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The Thomas McKenzie Film Series is the Rabbit Room’s ongoing film screening and discussion series at North Wind Manor, named in honor of our friend and fellow film enthusiast, Father Thomas McKenzie. To kick off the Film Series, the Rabbit Room is hosting at North Wind Manor a screening of Taste and See, a documentary project currently in production that explores the spirituality of food with farmers, chefs, bakers and winemakers engaging with food as a profound gift from God. Their lives in the fields, in the kitchen and around the table serve as a meditation on the beauty, mystery and wonder to be found in every meal. Join this special Sneak Peek of the series that follows a woman grappling with the sudden death of her mother by holding tightly to the ritual of weekly family dinners. Raised as a Christian, but hungry to reconnect with her mother’s Jewish heritage, she joins a Jewish farming community. There she discovers Judaism as an embodied faith rooted in the land and centered around the same life-giving table. A Q&A with Director Andrew Brumme will follow. Snacks shall abound! When: March 18, 2021, 7:00pm CST Where: North Wind Manor, 3321 Stephens Hill Lane, Antioch, TN, 37013 Click here to reserve your free tickets. And click here to visit the Taste and See website.

Hutchmoot is returning to its traditional form this year, and we’re thrilled to be able to offer again a tangible gathering point around art and faith. It’s the sort of unique experience that can only be cultivated in person, where space and food are shared, faces are remembered, and friendships are deepened. Those who held onto their tickets for Hutchmoot 2020 (and endured the disappointment of cancellation these past two years) will be able to use their tickets for Hutchmoot this year! Your tickets will be re-issued for 2022, so keep an eye on your email for that and other information. It was an absolute blessing (and something of a miracle) that we were able to pull Hutchmoot: Homebound together these last two years, and we’re grateful to have had the chance to throw wide the doors. The many conversations we’ve had with folks who would never have been able to attend Hutchmoot in person—whether for reasons of time, health, finances, distance, limited tickets, or other constraints—made us thankful for that unique chance to expand the table. We watched God turn an emergency into a gift, and all we learned from building and running Homebound has inspired us with new ways to continue offering that inclusion going forward. Homebound won’t be happening this year, or for the foreseeable future. We didn’t come to this decision lightly but seriously considered all of our possible options going forward—from doing both conferences, to alternating years, to different combinations of both—because we love and want to serve the large community we’ve encountered who can’t attend Hutchmoot in person. If you’re grieving the end of Homebound because it was your first chance to get a taste of Hutchmoot, you are seen. But don’t despair. Homebound taught us a lot, and we’re taking what we learned and putting it into the development of new ways to present content and interaction. We believe the lessons we’ve taken away from Homebound are going to serve the entire breadth of the Rabbit Room audience for years to come. We can’t share the specifics yet, but we’ve been hard at work designing and developing something beautiful, interactive, fun, and intentional—and we’re excited to share it with you when it’s ready. In the meantime, we trust that Homebound has inspired you to nourish your unique community, enabling you to bolster one another and reflect the Kingdom through friendship, art, and beauty. Remember that there are other gatherings with kindred organizations across the US, like the Anselm Society and Square Halo Books who are about the same work—as well as regional “moots” by folks embodying the spirit of Hutchmoot in their own areas. Our greatest joy with Homebound was watching so many of you gather around good content with your own communities. As we emerge from a period in which many of us were isolated from local community, we can begin finding creative ways to cultivate that same spirit where we are. That will still be possible with all that’s to come—so look toward the future with hope. Interested in attending Hutchmoot UK this year? Click here for more information. (Hutchmoot US tickets will go on sale this spring, date TBD.) There are also many ways to interact with Hutchmoot content throughout the year. For instance… Click here to view complete audio archives from the past ten years of Hutchmoot in the Rabbit Room Store. And click here to view The Hutchmoot Podcast, where we post some of our favorite Hutchmoot sessions (including Hutchmoot: Homebound) on a monthly basis.

This week on The Habit Podcast, we invite you to listen in on a conversation between the poet Dana Gioia and Cherie Harder, President of The Trinity Forum. They discuss the ways that poetry works as a kind of enchantment, creating a state of heightened consciousness and heightened receptivity, and Dana Gioia makes the case that beauty is a way of knowing the world as it really is. He also reads a couple of poems. This interview was recorded in 2020, relatively early in the pandemic, as part of the Trinity Forum’s Online Conversations series. If you don’t already know about the Trinity Forum, we hope you’ll seek them out. They’ve been good friends to the Rabbit Room, and we love the work they do to contribute to the renewal of society by cultivating and promoting the best of Christian thought, and helping leaders to think, work, and lead wisely and well. Find them at TTF.org & tune into their Lenten podcast series by searching “Trinity Forum Conversations” wherever you get your podcasts. Click here to listen to Season 4, Episode 10 of The Habit Podcast. Transcripts are now available for The Habit Podcast. Click here to access them. Sponsorship on the Podcast Network Are you interested in teaming up with us to support the work you love? Send an email to our Head of Communications & Development, Shigé Clark, at shige@rabbitroom.com if you are interested in becoming a sponsor of our Podcast Network. Rabbit Room Membership Special thanks to our Rabbit Room members for making these podcasts possible! If you’re interested in becoming a member, visit RabbitRoom.com/Donate.

Who gets to call themselves an artist? Are there qualifications? Does someone else bestow that title, or can we give it to ourselves? Kyra and Jamin talk to painter Jess Velarde about the internal and external factors that shape how we think about our identity as artists. Jess Velarde is a fine artist and art instructor who creates expressive figurative and botanical oil paintings. She earned her MFA in painting from Academy of Art University in 2020 and currently works and teaches from her studio in Los Angeles. You can learn more about Jess and experience her work at jessvelarde.com/paintings Click here to listen to The Artists & Podcast on Omny, here to listen on Apple Podcasts, and here to listen on Spotify. Transcripts are now available for The Artists & Podcast. Click here to access them. Sponsorship on the Podcast Network Are you interested in teaming up with us to support the work you love? Send an email to our Head of Communications & Development, Shigé Clark, at shige@rabbitroom.com if you are interested in becoming a sponsor of our Podcast Network. Rabbit Room Membership Special thanks to our Rabbit Room members for making these podcasts possible! If you’re interested in becoming a member, visit RabbitRoom.com/Donate.

In the forums of The Habit Membership, Carey Christian recently posted an essay she had written about her experience as a survivor of the Columbine High School shooting in Littleton, Colorado. She survived by hiding with classmates in a locked and darkened office for three hours. (You can read the whole essay here.) The heart of the essay, however, is not those three hours of immediate peril, but the fifteen years after. Carey tells how she dealt with her trauma by isolating, going silent, and withdrawing. While others in her community were sharing their grief and bearing one another’s burdens, she chose to be alone, not even attending the memorial services where classmates, teachers, and other members gathered to grieve and start to heal. She writes, “At a time full of confusion, sadness, questions, weeping, brokenness, I was at home lost in my own confusion, convincing myself I had not experienced the tragedy, not really, that I was somehow less.” These choices became a pattern that lasted fifteen years: Staying silent, staying home, denying others my presence, denying myself the company of others, taught me something about myself that wasn’t true. I was not in a position to care for others then, and I convinced myself that this would always be true of me. Over the years, through college, career, starting a family, I stayed home in my heart and mind, feeling locked up in my silence, seeing only uselessness. —Carey Christian, “Truth Lives: My Columbine Story” But Carey ultimately came to make a different choice. That change is wrought, at least in part, by the act of writing this essay. She writes, I’ve been locked in a room with a key for a long time. This is the key. I no longer feel shame. Sadness, yes, but not shame. I turn from this moment and make a new choice. The door is open and on the other side is freedom, light, air. Truth. Alive and well. Hello, world. It’s been a long time. —Carey Christian, “Truth Lives: My Columbine Story” Isn’t that a great ending for an essay? Carey wrote this essay seven or eight years ago. When she posted it in The Habit forums, she added this coda: Since writing the above, a tremendous period of healing was unlocked in my life after the 20th anniversary of the tragedy. In 2019 I walked the halls of the school once more. And once more had the opportunity (and temptation) to stay home from a memorial. But instead I went. Though I had been to the memorial on the 10th anniversary, somehow this one was different. I made the choice to go despite feelings that I didn’t need to. It was after I had written this essay and had begun to understand that one’s presence, even in silence, is a gift. And so, as predicted, I went and stood with my father in silence, I spoke to no one, but I was there. I heard others like me and saw others like me and recognized myself as a member of this incredible community. —Carey Christian I’m always talking about the importance of writing for the sake of your reader, giving the reader something she can’t get for herself. Carey certainly does that in this essay, but can we also take a moment to reflect on what the act of writing does for the writer? I’ve been chewing on the idea that Carey’s essay as she wrote it in 2014 is a function of her processing things she couldn’t process 15 years earlier, and that her presence at the twentieth anniversary memorial in 2019 was a function of her processing the essay she wrote five years earlier, and that last paragraph is a function of her processing all of it. And if Carey chooses to add another paragraph five years hence, it will be different and insightful in even new ways. That’s how the process works. It takes time to know what things mean. Writing and reflecting greatly improves your chances of learning what there is to learn from your life. It takes time to know what things mean. Writing and reflecting greatly improves your chances of learning what there is to learn from your life. Jonathan Rogers When I’ve had college students write personal essays and memoirs, their writing has often seemed thin compared to what adults write, even when the students themselves are brilliant. Is it because of a lack of life experience? Well, no…and yes. I notice that many of the best personal essays and memoirs by adults are about experiences that happened before they were college-age. As Flannery O’Connor said, “Anybody who has survived childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days.” But just because you’ve had an experience, that doesn’t mean you’re fully ready to write about it. The life experience that prepares you to write likely happens in the years after the dramatic experience. I’m glad Carey didn’t waste her experience. I hope you won’t waste yours either. 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.

