What are you looking for?

I’m sitting here at my kitchen table, listening through Andy’s new songs and charting them out for when Gabe and I back him up tomorrow night at his release show. Each time I get to the end of a song I pick up the sheet of fresh graphite numbers to set it on the pile and instinctively shake my head and say to myself, “Dang, that’s a good song.” Now after seven or eight songs I’m laughing because of course they’re good songs. They’re Andy Gullahorn songs. Here’s the deal: I could write you a review of the record. “It’s warm and natural,” I’d say, “with lyrics that hook you with cleverness, then surprise you with a bear hug.” I’d mention that there are “beautiful soaring strings amidst a backdrop of intimate tenderness” and stuff like that. But you’ve probably heard Andy’s songs before. The fact that these are really beautiful and poignant is no surprise. The surprise, to a fellow songwriter, is how he can keep doing it. Where do you continue to find such personal, soul-baring, inspiring and loving songs? I speak about songwriting a lot these days and often parrot what I’ve heard from the writers who’ve gone before me: “Where do you get ideas? They’re everywhere! A good writer is always looking around the corner for the next song.” The problem is, though, that this runs the risk of making you a spectator to your own life. Or worse, a poacher of somebody else’s. You find yourself constantly looking to capitalize on a moment instead of living it. Where do you find songs like these? You don't. You live life well and they find you. Andrew Osenga This gets you through records two, three, and four (and possibly into a new set of friends, too, after you’ve burned through the old ones). But once you’ve captured, tamed, and sold falling in love, falling out of love, your baby’s first steps, and the inevitable “deconstruction” of your faith…well, you’re pretty much tapped out. So, back to the question at hand: How does Andy Gullahorn keep coming up with songs of beauty and kindness? Of heartache, plot twists, and glorious redemption? Well, you have to live them. That’s how. You have to actually love people. And be the kind of person they turn to when life falls apart. You have to know how to listen more than you speak, and then not try to fix them when you do. You have to know people for years. You have to forgive them when they let you down. You have to let them forgive you, too (which is, of course, the hardest thing. Until you’ve done it). You have to walk closely for a long, long time with your spouse, your kids, your friends. With people in your congregation and your neighborhood and your bowling alley and some other church’s basement with old carpet and hard plastic chairs. You have to ask hard questions without judgment. And ask them again when you’ve been shut down the first dozen times. You have to hold your friends when they’re crying and not look away when it’s uncomfortable. That’s what these songs are. Yes, there are gorgeous acoustic guitars and beautiful harmonies, the heartbreak of “Death Without A Funeral” and the hope of “Different Now.” There are lines like “I’m sick of cursing the dark, I’m going to light a candle” and “Every stranger is a neighbor, I just don’t know his name, I have to love local for the world to change” and they’re awesome. But beneath all of that wonderfulness there is faithful friendship and a life marked by Jesus and redemption. So, to the question at hand: Where do you find songs like these? You don’t. You live life well and they find you. Andy Gullahorn’s new record, Everything As It Should Be, is available

Long ago, in the quiet of our mothers’ wombs, the snow began to fall. Blood and water and food came into our bodies and nourished us. Endorphins washed over us, along with surges of cortisol and adrenaline. An invisible womb of emotion surrounded us, too, an atmosphere of fear or bitterness or rage. We breathed that air, and the snow fell. We fought through a narrow place, through waves of pressure, to enter the world, and here we found the snow still falling. We cried our loneliness, our helplessness, our hunger and discomfort. We stretched our limbs to explore; we stumbled and fell. We met pain. We learned to make demands, and whether they were answered or ignored, the snow fell. We fought for attention, for freedom, for mastery. Mommy could not be bothered, and Daddy was angry, and there was no money, and still the snow fell. We learned to interact with our siblings and our peers, or not. We discovered we were intelligent, skilled, funny, beautiful. Or not. We got a taste of how frightening the world is, how things we love can die and break and disappear. With the energy of childhood we pounded the fallen snow beneath us. Our feet hit that cold soul-soil, running and running, crawling and jumping and riding, playing make-believe, and by the time we were reading and writing sentences, learning history and practicing our multiplication tables, most of us had packed the snow into glaciers. With the energy of childhood, we raced from peak to peak while the ice groaned beneath us. How silently the glaciers moved, shaping the continents of our inner worlds. We lurched into adolescence and adulthood, little thinking of these interior landscapes. We had no language for description, no tools for comparison. For us, this was the world. The bulk of the glaciers, the layers of snow packed hard, the soul-edges ground down by their continual push—this was home. This is home. We choose how and with whom we spend our days, thinking our choices are free and spontaneous. They’re not. The glaciers press and press, and unconsciously we bend to their will. Not seeing ourselves, not knowing what bends us, we bump against people who’ve been shaped differently. There is conflict, so we pray for restoration. There is stagnancy, so we pray for change. There is suffering, so we pray for deliverance. And not missing a word of the unwritten lines between our prayers, the Spirit hovers over us. He is patient, unhurried, so still His presence goes unnoticed. Yet under the warmth of His wings, the glaciers begin to soften and crack. It is the process of years, this unmaking, this slow discovery that the ground beneath our feet is not solid earth. It is changeable. Increasingly, as the Spirit breathes, it is fluid. Now the packed snows of ages move and flow, cutting paths across our souls. Glaciers shape continents, but so do rivers, and their work is clearly seen. It can be quick, violent. Rivers in flood can destroy, and water, this new living shape, can push, too. We watch in fear and wonder as the old beliefs emerge in trickles and waves. Emotions rise until we fear we will drown, till we stand on tiptoe, straining to catch a breath. But time passes, and the waters settle into their banks. Their murmuring, their familiar paths, no longer terrify. It is the process of years, this unmaking, this slow discovery that the ground beneath our feet is not solid earth. It is changeable. Increasingly, as the Spirit breathes, it is fluid. Helena Sorensen But even this is not enough. For rivers carve canyons, and though they are fluid, still they whisper the old lies, the old feelings. So the Spirit comes, and shines like the desert sun on the waters. He comes in tragedy and loss, in disillusionment. We feel the scorching heat and cry out, begging for healing, for peace, for sanctuary in the cool silence of the old ways. This is the crucial moment, when the sun lifts the waters. Within the elemental heart of them, everything speeds up, expands. What we believed was true before we knew Truth rises as steam, encircling us. In this last rush of panic, we see the heartache, the lies that shaped our souls, risen up before our eyes, full of energy, explosive and light, rising and rising. In this last moment, we know the names of things: anger, abandonment, despair. We know what they have done to us, and yet we see the Spirit’s work. Here, at last, is our chance to let go. We weep and exhale, and the waters rise, filling the sky. The invisible ice beneath us becomes the invisible vapor above—named, released into atmosphere, and rendered powerless. In letting go, we are freed. To those who stand on what seem to be continents eternally fixed, I know how frail is your hope. I know how large the body of compacted snow, how difficult to see its movement, its shaping, how little you can imagine a different inner world. The Spirit hovers over you now, and in His breath is hope. His work is subtle. Watch for him. Listen for the sound of melting ice, of fat droplets falling and splashing. Before you know it, rivers will run. To those who see the rush and flow of running water, I understand your fear. So much force, so much movement, looks like destruction. You do not recognize yourself, and things are changing, changing. This is what you’ve wanted; this is what you’ve prayed for. The raging waters are cutting a new path, a new world. Stand aside and watch it take shape. Do not be afraid. To those who feel the rising heat, I recognize your panic. You are so close to healing and freedom. Never have the old lies been so evident. Never have they so obscured your vision. Take heart. Unclench your fists and exhale. The goodness of God has brought you to this place. Let the vapors rise, and breathe the free air. Artwork credit: Melting Ice 3 by Lisa Lebofsky

“I’m tired of being who I’m not,” sings Jenny Somers on the opening track of Jenny & Tyler‘s latest album, There Will Be A Song. It’s a vulnerable confession that anchors this first song and sets a tone for a record that lifts the lid on myriad struggles. The couple admits their own parents prefer songs that are “tied up with a bow,” but compositions that testify to their spiritual and emotional wrestling are the ones that draw in the listener. I recently spoke to the couple before some upcoming tour dates about their growth as songwriters and how being parents to young children alters their approach to making a music career. Matt: I hear the kids, obviously, and I see you’ve got the tour starting soon. Are you excited about hitting the road with the new songs? Jenny: When we used to release a record, we’d tour really heavily. Now we not only can’t do that, but we don’t even really want to do that. It requires us to be away from our girls. It used to be that we could bring them a lot, but with Jane in kindergarten, we can’t do that anymore. What’s great is that instead of being exhausted from a tour schedule, we get to enjoy it because we can’t go out all the time. We’re really enjoying these shows and playing new music. Tyler: It’s like a date now when it’s just me and Jenny because we get to spend a lot of time together just the two of us. [Laughs] It’s sweet and a little break from reality. But the girls just came out with us last week. That did not feel like a break. It felt like— Jenny: Surviving. [Laughs] Matt: When you know it’s time to write and record a new album, do you head into the studio with everything you’ve written between this time and the last one? Or do you have more of a vision for what you want to create ahead of time? Tyler: We actually made this record over the last year-and-a-half through Patreon, which is like an ongoing Kickstarter with folks who support us monthly. We put out three Patreon albums and asked our patrons to vote on the 10 songs that would make this new record out of those 30 songs. There wasn’t a vision for what we wanted the songs to be, but rather we were just writing in the moment how we felt. But then the vision comes later. After asking our patrons about which songs should make the real album and then asking Ben Shive and Asher Peterson to also help us narrow down the list, we ended up seeing a recurring theme. When we went back to production, we ended up saying, “I think this is the way we should go sonically for the record.” So I think it’s a combination of the two things you mentioned. Matt: Were you surprised at the songs people chose? Jenny: We were. There were songs we expected people to choose because they were the strongest ones, and for the most part that happened. But there were others we were very drawn to that the patrons did not choose. There were others we thought would likely not make a record, and some of those, the patrons just loved. Or Ben ended up loving some of the songs we thought were just fine. That was cool to see because sometimes you get so close to the songs you’ve written that it’s difficult to be objective, especially if you’re close to them in an emotional sense. They can get written inside these moments of extreme emotions so you love those songs and it’s hard to back off of them. But they might not be the ones that everyone is going to love or relate to. So I think having Ben and Asher speak into the track list was very valuable for us. Matt: How different do you feel as songwriters these days compared to your earliest recordings? Jenny: When we released some of our early records, we were right out of college. Some of those sound like someone in their early twenties made them; they’re a little self-indulgent. One of them, in particular, looks at the world and says, “Something is really wrong with this and I know I’m part of this problem, but I really don’t know what to do with that.” I think that’s a very twenties mentality. Now that we’ve had kids and we’re in our thirties, I think we can look at life and write songs that are about what we experience but we can also write for our audience a little better if that makes sense. One of my favorite writers is Sara Groves, and something she does so well is she tells her own stories in words that so many women want to be able to speak but can’t find words for. I think that has become something that we want to do at this point, to write more for the audience than we used to. Tyler: I think I’m still self-indulgent. [Laughs] Jenny: [Laughs] We are to an extent for sure but there’s also a mindfulness for what people need to hear and what other people might be going through. I also think we’re just not as afraid of writing as much as we used to be—as afraid of expressing what we feel needs to be said without fearing what other people think about it. What do you think, Tyler? Tyler: I don’t really feel like I’m on the same wavelength as Jenny with most of this. I think what she’s saying is true for her songs. Half of our songs are ones that she started and then half are songs that I started and then we bring them to each other to tweak them. l feel like the ones I started haven’t changed a whole lot. Do you really think so? Jenny: Yeah, I do. As far as the songs about our relationship go, I don’t know if it’s easier to write now, but the depth of what we’re able to write now is so much greater. On this new record, Tyler wrote a song called “I’m Sorry” about the aftermath of a fight and the need to apologize. I don’t think that’s something we would have done early on. I would have been too nervous about it. The way that he wrote that might have turned out differently early on. Matt: Is that what you meant by not being afraid? Jenny: I think there used to be, for me, a longing to present our relationship as really positive all of the time. Our parents always want everything to be tied up with a bow with our music. When we write something they think is kind of just too depressing, they’ll be like, “We don’t like that song as much.” But that’s just real life. We’re not afraid to write about that now. Matt: You said some people might want you to wrap things up with a bow, but I’m assuming you also hear the majority of your audience say how much they appreciate the vulnerability when it is real life, as you say. Both: Yes! Tyler: Those are the emails that we save and go back to when we’re feeling like we should quit. Matt: What are your hopes for this new record above all else? Jenny: Over the past couple years, it used to be that the hope was to sell a bunch of records so we could continue to make more as well as to spread the message. Now that’s really not what it is. The hope is to, for sure, reach people with the message and to really connect with them. It’s just as much about connecting with the individual as much as it is the broader audience. Some of our very best friends have started as fans or house show hosts, so I think the hope is to encourage and provide hope for people and do that while building new relationships. We want to be content with wherever this takes us. If that means we have more people listen to it, that’s awesome, but if that means we stay exactly where we are and keep encouraging the same people, then that’s great too. We’re okay with that.

