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Now available for streaming are songs from April 16th’s Local Show, both on Spotify and Apple Music! Click through for our fifth playlist of the season along with a recap of the night written by Jared Malament, patron saint of the Local Show. The most recent edition of the Local Show featured the gifts of Leslie Jordan (of All Sons & Daughters), Christopher Williams, Frankie Barranco, Taylor Leonhardt and special guest LOVKN. They opened their hearts to us with tales of learning the stories of absent parents, the struggles of knowing our own worth, and the five stages of grief. Taylor Leonhardt opened the show with her song “Everything,” a perfect reminder of Christ’s sacrifice during Holy Week’s lead-up to the Easter season. —Jared Malament Set List Taylor Leonhardt: “Everything” Frankie Barranco: “For You O God Will Be My Strength” (unreleased) Christopher Williams: “Gather” Leslie Jordan: “I Wait” Taylor Leonhardt: “Hard Conversation” (unreleased) Frankie Barranco: “Autumn” (unreleased) Christopher Williams: “Because You Are” Leslie Jordan: “Suzy Rain” (unreleased) LVKN: “Pilot of My Own Life” (unreleased) LVKN: “Go Easy on Me” (unreleased) Taylor Leonhardt: “Diamonds” Frankie Barranco: “Depression (Standing)” (unreleased) Christopher Williams: “I Cannot Know You” Leslie Jordan: “Instruments of Peace” (unreleased) Taylor Leonhardt: “Poetry” (unreleased) Frankie Barranco: “Acceptance (Breath In, Breathe Out)” (unreleased) Christopher Williams: “The River” Leslie Jordan: “Ever Flowing Fountain” (unreleased) Click here to listen to the playlist on Spotify. And click here to listen on Apple Music.

We’re excited to share with you Episode 5 of The Artist’s Creed with Steve Guthrie—the second to last episode in the series, featuring Dr. David Dark. In a series of interviews with various artists in our community, Steve draws on the tenets of the Nicene Creed to develop a rich vision of the relationship between the voice of God and the voice of the artist—constructing an “artist’s creed” of sorts. In this episode, Steve Guthrie and David Dark discuss the generative, boundary-confounding work of the Spirit in wider culture, using the career of U2 as a jumping off point. Click here to listen to the fifth episode of The Artist’s Creed.

It’s hard to believe we’re already over a quarter of the way through the year 2019! We’d like to take this opportunity to heartily thank our members for their indispensable support and to share the high points of what we’ve been up to so far this year. If you’re interested in becoming a member, you can learn more at rabbitroom.com/donate. Rabbit Room on the Road — We’ve been going on the road with the Great Homeschool Convention. Rabbit Room on the Road includes four breakout sessions on stories and imagination, concerts by Andrew Peterson and Slugs & Bugs, and full access to the exhibit hall and other convention activities. It’s been a great way for folks across the country to get a taste of the Rabbit Room and Hutchmoot, and we’ve enjoyed getting to interact with friends old and new. Registration is still available on the Great Homeschool Convention website. We just got back from Cincinnati, OH yesterday—we’ll be in Ontario, CA in June and finishing off with Rochester, NY and Jacksonville, FL in August. Hutchmoot US & UK — Yes, we now have to specify which Hutchmoot we’re talking about! The first EVER Hutchmoot UK was announced this quarter, and will take place 18-20 July 2019 at St. Andrew’s Church in North Oxford. We’re thrilled to begin a new chapter of cultivating community across the world, especially in a place just a twenty-minute walk from the original Rabbit Room in the Eagle and Child pub and literally on the same block as Tolkien’s old house. We’re glad to have Steve Turner as keynote speaker. You can find more information on him and Hutchmoot UK here at the website. This year, tickets for Hutchmoot US 2019 sold out in less than two minutes. We continue to be grateful and humbled by the enthusiasm surrounding this gathering, and your help makes it possible every year. This year’s keynote speaker will be Carolyn Arends. Be sure to keep an eye out for updates on the website. We hope to see you there! North Wind Manor — Construction began this quarter for the long-awaited North Wind Manor. With your help, we’ve raised $394,000 toward the project, putting us just over 12% away from our goal of $450,000. The frame of our operations center is now up! After dreaming and planning for many years, the Rabbit Room is on its way to having a physical space to call its own. Every Moment Holy — Last week, Rabbit Room members received these discount codes for sharing Every Moment Holy, and now we’re extending them to the entire community! These codes are for you and anyone you want to share them with. Use the code GiftEMH at checkout for 25% off any order of 10+ copies. In addition, share this link with as many friends as you’d like, and they can use the code ForaFriend to get 25% off of their own order of Every Moment Holy. Thank you for helping us steward this work well! The Shiloh Series— Helena Sorensen’s Shiloh series has been reprinted by Rabbit Room Press! To celebrate, we posted a delightful article by Jonny Jimison describing the series. You can find Helena’s trilogy in the Rabbit Room Store. The Local Show — The Local Show Spring 2019 season is nearing its end and has been a blast. Livestream is available for anyone who wants to tune in, and we’ve begun compiling Spotify and Apple Music playlists for the songs and artists featured at each show. There are still two shows left in the Spring season! Dates, line-ups, and tickets are available at store.RabbitRoom.com. Seasonal Playlists — Speaking of playlists, we’ve started a new tradition of compiling songs from folks connected to the Rabbit Room and releasing them to community. Thus far, we’ve done playlists covering Favorites from 2018, Advent, Valentine’s Day, Lent, and Easter. You can find all the compilations on Spotify and Apple Music. The Rabbit Room Podcast Network — The podcast network continues to expand! The Second Muse, The Hutchmoot Podcast, and Rabbit Room Classic have been joined by The Artist’s Creed, Fixed in Post, and The Membership. Our newest addition, The Resistance, is coming soon. You can find them all on the podcast network page. Friends of L’Abri — The Rabbit Room is supporting Friends of L’Abri as they develop their first ever conference in Nashville. The two-day conference will take place 26-27 July and will include small group discussions, meals together, an evening of music from local artists, and an environment to nurture conversation and questions.