This week on The Habit Podcast, Jonathan Rogers talks with Texas singer-songwriter Caroline Cobb. In 2011, Caroline decided to write a song for every book of the Bible in one year. That ambitious goal set her on a path that she’s still on, more than ten years later. She has said, “That year, I discovered that I love writing songs from the Bible: delving into a passage, putting myself in each character’s shoes, trying to understand how this one small story connects with the whole, then coming up with a way to communicate that story through song.” That project has led to four studio albums so far: The Blood and the Breath; A Home and a Hunger; A Seed, a Sunrise; and, most recently, A King and His Kindness. In this episode, Caroline speaks with Jonathan about producing without striving, the upside-down-ness of the Gospel, and the reasons she decided to take a sabbatical. Click here to listen to Season 4, Episode 11 of The Habit Podcast. Transcripts are now available for The Habit Podcast. Click here to access them. Sponsorship on the Podcast Network Are you interested in teaming up with us to support the work you love? Send an email to our Head of Development, Sarah Katherine Woodhull, at sarahkatherine@rabbitroom.com if you are interested in becoming a sponsor of our Podcast Network. Rabbit Room Membership Special thanks to our Rabbit Room members for making these podcasts possible! If you’re interested in becoming a member, visit RabbitRoom.com/Donate.

Now, after Sir Galahad had smitten down Sir Launcelot, as aforetold of, he rode for a long while in a wild forest and had many adventures of divers sorts, of which no account hath been given, though mention is made of them in the ancient histories of those things which I have read. —Howard Pyle, The Story of the Grail and the Passing of Arthur So begins the seventh chapter of The Story of the Grail and the Passing of Arthur, as recorded by Howard Pyle. Hitherto, Galahad’s “adventures of divers sorts” have been a perplexing puzzle to historians of Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. Which wild forest, of all the wilds that once existed in the realms of Britain—or indeed of Faerie? How long did he roam there? What did he do—and eat—for all that time? Whom or what did he meet, slay, rescue? How did he manage to emerge unscathed from such unknown trials to achieve the Holy Grail at last? Alas, these questions seemed as unanswerable as the other great Unfathomable Mysteries of Human History—such as “How did they carry those huge rocks to Stonehenge?” and “Who carved P+J 4evah on the tallest one?” Until now, that is. Deep in the labyrinthine archives of the Bodleian Libraries in Oxford, a research team from the Society for Galahadic Study and Emulation recently made a momentous discovery: a discarded ceramic bust of St. Plagiarus of Tintagel, which, when broken open, yielded a hidden trove of medieval manuscripts in various states of age- and vermin-induced disintegration. (As to the actual circumstances of the finding—and breaking—of the saintly bust, we have, at the request of the Society, buried the details in a footnote on p. 27 to spare certain parties any additional embarrassment.) The surviving pages and fragments turned out to be a collection of tales purportedly chronicling the adventures of Sir Galahad in that very Wild Forest of which we have yearned to know more! Needless to say, such an historical gold mine has caused a tremendous stir amongst both professional Society members and lay Society groupies, collectively known as “The Galahood.” Indeed, Professor N. I. T. Witte’s team has, since their triumphant emergence from the dark recesses of the library, been so hounded by adoring fans wearing “GALAHAD LIVES” hoodies, brandishing homemade swords, and toasting them with tankards of ale, that they’ve barely had a moment’s peace to prepare these remarkable documents for publication. Illustration by Ned Bustard If you’ve picked up this book (the fruit of their painstaking perseverance and research) you are, it must be assumed, a Galahoodlum yourself, possibly even a proud wearer of the aformentioned Galahoodie. I hardly need to remind you, therefore, of the circumstances whereupon Sir Galahad embarked on his journey through the Wild Forest in the first place. But let us imagine him together, for a moment: 18 years old, brave, bold, innocent, with the weight of enormous expectations and glowing prophecies upon his young shoulders. Raised by nuns after the death of his mother Elaine, he has only recently met—and been knighted by—and, in a case of mistaken identity at a much-too-narrow bridge, soundly unhorsed and embarrassed his father, Sir Lancelot of the Lake (yes, that Lancelot). Far behind him now is Camelot and Arthur’s Round Table, where the Siege Perilous awaits his return. This coveted seat (devised by Merlin) had indeed proven perilous to all who attempted to sit there except for the knight destined to find the long-lost Holy Grail, the legendary cup of Christ. Now it bears the name “Galahad” in gold letters across the back. To some scribes he did indeed embody the Galahad of legend—the most pure and most perfect knight of all, a paragon of piety and virtue, nearly as faultless as the Lord himself. But others paint a more blemished image of a knight beset by pride, fear, indecision, doubt, rashness, grumpiness, naïveté, and abysmal taste in helmets. Gwenifere of Traff Town The boyish knight wields a shining sword (traditionally called “Linda,” according to Herbert of Tintooth) which he pulled from a block of red marble (probably Merlin’s doing again). Greatest Knight in the World, the inscription reads, and who is Galahad to argue with swords—or stones—or seats, for that matter? A damsel clad in white gave him a coal-black charger. The White Friars gave him a silver shield with a blood-red cross painted on it—the famed Shield of Balyn, or Balin, or Balan, or Boolean, or Billion, or Balloon (depending on whether you believe Pyle’s or Pleeve’s versions, or make up your own). The Hermit in the Forest gave him breakfast. In short, this youthful paragon of chivalry has been thoroughly foretold, forsoothed, seated, fed, clothed, armed, blessed, horsed, and sent on his merry way by a legion of wizards, fairies, friars, knights, kings, maidens, and well-wishers. A lonely, dangerous path now lies before him—a path that will, we know (though he does not), lead him at last to the Grail. Those of you whose inordinate consumption of pumpkin spice lattes has dulled your memories may refresh your grasp of all the dizzying details of Galahad’s story by re-reading Howard Pyle’s account, Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, our own N. I. T. Witte’s acclaimed Perils, Puns, and Pastries of Camelot, or various and sundry Wikipedia articles. But even the more well-read among you may still be wondering how the missing pieces of Galahad’s illustrious journey came to be recorded and hidden within the ceramic likeness of St. Plagiarus—that repentant pirate whose insatiable thirst for good stories and beautiful handwriting famously led him, in his wilder days, to kidnap scribes from monasteries across Britain and hold them hostage in his fortress-library near Tintagel. Aha! I shall tell you. Illustration by Ned Bustard As far as our researchers have been able to deduce, Plagiarus’ scriptorium continued even after its founder mysteriously vanished while trying to compose an epic poem as penance for his sins. Loath to leave such a glorious library with superb coastal views, and having forgiven Plagiarus for his piratical ways, the community of scribes dedicated themselves almost entirely to collecting and copying local stories about King Arthur (who’d been born just down the road) and his knights. For reasons unknown—perhaps an invasion of Vikings, perhaps an epidemic of tendonitis—the scribes eventually ceased their scribing, rolled their parchments up, stuffed them into a hollow, pitch-lined ceramic bust made to commemorate the one who had abducted them for literary purposes, and hid the bust deep inside Merlin’s Cave under the cliffs of Tintagel Castle. And there it remained, untouched for centuries, nestled just out of reach of the tide, until a tourist lost her balance, hurled her selfie stick into the magical abyss, and heard it clink upon something that was most definitely not a stone. Thus was the bust discovered, and despite years spent circulating in the Black Market for Statues of Little-Known Saints of England, it finally made its way into the hands of a devout Bodleian librarian who was avowedly St. Plagiarus’ #1 Fan and who gave it to his assistant to store carefully for future veneration. The assistant placed the bust on top of a tall bookcase where it gathered dust until—well, you know the rest (or you will, after reading the footnote on p. 27). Once Professor Witte’s team had delicately extricated the scrolls from the broken fragments of Plagiarus’ face, they found that most of the manuscripts were, tragically, so rotted, stained, cracked, and nibbled, so marred by splotches and sploodges and scorch marks, that apart from a few tantalizing references to armor polish and Cornish hedgehogs they were completely unreadable. However, the few scrolls that were salvageable—which included the tales of Sir Galahad’s adventures in the Wild Forest and one receipt for six oak barrels of mead (to be published separately)—have been painstakingly dusted, cleaned, ironed flat, reassembled, edited, and translated from unpronounceable medieval English (and, in one case, from Faerie) by the scholars represented in this volume. Surprisingly, the tales recorded at the scriptorium of St. Plagiarus do not always agree on the facts, or the spelling of those facts, or the precise timing of those facts. Sometimes, indeed, they seem to kick our established Arthurian and Galahoodlian knowledge to the curb. Such rebels, those Tintangelites were! But more shockingly, the tales do not even present a unified picture of Sir Galahad himself. To some scribes he did indeed embody the Galahad of legend—the most pure and most perfect knight of all, a paragon of piety and virtue, nearly as faultless as the Lord himself. But others paint a more blemished image of a knight beset by pride, fear, indecision, doubt, rashness, grumpiness, naïveté, and abysmal taste in helmets. Could it be that the Search for the Historical Galahad has finally run aground on the rocks of textual contradictions and authorial prejudices? Or was Galahad a more complicated hero than Galahoodie slogans can e’er express? Was he, in short, human—brave, honest, and dedicated to be sure, yet subject to hunger, fits of temper, and sore hindquarters like the rest of us, just with better armor and a shinier sword? And most importantly, is such a knight still worthy of our study and emulation? The Society for Galahadic Study and Emulation has answered with an uproarious and unanimous “Aye!” Thus this book was born. And thus it is dedicated to the Galahoodlums who, fearing neither beast nor bunion, have set their hearts upon a noble quest—and indeed to all who wander and wonder and weave tales in the wild forests of this world. —Gwenifere of Traff Town Editorial Overseer The Society for Galahadic Study and Emulation The scholars of The Society for Galahadic Study and Emulation have generously published their findings in a new volume entitled The Lost Tales of Sir Galahad, which is now available order through the Rabbit Room Store. If you count yourself among the Galahad faithful (the “Galahoodlums,” as it were), then we have an even specialer something for you—it’s called the Galahoodie Bundle. Click here to check it out.