First—before you read any further—do yourself the mighty favor of watching this video of “Holemabier,” a new song composed, arranged and deftly performed by The Arcadian Wild. You’re welcome. Once you’ve taken that three-and-a-half-minute joyride, come back to read this essay which is a sort of ode to such examples of beautifully-layered art and the folks who make it, and also a celebration of The Arcadian Wild in particular as they close in on the crowdfunding goal to record their new studio project. Watch “Holemabier” Video _____________________________ I love layered things, because I love the feeling of entering a work of art off-balance, wondering what strange new world I’ve landed in, what the rules are, what the history of the place is. I delight in the search for some fixed reference point of familiarity that I might latch on to in order to be oriented to this new experience. I love finding that there is indeed such a starting point, that the structure is firm, and that the world is well-made and riddled with real meaning, though it might still be a foreign land to me where I have yet to learn the language and customs. Far too many of the stories our culture tells today are only thin veneers of such mystery, forms that initially dangle the bait of some transcendent element, some beckoning wonder. Such stories are long on ambience but short on any satisfying depth. They fall apart by the third act. Once your eyes focus beyond the surface reflection, you realize the pool is only an inch deep. What you thought you were about to plunge headfirst into turns out to be something you can’t even satisfactorily wade through. All the more reason that I love well-layered things when I find them. I love poetry layered with more meaning than I can tease out in a lifetime. I love the sense that a work of art can tutor me over months or years or decades, slowly increasing my understanding of and appreciation for truth, for beauty, and for the genius of the crafting. I love creations that offer the promise that however deep I choose to dig, the creator has dug still deeper, burying treasures at every level that I might have the delight of uncovering them. I love paintings that offer that. And novels. And movies. And music. And the essays of C.S. Lewis who was so gifted at dressing a complex point of theology in the skin of a poetically-fitting analogy, and in so doing opened doorways for the average layperson to enter a new world of ideas that would deepen as their spiritual understanding matured. I love expressions like Lewis’s that give me something I can immediately latch onto and love, even while inviting me into a long journey that will allow me to one day love that same thing more fully and with greater understanding. I think it parallels the process of falling in love with a person, and then marrying them so that you might be in daily relationship, learning to love them more even as you learn to know them more, even as the wonderful mystery of them deepens rather than decreases in that knowing. As a lyricist with almost no musical literacy, I discovered soon enough that the talented musicians I was working with were often wowed by songs that left me indifferent. In time I realized this was most often because they had gone so deep into the mysteries of musical expression that their ears were tuned to slight nuances and to the deeper stories that melodies and harmonies and countermelodies and various intricacies of rhythm and unexpected chord choices could tell. They were prodigiously fluent in a language of musicianship and music theory and even of audio production that I was sadly ignorant of. While their music is often unpredictable, it's seldom unfamiliar. The compositions are warm and human in ways that children can appreciate, but beneath that hospitable exterior, the musical complexity is a world waiting exploration. Doug McKelvey But the lack of connection wasn’t always entirely my fault. Sometimes there really was something missing from the DNA of a song. Sometimes a song simply failed the “C.S. Lewis test.” A track might boast legitimately stunning performances for those musicians savvy enough to fully appreciate their technical virtuosity, while yet offering no real point of entry for the average person. No handshake. No welcome. It was like an elaborate assembly of gears that no one had bothered to fix the watch face to. Intricate and skillfully made? Yes. A curiosity? Sure. Missing something? Seems like it. Meaningful or useful to those of us who are not expert watchmakers? Not really. Not as much as it could be, anyway. Which is again why I love layered things. Because I actually do want all those complex gears to be in there, whizzing and whirring whether I ever learn to see and appreciate their intricacies or not. If I start poking around in the guts of the thing, I want to be assured the mystery will only deepen, rather than being easily resolved. But a creation that offers only complexity is still lacking something essential. Great art, by contrast, has the power to engage us and to move us on a human level, even when (maybe especially when) we aren’t capable of fully understanding and appreciating why it is as brilliant or as moving as it is. Which brings me back to the music of this dangerously-named band The Arcadian Wild. Obviously they’re gifted musicians. Isaac and Lincoln probably already had a better understanding of music theory in junior high than most of us will ever have. I’ve wondered whether other Nashville artists might sometimes feel a twinge of insecurity watching them perform, what with their complex interplay of instrumental phrasings and their intricate vocal harmonies layered three-deep. They have a knack for making difficult pieces seem effortless. So much so that those internal weights and gears that are clicking and twirling endlessly in their music are sliding right past most of us unnoticed, I suspect. But you don’t have to be able to appreciate the complexity of their arrangements to appreciate the beauty of their songs. While their music is often unpredictable, it’s seldom unfamiliar. The compositions are warm and human in ways that children can appreciate, but beneath that hospitable exterior, the musical complexity is a world waiting exploration. The layers go down a long, long way. If you choose to dive in, you won’t risk hitting your head on the bottom of that particular pool is what I’m saying. And yes, some accusations of bias or nepotism would be appropriate at this point, as my middlest daughter Ella has been married to The Arcadian Wild guitarist and vocalist Isaac Horn for the last year-and-a-half. But truth is, I was excited about The Arcadian Wild before the two of them ever started dating, before I ever met Isaac. One live show in Nashville had been enough to win me over. Then once I saw them back up Andrew Peterson at a book release event, the deal was done. I was sold. That’s still the most moving arrangement of “In the Night (My Hope Lives On)” I’ve ever heard. [Seriously, when is that tour going to happen?] Once Ella and Isaac were married though, I was privileged with more penetrating glimpses into the band’s creative process. Mostly, what struck me was the level of dedication to the craft. The newlyweds lived with us for a couple months, and when I would stumble out of my bedroom in the morning to pull my first cup of espresso, Isaac would already be sitting in the kitchen, arranging a song on his laptop, oblivious to anything else around him. A couple hours later he would head off to several hours of band practice. When he returned home and I asked what they had worked on the answer might be something like “We spent six hours working out the guitar and mandolin parts for a twelve second instrumental section of this new song.” Who does that? Who willingly creates in that sort of upside-down economy, lavishing so much care into such a small space? But don’t you just love that they do? That they pack that much artistry and concern into a couple of measures? It goes a long way toward explaining what you saw in the “Holemabier” video, right? The thing about The Arcadian Wild is that while they might be musician’s musicians and arranger’s arrangers, they never let that get in the way of hospitality. Their songs—for all their technical brilliance—still beckon listeners in, welcoming like a warm hearth fire on a crisp night. In the midst of intricate arrangements they don’t lose the humanity and the poetry and the rooted reasons for why they’re doing what they’re doing in the first place. They’re still writing as a way to connect to other human beings. At a certain point during his stay here I told Isaac: “The Arcadian Wild are kind of like the C. S. Lewis of folk music. Because you are taking these ridiculously complex musical ideas, and you’re integrating them into songs that the average person can appreciate the first time they hear them. You make the complex seem simple, and then once people step into that, the musical complexity expands around them.” I love layered things and I love the artists who make them because I love how those things shape me and shape the community I’m a part of. We so deeply need songwriters like The Arcadian Wild amongst us. And clay-slingers like Eddy Efaw. And painters like Jamin Still and Kyra Hinton. And dramaturges like Pete Peterson. And illustrators like Joe Sutphin and John Hendrix. And leatherworkers like the Growley folks. And novelists like Jonathan Rogers and Leif Enger. And theologians like David Taylor and Heidi Johnston. We all need those influences who give of themselves by diving deep into their disciplines and who lean into their crafts in ways that elevate all of us, moving us forward as a community, expanding our vision, articulating our purpose and our longings, and so making all of us better at what we do and better-equipped for the journey ahead.

We just read this in our home, and we hope you will too. Use the free download link at the end to print out a copy for your family. A Liturgy for Setting Up a Christmas Tree From Every Moment Holy LEADER: O Immanuel, we would find in our traditions these reminders of the wonders of your love: First, let this fragrant tree, cut down and then raised beneath our roof, remind us how once upon a time, the High King of Heaven consented to be cut off from the glories that were his birthright, and descended instead to dwell with us in a broken world, beset by harm and evil. PEOPLE: Praise to you, Immanuel! Next, let the hard wood of the trunk and the outstretched branches remind us how that same Heavenly King who had entered our world on that distant night, would soon act to redeem his creation and his people in it, though it would require the stretching out of his arms upon a cross of wood— his death for our life. Praise to you, Immanuel! Then, let these evergreen boughs be a reminder of his mighty triumph over death and hell, of his resurrection unto a life eternal which will never fade— an eternal life which he has also secured for us. There is no greater gift! Praise to you, Immanuel! Finally, as we drape the branches of this Christmas tree in glittering finery and sparkling lights, let us imagine Christ our King, seated upon his heavenly throne, arrayed in the royal raiments of his glory. And when at last we set the star atop the tree, let us imagine Christ crowned in his splendor, and all creatures in heaven and on earth bowing before him, crying “Holy! Holy! Holy!” Glory to you, Immanuel! Worthy are you, O Lamb of God, to receive all glory, honor, and praise! Glory to you, Lord Christ! Copyright © 2017 Douglas McKelvey “SO CHRIST, HAVING BEEN OFFERED ONCE TO BEAR THE SINS OF MANY, WILL APPEAR A SECOND TIME, NOT TO DEAL WITH SIN BUT TO SAVE THOSE WHO ARE EAGERLY WAITING FOR HIM.” –HEBREWS 9:28 Download a printable version of this liturgy here: Setting Up a Christmas Tree

I imagined something once as a kid, and have pondered it every so often since. What I first imagined was a map on which all the travels I ever made in my life would be recorded. On the same map, all the movements of everyone I knew, had known, or ever would know, would also be recorded. This mystic map must also have some way of delineating time, such that one could see in those shifting paths of life how near one had sometimes unwittingly been to others—even decades before meeting them, even decades after the last goodbye. I was fascinated, for instance, with the notion that my Jr. High friend Chip Parker and I could one day as adults drive past one another on an L.A. street, decades after he had moved away from Longview, Texas and out of my life, and that we might even make eye contact for a moment from our passing cars, but without recognition. How many near misses, how many proximate moments, I would wonder, have we been unwitting to in our lifetimes? Part of why this idea of unknown, intersecting lines fascinated me was because I believed that there must be an unseen weave to those threads of our lives. Some bigger picture. Some inscrutable purpose. That if only one could see it “all at once” then real patterns, intentional and sublime, would emerge. If there was a divine hand at work, then the warp and woof of our hours and our movements would build up to something brilliant and complex. While I can no longer vouch for the nebulous theological underpinnings of my pre-adolescent worldview, I do believe now more than ever that history is divine poetry, and that when at last we experience it with the fixed vantage of time removed we will be slack-jawed and driven to worship by the overwhelming and inexhaustible intricacy and beauty of the revealed design. There will be an aesthetic to it that will likely require more senses than five and more dimensions than four to apprehend. My childhood fancies of merely charting geographic proximities will pale in comparison. Of that I’m convinced. Because the splendor of that vision won’t be solely about—or even primarily about—geography. And yet, sometimes even this side of life—and even in that more obvious intersection of time and space—I believe we might be privileged with glimpses that God is at work, intentionally weaving lives together for his (often inscrutable but also sometimes partially revealed) purposes. Consider my own personal history with one Ned Bustard, who a year-and-a-half ago so artfully illustrated Every Moment Holy. The first interaction I’m aware of having with Ned was mid-2017 when Pete Peterson and I were up against a deadline wall to finish writing and editing the manuscript and get it to the printer, but we still needed an illustrator for the project. That was the first time my life intersected Ned’s life. Or was it? Could there have already been some backstory built into that “new” friendship, long before we remember meeting? In 1990 I was two years out of college, working in the reference department of Tulsa’s main library downtown, and still thinking I was going to somehow have a career as a guitarist in a band (despite having no discernible sense of rhythm). I made the trek to the Cornerstone music festival in Illinois in early July of that year, tagging along with my roommate and the church youth group he led. There were a few artists present at the festival that I was a big fan of, and I would sporadically haunt their tables in the merch tent, hoping to interact with them or with folks in their bands. One such artist was Charlie Peacock. My history with Charlie would be another whole essay about intersecting lines, but in 1990 I was just a fan. I didn’t know him yet. But Ned did. So I’ll now briefly pass the storyteller’s baton to Ned Bustard. In 1990 I was at the Cornerstone music festival. My wife and I had just been married and Charlie Peacock had sung during the vows and the recessional. How that all happened is another one of the Big Miracles of my life, but that story is for another day. Suffice to say, I had made a big banner for the reception hall that featured a collage of CP album art and Charlie used that as the backdrop for his festival booth and allowed my wife Leslie and I to channel our obsession with his music into generating sales at the merch table. During the festival we talked to many people who passed by. Neither Ned nor I have any specific memory of meeting that summer at Charlie’s merch table. But it’s almost certain that we did. We would have briefly interacted, exchanged a few awkward (on my part at least) comments about our mutual appreciation for Charlie’s music, and all the while I probably would have been trying hard to maintain a consciously aloof personae as I scrutinized the backs of CD’s I already owned copies of, squinting as if I were a little too cool for this “fan” stuff, as if I weren’t actually the sort of fellow who was just hanging out on the outskirts because I was secretly wishing I could be more on the inside—more like Ned who, by virtue of the fact that he was manning Charlie’s table, had obviously cracked the code. This likely scenario is, of course, all pieced together retroactively from logical deduction. If Ned spent much time at all at that table, we would have interacted that summer. We just don’t remember it. I do believe now more than ever that history is divine poetry, and that when at last we experience it with the fixed vantage of time removed we will be slack-jawed and driven to worship by the overwhelming and inexhaustible intricacy and beauty of the revealed design. There will be an aesthetic to it that will likely require more senses than five and more dimensions than four to apprehend. Doug McKelvey A few months later I was visiting friends in Albuquerque. My hazy plan was to assemble some sort of portfolio to use when applying to a creative writing graduate program. While my friends were away at work I sat in a sunny spot in their apartment and wrote a poem. It was almost a found poem, assembled from lines and fragments I had previously written that were scattered through various notebooks. I pulled it all together into a cohesive “storyline” about a husband and wife who have been married many years and weathered a lot and find themselves in a part of their journey where they’re just drifting at sea with no winds to carry them along. I seamed the piece together with newly written lines. And then I set it aside. And went on with my life and my journeys. I never made it to grad school. I never even applied. I was sidetracked by the fact that my future-wife Lise and I started dating when my journeys took me through Austin, Texas, and then by the fact that—for reasons that still defy logical explanation—in early 1991 Charlie Peacock actually invited my college roommate and I to move to Nashville and work with the Art House Foundation that he and his wife Andi were launching. Of course we accepted, and within months had relocated to middle Tennessee. Lise and I volunteered at Charlie’s Cornerstone merch table that summer of ‘91. So did Ned and Leslie Bustard. Even if we hadn’t met the previous year, we certainly would have met in July of 1991. We would have had a conversation about the Art House as Ned and Leslie were considering moving to Nashville to be a part of that as well. But I’m not a person who remembers much, and I have no memory of meeting Ned even then. Any memory he has of meeting me is likewise fuzzy and at least partially reconstructed, though he kind of thinks he remembers Lise and me from that summer. Almost certainly the lines of our lives intersected there in that sweltering merch tent on the 4th of July, but not in a way that either of us suspected we should take any note of. And yet, there you have those threads of lives beginning to be interlaced, decades before we would ever work together. Fast forward three years. I’m now co-writing songs with Charlie. In 1994 he starts writing for a new Charlie Peacock record. He asks if I have lyrics. I’m scouring all my old notebooks because, you know, pitching something you’ve already written is always easier than writing something new and if I have the choice of not working, I’m likely to exercise that option. (It has something to do with the Law of Conservation of Energy, I think.) I came across that poem I had written years earlier in Albuquerque and I included it with the lyrics I handed off to Charlie. He liked it, set it to music, and recorded it. We called it “William & Maggie.” The song was released on Charlie’s Everything That’s On My Mind project. [Listen to “William & Maggie” on Spotify] “William & Maggie” remains a personal favorite, one of the artistic standouts from my time in the trenches as a lyricist. But the song wasn’t a single and the album wasn’t a bestseller. So the song was one that came and went according to the short shelf life of an LP in the music industry during those days. Within a couple years, the song wasn’t much played or remembered. Fans had moved on to the new stuff. Well, most of them anyway. Ned..? Doug and I met up again, in a sort of way, in 1995 when Charlie’s fantastic record came out, Everything That’s On My Mind. Leslie and I loved the whole album, of course, but one song really resonated with us—”William and Maggie.” Between ’90 and ’95 we had had a horrible experience with a parachurch organization. But then, who hasn’t? We had dumped our hopes, dreams, prayers, and finances into it and were badly burned—emotionally, relationally, and spiritually. Then we heard those lyrics penned by Doug: “It seems we’ve suffered one too many dreams of things that weren’t so bad, it’s just they were never things that we could trust.” As with all good art, we were so amazed at how the song had captured in lyrics our deep hurt. And the song had another line in it, one that became a life line of hope for us: “Sometimes you’ve got to open up the windows and let the wind blow through.” When I met Ned Bustard for the first time that I actually remember—via a Skype conference to discuss art for Every Moment Holy—one of the first things he brought up was the song “William & Maggie” and the 22-year significance it held for him and Leslie. His mention of it might have been the first time I had even thought of the song in several years. It’s funny how you can write something, send it into the world, and then forget it’s out there traveling its own mysterious paths, interacting with people you don’t even know. But occasionally some account like Ned’s filters back, and actually brings with it a more subjective perspective and the capacity for a deeper appreciation of something you created, because you’re catching a glimpse of the song seen through someone else’s eyes and filtered through their experience. Words you wrote decades earlier come back to pay you a brief visit as it were, and you see them for what they are more than for what you might have thought they were when you wrote them. Ned and Leslie’s long appreciation for the song was in itself a sort of gift; an affirmation that while the pebbles we toss into the lake might have sunk to the bottom long ago, the ripples sometimes continue to undulate outwards. More recently, as Ned, Leslie, Lise and I were helping with the teardown of the visual art area at the end of Hutchmoot 2018, Ned rummaged through his pile of art prints and offered me a beautiful linocut print of an open window with wind coursing through. He explained that the image had been inspired by the line from my old “William & Maggie” lyric. For years Leslie and I had tried to come up with ways that we could emblazon those words on our walls in some way that we could see it everyday and remember to open ourselves to the work of the Holy Spirit. Yet it was only this past year that those words were transformed into visual art when I created a small linocut about Pentecost. It consisted of one simple window, open, with wind blowing through it. I knew Doug better by that time, as God had woven our lives together through the crazy production schedule and fires of co-creation that would eventually birth Every Moment Holy. So it was a special joy to be able to give Doug that little print as a gift to a friend, and as token of thanks for giving my wife and I a song to sing over two decades as we sought to hope in God. Now that image from Ned hangs framed in the room where I do most of my writing. There, it’s an ongoing reminder to be less invested in the outcomes of my efforts, but to allow room for the Spirit of God to breathe life into my feeble efforts and even into my failures. A reminder to to open those windows of the soul, and of the broken parts of my life, and to let that divine wind blow through. But the framed image is also a reminder of friendship, of the delightful mystery of the patterns of lives divinely woven into community, into one body, into mutual encouragement and service and pilgrimage and co-laborings; into a tapestry and a weave that stretches around the globe and across all of history. The fact that this print exists with so much history behind it reminds me that God has always been at work, and that he must be at work even now, blending and braiding billions of stories into one great and glorious story, drawing his people together into relationships, into friendships, into community, that we might together complete the good and redemptive works he has prepared for us to do.