For a long time, I’ve been fascinated by the Jewish concept of haverim. While it has more than one meaning, a haverim often refers to a group of friends who study Scripture and then discuss it together, earnest in their desire to know it more deeply. It’s not a new idea but it is a rich one. There is something formative about learning together—telling the Story back to one another in ways that help us better understand our place within it. In Ephesians 4: 11-16, Paul talks about the impact of Christian community. As we help one another to better know God, all that we are and all that we do becomes shaped by the truth of who He is and who we are in Him. We’d love you to join us as we read, study, and discuss the book of Ephesians over the next couple of months. Each week we’ll focus on one particular chapter, sharing the challenges and encouragements we find within it. (Note: If you are nervously picturing heated online debate, you can rest easy. This is not intended as a forum for theological wrangling and we’ll be encouraging people to remember that. It’s important to wrestle with hard passages of Scripture but, particularly when those passages are controversial, we believe that is best done face to face over open bibles and good coffee.) As a community rich with artists, musicians, readers and writers who are committed to God’s Word, we have the opportunity to share not only the impact of the text itself, but also the ways in which art and community have helped illuminate or apply it in our lives. Next week, before we dig into the body of the letter, Michael Card will be sharing some background to Ephesians. Then, for the following six weeks, a different Rabbit Room contributor will share their own challenges and encouragements from each chapter in turn. Our hope is that you will not only study along, either alone or with friends, but also that you will share what you have learned. One of the highlights of Hutchmoot 2018 was Stephen Trafton’s Living Letters performance of the book of Ephesians. For me, the impact of listening to Paul’s words—in much the same way as the original audience—engaged my imagination in a new way. In preparation for this series of posts, I caught up with Stephen Trafton and asked him a few questions about Living Letters and his passion for the Bible. HJ: For the benefit of those who are not familiar with your work, tell us a bit about yourself and what you do now. ST: My training is in musical theatre and I’ve performed on Broadway in Les Miserables, on the National Tour of Phantom of the Opera, and around the country at regional theatres. I’m currently the Youth Director at Redeemer Presbyterian Church West Side in NYC. My wife (Juliette) and I also lead a ministry called Living Letters, bringing Scripture to life in churches, colleges, and conferences around the country. HJ: One of the first things that struck me about you was your passion for the Bible. In fact, several of my favourite Bible study resources came straight from your Instagram recommendations! Has Bible study always been important to you? ST: I’m glad you’ve found some of the resources I’ve mentioned helpful! To answer your question, Bible Study has not always been important to me. Although I grew up as a Christian, I never had too much interest in reading the Bible. I think I always found it difficult to be focused on Scripture itself—I preferred to read people who talked about the Bible. It seemed like there was a real distance between my life and the text and I had a hard time getting into it. There was a lot I didn’t understand and, honestly, I found it intimidating and a little boring. It wasn’t until I really studied the Bible about seven or eight years ago and was connected with its contextual background that it started to come alive to me. HJ: How did the idea for Living Letters come about? ST: Juliette and I had been part of a community group with our church led by Max McLean (Fellowship for the Performing Arts). The group was for Broadway actors and met in Times Square on Wednesdays so that we could attend between shows. When the leader left, he asked me to take over. For some reason I can’t remember, I landed on the book of Philippians. Being the son of a New Testament Scholar, I reached out to my father to help me understand, teach, and apply the book to Broadway performers. If this is what God's Word through Paul was saying to them then, how does that same eternal Word speak to us now, in a new context? Stephen Trafton As I spoke with my Dad and explored the commentaries, I was thrust into the circumstances of the letter. I learned what the Philippians were feeling—their hopes and fears and the challenges they faced. I discovered that the letter wasn’t just full of timeless truths, principles and verses in isolation. God’s Word through Paul was inspired to speak to this particular audience, in their particular situation. It was written to them, not directly to me, and it was meant to be both read and understood as a whole letter. That realisation was liberating. Rather than reading the text through my 21st century lens (and potentially making it mean anything I wanted), I began to understand what it meant to that original audience. Here’s the key: once I understood what God’s Word meant to them, it illuminated and clarified what it meant to me and to our group at that time. This process made me realize how crucial it was to set up the context and to hear and interpret the letter as the Philippians would have heard it. I began to think, how could my training in acting and my love of storytelling bring all of this to life? Rather than tell people what the original audience felt, through a lecture or a sermon or a book, how can I set up the necessary context so that my audience feels and experiences the letter as it was first received? What if the imagination of my audience became engaged in a way that was theatrical, embodied, and physical? With the help of my Dad and sister (Jennifer Trafton) on the background and storytelling concept, and my wife’s eye as a Director/Actor/Improvisor, we created a way to interactively and imaginatively bring the context of Philippians to life. After that I performed the entire letter, with the audience “becoming” the Philippian church and encountering the letter as it may have been originally received. HJ: How do you prepare to step into Paul’s shoes? ST: One way I was trained as an actor was with the Uta Hagen Acting method. In preparation for the role you ask lots of questions of the script: Who am I? Where am I? What are my relationships? What do I want? What’s in my way? How will I get what I want? I usually revisit those questions in whichever letter I’m performing, asking myself about Paul’s given circumstances: what he’s thinking, feeling, and seeing: what he’s worried about, hoping for, and looking to accomplish. Also crucial to this process is revisiting what that particular church was going through at the time, such as disunity, suffering, worry, and so on. It’s exciting for me to reflect and study Paul’s intention and explore the variety of ways his intention could be communicated to the recipients of the letter. From the audience’s perspective, this helps them see that Paul’s words are meant to move us in some way—whether to remind us who we are, to comprehend the love of Christ more deeply, or to spur us on to particular actions. This is where “application” comes in. What did Paul want the church to walk away knowing, feeling, doing, and so on? Once we understand that, we can then ask: if this is what God’s Word through Paul was saying to them then, how does that same eternal Word speak to us now, in a new context? Or, as theologian Kevin Vanhoozer conveys in some of his writings: how do we “re-stage the drama” today? HJ: How much has understanding the original audience influenced your reading of the text? ST: I believe that understanding and experiencing the Word in context really clarifies the text and helps audiences reflect on how to apply and live it out in fresh contexts today. Since Paul’s letters were written in the first century to specific groups of people that he names in those letters, there are many features we miss about the cultural contexts. Particular words and phrases that were clear to the original audience can be lost on us today. The body of Christ is made up of many members with different gifts and I am grateful that God has given us gifted scholars and historians who have researched and know much about the first century. If I didn’t know the context, I could take many passages to mean things that might “feel” right to me, but are not at all what Paul was originally communicating. The Spirit may give new applications today but they won’t be less than what they originally were, nor can they ever contradict the original inspiration. I find this both exciting and liberating. In a culture where so many take Scripture out of context, I sense a calling to present the Word and encourage people to study and engage with it—inviting the audience to imagine the context, encounter the Word, and reflect on how that Word is to be lived out today. HJ: If you had the chance to sit down with Paul, what would you ask him? ST: Several questions come to mind. What happened with you and Barnabas? What happened when you confronted Peter about his hypocrisy (Galatians)? I think I’d most like him to tell me—again and again and again—what it was like to hear and see Jesus raised from the dead. HJ: How has learning entire books of the Bible impacted your day- to-day life? ST: Before I have memorized any of the letters, I’ve really studied and meditated on the words, considering what Paul originally meant by them. The meaning was absorbed in my heart and mind and was formed within me. While memorization is challenging, this made it much easier and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to memorize Scripture. Instead of attempting to learn something that is foreign to you, the words you are memorizing have already become part of you and are rich with meaning. For me, this process of meditating, memorizing, and ultimately performing Scripture means that the Spirit can often bring the words and theology to my mind in unexpected places in order to minister to someone. I’ll find myself saying something like, “This reminds me of the Philippians and what they were facing, and this is what Paul said to them…” Sometimes I’m wrestling with something and I will think back to the books I’ve memorized, trying to recall how my situation has potential parallels to what Paul was going through, or what one of his communities was facing. HJ: As we begin studying Ephesians together, do you have any tips for us? Are there any particular themes we should look out for? ST: These are some things I have found helpful: 1. Read the whole letter in one sitting. Read it again and again. See how the book gets bigger and deeper with each reading. 2. Read the letter out loud and see how that gives a different feel and experience. 3. Take notes on Paul’s circumstances and the circumstances of the church. Try to imagine the given circumstances. 4. Try to identify Paul’s objective and intended effect on the audience. Notice not just what he says, but how he says it. Look for the flow of his thought as he seeks his intended effects. Put yourself in the church’s shoes: how is Paul forming you through the letter? 5. Don’t just read it with a personal perspective. Notice how much Paul focuses on the church and life together. 6. Remember Paul is in prison writing all of these words and put yourself in his shoes—get inside his worldview. HJ: Are there any resources in particular that you have found helpful? ST: Here are a few: The Bible Project Videos (Their video summarising Ephesians is included below) NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible by Keener & Walton How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth & How to Read the Bible Book by Book by Stuart & Fee Ephesians Commentary by Stephen Fowl Living-letters.com Instagram/Facebook: @experiencelivingletters

Doug the Slug and Sparky the Lightning Bug got a big surprise from our friend Randall, and they even managed to catch it on video. Click through to watch for yourself! Randall decided that the friendship between Doug the Slug and Sparky the Lightning Bug was so commendable, it would make a great example for kids in his two brand new books, Who Will Play With Me? and Are We Still Friends? Both these books will be available for purchase on May 15th, but until then, you can pre-order them at the Rabbit Room Store. Click here to pre-order Who Will Play With Me? And here for Are We Still Friends?

A cynic remarked that last week’s fire at Notre Dame has turned out to be an excellent excuse for social media users to post pictures of their vacations in Paris. A less cynical interpretation is that the fire at Notre Dame prompted social media users to memorialize an encounter with a work of art and beauty that reminded them that they were living in a bigger story than they typically thought. It is remarkable what that building has meant to people who have only seen it once, to say nothing of Parisians for whom Notre Dame has been part of daily life. In her book Reason for Hope, the primatologist Jane Goodall described her first visit to Notre Dame. She watched the morning sun stream through the Rose Window while Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor” filled the place: That moment, a suddenly captured moment of eternity, was perhaps the closest I have ever come to experiencing ecstasy, the ecstasy of the mystic. How could I believe it was the chance gyrations of bits of primeval dust that had led up to that moment in time—the cathedral soaring to the sky; the collective inspiration and faith of those who caused it to be built; the advent of Bach himself; the brain, his brain, that translated truth into music; and the mind that could, as mine did then, comprehend the whole inexorable progression of evolution? Since I cannot believe that this was the result of chance, I have to admit anti-chance. And so I must believe in a guiding power in the universe—in other words, I must believe in God. Father James Schall, a Jesuit priest and philosopher, died the day after the fire at Notre Dame was put out. When I read about his death, I returned to his excellent book, On the Unseriousness of Human Affairs, figuring Father Schall would have said something relevant to the situation at Notre Dame. I was not disappointed. He wrote: “Beauty, as such, is not useful; yet without it, we would not be what we are. This is why a religion indifferent to beauty is a religion indifferent to the real end for which we are made.” Those are big claims. But the gist is this: every useful thing is useful because it is a means toward something more important. The most important things have meanings in themselves, not because they are a means toward some other end. The awe and reverence inspired by a work like Notre Dame is an end in itself. Without it, as Father Schall said, we would not be what we are. Building Notre Dame was not a pragmatic thing to do. Repairing it won’t be pragmatic either. That impracticality is a clue to why the work is so important. “Pragmatism is a matter of human needs,” wrote G.K. Chesterton, “and one of the first human needs is to be more than a pragmatist.” But even as I think about the transcendence and the beauty of that cathedral, I can’t help thinking about those stonemasons and hod-carriers and carpenters and carpenters’ assistants who showed up for work and did their job in the twelfth century. And the thirteenth century. And the fourteenth. If my math is right, the workers who completed Notre Dame would have been the great-great-great-great-grandchildren of the workers who dug the foundations. That’s a lot of people showing up and tending to their business. Very few, I should think, had access to the architectural plans. The overwhelming majority never saw the finished product. And yet Notre Dame could never have been Notre Dame without those workers’ faithfulness to show up and do the work that was in front of them. That’s where civilization comes from: people doing the work that is in front of them. You don’t have to know where the work fits in the big picture. You don’t have to have a complete vision of the finished project. In one of his choruses from The Rock, a play about cathedral-building, T. S. Eliot wrote, I say: Take no thought of the harvest, But only of proper sowing. What work is in front of you today? Show up. Do the work. The harvest will take care of itself.