The title Rembrandt is in the Wind is a play on words. It refers to Rembrandt’s painting Storm on the Sea of Galilee, in which he paints himself as one of the disciples in the boat—the one in the center of the vessel looking out at the viewer. So in the painting of the storm, Rembrandt is, quite literally, in the wind. But this painting was also stolen in 1990 and has not been seen since, so in the criminal sense of the term, the canvas itself is “in the wind.” I wanted to write a book about art that overcame a perceived inaccessibility to the subject. Rembrandt is in the Wind is part art history, part Biblical study, part philosophy, and part analysis of the human experience; but it’s all story. It’s an invitation to discover some of the world’s most celebrated artists and works, while presenting the beauty of the Gospel in a way that speaks to the struggles and longings common to people everywhere. For anyone who has stood in front of a work of art and liked it, but felt a barrier to truly understanding it, this book will set them free to simply love and appreciate art, while modeling the slow approach to learning to love art more deeply over time. The opening chapter frames everything to follow, highlighting the Biblical significance of goodness, truth, beauty, work, and community, focusing especially on why beauty matters and what it does. The rest of the manuscript features studies of nine different artists and the stories behind their work, incorporating analysis of related Scripture, all told in a storyteller’s voice. Excerpt from Chapter 1: Beautifying Eden If you know anything about Vincent van Gogh outside of his art, perhaps you know he was a tortured soul. Vincent suffered from depression, paranoia, and public outbursts so disconcerting that in March 1889 thirty of his neighbors in his little village of Arles, France, petitioned the police to deal with the “fou roux” (the redheaded madman), which the officers did by removing him from his rented flat—The Yellow House made famous in his painting The Bedroom. Shortly after his eviction notice, Vincent admitted himself into an asylum for the mentally ill—the Saint-Paul asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. Back in those days, most psychological maladies were simply called “madness.” Debilitating depression, bi-polar disorder, paranoia, even acute epilepsy all fell under the umbrella of the diagnosis called madness. Treatment for madness often involved stays in an asylum. Labeled as such by his own community, the “redheaded madman” checked himself in and remained in Saint-Rémy for a year, from May 1889-May 1890. What did Vincent do with his humiliation as a patient at Saint-Rémy? . . . What did Vincent do while he was recovering during that hospital stay? He painted, and at least two of those 140 works were self-portraits with his bandaged ear showing. He captured the moment of his greatest shame. It is hard to render an honest self-portrait if we want to conceal what is unattractive and hide what’s broken. We want to appear beautiful. But when we do this we hide what needs redemption—what we trust Christ to redeem. And what’s redeemed is beautiful. Rembrandt is in the Wind is part art history, part Biblical study, part philosophy, and part analysis of the human experience; but it’s all story. Russ Ramsey Van Gogh’s Self-portrait with Bandaged Ear indicts us. How willing are we to lead with the fact that we’ve got a lot of things in us that aren’t right? Self-portrait with Bandaged Ear hangs in my office to remind me that if I’m drawing the self-portrait dishonestly—pretending I’m okay and not in need of any help—I’m concealing from others the fact that I am broken. The truth is my wounds need binding. I need asylum. And if I can’t show that honestly, how will anyone ever see Christ in me? Or worse, what sort of Christ will they see? In Vincent’s case, there is a sweet bit of irony. Self Portrait with Bandaged Ear, in which van Gogh willingly captures the moment of his own spiritual and relational poverty, is now worth millions. That canvas faithfully captures a defining moment of shame and need for rescue by showing the bandaged side, and it has become a priceless treasure. This is how God sees his people. We are fully exposed in our short-comings, and at the same time we are of unimaginable value to him. Because this is so, this is how we should see others, and it is how we should be willing to be seen by others—broken and of incalculable worth. In this book, we’ll explore the lives of nine artists in particular, and many others by way of their connection to the nine. Each of them gave the world beautiful works of priceless art, but some of their stories are filled with a surprising measure of brokenness and in some cases, even violence and corruption. Madeleine L’Engle reminds us that God often works through the most seemingly unqualified people to reveal his glory. So does Scripture. There is beauty in the brokenness. That’s what this book seeks to uncover. And beauty matters. Click here to view Rembrandt is in the Wind on Zondervan’s website. Selected Works for Further Reading on Artists featured in Rembrandt is in the Wind Bailey, Anthony. Vermeer: A View of Delft. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2001. Etinde-Crompton, Charlotte and Samuel Willard Crompton. Henry Ossawa Tanner: Landscape Painter and Expatriate. New York, Enslow Publishing, 2020. Gayford, Martin. The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Provence. New York: First Mariner Books, 2006. Graham-Dixon, Andrew. Caravaggio: A Life of Sacred and Profane. New York: Norton and Co., 2010. Levin, Gail. Edward Hopper: An Intimate Biography. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995. Marley, Anna O., Ed. Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2012. Paolucci, Antonio. David: Five Hundred Years. New York, NY: Sterling Publishing, 2005. Rockness, Miriam Huffman. A Passion for the Impossible: The Life of Lilias Trotter. Grand Rapids: Discovery House, 2003. Schneider, Norbert. Vermeer: The Complete Works. Cologne: Taschen, 2006. Snyder, Laura J. Eye of the Beholder: Johannes Vermeer, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, and the Reinvention of Seeing. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2015. Strand, Mark. Hopper. Hopewell, NJ: Ecco Press, 1994. Trotter, I. Lilias. Parables of the Christ-Life. New York: Start Publishing LLC, 2013. Updike, John. Still Looking: Essays on American Art. New York: Knopf, 2005.

This week on The Habit Podcast, Jonathan Rogers talks with author and pastor Russ Ramsey. Russ is a pastor in the Nashville area, a masterful storyteller, and Jonathan’s go-to resource for all art-related questions. His love of art and story come together in his new book, Rembrandt Is In the Wind: Learning to Love Art Through the Eyes of Faith. It’s an art history book, but more importantly, it’s a book about the beauty that comes out of stories of human brokenness. Beauty matters; nobody makes that case better than Russ Ramsey. Click here to listen to Season 4, Episode 12 of The Habit Podcast. Transcripts are now available for The Habit Podcast. Click here to access them. Sponsorship on the Podcast Network Are you interested in teaming up with us to support the work you love? Send an email to our Head of Development, Sarah Katherine Woodhull, at sarahkatherine@rabbitroom.com if you are interested in becoming a sponsor of our Podcast Network. Rabbit Room Membership Special thanks to our Rabbit Room members for making these podcasts possible! If you’re interested in becoming a member, visit RabbitRoom.com/Donate.