In late-November a group of volunteers and Rabbit Room staff filled the rickety living room at North Wind Manor to ship out over 1300 copies of Every Moment Holy, and I thought over and over again how much I loved the sound of laughter and conversation as people enjoyed one another’s company during a day of good work. Those sounds and that company is something we’ve always wanted for the Manor, and it’s one of the big reasons we’re so excited to see the renovation get underway. When the building is finished it’ll be a quiet, comfortable, book-filled respite from the outside world, and we want to fill it with those sounds of companionship and community for years to come. Fundraising is well underway for the renovation, and Tuesday—Giving Tuesday—was a great opportunity to move it toward completion. As we’ve already announced, a generous donor has offered a matching grant of $160,000 that will get us a long way toward our final goal. And on top of that, on Giving Tuesday, Facebook matched $7,000,000 of donations. We’re still waiting to hear whether or not any of the $48,000 raised on Giving Tuesday will be matched by Facebook, but if any of those funds are, they will be quadrupled (matched by Facebook, and then matched again by our grant!). Even so, there’s still a long way to go. So if you’ve been blessed by the Rabbit Room in the last decade, we’d love for you to come alongside us help us with this “barn-raising.” You can use the “North Wind Manor” link at the top right of this page at any time. Let’s build this house.

It’s often said that politics is downstream from culture. This is not strictly true, since our laws do shape our culture, and our sense of what is right and wrong. But there is much truth in that old saying. The ideas that shape politics, and the laws that politicians make, are rarely advanced by argument alone. Rather, they are advanced by the stories that shape our imaginations, stories that teach us what is true. If you can control the stories a people see, hear, and tell each other, you can ultimately control what they think and even how they think. That’s why the great musicologist Damon of Athens wrote more than 2000 years ago: “Give me the songs of a people, and I care not who writes its laws.” In our own time, the Christian musician and novelist Andrew Peterson often says, “If you want someone to hear the truth, you should tell them the truth. But if you want someone to LOVE the truth, you should tell them a story.” This idea is thoroughly biblical. In fact, Jesus himself was a storyteller. Mark 4:34 says, “Jesus did not speak to them without a parable.” Jesus knew the power of storytelling. Two other great Christian writers, writers whose birthdays we celebrate today, also understood the power of storytelling. Madeleine L’Engle was born on November 29th, 1918, 100 years ago today. She is best known for her children’s classic, A Wrinkle in Time. Some have called it a science fiction fantasy story, and it is that. But if you’ve read that book, you know it is the story of children in search of their father, a search that takes the children through time and space, and which has many supernatural guides. The quest of thirteen-year-old Meg Murry and her brother Charles Wallace for their father has been compared to the longing we humans have for our heavenly father. That similarity was no accident. Madeleine L’Engle often spoke of her stories as a way to illuminate spiritual matters. “Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or sing or write,” she said, “For only in such response do we find truth.” Further, she said, “Stories make us more alive, more human, more courageous, more loving.” Some of Madeleine L’Engle’s ideas stray from Christian orthodoxy, and the recent film adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time, though successful at the box office, was not faithful to the Christian ideas of the book. I don’t recommend it. But for a book in the tradition of great Christian fantasy writers C. S. Lewis and Charles Williams, it is hard to beat A Wrinkle in Time. The greatest story of all is this: The beautiful world is broken, but it will not always be so. Writers like Lewis and L'Engle help us to understand this story in deeper, richer, truer ways. Warren Cole Smith And speaking of Lewis, he shares something else in common with Madeleine L’Engle, and that is a birthday. The great Christian writer was also born on this date in 1898, 120 years ago. Lewis had a razor sharp mind and defended the doctrines of the Christian faith in such books as Mere Christianity and The Problem of Pain. However, anyone who has read The Chronicles of Narnia or his science fiction space trilogy does not need to be told that Lewis believed in the power of storytelling to communicate truth. When Lewis described the land of Narnia before Aslan arrived as a place where it was “always winter but never Christmas,” adults and children alike understood a bit more fully what it means to live in a beautiful but broken world. In fact, Lewis wrote that stories can help us see truth that cold, hard logic sometimes hides. He wrote, “That is one of the functions of art: to present what the narrow and desperately practical perspectives of real life exclude.” Artists such as Madeleine L’Engle and C. S. Lewis help us remember that the Bible is more than just a collection of stories. The bible is itself a magnificent story of the creation, fall, redemption, and ultimate restoration of all things. The greatest story of all is this: The beautiful world is broken, but it will not always be so. Writers like Lewis and L’Engle help us to understand this story in deeper, richer, truer ways. So we should remember the birthdays of C. S. Lewis and Madeleine L’Engle, and pray that God would raise up Christian storytellers in our own time. Warren Cole Smith is the Vice President—Mission Advancement at The Colson Center for Christian Worldview. A shorter version of this article appeared at the Colson Center’s website www.breakpoint.org. Warren has written or contributed to more than a dozen books. His latest book is a novel, Print The Legend.

The fourth episode of our new podcast, The Second Muse is now available for listening. In this episode, Drew Miller is joined by Wild Harbors and Andrew Osenga to discuss the Wild Harbors song, “Tomorrow Morning.” Wild Harbors consists of husband and wife Chris and Jenna Badeker. They write forward-moving, lyric and melody driven songs laced with intricate vocal arrangements. Often their songs are about courage in the face of adversity and taking risks—subjects that have played a defining role in their story. Andrew Osenga is a twenty-year music industry veteran who has found himself in the roles of artist, producer, session player, and A&R representative throughout his career. He has a gift for bringing out the best in those around him—specifically in helping artists discover, cultivate, and take care of their own voices. If you’re new to The Second Muse, here’s the podcast in a nutshell: the title is taken from a Wendell Berry quote in which he references two distinct muses—the Muse of Inspiration, “who gives us inarticulate visions and desires,” and the Muse of Realization, “who returns again and again to say, ‘It is yet more difficult than you thought.’” It is this second Muse of Realization with which we concern ourselves in The Second Muse, specifically in the context of songwriting and record producing. In each episode, Drew interviews a different artist along with their producer about a song that gave them a great deal of trouble, whether in the writing or recording process or both. The song is then explored from the inside out, breaking down the components of the mix and how each element works towards making the song effective as a whole. You can listen to this newest episode of The Second Muse here. Check out The Second Muse on Apple Podcasts here. And click here to visit the Rabbit Room Podcast Network.

Today is bone cold, gray, and still, which seems appropriate for the beginning of Advent. As I was headed for a walk in the woods, I was listening to a haunting rendition of Longfellow’s “I Heard The Bells on Christmas Day” by Beta Radio. It’s been one of those Christmas songs I’ve least connected with, for whatever reason. But Beta Radio’s melancholy twist resonated with me this morning, under the gray skies… Then in despair I hung my head There is no peace on earth I said For hate is strong and marks the song Of “peace on earth, goodwill to men” That’s the world we live in today, that’s the world Longfellow wrote his poem in during the Civil War, and that’s the world God’s people waited in at the time of Jesus’ birth. Waiting for what? Peace. Then pealed the bells more loud and deep God is not dead nor does He sleep The wrong shall fail, the right prevail With peace on earth, goodwill to men. But how? Christ has come, but the world is wicked still. I cannot seem to see good under these gray skies. I cannot seem to find peace on this stone-cold earth. Perhaps it is because I am not still. Perhaps it is because I do not listen closely enough. I suppose that’s the whole point of this season, this waiting, this sitting in silence, the seeing in the unexpected, the listening for His coming: You could’ve come like a mighty storm with all the strength of a hurricane You could’ve come like a forest fire with the power of heaven in your flame                  But you came like a winter snow quiet and soft and slow Falling from the sky in the night to the earth below -“Winter Snow” by Audrey Assad Perhaps this is how he calls us to be. Perhaps this is how the kingdom comes, has always been coming, will come. In the stillness, the quietness, the steady faithfulness. Suppose we did our work like the snow, quietly, quietly. leaving nothing out. -Wendell Berry

