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Hello, folks. Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, we’ve kept a close watch on developments with an eye toward the viability of Hutchmoot UK this August. Might this all pass over by then? Yes, it may, though it seems unlikely. But even were the church venue permitted to host a gathering of this size, drawing together a diverse group of people from all over the world to mingle in close quarters for three days before returning home to friends and loved ones is an enormous risk given the infectious nature of this illness. The gospel calls us to care for our friends and neighbors each and every day, and in extraordinary days that means caring with extraordinary measures. Pete Peterson As an organization that exists to foster community, one of our primary concerns is with the health and safety of everyone involved (both you and our staff, musicians, and speakers). The gospel calls us to care for our friends and neighbors each and every day, and in extraordinary days that means caring with extraordinary measures. To that end, we’ve come to the conclusion that the wisest and most loving course of action is to cancel Hutchmoot UK in 2020 and turn our focus toward returning to Oxford with a great gathering in 2021. In the meantime, the Rabbit Room is in the early planning stages of a digital event to take place this fall which will be open to everyone, everywhere. Stay tuned for more on that as plans develop. Today we’ll be issuing full refunds to everyone who has registered for Hutchmoot UK. We expect news of the cancellation will be a disappointment to some and a relief to others. Believe me when I tell you we feel the same. We’re eager to bring people together again, in person, but when we do we want it to be safe and free from anxiety so we can all focus on the feast at hand. We hope to see you in 2021.

Registration for Hutchmoot: Homebound is officially open—and we’re so glad to tell you that there’s a seat for everyone at the (virtual) table this year. Now that tickets are available, here are some more specifics regarding what this unique Hutchmoot will consist of, what you can expect, and some frequently asked questions. First, this is a digital event spanning from Friday, October 9th to Sunday, October 11th. All tickets will grant you complete access to the private Hutchmoot: Homebound website where content will be shared over the course of these three days. This website will function as the main hub of the event. Content shared here will include a keynote address from Steve Taylor; a variety of sessions on music, art and story by Andrew Peterson, Russell Moore, Russ Ramsey, and more; and performances by John Mark McMillan, Joshua Luke Smith, Propaganda, Sara Groves, and more. Beyond Digital One of our favorite parts of Hutchmoot each year is the relationships that begin among those in attendance. So we wanted to do our best to incorporate that togetherness into your experience as a guest this year. As part of this online conference, we will provide a set of tools and opportunities to help you foster community right where you are. We’ll host regionally specific chats, Zoom discussions, and message boards so you can use Hutchmoot: Homebound content to interact with people close to home. And finally, even though Hutchmoot is online this year, we believe it should be more than merely digital, so we’re putting together a box of mysteries just for you: the Mystery Moot Kit. What’s inside? You’ll have to wait and see, but here’s a sneak peek: a Hutchmoot: Homebound journal, a book that will be part of the discussion during the event, cooking ingredients, art materials for a communal art project, and more. Tickets Choose the option that’s right for you: $40 – Complete Package (includes Mystery Moot Kit) ($60 International) Available ONLY while Mystery Moot Kit supplies last (or until August 15th)! Complete access to all Hutchmoot: Homebound website content (sessions, music, chats, and other surprises), plus we’ll mail you our Mystery Moot Kit, which includes a journal, art materials, reading materials, cooking ingredients, and other surprises that will help you make the most of your Hutchmoot experience. $120 / $220 – Small Group Package (for 5 or 10 people) Available ONLY while Mystery Moot Kit supplies last (or until August 15th)! If you’d like to invite friends over and participate in Hutchmoot as a small group, we’ve got you covered. This package offers complete access to all Hutchmoot: Homebound website content (sessions, music, chats, and other surprises) for ONE account so that you can project video to a device of your choice at home. And we’ll ship the contents of 5 or 10 Mystery Moot Kits so everyone gets their own materials. *If you choose the small group package, we strongly encourage you to abide by the regulations in place in your area to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Please do keep the group small and act responsibly for the good and well-being of your neighbors.* $20 – Digital Only Complete access to all Hutchmoot: Homebound website content (sessions, music, chats, and other surprises). Does not include Mystery Moot Kit. FAQ We’ve tried to cover all the bases, but we realize that there are lots of moving pieces and you may have a question that hasn’t been addressed by this post. This is, after all, the year of many questions. That’s why we’ve put together this FAQ page on the Hutchmoot: Homebound website. There you will find answers to questions practical, logistical, and existential (if you’re lucky). Sponsorship If you’re interested in becoming a sponsor of Hutchmoot: Homebound, feel free to reach out to us! We have a variety of sponsorship options available—personal, organizational, and educational—and take joy in tailoring our options to fit your needs. The unique circumstances of this year have given us at the Rabbit Room an opportunity to playfully adapt and respond with creativity. We’re so grateful to get to host this one-of-a-kind Hutchmoot—and especially thankful that more people can participate than ever before. Thanks for joining us on this wild ride. We’ll see you in October.

One of our favorite parts of Hutchmoot each year is gathering together a plethora of voices to contribute to the ongoing conversation around music, story, and art. This year we’re excited both to welcome back familiar voices and welcome in some new ones. Here’s an updated list of speakers and performers who will be leading us in our time together. Speakers We are glad to welcome Ruth Naomi Floyd, Malcolm Guite, Helena Sorensen, Mark Meynell, Lanier Ivester, Matthew Dickerson, Sally Clarkson, David Taylor, and Phaedra Taylor to our lineup of session leaders for Hutchmoot: Homebound. These guests are in addition to keynote speaker Steve Taylor and session leaders Andrew Peterson, Russell Moore, and Russ Ramsey. Performers And we are looking forward to enjoying music from Jess Ray, Taylor Leonhardt, Jill Phillips, and Andy Gullahorn, in addition to the performers already announced (Sara Groves, Propaganda, John Mark McMillan, and Joshua Luke Smith). Visit HutchmootHomebound.com for the full lineup as it currently stands and all other information.

Michelangelo’s David is widely regarded as one of the most perfect works of art ever achieved. But the artist himself was neither the first nor the last to make his mark upon that famed piece of marble. In this episode, Russ Ramsey explores the story behind this magnificent sculpture and reveals how our longing to be in the presence of perfection can often weaken the very object we long to be near. Click here to listen to this episode of the Hutchmoot Podcast.

For the past 10 years, Hutchmoot has been an opportunity for like-minded people from far and wide to gather in Nashville and celebrate art, music, story, and faith. But as we all know, this year has been full of surprises. Given the current state of the COVID-19 pandemic in America and the difficulty of predicting the next few months, we’ve made the tough decision to cancel Hutchmoot 2020. If you’re registered for this year’s conference, your ticket will transfer automatically to Hutchmoot 2021, or, if you prefer, we’ll issue a refund instead (watch your email for details). But we aren’t just packing up the show and turning off the lights. Instead of asking you to come to Nashville this year, we’re changing our approach and making Hutchmoot outward bound; we’re coming to you. We’ve put our heads together and have come up with something that we hope will help you begin cultivating community right where you are. From our home to yours, Hutchmoot: Homebound is on its way. We hope it not only encourages you where you are, but ultimately helps point the way toward where we're going. Pete Peterson This October, from North Wind Manor in Nashville, Tennessee, we’re sending you a taste of the Rabbit Room in the form of Hutchmoot: Homebound. This multi-media event features an array of content hosted on a website exclusively for registered guests. From there, over the course of this multi-day digital event, you and your family and friends will be able to access a rich variety of content featuring live music; a keynote address by filmmaker, legendary musician, and Lipscomb University’s Director of the School of Theatre and Cinematic Arts, Steve Taylor; and, as always, sessions on art, music, and story from a variety of speakers. We even have a few surprises in store. But on top of all of that, we aim to provide you with tools and opportunities to connect with people in real time right where you are, wherever you are (and yes, that includes international folks). Once the event is over, we hope you’ll feel the boundaries of home have expanded to include new faces, new voices, and new ideas. We’re aiming for a ticket price of just $20, and there’s no limit to how many can join. So for the first time ever, everyone who wants to join the feast will be able to find a seat at the table. From our home to yours, Hutchmoot: Homebound is on its way. We hope it not only encourages you where you are, but ultimately helps point the way toward where we’re going. Registration will begin at www.Hutchmoot.com in the near future. We’ll have more information and further details as things develop. Stay safe, and stay tuned.