Today is Release Day Eve for The Arcadian Wild, and what a release it is! They have been hard at work on a collection of songs elaborately adventurous, mathematically precise, and nourishingly beautiful, and we are lucky to get to share its penultimate track a day before it’s officially out in the world. Does this artwork look familiar? Probably because it was designed by Ned Bustard, the beloved artist behind Every Moment Holy. By the way, this cover is replete with references to the songs inside. The song we are sharing with you today is called “The Graduate”—a lavishly composed tribute to the turbulence and wonder of young adulthood. “We’re wondering,” they sing, “if and when we’ll reach the other side.” Their album indicates that this trio of friends has already reached somewhere special. Click here to visit The Arcadian Wild’s website. You can follow The Arcadian Wild on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

I met my then-future wife in college. Our first date was on December 17, 1996, and just a few days afterward, we each went home for Christmas, her to Hot Springs, Arkansas and me to Orlando. We were a time zone away from each other, and cell phones were yet to be a thing. I knew I’d be talking to her sparingly, and I also knew I was deeply smitten. It’s a hard place to be—young, in new love, and a thousand miles apart. Just a few months prior, Counting Crows had released their sophomore record, Recovering the Satellites. Just like everyone else, I’d been a fan of August and Everything After, an all-time great debut, and I’d made sure to pick up Recovering the day it came out. By the time December came around, I knew every word to every song, and as I rode home to Orlando for that season, with Jeffery Verlander manning the driver’s seat, the songs manifested in a new way. I remember how Jeff drove through the night and the rain, and I sat in the passenger seat with a pen and paper and wrote a poem to Janna. I couldn’t see what I was writing, so the words were scattered around the pages, but I could read them well enough to type them up later. I was an English major and I knew my way around poetic form, but at that moment, it wasn’t Shakespeare or Petrarch that flowed through my pen—it was Adam Duritz. I wrote that poem to the rhythm of Counting Crows’ “Mercury,” a song that includes the lines, “She’s entwined in me/ Crazy as can be/ Yeah, but she’s alright with me.” My version included lines like these (if you know “Mercury,” you can sing this to the tune): She is walking through the grass with me Shooting stars that only she can see On an acre filled with massive trees I sit there while she counts the leaves I watch her patiently She’s kissing every leaf She is completing me Janna and I wrote letters to each other from our respective homes that December, and when we reunited at college in the new year, it felt like it had been years, not only a month. From then on, we knew our song would always be a Counting Crows song. Not “Mercury,” although we loved it, but “A Long December,” which is a song Duritz wrote about visiting a friend in the hospital over a particularly hard season. Did the lyrics actually fit what we’d experienced over that month? Of course not. But did we mean it in our own way when we sang “A long December, and there’s reason to believe/ Maybe this year will be better than the last”? Absolutely we did. And did I think of her every time I heard Adam sing, “All at once you look across a crowded room/ To see the way that light attaches to a girl”? You bet I did. You bet I still do. The first words on Counting Crows’ live album, Across a Wire, are these, “Please welcome my favorite band, Counting Crows.” I don’t know who says them. The set comes from VH1 Storytellers, so I imagine it’s someone that worked there, but I don’t know. What I do know is that I agree with the sentiment. Counting Crows is my favorite band, too. I used to think I knew what it meant to have a favorite band. I thought it meant you loved every note, every song (even the hidden tracks), and every album. It meant you knew every iteration of the band on every record. But the older I get, I’m finding that’s not it at all. Sure, you’ll know those things. But having a favorite band is like having a spouse. Love develops around the particulars of your life, especially the difficulties. Having a favorite band is understanding that the new-love phase is well behind you, and the relationship you have now is so much deeper than it ever was when love and lust were young—when you still wrote love poems out of the loneliness of your heart. Having a favorite band is like having a lover—you never tire of finding new nooks and crannies to explore. I’m in my forties now, and everything isn’t out in front of me like it was back in those college days. I’ve changed, grown up, and made more mistakes than I’d like to admit, and the Crows have grown up along with me. All the phases of my life since high school have been paired with a new Crows record: high school with August and Everything After, college with Recovering the Satellites, newly married and aimless with This Desert Life, the beginnings of fatherhood with Hard Candy, a new city and a new career with Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings, being a parent of teenagers with Underwater Sunshine, and launching kids into the world with Somewhere Under Wonderland. Having a favorite band is knowing that, while they don’t know me at all, their songs do. Of course, I don’t like them all. There are songs I once loved, but can’t tolerate any more, like “I Wish I Was a Girl.” There are songs I can’t listen to anymore because of what they dredge up inside of me, like “1492.” Certain songs and I have reached detente—I don’t bother them and they steer clear of me, like “On a Tuesday in Amsterdam Long Ago.” Some of them challenge me to love people I don’t even want to like (“Palisades Park” is especially hard). There are songs that infuriate me with their hardheadedness, and there are songs that never fail to bring tears—I usually skip both types. But, oh, there are the other songs, too. Songs that well up inside me like fire, like “Rain King.” Songs that make remember longing and devotion, like “Sullivan Street.” Some songs, like “Miami,” are for driving late at night with the windows rolled down. There are songs that soothe my troubled spirit, like “Black and Blue.” There are songs that conjure the best of times, like “Mr. Jones.” I’ll never tire of “gray is my favorite color/ I felt so symbolic yesterday/ If I knew Picasso/ I would buy myself a gray guitar and play.” And there are songs that make me relive especially hard times, but in that most self-deprecating, delicious, kind of way, like “Possibility Days.” Having a favorite band is learning to take the delightful with the somber, the effortless with the arduous, and the joyous with the melancholy. All of this makes me sound painfully old, I imagine, but that goes with the territory. If having a favorite band is like being married, then the appreciation only deepens the older you get. In the old days, Janna and I used to drive around small towns in Arkansas in my red Jeep with the top down, singing at the tops of our lungs to “Daylight Fading” or “Have You Seen Me Lately?” Now, my kids beg for me to put Somewhere Under Wonderland in the car’s CD player so they can belt out “Elvis Went to Hollywood” or “Scarecrow.” I sure hope they find a favorite band of their own someday, but if not, the Crows will always be there for them, just like they were for me. With that said…. ladies and gentlemen, please welcome…my favorite band, Counting Crows.

Today, I present to you a children’s book by Corinna Luyken. As is so often the case with me, it was a picture book that succinctly and delicately spoke the simple truth I needed to hear and moved me to tears. When I saw the whimsical dust jacket with fractured text that read The Book of Mistakes propped up near our record player, my husband Chris said, “I brought you a book from the library. I thought you’d like it.” It sat there for a day or two as I hurried about with my eternal to-do list. Late one night, I remembered the lonely book and carried it to the couch. I grabbed a blanket, tucked my feet under Chris’s legs and opened the cover. I started reading aloud, chuckling at the opening sentence and illustrations. “It started…with one mistake.” A pencil drawing of a little round face begins on the first page, and on the next, it gains a left eye that is far bigger than the right eye. The artist tries to remedy the mistake by “making the other eye even bigger, [which] was another mistake.” I laughed as I remembered many times that I’ve done the same thing, trying to “even things out” on a hand-lettering or drawing attempt and making it worse. We turned the page and read, “But the glasses—they were a good idea.” We saw the lopsided face newly adorned with round, green glasses. With the innovation, the off-kilter eyes look like they belong to the girl on the page. They bob within the lenses, giving the impression of magnification. The book continues. It acknowledges each mistake the artist makes. Things are drawn out of proportion. Ink splatters. Stray pencil marks skid across blank space. But the unseen artist never throws the drawing away or starts over. She comes up with new ideas and tries alternate approaches. Color blooms into the pencil drawings bit by bit—spring greens and buttercup yellows and blush pinks. The mistakes are hidden or transformed into new elements of the wardrobe or scenery, and they invite details that make the character more memorable, a tree more fantastic, the setting more magical. On the last several pages, Luyken delivers her message in gentle groups of no more than four words coupled with a twist in the illustrations. I can’t bear to spoil the power in its brevity and beauty for you here. You must find it and read it. Or perhaps, if you’re feeling especially down on yourself, ask a trusted soul to read it to you. When Chris took over and read me the ending, tears would not stop leaking out and spilling down my face. It is not a sad end. It is a hopeful, true end. One I clearly needed to hear. I had to stop writing this post partway through, and I picked it up again at a friend’s house. She and I have different personalities on many counts, but we have enough in common that I decided to read the book to her. She laughed at first, saying, “I love that you’re going to read me a story.” By the last few pages, she joined me in crying, looking up at me and saying, “What just happened?!” She told me a week or so later that she had purchased the book and read it with a few of her teenage counseling clients. She said they both shed tears as well and yet intriguingly took such different things from the story to apply to their lives. Good art and writing invite that. The mistakes are hidden or transformed into new elements of the wardrobe or scenery, and they invite details that make the character more memorable, a tree more fantastic, the setting more magical. Jenna Badeker Perfectionistic tendencies can manifest themselves differently. Some people toil at a task until it is perfect, perhaps losing perspective of what matters and the joy of the work along the way. Some withdraw from dreams and activities at which they know they aren’t perfect, or even “good enough.” Sometimes that looks like avoiding sports at all costs, and sometimes it appears as finding an excuse to once again not pick up the phone to resolve a messy conflict. Some people replay the scene of a mistake over and over in their minds until it becomes distorted and loud and inescapable. Sometimes it’s all of the above, in both big and tiny ways. At least, it can be for me. The relentless self-critic in my head is often hard to silence. This is something I’m working on, or rather, something God is working on in me. The fear of making mistakes is certainly not from him. He invites us to create, to risk, to try again, to learn. When we shy away from potential mistakes or punish ourselves for making them, we reject God’s invitation and his story of who we are. We trade it for a poorly constructed narrative of who we were supposed to be and self-imposed expectations that were never based in truth. I recently purchased a copy of the book for our honorary “framily” nieces and read it to each of them. In their teenage years, I am so hopeful that God will free them from the bonds of unattainable perfection that I see cropping up in their unfolding talents and endeavors. It’s funny how, when talking about the book with them, I could so easily tell them what is true. God made them fearfully and wonderfully. Only he is perfect—if they were perfect, they would not need him. It grieves him when they listen to the voice of shame in their heads that tells them how much they mess up and that they are not enough and never will be. They have freedom in Christ to live and learn and try and fail and create and innovate and get up again. At the end of all of it, they are still perfectly loved—it’s not a sliding scale based on their mistakes and successes. It’s taking a lot of practice to tell myself what I know is true as easily as I can say it to the people I love. I’m daily working on rewiring my thoughts to repeat what God says about me instead of the sum of my mistakes. And that’s precisely where God can use the simplicity of a children’s book to remind me. Click here to view The Book of Mistakes on Amazon.