Do you ever find yourself thinking, “I really want to dig into scripture, but I just don’t know where to start”? Did that one poem from Isaiah give you goosebumps, but then when you tried to read more of the whole book, you got lost and unmotivated? If you answered “no,” well then good for you! But if you answered “yes,” you are in good company, and Russ Ramsey might be able to help you. Russ has done a very good thing in the world: he has condensed the narrative arc of scripture into three elegant and helpful books called The Advent of the Lamb of God, The Passion of the King of Glory, and The Mission of the Body of Christ. These books provide accessible, inviting entry points for those among us who would like to become more scripturally literate. In fact, scriptural literacy has become very important to Russ, both as a pastor and as a writer. Every once in a while, I have an interview with someone that is so good that I can’t bear the thought of editing it down too much, so I break it into two parts instead. This interview was one of those; it was a conversation I have taken with me, and it is my hope that you can find some gold in it for yourself. Here’s Part 2. Drew: What’s the story on how you found yourself writing this book series? Russ: Well, the Advent book was formerly called Behold the Lamb of God: An Advent Narrative. When we moved it over to InterVarsity Press, I had Behold the Lamb as well as Behold the King of Glory with CrossWay—which is the second book in this trilogy, now called The Passion of the King of Glory. And the third book is called The Mission of the Body of Christ. The Advent of the Lamb of God consists of twenty-five chapters—so that you can read one for every day of December—that take you from Eden through the nativity story and the baptism of Jesus. And all these books were written in a storytelling voice; I never make “eye contact” with the reader, so to speak. It sticks to a “once upon a time” sort of voicing. Drew: Yeah, I had been wondering about your choices with narrative voice. Russ: Right—well, I wanted to tell a story. For the most part, I wanted to stay away from making application. There may be some application through the narrative, but what I don’t ever do is say, “Now, dear reader, the moral of the story is…” and so on. The Passion of the King of Glory is forty chapters so you can read one each day during Lent. It consists of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus: the four gospels synthesized into one narrative. I had written Behold the Lamb of God and released it through Rabbit Room Press as a companion to Andrew Peterson’s record. If you’ve ever been to a Behold the Lamb show, the first half of the show is this collection of people on stage all telling the same story through their own art, then they come together later and join their voices. So what I wanted to do was add another voice to that mix in the long form of a book. And of course, once I finished writing through the nativity, I realized that some of the best parts still lay ahead in the story of Jesus’s life, and that’s why I went on to write The Passion of the King of Glory. And then when I finished writing through the resurrection, I knew that I still wasn’t done with the narrative of scripture; there’s the post-resurrection appearances, the ascension, and the book of Acts. I don’t know if you’re like me, but I’ve struggled to understand the narrative arc of the book of Acts. Like, I get that there are missionary journeys, but in terms of a cohesive sequence of what happened, I wanted to learn more and gain focus. So I researched it, brought in narrative components from the epistles—I think in Galatians, Paul talks about confronting Peter to his face—it’s not in the book of Acts, but you can piece together when it happened. Stuff like that, I put it all together to tell it again in a storyteller’s voice. That book, The Mission of the Body of Christ, is thirty-one chapters to be read during any month you choose during Pentecost or Ordinary Time. And then when you put all three books together, you get a cohesive guide to the story of scripture from Eden to Rome. All the chapters are about the same length, between 1,500 and 2,000 words—relatively short, about eight pages. I’d love for them all to be in a single volume one day. Drew: I didn’t realize The Passion of the King of Glory was a Lenten reading. Russ: All these books have section headings, where I group chapters together into “eras.” In The Passion of the King of Glory, there are four or five different eras I grouped the chapters into, from the earliest part of Jesus’s ministry when he was virtually unknown until he becomes famous. I mean, it’s weird to think about Jesus being famous during his life. Look no further than passages about the crowds pressing in and thousands of people gathering to hear him, and you’ll see that he was the hottest ticket in town. And then he was rejected, and he went into hiding and left Galilee and went to Jerusalem and Judea and stayed there. The last eleven or twelve chapters are then focused on Passion week. There’s this phenomenon in scripture where with The Advent of the Lamb of God, so much of that story in the Bible is told from 30,000 feet. It’s about humanity’s longing for a Messiah and our continual rebellion. And then periodically, it zeroes down into “an angel visits Mary” or “there’s no room in the inn at Bethlehem.” Those little details come into focus to give you the story, but so much of it is rather lofty. But with the Easter story, most of it is told in very granular detail. That’s one of the differences, then, between those two books—The Passion of the King of Glory is so detail-laden, by nature. So I really gave it the time to mine the details inherent in the gospels. Drew: How would you describe the narrative tone of The Mission of the Body of Christ? Russ: One of the things I loved about writing that book is that there’s this profound reminder that the story of scripture did not end with the resurrection of Jesus—it ends with the great commission, the sending out of people who would tell the story as Jesus’s ambassadors. In the gospels, there’s this moment in time where Jesus is on the scene: he’s leading, equipping his disciples, healing people, and teaching in the temple. And then, when he’s crucified, his disciples scatter and hide in fear. And yet, when Jesus resurrects, he appears to them and tells them, “I want you to be my witnesses in the world.” So they haven’t failed him to the point of being disqualified, which is a beautiful thought to me. Peter, who swore to Jesus that he would die alongside him, ended up denying knowing him when he faced the questions of a girl next to a fire. He folded, he collapsed. Jesus uses his post-resurrection time to appear to people and invite them to tell the world about him. Part of the story they had to tell is that they are duplicitous, sinful people who failed him; but it is not by our strength that we go out and proclaim his name—it is by the power of the Holy Spirit. So you see this Spirit at work in the book of Acts; people bear witness to Christ, they suffer so much and are rejected, but there are little victories along the way where hope comes into the picture like it never has before. One thing I love about that story is just how complicated it is. In a world that seems on its surface to be quite committed to rejecting Jesus perpetually, you somehow see so many places where these ordinary people who have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit just have to trust that what they have received is true and that God will prevail over the schemes of men. We read through Western eyes, and we don't understand how radical the gospel was in bringing together people who were separated by culture: men and women, slave and free, Jew and Gentile. The gospel bringing those people together is as radical a message of equality as the world has ever seen, and it was confounding—offensive—to people. But for those who believed, it became the very fabric of who they were. Russ Ramsey I love learning how the Apostle Paul worked. We can read Paul as the guy who just wrote all these epistles, this teacher. But man, he was tenacious. He did things that were very confrontational and bold in the face of power. One of my favorite stories from the book of Acts is when Paul and Silas are thrown in jail in Philippi. They were preaching the gospel and people instigated this riot against them, so they were publicly beaten and thrown into prison. That’s the night when the Lord opens the prison cell but they don’t leave, and the Philippian jailer becomes a Christian because sees them—he had thought everyone had fled, so he thought, “I’m going to die. My bosses will kill me for this, so I might as well kill myself.” But then Paul says, “No, we’re still here.” What I love about that story is that Paul invokes his rights as a Roman citizen and says, “You did not give me what is required for a Roman citizen. You beat me publicly and arrested me without a trial.” And all of the sudden the magistrates and authorities have a tiger by the tail: they’ve got this guy in prison and they know they messed it up and that legally, they did the wrong thing. So the jailer comes to him and says, “The bosses say you can go.” But Paul says, “Nope. Not without an apology.” He sits down in his jail cell and says, “You tell your bosses to come to me and apologize, and then I’ll go.” Paul is fighting for the Christians who will come after him. He is demanding that he be treated justly and he’s invoking the law of the land to do it. I love that story because he is risking so much by being what I’m sure his jailers would call unreasonable and belligerent. But he’s not—he’s being a Roman citizen. They’re the ones who messed it up. When he demands that they apologize to him, they actually do! And he was doing all that to fight for those who would come after him. Drew: Which reminds me of the Philemon story, too. Russ: Yeah! I wanted to start the book with a story that I felt encapsulated the implications of Jesus’s resurrection. If the heart of the story is that Christ is risen and we are his witnesses in the world, what’s the story in scripture that best represents the outworkings of all that? I went to Philemon, because here’s a place where both a wealthy slaveholder and his runaway slave become believers because of the ministry of Paul. And it fundamentally changed who they are to each other. That was radical. They couldn’t have been more different in their social standing from one another. When you look at the details in Colossians and Acts, you learn that the church in Colossae met in Philemon, the slaveholder’s home. When Paul had the letter to the Colossian church delivered, he had it delivered with another letter, and that’s the one to Philemon about his runaway slave, Onesimus, who delivered the letter! I mean, talk about drama: there was a moment in time when Onesimus the runaway slave was standing at Philemon’s door and he had on his person the letter to the Colossains and the letter to Philemon, about Onesimus, from Paul. It’s just so shrewd. Drew: That’s mind-blowing. Russ: It is! I mean, it changes everything. And Paul has a heavy hand in that letter—I’d love to do a piece on humor in scripture, because it’s never joke-y but it is ironic and dry. Drew: Could you call it polemic, even? Russ: Well, Paul says to Philemon about Onesimus, “He’s your runaway slave. He ran to me. I understand that he took some things from you when he left. Just put that on my tab. You know me—I’m the one who preached the gospel to you. So put on my tab whatever you think he owes you.” It’s funny to me because there’s no way Philemon is going to actually take Paul up on that. Drew: Of course—because Philemon owes Paul everything. Russ: Yeah, that’s the beauty and humor of it. I love the confrontation of the gospel. I love that it caused Philemon and Onesimus to encounter each other again, not as slave and master, but as brothers. We read through Western eyes, and we don’t understand how radical the gospel was in bringing together people who were separated by culture: men and women, slave and free, Jew and Gentile. The gospel bringing those people together is as radical a message of equality as the world has ever seen, and it was confounding—offensive—to people. But for those who believed, it became the very fabric of who they were. Check out The Advent of the Lamb of God, The Passion of the King of Glory, and The Mission of the Body of Christ in the Rabbit Room Store, and visit Russ Ramsey’s website by clicking here.

Nashville’s Hymnmoot last Friday was blessed by the presence of John Cal, both in a delicious rhubarb pie and in one of his signature, Hutchmoot-style anecdotes that made his pie all the tastier. Below is the text from his story for you to enjoy. Daniel Murauskas was always better at making pie than I was. Crisp crusts, beautiful lattices, perfectly thickened fruit juices. His whipped cream was always creamier, his meringue, meringue-ier. I wasn’t sure whether to attest his pie prowess to his height, his GPA, or how much he could bench press, all ranking numbers significantly higher than mine, but being in the presence of a Murauskas pie somehow always seemed to leave me feeling lacking. “It was probably because he grew up in South Dakota,” I’d tell myself. “People in Hawaii don’t bake.” And it’s just convenient to have another thing to blame on my childhood and my parents. I wanted to bake as a kid. For my tenth birthday my parents got me a bread machine. Sun dried tomato and pesto sour dough, braided challah, honey wheat—I’d bring loaves to the church potluck and hear the housewives swoon. The next year, for Christmas, my father bought me my first cookbook, Julia Child’s The Way to Cook, and I mastered La Riene du Saba, The Queen of Sheba chocolate cake, that I made in triplicate and brought to school for Valentine’s Day. My teachers swooned. By college, when Dan and I met, I had a half dozen or so cookie recipes memorized: chocolate chip, peanut butter, sugar, all the important ones. At friends’ houses, I could produce a couple dozen snickerdoodles as a hat trick, and from start to finish we could be dolloping dough to dunking in milk in less than twenty minutes. But then Daniel would bring a pie, and even with a cookie’s unbridled deliciousness, you simply cannot compare a homemade pie to snickerdoodles. Even the really sad flavors of pie, like canned cherry crumble, trump cookies on the buffet line of life with almost no effort. His apples were tender, while mine remained crunchy; his pecans toasted, while mine remained pekid. Blueberry, key lime, chocolate silk, all delectable and lovely, but where Dan really shined was during rhubarb season. With cranberries, or strawberries, or roasted and dipped in caramel. Who thought the red-headed cousin of celery could be so tempting? I was told once that we are all part of the body of Christ, some hands, some feet—all important in the kingdom—but this self-imposed pie deficiency of mine left me feeling like an appendix: inflamed and expendable. There is, of course, too much to deal with in college with all that literary analysis, all those algebraic theorems, and whether or not Casey Perkins would go to the movies with me on Saturday night; and so for years I carried around this sadness, this lacking inside me. Without knowing, I held my sorrow intimately close. And we forget about it. This acute sense of longing just becomes normal, just how we feel. We forget that though all the signs point to love and redemption, we often don’t think very well of ourselves. Years later, after college, after graduation, after I left Nebraska and relocated to Oregon, Daniel happened to be passing through town, visiting a distant Aunt in Portland, and asked if he could stop by for a visit. I had just moved into a new home and he’d be around for the house warming. We were having burgers and potato salad, cookies, and cake, but Daniel was coming, and he asked if he could bring anything. “I could make a pie,” he offered. “Great,” I said, one of the many words I use as a blanket to my real feelings. Fine, sure, yeah okay. They all work in a pinch. He was happy to get the ingredients on his drive up, but I offered to get them, to wield what little power I still had over him. I bought the expensive local butter from the co-op and fresh raspberries from the farmers market. When he arrived, I even brought him to the house of a friend who grew rhubarb in their organic garden so that he could pick the best stalks himself and have them baking en croute mere minutes from when they were picked. We're so used to hoarding what we have. We think there's not enough, but the path to joy—that path I so often choose to ignore—says that sparrows and wildflowers are treasured, fed, and clothed in beauty. John Cal I don’t know where we learn that we need to be all, do all. Somehow we learn to be empowered with the idea of power. “All of this can be yours,” the Great Deceiver said to Jesus in the desert. “Your eyes will be opened,” said the serpent in the garden. I know these words are lies, and yet why is it that like the rich young ruler, I am left in despair when I already know the path to joy? Why is it that I am still so impressed with a grand and lavish temple gift as if it is more pious, more devout than two small mites? It all happened very quickly: dough was made, crust was rolled, fruit chopped and dusted in sugar and cornstarch. “You use cornstarch instead of flour,” I said, trying to glaze the judgment in my words, as to not reveal my covetousness. “Flour works too,” Daniel said, dotting the top of his fruit with tiny knobs of butter. “I usually just use whatever I have in the house,” he continued, his casual banter only magnifying the insufficiency rumbling inside me, but this was it, my chance to weasel some pie secrets out of him, to manipulate my way into the win. “So, I know what I do, when I make pie,” I said with internal quivering, “but what ratio do you use for fruit to thickening agent?” “Well, you know it’s different for every fruit,” Daniel said. “Apples can have a lot of water in them compared to rhubarb, but it’s around a teaspoon of cornstarch or a tablespoon of flour for every cup of fruit.” And that was it. In an anticlimactic moment, it was like there were no secrets at all, like a veil had been ripped to reveal everything I had been longing to know. All I had to do was ask. “Yeah,” I said, still trying to cover up my deficiencies. “Fruit can be so temperamental. Even when you do everything right, you can still end up with soup and a soggy crust.” “Wanna know this trick I just learned?” Daniel said with a twinkle. We found a bowl, two eggs, milk, and a few tablespoons of sugar. He beat them together and poured them over the fruit. “Custard,” he said as he poured. “I don’t do this all the time, but it makes the pie seem really fancy, but it’s really easy. The juices just get absorbed by the custard and make a really tasty sauce.” It seems silly now that all I needed to do was ask. We’re so used to hoarding what we have. We think there’s not enough, but the path to joy—that path I so often choose to ignore—says that sparrows and wildflowers are treasured, fed, and clothed in beauty. And yet it’s so hard to put down this fear I carry. My pie still isn’t as good as Daniel’s, though I did use his recipe tonight: rhubarb and custard. Still, my resolve to this truth wasn’t gleaned from comparing or ranking our measurable ingredients, but instead because what Daniel had he freely gave, because that’s the way real joy works. It believes there is enough, and that we are enough, and that if we let ourselves be brave enough, if we simply remind each other to be braver, that if we, in our weakness, carry the corners of this great canvas we each have been entrusted with, then it might be possible to step back, even in our insufficiencies, and see the big, beautiful picture we are creating together. “Huh, that really is easy. Thanks Dan,” I said before returning to my cookie making. Then, without missing a beat, he weaved a beautiful lattice from the scraps of dough that were left, making sure that nothing was wasted.

