s heart for the neighborhood. James is a member of the Navigators, an interdenominational ministry with an emphasis on evangelism and discipleship. One day, when James was reading his Bible, he came across Jesus’s command to “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:30-31). James wanted to take that command seriously with those living closest to him, but he wasn’t sure how. “I moved into it with a whole lot of ambiguity,” he said. “For six weeks I woke up every morning and went into the front room, which has this big window that looks out on the front yard, and I’d pray that God would start to open up doors so I could love my neighbors.” …to The Rocky Butte Community Something special happened after James had been praying for six weeks. The Helmses were planning a garage sale. One afternoon, when James was walking to the end of the block to hammer in a sign for the sale, he heard someone calling his name. He looked around and saw a man on a ladder against the side of a house. The man’s name was Jerome. They’d met a year before when Jerome’s kids had been selling magazines for a school fundraiser, but James didn’t know him well. (He really didn’t know any of his neighbors well yet.) So he was taken aback when Jerome climbed down the ladder, ran over to him, and gave him a huge hug. Then Jerome said, “For two weeks God has been telling me to talk to you, but I just didn’t know how to do that.” An important friendship was born. This was a turning point for James and his family. “I kept praying to God to open up doors in our community,” James remembered, “and those prayers were answered every time I intentionally stepped into my neighborhood.” The Helmses responded by moving more of their life into the front yard. For a year they hosted monthly barbecues in the front yard, gradually drawing in more and more neighbors. By the second year, neighbors asked if they could start hosting too and so the meal rotated houses. Relationships formed and deepened. The Helmses found many ways to tangibly love their neighbors. They also found opportunities to collaborate on larger projects, including a community garden, a neighborhood newspaper, two street murals, and more. As connections increased, more people saw the abundance that was already present in Madison South. In fact, residents informally re-branded their neighborhood as the “Rocky Butte Community.” The name honors both the area’s most prominent natural feature—a hill that offers one of Portland’s most comprehensive views of the city—and the community being knit together on ground-level. A few years earlier James had written off Madison South as a “slum.” Now he is eager to point out the neighborhood’s complexity, assets, and diverse vitality. “The area has a great mixture of brokenness and beauty,” he said. “We do have our messes—largely due to 82nd Avenue—but there are also cool green spaces. It’s also the intersection of disparate socio-economic groups and religious influences, including a Catholic monastery, a megachurch, and a Zen Buddhist community.” The Helmses don’t talk about selling the house anymore, and James is now part of Nav Neighbors, a Navigators initiative with the vision of transforming not only individual lives but families and whole neighborhoods. Every Step a Prayer I am the co-author of a book called Slow Church. What we mean by Slow Church begins and ends with deep presence—with God and with one another. Deep presence with God and neighbor isn’t the means to an end but the end itself. Faithfulness to even the most inspiring vision must submit itself to the requirements of faithfulness in this moment and with this person. This is slow, small, daily, often unglamorous, often invisible work. And “it takes time, over time,” as one Slow Church friend put it. But it all matters. The residents of the Rocky Butte Community are both characters in, and co-authors of, God’s story of reconciliation in their place. James, his family, and their neighbors are making contributions to that story, one faithful encounter after another. I obviously don’t know how many of those particular contributions will be known hundreds of years from now, but I believe something of them will be felt. Yet James is quick to note that they are part of a continuity of faithfulness in the parish that began long before they moved there. For years, the mail carrier for the neighborhood was a guy named Dave. Though he didn’t live in the area himself, Dave had come to love and know the people on his route. He was aware of the neighborhood’s struggles but also its beauty and its potential for greater wholeness. Dave met the Helmses when they moved onto the block. Later, he witnessed firsthand how the neighbors of the Rocky Butte Community were coming together in ways he’d been hoping for for so long. One day, Dave lingered at James’s house before continuing on his route. He told James that he had been praying for 10 years that someone would move into the neighborhood and have God’s heart for the people there. He’d been praying for the Helmses before he even knew them. Dave said, “Every step on this route was a prayer.” If you visit the Rocky Butte Community today you’ll see two street murals. One of the murals features silhouettes of characters from the neighborhood: several beloved pets, a neighbor who can often be seen gardening in his front yard, a neighbor who dealt in illegal substances but was a frequent front yard barbecuer and whose family was often present in the community. Only the locals know that one of the figures in the mural never actually lived in Rocky Butte, though he has been a real part of its story. It’s the man who for 10 years delivered letters and packages in the neighborhood and hoped for its flourishing. It’s the mail carrier for whom every step was a prayer, and in every prayer a drop of holiness. Image Credit: Dave’s silhouette on the mural in the Rocky Butte Community. Photograph by James Helms. Go Deeper: I’d love to connect and hear about the work you’re doing in your own neighborhood. You can find me on Facebook and on Twitter. If you enjoyed this article, please consider subscribing to the Slow Church blog. As a way of saying thank you, you’ll also get a free copy of the ebook, Growing Deeper in Our Church Communities. #Church #Portland #SlowChurch #FaithfulPresence #Time