In this last episode of Season Two, Drew Miller asks three questions of the Rabbit Room staff: How did you listen to music growing up and how have your listening habits changed? What is your advice for becoming a better listener? And who are some artists you’re listening to right now? You’ll hear the voices of Andrew Peterson, Pete Peterson, Jennifer Trafton, Chris Thiessen, Leslie Thompson, and Shigé Clark as they share about their personal relationship to music. This episode was inspired by a blog series at the Rabbit Room called The Lost Art of Listening, which examined how the streaming era has forever changed the way we listen, for better and for worse. Click here to listen to Season 2, Episode 12 of The Second Muse. And click here to listen to our Second Muse playlist on Spotify and Apple Music, featuring all the excellent songs explored throughout this series. Transcripts are now available for The Second Muse! You can find them by clicking here. They are typically one or two episodes behind. Special thanks to our Rabbit Room members for making these podcasts possible! If you’re interested in becoming a member, visit RabbitRoom.com/Donate.

Our friends over at the Tokens Show have adapted to 2020’s many curveballs by offering a run of online shows, the first of which will take place on September 29th. Its theme is simply “Kindness,” and featured guests will include Naomi Shihab Nye, Jason Eskridge, and Buddy Greene. Naomi Shihab Nye is the Poetry Foundation’s current Young People’s Poet Laureate and will be reading her poems “Kindness” and “Gate A4” on the show. You can learn more about Naomi here. Jason Eskridge and Buddy Greene are no strangers to the Rabbit Room—Jason has made appearances at Local Shows as well as Andrew Peterson’s Behold the Lamb of God show, and you can find an interview with Buddy Greene on the blog here. And that’s not all of our Tokens news! Today, the second season of the Tokens Podcast has begun. It’s a very well-crafted collection of rich conversations, and Lee Camp is a wonderful host. Click here for tickets to the online Tokens Show. And click here to listen to the Tokens Podcast on Apple Podcasts, and here on Spotify.

Life is scary. It feels unpredictable and cruel. It feels senseless and random. Faith is exhausting. The journey often feels like finding yourself tied up, alone in an unmanned and oarless row boat being mercilessly tossed about in the waves of an angry ocean. Ecce Homo 30×40 oil on textured canvas There seems to be a vague unease in some Christian circles when I’ve expressed these sensations. I’m left embarrassed for asking questions. I’ve felt shamed for admitting my fears that this ship often feels like it’s capsizing. “Where’s your faith?” or, “You should try being more joyful!” have on numerous occasions been said in reply. Unfortunately, entire church cultures have been built upon avoiding such vulnerability; cultures that shun emotional honesty. Perhaps if we ignore the storm we won’t feel so weak. If we can successfully ignore our weakness, perhaps we won’t have to admit how fragile our faith really is. Emotional honesty oftentimes is conflated with a lack of faith. I may feel utterly and desperately abandoned, but, I dare not name it. I may feel violently tossed around in the confusion of a maddened sea, but, the mere mention of it might mean I am faithless. So, I opt out of prayer in these moments. Best to not annoy the sleeping God-man. After all, maybe I can muscle it out a tad bit longer. Maybe I can repress, stifle, and ignore my intensifying inner dance with chaos. Yet all the while, I’m subconsciously convincing myself that God is no help in my time of need. There’s a profound loneliness and isolation in these moments. I’m haunted by the impression that God is likely embarrassed by my human frailty. “Ecce homo” is Latin for ‘Behold the man’. This phrase is uttered by Pilate in the Gospel of John when presenting Jesus to the angry masses prior to his crucifixion. There’s a simple banality about Jesus’ humanity. If Jesus is the anticipated Messiah, why is he so underwhelming? Pilate’s expression almost feels more of a question than a statement. “This is the man? This guy?” This person, our salvation, Immanuel, seems too simple, too human, too tangible to be the hope that we’ve needed. All hope rests in this fragile sleeping man. Salvation himself is vulnerably snoozing in the middle of a fatal maelstrom. This man is not redeeming humans from their frail humanity. He is redeeming humans by his frail humanity to their fullest humanity. Perhaps the most faith filled prayer for the occasion was the simple shrieking gasp of a cry, “Lord, we are dying!”

Our reading group for Let Justice Roll Down by John Perkins, led by Dr. Steve Guthrie, is in its final week. All materials for Week 4 are now available, including discussion questions, videos, and articles for further reading. Enrollment is ongoing, so join whenever you like. This week, participants will be reading chapters 19-23, the postscript, and the preface, then discussing: The impression this book has made on us How white Christians can love their Black neighbors as themselves without exhibiting paternalism or self-importance The call to be “shrewd as serpents but innocent as doves,” particularly in engaging with our broken legal system Some practical ways to receive accurate and trustworthy information about the suffering of others How the work of justice cannot be done alone …and much more.

All of us have our main thing, whether we call it a career, a profession, a calling, or a vocation. It’s the primary occupant of our waking attention, it’s what we’re known for, and if we’re fortunate, it even pays the bills. But the hidden talent, the passion project, the side hustle—there’s an energy there that you can’t find anywhere else. It’s almost a kind of playfulness, an innocence reminiscent of childhood make-believe, untarnished by the urgencies of the everyday. That’s what The Molehill, the Rabbit Room’s annual literary journal, is for. Its Latin tagline goes like this: e collibus montes or, in English, “out of hills, mountains.” It’s a literary journal that seeks to uncover the grandeur in the nearly-scrapped idea, to elevate passing amusements and musings to the status of something worth your undivided attention. The Molehill urges its readers toward the delight to be found in words, whether serious or silly, many or few. Nearly six volumes in, we realized we were sitting on quite a mountain of treasures. So we issued an invitation to Molehill contributors, asking that they read aloud their contributions, which had previously existed only in print. The result is this podcast. In each episode, you can expect one or a few short poems followed by a longer essay, story, or memoir. You’ll hear from Jennifer Trafton, Helena Sorensen, Don Chaffer, Jonathan Rogers, Andrew Peterson, Russ Ramsey, Rebecca Reynolds, and so many more—plus each episode will include original music scored by the marvelously talented folk duo Zach & Maggie. We’ve even got a few fun surprises in store, including a special word game that will involve you, dear listener. Our hope is that for a half hour each week, we can provide you with an opportunity to sit back and delight in these carefully-chosen words, have a few laughs, and ask yourself which proverbial hills in your own life—dare I say molehills—deserve to be made into mountains. Click here to listen to “An Introduction: Why Is The Molehill Podcast?” And click here to subscribe on Apple Podcasts and here to subscribe on Spotify. Artwork by the inimitable Stephen Crotts (Rare) Rave Reviews of The Molehill (found in The Molehill Vol. 1) “It is a far, far better book to read than I have ever read. A far, far better book I hold than I have ever known.” —Sydney Carton, Headless Lawyer “I have scrupulously searched the castle archives for the answer. I have even re-read my own numerous critically-acclaimed writings, hoping I might have inadverdently touched upon the subject in Roots Run Deep: A Compendium of Leafeater Lore, Where the Restless Mangroves Roam, or A Brief History of Famous People Eaten by Poison-Tongued Jumping Tortoises (winner of the coveted Arthur P. Pickelheimer Prize for Acrimonious Adverbs). But alas, to no avail. Reader, I humbly lay the dilemma before your feet: Does this molehill, or does it not, contain a giant? The Lyre-That-Never-Lies may have to be consulted.” —Professor Barnabas Quill, Royal Historian of the Island at the Center of Everything “Moles, moles, moles, moles! What a world of merriment their melody unfolds!” —Edgar Allen Poe

