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One short week from today (September 3rd), the Local Show will return for its Fall 2019 season! And it will kick off with a slew of excellent voices: Andrew Osenga, Leslie Jordan, Chris Renzema, Becca Bradley, and Becca Jordan. You may or may not be familiar with all those names—not to worry. This post will get you up to speed on all these excellent artists. A beloved member of the Rabbit Room community, Andrew Osenga’s influence has been deeply formative to many. His newest album The Painted Desert is a journey through grief, discouragement, friendship, and healing, and we absolutely cherish it. Leslie Jordan has a deep understanding of worship that manifests beautifully in her songwriting. Most well-known for her work with All Sons & Daughters, her lyrics and melodies have enriched many, and we are always so excited to hear what she’s been writing. Chris Renzema brings a clarity of emotion to his songs that is better experienced than explained. His music is prayerful, sincere, and compelling in its authenticity. He’s been very busy lately with touring and new music, and we’re all ears. Becca Bradley‘s music is serene and gentle, marked by the mature subtlety and elegance of understatement. Her words ring true and it’s a pleasure to have her on this first Local Show of the Fall 2019 season.

Coming up on Friday, September 6th, my church family is hosting a night of cover songs from our favorite—and not-so-favorite—decades. Ticket sales will go towards families in our community pursuing adoption. Artists include Don & Lori Chaffer, Andrew Peterson, Matthew Smith, Flo Oakes, and myself, plus a handful more! Read on for more details. If you attended or tuned in for the Songs We Loved In High School edition of the Local Show, then you can expect something similar at this event. We fully anticipate lots of fun and laughter mixed with a healthy dose of nostalgia. We’d love to see you there!

We are thrilled to announce that on October 11th, an event named “WELL” will take place at Hutchmoot, featuring Sara Groves, Andrew Peterson, Eric Peters, Odessa Settles, Drew Miller, Ella Mine, and hosted by none other than Jonathan Rogers. Needless to say, we’re eagerly anticipating this night of songs and stories. This second event of the Art of Evocation series features artists who have found healing by creating art in the midst of mental health struggles. The night will explore ways in which we can all use art to reach a deeper understanding of our problems, to create a space for others who are struggling to feel less alone, and to find healing through the act of creation.

The Habit Podcast is a series of conversations with writers about writing, hosted by Jonathan Rogers. In today’s episode, Jonathan Rogers interviews Mary Laura Philpott, author of I Miss You When I Blink. Mary Laura Philpott is the author of I Miss You When I Blink, a nationally bestselling memoir-in-essays. Her writing also appears in publications including The New York Times, The Paris Review Daily, The Washington Post, O The Oprah Magazine, and others. In this episode, Jonathan and Mary Laura talk about the unexpected correlations between perfectionism and humor and the fascinating question “Who were you before you wondered who you were?” Mentioned in this episode: Jerry Seinfeld: How to Write a Joke Writers who make Mary Laura want to write: Maggie O’Farrell (I Am, I Am, I Am) Alexander Chee (How to Write an Autobiographical Novel) Click here to listen to Episode 13 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.

Last Friday, Sandra McCracken released her first piece of new music since Songs from the Valley: a hymn called “Christ Is The Life of the World.” With echoes of Alexander Schmemann in its title, this song resounds with a subtlety and simplicity we have come to know and love from Sandra: “So we remember all that he remembered, the whole of love returned: Christ is the life of the world.” Listen on Spotify and Apple Music.

The Dragon Lord Saga is a story that I’ve been working on for a long, long time. It’s a five-volume graphic novel series combining the fantasy adventure of The Lord of the Rings with the cartoon humor of Calvin and Hobbes. Thanks to my Patreon backers, I’ve been able to continue work on the series, but for the last two years, the first volume has been out of print. I’ve been trying to find a way to bring it back. I’m thrilled to announce that as of this October, the Dragon Lord Saga will be published by Rabbit Room Press—and this time, in color! I’m especially excited to be working with Rabbit Room Press because of their thoughtful approach to bringing stories to print. Books are something special, and we want that to be evident in how we shape the reading experience. There’s a lot about my childhood that I can’t remember anymore, but I do remember trips to the library. It was a highlight of my life anytime I got to explore that labyrinth of bookcases, tracing my fingers over the spines lined up on the shelf, pulling down volumes and flipping them open. By the time I had to leave, the stack of books at my side had grown to sobering proportions, and I would agonize over what to weed out and what to take home. The towering shelves were my cave of wonders, and they were studded with shining treasures and fascinating antiquities. Jonny Jimison The stories on the shelf were full of all sorts of adventures, but the library itself was also an adventure—the towering shelves were my cave of wonders, and they were studded with shining treasures and fascinating antiquities. The sense was even stronger at the bookstore, because there, the books could become mine forever. I remember leaving the checkout line with my purchase inside the cheap plastic bag, clutching it to my chest. I couldn’t wait to bring it to its new home—this little package of unlimited potential, this little portal to understanding, possibility, and other worlds. I’ve self-published two books. It takes a long time to create a book, and it’s exhausting to market them at book shows, but every now and then, when a parent pays me for a book and hands it to their child, I see that child’s fingers greedily clasp its edges, and they hold it to their chest, like I did in the bookstore checkout line when I was eleven. They begin to fidget. They don’t want to stick around; they want to get this book to its new home so they can prop it open, flip through the pages, and enter the adventure. I never feel more fulfilled than in those moments when I help a middle-schooler have that same wide-eyed experience I remember having myself. The plan has always been for my comics to live through print copies, designed for that book experience. I’m excited to be working with Rabbit Room Press on bringing the Dragon Lord Saga into print, in full color, as vibrant, physical books. If you pick up a copy, I hope it finds a cherished place in your own cave of wonders. I’ll be back from time to time with more posts here at the Rabbit Room on the story of the Dragon Lord Saga and the process of remastering the books in color.