There are some stories we find when we’re kids that follow us well into adulthood. They’re comforting and familiar, but slowly reveal new beauties every time we encounter them. In this week’s edition of Rabbit Reads, I’d like to introduce you to one of mine: a 60s fantasy novel turned 80s cartoon turned one of my favorite books. The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle (Viking Press, 1968) Fiction / Fantasy Why We Love It: “The unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone.” It might be one of my favorite opening lines in fantasy writing. It’s wistful and lovely and sets the tone for a book I return to when I need a cozy, familiar tale. I first discovered The Last Unicorn in animated form when I was a little girl, but I didn’t know about sehnsucht then, that longing for another world. But the first time I read the original novel as a young adult, the story took on a whole new meaning. It begins in an eternal spring wood where a unicorn wonders, “Could I really be the last?” and leaves home to find others like her. She’s alone in the world and caught off guard — even offended — by the humans who look right through her majesty and only see an old mare. The immortal unicorn finds herself in a new age, where creatures like her have faded into legend, forgotten in the noise of everyday life. But not everyone is blind to the wonder. Along the way, she meets a bumbling magician, a peasant woman, and a lazy prince. She walks through the world as an eternal, ethereal presence, and nobody who encounters her leaves unchanged. Even the proud unicorn, still immortally herself, is altered by the kindness of her human companions in an ending that grows more bittersweet every time I read it. I love Beagle’s writing. It feels like old-fashioned high fantasy, but can turn contemporary and anachronistic at the turn of a page, giving the fantasy footing in our own world. And in this place where magic is nearly forgotten, she is the rare, real, and true thing. It’s the unicorn’s story, but I’m more drawn to the human characters who ruminate, fight, love, and grow, swept up in her fairy tale and becoming braver and stronger in her presence. So back to sehnsucht. Before I had a name for it, I felt it when Molly met the unicorn for the first time, greeting her with anger — “It would be the last unicorn in the world that came to Molly Grue!” After her outburst, the forgotten woman weeps, because in that moment, touching the unicorn’s mane, her little girl hopes become real and alive. In that moment, she’s reminded there’s still a little magic in this old world yet. And so am I.

I spent a lot of time on the road in 2016. Too much time probably, considering that I was out there talking about the virtues of slowing down and staying put. During one 120-day stretch, I traveled one out of every four days, curating discussions about Slow Church in neighborhoods and churches from suburban Seattle to rural North Carolina. Over four months, I did 22 formal events—and had numerous informal conversations—in ten states, some by myself and some with Chris Smith. Our consistent message: Don’t be overly enthralled by the fast and the flashy. The kingdom of God is like yeast and the mustard seed. The small stuff matters. Even the smallest acts of human faithfulness to God’s mission are slowly and patiently being woven into the great biblical drama of the reconciliation of all things. John Pattison Faithful presence in place can be difficult, slow, unsexy, and often heartbreaking work—though it could be the most rewarding work of your life as well. It almost certainly won’t put you on the cover of Christianity Today. It can’t be distilled into the “six easy steps to anything.” But it matters. Every life you touch, every person you equip to love and serve others—it matters. Some of the change may be invisible to you, but you never know where your influence is going to stop. Even the smallest acts of human faithfulness to God’s mission are slowly and patiently being woven into the great biblical drama of the reconciliation of all things. Though I talk about this stuff all the time, even I have to be regularly reminded of the truth of it. In July 2016, I spent several days in Chicago. It was my first time in that great city in a long time. I had rented a car, and so I spent a lot of time driving around, through one neighborhood and another, and out to the wealthy suburb where I was staying with some friends of friends. What I saw through my windshield was a city deeply segregated. Neighborhoods of enormous monetary wealth next to vast neighborhoods of striking economic poverty—with apparently no mixing of the two. And what I heard on the TV and radio were statistics of a city soaked in blood: 324 murders in the first six months of the year alone. On my last day in Chicago, I went to a Cubs game with my friend Tim Soerens. Tim is cofounder of the Parish Collective, an organization that connects and supports churches and community practitioners committed to the work of neighborhood renewal. Tim lives in Seattle but he happened to be visiting Chicago the same week as me. By the time we met up at Wrigley, my heart was in despair for the city. But I was shocked as I listened to Tim describe his own visit to Chicago. Unlike me, Tim had gotten out of his car. He had walked the streets and met pastors and laypeople, people of passion, creativity, and goodwill. In those same segregated neighborhoods that I had grieved over, judged at face value, and nearly written off—all from the safe confines of my rental car—in those same neighborhoods, Tim had heard and seen stories of life and hope. I despaired; Tim was energized. Violence, poverty, and systemic racism are real, obviously, but Tim had seen the Kingdom of God sprouting forth in the granular, in the everyday stuff of life. A Spiritual Dark Ages? We’re hearing a lot right now about the so-called death of the American Church. I’m currently reading Rod Dreher’s The Benedict Option (Amazon | IndieBound), which makes the case that we are entering into a spiritual Dark Ages in this country. This book was featured on the cover of Christianity Today, and it has a good chance of being the biggest-selling book on the Church written in our lifetimes. Dreher suggests that what the dwindling number