My brother, Orrin Sackett, was big enough to fight bears with a switch. Me, I was the skinny one, tall as Orrin, but no meat to my bones except around the shoulders and arms. The Daybreakers, 1984 The other day I read those words for the first time in about twenty five years and the strangest thing happened. The whole story was there, in front of me, like a rutted track that wound through those same Tennessee hills where the Sacketts started out on their journey west. I could remember every turn, every twist, and most importantly, I could recall exactly where the trail ended. I couldn’t help but smile and the truth was I really wanted to walk that trail again and see all those same sights one more time. That’s the power of a good book, isn’t it? I went and opened another one: It was Indian country, and when our wheel busted none of them would stop. They just rolled on by and left us setting there, my pap and me. Me, I was pushin’ a tall twelve by then… To Tame A Land, 1984 I read that and saw the snow-capped mountains of Colorado, the horses being broken by a gentle hand, the wild towns and dirty sheriffs, the outlaws that live back in the mountains, every bit of it, and again, I wanted to walk those same trails one more time. Between about eight and thirteen years old, I read every book that Louis L’Amour ever published, not once, but probably three of four times each. Since then I’ve read stacks and stacks of great books of modern and western literature (I’ve even taken a class with that title). And I loved so many of those books: Dickens, Hemingway, Tolstoy, Hugo, even that Shakespeare guy. But. None of those “works of literature” caught my imagination when my imagination was at its most vulnerable, wandering around like a lost calf down in the panhandle of Texas. Let’s face it, the covers on mass market paperbacks look a lot more exciting than any high brow college literature cover with its strange and vague geometric shapes. Which do you think a little boy is going to choose? On those school nights, long after bedtime, under the blankets with a flashlight and a crick in my neck, I was riding the long dark trails of Louis L’Amour’s wild west. And that’s how my imagination was formed and given an education. More than my imagination was captured though, and that’s the point I really want to make. In our imaginations we explore other worlds, we put ourselves into situations we’ve never actually been in, and we inevitably wonder: What would we do there? What would we be like? And those kinds of questions, ones of doing and acting, aren’t just questions of the imagination. They are moral and ethical questions. What kind of person would I be if men were stealing my cattle, or had killed my neighbor, or were trying to rob my mine? That’s a profoundly moral dilemma, isn’t it? I wasn’t writing any ethics papers about it, but I was daydreaming about being there and living that life. In those daydreams I had to make moral decisions. I was stretching those ethical muscles for the first time. Of course I didn’t notice or care about any of that when I was reading those books. I was reading them for the guns, for the cattle drives, for the shoot outs of course, and the men and women who made the stories powerful. L’Amour could make a Smith and Wesson .44 caliber Russian revolver sound like Excalibur, Caledfwlch, given to King Arthur by the Lady of the Lake. Man, I wanted one so bad! He made an Appaloosa sound like a fresh-off-the-lot Porsche 911, and he made cattle drives seem like the greatest event in any man’s life. But we are also sponges when we read stories or watch them, and children are more spongy than most. I was reading those books for fun, but my mind was shaped at the same time by the man who created all these characters, put them in different situations, and showed us how they responded to all sorts of trouble. Looking back now, I see how my worldview was shaped by those men and women who walked, rode, swaggered, and staggered across his pages. After a few decades of reflection, it was a fun exercise to think about several ways that the themes Louis L’Amour regularly brought up in his novels ended up shaping my worldview. The first thing I learned was not to carve notches on your gun handle. That sounds strange at first, but bear with me! Louis L’Amour showed a consistent contempt in his stories for the kind of man who would carve a notch on his gun for every man he killed as a way to brag or strike fear into others. Sometimes it was subtle: He had been sent to Yuma after killing a marshal, which would have been his sixth notch if he had been a man for carving notches. Kid Rodelo, 1966 Sometimes it wasn’t so subtle. Some said he had killed eighteen men. The cattle buyer in Dodge claimed the actual figure was twenty-nine. But all of it was talk and nobody knew for sure. Not being a tinhorn, Kilkenny filed no notches on his guns. Kilkenny, 1974 Ryan Tyler, the main character from To Tame A Land says it best: It was nothing to be proud of. Nobody but a tinhorn ever scratched notches on his gun, and I never would. To Tame A Land, 1940 What does a young boy take away from that? It’s cheap to brag about yourself. The characters in L’Amour’s books that did carve notches were typically loud-mouthed, self-centered cowards. They were weak and they spent their lives trying to take advantage of others. Even now I don’t want to be the kind of man who spends all my time boasting about what I’ve done, trying to impress everyone with things that really shouldn’t impress anyone. So in that way, Louis L’Amour formed my moral view of the world. I don’t want to be that kind of person! The second theme that shaped me was L’Amour’s portrayal of romance. I wanted to grow up to be just like the heroes of these books, and the heroes of Louis L’Amour’s books were rarely vengeful, cold hearted, lone killers. Quite the opposite! The men that he seemed to praise the most were men who didn’t quit when things got hard, who built communities, who noticed others and helped them out, and who were tough as old shoe leather when opposition came. That’s what I wanted to be. And what kind of women did these men meet and fall in love with? After all, the thing these men longed for, and fought for, was a home and a strong community. There, where those lights glowed softly in the evening, was the only girl he had ever loved. There, no more than two hundred yards away, with all her warmth, her beauty, her tenderness, and her humor. A girl to walk beside a man, and walk with him, not behind him. Kilkenny, 1974 The idea that a woman would stand tall, walk beside her husband, and have as much strength of character as he did is a mainstay of these stories. That quote about walking beside a man, and not behind him, shows up numerous times in his hundreds of stories. You assume such a girl would have less courage than you? Less Fortitude? You do not understand my sex, Barnabas… Jubal Sackett, 1985 There really are countless other quotes I could put here, but one thing that has struck me in going back and wandering (moseying is the technical term) through these books again is that Louis L’Amour respects every woman he writes into his stories, even the ones who turn out bad or weak. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that the girl I met and fell in love with at the age of twelve, while reading these books, turned out to be the same girl I married and built a family with, walking side by side together as partners in our work. She has always been a “woman to ride the river with.” The third thing I learned from L’Amour was to read every chance I got and read as widely as I could. All sorts of books and readers would cross the pages of his books. His characters would be reading Greek philosophy, law, and religious texts mostly. In the same way that he had utter contempt for notches on gun handles, L’Amour had an absolute reverence for the written word. Reading and books play a vital role in his many novels. In our imaginations we explore other worlds, we put ourselves into situations we've never actually been in, and we inevitably wonder: What would we do there? What would we be like? Kevin Morse In The Lonesome Gods, the main character Johannes Verne works in a bookshop briefly, and his love of books leads him to one of the more unique relationships in all of L’amour’s novels. In The Walking Drum, a novel set in medieval Europe, Kerbouchard, the son of a great pirate and a bit of a pirate himself, makes a living for a time as a scribe just so he can study and learn from the books. The reading of Plutarch’s Lives of Illustrious Men is an important plot point in To Tame A Land. Orrin Sackett learns about the law and prepares for the future by reading Blackstone on a cattle drive in The Daybreakers. I can picture the scene where Ruth Macken, a strong and intelligent widow who lost her husband on their trip out west, speaks to the young man, Bendigo Shafter, about the books she and her husband had brought with them. There are fifty of these books, Mr. Shafter, that would give you an education if you read them and no others. Many who consider themselves educated have not read so many or so well. Bendigo Shafter, 1979 These were rough, strong men and women, the kind that people would follow and trust. They were the kind who were willing to work all day and fight when they needed to, and they loved to read. We needed books, we needed something on which to build dreams. Ride the River, 1983 As a young boy just starting out on the ocean of books in the world, it was a strong gust of wind for my sails. They were models I wanted to follow. In each one of these themes, I was forced to ask myself: what kind of person do I want to be, and who do I want to share my life with? One last theme Louis played around with was growing up in the hard lands of the west, and how a person’s worldview is shaped by their experience. In his novel Tucker you meet a young man who is impressed by the kind of guys who carve notches on their guns and brag about themselves. By the end of the book, though, the young man has grown up and he’s traveled Louis L’Amour’s western culture and seen a different kind of man, and he learned from it. All the time I’d been covering country I seen a lot of men who had settled down to building businesses for themselves. Here I was, wasting time chasing after a couple of thieves when I should have been building something for myself… Respect those men who were doing things to make a future? You bet I did. Most of them were busy building, opening new country, and making it better for those who would come after. Tucker, 1971 His journey, like the reader’s, had ultimately torn down one worldview and in its place another had formed and so when, as a man, he met one of the guys he’d been so impressed with as boy, he finally sees him for what he really is. Nobody has a corner on being a fool, kid. We were all fools back there in Texas when we stood around shooting off our mouths about how big and tough we were going to be. Tucker, 1971 Is it strange to say that Louis L’Amour, of all people, was one of the biggest voices in my life as a young man? As I ride the trails again in my imagination and listen in on these men and women, I’m realizing that my mind was being formed all those years ago into the image of all that I was reading. I didn’t even have to notice that it was happening. That’s the power of those mass market paperbacks. It’s the power of every thing we took in as little children. It’s the power of the cartoons we grew up loving, the games we grew up playing, the songs we grew up singing. It’s a power as deep as some of the canyons that run through the mountains in Wyoming, and as unstoppable as the rivers that run through them.