As the closing notes of Jeremy Casella’s new album ring out, I find myself exhaling, my body and mind having settled deeply into sounds and words that evoke comfort, peace, and that most distinct of emotions—joy born of sorrow. Reflecting on the name of this record, my mouth involuntarily forms a string of words I’ve grown familiar with through my church’s liturgy: “Remake us and lead us by your Spirit, the comforter.” A couple dozen Sundays in a row now, I’ve spoken those words together with my congregation during the Confession of Sin. As is so often the way with liturgy, I’ve never paused to give them much thought, and yet right under my nose, they’ve become incrementally heavier with each repetition, bearing that kind, gently instructive weight of accumulated emotion. And so now, as I finally think about those words, my eyes fill with tears. Comfort, comfort ye my people Speak ye peace, thus saith our God Comfort those who sit in darkness Mourning ‘neath their sorrow’s load Speak ye to Jerusalem Of the peace that waits for them Tell her that her sins I cover And her warfare now is over “Comfort, Comfort Ye My People” —Johann Olearius This is the kind of space that Jeremy Casella’s new album, Spirit, occupies: the sense that a thick veil of fog has finally lifted, revealing a heart-breaking beauty that soothes and welcomes you home. There are two kinds of comfort: the kind that comes at the expense of healing and the kind that arrives as a harbinger of healing. There is plenty of the former available to us—it’s cheap, convenient, and fades quickly, so must be replenished often. There’s precious little of the latter, but it will last you a lot longer. Spirit is a comforting album, and the healing that went into its making is audible from start to finish. When the songs have been loved well, there's no doubt that the result will be lovable. Drew Miller Whether in the lavish refrain of “Spirit (Keep On),” the earthy soulfulness of “Autumn in Kingston Springs,” the quiet intensity of “Many Waters,” or the warmth and resonance of “Last Chance // Psalm 88,” I can hear and feel the comfort in the arrangements and recordings just as much as in the lyrics. These songs possess the effortlessness of having received the utmost attention from their author, who refrained from the temptations of either under-developing or over-writing in favor of the deceivingly simple middle path: true listening. And it’s the true listening of Ben Shive, Lucas Morton, and a host of others that has brought these honest songs to full fruition, complete with lush string arrangements, compelling performances, and altogether gorgeous sounds (those guitars on “Last Chance” make my mouth water). When the songs have been loved well, there’s no doubt that the result will be lovable. I consider myself lucky to love them.

Today brings the brand new, 2019 Behold the Lamb of God album recording, featuring familiar voices and a few new ones, produced by Ben Shive. We’re so excited to finally share this with you, and you have several options for how to listen: a good ole CD, a deluxe box set (which includes the CD, plus a mini-documentary and live performance of the 2018 Ryman show), and a vinyl record, all exclusively available at the Rabbit Room Store. Click here to view the album in the Rabbit Room Store. Enjoy!

Luke Murray is an illustrator and maker of memes based out of northern New England. He is also an art student at the University of New Hampshire. He started the Instagram page @RabbitRoomMemes on a whim after going to a concert by The Arcadian Wild in March 2022. It is fair to say that Luke's life was significantly changed (for the better) when he first went to Hutchmoot in 2022. Luke Murray is an artist who has taken it upon himself to add his own garnish to the lore of the Rabbit Room in the form of @RabbitRoomMemes. Now he has kicked things up a notch with five short comics straight out of the back alleys and inside-joke-laden passages of the wonderful and weird thing we call the Rabbit Room. We asked Luke why he made these comics and this is what he said: "My 'normal' work can often be rather boring (I'm an aircraft mechanic) so I'm left with plenty of time to generate ideas. The comics come from a similar source of inspiration and love of the work of the Rabbit Room as the other memes, but in another medium. I am so grateful to the wonderful people involved in the Rabbit Room as I can attribute nearly all of the progress in my art to artists that I have found there. I think the memes and everything are just an outpouring of love and wanting to give back to the community. " Cheers, Luke. Those of you who have been to Hutchmoot, the Rabbit Room's annual conference, or frequented the Chinwag, will catch some of these references. For the rest of you, if you do not recognize a name, reference, or event, use the links below each comic as a rabbit trail that will lead you further up and further in. Consider these comics a welcoming invitation into the wonderful, quirky, cast of characters, traditions, and lore that is the Rabbit Room. Happy romping. "Hutchmoot" is the Rabbit Room's annual conference. Why "hutch"? Because rabbits. Why "moot"? Because ents. Nuff said. Every Moment Holy is a collection of liturgies by Doug McKelvey published by Rabbit Room Press. There are three (so far): Volume 1 (the brown one), Volume 2: Death, Grief, and Hope (the red one), and now Volume 3: The Work of the People (the blue one). The aforementioned Ned, Doug, Stephen, and Malcolm are (in ascending order of Hobbit-ness): Stephen Crotts, Ned Bustard, Doug McKelvey, and Malcolm Guite. No Neds, Dougs, Stephens, nor Malcolms were harmed during the making of this comic. This is Eddy Efaw, potter extraordinaire. Find John Barber on the Chinwag. Do not purchase his elevator passes. Consider yourself warned.

On 13-15 August, 2020, the Rabbit Room will convene Hutchmoot UK at St. Andrew’s Church in North Oxford. You’re invited to come and enjoy a weekend of live music, delicious food and conversation, and a series of discussions centred on art, faith, and the telling of great stories across a range of mediums. There are 100 tickets, which will be available on a first-come/first-served basis, and the cost is £175 per person. In order to establish the international culture of the conference, registration for US residents is limited to 25 spots. The remaining 75 General Admission spots are open to anyone living outside the US. Tickets will go on sale on Wednesday morning at 10:00am GMT and 4:00am CST. Included in the conference fee: Evening Meals (Thursday, Friday, Saturday—boxed lunches can be purchased during registration for a small fee) All Hutchmoot UK sessions (including plenary meetings and seminars) and materials Admission to the Friday evening public concert featuring special guests Access to the Hutchmoot UK bookstall Plus much more! Visit HutchmootUK.com for more details.