of true Christians need to do is to band together to protect orthodox Christianity from the barbarians at the gates. I’m not exaggerating; this is its central metaphor. I’ve been a Dreher fan for a while, but The Benedict Option is gloomy. There is an extent to which the Christianity we’ve taken for granted in the United States is fading from view. But that’s not the whole story. Not even close. I’d like you to imagine something with me. Picture in your mind’s eye a map of the United States. The map is lit by huge external lights, the flood lamps of cultural and political Christianity. These external lights are the reason the United States has sometimes been mistaken as a “Christian nation.” We recognize this place. It is bright and familiar. For many American Christians—though not all—this spiritual geography is safe and predictable. Now imagine those flood lamps begin to dim. The country gets darker. Attendance in many denominations and churches drops. We see the rise of the so-called “nones”—the growing number of people, including many young people, who report on surveys that they have no religious affiliation. Christian culture warriors see themselves beaten back on one cultural battlefield after another. The external lights of mainstream, cultural Christianity grow dimmer and dimmer until, by a particular set of standards, the country as we knew it disappears. The spiritual landscape once so familiar, predictable, navigable, and, for some, safe, is now plunged into darkness. Let your eyes adjust and you may still see the faint silhouette of the United States…but not much else. But keep watching. Do you see that? A pinprick of light. It’s not coming from outside the country, but from the inside. In fact, it looks like it might be coming from the Englewood neighborhood in Chicago. Then you see another pinpoint of light. It’s not large, but it’s steady. It’s coming from the Golden Hill neighborhood of San Diego. First in ones and twos, and then in fives and sixes, these pinpoints of light appear on our map of the United States. There are two or three in the Queen Anne neighborhood of Seattle, one in the Springwater neighborhood in Portland. Small but steady lights appear in Wenatchee, Boone, Johnson City, Appalachian Ohio, and Syracuse, in Silverton, Oregon where I live, and wherever it is that you live. More and more of these pinpricks of light are coming online now—in the tens and twenties or more. They are giving shape and detail to the country, but they are doing it from the inside. What you’re seeing, of course, is the Church. This isn’t the abstract “Church of Seattle”—these are small, humble, unobtrusive communities of Jesus-followers weaving fabrics of love and care in their particular places, in parishes in cities and suburbs and rural communities. Some of these neighborhood expressions were already there, but, like the Milky Way, they had been blocked from our view by the background light of cultural and political Christianity. But there are new things happening too, and what will emerge over time is a constellation (or perhaps a whole galaxy) of God’s Kingdom Come. From Jesus Moment to Jesus Movement There are many who are afraid, and who maybe even despair, as attendance drops in churches and denominations throughout Europe and North America. I want to acknowledge the real grief and uncertainty people are experiencing over these shifting demographics. . . . beyond our rental car windshields, beyond the statistics, in ways perhaps still too subtle to be registered on the “Geiger counters” of popular Christian culture, something is stirring. John Pattison There are neighborhoods in the Pacific Northwest where less than 1% of the population wants anything to do with Jesus. By and large, these folks aren’t belligerent toward Christ. They’re indifferent. The old church building on the corner will be relevant to their day-to-day lives when it’s eventually converted into a brewery. For now, they assume that what is being preached there on Sundays is irrelevant (if not antagonistic) to their Monday through Saturday life of finding meaningful work, raising a family, nurturing community, cultivating beauty, pursuing justice, and making this world a better place. I understand this impression. In some ways my hopes for Slow Church were borne out of my own dissatisfaction with church experiences that made no connection between what happened for one hour on Sunday morning and what happened in my home and neighborhood the other 167 hours of the week. I wanted a Jesus Movement, not a Jesus Moment. Even so, I think reports of the death of the American Church have been greatly exaggerated. I feel an incredible sense of hope and excitement. Because beyond our rental car windshields, beyond the statistics, in ways perhaps still too subtle to be registered on the “Geiger counters” of popular Christian culture, something is stirring. I’ve been in over 70 different neighborhoods since Slow Church came out, and I’ve seen it firsthand: God is on the move. In one faithful encounter after another, the seeds of the gospel are being sown. We don’t know what shape the American Church will take—probably, from our limited perspective, it will take many different shapes, as churches, rooted in their places, embody Christ in ways that can be known by the people in those places. What I do know is that we are being invited to be God’s diversely gifted co-participants in this future—a future that is as big as the universe and as intimate as our own front yards. Conversation Starters What are some signs of hope that you’re seeing in the church and the neighborhood? What are the “rental car windshields”  in your life that may be obscuring your vision of what God is doing in this time and place? How can you get out of the car–either literally or metaphorically–to see what’s happening in the granular, in the everyday stuff of life? Go Deeper: I’d love to connect and hear about the work you’re doing in your own neighborhood. You can find me on Facebook and on Twitter. If you enjoyed this article, please consider subscribing to the Slow Church blog. As a way of saying thank you, you’ll also get a free copy of the ebook, Growing Deeper in Our Church Communities. #RodDreher #Church #Culture #Neighborhood #SlowChurch #ParishCollective #BenedictOption #Nones