In anticipation of the full arrival of spring, here’s a liturgy from Every Moment Holy, Vol. 1 for those of us who are contemplating what we should grow in our gardens this year. Download the liturgy at EveryMomentHoly.com/liturgies or in the Every Moment Holy app. A Liturgy for Gardening Leader: O Creator who calls forth life, May this ground, and our labors here invested, yield good provision for the nourishing of both body and soul. People: Lord, let our labors in this garden be fruitful. Lord, let our labors in this garden be blessed. As we work the soil of this garden plot, furrowing, planting, watering, and harvesting may such acts become to us a living parable, a prayer acted out rather than spoken. Lord, let our labors in this garden be fruitful. Lord, let our labors in this garden be blessed. As we co-labor with you and with your creation to produce a beneficial harvest, may we find in such toil a kind of rest. May this plot of ground become a hallowed space and these hours a sacred time for reflection, for conversation with friends and family, and for fellowship with you, our Creator. Lord, let our labors in this garden be fruitful. Lord, let our labors in this garden be blessed. Through our tending of these your delightful creations— vegetables and fruits, beans and berries, vines and stalks and roots and flowers— renew our own tired hopes, redeem our own wearied imaginations. As we cultivate gentle order, training, pruning, weeding, and protecting, so cultivate and train our wayward hearts, O Lord, that rooted in you the forms of our lives might spread in winsome witness, maturing to bear the good fruit of grace, expressed in acts of compassionate love. Lord, let our labors in this garden be fruitful. Lord, let our labors in this garden be blessed. Walk with us now, O Lord, in the stillness of this tilled and quiet space, that when we venture again into the still greater garden of your world, we might be prepared by the long practice of your presence, to offer our lives as a true and nourishing provision to all who hunger for mercy and hope and meaning, a true and nourishing provision to all who hunger for you. Lord, let our labors in this garden be fruitful. Lord, let our labors in this garden be blessed. Amen. Click here to download this liturgy at EveryMomentHoly.com/liturgies. And click here to view Every Moment Holy in the Rabbit Room Store.

After a two-year hiatus, we are immensely grateful to be able to say that Hutchmoot US is returning in 2022! It will take place in Franklin, TN on October 6-9, and there will be stories told, songs sung, cheeses consumed, and friendships made. To put it quite simply, we at the Rabbit Room can’t wait to see you again. Tickets will go on sale at 12:00pm CDT on Saturday, April 2nd at Hutchmoot.com, for $325 each. But please do read on for more details—there are a few things it would be helpful for you to know if you’re interested in joining us this year. The Ticket Situation Back in the before-times, we had planned to host Hutchmoot US 2020 just like every year. We even got so far as selling tickets. And then, once it became clear that Hutchmoot would be impossible, rather than cancel those tickets, we chose to honor them at a future Hutchmoot US. Well, to those of you who bought your tickets in 2020, your time has (finally!) come. You should have an email in your inbox containing your renewed ticket for 2022. Congratulations! If for some reason you don’t see that email, then first, check all your spam folders—weird things can happen—and then, if all else fails, email us at info@rabbitroom.com and we’ll help you get it sorted out. There are still a handful of tickets left, and those tickets will go on sale at Hutchmoot.com on Saturday, April 2nd. We even chose Saturday specifically so that you wouldn’t think it’s an April Fool’s joke! You’re welcome. Please note that all tickets to Hutchmoot US 2022 are non-refundable. If you currently have a ticket in your name and wish to transfer it to someone else, then follow the instructions listed below. How to Transfer Your Ticket to Someone Else Have a ticket, but want to transfer it to someone else? Here’s how to do that: Go to Universe.com & log into your Universe account. Once logged in, click your name in the top right corner (on desktop) or tap the sandwich menu in the top right corner (on mobile), then select “My Tickets.” Underneath the “View ticket” button, select “More,” then “Transfer ticket.” Follow the prompt by entering the first name, last name, and email address of the person to whom you want to transfer your ticket to Hutchmoot US 2022. Bam! You’re done. Pat yourself on the back. Want to Sponsor Hutchmoot US 2022? We love to partner with people, both organizations and individuals, who believe in the good work of Hutchmoot and want to contribute to its flourishing. Click here to learn more about sponsorship. Stay tuned for exciting announcements on Saturday, April 2nd regarding what Hutchmoot US will look like this year!

It’s a big year for the Rabbit Room Podcast Network! We’re launching another brand new show hosted by Matt Conner: Call It Good, a limited series of conversations with authors, artists, and pastors about creative confidence and the invitation before us to join with the Spirit in the act of re-creating the world. In this introductory episode, Matt Conner tells us about where his idea for Call It Good came from and what he hopes to offer through this collection of conversations. Read on for a word from Matt about the show. Our identity as humans is rooted in being co-creators, in participating alongside the work of the Spirit who is, even still, hovering over that which is dark, that which does not exist, that which is a void in order to bring forth something beautiful. Most of us have no problem with this, that the Genesis narrative presents a poetic model for us to follow. However, it’s the last section of the cycle of creation that stumps most of us. Even if we can wrap our minds around what it means to create just as we were created, that we are all invited and equipped to bring something from nothing and light from darkness, it’s this closing reflection that trips us up. What does it mean for something to be 'good' in the first place? What is behind our hesitancy to extol the beauty of the work of our own hands? What is lost when we hide what has been created in the name of humility? Matt Conner The creation narrative we’ve been handed over the centuries involves more than just the creation of something. It also includes the hanging of an unseen banner over it. It’s hanging over all of us as created beings. It calls us good. After living with these two competing scenes, the ones with my embarrassed son and the confident musician, an idea emerged to explore this reticence further. Introducing Call It Good, a new short-series podcast from the Rabbit Room that will expand on this idea. What does it mean for something to be “good” in the first place? What is behind our hesitancy to extol the beauty of the work of our own hands? What is lost when we hide what has been created in the name of humility? Call It Good will feature a diverse set of creators who will open up about their own creative work and their ability (or inability) to call it good. We’ll also ask them to invite us into their own works that are truly excellent to serve as examples for us all. Our hope is that this series of intimate conversations will provide vulnerable yet trusted companions for you to do the same—to begin to listen to what the spirit might ask you to bring forth and that you can complete the cycle of creating it by sharing it with joy for the rest of us. Welcome to Call It Good. Click here to listen to Call It Good on Omny, here to listen on Apple Podcasts, and here to listen on Spotify. Transcripts are now available for Call It Good. Click here to access them. Sponsorship on the Podcast Network Are you interested in teaming up with us to support the work you love? Send an email to our Head of Development, Sarah Katherine Woodhull, at sarahkatherine@rabbitroom.com if you are interested in becoming a sponsor of our Podcast Network. Rabbit Room Membership Special thanks to our Rabbit Room members for making these podcasts possible! If you’re interested in becoming a member, visit RabbitRoom.com/Donate.