Our hardcover Every Moment Holy is beautiful, but it’s not the best at road trips. That’s why we’ve made a new pocket edition for just a fraction of the price of the hardcover. So if you want to take your favorite book of liturgies on the go, then consider ordering it here at the Rabbit Room Store.

Several years ago, due to his involvement with Every Moment Holy, my husband Ned made his first trek to the Rabbit Room’s Hutchmoot. New to all things Rabbit-y, he did not know what to expect. His time was so full of goodness that I rarely heard from him while he was gone. But upon his return, he was quick to share stories of friendly people, good music, interesting discussions and talks, delicious food, and (what he thought would be my favorite) the beautifully arranged dinner tables. Throughout the year, Ned would regularly bring up his hope to take me. Happily, the following October, I attended with him and discovered all the goodness for myself. Having enjoyed events hosted through L’Abri and Laity Lodge, being at Hutchmoot was like visiting an old friend. By the end of the gathering, I had experienced a sweet rush of richness that lingered in my mind and heart long after I returned home. It was this lingering of the richness of this gathering of people, stories, ideas, art, music, books, and food—always wrapped up with delight and humility—that sparked my desire to resurrect our Square Halo Books conferences. Encouraging our contributors and our audience in the world of faith, ideas, and art-making exhilarates us and has kept us going for these twenty years. Leslie Bustard Square Halo Books is a small book publishing company Ned, our friends Alan and Diana Bauer, and I have been running for twenty years. In the Christian art tradition, the square halo identifies a living person presumed to be a saint. Square Halo Books is devoted to publishing works that provide materials useful for encouraging and equipping people in the Christian faith. Many of our books focus on the connection to faith and art making, such as It Was Good: Making Art to the Glory of God. Several books focus on specific artists, such as the Japanese print maker Sadao Watanabe. Recently we have published books about culture and theology, such as Good Posture: Engaging Current Culture with Ancient Faith; Don’t Plant, Be Planted: Contrarian Observations about Starting Churches; and Bigger on the Inside: Christianity and Doctor Who. Many years ago, we had hosted a conference called The New Humanity: Christian Mysteries for Everyday Saints, with main speakers Charlie Peacock and his wife Andi Ashworth. We had loved pulling that together and hosting people around ideas, food, and music. Being at Hutchmoot inspired me to organize another gathering. Focusing on the Inklings and their example of creativity, collaboration, and community has been a good fit for this new Square Halo conference. Throughout the years, these ideas have been foundational to how we pursue publishing books. Our team is made up of long-time friends who only have meetings at favorite restaurants, eating and laughing together while plotting and planning. We love to partner with writers and artists. Over the past few years, we’ve had many good meetings with our collaborators sitting around our kitchen table, envisioning and brainstorming what we can do together for the good of the church. Encouraging our contributors and our audience in the world of faith, ideas, and art-making exhilarates us and has kept us going for these twenty years. So on May 1-2, 2020, we will be hosting The Inklings: Creativity, Community, and Collaboration, in Lancaster City, PA at the Trust Performing Arts Center. Each aspect of this conference has been planned to both highlight the work and community of C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien and friends, and invite attendees to participate in collaborative and creative activities themselves. Our Friday night kick-off will be a collaborative event with local forum The Row House. Matthew Dickerson, the author of many books (including Ents, Elves, and Eriador: The Environmental Vision of J. R. R. Tolkien) will be focusing on Tolkien’s response to gnosticism as seen in the community and meals of Middle Earth. Afterward, we will officially open “The Inklings Arts Invitational” in the Square Halo Gallery with a pub night get-together. Saturday will be a combination of large group gatherings to listen to our main speaker Donald T. Williams, as well as small group gatherings to listen to other speakers or participate in round table readings and enjoy other creative experiences. Square Halo Books had the honor of publishing Donald Williams’ book Deeper Magic: The Theology Behind the Writings of C. S. Lewis several years ago. Donald will be enriching our minds and imaginations several times as he speaks about the Inklings. Other speakers include the author Christie Purifoy speaking on placemaking in Narnia, poet Christine Perrin focusing on the poetics of the Inklings, and author Hannah Eagleson spotlighting Dorothy Sayers, a friend of the Inklngs. Matthew Dickerson will speak on hospitality in Middle-Earth and the welcoming of the stranger. Collaborative, community building activities include a round table reading of The Man Born to Be King, led by Lancaster-local director Bonnie Bosso; a writers workshop led by author Shawn Smucker; and a pop-up printing experience led by Ned Bustard. Throughout the conference, the Reverie Actors Company will be presenting a dramatic reading of “Leaf by Niggle.” Be ready to enjoy this beloved tale, as two favorite local actors present it with costumes and props. Inspired by the wonderful food offerings at Hutchmoot, breakfast, lunch, and tea will be served to attendees during the day. Several Hutchmoot friends will be also be joining us, helping us serve our guests. Saturday ends with a concert given in the beautiful Great Hall by favorite singer-songwriter Andrew Peterson. For those wishing to keep the event experience going, on Sunday afternoon, The Row House and Matthew Dickerson will be hosting a Hobbit Hike along a nearby trail; lembas bread will be included.

Whether you’ve already breezed through Adorning the Dark, it’s on your Christmas reading list, or you haven’t yet heard of it, here are some thoughts from Andrew Peterson about the surprisingly concrete ways in which he has found his own calling to be given substance by his community. Click here to view Adorning the Dark in the Rabbit Room Store.