Our reading group for Let Justice Roll Down by John Perkins, led by Dr. Steve Guthrie, has begun its third week. All materials for Week 3 are now available, including discussion questions, videos, and articles for further reading. Enrollment is ongoing, so join whenever you like. This week, participants will be reading chapters 15-18 and discussing John Perkins’ interest in economic cooperatives to assist the African American community, the shortage of resources to help Christians apply the gospel to economics, individualism’s erosion of our ability to empathize with others, and much more. Click here to enroll in our Let Justice Roll Down reading group.

I began writing Collect Prayers the second week of March 2020, around the time that the CDC recommended that no more than 50 people gather at a time on account of the coronavirus. At the time, I wrote these prayers in response to specific requests, from both personal friends and strangers on social media, who asked for words that might help them to cope with their fears and to make sense of the senseless. I didn’t imagine that I would keep writing prayers, but new things kept happening that demanded new prayers: a prayer for grocers managing panic-buying shoppers; a prayer for medical professionals overwhelmed by the countless sick; a prayer for anxious children at bedtime. I also wrote a Prayer for Dashed Plans, a Prayer for Driving to Work, a Prayer for Feeling Stressed Out, a Prayer for Untimely Deaths, a Prayer for Geographically Separated Worship and a Prayer for the Pestilence that Stalks in the Dark. I even wrote a Prayer for a Neighbor Behaving Like an Idiot, because I figured we all had a neighbor who fit that description, wherever we may live or whatever our political persuasion. Phaedra and I once again partnered to create a new set of prayer cards (the Psalms Prayer Cards being our first collaboration). Phaedra has contributed a series of original tide-pool watercolor paintings for one side of the card, while I’ve contributed the text for the other side. The prayers include such things as a morning prayer and an evening prayer, a work prayer and a healing prayer, a prayer for the alone and for frustrated relationships, along with prayers for justice, service, community, and mission. Our supremely talented friend Shaun Fox designed the cards and the Rabbit Room has again kindly offered to print and distribute them. Our hope, in the end, is that these prayers might be placed on your refrigerator or bathroom mirror or bedside table or car console as a way to become helpful to you in whatever circumstance of life you may find yourself in and to enable you to feel that God is present to you in these circumstances. Click here to view these new prayer cards in the Rabbit Room Store.

I haven’t kept up with the news for years. Years and years. My long-suffering husband helps by giving me highlights and summaries. He knows that a childhood heavily seasoned with End Times Prophecy and an unfortunate draw toward dystopian fiction sometimes combine with breaking news to send me into an emotional state that closely resembles panic. In the past, I have entered occasionally into a recent story or event. I’ve talked it over with friends and thought about this or that perspective. Then, after days of processing, I’ve taken a step back to remind myself that the world is bigger than the conflict I see in front of me. This year, there’s been no time for processing. The need to care for my children and my community and the desire to engage as a citizen of this country have forced me to keep an eye on current events, but one horror follows so close on the heels of another that I cannot catch my breath. I am daily overwhelmed by shock, fury, and grief. I try to discipline myself, to take the reins of my imagination; I turn to look out the window or whisper a prayer, and sometimes before I’ve completed my exhale, panic is gnawing the edges of my mind. The words of W. B. Yeats rise like specters, and they are no longer poetry but the anthem of a certain doom. “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.” The news cycles, the unfolding lies, the relentless brutality—they spin so fast it seems inevitable that all the bits and pieces of the world I knew will be flung into oblivion. We can’t go on as we have. The center cannot hold. I am frightened. Time and again over these last months, I have asked myself what I should say or do in response to what I see. I’m already afraid of saying the wrong thing, of speaking too soon, of failing to see other perspectives, of attempting to say again what has already been better said. I wonder which is the greater problem: my words or my silence. Things are changing so fast I don’t have time to sit with them and learn from them. Where do I begin when some new thing is perpetually beginning, and it’s big and loud and urgent, and the other thing I was contemplating doesn’t matter anymore? Anyway, what’s the use? My children like to dip their hands and feet in buckets of water and make prints on the wood of the deck. My words are like those prints: distinct for a moment and then gone. Things fall apart while I watch and wonder what to do. I wonder, for example, what Yeats meant when he said, “the centre cannot hold.” What is the center? I’m somewhere in the middle of my life, pulled between one generation and another, often frustrated by extremes at both ends. Behind me is a generation whose parents were traumatized by war, who experienced the horrors of addiction and neglect. I see in them the longing for ideals, for leaders in faith and politics who can be trusted. I respect their determination, but I fear that they have tried to elevate too many things to the level of “center.” A center that includes a spotless American history and an irreproachable structure of human authority cannot hold. But I sense in that generation a terror of the anarchy that might be loosed upon the world. They have seen more of it, perhaps, than I have, and it’s not the kind of thing you forget. On my other hand is a generation who suffers from no illusions. Their perspectives have been shaped by scandals. They have seen the corruption that bred in darkness lanced like boils and exposed to the world. Is there any such thing as integrity? Does anyone tell the truth? Is there any human institution worth saving? I feel their disillusionment, and their refusal to take things at face value is a strength. But I sometimes sense in them a recklessness that would declare there is no center, that the only truth is what each of us in our blindness and desperation wants to believe in this moment. Nihilism has its allure, but I cannot feel at home in such chaos. So I return to myself, somewhere in the middle, and to the question of what I am to do. I have thought many times this year of a book I read in 2018 called The Great Emergence. The author, Phyllis Tickle, suggests that every five hundred years the church goes through a period of transformation. She cites The Great Reformation, The Great Schism, and the emergence of monasticism as support for her argument, and she even points out that every major shift in church history has been accompanied by a plague (!). It was a fascinating little book in 2018. It offered a bird’s-eye view of what might be happening in the world, and it comforted me. It has been a greater comfort in 2020. As ludicrous as it sounds, I feel as if Phyllis Tickle took hold of my hand and did not let go. Her words have been a source of consolation in a season of constant transition and pain. Whatever can be shaken will be shaken, but only because it was never an unshakeable thing to begin with. Stated more plainly, the center will hold. Helena Sorensen This year I’ve been keenly aware of my need for comfort. I have returned to familiar stories in order to experience the comfort of anticipated endings. I have relished the comfort of food, of warmth, of routine. I have ached to be held, to hear a trusted voice murmur words of reassurance while I weep. The truth is, the world is in transition, and it is not a little shift from one year to another or one era to another. It is the transition a woman experiences in childbirth. Transition, in that sense, is a move from the time when you count the minutes between contractions to a time when there are no minutes between contractions, when you run out of chances to breathe, when the birth of something new is close at hand. I have experienced transition twice, and on both occasions I resolved to be brave and calm. I planned to focus my mind and control my emotions. On both occasions, I failed. I panicked. The pain was too big to hold, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. In those moments, what I needed most was a midwife. Her role was minor. She played no part in the conception or growth of my children, and they were born as a result of natural physical processes; but when the crucial moment came, the midwife was there for me. She told me what was happening as it happened. She reminded me that the pain would not last forever. She assured me that what I was experiencing was a normal part of the process of birth. She held my hand while my son and my daughter came into the world. There are as many ways to serve and give and speak and fight and heal and build as there are unique human expressions of God, but, to answer my question, it’s possible that one of my roles is to stand inside the tension, to encourage one generation to let go of anything that is not the center while inspiring another generation to believe there is something worth holding onto. I can remind us all (starting with myself) that there’s no need to worry about unshakeable things. Whatever can be shaken will be shaken, but only because it was never an unshakeable thing to begin with. Stated more plainly, the center will hold. We are receiving a kingdom that cannot be moved. It is held together by a circle of relationship—by Father, Son, and Spirit. The Center is within us, reaching out to everything we encounter. It surrounds us, reaching inward to everything that’s broken. So much is being shaken, and the pains come without pause. It’s a frightening time to be alive, and I know you’re as scared as I am. Take my hand and hold it tight. Something new is being born, and we have reason to hope. The Center will hold. “Our hearts are heavens And our eyes are light-years deep, Sounding Your will, Your peace, in its unbounded fathoms: Oh balance all our turning orbits, till that morning, Upon the center and level of Your holy love: Then lock our souls forever in the nucleus of its Law.” —Thomas Merton