[Editor’s note: Today, we bring you an oldie and a goodie from Helena Sorensen. In this Lenten reflection from 2018, Helena tells the story of how her fast from God paradoxically opened up more space for her to enter God’s presence.] I’m new to the liturgical tradition. Growing up, we thought Episcopalians and Anglicans were people who didn’t have the nerve to call themselves what they were: Catholics. Lent fell neatly into the same category of things I didn’t know much about or care much about. From a distance, it looked like self-flagellation. I wanted no part of it. Until this year. This year I was ready for Lent, and I knew exactly what I wanted to give up: God. In the weeks leading up to Lent, I’d come to a place of extreme frustration and exhaustion. I’d been pleading with God, straining to see his goodness through the pain of prayers long unanswered. I felt as if I’d been dashing myself against a cliff. I was battered. I was done. I stopped praying, stopped asking, stopped talking to him at all. I stopped reciting the liturgy with my church congregation, stopped going forward to take communion. I no longer read the Passion translation of Luke when I got up in the mornings, and I skipped whole rows of daily readings from Gail Pitt’s “First We Were Loved.” I wanted everything to go quiet, and it did. What a relief! That was my first reaction. No more weeping and wrestling with God. No more begging for answers, for healing. My mornings were free and uncluttered. I was surprised to discover that not talking to God felt like Sabbath. When my frustration with God, my anger at him, my feelings of grief and abandonment, choked off all possibility of prayer, even then, I could sing. Helena Sorensen But something else happened in the following days. I found it difficult to stick to my commitment. I kept bumping into situations in which I normally offer a kind of knee-jerk prayer. I might drive away from my house, for example, and whisper a brief, panicked request that my children will be okay while I’m gone. Maybe a car swerves into my lane on I-24 and I throw up a quick, “Oh God, help!” Or an appliance makes a funny noise, and I beg the Lord to hold it together a little longer. During Lent, I wasn’t supposed to say those prayers. I’d determined to stop. So I caught myself; I stopped. But without the prayers, I was left with nothing but the fear that drives them. I discovered that knee-jerk prayers have nothing to do with connection or relationship. They don’t rise from a place of trust in the God who is for me. They’re more akin to the practice of reaching into a wall niche and touching a household god before going out. They’re automatic, superstitious, and they’re getting me nowhere. My next discovery was more confirmation than surprise. On Sundays with our congregation, or in my car with the iPhone connected, or in my kitchen while cooking dinner, I could sing. When my frustration with God, my anger at him, my feelings of grief and abandonment choked off all possibility of prayer, even then, I could sing. I could always sing. Anne Lamott discusses this phenomenon in Traveling Mercies: I went back to St. Andrew about once a month. No one tried to con me into siting down or staying. I always left before the sermon. I loved singing, even about Jesus, but I just didn’t want to be preached at about him. To me, Jesus made about as much sense as Scientology or dowsing…it was the singing that pulled me in and split me wide open.Eventually, a few months after I started coming, I took a seat in one of the folding chairs, off by myself. Then the singing enveloped me. It was furry and resonant, coming from everyone’s very heart. There was no sense of performance or judgment, only that the music was breath and food. Something inside me that was stiff and rotting would feel soft and tender. Somehow the singing wore down all the boundaries and distinctions that kept me so isolated. Sitting there, standing with them to sing, sometimes so shaky and sick that I felt like I might tip over, I felt bigger than myself, like I was being taken care of, tricked into coming back to life. But I had to leave before the sermon. —Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies Music is sneaky that way. It’s a trick that “splits you wide open.” And I suppose I betrayed my commitment, because I didn’t only sing on feast days. I couldn’t help myself. I sang on many days, and that channel of communication stayed wide open. It didn’t take long before I missed God. There were things I wanted to discuss with him—choices to make, ideas to explore. Things were rising in my heart that I didn’t know how to handle. I felt lonely. Of course I wasn’t alone. There is no separation between us. But God honored my commitment, waiting patiently without shaming or bullying, giving me time to catch my breath and look around before finally bringing my eyes to meet his. He waited while I remembered that I can be furious with my beloved and absolutely adore him in the same moment. God is so close and so quiet that he hears even the solitary whispers of my longing. I can shout my pleas from the rooftops every morning till I die, but those cries won’t be heard any better than my first little whimpers of hope. Helena Sorensen Then came Easter morning, and I expected a glorious reunion, a slow-motion run into the arms of Jesus. Except that we hadn’t been apart, not really, and it was cold and rainy on Easter morning, and all the emotions I’d set aside while I gave God up for Lent came roaring back. The dam broke, and I was a mess. All day. I never did feel triumphant. Today the sky is clear and the sun shines. The hostas push fat spears out of the soil, and the Japanese maple unfolds its red lace leaves. I am entering slowly into the joy of Resurrection. But I learned some things on my forty-day journey. Before Lent, I’d convinced myself that God would answer my prayers if I prayed hard enough, with enough passion and fervor. I thought I would be heard for my “much speaking.” I had to break myself against that lie before I could see the truth. God is so close and so quiet that he hears even the solitary whispers of my longing. I can shout my pleas from the rooftops every morning till I die, but those cries won’t be heard any better than my first little whimpers of hope. They’re tucked away safe, every one, whether I’m praying today or not. I remembered that singing is prayer, and for me perhaps it is the very best kind. Helena Sorensen I learned that what I thought was prayer was often only an expression of fear. Giving those prayers up was a wonderful choice, because now the Lord and I can begin a conversation about my fear. I can chuck the household idol. I remembered that singing is prayer, and for me perhaps it is the very best kind. Why it opens my heart so easily and so fully is a mystery. Maybe it’s science. Maybe it’s a matter of spiritual dimensions. In any case, it’s a lifeline, and I’m grateful for it. I learned that my community is present with me in my places of struggle. My friends listened with compassion and understanding when I told them what I was doing for Lent. My church congregation recited the Nicene Creed and the Lord’s Prayer while I sat in the pew. My silence did not deter them. During Lent, I couldn’t ask God to advance his kingdom or send my daily bread. My church did it for me. I learned, too, that while I cannot control God, neither can I escape him. To one who knows nothing of his heart, the realization might feel oppressive. But Lent is about making space, and this year I discovered just how much space there is. I am united with God, finally and forever, yet within that unbreakable union is all the room I need to ask or be silent, to rage or rejoice. I am seen and heard and held secure. Thanks be to God. Click here to visit Helena Sorensen’s website.

This week on The Habit Podcast, Jonathan Rogers talks with professor and author Jessica Hooten Wilson. Jessica Hooten Wilson is the Louise Cowan Scholar in Residence at the University of Dallas. She has written books about Flannery O’Connor, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Walker Percy, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Her most recent book is The Scandal of Holiness: Renewing Your Imagination in the Company of Literary Saints. In this episode, Dr. Wilson and Jonathan talk about the ways that reading great works of literature cultivates an imagination that moves us toward holiness. Click here to listen to Season 4, Episode 13 of The Habit Podcast. Transcripts are now available for The Habit Podcast. Click here to access them. Sponsorship on the Podcast Network Are you interested in teaming up with us to support the work you love? Send an email to our Head of Development, Sarah Katherine Woodhull, at sarahkatherine@rabbitroom.com if you are interested in becoming a sponsor of our Podcast Network. Rabbit Room Membership 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 6-9, the Rabbit Room will convene Hutchmoot US 2022 at Christ Community Church in Franklin, Tennessee. Registration opens today at 12:00pm CDT for our 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. Plus, we’re so excited to welcome Sho Baraka as this year’s keynote speaker and Taylor Leonhardt as our featured musical guest. Click here for more information and to register for Hutchmoot US 2022.

Recently, I had the pleasure of asking Russ Ramsey a few questions about his new book Rembrandt Is In the Wind, the story of how he came to love visual art, and the interaction of that love with his faith and ministry as a pastor. Read on for some beautiful responses from Russ. When and how did your love of the visual arts and art history begin? Share that origin story with us. In high school, I had the good fortune of having an art teacher who loved art. She wanted us to love it, too. So she introduced us not only to great works of art but, more importantly, to the people who created them. She broke out the old projector and filmstrips so we could tour Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water from our classroom in Tipton, Indiana. She impressed upon us the role of math and dimension by taking us on the trip that is M. C. Escher. She broke our hearts with the sad and beautiful story of Vincent van Gogh by making us watch the wonderful Technicolor Kirk Douglass film from the 60s, Lust for Life, which is based on Irving Stone’s book by the same name—a great place to start with van Gogh. Every year she took us to the Indianapolis Art Museum. There I learned how exhausting art can be. She’d turn us loose for the afternoon, and I’d meander from room to room trying to look at everything—you know, to get my money’s worth. But I’ll never forget the first time I walked into the room with the van Goghs after I had learned about his story. His canvases struck me in such a way that I had to sit down and just look. In fact, I spent most of my time in that room that day, just looking at van Gogh. That day with van Gogh shaped the way I would approach art thereafter. If you had to choose just one visual artist from all of history to call your favorite, who would it be and why? What unique contribution did this artist make, and why does it resonate with you so deeply? The harder we work at something, the more we are able and free to enjoy it. Rembrandt knew this too. Russ Ramsey At this point in my life I would have to say Rembrandt. There was a time when it was most definitely Vincent van Gogh, but it’s Rembrandt now. I think a big part of this comes with age. When Vincent died, he was eleven years younger than I am now. Rembrandt lived into his late 60’s, and the arc of his life shaped his art. I’m trying to pay attention to that. I’m currently researching Rembrandt’s life story, and it’s really making me tender toward him in ways I haven’t felt before. Rembrandt was regarded by his own peers as a master, second only to Dürer in all of Europe at the time. And now, many of us might ask, “Who’s Dürer?” But we all know Rembrandt. He was an absolute genius, an artistic prodigy, and a man who had to navigate the fame his talents brought along with the suffering he came to know in the second half of his life in particular. I am drawn to the stories as much as the paintings. How has your understanding shifted over the years regarding the convergence of faith and pastoral ministry with deep engagement in art? Are there any ways in which your mind has changed or your imagination has expanded? Art and ministry have always been linked in my mind—since the very beginning. My sense of call to ministry came after I developed a love for art, so I went into my vocation with an appreciation for the power of art. Over the years, I have come to believe more deeply in the importance of regularly engaging with things that move us to awe and wonder. So much of our early adult years can be spent trying to nail things to the floor (theological, relational, philosophical, spiritual, or otherwise) that simply cannot be wrangled in that way. Engaging with beauty and wonder pries our grip off of our felt need to lock things in so we can control them. What are a few examples of scriptural themes and theological insights that have taken on new depth for you as you’ve seen them represented in visual art? Scripture talks a lot about how in this world we will have trouble, and how when we’re young we’ll tend to think we’ve got things under control only to discover later that control is an illusion. I love paying attention to how an artist develops over time. I care as much about the body of work as I do for any individual piece of it. Since I’ve got Rembrandt on my mind a lot right now, let’s use him as an example. In his younger work, he flexed for the viewer, showing off his technical abilities, which were unmatched. To think a man in his mid-twenties painted The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple is hard to get my mind around. As impressive as it is, however, it’s not that intimate. But later, he paints the same scene again, only this time he is an old man, approaching death. He has suffered. He has lost a wife, three children, his fortune, and reputation. This version is intimate, warm, and simple. In his early painting, he wanted to show us what he could do, but in the later version, it’s as though all the old man wants to do is hold Jesus. Those two paintings come together to tell the story of one man, and how youthful self-assurance gives way humility and dependence—and often by way of suffering. 1631 Between 1665 and 1669 In your epilogue you say, “the world is short on masters, and consequently, it’s a world short on joy, too.” What do you mean by that? For Rembrandt to become who he was, he had to train his hands to paint as he alone was made to paint. But in doing that, he had to learn the fundamentals. He had to practice. This means he must have started somewhere. It’s hard to imagine, but there had to have existed some pretty terrible Rembrandts at some point—early charcoal works hung on the wall and loved only by his mother. What’s not hard to imagine is a solitary figure in a lamp-lit room mixing his oils, preening his brushes, thinking and painting and thinking and painting. Practicing. Later he would say to young artists, “Try to put well in practice what you already know; and in so doing, you will in good time, discover the hidden things which you now inquire about. Practice what you know, and it will help to make clear what now you do not know.” The mastery of something leads to a greater enjoyment of it. Singers, musicians, painters, writers, athletes, and artists of all stripes know this. The harder we work at something, the more we are able and free to enjoy it. Rembrandt knew this too. Click here to view Rembrandt Is In the Wind: Learning to Love Art through the Eyes of Faith on Amazon.