What is Housemoot? Every October, the Rabbit Room hosts a conference called Hutchmoot. It’s an opportunity for people from far and wide to gather in Nashville to celebrate art, music, story, and faith. This year we are also offering Housemoot, a “Hutchmoot kit” that you can use to create a “moot” experience of your own during the weekend of Hutchmoot (October 5-8). We are offering these resources to be a gathering point for your community. Housemoot is a collection of some of our favorite lectures, concerts, and activities that you can use to connect with people in your own communities. What to Expect The main Housemoot site will open on September 18, with hopes that will give you enough time to plan a local gathering to coincide with Hutchmoot on the weekend of October 5-8. Members and ticket-holders will have access to Housemoot through November. On the Housemoot site, you’ll find over 15 hours of lectures and artistic interludes in three categories: Art & Artists Bible & Theology Hospitality & Community You’ll get access to a curated collection of pre-recorded lectures from some of our favorite writers, artists, theologians, and musicians including Makoto Fujimura (via Trinity Forum), Russell Moore, Karen Swallow Prior (via Trinity Forum), Andrew Peterson, Tim Mackie, Ruth Naomi Floyd, Doug McKelvey (via Anselm Society), Malcolm Guite, and others. Using the Resources to Build a Pop-up Gathering With Your Community This is not your normal web conference. We would like to challenge you to use Housemoot as a “gathering point” for your community (no matter the size). That is why Housemoot is more than lectures. We have included recipes, art, and a gathering guide with practical tips on how to open your home during the event. In short, you can make Housemoot whatever you want it to be. You can pick a single lecture to watch and discuss with your friends over a meal. You could make a day of it, watching several videos and letting the ideas wash over your community. Or you could use Housemoot as a way to build your own weekend conference, gathering friends and neighbors to engage with the content in an even deeper way. As a part of Housemoot, you’ll get: Access to 18 lectures and videos (over 15 hours worth). Three beautiful “artistic interludes” comprised of songs, poems, and a bit of humor. A Gathering Guide with information on how to prepare to open your home during Housemoot. Buying a Ticket or Becoming a Member There are two ways to join Housemoot, buying a ticket or becoming a Rabbit Room member. Tickets cost: $19 per person $29 for a family and friends (5-10) $49 for a group (10+) $99 for churches and large-group gatherings (50+) Instead of Buying a Ticket, Join the Rabbit Room Membership Because our Rabbit Room members are at the heart of funding all our programs and resources, members can access Housemoot at the group level at no additional cost (a $49 value). If you’re interested in supporting the work of the Rabbit Room and receiving any of the benefits below, join the membership now. In addition to accessing Housemoot 2023, members receive quarterly gifts like our annual mug, early access to courses and lectures, monthly updates with backstage looks, and other goodies and experiences. If you choose to opt into the membership instead of buying a ticket to Housemoot, we’ll send you the password for the Housemoot site and everything you need to join the Housemoot experience when you join.

When I first read Jesus and the Very Big Surprise by Randall Goodgame, illustrated by Catalina Echeverri, I didn’t expect to actually be surprised. But I was. I like to say that picture books are for everyone. And the best picture books live up to that promise. They have something to say to the adult reading the book as much as to the child listener. And yet, when Goodgame writes in Jesus and the Very Big Surprise that Jesus told a story that would surprise anyone, “even you,” I didn’t really think he meant me. But he was right. I was surprised. I like to think I know my Bible pretty well. I was fairly certain that Goodgame would tell the parable about the servants keeping their lanterns lit as they waited for Jesus’s return. After all, the servants on the front are all holding lanterns, and this is a book about Jesus’s return. Or maybe it would be the story of the wedding feast where, when the invited guests don’t show up, the groom invites everyone from the streets to join the celebration. But I was wrong. In fact, the parable in this story is one that had slipped by me altogether. I had to look it up. In Luke 12, Jesus tells of servants waiting in readiness for their master’s arrival. But when he comes, rather than being waited upon, the master surprises everyone by serving his servants instead. I didn't expect to actually be surprised. But I was. Carolyn Leiloglou It’s a beautiful parable which Goodgame nestles into the book as a story within a story. He sets it up with other ways Jesus surprised everyone: the creator coming as a baby, the king of kings being born in a stable. But Jesus’ parable isn’t where Goodgame’s story ends. Just like the master in the story, Jesus will return. And just like the servants in the story, we have plenty to do while we wait, serving others just like Jesus did. I love Echeverri’s illustrations, both in this book and the many other wonderful picture books she’s illustrated for The Good Book Company. Her art is playful and full of life, and she always includes a beautifully diverse array of people. I realize you might be complaining that I’ve ruined the surprise of a book all about surprises. But I think not. Because the surprise isn’t which parable Jesus told. It’s a surprise we’ve grown used to: that our God would behave in this astonishing way—taking on the very nature of a servant—not only when he came to earth as a man, but also in the future when he welcomes us home. So, I hope you’ll allow yourself to be surprised along with your child, not merely when reading Jesus and the Very Big Surprise, but at the great goodness of our God. After all, Jesus asks us to come like little children. Recover your sense of wonder and be surprised. Click here to view Jesus and the Very Big Surprise in the Rabbit Room Store. And click here to visit Carolyn’s own website.

The Habit Podcast is a series of conversations with writers about writing, hosted by Jonathan Rogers. This week, Jonathan Rogers talks with David Kern about the brilliance of Charles Portis. In this episode, Jonathan and the Circe Institute’s David Kern reminisce about the work of the recently deceased Charles Portis. They discuss the connections between fiction and flim-flammery, the role of the ridiculous in comic storytelling, the importance of leaving some work for the reader to do, the world’s smallest perfect man, and one of the world’s most perfect opening sentences. David Kern heads up the Circe Institute’s Podcast Network. He hosts the Close Reads podcast, The Daily Poem podcast, and the Libromania podcast. A shortened version of this conversation will be posted as an episode of Libromania. Click here to listen to Season 2, Episode 9 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.