Of the six of bedrooms I can remember from my childhood, only two were completely my own, and the time I lived in both of them was less than two years. The rest I shared with my sister. In college I had five different roommates in three different dorm rooms and one apartment, then I got married. So I guess you could say I never really had a room of my own. Until now. I’m not complaining about having to share my room over the years. My sister and I were very close growing up, and still are. In fact, if we ever had two kids of the same gender who were close in age, we probably would have made them share a room. I think all of my kids are in for a rude awakening some day because they’ve never been forced to share living space with another human. You learn a lot by having a roommate, and technically I still have one since I’m not planning to give up sleeping with my husband anytime soon. Let me explain the situation a little more. In October I helped lead a session with three of my friends from Hutchmoot. It was called Voices of Grace: Encouraging Women’s Voices in Artistic and Christian Community. I spoke about how women bear a unique version of the image of God, and how the world needs to see and know this feminine reflection of his holiness. Then Father Thomas McKenzie told us how the Fall had severed the first relationship between a man and a woman, and how that brokenness has impacted the church ever since. After Thomas was Helena Sorensen, who drew from Virginia Woolf’s essay, “A Room of Her Own,” by talking about what women need today in order to become artists, as well as many of the hurdles she’s had to cross in order to become a fiction writer. Then Jill Phillips inspired us with an update on her recent vocational change, along with a charge for women in every phase of life, to use their gifts to bless God’s kingdom here on earth. I was thankful to see how the Lord brought all our points of view together into a cohesive and challenging message for this special community of people, and I was very blessed by our time together. And I was especially proud to have two of my kids in the audience that day, along with their Dad. But little did I know that my husband left the session even more impacted than me, because he came home and began daydreaming of a way to gift me someday with a “Room of My Own,” just for writing. I'm blown away by the creativity and talent on display within these four walls and I feel inspired to add my own voice to this already singing choir. Janna Barber Our oldest son is a sophomore in college, so for the past eighteen months, with the exception of Christmas break and two months in summer, his room has sat empty. We’d talked about what to do with it, but never made any concrete plans until I decided to go away for a long weekend with some girlfriends. We had discussed turning it back into a spare room, like it was before Ben was born; back when Sam still called it the “Spare Oom,” quoting Mr. Tumnus from Narnia. Or perhaps it could be an office/ workout/ craft room, we mused. But as soon as I put my trip to the mountains on the calendar, and unbeknownst to me, John got to work on his big surprise. He sent out messages to friends and family asking for gifts, ideas, free labor, and even a secret address for out-of-towners to send packages to. Meanwhile, I kept working. For the past several years I’ve been writing wherever I could fit myself and my little Chromebook: in the bedroom, at the kitchen table, in various coffee shops, or even sitting on our sofa in the living room—trying to finish a book of my own. But now, thanks to his hard work and the thoughtfulness of many wonderful friends, I can sit in my own comfortable spot, think my own thoughts, and work on my own projects, undisturbed. Yesterday I sat in the comfy secondhand chair John found for me online, and opened handwritten cards from six of my friends. The day before that I wrote for a little while at the desk, and the day before that I just sat here and drank a cup of tea while listening to a podcast. There are several pictures, paintings, and drawings from friends adorning the walls, along with framed inspirational quotes, a refurbished bookshelf, a new Keurig, and loads of teabags. Not to mention the hand woven blanket, carved wooden sign, and antique window—all prepared especially for me. Every time I’ve come down here in the last five days, I’ve smiled. I look at the bright blue wall and freshly made curtains (sewn by my daughter, Laney), breathe in either the scent of a fresh candle or my new Oil Diffuser, and feel at home. I think about how wonderful it is to have friends who know and love you, who are happy to care for you in tangible ways. I’m blown away by the creativity and talent on display within these four walls and I feel inspired to add my own voice to this already singing choir. I still don’t have a book contract, a publishing agent, or even a finished manuscript, but I’m beginning to feel more like an author than ever before. There’s something about having a designated place to work that makes this job feel more legitimate. Who knows if I’ll ever make more than two hundred dollars for my work, but so far writing is the best job I’ve ever had. And now that I have space of my own, to focus specifically on the task at hand, I feel confident I’ll write more words and tell more stories. I can’t promise they’ll be fiction, like the ones that came from Woolf’s room, but I hope you stick around to hear them anyhow. And thanks for reading these.

Amadou Diallo was nearly, literally, home free. In the early morning hours of February 4th, 1999, four police officers dressed in plainclothes and members of the now-obsolete Street Crimes Unit, confronted Mr. Diallo in the doorway of his Bronx apartment building. The West African immigrant had just returned home from getting a quick bite to eat after finishing a long day of work that ended at midnight. An American resident for just over two years, Diallo had lived in the States long enough to know the police were going to need his identification. It turns out reaching for his wallet became the very gesture that killed him, at least per the officers’ sworn statements. Each testified that Diallo, he believed, was pulling a gun. In response, the officers fired upon him again and again (and again). Forty-one times, in fact. Diallo’s body lied in the doorway with nineteen bullet wounds. Two police officers emptied their weapons entirely; a third fired five times and another four. Officers would testify that he somewhat matched the description of a serial rape suspect they’d chased for a year. It would be another year before they caught the real offender. The overwhelming amount of firepower involved, as well as the mistaken identity, led to a media frenzy and anti-police protests in New York. Concerns of police brutality and race became common talking points in the wake of Diallo’s murder, and every officer was charged with various crimes, including second-degree murder and criminally negligent homicide. The four, all Caucasian, would be placed on paid leave before eventually being acquitted of all charges. The testimony of one—officer Sean Carroll—said he wept and held Mr. Diallo’s hand as he died, knowing he’d misread the situation. * * * The soundtrack of my childhood is saturated in Springsteen. As a child of the ’80s, I came to the catalog a bit later than legendary releases like Born to Run or Darkness on the Edge of Town. I would discover those much, much later. Raised by a single mother who loved road trips and singing aloud, nearly all of my Springsteen memories include the rolled down windows of a late ’70s Ford LTD—a car so large it required its own zip code. My mom was an administrative assistant for most of my childhood. My neighborhood was called Mobile Manor—emphasis on the “mobile,” since it was a literal trailer park—on the outskirts of Chandler, a booming metropolis of hundreds in southwestern Indiana, situated between cities named Boonville and Daylight. Mom was committed to small victories for our family, making memories despite the lack of resources, often in the form of short day trips to St. Louis or Cincinnati in that LTD—sandwiches (bologna, Kraft singles, white bread) in the cooler, motel rooms that open to the outdoors, strategically scheduled activities advertised with “kids free” or “family day.” On those trips, with the windows down and the music up, my right arm was a stunt plane, winding and looping and swirling alongside the steel tank my mother was driving, performing aerial tricks in response to the melodies and gusts of wind. The music was the best part, full-throated refrains from the up-and-coming duo, Yvonne and Matt, which covered all your favorites. We were equals on “Eleanor Rigby” while my mom would take the lead on all things Tina Turner, singing in agreement to lines like “What’s Love Got To Do With It?” as she likely thought of my absent father. She’d sound feisty singing and driving on that old bench seat. Springsteen provided plenty of emotional resonance in those days. Sure, the captivating snare of “Born in the U.S.A.” was an obvious hit, but my mom loved to explain to me the sentiments behind Springsteen’s other early hits. She’d sing along to “My Hometown” while driving past the familiar touch points of her own past. She’d honor “Glory Days” with a conviction that conveyed its truth. Yeah, they’ll pass you by. We are baptized in these waters and in each others' blood. Bruce Springsteen Springsteen’s songs have always felt familiar, even familial—musical narratives featuring real people in real places with real struggles. Three-dimensional characters in three-minute melodies. Springsteen in many ways, via many songs, told my mom’s story, a hardened protagonist shaped by hard times trying her damnedest to accomplish hard things. Bruce reminded her she wasn’t alone, and without words, she told me he’d be there for me, too. It was the beginning of my love for Bruce and a lasting gift from my mother. * * * It was the song I’d never heard that made me cry. Four years ago I saw Bruce Springsteen for the first and only time. Pete Peterson and I grabbed a couple nosebleed seats in Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena and marveled at the Spirited (with a capital S) three-hour-plus affair. He delivered twenty-eight songs that spanned every album from Darkness on the Edge of Town to High Hopes that night, but it was an unknown tune, “American Skin,” that made me cry. Midway through this new (to me) song, the E Street Band and traveling ensemble, with their sum total of twenty-something performers, fell completely silent and an auditorium packed to the rafters with adoring fans was hushed as a library. You can get killed just for living in it. You can get killed just for living in it. You can get killed just for living in it. He wouldn’t stop singing that line. It was moving. It was unnerving. It was painful. “What is this song?” I turned to ask. “You’ve never heard ‘American Skin’?” Pete responded. No, I had not. The lyrics told the story: the first verse from the perspective of a policeman who’d accidentally shot the wrong man, the second verse from the perspective of a worried mother tasked with raising a young black son. The connective tissue is a truth-telling chorus that resonates just as strongly today as it did when it was written in ’99. Twenty years later, these words could have easily been penned in 2018: Is it a gun? Is it a knife? Is it a wallet? This is your life. It ain’t no secret No secret my friend You can get killed just for living in your American skin. Springsteen wrote the song in response to Mr. Diallo’s murder. The powers-that-be of the time did their best to politicize it, calling for a boycott of Springsteen (who went on to sell out ten consecutive nights at Madison Square Garden). Springsteen was called every name in the book in op-eds in major NY papers, and the police chief himself called for all cops to refuse to provide security for his shows. Yet the Boss himself stated at the time that he never intended for the song to be politicized or to send an anti-cop message. He simply did what he always does. He told a story. Real people. Real places. Real life. And as always, he’s in the middle of it. The third verse: Forty-one shots I got my boots caked in this mud We’re baptized in these waters And in each other’s blood * * * It’s here in “American Skin” that I find what I love most about Bruce Springsteen. There are 100 songs I could highlight in his vast catalog, each a shining example of songcraft or narrative. But “American Skin,” in particular, binds together despite our dividing lines. Springsteen doesn’t invent a narrative here. Criminal files tell the story. Court transcripts spill the details. The bloodstains and bullet holes in the doorway aren’t metaphorical. Springsteen sets this nightmare reality to song and paints a contemporary picture before introducing the turn that puts you and me on the same stoop—just a few minutes after midnight. “I got my boots caked in this mud,” he sings with all manner of emotion. He’s stepped in it. We’ve all stepped in it. Our shoes give it away; we were at the crime scene, too. We’re all complicit in this murder, this system, these fears that work so well to divide. Our boots are caked in this mud —the mud of racism and classism and sexism. Us versus them. Fear of the other. Fear of one another. This beautiful gospel of Springsteen reminds us once again of what is true. His stories continue to do what they’ve always done. They convict and connect. They hurt and then heal. “American Skin” shares the vivid details of someone else’s story because I’m too entrenched in my own to bother to reach out. Once again, Bruce’s songs awaken my once deadened senses. We are baptized in these waters and in each other’s blood. Yes. Yes we are. Amen. #BruceSpringsteen

Cave Pictures Publishing is an ambitious new comic book imprint that offers a little bit of everything: a dystopian fantasy, a superhero team, a zombie saga, a wild west tale…and an adaptation of the classic George MacDonald fairy tale, The Light Princess. I had not yet read MacDonald’s original story, but of all the comics in Cave Pictures Publishing’s new lineup, it was the title to which I immediately gravitated; the stunning illustration and design on the cover pulled me in. And the interior did not disappoint! This is a sparkling new adaptation that draws heavily from classic motifs and structures, yet defies convention and plays by its own rules—kind of like MacDonald himself! Meredith Finch’s earnest script elaborates on MacDonald’s original text, building extra story and serialization into what was a fairly short story, but it taps exactly the right sources: classic fairy tales and scripture, the same sources that fueled MacDonald’s imagination. The story’s original tone and themes are intact, but fleshed out with added texture for the artists to build upon. And the artists are perfectly cast. Renae De Liz pencilled the book, creating the visuals for the characters and environments. Those pencils have a perfect sense of place, pacing, and momentum to guide the reader through the book, and Ray Dillon coated those pencils with a stunning layer of fairy-tale color and design, as well as some incredibly stylized lettering. The two artists make a great team, especially for a book like this. The story plays out against grand, elegant settings, splashed in gentle-yet-striking lighting and color that make it pop off the page. The resulting effect is deliciously atmospheric, whether we’re looking at a shining jewel of a castle or the grimy abomination of a witch’s tower. Reading the first issue of this series makes me excited to seek out the original MacDonald story and also to read the second issue as soon as it is published—and as far as literary adaptations go, that might be the ultimate combination. The Light Princess #1 is coming in early 2019. Stay tuned to Cave Pictures’ website and social media for all the latest on their upcoming titles!