Have you listened to the new Jill Phillips record yet? If you haven’t, stop everything and listen immediately. Then, when you’ve finished crying, come back here and read this beautiful interview where Ben Shive (who worked with Jill to produce the record) asks Jill some questions about the craft of songwriting, the story of her lifelong love of music, and the meaning of collaboration. Ben Shive: You are the all time name-that-tune champ in the 80’s pop genre. Seriously encyclopedic. You’ve always been an active music listener and I know you still seek out new music. I find that listening gets a little harder for me every year and I think that’s common. Can you talk about what keeps you interested in new music? What are you looking for when you listen? Is there anything you used to look for that you don’t care about anymore? Jill Phillips: Ben, this is such a good question. I don’t know that I can ever re-create the influence of the artists I was listening to in my early days as a musician. Susan Ashton, Jonatha Brooke, Patty Griffin, Rich Mullins, Crowded House—their music shaped me at a pivotal time. It feels like thinking of your childhood hometown or best friend; there’s a wistfulness to these names that parallels my own journey of being a student at Belmont and growing into being an artist. These days my listening is different and it’s harder to find artists that are as influential to my work, where I want to dive into everything they’ve released and absorb every word and note. I do find those artists occasionally and it’s a gift as I get older. It happened recently with Daniel Tashian (the Silver Seas)—I’m a bit late to the party but he felt like the next artist I will listen to over my lifetime, not just for a month. I don’t listen to some of the early artists who inspired me quite as much anymore, almost as if they were for that season. I still listen to and enjoy old music and songwriters I have loved for decades, but I’m listening to a lot more gospel and soul music. I think in this season of life I’m looking for more unrestricted emotion in songs—not that it’s inherently better, it just seems to be what I need right now. I feel less self-consciousness coming from these voices and the wisdom, hope, and character that comes from suffering. I am drawn to voices that aren’t affected and contorted to whatever the latest style is. I care very much about words and writing, but I am equally drawn to the vocals and the overall vibe. That being said, if you looked at the songs downloaded on my phone you might be hard pressed to find an overall theme. Next to Callie Day, CeCe Winans, and Maxwell, there might be songs by The War on Drugs and Bleachers. Deeper Into Love is a wisdom record. From the beginning, I think your catalog is essentially wisdom literature. When did that quest for wisdom begin? What have you learned about the nature of wisdom along the way? How has your new vocation shaped your search? I have never thought about my catalog as wisdom literature. That’s really moving to me, thank you. I think I’ve always been an old soul and have asked deep questions from a young age. I’ve often been an observer and wanted to sit in the mystery and complexity of things. I would lie awake late into the night thinking about philosophical and theological questions, and honestly, I don’t know why. Some of it is personality and some of it is growing up in a home with two parents who were teachers and in a church with a lot of great mentors who encouraged me to ask deep questions. I still attend a church that welcomes reflection and have also had the opportunity as a musician to travel to places across the world where people are leaning into learning and growing. Being a musician and being a counselor both flow from a posture of being awake, asking deep questions, making observations, and trying to integrate many insights into one song or one concept. I don’t know that I have an answer for how I define the nature of wisdom, but the best I can come up with in my own life is being rooted in Love: knowing I am loved by God, loving God, loving others. Being part of a bigger love story. And to embrace my humanity and who God created me to be as best as I can. Spiritual direction and wise mentors have helped me so much in this journey of really beginning to accept how loved I am by God. And that changes everything. There is so much spaciousness and freedom in his love and sadly we don’t always experience that from the church or Christians. But it is the truth. This verse from the Message translation of Galatians sums up what wisdom looks like vocationally and personally in this season of my life: “Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don’t be impressed with yourself. Don’t compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life.” I want to spend the rest of my life practicing this and inviting others into this freedom as well. “Writing on the Wall” and “Deeper” each turned out to be prescient; each was written about grief just before you experienced a profound loss. What do you make of this? How has writing correlated with your circumstances and inner life? It is so strange, isn’t it? I know grief is all around us all of the time, but when I experienced my first great loss after my father died, I had no idea how much it would open me up to this reality. The more I live and love, the more I have experienced loss. It is such a constant part of life now. I wouldn’t know where to begin in telling all the stories of loss and grief I’m holding right now, mine and others’. There are still losses that gut me and shock me, like losing Thomas and Charlie McKenzie on the first day of recording this project, but I am more and more experienced with loss as I grow older. I love that the Bible says Jesus was a Man of Sorrows acquainted with grief. Suffering has only increased my capacity to experience peace and joy. What a bizarre mystery. I think that’s what we were trying to say in the song “Bright Sadness.” My writing has always correlated with my inner life and circumstances. I truly don’t know how to do it any other way. Each album is a snapshot of where I am and what I am wrestling with or being comforted by at that time. Early in my career, I tried to write songs that pleased others, but I was miserable and it didn’t last long. I have the ability now to write what I want about what I want, and I hope that helps me sing with authenticity and authority. This is the first time we’ve written together. What’s it like stepping into a new collaboration? What are the joys of writing for you? Does collaboration enhance those joys or change them in some way? I think I’m always a bit scared stepping into a new collaboration. I am grateful our path to writing was organic and based in years of friendship, which made it easier for me. I am very relational, so writing with people is always easiest for me when there is safety and relationship. It’s such a vulnerable thing to share your heart and vision with someone. I hope that as I have gotten older I can show up and worry less about proving something. Most performers like me grow up with some performance-based wounds, so collaboration is always an invitation to be present more, hustle less, and tap into the larger creative process at work. Co-writing has never been as easy for me as it is for Andy, who could write with someone new everyday, but I am usually encouraged and expanded in some way by each experience. You’ve worked with some great producers: Wayne Kirkpatrick, Matt Stanfield, and Cason Cooley. This is the first time we’ve worked together and you came in like a pro. You gave me a lot of room to do what I do but you weren’t afraid to speak up when you wanted something or when something wasn’t right. Were you always so comfortable in the studio or has that been a process? I am so glad you felt that way! I thought it was incredibly easy to work with you too. It felt effortless and natural and I needed that so much in this season of life. I was not always so comfortable in the studio and I remember my insecurities getting in the way when I was beginning to record as a student at Belmont. I would internally shut down at suggestions or criticism, even if I didn’t voice it. I would get in my head too much. Insecurity and ego can stifle the creative process like no other, and I’m grateful I’ve had decades to get more comfortable in my skin, know my voice, own my limitations, and just go in being more myself. That has also freed me to explore more from this safe base and take creative risks. Suffering has only increased my capacity to experience peace and joy. What a bizarre mystery. I think that’s what we were trying to say in the song 'Bright Sadness.' Jill Phillips Wayne Kirkpatrick was instrumental in starting me on this journey. He is an amazing man and was the perfect person for me to begin working with as a young artist. I’m actually getting emotional thinking about it now, as it’s been so long since I’ve revisited this time in my life. He had industry credibility and success, and he used every bit of that to advocate for me who had no power. He did not have to do that; he could have lined his own pockets. He could have tried to write and play on everything and he didn’t—instead, he empowered me and Andy to be ourselves and do what we do. He made sure I sang my own songs and he had Andy play all of the guitar. He was comfortable in who he was, which created a generous work environment, and that experience has stayed with me to this day. And there is so much I could say about Matt and Cason, too—they are so supportive and collaborative and have always believed in me. I learned about incredible attention to detail from Matt—we would work long hours to get everything exactly how we wanted it. I learned a lot about big picture vision from Cason and creating an overall sonic landscape. Not to mention amazing lunches every day! We spent as much time talking about where we would eat as we did going over vocal comps. He is so fun. I felt a perfect blend from you of letting me be myself and also pushing me to something better and more beautiful with every word, every vocal take. I would be content with something and you would find a way to elevate it. And it never felt critical; it was freeing to have someone expect more from me and from the music. I am so grateful for each of you and each of these experiences. Click here to view Deeper Into Love in the Rabbit Room Store, and stay tuned for Part 2, where Jill interviews Ben.