On October 8-11, the Rabbit Room will convene Hutchmoot 2020 at Christ Community Church in Franklin, Tennessee. You’re invited to come and enjoy a weekend of live music, delicious food and conversation, and a series of discussions centered on art, faith, and the telling of great stories across a range of mediums. Speakers, sessions, and special events will be announced as they are confirmed. The first 150 tickets will go on sale today at 10:00am CST and the other 150 tickets will go on sale at 7:00pm CST.

The Habit Podcast is a series of conversations with writers about writing, hosted by Jonathan Rogers. This week, Jonathan Rogers interviews Seth Haines, author of The Book of Waking Up: Experiencing the Divine Love That Reorders a Life. Writer and photographer Seth Haines is the author of Coming Clean and The Book of Waking Up. In this episode, Jonathan and Seth discuss the slow process of waking up in the “key of joy,” the instructive power of pain, and the under-publicized companionship between creativity and sobriety. Click here to listen to Season 2, Episode 7 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.

We are less than one month away from the release of brand-new hardcover editions of the Wingfeather Saga books! On March 10th, On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness and North! Or Be Eaten will be released to the world, and we’re looking for readers who want to help spread the word. Read on for a couple of ways you can help us get these books into new hands. For starters, Random House is accepting applications for the official Launch Team (which comes with some surprise goodies), and you can apply by clicking here. In addition, we’re making an open invitation for you to share with us a one-sentence reason why everyone should read the Wingfeather Saga. We’re going to collect your responses and use them in promotion for the new editions. Share away in the comments section below!

In the midst of a global pandemic and being quarantined with our own makeshift home studios, we thought it appropriate to take Episode 16 to process this greater reality of Resistance that we all face these days. It’s hard to find the positive in such a negative situation, but if we’re present, we can face the Resistance even in these darker days. And in Episode 17, Matt Conner interviews Alex Ebert. You most likely know Alex as the front man for Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, a group with a fictional singer (a “hippie trope,” he says) who ushered in the recent folk-rock movement (think of every “Hey! Ho!” band of the last decade). Before that, however, he starred in the eclectic punkish leanings of Ima Robot. As a solo artist, his output is kaleidoscopic with plenty of hip-hop influence on his latest album, I vs I. (Warning: this interview contains some explicit language.) In this episode of The Resistance, Alex Ebert shares the joys and sorrows of his ongoing commitment to pick up and spin whatever creative plates he desires. He’s engaging and inspiring. He’s also taken some very real hits along the way. It’s a lesson for all of us as we wrestle with Resistance and realize that making something always costs something—which is often why we end up caving in to our fears. Click here to listen to these newest episodes of The Resistance. And here to learn more about The Resistance Podcast.

In this crazy new world of social distancing, the Rabbit Room aims to bring people together around what matters, and we aim to do that in whatever way we can. To that end we’re launching the latest in our attempts to bring good things to light. Welcome to Rabbit Room LIVE, your 24/7 source of live content for a troubled world. Now at any time and from any place, you’ll be able to stop in and see what’s going on in real time. Turn up the volume. Punch it up to fullscreen mode. Share it with your friends. Enjoy the show. It’s only going to get better from here on out.