The significant moments of our lives are often etched on more than our calendars. Whether it is the sweet softness of a summer evening that wafts back to us the fragrance of some happy moment in the past, or the chill wind which stings our cheeks like old tears, the seasons give us the sense of where we have been and what we have faced before. Ask anyone who has had to face a significant loss, or had to bear a heavy cross, and part of the patchwork of their experience will be what the weather was doing, how long or short the days were, and how the air felt around them. This is certainly the case for me in Autumn. In October 2004 I lost my father after his year-long battle with cancer. For me, as a 26 year-old, it was the most emotionally difficult and devastating thing I had ever faced. In the seemingly interminable winter that followed, sleep deserted me, and the sweetest experiences of life held a bitter tang. We endured all of “the firsts” (birthdays, Christmas, etc.) but what shocked me most was the sense of replay that the following October carried. The scent of bonfire in the air, the placid cold of early autumn, the scoured and beautiful landscapes without the softening influence of summer, all welcomed me back to the world in which my heart had been broken. Coming back into October in 2005 was like revisiting the set of a play after all of the actors had gone home, having the leisure to peruse the props and the positions which had fuelled the drama. In some ways this was not an entirely unwelcome experience. Many of my friends and some of my wider family had stopped talking about our loss, and much of the world in which I moved seemed to have reset itself in the wake of bereavement. There was a pointedness and poignancy about the course of the year returning, but there was also a sense of pastoral help. A second October in the wake of loss reminded me that the Winter I had to walk through again would reach the Spring, and that all was not truly lost. We can choose in these experiences both to wrestle with the reminder the season brings and find gratitude in the gracious un-forgetting of the natural world, in its sympathy and solace and solidarity with where we once were. Andrew Roycroft Some who are reading this will have their own seasonal elegy—physical realities which confront us with what we have faced, and console us that we are walking through it. Perhaps the summer warmth was once contrasted with the chill of loss, or the drop in the autumn evenings brings again the fevered sense of some grief which once gripped your heart. We can choose in these experiences both to wrestle with the reminder the season brings and find gratitude in the gracious un-forgetting of the natural world, in its sympathy and solace and solidarity with where we once were. In the poem which follows I seek to locate this experience personally, and then to elevate it pastorally, so that the “shucking” of Autumn gives a pledge that Spring will return. This is something which is instinctive to a Christian view of the calendar, where our cardinal truths are often combined with annual feasts which tap out the code of hope and joy, even in the darkness, even in the rise and fall of human emotions. I have tried to engrave the grief of that first October with the signature of God’s grace, and the promise of the Resurrection. Autumn Elegy On these dark October dawns within doors the clicking house rests down on its pipes and sings its heat. We rise in shambled ennui, set about the sacraments of daily bread, watchful for the coming Fall, the new crisp russet carpet, the scarce bearded scrub of lawn, tricked once again back into green. My father died on such a day, mid-month in the middling month, at home, and now each early autumn reads his elegy, briefs and keeps abreast all to whom he lived, that he is gone. This season is a shucking off, a refutation of bold bulbed halcyon days, uncynical. The mere fact of death drifts down, frames our path in shades that dapple sun for now, but later shrouds our walks in ash, beech, skeleton leaves. In the hours after his death we dismantled effects, stripped down his hospital bed, lowering its frame into vacant space of tool-tidy garage, left his room branch bare, until the chestnut coffin took his place; nethered unto the silver trestle, the plumb weight of his absence bore witness in Sunday best, uncanny, like maple crimson, all blushed with vital youth, though dead. And lowered again, in clipped burial ground, love’s pulley sinking further down and down, tension of straps and gravediggers’ arms, hearts heaving heaven, though months out from Spring.

Today I am sitting with the cosmos. It is the eve of their impending demise and we have much to catch up on before they slip away. For months, I have been watchful of their progress. After a few moments of greeting pleasantries, I ask them how they have been and then listen quietly as they begin. They say it has been a lovely summer and they have many things to share with me. They tell me how the breeze has been particularly kind to them this morning. And so they gently sway in thankful appreciation. They tell me of how the sun has been leaning down to kiss their face. And so they use their petals to reflect its radiant warm love. They tell me of the months filled with visiting bees, who have brought them gifts of pollen, helping them be more abundant than they could be on their own. And so they open wide their blossoms to share their pollen and help others bloom as well. They tell me how the soil has cared for their physical needs, giving them just the right nutrients. And so they stand strongly rooted, in an interlacing of hands holding fast to their faithful provider. They tell me of the rain and dew bringing them drink when they are thirsty. And so they stretch their tendril fingers upward in a stance ready to receive. And then they whisper thank you to me, their gardener, for planting them. I sit quietly in this honor of thankfulness they have bestowed on me. I sat with them today in hopes that our conversation and pleasantries will help them go gently. They do not know that today is their last. Tonight while they are sleeping, I know the killer comes! She will rake her icy jagged hand across them and they will be no more. Cosmos are annual flowers, not perennials, so they will not return. This season, and it alone, is the time that they have been given. I hope that when my final day comes, I can be as the cosmos. That when the killer finds me, her icy hand would be left scarred by the strike. That the warmth of my appreciation, my reflection of love, my willingness to share to help others grow, and my strong rootedness to my provider would leave the killer damaged for her transaction! And as I breathe my last, may that breath find me with fingers reaching upward in a stance ready to receive as I thank my Gardener for planting me. I continue to sit in this sacred silence, watching them wave in the wind. They are no better off for this conversation. They are cosmos, and just by being cosmos they are honoring their gardener. Yet I am better for this exchange. Whenever that day comes, may it find me like the cosmos.

The Habit Podcast is a series of conversations with writers about writing, hosted by Jonathan Rogers. This week, Jonathan Rogers talks with Dane Ortlund, former Senior Vice President of Bible Publishing at Crossway and current Senior Pastor of Naperville Presbyterian Church near Chicago. Jonathan Rogers and Dane Ortlund discuss the simultaneous necessity and insufficiency of theological correctness, the recovery of beauty as a meaningful philosophical category, and sanctification as the ongoing renewal of surprise. Click here to listen to Season 2, Episode 44 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.