This week on The Habit Podcast, Jonathan Rogers talks with songwriting legend and member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, Tom Douglas. Tom Douglas recently released a movie—a one-man show called Love, Tom: A Letter of Hope to a Desperate World, streaming on Paramount Plus. It’s a beautiful, wise, and honest meditation on the creative process. In this episode, Tom and Jonathan Rogers talk about harnessing hurt and rejecting idolatry in the creative process, and steering a middle course between apathy and anxiety. Click here to listen to Season 4, Episode 14 of The Habit Podcast. Transcripts are now available for The Habit Podcast. Click here to access them. Sponsorship on the Podcast Network Are you interested in teaming up with us to support the work you love? Send an email to our Head of Development, Sarah Katherine Woodhull, at sarahkatherine@rabbitroom.com if you are interested in becoming a sponsor of our Podcast Network. Rabbit Room Membership Special thanks to our Rabbit Room members for making these podcasts possible! If you’re interested in becoming a member, visit RabbitRoom.com/Donate.

I suppose naming a song and album “There Will Be Surprises” is rather like praying to God for patience. Meaning, I can’t set out on a project with this title and expect not to be surprised myself. And let me tell you: I’m not easy to surprise. I’m supposed to be the one doing the surprising here after all, but every step of the way, I’ve been given taste after taste of my own medicine. As I recall, the writing of this song was itself a bit of a surprise. I had just finished up a few days in the studio in January 2019, recording my Desolation and Consolation EPs, when one evening I found myself pacing around downstairs with my guitar, finger-picking this simple chord progression and grasping for words. I remember the vague feeling that lyrically, this song was a dare, a gamble—the narrator is betting with each verse that violence will not pay off, that children will inherit kingdoms with mourners, and that in the end, human ambition will be overturned and upended. (By the way, I’m stealing shamelessly from the Beatitudes here. If you want the source text, look no further than chapter five of Matthew’s Gospel. Unfortunately, many of us have grown so familiar with this passage that it’s lost its capacity to surprise us, but that’s not irreversible. Sit with it for a minute and see if you can recover your own sense of surprise at Jesus’s relentlessly bold assertions.) This song continued to surprise me in the recording process. I went into pre-production at the Art House expecting to find a mellow, warm bass-and-drum groove to sit underneath my guitar-picking. Instead, Lucas Morton suggested that we leave the guitar behind altogether in search of a feel that would restore a sense of spacious momentum and vitality to the song. I went home that day pondering what such an idea might sound like. The next morning, I walked into the Art House and Lucas said, “Drew, I took your song in a new direction after you left yesterday.” And he played me a piano-led, energetic-yet-nostalgic progression, held together by an electronic percussion loop and a synth bass. Not what I’d expected! And yet, in that demo, I heard the heartbeat of the song from when I had first written it two Januarys ago. Although many elements have shifted since that demo, the piano you’ll hear in the master is the take he recorded that day after I had left. It could not be improved upon in any way, and I grew more and more attached to it with each listen. The cover art process for this song was surprising, too. Kyra Hinton had already made a gorgeous cover painting for the album as a whole, but we knew we needed separate art for when I released the song on its own as a single, to distinguish it from the full album. So, rather than try to re-invent the wheel, Kyra sifted through the steps she had taken to arrive at album art. In that sifting, she found a white canvas filled with a whirling circle of green-blue that she had made along the way. This canvas was never meant to be more than an intermediate step, and yet I was transfixed by the deliciousness of the color and the sense of freshness and excitement that it conveyed. Again, this is not at all what I had expected, but it was perfect for a song that’s all about the subverting and re-shaping of our expectations. So many mistakes are made and so much damage done in the vain search for completion, for mastery, for the assurance of control. That’s the core premise of this song, and in many ways, this whole album. And the creative process, like every other process in life, invites us to lay down this vain search. Instead of completion, try curiosity; instead of mastery, a confession of ignorance; instead of control, surrender. I’m moved when I consider how this one little song has been issuing me that invitation repeatedly, playfully, all throughout its little life. Click here to listen to “There Will Be Surprises” on Spotify and here to listen on Apple Music.

Being an artist can be lonely work. Not only do we often work alone, but we frequently find ourselves in community with people who may not have as intimate a relationship with their own creativity as we do. Sometimes we don’t know how to talk about our creative work, and our loved ones don’t know how to ask about it. If our friends don’t know how to ask why we love the things we love, and we don’t know how to bridge the gap from our side, then how can we be truly known? In this episode, Kyra and Jamin are joined by Orion Dyson-Smith in a conversation that explores being known. Along the way they discuss questions they wish people would ask them, their favorite paint color pairings, and fishing. Orion Dyson-Smith is a part time nurse anesthetist and part time visual artist, working with graphite, watercolor, and oil paint. He earned a Bachelors Degree in Fine Arts from Wichita State University in 2005 and currently lives and works in Wichita, Kansas. Click here to learn more about Orion and view some of his work at his website, and here to find him on Instagram. Click here to listen to The Artists & Podcast on Omny, here to listen on Apple Podcasts, and here to listen on Spotify. Transcripts are now available for The Artists & Podcast. Click here to access them. Sponsorship on the Podcast Network Are you interested in teaming up with us to support the work you love? Send an email to our Head of Development, Sarah Katherine Woodhull, at sarahkatherine@rabbitroom.com if you are interested in becoming a sponsor of our Podcast Network. Rabbit Room Membership Special thanks to our Rabbit Room members for making these podcasts possible! If you’re interested in becoming a member, visit RabbitRoom.com/Donate.