Joel J. Miller is chief product officer of Full Focus, before which he served as vice president of editorial and acquisitions at Thomas Nelson Publishers. This article originally ran at his thrice-weekly literary newsletter, MillersBookReview.com. Did Charles Williams know what would happen when he invited his mutuals, C.S. Lewis and T.S. Eliot, to tea? One suspects. Lewis had long registered disapproval of Eliot’s work. But surely they’d get on in person, no? No. It was 1945 and the trio convened at the Mitre Hotel in Oxford. The first words out of Eliot’s mouth? “Mr. Lewis,” he exclaimed, “you are a much older man than you appear in photographs!” The meeting deteriorated from there. “I must tell you,” Eliot continued, “I consider A Preface to Paradise Lost your best book.” Already irked, now Lewis was in disbelief. While he had dedicated the book to their friend Williams, Lewis had taken a few deliberate swipes at Eliot in those very pages. T.S. Eliot from the LIFE Collection. Color by Palette. 1 Deep Disagreements Chapter 2, “Is Criticism Possible?” Lewis defends his right to comment on Paradise Lost. Eliot had written earlier that only, as Lewis said, “the best contemporary practicing poets” were fit to challenge Eliot’s views on Milton’s epic poem. Lewis wasn’t having any. How, after all, could a person validate if a writer belonged to this august group of poets? It takes one to know one. “Poets become on this view and unrecognizable society,” Lewis objected, “and their mutual criticism goes on within a closed circle, which no outsider can possibly break into at any point.”2 This points us to a deeper irritation for Lewis, who possessed strong opinions about poetry and considered himself superior in the art to his rude tea companion. He trashed Eliot’s poetry in private correspondence. “[Eliot’s] intention only God knows,” Lewis wrote Paul Elmore More in 1935, adding: I must be content to judge his work by its fruits, and I contend that no man is fortified against chaos by reading “The Waste Land,“ but that most men are by it infected with chaos. . . . The Inferno is not infernal poetry: “The Waste Land” is. 3 Lewis also trashed Eliot’s poetry in poetry. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” published in 1915, begins, 4 Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherised upon a table. . . . “I don’t believe one person in a million, under any emotional distress, would see an evening like that,” Lewis wrote Katherine Farrer. 5 So, Lewis responded with a verse of his own. 6 I am so coarse, the things the poets see Are obstinately invisible to me. For twenty years I’ve stared my level best To see if evening—any evening—would suggest A patient etherized upon a table; In vain. I simply wasn’t able. Interestingly, Lewis wrote his letter to Farrer in February 1954 and published his riposte in Punch later that same year—four decades after Eliot’s original. Something about Eliot’s phrase lodged firm in Lewis’s craw. “Lewis found Mr Eliot’s comparison of an evening to a patient on an operating table unpleasant,” explained Lewis’s secretary Walter Hooper, “one example of the decay of proper feelings.”7 Indeed, he attacked the same line in Preface to Paradise Lost. “I have heard Mr Eliot’s comparison . . . praised, nay gloated over, not as a striking picture of sensibility in decay, but because it was so ‘pleasantly unpleasant.’” As far as Lewis was concerned, asking the reader to relish something so revulsive was morally dangerous: That elementary rectitude of human response . . . is a delicate balance of trained habits, laboriously acquired and easily lost, on the maintenance of which depend both our virtues and our pleasures and even, perhaps, the survival of our species. For though the human heart is not unchanging (nay, changes almost out of recognition in the twinkling of an eye) the laws of causation are. When poisons become fashionable they do not cease to kill.8 Overdialed? For Lewis Eliot’s poetry was playing with fire, and the entire modernist movement Eliot represented was jettisoning everything valuable in inherited forms and sensibilities. Either Eliot hadn’t actually read the book he praised at tea or he was blowing off Lewis’s gravest warning. Outside the Circle These swipes in Preface to Paradise Lost weren’t Lewis’s first. In 1926 he mentioned in his diary a “joke” to float pseudonymous and parodic modernist poems to Eliot’s magazine The Criterion to expose the “quackery” of the style. In a letter around the time he referred to this prank as “a leg pull to Mr. T.S. Elliot’s [sic] paper.”9 Then in 1933 Lewis leveled his guns in The Pilgrim’s Regress, indirectly referring to Eliot there as “Mr. Neo-Angular.” The book was a wide-ranging allegorical takedown of religious, social, and intellectual movements—“Anglo Catholicism, Materialism, Sitwellism, Psychoanalysis, and T.S. Elliot [sic],” as Lewis explained to his editor—patterned after Bunyan’s classic.10 “T.S. Eliot is the single man who sums up the thing I am fighting against,” he admitted of the project.11 There could be something pettier at play here, at least to rankle Lewis beyond his principles and which might have hardened him in them. Lewis was ten years Eliot’s junior and early on, though stuck teaching philosophy and later literature, wanted nothing more than to be a poet. Yet his first forays proved unsuccessful. Spirits in Bondage (1919) and Dymer (1926), both cycles of verse published under the pseudonym Clive Hamilton, flopped. Lewis loathed Eliot’s poetry, but his own attempts had failed to garner much praise or success in the marketplace.12 Meanwhile, Eliot’s star did nothing but rise. It’s easy to assume some jealousy for the older man. Such an assumption throws green-tinted light on Lewis’s jab in Preface to Paradise Lost about “the best contemporary practicing poets,” a circle whose work he disdained and to which he was barred but which he nonetheless wished to join—on his own terms, of course.13 But then something happened; the pair met again. A Humanizing Project Through the 1940s and ’50s, Lewis’s reputation as a popular religious writer grew. The Problem of Pain, Mere Christianity, and other titles brought him critical and commercial success—and at least occasionally the attentions of church hierarchy. “C.S. Lewis in his Reflection on the Psalms shows what a layman has to contribute,” said Gordon Selwyn, dean of Winchester Cathedral and editor Theology, a journal to which