Almighty God who has given us an abundance of good things, has set our feet about these boundaried shores, and has called us to give an account for the work of our hands, we ask your blessings upon this Election Day. Forgive us for thinking your love is a zero-sum equation in which we are held harmless in loving only those who think, speak, and vote like us. Forgive us for refusing to let go of the hopelessness found in cold hypocrisies and bold untruths. Forgive us for painting in the light of partisanship and fear your call to love all your children. Forgive us for tending poorly to one another, separating one from the other, and dividing prematurely those worthy and those lost. Give hope to us, oh Lord, that these days are not unknown to you. As we powerfully proclaim that you are not a God of darkness and chaos, let us with steadfast hearts participate in this beautiful exercise of democracy. Give love to us, oh Lord, as we deepen our need to love one another. Remind us that you, not our candidates, are the fount of all holiness. Let us recall with humility our own sins as we remember that all are welcome at your table. Open our hearts to new days, new leadership, and new ideas as we pray for those who will begin the work of directing this country. Give courage to us, oh Lord, as we act with scrutiny of word and deed toward those whose names are listed on our ballots, heard in our conversations, and spoken in our homes. Guide us as we separate what is good, beautiful, and true from the rubbish and noise of all that inevitably will come. Ignite in us the holy desire to carry out your work regardless of the outcome of this day. Give us mercy, oh Lord, to lose with dignity and win with compassion, remembering that all those on the ballot were made in your image. Let us rise again tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow with an urgency to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, bury the dead, shelter the traveler, comfort the sick, and set the captive free. Lord, hear the prayers of all those gathered in voting booths, in precincts, in campaign rallies, and those huddled around computer screens. Hear the prayers of your children who raise their hands with confidence just as you continue to hear the prayers of those whose hands will always tremble in silence. See in us, Holy Father, what you love in your Son as we offer great thanks that our citizenship in Heaven will never rest upon our political allegiances, but on the sacrifice of the Cross. Remind us of the promise of your salvation as you bestow upon this land your protection and your guidance. We give you this day, and every day, to shelter and bless this country we love. Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, hear our prayer. Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, hold our beloved states. Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, grant us peace. This liturgy was originally published on the Rabbit Room blog on November 8, 2016. #AEGraham #election #liturgy