There’s a clip from an old Peanuts cartoon where Schroeder is playing his little piano while Lucy leans against it, looking lovingly into his eyes. Snoopy edges his way into the frame, bopping a little to the groove. Before long, he launches into a full-on, joy-filled dance—head thrown back, arms outstretched, eyes closed, lost in the beauty of the song. Lucy turns to Snoopy and just glares. Schroeder stops playing, and he glares too. Snoopy feels the weight of their gaze and slinks away in shame. Whenever I see that clip, I feel sad for Snoopy for two reasons. First, I’m sad that he got mocked. That brave dog took a risk. He let the music wash over him as he got lost in the groove. You could see the joy he took in the song. He turned Schroeder’s performance into a dance. But in doing so, the jaded cynics to his right and left scorned him for doing exactly what that music was composed to do. I’m also sad that Snoopy slunk away in shame under the weight of Schroder’s and Lucy’s glares. Have you ever considered why we’re not a people who experience joy more regularly and express it with freedom? If Scriptures like Ephesians 1 tell us that the story of the Gospel should move us to a place of unfettered joy and praise, what stops us? What would it take to give us the confidence to embrace the joy of what Christ has done—to become people who live in the groove of the lyric and music of the Gospel? What would it look like if you and I were people who fought for the idea that the Gospel isn’t just a composition of data, but is in fact a dance with both music and lyric? Scripture calls us to embrace the idea that the Gospel is a message of both lyric and music. Consider these verses from Ephesians 1:7-10 (ESV): In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. The lyrics of the gospel are the words, the content, and message of the song—part data, part poetry. Something happened. Something on our behalf—the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The music of the Gospel is the life of those lyrics set in motion, telling us that what happened is beautiful. His sacrifice was an act of love. Let’s focus on two key ideas illuminated in Ephesians 1: the lyric of redemption and the music of mystery. The Lyric of Redemption In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses… (Eph 1:7) We use the word “redemption” a lot to speak of freedom, but the word has a pointed meaning we need to understand. To redeem, in the sense it’s used here, refers to delivering something by means of paying a price. The redemption we have in Christ is effective: the price is fully paid so that there remains no outstanding debt. It is also permanent. The absence of outstanding debt guarantees there can be no repossession. We have redemption through the blood of Jesus, who takes away our sin. This is lyric. Data. Content. When Paul tells us that we have redemption, he puts the meat of truth on those bones. Our redemption doesn’t depend on God staying in a good mood or on you making good use of a second chance. Our redemption was a real transaction—a purchasing of deliverance through a price paid. It is not a fragile reality. The lyric of the Gospel is etched in stone. The Music of Mystery …which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ… (Eph 1:8-9) The mystery of God’s will is made known in the work of Christ, and it’s glorious! God didn’t just do this behind the scenes. He showed us what he’s done by revealing his son and the redemption he paid for us on the cross and secured for us by defeating the power of death for us. Paul’s use of the word “mystery” doesn’t speak to something unknowable. It means: something previously unknown being revealed. Redemption is a mystery made known. And what is made known? God redeems us on purpose, and it is a purpose set forth in Christ, meaning his own Son was always meant to be the means by which we would be reconciled to God. It was a plan to reunite a broken creation to the harmony we were made to know and enjoy as God’s beloved, adopted children. This is so much more than lyric alone—sterile data to file away. This is music. Look at the words Paul uses to surround his praise for redemption: “lavish,” “according to riches of his grace,” “in wisdom…” What would it look like if you and I were people who fought for the idea that the Gospel isn't just a composition of data but is in fact a dance with both music and lyric? Russ Ramsey Our redemption is according to the riches of God’s grace. Do you know any really, really rich people—crazy rich? What if the wealthiest, most powerful person in the world had his philanthropic sights set on you? What if his will was to, as Paul says, lavish you with all his riches not according to anything you have done, not according to your ability to position yourself in the forefront of his memory, but what if his decision to lavish you with all the riches at his disposal was a decision all his own, according to the wisdom of his insight? Would this not be reason to dance in light of the content of the lyric? This is the Gospel: the Maker of the universe, the owner of every corner of creation, redeems his people to lavish us with the fullness of his grace for all eternity. It’s a beautiful symphony. The hope you have in the Gospel is not fragile. It isn’t based on vague precepts or the temperament of a moody god. The lyrics and music of the Gospel tell you something has happened to set you right with God—his son took your guilt upon himself, paid your debt, and bought your eternal freedom. Nothing can shake that. If your faith is in Christ, your position is not fragile. Snoopy slinks away in shame under the weight of Lucy and Schroeder’s glares. But Snoopy was right to dance. The call to rejoice in the lyric and music of being redeemed in Christ is a call to begin now what we will most certainly do for all eternity if we are in Christ, delight in the beauty and content of the song of the Gospel.

The spring season of the Local Show wrapped up last week with a very special edition: Songs We Loved in High School, as performed by Andrew Peterson, Andrew Osenga, Andy Gullahorn, Jill Phillips, Eric Peters, and Sandra McCracken. There were songs by the Indigo Girls, Marc Cohn, Crowded House, R. E. M., James Taylor, DC Talk, and so much more—more than you could have ever hoped for. Today, we share with you the complete set list from that glorious night. And, as long as we’re having fun, we’re sharing a second playlist representing some of our contributors’ favorite songs from high school as well. Suffice it to say that we’ve been greatly enjoying our walk down memory lane. “In this season’s final edition of the Local Show, we had some longtime Rabbit Room favorites share covers of songs they loved in high school. Affectionately known as the ‘Square Pegs,’ they included Andrew Peterson, Sandra McCracken, Eric Peters, Andrew Osenga, Jill Phillips, and Andy Gullahorn. It was an incredibly fun night with everybody from Bruce Hornsby and the Indigo Girls to Marc Cohn and DC Talk. Sadly, the livestream wasn’t working, but if you get the chance, check out @thelocalshow on Instagram for some clips of the show.” —Jared Malament Set List Jill Phillips: “Stay (I Missed You)” by Lisa Loeb Andy Gullahorn: “Everything That Glitters” by Dan Seals Eric Peters: “Look Out Any Window” by Bruce Hornsby Andrew Osenga: “It’s the End of the World As We Know It” (And I Feel Fine) by R.E.M. Andrew Peterson: “Walking in Memphis” by Marc Cohn Andrew Peterson: “Silver Thunderbird” by Marc Cohn Sandra McCracken: “Closer to Fine” by Indigo Girls Group: “Carolina in My Mind” by James Taylor Andy Gullahorn/Jill Phillips, et al: “High Enough” by Damn Yankees Eric Peters: “These Days” by Jackson Browne Andrew Osenga: “Jesus Freak” by DC Talk Jill Phillips: “Summer Solstice” by Susan Ashton Andrew Peterson: “Heart of the Matter” by Don Henley Sandra McCracken: “The Gambler” by Kenny Rogers Andy Gullahorn: “The Living Years” by Mike + The Mechanics Andrew Osenga: “Wonderwall” by Oasis Jill Phillips: “Don’t Dream It’s Over” by Neil Finn/Crowded House You can listen to the full Local Show set list on Spotify and Apple Music. Our Songs We Loved From High School playlist is also available to stream on Spotify and Apple Music.

It’s 7 am in Brooklyn. The Hudson River on my left moves gently, recovering from the night before. Murals of men I don’t know look down on me from the redbrick walls where they sit. People begin emerging from the shadows of doorways, darting towards the welcoming oasis of a coffee shop or eatery whose shutters have just lifted. I heard NYC was the city that never sleeps; perhaps that’s true, but it just doesn’t seem to be fully awake yet. It’s Saturday, the morning after playing the first show on our US tour. Perhaps it’s the jet lag that woke me but I know this feeling from somewhere else. It’s how I felt when I was younger, waking up on Christmas morning, exclaiming to my sisters, “he came!” It’s the feeling that this is a good day. This is a day that has been waited for and to sleep would only waste the experience of it. Some days you want to taste every available minute. I’ve wanted to visit Brooklyn for as long as I can remember. I fell in love with hip hop in my early teens and quickly became obsessed (and yes, that’s the right word) with many artists who grew up in and around these streets. I remember the first time I heard Talib Kweli’s Get By and was mesmerized by a flow that sounded both effortless and technical in a way that only ten thousand hours of practice can achieve. I remember discovering Mos Def and realizing for the first time why people love poetry the way they do. I learned the power of metaphor and the double entendre from Jay-Z during my morning paper round, where I was taught more than I ever was at school. So as I walk through these streets, like a pilgrim without a knapsack, I’m basking in satisfaction and excitement. I remember the words that fell from my lips between songs last night: “If I had truly believed I’d be here, playing my music and sharing poetry when I was fifteen, I wouldn’t have wasted so much time worrying about how it would happen.” In the last year, a lot has happened. I ventured on my first headline tour of the UK, produced and released multiple projects from the label I founded, had the honor of doing a TEDx talk, signed a record deal and released a new EP which has garnered over five hundred thousand streams and downloads. Hear me out: I don’t say this with pride or with the desire to boast about it. I say it because without reflecting upon and celebrating the materialization of our dreams, it’s easy to get caught in the fire of fantasy, a flame that is fueled by the inability to see the reality before and within us. I thought I'd get everywhere quicker with less effort and somehow have the same stories and sense of satisfaction. See, that's the thing about fantasy: it twists what is in fact sacred timing into what seems to be delay. Joshua Luke Smith In all honesty, in my fantasy I had visualized everything happening a lot earlier than it has. I thought people would begin digesting and sharing my work like they are now a decade ago. I thought I was going to get signed in my late teens rather than my late twenties. I thought I’d get everywhere quicker with less effort and somehow have the same stories and sense of satisfaction. See, that’s the thing about fantasy: it twists what is in fact sacred timing into what seems to be delay. Fantasy doesn’t care for essence, process, or growth. It simply desires results at any cost, even if that cost becomes your soul. We all know the best things take time, especially when we’re consuming it (slow cooked pulled pork, anyone?). It’s harder to appreciate it when it’s less what we’re consuming and more who we’re becoming. As I stand here, overlooking the Hudson, I’m feeling an overwhelming sense of both gratitude and grief: gratitude that God in his kindness has opened doors and made connections that have helped us get to where we are right now. Gratitude for the gift and desire to write poetry that helps people. Gratitude that I’m here. The grief, though uncomfortable, is equally valid. It’s the awareness that I’ve lost time meditating on lies rather than dwelling on truth and embracing the mystery of it all. My single most important responsibility is to remain present. Meditating on a thought that is rooted in worry abducts you from the here and now and locks you in a room whose walls are built with the bricks of fear. There’s no goodness in there. There is more about life that is utterly out of my hands than there is under my capability and control. Submitting to that notion has produced (what seems to be) a purer form of productivity and willingness to work. Creating without an acute fear of the future or anxiety in how this act of expression will serve my fantasy has been, for me, life-changing. Like the pilgrims of old, we’ll all get to where we’re going when it’s time to get there. The mountains we must ascend lead to a way of life we can only receive when we relinquish our right to be offended by the treachery of the terrain. I’ve met so many inspiring people along the way of this road and the one thing that has stuck out to me is that no two journeys are the same. It’s so easy to get disappointed or disillusioned en route, hard-hearted because you haven’t got to where others seem so effortlessly to have landed. Take heart, for your story is your own and it will take shape. The long road isn’t the wrong road. You’re not late, you’re not lost—you’re just going a different way. This piece was originally posted on Joshua Luke Smith’s website. Click here to check it out.