Christmas can be a time of joy and celebration—but it’s also a season of lament for many of us. For my family and me, we’re just past a season of grief; lament always remains a prayer on my lips. We live in a broken and hurting world, after all, and if we’re not currently grieving, we know someone who is. I don’t know your story, and mine may be vastly different. In many ways, my story is simple, expected. Death is a reality we all have to deal with at some point, and my family is no exception. Maybe your journey through the valley of the shadow of death is messy, complicated, confusing. No matter what your story is, this truth remains: The God who came at Christmas is a God who knows our grief. **** On December 23, 2010, I got a call from my parents while my husband and I celebrated an early Christmas with his family. My mom’s voice shook as she spoke, and I walked down the stairs of my in-laws’ condo to talk to her on the phone. She told me she had turned yellow with jaundice, and doctors believed it was caused by something serious—cancer possibly. The next day, she’d be admitted to the hospital and then have surgery on Christmas morning. Shortly after we arrived at Newark airport, we made our way to the hospital. As I entered my mom’s room, her deep yellow skin startled me. I don’t remember much about that visit, except feeling tethered to her bed when we needed to leave. I didn’t want to go; I didn’t want to be there, either. But uncertainty held me like a heavy chain. What if she never makes it out of surgery? What if this is the last time I see her? On Christmas Day, a Buddhist doctor performed the Whipple procedure, a complex operation removing a portion of the pancreas and other organs. We sat in the hospital lobby waiting for the doctor to finish the surgery. Friends dropped off Panera for lunch. We munched on chips and ate forkfuls of salad, talking through tears about the turn of events. White lights glowed on the Christmas tree near the window while carols played in the background. Every once in awhile, the sounds of a chime rang through the hospital, letting everyone in the building know a baby had been born. I remember thinking how odd it was that a place like a hospital could be filled with such joy and such sorrow at the same time. In the same place and at the same time that my mom was being cut open to remove cancer, new life cried out in a nearby room. I suppose it’s a fitting way to spend Christmas Day—listening to the announcement of a baby born in the midst of our own grief. My mom made it out of surgery. Doctors called the procedure a success, but confirmed that her sickness was in fact pancreatic cancer. Although surgery likely helped prolong her life, thanks to too much Googling we knew the nearly impossible odds of beating this type of cancer. Over the next few months, my mom went through an aggressive chemo and radiation regimen and was in and out of the hospital. She seemed to handle the roller coaster ride as well as we could hope. While she never functioned again at one hundred percent, at times the disease seemed manageable—or maybe “manageable” just means we got used to it all. Six months after her surgery, I got a call from my parents again. At that point, I dreaded seeing their names when the phone rang, because bad news often followed. My dad had blood work done and doctors saw something they didn’t like. After more tests and appointments, the results were clear. Cancer—multiple myeloma, a cancer I knew nothing about at the time but learned it was relatively treatable, although it required a less than pleasant treatment plan. In December of 2011, a year after my mom’s diagnosis and six months after my dad’s, my mom began her second round of chemotherapy, and my Dad had a stem cell transplant to treat his cancer. While their cancers were quite different, they were for sure in this together now. They even scheduled their oncologist appointments together. 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' is as surely the Word of God as 'all things work together for good.' Sarah Hauser We spent much of that holiday season in the hospital with my dad. I flew back and forth to New Jersey, grateful for a job where I could work from home, but wishing that didn’t mean setting up my laptop during chemo treatments or in waiting rooms. Rarely had I stepped foot in a hospital before then, but I quickly grew accustomed to the winding hallways, smells of disinfectant, and beeping machines. My dad eventually went into remission, but in the late spring of 2012, my mom elected to stop the treatments that made her more sick than the cancer itself. At that point, it was a waiting game. Her doctors didn’t want to give her a timeline, because no one really knew how long it’d take. But she pressed her oncologist for answers, and in the summer of 2012, I vividly remember my mom saying, “The doctor doesn’t think I’ll be around at Christmas.” There had always been one more treatment, one more appointment, one more thing to try. Until there was nothing left to try. I’ve never dreaded a Christmas so much. Advent wasn’t waiting for the birth of a Savior that year. Advent meant waiting for my mom to die. **** During that time, I read The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis. It’s set as the prequel to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and in it, Digory’s mother is sick. As Aslan prepares to send him on a mission in Narnia, he asks Digory if he’s ready. “Yes,” said Digory. He had had for a second some wild idea of saying, “I’ll try to help you if you’ll promise to help my Mother,” but he realized in time that the Lion was not at all the sort of person one could try to make bargains with. But when he had said “Yes,” he thought of his Mother, and he thought of the great hopes he had had, and how they were all dying away, and a lump came in his throat and tears in his eyes, and he blurted out: “But please, please—won’t you—can’t you give me something that will cure Mother?” Up till then he had been looking at the Lion’s great feet and the huge claws on them; now, in his despair, he looked up at his face. What he saw surprised him as much as anything in his whole life. For the tawny face was bent down near his own and (wonder of wonders) great shining tears stood in the Lion’s eyes. They were such big, bright tears compared with Digory’s own that for a moment he felt as if the Lion must really be sorrier about his Mother than he was himself.“My son, my son,” said Aslan. “I know. Grief is great.” As I read that, I wept. I wept with Digory, a fictional character whose words felt all too real. I questioned Aslan, wondering why he did things the way he did and why in this story (spoiler alert) Digory’s mother gets healed. Why didn’t God heal my mom? I can point to situations where God worked through my parents’ cancers in a way that may not have happened in their health. But couldn’t God find another way? Even as many of my questions have gone unanswered, I’m reminded of this: our God is not a distant God. He’s not apathetic. He takes up the state of humanity and fixes it. He relates so deeply to the human condition that he became human. He knows better than anyone that grief is great. **** Matthew 1:18-23 tells us this: Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us). Jesus. Yahweh is salvation. Immanuel. God with us. Those two names proclaiming to the world what God would do and how he would do it. Yahweh would save, and he would do it by being with us. With us so much that he became one of us. In a sermon on Matthew, Tim Mackie says, “Precisely at the lowest moments when you think God is totally absent, Jesus invites us to see that’s exactly where Immanuel is.” I suppose it's a fitting way to spend Christmas Day—listening to the announcement of a baby born in the midst of our own grief. Sarah Hauser “God with us” doesn’t just mean Jesus is in our hearts, like a security blanket we may have carried around as a child. It means he knows our grief firsthand. When you’ve walked through sorrow, have you found solace in a friend who’s gone through the same thing? There’s a knowing, a comfort, a deeper connection that happens when someone else has walked the same road. We saw this when Reverend Eric Manning, the pastor of Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston where nine parishioners were shot to death in 2015 met together with Rabbi Jeffrey Myers of the Tree of Life congregation, where a shooter recently gunned down eleven people. Despite vast differences, they knew each other’s suffering all too well. There’s a level of mourning with those who mourn that can take place with someone who knows in the depths of their soul what it’s like to walk through what you’ve gone through. Find those people. Maybe you’re that person for someone else. We need to have people and be people who can weep with those who weep. But let’s also remember this. Jesus came to earth and experienced all we experience. Hebrews 2:14 says, “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil.” He didn’t only suffer and die. He wasn’t only tempted, yet remained sinless. He doesn’t stop at mourning when we mourn. Yes. He does all those things. But friends, he rose from the dead. This season of Advent celebrates the birth of the Christ. He is Immanuel. He is a God who knows our grief, who was born as a baby to a hurting world and grew up to die a criminal’s death. But the story doesn’t end with him in the grave. For God is with us, and Yahweh is salvation. Isaiah 53:2-5 says: For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. Unlike even the best of friends who know how to weep with us, our God not only weeps, but he heals. He’s a God who hears our lament but will turn our lament to rejoicing. He’s a God who not only listens but brings justice. He’s not only a friend who grieves alongside but a Savior who rescues. Matthew bookends his gospel with this truth. When Jesus gives the Great Commission in Matthew 28, he promises, “Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (v. 20). God is with us, not in an ethereal, fuzzy-feeling way but as a Savior who knows what it is that you’ve been through, who is God, who came to earth, lived a hard life, and died a torturous death—a Savior who rose from the dead declaring victory over sin and death and who one day will make all things new. **** My husband and I spent our first three Christmases together caring for and pleading to God on behalf of my sick parents and our own heartache. A couple months after that third Christmas, on February 12, 2013, my mom died in her room with our family around her. I’ve questioned and wrestled, wept and prayed. And I still do. Moments of grief catch me off guard, even though we’re five and a half years past her death. I don’t have easy answers or a pretty bow to tie around the end of this story. You don’t put a bow on death. At the same time, I’m grateful for my dad’s healing. Years after his initial diagnosis and treatment, he remains cancer free. New health challenges have arisen, including Parkinson’s disease and a litany of surgeries, but God can heal. Why he chooses to in some situations and not others is a question I’ll always ask. Yet this I know: our God is no stranger to grief. We can wrestle and weep and plead with God just like David, Habakkuk, Job, and so many others. He can handle it. The same God who inspired the writing of our favorite psalms of praise also inspired words of gut-wrenching grief that his own Son uttered on the cross. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” is as surely the Word of God as “all things work together for good.” But resurrection followed his cries. And we can be just as certain the same is true for us. Resurrection is death’s undoing. It’s death’s defeat. It renders death utterly powerless. 1 Corinthians 15 says, “For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead…The last enemy to be destroyed is death” (v. 21, 26). For those in Christ, grief will not have the last word, and lament will not be our final prayer. Even while we weep, we can rejoice. Revelation 21:4 tells us, “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” He knows our grief. And one day, that grief will be no more. Click here to read more of Sarah Hauser’s writing. Artwork credit: “Grief” by Gene Gould

In a season overwhelmed by Christmas music, sometimes it’s hard to find something unique. But still, we’re always looking for those gems that offer new reflections on the old story, and that’s why we’re pleased to introduce you to Folk Hymnal, a communal music project from our friends at the Church at Charlotte. The project is headed up by Tim Briggs, a pastor who loves to write songs, even if performing them isn’t his strength. “I am the producer and writer of the songs, yet I don’t perform on it,” he explained in an email to me. “Quite frankly, I don’t have a musical background (although I’m a competent guitarist) and I can’t sing very well. I found myself wanting to share the songs with the world but couldn’t figure out a way to do so. Until I thought of this idea: just have my friends sing the songs!” Somehow it’s perfect that this first album is Incarnation Songs, a Christmas collection that represents the beauty of community working together to bring forth something beautiful. If you’re looking for some new acoustic Christmas music similar to Andrew Peterson’s Behold the Lamb of God and other beloved Rabbit Room artists, Folk Hymnal is a group well worth discovering. You can listen to their EP on Spotify or support them directly with a purchase from Bandcamp. We look forward to hearing more from this collective in the future!

The Christmas season is filled with imagery of Jesus as a helpless infant, and with good reason. There is not enough wonder, surprise, and praise to match the occurrence of God incarnate deigning to appear in the world as a baby, of all things. How magnificently ridiculous it is to think of the infinite and incomprehensible choosing to wrap itself in rolls of pudgy flesh and set itself in the arms of people like you and me. “Away in a manger, no crib for a bed, the little Lord Jesus laid down His sweet head” In so many ways, it is a gentle story. Perhaps it is the soldier in me that surfaced to cast the tale in a separate light. It takes a concerted effort to remember that, in everything we do, there is a spiritual battle raging for the soul of this world and its people. The angels said, “Peace on earth,” and yet the Son of God also said, “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” It just happened not to be the sword anyone was expecting. I think of how the angel host filled the shepherd’s field and how their praises might have thundered through the heavens. I think of how the glory of the Lord shone bright, white-hot in that moment. I think of how Christ’s entrance into the world may have looked through spiritual eyes, even as He laid down His sweet head in a manger. All the air now tastes of iron as the dust is tainted red. Frantic shouts across the valley rise in notes of mounting dread. Though we fight with all our fervor, we are falling to our foe, jagged creatures, dripping darkness, ripping through us row by row. They arose from deep within us, all our failures taking form, and they tore through all we treasured in a lurching, seething swarm. We have struggled toward the castle, but we cannot find the way, and the creatures hum and hunt us, turning soldiers into prey. Not a man has stood before them, they have slain both swift and strong. In the hundreds we have fallen to the fury of their song. For the song is one of anguish, draining all our will to stand, and it soaked into the soil like a poison in the land. We can lift our legs no longer. Pain is burning in our breath. In their eyes we find no mercy, only shadow. Only death. Faces turn to find the castle, voices cry out for the King, but with all the span between us, who could hear our suffering? All our swords have fallen heavy. Trembling, we cower back as the creatures chant and cackle, setting for the last attack. Then a shout upon the hillside draws our eyes across the land. Silhouetted by the sunset is the figure of a man. He lifts up his sword, defiant, hulking shadow, edged in light, and he spurs his steed to gallop, charging down into the fight. Raise your heads and see, my brothers! Shrink away in fear no more! For we have not been abandoned, And the King’s son comes to war.

“Why don’t we have a little sing-along?” For many years, those words filled me with irritation. A lazy evening after dinner trying to decide what to do—watch a movie? Read? Play a board game?—and then would come Mom’s inevitable suggestion of a family jam session. None of us seven children ever met the idea with enthusiasm. It wasn’t that we weren’t capable. In our household, learning how to play an instrument wasn’t so much an option as a rite of passage, a way of life. It would begin when Dad, a consummate guitarist, would show each of us at a young age how to stretch our little fingers to play a C or G chord. As time went on, some of us branched out to piano or bass. But we did it all out of a sense of obligation. Playing music was a chore, something you slogged through to keep Mom happy. And so were the family sing-alongs. Despite our lack of enthusiasm, my parents doggedly kept the sing-along tradition alive— whether it was playing on a random Saturday night or on Christmas Eve, when the whole extended family would gather, pull out tattered red songbooks, and go through the litany of Christmas carols. When sing-alongs went well, they’d inevitably end with Dad playing rousing renditions of Beatles classics. When they went badly (which was quite a lot of the time), they dissolved into morose chaos. Dad would step in and try to coach one of us through a difficult segment of sight reading, or attempt to set completely off-key musicians back on track by humming the correct note. Sometimes, one of us would just quit playing mid-piece. Tempers flared, kids slumped in their seats and barely mouthed the words to songs or simply fled the scene altogether. Mom, unperturbed, always asked for more and looked forward to the next sing-along. Wise woman that she was, she saw what we couldn’t back then—the beauty of making something beautiful (if flawed) together, the way each of us improved our playing slowly but surely over the years. It seemed the more we forgot about playing everything exactly right, the more joyous and exciting the music became. It drew us towards each other and became an expression of love rather than an exercise in duty. Maria Bonvissuto And it went on this way for a while. But then came one Christmas Eve a year or two ago when all of us—brothers, sisters, cousins, grandparents, twenty-somethings, teenagers, and toddlers—squeezed once more into my family’s slightly-too-small but cozy living room for our annual holiday sing-along. And, wrapped in the warmth and music and cheer, I found myself happy to be there; not only happy, but looking forward to doing it again next year. Not only looking forward to it, but getting up and playing and singing wholeheartedly. The feelings of awkwardness and obligation to entertain had disappeared. To my astonishment, my brothers weren’t running away at the first chance they got either. An element of chaos certainly still reigned, but it was chaotic merriment. The joy of making music and basking in each other’s presence suffused the room. Little ones banged drums and cymbals, the older ones took turns improvising on the piano, and everyone joined in for a raucous rendition of “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” We’d never sound like a well-oiled symphony, but that would have spoiled the atmosphere anyway. It seemed the more we forgot about playing everything exactly right, the more joyous and exciting the music became. It drew us towards each other and became an expression of love rather than an exercise in duty. St. Paul tells us “…be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart” (Ephesians 5:19). As I ponder those words and the role music has played in my family, I can’t help but think that our ludicrous sing-alongs have helped me understand just a little better how to live in God’s love—how He doesn’t demand lives of absolute perfection with no mistakes, but rather lives of love and perseverance when we mess up the sheet music horribly. Of how He longs for us to play the music of our souls for Him not out of a sense of duty, but rather out of joy, because we simply want to be with Him and make Him happy. Like my Mom sitting there patiently, pleased with even the most imperfect bit of music we had to offer, He watches our struggles great and small and is pleased with the baby steps we make towards Him. Our souls are as chaotic, messy, and imperfect as those early family jam sessions were. And yet, if all we can muster is a simple, hesitating tune plucked out on guitar instead of a masterful piano concerto, He still delights in it. He doesn’t ask us to put on a performance. He only wants us to lose ourselves in the music of His love and beauty. I’m still not exactly sure how I went from begrudgingly participating in the family music-making to fully embracing it. Maybe it was growing up and leaving home, which makes you re-think everything you once rolled your eyes at as a teenager. Maybe it was seeing our family slowly spread to different corners of the country and yearning for that tight little community we once took for granted. Maybe it was simply because these gatherings—filled with laughter and choruses sung in slightly off-key unison—keep the darkness and uncertainty of life at bay and make me believe that beauty really can save the world. Whatever it was, I’m grateful my parents guided us gently and persistently to see the true beauty of making music in community. And in moments when we’re all together singing, I seem to hear echoes of a day when we’ll all gather around the Lord’s everlasting table. The odd notes, jarring voices, and imperfect melodies will melt away. And the music our souls will make for Him will be one long, riotously happy yet piercingly beautiful, sing-along of love.