I had the privilege of talking with Wayne Brezinka, one of my favorite Nashville artists, about his current project: 2020 Disrupted. In addition to being a delightful and thoughtful interview, it was Wayne’s very first Zoom experience! After much laughter and figuring out which buttons do what, we settled in for a chat. Tell me about your project. You’re feeling the weight of it. How long have you been working on it? The sketch and the idea came to me about six years ago. I was sitting in the service at our church, and the pastor was talking about Job. I’m so conceptual and visual that I began to wonder what Job might look like in our context, and I kind of tucked that idea away. When my father-in-law came to visit about a year later, I shared my vision and asked if he’d be my model. He said, “Sure, what do you want me to do?” He’s very up for anything. He’s in his late 70s. I hand him a pair of Nike shorts and say “Here, put these on.” And he’s like “Great!” So he took everything off and then sat on this chair in my living room and I photographed him, sitting on the floor, because I wanted to capture this figure with some scale, from the ground up. I sketched him out shortly after that. I took his photographs, compiled them together, taking what I felt were the most vulnerable shots.  He was great. I had him lean on a broomstick, I had him look up desperately, I had him be angry at the sky and stuff. I combed through those images and I picked the ones that I felt might translate well and convey this idea. And then it sat. For five years. When the pandemic hit in March, and everything shut down, the idea came back… 2020… Job, pulled out of ancient texts, plopped into current circumstances. Modern Day Job, as a springboard. My vision is to use the story of Job, of loss and sorrow and pain, to capture what people are feeling, to give a visual landing point to this year. I’ve followed your work for years… Johnny Cash, Mr. Rogers, birds, magazine and newspaper illustrations. I’ve never seen you do a Kickstarter. What led you down this path? With most of my work, I just create. I’m inspired and so I do it. Creative people, during this pandemic, have really had to pivot and struggle well at figuring out how to pay their bills and still do what they do best. I fall in that category. My wife said to me, “We can’t spend any more of our own money on this project. You’ve got to do something different.” So I turned to Kickstarter. I’ve never done Kickstarter before. Before I dove off that cliff, I called people. I called Andy Gullahorn, Matthew Perryman Jones, Steve Taylor, and several other of my artist friends who have done these things and been successful. I asked them what to do, what makes it good, how do you navigate these waters… you know, everybody had their own nuggets of truth. It has scared the shit out of me. I describe myself as running off a cliff. I’ve lived on the cliff for years, like a bird with its mouth open. But now I ran off the cliff, and I’m still going, “Hey!” (gestures with hands out like he’s begging for food) There’s this figure in front of me, this dollar figure, and it’s really jacking with my serenity. But there’s this quiet voice I hear that says, “Trust me.  Trust me.” I don’t know how it’s going to work. I don’t know if it’s going to work. And if it does—that’s great. If it doesn’t—there’s another plan. I keep coming back to this, “Trust me. Trust me.” I mean, to be uncomfortable is what you want, right? If you’re not uncomfortable, then you’re not growing and you’re not moving forward. And sometimes it hurts, really horribly. This week’s been really difficult. I hit a wall on Monday. I was in tears. The forecast on Wednesday, here in Nashville, was beautiful and I thought, “I’ve gotta take the day off and go to my sacred creek.” So I asked Matthew Perryman Jones to go and we just hung out at the creek, put our feet in the water. I swam, we built a fire. It’s where I’ve found God this year, in a way that I’ve never really experienced before. I guess by making a modern day, 2020 Job, maybe I’m inviting people to feel their sorrow and their grief. I don’t think that we, in western culture—in the United States—do that very well. When people are invited to feel and grieve and lament, that creates a space for something bigger to come in, something more beautiful. We hold onto these things—I’ve held onto these things for years, you know—but letting them out, and being seen by others, by your friends or your family or your loved ones, and your witnessing their grieving—the communal aspect of it—is important. That’s what this project is about: grieving. It’s an invitation to people to consider—what is it that’s been so difficult for me this year? It doesn’t matter what side of the aisle you’re on. It’s not about political stuff at all. You can’t look at 2020 and say that it hasn’t been difficult. It’s been hard. So that’s my vision, my hope—that it would stir people. Once it’s created and built, I get such joy from getting out of the way. My hope is to have a parking lot tour with this thing in a glass truck and let people come up to it and let it speak to them. Have you seen this? Yes! I’ve seen it several times, on your Facebook and Kickstarter. It’s so evocative. The look on his face is what I love—he looks vulnerable, desperate in a way, helpless. There’s a power to it. Wayne, will you talk to us about what you’ve used to make him? One of the things I love about your pieces is how much you incorporate into them. Yeah, so, what you’re seeing right now I call a prototype. One of the things I realized, as I was laying out this campaign, is that people aren’t going to grasp my vision with a pencil sketch. I needed to build a prototype. So I started to build parts of it. I work with cardboard…you can see cereal boxes, foam core. How do you modernize Job? His skin color is dark toned, which it would have been and I wanted it to be. You know, we don’t need anymore elevated white men. And the ear buds—I found those important. Everybody has those and tattoos, in 2020. His hair is made out of farm rope, which I soak in water and then pull apart and paint. It’s simple, but it works. You can kind of see some newsprint. There will be more added… he’s in the very beginning stages. You referenced him as a prototype. Will you actually use this head in your piece? I think so. It came together so beautifully one Sunday afternoon… why change it? Why not just use it, and the energy that’s in it? So, I probably will. I’ll add to him, though. What about the hand that I’ve seen? I believe it’s holding something? Yeah, right now it’s holding a measuring tape. It’s a broom handle, or it’s going to be. I’m debating about whether to put an actual broom handle on top. Again, modern day, right? What would he be hanging on to? Not a stick. It’d be something from the garbage heap, like a broom handle. There’s also this little ray of hope, this blue bird, which I think represents hope. It’s made out of cardboard and foam board; you can see the cereal boxes. This is the little ray of hope that would be on his broom handle. It feels like you are in a waiting period. You’ve started your Kickstarter, you’ve got your prototypes, you’re waiting and hoping for it to be funded so you can pull the trigger…what are you doing while you wait? Ugh. Marketing. I get up, and I think about who I can reach out to, who I can call, to bring them to the site and hopefully get them to contribute. That’s consuming a lot of energy that I don’t like. Another aspect is asking for help. It’s hard for people to ask for help. It’s hard for me to ask for help, you know? So I’m like this, right? (mimes holding up his hands like he’s begging for food) That’s how I spend my days. You said that one of your goals for this piece was for people to get to feel their grief. It sounds like you’re kind of paving the way. Yeah. Yeah, I think you’re right. You know, a friend of mine said that I’m carrying the weight and the grief of a lot of people. I feel like I just want to make this piece to get it out of me, but instead I’m in this waiting period. Waiting for this thing to succeed—but it may not succeed. I hate to even say that, but it’s a reality. But I can’t stop moving towards that goal, and doing what I can do to reach it. It’s tiring. You know? You’re having to spend your time in something that’s not your first love. You’re having to spend your time with all your energy invested into marketing. You’re a creator, not a marketer. No offense! Your marketing material is fantastic. The video on your Kickstarter is so good. That’s thanks to Drew Darby! Drew’s a filmmaker out of Philadelphia and he is a wonder boy. He’s 24. He did that video for me and I couldn’t be happier. I noticed one thing in your plans for this piece that is different than what I’ve seen in your previous pieces—there’s an integration of technology. Tell me about that. It initially started with ancient texts, pulled out and plopped into real time. How are we living? We’re living like this, on Zoom meetings and phone meetings and computers. That was definitely something I wanted in this piece. So how do you incorporate it? There are going to be two or three computer screens, iPhones, put in the trash heap. They will be looping submitted photographs from the public who want to be a part of this piece.  That doesn’t cost anything to submit. Anyone who has a photograph or a story can go to my website and just submit to me and that will be a part of this loop. Now, if you want to contribute a physical item—that’s part of the rewards on Kickstarter. When you get to certain reward levels, then you can send in a piece. The photographs and the technology, I think, will be really powerful to see. I mean, what has this looked like for you, for the public? Is it your family? Your spouse? Your kids? Coworkers? Trips you’ve taken in the woods? It could be anything. I’m excited about that, and I hope that it takes off. I hope that people participate and send in their images. Is there anything else that you want to tell people? Or anything that you want people to hear from you before your piece gets made? Yeah, I’m really curious what has been one of the most—if not the most—disruptive moments for people. That’s a question that I ask on the Kickstarter and on my website. What, for you personally, has been the most disruptive thing this year? Some of the emails that I’ve received have blown me away. People are sharing that they feel lost and sad and lonely. That they don’t have a car. Kim Fisher shared that, “I’m deaf. I read lips. I can’t hear you.” This is what’s on her mask. That just blew my mind. She said that her world begins to feel smaller and smaller each day because of the masks. My friend, Dan, sent me a picture of himself in tears the day his Covid hit. He was afraid that he was going to die. He couldn’t breathe. He was afraid to go to sleep. So this is what’s been coming into my inbox. That’s what I’m interested in from the public. I want to hear from them, I want to hear from people—what is your story? What has been difficult for you? That’s been very affirming, because it tells me that this piece is connecting with the public. It’s a landing point, an opportunity for people to move into their own inner landscape. It’s terrifying, sometimes, to go inward. I want to invite people, to show them it’s okay to follow your fears. On the other side, there’s going to be a beautiful opening, a beautiful space that will be filled with something better. How are you feeling about the items you’ve gotten?  I’m picturing you trying to wade through your studio, with all the things that people are sending to you. Does it feel overwhelming? Well, I’m excited about it. I have not received a lot. When people contribute on the campaign, they’ll have the opportunity to send me their items on the back end. I don’t know what’s coming yet. I’m excited. I have received a pair of crutches from a doctor who fractured his hip. He slipped on his bike. That was a big disruption for him. Let’s see, what else… oh! Another friend of mine is an ER doctor, and he sent me a set of sutures… Is that what is stabbing Job?  I’ve seen in your sketches that there’s a pair of scissors.  That’s the part that gives me the heebie jeebies. That’s a good point that you bring up! It’s a pivot for me. You know, most of my work has been wholesome and pretty. And now I’ve got screwdrivers and knives in a body. These sharp objects are representative of today. I’ve been nervous about how that would be received. You are not the first to bring up that it’s difficult to look at. It is. It’s hard to look at. 2020 is hard to look at. Grief is hard to look at. Yeah. Grief is hard to look at. And then I think, you know, if we’re going to be honest about the Gospel… Jesus hanging on a cross is graphic. Hard to look at. So I go, “yeah, Wayne—keep moving.” I feel this voice, “Keep moving forward.” It’s hard. But it’s gonna take one of these things for people to go “ohhhh.” And then they’re either going to move away from it, because they are so uncomfortable, or they’re going to move forward and go, “Ohh I don’t like this, but what is this telling me?” And be drawn in to it. Which is another really great response. Yes! So when I sit with it long enough to realize that it’s graphic…but that’s okay… then I go, “This is what I want!” I want to stir people, you know, so I’m excited about that direction of the work and where my work will go after this. I’ve thought about exploring darker elements of… perhaps the Gospel… or just life in general, that are important and move me. Artists create work that tend to bring up things in their own lives, and ultimately open the door for other people. And click here to see more of his work.