A few years ago, standing on the precipice of yet another life transition, my wife and I sought counsel from a seasoned and wise mentor, Jerram Barrs. We felt particularly fragile and dependent. Sitting together in his office, he shared a metaphor which his mentor, Edith Schaeffer, shared with him many years prior. Imagine standing on the edge of a rushing stream in the darkest of nights waiting for a flash of lightning to illuminate the next stepping stone across raging waters. The light flashes and illumines one stone. Once you find the courage to step out, your confusion is only increased as you straddle two stepping stones. Your disorientation is heightened as you wait for the next flash of lightning to reveal the location of the next stone. This precarious situation is not at all the comfort and security most of us have been trained to hope for and work to maintain in our lives—yet it describes the walk of faith. How might those who embrace God’s covenant from the heart attain anchoring in the midst of such an uncomfortable position? In Ephesians 2, Paul describes the nature of salvation and our collective redemption. His letter positions our lives within a larger cosmic and redemptive drama which offers an imaginative framework for the life of the world. A Cosmic Rescue (v. 1-10) Why is it cosmic? Because this drama involves past, present, and future; heaven and earth; and a battle fought between supra-human beings beyond the seen world. Paul reveals a dire situation and a tragic departure from our original design. With the opening phrase, he gives his listeners the stark reminder: “And you were dead.” We have been collectively caught in a condition which can only be called death: created to enjoy perfect companionship, but now separated from it. The Bible portrays human beings as physical bodies animated by God’s very breath, created in his image. Yet we now inherit a condition of death, cut off from God’s life-giving presence—people created by God and for God, now living without God. The triumph in this drama is unveiled in the powerful phrase, “But God.” Because of his rich mercy, God himself rescues us in the person of Jesus. He restores life and transforms “by grace through faith.” The recipients of this new freedom can now bring him glory, reflect his grace, and devise new ways to dignify and honor one another. We find our own core identity as former strangers now fully welcomed as 'members of the household of God.' Rob Wheeler However, in the midst of the raging waters of a broken world, it’s a continual struggle to maintain the hope and imagination required to believe that we are indeed “his workmanship.” This two-word phrase in English, “his workmanship,” comes from the single Greek word poiema which means “that which is made.” It’s connected to the English word poem—a crafting of words. Thus, even in the aftermath of comprehensive brokenness, we can delight that God made us what and who we are. We are created in the image of God to be sub-creators, bringing out the fruitfulness of the earth and blessing one another, together seeking to enjoy the life of God in his beautiful world. A Restored People (v. 11- 22) Notably, almost every second-person pronoun in Paul’s letter is plural. This stands in stark contrast to our culture’s individualism. Not only does our culture prioritize our individuality, but our language does not help the situation—as modern English speakers, we inherit the great misfortune of having only one word for both the singular and plural forms of the second person: you. Greek speakers (as well as Southerners, who have mastered the word y’all) are in a far better position to interpret Ephesians. Keep this in mind if a Bible teacher ever asks you to replace Paul’s personal pronouns with your own name. As you come across the word you, it’s best to read it as y’all or you people rather than me. This section provides a thorough exposition of the covenantal inclusion of the Gentiles. The position of the nations outside of Israel is sheer, bleak covenant exclusion: “…separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.” In Christ, these former outsiders are no longer foreigners or aliens, but full members of God’s household. Moreover, the outsiders don’t just have full access to the presence of God, but constitute his living temple, the very dwelling place of God. But these ethnic groups are set against one another. They seek to exploit and gain dominance against each other. These animosities are scars in God’s creation, but Paul insists that in Christ, we can experience a new humanity. Interestingly, he does not advocate for a rapid, wholesale overthrow of the power structures in place, but rather plants the seeds that will allow the people to bring about greater unity and flourishing as the drama continues to unfold through time. Paul speaks to the racial hostility between the Jews and non-Jews, showing a new way of reconciliation. The ones “who once were far off have been brought near.” Christ “has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility,” bringing into view our longing for unity and camaraderie within an eternal, all-encompassing reconciliation. We find our own core identity as former strangers now fully welcomed as “members of the household of God.” In his narration of the reversal of death and the reconciliation of former enemies, the Apostle Paul provides a new imaginative grid for participants in the grand unfolding drama of redemption. These words from Ephesians 2 provide a bolt of lightning from the Lord, illuminating the contours of his purposes for the world. Today, as we navigate new and unknown stepping stones with both courage and fear, may we find an ever deeper capacity for faith, hope, and love, informed by our cosmic rescue and a new identity as God’s restored people. May you know the beauty of these cosmic purposes and embrace them as we take our next steps of faith.

There’s been some negative press about the new Tolkien biopic starring Nicholas Hoult and Lily Collins, and a lot of folks have shied away from the film due to rumors of how it might have been mishandled. The legacy of old Tollers is something near and dear to our hearts around here, so we were anxious to see it for ourselves and make up our own minds. In this episode, John and Pete discuss the nuances of the film, both the good and the bad, and do their best to pronounce “Tolkien” correctly. John Barber and Pete Peterson are fascinated, infuriated, and gobsmacked by the art of cinema. In other words, they’re in love with the movies. In Fixed In Post, they discuss the joy, the disappointment, and the magic of film. Listen to the new episode here. And click here to browse the Rabbit Room Podcast Network.

It’s no secret that Jonathan Rogers is a wellspring of writerly wisdom, a masterful storyteller, and a disarming conversationalist. He has all kinds of resources available at his website—and now, he’s teaming up with the Rabbit Room Podcast Network to launch The Habit Podcast. Simply put, The Habit Podcast is a series of conversations with writers about writing. And seeing as writing has everything to do with the whole of life itself, these conversations end up in all kinds of uncharted territory. Guests include Doug McKelvey, Jennifer Trafton, Claire Gibson, Russ Ramsey, and a handful more. This first episode features a conversation with Katy Bowser Hutson. They talk about her chapbook Now I Lay Me Down to Fight, the surprisingly motivating force of mortality, and how the “pre-verbal” component of trauma can be profoundly expressed through the verbal medium of poems. Click here to listen to Episode 1 of The Habit Podcast. Special thanks to our Rabbit Room members for making these podcasts possible! If you’re interested in becoming a member, visit RabbitRoom.com/Donate.