The sixth and final episode of The Second Muse, season one, is now available for listening. In this episode, Drew Miller interviews Andrew Osenga about his album The Painted Desert, specifically his song, “Mercy.” Over his twenty-year career in the music industry, Andrew has occupied many roles, including artist, producer, session player, and A&R representative. In our conversation, we talk about how his roles as artist and producer have combined to give us his latest gift of an album, The Painted Desert. The album arose from a period of personal hardship and transition for Osenga—he’s said that its “writing and recording was a journey through grief, discouragement, friendship, and healing.” The result is an album shot through with light, even as its narrative deals directly with darkness. If you’re new to The Second Muse, here’s the podcast in a nutshell: the title is taken from a Wendell Berry quote in which he references two distinct muses—the Muse of Inspiration, “who gives us inarticulate visions and desires,” and the Muse of Realization, “who returns again and again to say, ‘It is yet more difficult than you thought.’” It is this second Muse of Realization with which we concern ourselves in The Second Muse, specifically in the context of songwriting and record producing. In each episode, Drew interviews a different artist along with their producer about a song that gave them a great deal of trouble, whether in the writing or recording process or both. The song is then explored from the inside out, breaking down the components of the mix and how each element works towards making the song effective as a whole. You can listen to this newest episode of The Second Muse here. Check out The Second Muse on Apple Podcasts here. And click here to visit the Rabbit Room Podcast Network.

One of the more odd Christmas traditions that my wife and I have developed over the last few years is re-watching all of the Christmas episodes from everyone’s favorite workplace comedy, The Office. During its run and since, the show has worked its way into our pop culture parlance and our psyches. Who can forget Classy Christmas, the epic Jim/Dwight snowball war, or Belsnickel (“Judgment is nigh!”)? Beyond just providing us laughs amid awkward work situations though, I’ve come to realize that watching The Office Christmas episodes has taught me a thing or two about Christmas itself. The simultaneously best and most painfully awkward Office Christmas episodes revolve around the travails of Michael Scott, Dunder Mifflin’s hapless boss. After watching the show several times, you begin to realize that underneath all of Michael’s social awkwardness and inappropriateness is this deep loneliness and desire to be loved. He views his employees as a surrogate family and is always trying to get them to bond together, much to their chagrin. In the very first Christmas episode in Season 2, Michael has had to fire an employee in the midst of a tough year for the company, so he wants to make the annual Christmas party the best ever. He gets a tree that’s way too big, gives the Party Planning Committee more money out of his own pocket, and buys Ryan a $400 iPod for Secret Santa, even though everyone was supposed to only spend $20 on a gift. Of course, he also ruins everyone’s day by selfishly changing Secret Santa to Yankee Swap after getting a hand knit oven mitt from Phyllis. Michael, of course, is not the only one guilty of screwing up. The Office Christmas episodes also include Dwight exploiting dads by buying up the hottest Christmas toy of the year and reselling it to them at an exorbitant price, Angela cheating on Andy with Dwight, which Phyllis then uses to blackmail her and boss her around, Jim and Dwight going foolish lengths to one-up each other in their pranks, and a variety of other petty squabbles. So what does any of this have to do with the greater meaning of Christmas? In Michael and his employees, I see myself and all of us. Beneath his immaturity, Michael is desperately lonely and longs for love, and in his attempts to find love, he constantly screws up and overcompensates. In Jim, Dwight, Angela, Phyllis, Meredith, and the others, we see human beings caught up in pettiness, jealousy, and greed. Sound familiar? That’s the story of humanity. And do you know what the amazing thing is? God meets us there. The wonderful thing about Christmas is that it happens in spite of us, and comes as a demonstration of love and grace in the midst of our screwiness. Of course, in watching The Office, we don’t just see the bad side of humanity. We see love as well. We see Pam making Jim a personalized comic book. We see Jim coming back to the Christmas party to wrestle over the pig rib with Dwight. We see Michael apologizing to Phyllis after making a petty display over the fact that she got to be Santa Claus. Christmas is about recognizing the love that has come to us, and then reflecting that same love into the lives of those around us. The Office also reminds me that Christmas doesn’t always look like we think it should or want it to. Growing up in a family that had many wonderful Christmas traditions, it became important for me at some point to fulfill all these traditions in order for it to “feel like Christmas,” just like Michael needs everything to be perfect. In my case, I was trying to conjure up the good sense of mystery and wonder that Christmas brings by creating the perfect environment. While holiday traditions are wonderful, many times when it comes to Christmas we’re often trying to manufacture a feeling or a moment, or else Christmas doesn’t seem genuine. We’re trying desperately, like Michael, to fill this void that only transcendent love can fill. But what does Christmas really feel like or look like? It looks like a couple far from home, with no place to stay, giving birth to a child in an out of the way place, under the shadow of disgrace. That’s how divine love and wonder arrived. Christmas often comes when we least expect it, in the meanest of circumstances, to the unlikeliest people that don’t seem to deserve it, like that annoying colleague you work with. In the end, Christmas seemed to always work out at Dunder Mifflin, the pettiness and in-fighting gone for a moment or two while Angela sang “Little Drummer Boy,” or the gang filed out into the parking lot, playfully tossing snowballs at each other. And whether we are ready or not, Christmas always arrives waiting for us, there in the midst of our humanity, if only we have the eyes to see it.

Jim Bourdeau has the same cake for his birthday every year—Lemon with Cream Cheese Frosting. The first year I made it I was seventeen, spending my first summer away from home as the baker at Big Lake Youth Camp in Sisters, Oregon, where Jim worked maintenance. His daughter Tammi, who was the Horsemanship Director at the time, came up to me one day after lunch. “It’s my dad’s birthday next week,” she said softly and with no nonsense. “He likes a Lemon Cake with Cream Cheese frosting. Can you make that or should I pick up a cake in town?” “Yes,” I said, without fully understanding what she was asking. “Yes?” Tammi replied in query, unsure which of her questions I was answering. “Yes, I can make one,” I clarified, with slightly less uncertainty in my voice. I had never made a lemon cake before. At the time, I couldn’t recall ever eating a lemon cake before. The cake selection in Hawaii, where I grew up, had never seemed peculiar until this very moment: Dobash Cake, Chantilly Cake, Haupia, Lilikoi, Guava—these are the cakes of my childhood. Yes, we had chocolate and vanilla cake too, but it’s always so startling when the ways you are different are unknowingly pointed out to you. And who has ever considered that the way they are different is cake? I honestly don’t remember much else about that first time I made Jim’s cake, beyond my fear. But it’s been eighteen years now, eighteen lemon cakes, eighteen batches of cream cheese frosting. Last July, Jim turned seventy-two, and though I had just moved away from Oregon, I flew back to crack some eggs and cream some butter. Some years, I candy lemons for the top. Some years, there are shaved white chocolate curls, usually round, sometimes square. Once, I had to work on his birthday, so a friend drove the cake three hours from Portland to Jim’s house for me. He still acts surprised, like he doesn’t know it’s coming, and a couple of days later, I always receive a hand-written note or charmingly awkward email thanking me. As he gets older, Jim has started taking a nap every afternoon. He asks his son-in-law Bob for help with the chores around the family farm that require more heavy lifting. A few years ago, Jim had some health scares, so he and his wife Julie have switched to a largely vegan diet—no meat, no eggs, no dairy. These days, it seems even more beautifully obscene to watch him tuck in to his allowed birthday confection. When summer starts ebbing into July, I begin to dream about Jim’s cake, and all these years later, it’s still pure privilege to be part of this liturgy of his life. Adults rarely bother with the party. It's too much work, and what if no one comes? But to a kid, the laboring toward joy is never confused with work, and they trust that if there is a party, their friends and family will come. John Cal For most of us, as we get older, it gets more uncomfortable to be celebrated, to be made a fuss over, to allow ourselves to be loved. For adults, so often birthdays are about bucket lists, how far we’ve come, what we’ve conquered. Somewhere along the way we learn we have to earn our love, earn our celebration and joy. But somehow Jim Bourdeau leans into us loving him, his wife Julie fussing about what he’s going to have for dinner, Tammi spending the year attentive for a present idea. As kids, we can’t accomplish much—walking, brushing our teeth, maybe even spelling our name, sure, but we can’t have jobs, pay rent, or have drivers’ licenses. A kid accomplishing nothing beyond simply being alive allows themselves to be celebrated because they have not yet been tainted by worth through achievement. They have to let someone else buy their balloons, hang their streamers, and drive them to Chuck E. Cheese. And in doing so, they are intimately experiencing what it’s like to be taken care of. Adults rarely bother with the party. It’s too much work, and what if no one comes? But to a kid, the laboring toward joy is never confused with work, and they trust that if there is a party, their friends and family will come. That sentiment is my favorite part of Jesus’s birthday: that the all-powerful, fully capable, well accomplished God of the Universe in his laboring to bring us joy decided, for his birthday, to make himself helpless. He decided to trust that someone, his friends, his family—that we—would show up and take care of him. How startling to become human, to be human. I can imagine an omniscient Jesus thinking, “Hmmm, I’ve never been born before.” Baseball, swimming, his first sunburn; I wonder how many sensations were new and surprising to an all knowing, eternal God? So often we see his birthday beautifully veneered though stained glass or vellum, but I love considering that at the moment he became human, perhaps more like us than he had ever been before, what he needed most was to be wrapped up from the cold, to be rocked, sung to, and fed. So happy birthday, Jesus. As we share in this merriment, may we remember that in his weakness, he allowed himself to be cared for, that he knew and trusted that someone would show up, and that we did. When I think of it, even now, it feels like my own fifth birthday. Even with my best effort, I couldn’t manage to blow my candles out. And when I was at my most tired and hopeless, worried, and ashamed, my friends began to help. Then, magically, against my better judgment, it didn’t feel at all like they were trying to steal my fun or my glory, but that with their help, there would always be reason to celebrate. The featured photograph was taken by Melanie Waldman at Nashville’s Hymnmoot—a celebration very like a birthday party.

Andrew Roycroft is a pastor and poet from Northern Ireland. New Irish Arts commissioned this poem this year, and artist Ross Wilson contributed a new painting for it. Merry Christmas from the Rabbit Room. God is with us. Darkness, unspeakable and unspeaking Darkness. Silence, not of contemplation, Nor of craning, halt-breathed expectation, But silence of the now non-verbal God, Void quiet, out-of-form condemnation. This is all, for generation after Generation, ten times over, silence, Darkness, a people un-peopled, distant. Now, over the deep of barren gloom, over The depths of a barren womb, life breathes again. An angel breaking rank speaks, “Zechariah! Your wife will bear a son, even now when Tears of youth have dried in age, acceptance Must now give way, for the Messiah will Have one to speak his name – like the gathering Of light in glowering clouds before the sun Casts off the shroud of night, and breaks a Day Whose only end will be consummation On the Final Day. John must speak these things.” This child, unexpected, now new-expected Leaps to greet the One in Mary’s womb to Whom he will witness among darkened minds; Leaps at the sheer presence of this Other, The incarnate God, who now is woven, Worked into human form within his mother’s form. But still, darkness. The keen-eyed Simeon Who will not see death til he sees the Son, Waits in faith amidst the oblivion Of broken law, and these stricken lives Who know no mercy, only sacrifice. And Anna, rising every day, shuffles Through the Temple bounds, praying, that the Lord Would ground these redemption words, long left off. Light, unspoken and unspeakable light Breaks now. The Word at last made flesh, he comes, He comes, the Son of God eternal comes! Into the broken yards of drought-dry bones Into the blasphemy of our godless scraping by, Into our hearts he comes, transcendent God, The Son, the majestic uncompounded Lord, He comes, the timeless One unbounded, The world-by-his-word forming King Can now be found at an address, in the mess Of our neighbourhood, in the flesh of our Personhood, he comes the one who is wholly, Holy Other, he comes to be our Saviour Our Messiah, our Lamb and Lion Lord and light, our deliverer Who will carry our shame though not ashamed To call us brothers. He comes, and all our Words though wide as worlds, and all our songs Though voiced in grandest composition Can never carry the incomparable weight Of this one who comes, whose incarnation Is our hope, our joy, heaven’s confirmation That though light from us was long withheld God has shattered the sin that was our hell He comes, he has come, Immanuel. Painting by Ross Wilson