Through language we are able to create realities. We do it every day. Persuading, encouraging, fear-mongering, story-telling, teaching, selling, insulting, begging—these are just a small sampling of the ways we create and/or rearrange inward realities in other people. The Puritan John Flavel (quoted in Marilynne Robinson’s What Are We Doing Here) had this to say on the subject: Other creatures have apt and elegant organs: birds can modulate the air, and form it into sweet, delicious notes and charming sounds; but no creature, except man, whose soul is of an heavenly nature and extraction, can articulate the sound, and form it into words, by which the notions and sentiments of the soul are in a noble, apt, and expeditious manner conveyed to the understanding of another soul. —John Flavel It truly is a remarkable thing that by moving air through your larynx and simultaneously moving your mouth and tongue around, or by making marks on a page, you can manipulate the movements of a human soul. It’s not a thing to be taken lightly. What’s more, to change inward realities is also to change outward realities. Persuasion elects leaders, creates laws, preserves peace, starts wars. Persuasion builds interstates, bridges, prisons, parks. Persuasion builds whole societies and cultures. And yet… While it is true that we can create realities through language, we can’t create reality. Reality is given, not made with human hands or human voices or human consensus. And reality always has the last word with the sub-realities we make for ourselves. As I have said before, reality is that which continues to exist whether you believe in it or not. Believe in gravity or don’t believe in it. Either way, if you jump out a window, you’ll fall to the ground. Reason, according to Thomas Aquinas, is a “regard for and openness to reality,” an “acceptance” of reality. This idea is very closely related to the ancient idea of prudence, the first of the four cardinal virtues. There are ways, of course, to bend or twist reality for our own purposes—at least until reality snaps back on us. And it always does. That snap-back is sometimes referred to as karma. You can use that word if you want to, but I’m going to call it the coming of the Kingdom of God. Every time reality asserts itself against the status quo, it gives us a preview of the day when reality is all there is. Lord, haste the day. If prudence or reason is a willingness to align oneself with reality, cunning is the attempt to align reality with oneself. Jonathan Rogers But I digress. If prudence or reason is a willingness to align oneself with reality, cunning is the attempt to align reality with oneself. Josef Pieper defines cunning as “the insidious and unobjective temperament of the intriguer who has regard only for ‘tactics,’ who can neither face things squarely nor act straightforwardly.” In our public discourse I see a lot of cunning people who show no regard for reality, who seem to believe that no falsehood is too egregious if it serves their purposes. The ends justify the means, as the old saying goes. But I feel compelled to point out that if justification is what you’re after, political ends aren’t going to do it for you. My fellow Americans, as the 2020 election approaches, let us throw off cunning. Most of us aren’t very good at it anyway, and trying to be cunning only leaves us at the mercy of those who actually are. And while we are at it, let’s also throw off cynicism. I will admit that cynicism has its pleasures, but they are pleasures more appropriate to sophomores than to mature adults like us. Cynicism, like conspiracy theory, is just oversimplification posing as sophistication. In place of cunning and cynicism, let us embrace prudence. In the coming weeks, you will have many opportunities to use your voice to create new realities—to argue, to express your opinion, perhaps even to persuade. Will you use your creative powers to help others (and yourself) come into closer alignment with reality? We won’t all agree on the nature of reality. Reality is exceedingly complex, and self-interest inclines me to ignore the parts of it that don’t jive with my notions of how the world would work best for me. Even so, an openness to a reality that exceeds and supersedes self-interest is an excellent place to start. Every day you wake up in a world that you didn’t make. Rejoice and be glad. This piece was originally shared in Jonathan’s weekly Habit Newsletter. If you’d like your own inbox to be graced with such insight—and with staggering frequency, at that—you can sign up for it by clicking here.

Wherein Pete Peterson reads his ghost story “A Shade of Yellow,” Zach & Maggie treat us to a special Halloween song, and we are visited by Drew’s evil twin. “A Shade of Yellow” first made its appearance on the Rabbit Room blog back in 2012. In it, you’ll hear the narrator slowly re-assemble the pieces of a past tragedy, only to find that reality was much different than he had long supposed. Click here to listen to “Halloween Edition: A Shade of Yellow.” And click here to subscribe on Apple Podcasts and here to subscribe on Spotify. Transcripts are available for The Molehill Podcast. Click here to view them. Artwork by the inimitable Stephen Crotts Words of Befuddlement graphic by Mindy Cook Original Molehill Podcast theme music by Zach & Maggie Other music featured in this episode: “Sitting Still” by Thad Kopec “By the Grave” by Anton Belov “Observance” by Adam Bokesch “Opaque” by Luke Atencio “Come Love, See My Hands” by Brooke Waggoner “Double Grave” by Zach & Maggie

As the pandemic has made us painfully aware, women are often the first to give up. We give up our jobs to take care of the children, after first giving up our bodies to bring them into the world. We give up our needs to make sure that others’ are met. In many contexts, this means we lose our time or our money (or the possibility of making money), but what about the context of worship music? Women are worship leaders and musicians, songwriters and lyricists, but when we give up our places in the church to serve other needs, we give up our very voices. But the church and the world need our voices. Cardiphonia Music has been aware of this for some time; they’d been asking women to contribute to their liturgical music compilations, but finding that women just didn’t participate. This summer, they launched an album project designed to correct the problem. They asked Rachel Wilhelm to produce an album of songs by women, centered on the theme of lament. Rachel helps lead the Liturgy Fellowship Group (a collection of pastors and worship leaders) and leads the Women Church Musicians Group, both on Facebook. Even before she started asking women to contribute songs to the album, she knew that many of these women, who serve as worship leaders in their congregations, lacked the recording equipment and studio time that their male counterparts have as part of the job. Many of these women had given up time, equipment, and extras, so as not to “burden” their congregations or seem to ask for too much. How, then, could they contribute recordings to an album without the resources to record? In a crumbling world of disconnection, Daughter Zion's Woe was a coming together; it was taking each other's hands across great distances and raising them to God in supplication. Kate Bluett Rachel had been in exactly that position before, and was well equipped to come up with a solution: Facebook itself. For all its ills, it was connecting women to each other as worship leaders; why couldn’t it connect women to recording opportunities, too? Using the connections of the Liturgy Fellowship Group, Rachel asked for volunteers to help produce, engineer, and mix tracks remotely, allowing women to be heard in their music. The response was overwhelming, and Rachel matched artists to engineers all over the country—as well as Canada and England! She coordinated pairings by phone, coached artists and writers long-distance, and even worked out guest musicians on each other’s tracks. The result is the new Cardiphonia album, Daughter Zion’s Woe. Born of the circumstances of 2020, and responding deeply to a world in agony, Daughter Zion’s Woe is a cri de coeur from voices the world needs to hear. It’s also, though, a love song to that same tortured world. Its creation, in Rachel’s words, consisted of “the Body of Christ in action”: “Men helping women. Women helping women. Friends helping friends. Strangers helping strangers! A real labor of love.” The only thing this world needs more is Christ himself, and the songs plead with Christ for the world. As musical duo Sister Sinjin describe their contribution, “Silence,” this way: “We do not take our sackcloth and sadness to the corner for a pity party, we sing from the hilltops and through the valleys because only by acknowledging what is wrong can it begin to be made right. Lament is not bitter acceptance, it is protest.” These songs are begging for healing for the whole world. Artist Keisha Valentina found healing in the process of writing her lament, “Sing Away the Dark”: This song was brought forth out of the depths of a troubled soul on raging seas. Having struggled with debilitating anxiety since childhood and wrestling through hard things the last several years, I didn’t think I could write a single note when Rachel approached me with the project. Her response to my concerns was to “take all those anxious thoughts and turn them into something beautiful.” That resonated with me and reminded me of why I began to write music in the first place. It’s always been a place of comfort for me. Where I see God. The minute I begin to worship the anxiety flees and my soul is at rest. That is why music means so very much to me. Why I can’t write about anything other than the God who saves. Because He has saved this weary, restless, tired soul time and time again. Amy Carmichael once said, “I believe truly that Satan cannot endure it and so slips out of the room more or less —when there is a true song.” So with trembling voice this song was brought forth. Just another weary soul standing alongside generations of others. Proclaiming the goodness of a God through the mess trying to create something beautiful. —Keisha Valentina, on the writing process for her song “Sing Away the Dark” Even women who aren’t worship leaders are represented on Daughter Zion’s Woe. I’m a stay-at-home mom who homeschools her two children and writes hymns and lyrics when they are occupied. I don’t lead music; I make lunches. But I’ve had the privilege of collaborating with Rachel on a number of songs. When she asked me for a lyric of lament—something simple and soulful—I was happy to oblige. Her email got tangled up in my head with a description I’d just read by Frederick Douglass of enslaved people walking through the woods and singing their woes to God. I wrote something that, in my head, sounded like the wailing of women in a world without justice. I’m no worship leader, but even I, in my suburban existence living with white skin in 2020s America, have to grapple with the systemic injustices of the world in which George Floyd isn’t breathing any more. Karin Simmons and Rachel Wilhelm wrote an equally wailing tune, and Rachel sings it over Jered McKenna‘s instrumentation. The result is something I’m proud to have the world hear. But if it weren’t for people coming together in charity, unity, and solidarity during a global pandemic, no one would be hearing it. In a crumbling world of disconnection, Daughter Zion’s Woe was a coming together; it was taking each other’s hands across great distances and raising them to God in supplication. It was community and prayer, and we needed it. Click here to stream and download Daughter Zion’s Woe on Bandcamp.