Lewis contributed, in a letter to Geoffrey Fisher, archbishop of Canterbury. Fisher and Michael Ramsey, archbishop of York, had decided to revise the psalter used in Anglican services, originally translated by Miles Coverdale in the 1530s. “Two scholars of English” were asked to join the team tasked with the work: Lewis—and Eliot.14 Eliot couldn’t make the committee’s first meeting in January 1959, but he made the second in April. “It seems to have been the first meeting between Lewis and Eliot since 1945,” says Lewis scholar George Musacchio, who studied the relevant archival materials.15 While their first meeting started with fireworks and degenerated into time-killing small talk until the pair could politely depart, leaving Charles Williams the satisfaction of his stunt, this encounter was different. It was only five years since Lewis had compared Eliot’s work to poison in his letter to Katherine Farrer, but something had shifted. Perhaps it was marriage. Lewis wed Joy Davidman in 1957, a relationship that seems to have stretched and softened him. Eliot had also wed that same year, marrying Esmé Valerie Fletcher. Perhaps it was the shared appointment to the committee. While Lewis had doubted the seriousness of Eliot’s Christianity, surely their joint invitation by the two archbishops lent it credence. Eliot’s comportment in the meeting must have also had an impact. As evidenced by a letter to “My dear Eliot” following the April encounter, Lewis seems to have turned around.16 The two were aligned on their love of Coverdale’s translation and wished to retain as much of its style and feel as possible in the revision. In fact, the modernist Eliot proved more conservative on this point than the conservative Lewis. Their shared perspective opened other possibilities. After the July 1959 meeting of the committee, which lasted three days, Lewis and Eliot lunched together with their wives. “As a result of their work on the Psalms,” said Musacchio, “the two men gained respect for each other.” Indeed, Lewis said he found it easy to “love” Eliot after getting to know him.17 Before their work on the committee, it’s safe to say that Eliot wasn’t a person for Lewis. Eliot was instead symbol, an icon of everything Lewis detested about modernism, Anglo-Catholicism, and whatever else. Early on, he couldn’t even bring himself to spell the man’s name correctly. The extent of Eliot’s humanity was bounded by what he represented to Lewis. But then you get to know “the single man who sums up the thing I am fighting against” and your estimation changes. A shared project exposed commonalities that humanized Eliot, engendered respect, and repaired a relationship. Let them who have ears to hear. . . . (By the way, there is a postscript to this story about the interactions between these two literary giants after Lewis's wife, Joy, was diagnosed with cancer. Read it on Joel J. Miller's Substack.) 1George Musacchio, “C.S. Lewis, T.S. Eliot, and the Anglican Psalter,” VII: Journal of the Marion E. Wade Center 22 (2005), 48. 2C.S. Lewis, Preface to Paradise Lost (Oxford University Press, 1942), 9–10. 3C.S. Lewis, On Writing (and Writers), edited by David C. Downing (Harper, 2022), 137–138. Here I should pause and thank Professor Leslie Baynes of Missouri State University. After I quoted this bit in an earlier review, she pointed me to Musacchio’s article quoted above and later in this piece. 4T.S. Eliot, Collected Poems, 1909–1935 (Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1936), 11. The poem was first published in the June 1915 issue of Poetry and later collected in Eliot’s Prufrock and Other Observations, published by Egoist In 1917. Only 500 copies were printed of this first edition; it’s likely Lewis read the poem in a later edition. 5Lewis, On Writing (and Writers), 137. 6C.S. Lewis, Poems, edited by Walter Hooper (Harcourt, Brace and World, 1964), 1. 7Lewis, Poems, from Hooper’s Preface, viii. Hooper adds that Lewis “mistrusted . . . the free play of mere immediate experience. He believed, rather, that man’s attitudes and actions should be governed by what he calls . . . Stock Responses (e.g. love is sweet, death bitter, and virtue lovely). Man must, for his own safety and pleasure, be taught to copy the Stock Responses in hopes that he may, by willed imitation, make the proper responses.” In his letter to Farrer, Lewis warned of abnormal imagery: “I believe that anything but the most sparing admission of such images [namely, a night spread out like a surgical patient] is a very dangerous game. To invite them, to recur willingly to them, to come to regard them as normal, surely, poisons us?” 8Lewis, Preface to Paradise Lost, 55. Note that Lewis’s letter to Farrer, written more than a decade later, returns to the idea that Eliot’s imagery is poisonous. 9C.S. Lewis, The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Vol. 3, edited by Walter Hooper (Harper, 2007), 1503. 10C.S. Lewis, The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Vol. 2, edited by Walter Hooper (Harper, 2004), 94. “There are,” says Lewis biographer A. N. Wilson, “sentences in ‘Neo-Angular’s’ speeches which are echoed almost word for word in the essays of T.S. Eliot and the letters of Evelyn Waugh.” See Wilson, C.S. Lewis (Fawcett Columbine, 1990), 134. 11Quoted in Musacchio, “C.S. Lewis, T.S. Eliot, and the Anglican Psalter,” 47. As his biographer Alan Jacobs notes, Lewis’s depictions in The Pilgrim’s Regress were more earnest than accurate. See Jacobs, The Narnian (Harper, 2005), 158–159. 12Alister McGrath, C.S. Lewis (Tyndale, 2013), 106, 132. 13Jealousy helps explain the vendetta-like quality of Lewis’s disdain. J.R.R. Tolkien rejected the idea. “That his literary opinions were ever dictated by envy (as in the case of T.S. Eliot) is a grotesque calumny,” he wrote in a letter to Anne Barrett. “After all it is possible to dislike Eliot with some intensity even if one has no aspirations of poetic laurels oneself.” Of course Lewis did possess such aspirations—at least early on—so the situation is perhaps more complicated. J.R.R. Tolkien, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Humphrey Carpenter (Houghton Mifflin, 1981), 350. 14Musacchio, “C.S. Lewis, T.S. Eliot, and the Anglican Psalter,” 45–46. 15Musacchio, “C.S. Lewis, T.S. Eliot, and the Anglican Psalter,” 47. 16Musacchio, “C.S. Lewis, T.S. Eliot, and the Anglican Psalter,” 48. 17Musacchio, “C.S. Lewis, T.S. Eliot, and the Anglican Psalter,” 48–49.