The best lesson I ever learned about God’s grace came as an eight year-old at the piano with my dad. Undoubtedly, there is extraordinary significance in God’s decision to portray himself to us so often as a father. For one, we know that suspended within God’s character is an incomprehensible tension between his justice and mercy—his righteousness and grace. And perhaps it’s in the imaging gift of fatherhood that we see these tensions demonstrated (and demanded) most clearly of all. When I was six years old, my older brother and sister began taking piano lessons. I would travel with them to each one, watching mesmerized as I sat cross-legged on the floor, waiting for the seemingly unreachable age of eight to begin my own. And when I finally did, I was thrilled. Beginning in those early days, I found in my time at the piano a reprieve of freedom, an untangling of thoughts, and an outlet for divine-imaging creativity that I still treasure today. I would rush through apellos in impatience, flourish through allegros in joy, pound staccatos in frustration, dramatize the ritardandos in performance, and smooth over legatos in peace. My fingers danced along the keys in waltzes and foxtrots, taps and ballets—and my heart followed their lead. Of course, for this gift, I have largely my parents to thank—not only for funding my lessons, but for establishing and enforcing expectations of daily practice so that I could continue learning, and ideally, enjoy playing even more. Also to my parents’ credit, these expectations were clear, consistent, and not particularly demanding: I was to practice thirty minutes a day. And yet, at the peril of my preference for unbridled autonomy, I gradually began to view that expectation as more of a rigid requirement than a developmentary discipline. My rightful gratitude increasingly turned to unmerited resentment, and what was once a joy to anticipate became a burden to dread. As irrationally dramatic as it now seems (quite evident in hindsight, of course), at the time, I felt enslaved to an uncompromising standard that, in all my striving, left me frustrated, exhausted, and increasingly discouraged. Those bitter waters continued piling up behind a weakening dam in the Marah of my eight year-old heart—before breaking quite distinctly one Thursday afternoon. As the thirty minutes on the kitchen timer wound down more and more slowly, my anger welled up more and more quickly, finally overflowing in tears streaming down my face. So there I sat, my hands pounding out Mozart’s Allegro in D while my pounding heart choked out the vocal accompaniment of a sob. And as my mom undoubtedly massaged her temples in rivaling despair, suddenly, a terror-inducing sound ran out through this cacophony of noise: the turning of a door knob and the screech of a kitchen door. Dad was home. Like the snapping of a yoke or the tearing of a curtain, everything changed. Kaitlin Miller Many, many things could have happened in that moment. My dad, returning from an exhaustingly tense day of work only to enter the chaos of emotional turmoil at home, could have thrown down his white coat, stormed into the piano room, and told me to get it together. He could have raised his voice in stern rebuke of my ingratitude for the lessons that his highly pressured day had worked to afford. He could have disciplined my tantrum with the hard hand of raising my requirements for practice even higher. And I honestly don’t know what would have happened if he had. Maybe everyone would have been roused up to avalanche in soon-to-be regretted words of anger. Maybe we all just would have lost it all together. Or maybe I would have begged my parents to let me quit piano for good, forfeiting an art I still treasure so dearly today. But my dad didn’t do any of those things. Instead, after a quick assessment of the miserable situation, without a single word, he came and sat down beside me on the bench. Loosening his tie, he reached up on top of the piano, sorted through the disheveled books, spread a new piece of sheet music in front of me, and gently asked a single question: “Will you play this one for me?” Right then, like the snapping of a yoke or the tearing of a curtain, everything changed. What I felt in that moment was an unexpected flood of compassion, of kindness, and of mercy. And so, blinking through enough tears to bring the notes back into focus, I began to play again. But this time, I played not as a striving to meet ever-looming standards for approval or to fulfill an impossibly cruel requirement, but because my dad, who loved me, wanted to hear me play. My heightened sobs descended from wails to sniffs, and the dance reversed, my fingers now following the lead of my heart. Slowing from angrily banging out steps to gently crafting melodies, I began retracing familiar paths of a song I had forgotten I even loved. And as it drew to a close, my dad reached up, found another piece and asked that one question once again: “Now will you play this one for me?” And so I played—resentment softening to gratitude, obligation returning to joy—as my dad sat beside me listening to song after song, until I was shocked to hear the ring of the kitchen timer I had long since forgotten. Those thirty minutes which once crawled on so painfully slowly had this time, somehow, flown by. And when I finished the last song, my dad reached up, closed the lid to the piano and said, with sincerity I never questioned, “Thank you for playing for me.” For the first time in months, I didn’t want to stop. My dad came alongside me, shifting my motivation and focus from merely completing a task for approval to delighting my father who already loved me more than I could ever imagine. Kaitlin Miller I didn’t know it at the time, but on that Thursday afternoon, I had reached the tipping point of exhaustion that comes from striving to uphold commands (even good commands set forth with sound reason in mind and the best intentions at heart) for the sole aim of fulfilling a requirement to earn approval. And so I began harboring the ugly suspicion that these rules were unnecessarily restrictive and callously harsh. But my dad’s steady, tender-hearted reaction to my frustration that day reflected the beautiful tension of our heavenly Father, who is always full of grace and always full of truth (John 1:14). A. W. Tozer confirmed this in reminding us that “we should banish from our minds forever the common but erroneous notion that justice and judgment characterize the God of Israel, while mercy and grace belong to the Lord of the Church…whether in the Garden of Eden or in the Garden of Gethsemane, God is merciful as well as just.” My standard for piano playing was not compromised. The thirty minutes of practice still had to be met. But I was not left alone to uphold this command out of sheer self-will. My dad came alongside me, shifting my motivation and focus from merely completing a task for approval to delighting my father who already loved me more than I could ever imagine. And in the process, my bitter, resentful heart was transformed, enabled to play with joy once again. In the same way, when the aim of our obedience to the Lord shifts from burdensome compliance to hopeful trust in a loving Heavenly Father who gives good commands and delights to watch his children fulfill them, we are “released from the Law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit” (Romans 7:6). And as we serve in that new way with that Spirit-softened heart, we come to see that his commands were not given to enslave us to a life of legalistically striving for his love, acceptance, and salvation. In fact, he assures us that we are saved not by upholding those commands, but by his grace alone, so that we can rightly boast in nothing and no one apart from him (Ephesians 2:9, 1 Corinthians 1:31). Yet he also assures us that his commands are not burdensome. Rather, they were designed and ordained to bring the joy and peace that well up to eternal life (John 12:50), and to keep them is the very love of God (1 John 5:3). We can run in the power of his love towards trusting obedience in the return of our love back to him, fueled by the good pleasure of our Father who delights in us, or we can hopelessly labor to earn his love in an ever-upward striving that leads to the ever-downward spiral of resentment and defeat. But even when we choose that hard and heavy yoke we were never made to bear, falling to our knees in refusal to submit to the light and easy yoke of Jesus (Matthew 11:28-30), right there in the middle of our exhaustion and tears, we may just feel him quietly come alongside us, place the next set of notes in front of us, and gently ask us one simple question: “Now will you play this one for me?”

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? I’ve never seen the California redwoods, but when I was a junior in high school, I studied their root systems in my earth science class. I don’t remember much I learned in the course, but I remember the redwoods, three families of sequoias, and how they grow in thick groves, and how their roots intertwine and fuse together. Most redwoods grow to about three hundred feet high and weigh nearly two million pounds. Their roots range from five- to twenty-feet deep and spread out over an acre of land, claiming 90,000 cubic feet of soil. Yet the burden of their own lives is simply too much for them to hold up themselves, and the only way for them to bear their own weight is to intertwine their roots with those of the other sequoias in their grove. So they grow and fuse together, forming a mass of roots and soil that keeps them all standing. When I was studying earth science as a junior in high school, one of my best friends was a tiny, vivacious, beautiful girl named Ann. She loved faerie tales (always spelled like this) and philosophy and poetry. She loved nature and trees, and she always loved the thought of California. Redwoods grow along the coast, soaking up the Pacific Ocean through their matted roots in a 450-mile-long belt of forest. It’s windy there and floods easily. There are forest fires, and far deeper than sequoia roots can grow, there are fault lines from which earthquakes rise. With wind and rain and fire and moving earth, it is not an easy place to grow. It’s an easy place to fall, actually. If a redwood falls, but no one can hear it over the grind of moving earth, does it make a sound? The more I grew to know my friend Ann, the more I grew to know what she loved. She loved independence and being okay. When she wasn’t okay, she tried to seem okay. She loved dresses with sleeves long enough to cover the scars on her arms. As the school year went on, I could see the fault lines beneath her roots. The burden of her life, beautiful as it seemed, was too much for her to hold up herself. She couldn’t bear her own weight. The most common cause of a sequoia’s death is not age or lack of nutrition; it’s falling down. Somehow, the seed germinates too far from the grove; somehow, the roots fail to sufficiently intertwine with others. The tree grows for a while on its own, and on the surface of the earth, it looks beautiful and independent and okay. But the roots below the soil strain against the weight of their own trunk, and the foundation grows weak against the branches’ mass. King David writes, “How the mighty have fallen,” and we feel the ground tremble and crack. For a sequoia, independence is death. Are you a tree with six-foot roots or twenty-foot roots? Do you know the depth of your roots doesn’t matter if you grow alone? Does your nutrient system cover an acre of land all by itself? Do you claim 90,000 cubic feet of soil as your very own? You are mighty and beautiful, and you are in a dangerous place, my friend. We all are, without a grove. What can we do with the sound of a tree’s fall, if it has insisted that no one be around to hear it? When I saw Ann’s tree falling, I wanted to offer hope to her, to help her and hold her up, to give her my root system for support. Yet when Ann’s tree began falling, it began falling into the trees around her, including mine. She had questions, and we didn’t all have answers. She needed guidance, and I didn’t very well know the way. My roots weren’t strong enough to keep hers planted. You are mighty and beautiful, and you are in a dangerous place, my friend. We all are, without a grove. Hannah Hubin Yet in the beautiful communities of this world, the roots of friends who are falling intertwine with the roots of friends who are being fallen into, whose roots are themselves intertwined with others. Do you see how it continues? When roots begin to lose hold, there are always other sequoias further back—friends, family, neighbors, pastors, mentors, counselors. Eventually, the earthquake subsides. Until then, the entire grove, interconnected as it is, will feel it and share the thrust of it. Ann could lean on me only insofar as I leaned on others. This, I think, is a good thing. The oldest sequoia in the world is named General Sherman. It is the largest known single-stem tree on earth, weighing 2.7 million pounds. Scientists have estimated that its seed germinated over 2,200 years ago. How many redwoods have intertwined their roots with those of the good General in 2,200 years? How many redwoods does the General depend upon to live? Even after all these years and all this weight—especially in all this weight—the General must lean on others for his survival. There is no room for arrogance in the grove. Do I know independence is death? I know it better than I knew it before my junior year of high school. I also know I need people to remind me. I don’t want to grow arrogant. I don’t want to forget. Ann is well. She’s studying art at a local college now; it’s a messy practice, and she’s prone to wear t-shirts for it. She is mighty and beautiful in her dependency. Nothing stands forever; not in this world. Someday, the good General will fall in battle. When sequoias die, their roots break off close to the base of the tree. When the General falls, he won’t take his roots with him; he’ll leave them here, interconnected as they are, still supporting those he leaves behind. I’ve never seen the California redwoods. But I have seen my community gathered around someone I love—many times. I have joined my community in gathering around someone I love. And I have seen my community gathered around me, too. Often, I see all three at once. Someday, my tree will fall in the forest, and when it does, there will be a community there to hear its sound, for the community I’m leaving behind has kept it standing until the end.

Stephen Kellogg has spent the last two-plus decades trying to silence the surrounding voices. It’s hard enough to trust your own voice, but when the industry tells you to be more folk or less country or more rock—wait, less rock—it can be hard to shut out the confusion of label demands, industry expectations, fan wishes and the like. It’s taken some time, but Kellogg has finally found a way to change the metrics; the only expectations that matter now are his own. This conversation felt like the perfect debut episode for The Resistance, given that we’ve likely all felt those same pressures. It’s frustrating to realize just how many days we’ve lived trying to adhere to someone else’s standards or allowed the marketplace to dictate our priorities. Personally, my lowest points are the ones where I couldn’t locate my own magnetic north, when my own sense of direction was overwhelmed by the voices all around me. This episode with Stephen Kellogg not only features honest insights from one of the best (and most underrated) singer-songwriters in music today. His vulnerable testimony is a much-needed reminder for so many of us that our voice matters more than we think—and it’s okay to fight for it. Click here to listen to Episode 1 of The Resistance. Special thanks to our Rabbit Room members for making these podcasts possible! If you’re interested in becoming a member, visit RabbitRoom.com/Donate.