The art of theater is inherently transient—a well-rehearsed play is an enormous labor, only to be enjoyed a handful of times by a handful of audiences. A. S. Peterson’s adaptation of Frankenstein was a tremendous gift to all who were able to see it live. For everyone else, it has been confined to a printed script. Until now! We at the Rabbit Room are so glad to announce—just in time for Halloween—a special audio performance of the play, now available in audiobook form. And you can hear a ten-minute preview here in this blog post. This excerpt is taken from Act 1, Scene 9. As you can hear, this is not merely a group of actors reading their lines in front of microphones—it’s an entire atmosphere of sounds carefully produced to bring you directly into the story. Click here to purchase an audiobook CD of Frankenstein in the Rabbit Room Store. Click here to download Frankenstein on Audible. And click here to view the stage adaptation in printed form in the Rabbit Room Store.

We’re excited to share with you today a new liturgy from Every Moment Holy, Vol. 2: Death, Grief, and Hope, which releases on February 19th, 2021. At this point of the year, this particular liturgy feels especially appropriate. We hope you find hope and comfort in it. Before we get to the liturgy, a special announcement: There is now an audiobook for Every Moment Holy, Vol. 1, featuring readings by Fernando Ortega and Rebecca Reynolds. Click here to view the audiobook on Amazon. A Liturgy for Embracing Both Joy & Sorrow Do not be distant, O Lord, lest I find this burden of loss too heavy, and shrink from the necessary experience of my grief. Do not be distant, O Lord, lest I become so mired in yesterday’s hurts, that I miss entirely the living gifts this day might hold. Let me neither ignore my pain, pretending all is okay when it isn’t, nor coddle and magnify my pain, so that I dull my capacity to experience all that remains good in this life. For joy that denies sorrow is neither hard-won, nor true, nor eternal. It is not real joy at all. And sorrow that refuses to make space for the return of joy and hope, in the end becomes nothing more than a temple for the worship of my own woundedness. So give me strength, O God, to feel this grief deeply, never to hide my heart from it. And give me also hope enough to remain open to surprising encounters with joy, as one on a woodland path might stumble suddenly into dapplings of golden light. Amidst the pain that lades these days, give me courage, O Lord; courage to live them fully, to love and to allow myself to be loved, to remember, grieve, and honor what was, to live with thanksgiving in what is, and to invest in the hope of what will be. Be at work gilding these long heartbreaks with the advent of new joys, good friendships, true fellowships, unexpected delights. Remind me again and again of your goodness, your presence, your promises. For this is who we are: a people of The Promise—a people shaped in the image of God whose very being generates all joy in the universe, yet who also weeps and grieves its brokenness. So we, your children, are also at liberty to lament our losses, even as we simultaneously rejoice in the hope of their coming restoration. Let me learn now, O Lord, to do this as naturally as the inhale and exhale of a single breath: To breathe out sorrow, to breathe in joy. To breathe out lament, to breathe in hope. To breathe out pain, to breathe in comfort. To breathe out sorrow, To breathe in joy. In one hand I grasp the burden of my grief, while with the other I reach for the hope of grief’s redemption. And here, between the tension of the two, between what was and what will be, in the very is of now, let my heart be surprised by, shaped by, warmed by, remade by, the same joy that forever wells within and radiates from your heart, O God. Amen.

The Habit Podcast is a series of conversations with writers about writing, hosted by Jonathan Rogers. This week, Jonathan Rogers talks with Andrew T. Le Peau, former Associate Publisher at InterVarsity Press and author of Write Better: A Lifelong Editor on Craft, Art, and Spirituality. Jonathan Rogers and Andrew T. Le Peau discuss the simple power of physical exercise to generate creative ideas, what Andrew has learned as an editor about what gets in the way of the writer’s voice, and the constructive tension between Jonathan’s emphasis on self-forgetfulness in writing and Andrew’s claim that all writing is autobiographical. Click here to listen to Season 2, Episode 43 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.

A common shadowy thought lurks in the depths of many songwriters’ minds, surfacing without warning. What if I never write a good song again? Like an unwelcome houseguest, this question often hijacks your most innocuous moments—brushing your teeth at the bathroom sink, frying an egg, driving to meet a friend for coffee—and then hangs around your life for an indefinite stretch of time. Later, returning to pen and paper, you find the thought still present, watching you from across the room. I became especially acquainted with this reality after releasing my album River House in the fall of 2017. The album was in many ways a debut, my first full length project and the first thing in my life I felt unbelievably proud of. The songs had poured out of me in the span of a year, like casting a net I pulled up full every time. I didn’t fuss much with anything or edit any lyrics. There was an ease about the whole project and for the next two years as I toured the record and shared those songs, I felt them finding a home with people. I knew the work I’d done was good, that I wanted to keep going, yet at the same time, I felt a fear growing somewhere deep —what if the well is empty? A year or two passed and as many artists naturally do, I felt myself itching to start another project, to say something new. But instead of a pile of songs, I had only one I was sure of and maybe 17 half-ideas in my Notes folder. So I got to writing, and, well, I hit a lot of dead ends. The last record had come so easily, but now the words seemed to fight me on the page. My inspiration deflated. The fear of not being able to write something good and true fully presided over my creative space, to the point that I would often feel I didn’t want to write anything. I majorly doubted I had a second album in me. Then, two Januaries ago, I wrote a song. I had been looking for new songs the same way I’d found the old ones, wanting to feel the old magic, but the new songs weren’t back there. I had to find another way in. Taylor Leonhardt It started with trying to learn keys. I kept playing this one piano riff that felt like a mix between a gospel hymn and a Ray LaMontagne tune. And I sang out a line, “I will not hang my head, his banner is over me,” and I knew I had to keep going. I had been reading this poem by Teilhard De Chardin, the Ignatian priest, that begins with “Above all, trust in the slow work of God.” It was the dead of winter then, and I was seeing in the woods behind my neighborhood the evidence all around of how much growth happens in the hidden places, deep underground. I had a sense that I was meant to learn what that slow work is. “He said I am his poetry, he won’t waste a word,” I wrote, and that chorus felt like a sign I had found my next direction. I had a feeling there was a reason these songs wouldn’t come fast. In fact, they would need some great patience, intentional waiting, slow trust. This has been the hardest thing I’ve had to learn so far—how to unearth the song, how to push through the resistance that meets me whenever my aim is to make something beautiful. I remember the scene from Prince Caspian, when Aslan tells Lucy “things never happen the same way twice.” I had been looking for new songs the same way I’d found the old ones, wanting to feel the old magic, but the new songs weren’t back there. I had to find another way in. It’s been a beautiful thing to learn to fight for the good songs. To find the voice that comes from listening. To trust that the well won’t run out, but I may have to dig deeper. I’ve had to hold some things really precious and let other things go. I’ve had to invite collaborators into my writing room. I’ve had to get better at editing and rewriting song sections. I’ve taken myself on lots of long walks. I learned to ask for help. When I feel the familiar shadow of the unforgiving inner critic watching over my shoulder, I’m learning to usher it out the door. There’s more room in this house without it, room for all kinds of songs. “Only God could say what this new spirit forming within you will be,” Teilhard de Chardin continued. I see now what wondrous things are growing when you think nothing is. I know what a lyric and a melody can show you if you’re patient enough to let them. And click here to listen to Taylor’s episode of The Second Muse, where she and her producer, Lucas Morton, share about the process of making this record and go into depth on the song “Hold Still.”