In this conversation from Hutchmoot 2019, acclaimed jazz musician Ruth Naomi Floyd and author Mark Meynell use African American spirituals and the works of Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich to examine the power of music and its ability to carry us through the darkest of human experiences. Click here to listen to this episode of the Hutchmoot Podcast. You can learn more about Ruth Naomi Floyd and Mark Meynell at their websites by clicking their names.

The Habit Podcast is a series of conversations with writers about writing, hosted by Jonathan Rogers. This week, Jonathan Rogers talks with Michael Ward, C. S. Lewis scholar and author of Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C. S. Lewis. In this episode, Jonathan and Michael discuss Michael’s surprising thesis about the Narnia books, the medieval notion of the “music of the spheres,” and the necessity of allusivity in communicating theological reality. Click here to listen to Season 2, Episode 24 of The Habit Podcast. Transcripts are now available for The Habit Podcast. Click here to access them. Special thanks to our Rabbit Room members for making these podcasts possible! If you’re interested in becoming a member, visit RabbitRoom.com/Donate.

Even if podcasts existed twenty years ago, I never would have imagined that Square Halo Books would ever have had enough contributors in its catalog to support a full season of episodes, and with many people left untapped. And the idea that I would be sitting down with a chunky black microphone between me and such amazing thinkers and makers, digging deeper into their ideas through such delightful conversations as I have had this past year, would have been something I couldn’t have even hoped for. Yet such fantastic opportunities have almost been the norm for our little miracle company. Square Halo Books, a small book publishing company dedicated to providing “materials useful for encouraging and equipping the saints,” was started with our friends Alan and Diana Bauer. The Bauers have known my husband Ned since he was 13 years old—when Alan was called to pastor his family’s church. To say they have been a steady flow of grace in our lives (and in our children’s lives) would be an understatement. And part of that constancy has been the work we have collaborated on for more than two decades: our beloved Square Halo. Many have found the name of our company curious. In Christian art, the square halo has historically identified a living person presumed to be a saint. From the start, it was our hope that Square Halo would be able to publish works that would present contextually sensitive biblical studies and practical instruction from authors whose work was compelling but who might not have the “platform,” as they say these days, to get a publishing deal with the big publishing houses. Overall, we have wanted our books to be helpful for “ordinary saints,” beautiful or interesting to look at, and richly truthful. In Christian art, the square halo has historically identified a living person presumed to be a saint. Leslie Bustard To tell Square Halo’s story properly requires beginning at the end. By the time Ned and I were married, Alan was a seminary professor. Following a class on the writings of the Apostle John, his students encouraged him to get his work on the Book of Revelation published. After many rejections, he decided to self-publish. But his vivacious wife Diana usually has bigger ideas and greater vision than the three of us put together. After realizing that many good writers are never given the opportunity to get in print simply because they do not have a famous name, she decided that Alan should not just self-publish, but that we should create an independent publishing company. Ned erroneously insisted that this was a terrible idea, but agreed that we would join them in this fool’s errand. Alan finished writing The End: A Reader’s Guide to Revelation, and Ned designed and illustrated it. Fast-forward twenty years, and Square Halo has published over twenty books. We have hosted two conferences, held book release parties in multiple cities including New York City and Nashville, opened a gallery, and traveled to Italy for a book-planning business trip. We have been excited by the sale of each book and humbled by each person who has told us a story of how one of our books has helped or inspired them. We never could have imagined any of this goodness when we were 29 years old and starting this company with our partners. Last spring, while driving to school where I teach and listening to Andrew Osenga’s thoughtful podcast The Pivot, I started day-dreaming of interviewing some of our writers for a Square Halo podcast. I had no idea what I was hoping for, but Ned was up to the challenge; we began exploring equipment and asking local Square Halo writers if they would participate. These eight new podcasts are some of the fruit of all that dreaming. My goal for these podcasts was to ask each writer to elaborate on the ideas of their essay or book they wrote for us or to share how some of their ideas may have changed over time. Tom Becker, author of Good Posture, was my first interviewee. In July, we sat at my kitchen table, Ned fiddled with the equipment, and Tom helped me shake off my nervousness. Tom and I have been close friends for a very long time and have lived so much life together, that laughing and discussing ideas was natural, even with a microphone sitting between us. His ideas about civility resonated deeply with me and working through them together turned out to be a rich conversation. Also interviewed in our home were two other dear friends, Ruth Naomi Floyd and Rob Bigley, both contributors to It Was Good: Making Music to the Glory of God. Ruth took the train from Philadelphia and joined me one July day at my kitchen table. Even though it had been a busy day for her, she and I were happy to be together, discussing the blues, truth-telling, and lamentation. Her enthusiasm for this project encouraged me to keep pressing on. As Rob Bigley and I only live blocks a part, he simply walked down our street to get to his interview. Just missing a thunderstorm as he walked in the house, we got comfortable in my living room, and we talked calling, talent, and loving one’s fellow actors and co-workers. One cannot help but laugh a lot with Rob, so our time together was both thoughtful and fun. Ned and I drove to the Philadelphia-area for two interviews. One sultry day, we went to Germantown to interview singer-songwriter Joy Ike, who wrote an essay for It Was Good: Making Music to the Glory of God. There never seems to be enough time to hang out and discuss books, food, and Jesus with Joy; I felt this, as we spent time catching up before we sat at her kitchen table overlooking her neighborhood for our interview. But we made up for that, as we kept the microphone on and the conversation going for more than two hours; Ned laughed at us as he thought about the editing he would have to do to get the podcast session down to a listener-friendly length. The next month, we drove to Glenside, a suburb of Philadelphia, to interview Dr. Bill Edgar, who contributed to It Was Good: Making Art to the Glory of God and It Was Good: Making Music to the Glory of God. To say I was slightly nervous is an understatement. He was one of the people who helped It Was Good: Making Art to the Glory of God actually happen twenty years ago. It was because of his name-recognition that made it possible for others to take us no-names seriously and write for us. Because of this, Dr. Edgar remains one of my heroes. Also, he is a brilliant, humble gentleman, and all I wanted to do was ask questions that would keep him talking. He and his wife welcomed us into their home for an afternoon interview. I was happy to listen to him talk about his conversion story, L’Abri, Brahms, and more. To interview painter Edward Knippers, we headed towards the outskirts of Washington, D.C. We had first heard of him years ago, while listening to a Mars Hill Audio interview. Intrigued by his work, we met him at an exhibit soon after, and when we started working on It Was Good: Making Art to the Glory of God, he came to our home for lunch and an interview. Since then, he has been a friend, one who continues to speak good words into our life. Ed’s home is like a gallery, with each wall covered from floor to ceiling with art he has collected. After looking at several new pieces, we sat down at his dining room table, the microphone between us, and talked about beauty, his paintings, the body, and his place in the flow of art history. He is a well-educated, strong-opinioned, and thoughtful man, and I always enjoy listening to him. The last two interviews occurred in the country—the rolling hills of Pennsylvania and the rugged hills of Texas. I drove only 20 minutes, from Lancaster City (my home) to Leola (the home of Veritas Academy, where I teach). Here, I sat in Headmaster Ty Fischer’s office, and we talked parenting, preparing our children to live in community, education, and beauty. Ty has been headmaster at Veritas for more than 20 years, so his ideas come with the humility and wisdom of having lived through the ups and downs of serving a community for so long. Lastly, I flew to San Antonio to go to Laity Lodge for a retreat and to interview a dear friend, Andi Ashworth. Andi had contributed a chapter on cookbooks for A Book for Hearts and Minds: What You Should Read and Why. Andi and I found time to sit in the Great Lodge over looking the Frio River. This was the first time I had to manage all the recording equipment, and I was nervous that I would hit the wrong buttons. But the technology gods smiled on me, and we had a lovely talk. Andi has modeled to me, and many others, what it looks like to be a thinking and loving woman who has creatively worked at caregiving and placemaking. That afternoon, even though she was tired and I was tech-nervous, we talked naturally about callings and cooking. You can find the first season of our podcast, The Square Halo, at our website, here at the Rabbit Room, or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Once you’ve listened, you can revisit that episode’s page to find a free download of an excerpt from the book discussed in the podcast. We hope you will be interested in checking out other Square Halo titles, too, knowing that our hope is to bring you encouragement. You can find us at squarehalobooks.com.