Ebo’s older brother, Kwame, is gone—gone from their village in Ghana, out toward Europe, to seek a better life. First Ebo’s sister, now Kwame. This time, young Ebo will not be left behind. Ebo sets out on Kwame’s trail, scrounging and scraping to get through each leg of the journey. Through desert and disease and a perilous ocean voyage, Ebo must overcome merciless terrain and equally merciless people. But he clings to the hope that motivates anyone to make such a journey: the hope of new opportunities, finding a fresh start, and a reunion with loved ones—the hope of a better life. Illegal is a fictional graphic novel based on the true stories of very real migrants seeking passage from Africa to Europe. The way is long and treacherous, and we experience it all through Ebo’s journey. Authors Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin have captured a real-life crisis in a story that is a call to action, a powerful study on human empathy, and an epic journey against countless obstacles. There’s a delicate balance to Illegal: it’s inviting and kid-friendly, yet brutal and heart-rending with every dangerous, desperate, inhumane step of Ebo’s mythic quest. A call to action, a powerful study on human empathy, and an epic journey against countless obstacles. Jonny Jimison That balance is brought to the page in truly stunning fashion by the art of Giovanni Rigano. Rigano’s immaculately detailed illustrations have all the immersive beauty of the best European comics, delicious and inviting even as they vividly parch with the grainy coarseness of the desert and chill with the icy froth of the ocean. As always, parents, use discretion. The horrors of Ebo’s journey are presented tactfully and tastefully, but they are still horrifying; a heavy weight to place on anyone, especially a young child. The back cover says “Ages 10 and up,” and I think that’s a good starting point. Illegal is a joy to read. It’s also heartbreaking. Above all, it’s a journey I’m glad I took. In the words of the authors, “It’s not a journey to be undertaken lightly. Every person making the choice to embark on that journey has their own reasons for doing so. And every person is a human being.” Click here to view Illegal on Amazon.

The Habit Podcast is a series of conversations with writers about writing, hosted by Jonathan Rogers. Seeing as writing has everything to do with the whole of life itself, these conversations end up in all kinds of uncharted territory. Guests include Doug McKelvey, Jennifer Trafton, Claire Gibson, Russ Ramsey, and a handful more—today’s episode features a conversation with Pete Peterson. In this episode, Jonathan Rogers and Pete Peterson discuss playwriting, the secrets to a compelling story, and Pete’s upcoming stage adaptation of Corrie ten Boom’s The Hiding Place. Click here to listen to Episode 2 of The Habit Podcast. Special thanks to our Rabbit Room members for making these podcasts possible! If you’re interested in becoming a member, visit RabbitRoom.com/Donate.

“I can only answer the question ‘What am I to do?’ if I can answer the prior question ‘Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?’” —Alasdair MacIntyre Our brother Paul is writing to particular people, as we have seen—maybe a lot of particular people. If Ephesians was a letter intended to reach many believers in a circuit, then its intent was almost uniquely comprehensive compared to a lot of the other epistles. We may receive it in that spirit; it was written in a particular time for a particular region, but its relevance to us and for the whole body of believers is profound. I love that—and I love and appreciate this book and this chapter. There is so much in it about our identity and place because of the rich mercy of God who has done so much for us in his incredible plan and in his own perfect timing. He has brought near those of us who were far off! By grace. We have been invited into a story. The Story. And we have been shown our place: a place of receiving and believing. So much emphasis in Ephesians is placed on what God has done. Out of this identity, we are instructed to walk in a manner worthy of our calling. We’re invited to see and appreciate the unity of the body, walk in the unity of the Spirit, and to see ourselves as in communion. We are in communion with others who have been given gifts by our triumphant Christ! These gifts are for people for people. They are given to bless, build up, and equip our brothers and sisters in Christ. Paul is serious about love and unity and what our gifts mean. One body, being built up—all of us heading for maturity. Goodness, truth, and beauty live together or die apart. Brian Brown He is also serious about truth. He doesn’t want us to be easily shipwrecked by deceitful schemes and false teaching, but to be strong in truth and unity. This is how we grow and build up the body. It is not a body of lies. Many artists are tempted to lay aside an emphasis on truth and go after beauty instead. This is a grave error. Beauty and Truth are sisters who sing beautifully in harmony, but are—either one—horribly off-pitch alone. It’s easy to be tempted to think of a concern for the truth as being at odds with a concern for love. Loving truth does not, in my reading of Paul here in chapter four and elsewhere in Scripture, conflict with love. Rather, it is an expression of love. Jesus came, full of grace and truth. As Qoheleth in Ecclesiastes says about another matter: “It is good that you should take hold of this, and from that withhold not your hand…” And Paul cares about goodness, too. He warns his readers against the hollow and unsatisfying pursuit of sexual sin. He describes their bondage as a greed for impurity. The original readers, and all who belong to Christ, are called to moral goodness. No amount of whataboutism can provide an escape hatch to give us liberty (though it’s actually slavery) to indulge in our sinful desires. The acknowledgement that these are our real desires, very much what comes naturally to us, does not inspire Paul to welcome it. Instead, he invites us to remember who we are and how we were called: how we came to Christ. Coming to Christ means leaving non-Christ. It means being welcomed into a treasure-trove of truth, relationship, and reality. But we are fools. We want, having been saved from the tsunami by the Coast Guard, to dive off the rescue helicopter right back into the swirl so we can guzzle gallons of seawater in self-indulgent suicide. Don’t believe it. Don’t surrender to lies. And what are some of the primary sins of this self-indulgence? Bitterness. Anger. Wrath. Quarreling. Slander. Malice. Many of us who see ourselves as “fighters for the truth” are simply fighters. Mere quarrelers. It ought not be. Our way, the way of Christ, is the way of love. This love does not leak virtue or truth—rather, it’s robust and mature. It’s a love made up of differently-gifted, similarly-called, diversely-beautiful gift-receivers and gift-sharers. We cannot escape the fact that there are so many commands in this passage and this letter—and in much of Scripture, for that matter. And we shouldn’t. God does not only save us by grace, but gives us grace for life. We are not welcomed to Christ by the Spirit only to return to the flesh. Paul’s letter to the Galatians gives us the good word there: we are obeyers. Christ followers are…Christ followers. We are servants and Christ is our Master. Paul repeatedly identifies himself as a servant, as does Peter, James, and Jude. This is actually good news, though our proud entitlement, privilege, and self-esteem can be affronted by it. God’s commands are not a cage, but a key. His rule is good, and his commands are life. And, according to Paul himself in Galatians, we are far more than simply servants—we are sons and daughters. We have a share in the inheritance. We are in the family and all the stuff is ours. We are welcomed, rich, and our position is like the ending of a Jane Austen novel, only better. Out of this abundance, should we turn aside from obedience? Should we indulge our sinful desires? Should we be quarrelsome? Should we embrace falsehood? To the contrary, who we are in Christ ought to inform and give meaning to the story we live out in the world. How should we act? Chapter four shows us where to begin: “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”

The Habit Podcast is a series of conversations with writers about writing, hosted by Jonathan Rogers. Seeing as writing has everything to do with the whole of life itself, these conversations end up in all kinds of uncharted territory. Today’s episode features a conversation with Jennifer Trafton. In this episode, Jonathan Rogers and Jennifer Trafton discuss the vital role of play in creativity, the tricky business of self-forgetfulness, and how to recover and retain our childhood loves even in the throes of adulthood. Click here to listen to Episode 3 of The Habit Podcast. Books mentioned in this episode: -Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing. -Susan Wooldridge, Poemcrazy: Freeing Your Life with Words. Special thanks to our Rabbit Room members for making these podcasts possible! If you’re interested in becoming a member, visit RabbitRoom.com/Donate.

What does it look like to live a fully human life in an increasingly fragmenting world? For over fifty years, the branches of L’Abri Fellowship around the world have sought answers to this question. French for “the shelter,” Francis and Edith Schaeffer chose the name “L’Abri” in 1955 for their ministry to provide a hospitable environment for any person seeking honest answers to honest questions about God and truth. Following in that tradition, the Nashville L’Abri Conference aims to provide an opportunity through lectures, discussions, and personal interaction to deepen understanding of what it means to be human in a fragmenting world. The conference will take place at Lipscomb University’s Swang Business Center on July 26th and 27th. It will include lectures, small group workshops and discussions, two lunches and one dinner together, an evening of music from local artists, and an environment to nurture conversations and questions. Each lecture, workshop, mealtime, and discussion is designed to facilitate an exchange of ideas among conference attendees and speakers around subjects such as: Community America’s Polarized Politics: Can Christians Have a Redemptive Role? Pursuing Freedom in a Culture of Choice Early Peacemaking: Can Conflict be Outmaneuvered Before It Starts? Sexuality Bodies with Meaning: Christianity’s Liberating Sex Ethic What Does the Bible Have to Tell Us about Sexual Harassment and #MeToo? Cultivating a Hopeful Imagination in a Pornified Culture Relationships Becoming Less Fragile: Self-control as Inner Dominion How to Be a Better Lover: Attention in a Distracted World Staying Human in a Smartphone Culture

We’ll start with the bad news: there’s no “other side” when it comes to resistance. For those of you hoping there’s a certain point at which you will no longer feel the pressures, the apathy, the fears as you pursue your goals, you should learn this lesson now. The pains from the straining and wrestling, the pushing and the pulling, will never disappear. You will always feel these things, at least to varying degrees in various forms. The resistance never fades. Lynn Renee Maxcy is on the other side, if there was such a thing. As a writer living in Los Angeles for the last decade, Lynn has spent hours upon hours alone crafting words for audiences only in her head. She’s endured the same familiar forms of resistance we all face when leaning into our calling, and she’s pressed through to finish the work. These days, she’s accomplished and successful, spinning multiple creative plates while working with one of Hollywood’s hottest properties. Specifically, Lynn is part of the Emmy-winning team of writers for the mega-hit Hulu series, The Handmaid’s Tale. She’s also currently shooting her first film, The Complex, which is a sci-fi branching narrative (e.g. a choose-your-own-adventure movie). These successes come on the heels of her writing credits for Covert Affairs, Eureka, Alphas and more. On this episode of The Resistance, Lynn Renee Maxcy will frustrate those of you who want to hear that all the self-doubt subsides after you’ve “made it.” Fortunately, she’s also ready and willing to share plenty of heartening advice about what it means to cultivate creative community and how to persist in the face of it all. Click here to listen to Episode 2 of The Resistance. Special thanks to our Rabbit Room members for making these podcasts possible! If you’re interested in becoming a member, visit RabbitRoom.com/Donate.