[Editor’s note: We’ve decided to take the last few days of 2018 to repost some of our favorite pieces of writing that showed up on the blog this year. First up: “What Do You See” by Ginny Owens, a lovely reflection on the deeper meaning of sight and what she sees throughout a single morning.] I’ve spent my whole life trying to find words to describe what nothing looks like. People always ask, “So what do you see? Is it black? Blurry?” No, it’s just nothing. Sort of like when your arm goes numb, and for a minute, you can’t feel anything. My brain just doesn’t communicate with my eyes about colors or light. I started seeing nothing when I was three years old. My condition is hereditary, and a failed surgery ended my seeing journey. I don’t remember anything from before then. Occasionally I have a dream where I can see. But when I wake up, it’s back to nothing. It’s not a big deal anymore to me, but most days I’m reminded it’s a pretty big deal to other people. I recently read a statistic that blindness is one of the top three fears among people in the US, which is hard for me to believe. My top three fears are getting struck by lightning, being stung by a wasp, and dying alone. It’s odd to think that I live every day with many people’s greatest fear. But when I think of it as the fear of seeing nothing, I understand. The misconception is that when you see nothing with your eyes, you see nothing at all. But that’s definitely not true. I don’t think there’s anything supernatural about how I see, but I definitely see. So this is a story about all the things I saw one morning. Names have been changed, and I’ve added just a few “alternative facts.” The day begins as it always does, with the largest, strongest cup of black coffee I can make in my aeropress. Coffee must be the most beautiful rich color, because it makes my life so beautifully rich every single morning. With morning coffee comes reading and prayer – always lots of prayer. Prayer helps me not swear at the people that say dumb things because they think I see nothing. I’m running especially late today, so I throw on a hat in lieu of a shower and I’m off to my errands. My chariot this morning is a Toyota Corolla Lyft. Jack is my driver. Super friendly. I learn in the first couple minutes that he’s a singer/songwriter and he’s just doing this while he’s getting his career going. My mind wanders a little as he chats, and I take stock of my surroundings. I would say that Jack is a hipster just beyond hipster age. I’m going to put him around 37. I can tell his age from his voice and the bands he’s already referenced. The hipster part I can smell in his unwashed hair, and the scent of Nag Champa radiating from his pores. The Sirius Coffeehouse station is coming out of the car speakers, and Ray LaMontagne is singing “Trouble.” I absently wonder what Ray LaMontagne would sound like doing a hip-hop song. Then it happens. Jack breaks into my peaceful thoughts with the seven words that would change my next half hour: “Do you wanna hear my demo?” “Sure,” I say enthusiastically, and the first song immediately begins to play. “This one’s called ‘Dark Night of the Soul.’” “Oh,” I say. “What inspired it?” “Really just life I guess,” Jack says. “It’s been a hard few years.” Jack’s voice isn’t bad. The song is gentle, acoustic guitar with raspy vocals and dark lyrics. Jack frequently rasps the chorus, “I’m broken I’m alone in my dark night of the soul.” After 3.5 minutes, the drum kit comes in, and the bass. Subtle at first. But finally the electric guitar wails its way in and it’s an all-out jam band party. “Me and my friends added this part last week,” he says. “I dig it, so I kept it in. It kinda gives you time to think about the lyrics.” “Yeah, cool,” is all I can think to say. We then listen to “Hearts Like Glass,” “The Edge of Light,” and “Distance.” All tender acoustic ballads which morph into jam band tunes three minutes in. “You have a very nice voice,” I say. “Cool, thanks, man. I have one more song but it’s not recorded yet, so I can just sing it for you.” “Alright,” I say. I reach for my phone. My screen’s turned off so people think I’m typing nothing. I text a friend to say this is happening right now. After the acapella rendition of “This Room is Too Small,” I gently but firmly move us away from music into conversation. I ask Jack about his writing process, and his life here in Nashville, just trying to get a picture. Turns out he was in a rock band that got signed when he was 18. He left his family to move here; everything fell apart. But he can’t shake the music bug. I get it. When the ride is over, I have a pretty good image of this guy. He’s a thinker. A free spirit who loves his art and is searching for his place in the world. I get that too. Jack drops me off at my first stop of the day: Parisian Nails. The man at the front greets me as he always does: “What you want today?” I’m so curious what this guy looks like. And how he got the job of greeter at the nail place. My mental picture is of someone relatively short – I can tell he’s about my height – and Vietnamese – I can hear that in his accent. But I wonder how he dresses. And what his hair’s like. “Just a manicure,” I say. “You want Steve to do for you?” “Yes, sir. That’d be great.” Steve is fascinating. I’ve probably known him six years. He used to be a chef, but he says it was too stressful, and now he does the best nails and eyebrows in the city of Nashville. I asked Steve once if he likes doing nails. “It’s just a job,” he said. “I don’t have to like it. I’m just glad to have one.” Hashtag: perspective. So Nail Greeter Guy grabs my shoulder and practically carries me down the aisles of chairs to Steve’s manicure table. The misconception is that when you see nothing with your eyes, you see nothing at all. But that's definitely not true. I don't think there's anything supernatural about how I see, but I definitely see. Ginny Owens Steve and I have something in common: we run out of words. Our conversation quota is about four sentences at a time and then long silences and four more sentences. But these bits of conversation have helped me to see much of him over the years. He’s been in the US for about a decade. He has a daughter. He’s long been divorced from her mother, who broke his heart. I know that he goes fishing at Percy Priest before work, and he cleans the fish and eats them. I know he likes YouTube and music. We’ve even talked about religion, which he’s not a fan of. But every time I’m here, I get a little clearer image of him. “Hey Ginny, how are you?” he says. “Great. How are you?” I say. “Good.” “How was your trip home to Vietnam?” I ask. “Good.” And then we enter long silence number one, as I consider what Steve might want to talk about next. “So what did you do while you were at home?” “I visited my grandmother.” “Ah.” “And my wife.” “Your wife?” I ask, surprised. I knew Steve had been looking for wife, but this was new information. “When did you get married?” “Last year.” “Oh. So she lives in Vietnam.” “Yes.” “So is she going to move here?” “Yes.” “Wow. That’s cool.” Silence number two ensues, at which point I begin noticing the people around the room. There’s an older couple beside me getting pedicures. I hear Green Hills affluence in their accents. The guy’s either retired or a CEO. He’s talking about playing golf this afternoon, and his wife is trying to decide on proper attire for their dinner party at Sunset Grill later in the evening. The lady right next to me is gossiping on her cell phone about people at her work. I know this because she’s not using her inside voice. “I cannot believe the way he conducts meetings,” I hear her say. “It’s just so ra-diculuous.” She’s also getting bright red gel nail color, which I know because she keeps interrupting her phone diatribe to ask her manicurist, “Do you think this is too bright?” “Are you sure it’s not too bright?” To which the manicurist consistently replies, “It look nice.” Per usual, Steve and the manicurist next to him chat a good bit in Vietnamese. I know some of it is about me, because every once in a while Steve will ask a question like, “She want to know, do you live by yourself?” Yes. “She want to know, how you eat?” Well, I cook. “How you do that?” I don’t exactly know how to explain because I know his English vocabulary isn’t terribly extensive. So I just smile and say, “It’s easy. I’ve been doing it a long time.” After a few more brief but meaningful dialogues with Steve, I’m done and getting up to leave. As I head for the door, I overhear retired sophisticated lady say, “Oh would you look at her. Bless her heart. I don’t know how she does anything being the way she is.” For a moment, I picture this woman with a pointy nose, beady eyes, frumpy hair and a permanent scowl. And a broomstick instead of a Lexus in the parking lot. She is one of the reasons I need long prayer times. Because I’ve had one today, I somehow choose compassion, realizing that in this moment, she is the one who can’t see. I exit Parisian and climb into my second Lyft of the day, this time with Alex. I don’t notice in the app which kind of car he has, but when I get in, I know it’s nice. Leather seats. Sports car size. Smells great. He smells great actually. And we have a great time chatting about how Nashville weather changes every second and how one billion people move here every day. He tells me about the startup he works for. He seems super cute too. Hmm. I type his company name down on my seemingly blank phone screen, so I can find him on Instagram and ask a friend if I’m right. Alex has great energy, which gives me energy. It occurs to me that seeing the world with this kind of hope helps the people you’re around see that way too. I thank Alex for the ride as I head into my next stop. And while I’m at it, I thank God for all the things I get to see every day. Like the textures and colors of the voices that speak words and sing songs. And the hearts that show me we all need hope – and each other – to make it through. So if you run into me somewhere, don’t feel sad for me. As you can tell, even though my eyes see nothing, I see more than enough.

[Editor’s note: We’ve decided to take the last few days of 2018 to repost some of our favorite pieces of writing that showed up on the blog this year. The second piece we’re sharing is “Awkward Saint Crazy” by Adam Whipple, in which he earnestly and skillfully asks how the Church can best engage with mental illness.] Had my wife and I been born a hundred years ago, our lot might have been quite different. Our family has a history of bipolar disorder, you see. Mental illness was looked upon with even greater stigma in days of yore than today. Today, there are many studies on CBD vape juice pens and its beneficial effects on the body to help people with physical and mental stress. The canon of schoolchild literature hailing from 1850 through the 1970s is littered with characters subject to one stripe of insanity or another. Mr. Rochester’s first wife in Jane Eyre, Conrad’s demigod Kurtz, Boo Radley, Robert Cormier’s Adam Farmer in I Am the Cheese, Mr. Hyde, and the tragic cast of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest all come to mind. To be fair, this initially only suggests that insanity makes for a useful plot device (which it does), but the way in which all these authors presented their characters is telling. Though some of the authors stared the darkness of mental illness in the eye, the best that can often be said of the characters is that they are anti-heroes. Even Arthur “Boo” Radley, in To Kill a Mockingbird, is presented as a hidden mark of family shame—an accurate depiction of a common situation, if truth be told. Our understanding of mental vagaries during those past eras was marked by fear and loathing. We’ve changed our terminology since then, preferring euphemistic jargon to the tactile but oversimplified monikers of older times. We no longer have lunatics, for example—those whose minds are affected by the phases of the moon. These days, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual—that worthy tome by which we assess the mind’s irregularities and defects—is weighted with terminology enough to cause blunt force trauma. Take this paragraph on Passive-Aggressive Personality Disorder: "The essential feature is a Personality Disorder (p. 305) in which there is resistance to demands for adequate performance in both occupational and social functioning; the resistance is expressed indirectly rather than directly. The consequence is pervasive and persistent social or occupational ineffectiveness, even when more self-assertive and effective behavior is possible. The name of this disorder is based on the assumption that such individuals are passively expressing covert aggression." You could be forgiven for pausing amid such dry prose for a small nap, and possibly to douse the paragraph with water. It’s a far cry from lunacy, though in our persistent fearmongering about what is pejorative and what is not, we seem to forget that such words as demented and mad used to be clinical in usage. In one way, I’m thrilled that our explorations of the mind have birthed such extensive literature. It’s a testament, at least, to how complex and unfathomable the human mind is. For such a work of art, we can give glory to God. At the Whipple house, though, our best weapon against fear and misunderstanding is simply talking about it. We don’t speak in the languorous gobbledygook of the DSM, helpful though it may be; we use simple words. Sometimes, my wife, who struggles with being bipolar, is even keen to tell me that she’s “crazy.” At times, we use that word in jest and wonder if we’re kidding. Some members of my family have questioned if I’m on the autism spectrum; I often think that perhaps they’re right. The other day, I was trying to have a conversation with my wife, and I simply couldn’t do it—because I heard everything. Her computer keys, the box fan, the kids talking in the back room, the swoosh of the dishwasher, the dog’s nails clacking on the floor—it was all too much. Our house isn’t particularly loud, but I actually put my hands over my eyes because there was too much information. “I’m going to just need you to look right at me here in a second,” I said. “Otherwise I can’t talk.” If this is all somewhat offensive to you, or if it makes you uncomfortable to read it, you should see what it does to polite conversation in person. In dealing with our mental roadblocks, my wife and I are now pretty comfortable mentioning things both to total strangers and to acquaintances who would rather not know. You’d be amazed at the way some folks clam up at the subject of mental illness. People shift in their shoes and look elsewhere. Quick talkers suddenly stutter. Nearby Chatty Cathy dolls burst into flame. No matter how it has made others feel, though, talking about it freely seemed to help us. We’ve never really been good at political correctness with our problems anyway, though we’ve certainly grown in our freedom to deal with them and to be human, especially within the church. Of course, it wasn’t always that way. For a number of years, we attended church with several people who had a difficult time with our struggles. To clarify, this congregation was full of loving, wonderful individuals, many of whom I still see and others whom I miss terribly. I also understand the obvious caveat that every church has its problems. While we adored this church, of which we were deeply a part, one of the unspoken rules that seemed to pervade their doctrine was that mental disorders ought to be matters of prayer only, rather than matters of prayer and medical treatment. In our family’s dealings with bipolar disorder, we grew walls around ourselves in odd places. While in certain arenas of our lives—sin, finance, servanthood—we attempted to maintain transparency, we were also quick to protect ourselves when we sensed a billowing tiff about psychological things. If we are to face our demons, we do well to look at them in the light of day. In the Church, of all places, we should be unafraid of sharing our weaknesses and failures, for it is there that God's workmanship is so obvious. Adam Whipple It was strange; there were those in that small body of believers who faced mental illness on a daily basis in school system jobs or social services. They had a wealth of experience dealing with psychoactive medicines, at least by extension. Yet, like the janitor whose own house is a wreck, or like the banker whose credit is in shambles, they seemed to have a blind spot. It was insinuated to us—and occasionally we were told outright—that we should get over it. On its face, this isn’t strictly a bad idea. No medication or corrective action is perfect in mental health. A certain amount of getting over it is part and parcel, but to me, this advice felt like a fear-based response, a question hanging in the air about God’s ability to heal people. I was angry at times, but who was I to judge? I had spent years of my own blowing off psychology, and anyway, the Church is a family. If we open ourselves to know and be known, we’re going to get hurt. In a broken world, love will always know pain. I don’t say this to denounce anyone. Through being a part of that church and others, and moreover, by the work of the Spirit, we’ve grown to be able to share our experiences, even when people disagree. This, I think, is essential to the work of the Church, especially as the internet and other media enable us to surround ourselves with a veritable Greek chorus of yes-men, always affirming our quirks or opinions. In the echo chamber of social discourse—which is rarely discourse these days—we don’t truly get to hear that most essential voice: the naysayer. As much as I chafed at being gainsaid by brothers or sisters (in a variety of subjects), I’ve been glad to meet real people who will tell me that I’m wrong, because I am. Every day. In thought, word, and deed. Mea maxima culpa. When we’re up front about our difficulties, about our failures and hangups, it is Christ who gets the glory. There are so many buried struggles, so many skeletons hung to dry in family closets. Some of them are immoralities of our own making; some are just problems we inherited, ripples of the Fall charged with the potential energy of redemption. I know that I personally cannot pretend I was born tabula rasa, fresh as a new box of Arm & Hammer. I came with history, and I made more along the way. I’ve talked about my own struggles with sin to fellow church members and sometimes received the same clammed-up horror as when we discuss bipolar disorder. Other times, thankfully, there is grace and an understanding of God’s finished and continuing work. In some ways, we can honestly be glad this isn’t some century past, a century where Joseph Merrick gets chased through the streets and Bertha Mason gets locked in the attic. Nevertheless, we all still try to keep darknesses and difficulties out of sight. Yet if we are to face our demons, we do well to look at them in the light of day. In the Church, of all places, we should be unafraid of sharing our weaknesses and failures, for it is there that God’s workmanship is most obvious. In any case, you can always have that delightful moment of social discomfort to brighten your day.