[Editor’s note: Our friends at Square Halo books have a brand new collection of essays called Wild Things and Castles in the Sky. Together, these essays form one cohesive guide for choosing books for children. We’re grateful to get to share with you an essay from the book written by Katy Bowser Hutson, which explores themes of wonder, magic, courage, and how fairy tales remind us we’re part of something bigger than we could ever dream.] My family went to the beach in Florida recently. After a year of quarantine, we jumped at the chance to stay in a friend’s house, be in a new space, and run around on the beach, even though it was winter. We played in the sand. We splashed in the waves, wearing wetsuits to make the February water bearable. On the last day, we piled in the car, exhausted from fun and from throwing ourselves against the enormity of the ocean, our calves sore from navigating shifting sand. We noticed our salty lips as we drove back to the house for hot baths. The kids were that rare kind of quiet that happens when they are wonderfully spent. As I drove, my husband mused, “I wonder why the ocean is salty.” The thought hung in the air. Then Story, our ten-year-old daughter began, with a dash of bardic flair, “Well, you see, there were two brothers, one rich, and one poor. It was Christmas Eve, and the poor brother didn’t have a bite in the house.” Her six-year-old brother jumped in. “The younger brother asked the older brother for some food for Christmas.” An argument ensued as Story and Del negotiated over who would get to tell the tale. In the end, Story got to tell the main points, and Del was allowed to add color commentary. They told their dad of a bargain between brothers, a man who met the younger brother en route to Dead Man’s Hall, who then counseled him to bargain for the magic hand-mill behind the door—with the caveat that the magic mill’s owner must know how to make it stop once it had ground out the requested riches. The younger brother escaped from under his brother’s thumb and got the better of him, finally selling the mill for great riches to a traveling skipper. The skipper commanded salt from the magic mill and, in order that he might rest from his perilous travels overseas, ran away to sea before anyone could take the mill from him. But the captain, in his greed and fear, had not asked how to stop the mill. As Story and Del ended the tale, the ship sank beneath the weight of the salt. The mill lies at the bottom of the ocean, grinding on to this day. My husband sat in the front seat and grinned. “Why The Sea Is Salty,” a Norwegian fairy tale first published in the 1840s, was now knit into our story. Our kids know it’s an old story. We can speculate how the story came to be: somebody’s dad in Norway was playing with them at the beach sometime, probably, pulling in his fishing nets, and a child asked, “I wonder why the sea is salty.” Or maybe the dad asked, and the child told the story. The fact remains: the sea is salty, and it is wondrous and worth wondering about. Like hymns and other great works that survive centuries, fairy tales remind us we are part of something bigger. Something magical. I read “Why The Sea Is Salty” to my children a couple of weeks ago at the beginning of our school day. (We homeschool.) I’ve considered whether to officially include fairy tales as part of our school time. When something is added to our official school day, the kids get suspicious. It becomes obligatory. But fairy tales don’t come with any baggage. I don’t require a narration, and I don’t test. Generally. Okay, this time I did. On a whim, I asked my kids to write a fairy tale; my son had to narrate his for me to write down, and my daughter had to write one. There were two requirements for this fairy tale: it had to explain something inexplicable in the world, and it had to have a twist of magic. It was effortless for them. Because kids get magic, and kids get wonder. Our family is not a “books only” family, but books do comprise a large part of our story diet. Books dominate a good bit of square footage (and floor space, and counter space) in our home. We read The Chronicles of Narnia again this year. We are finishing up The Hobbit again and hoping this time the six-year-old and ten-year-old will be up for The Lord of the Rings. We love The Blue Fairy Book and Grimms’ fairy tales. We love D’Aulaires’ Book of Norse Myths and Greek Myths. I’m finally giving J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Simarillion a shot. Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey I really dig. (You see me blurring the line between fairy tales and myths. I know. I think it’s blurry.) We are not purists or traditionalists. My daughter also devoured Chris Colfer’s Land of Stories series, which are fun and mischievous takes on Grimms’ and others that Colfer conceived of in childhood. I am thoroughly enjoying Neil Gaiman’s Norse Mythology. We read fairy tales because they enrich our imaginations. And that is a big deal. I do not believe that fairy tales are tinsel, simply decorating our lives. I do believe that the strength and content of a person’s imagination is of life and death importance. Fairy tales prepare us for life. A few weeks ago we were all at home when Story called from the living room, “Mama, there are a bunch of cars out front and police yelling, and they just pulled guns out.” We yelled to the kids to run to our bedroom and made them lie low behind our bed. We told them everything we could about what we knew—that God watches over us, and that we have very strong brick walls bullets can’t go through. We prayed for the police officers, and we prayed for whomever they were chasing. We heard helicopters overhead, and the kids were scared. We were scared. After a while Kenny and I crawled to the front window to see what was going on, and the situation was in hand. Two people were handcuffed. The police had identified a stolen car, and there had been a chase all over town. The culprits had gotten lost in our neighborhood, and the whole situation had come to a head in front of our house. After talking it out some, we had rest time. We typically separate the kids so that they settle down, but they asked if they could be together, and we kept doors open between us. They looked out the front window where the whole event had happened. They told the story. They came up with scenarios. “What if I had gone out there in Dad’s army helmet from when he was a kid and my bubble gun?” (They laughed.) “What would they have done?” “What if the bad guys took the car because theirs was all rusty? What if this one looked so fast and good?” I do not believe that fairy tales are tinsel, simply decorating our lives. I do believe that the strength and content of a person’s imagination is of life and death importance. Fairy tales prepare us for life. Katy Bowser Hutson In Bessel van der Kolk’s wonderful work on trauma, The Body Keeps the Score, he tells about visiting friends in New York City shortly after September 11. The morning the first tower fell, the parents had run to their child’s kindergarten and brought their child home. During van der Kolk’s visit, the child showed him a picture he had drawn of the burning tower, the plane, and the people falling. But van der Kolk had a question about the dark circle the child had drawn below the tower. “It’s a trampoline, so next time they won’t get hurt,” the boy said. This child’s imagination was helping him through trauma by imagining a scenario where things could be better next time. The ability to imagine that we could respond with creativity—that we can do something good to help something awful, that it could be better—is the kind of hopeful thinking that allows us to move through trauma without despairing. Dr. van der Kolk later says of people frozen in a moment of suffering: “Trauma has shut down their inner compass and robbed them of the imagination they need to create something better.” Fairy tales do not simply amuse and distract. They arm us. They enrich the arsenals of our imaginations. What does Bilbo do when the dwarves are imprisoned by the elves? What does Saint George do when the dragon captures the well? What do Jill, Eustace, and Puddleglum do when the Green Lady enchants Prince Rilian? What do we do in the face of brokenness and evil? Is there any help for us? Sometimes, fairy tales show us that cleverness, bravery, or even conniving will get us out. I predict the objection, “But we do not live in a world of magic and fairy tales.” To which I strongly disagree. We have forgotten how to look. Consider this thought of G. K. Chesterton’s: When we are very young children we do not need fairy tales: we only need tales. Mere life is interesting enough. A child of seven is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door and saw a dragon. But a child of three is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door. Boys like romantic tales; but babies like realistic tales—because they find them romantic. In fact, a baby is about the only person, I should think, to whom a modern realistic novel could be read without boring him. This proves that even nursery tales only echo an almost pre-natal leap of interest and amazement. These tales say that apples were golden only to refresh the forgotten moment when we found that they were green. They make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment, that they run with water. —G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy Fairy tales shake us up; they make us see the world with clean eyes. Imagining a world with dragons reminds me that we live in a world with birds: creatures with jeweled bodies flying everywhere. Magic forests and Ents remind me that we have trees, soaking up and breathing life into our world. Conversely, the major flooding in Nashville this week reminds me of the peril of Saruman’s evil in hastily tearing up old-growth trees. There is a wonderful TED Talk on the genius of babies, wherein psychologist Alison Gopnik compares their brain chemistry to what happens in an adult’s brain when they travel, when they experience romantic love, and when they have had caffeine. She likens babyhood, with all its highs and lows, to “being in love in Paris for the first time after you’ve had three double espressos.” Don’t fairy tales help us recover some of this? To see the world’s wonders anew? One of the most formative things I’ve heard on books versus movies taught me something about the value of reading fairy tales. When I attended a L’Abri conference as a new mom, I heard Jerram Barrs speak on the seventh Harry Potter book. A mom asked when he thought it was okay to let her children read or watch Harry Potter, or The Lord of the Rings, or other epic fairy tales. Jerram replied that he read The Lord of the Rings to his grandchildren when they were very young. But he would not let them see Peter Jackson’s movie of the same story until much later. Children, he explained, know very well that there is evil. But they do not need Peter Jackson’s apprehension of evil as he, a grown man, understands it. Let them understand a Ringwraith with a child’s scope of darkness and grapple with it in their own understanding of light and dark. Fairy tales are light and darkness boot camp. Children are trying to make sense of the world. It does not make sense without wonder, without heroes, without supernatural beings, or a grand rescue. Frederick Buechner nails this with his book Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Comedy, Tragedy, and Fairy Tale. God is telling the biggest, best, most magical story. We grownups have made tentative sense of things. We’ve made enough peace with mysteries to put them on the shelf and be “productive.” Which is necessary, but perilous. That’s why God gives the world children. They are still skeptical enough to wonder. Their inability to rein in their curiosity waylays curated lessons. They are still wandering off paths into dark, magical woods. Fairy tales give children a magic saltshaker to season their days; they give them a lexicon of courage and wonder. We grownups know that our children have beanstalks and giants ahead, and that’s why we need fairy tales, too. Let’s read them together. Curated and edited by Leslie and Carey Bustard with Théa Rosenburg, Wild Things and Castles in the Sky explores topics like classic literature, imagination, art history, race, poetry, young adult novels, faith, and more. The aim and hope is that these essays would encourage parents, grandparents, teachers, and friends to share the power of a good story with a child they love. Click here to learn more about the book. To learn more about the book from its editor, listen to Leslie Bustard’s conversation with Jonathan Rogers on The Habit Podcast.

This week on The Habit Podcast, Jonathan Rogers talks with the Rabbit Room’s very own Pete Peterson and Jennifer Trafton, who together edited the latest offering from Rabbit Room Press: The Lost Tales of Sir Galahad. The Lost Tales of Sir Galahad is a collection of “newly discovered” tales of the Arthurian knight’s adventures in the Wild Forest. In this episode, husband-and-wife editorial dream team Pete Peterson and Jennifer Trafton discuss their work in bringing this work to life. Click here to listen to Season 4, Episode 17 of The Habit Podcast. Transcripts are now available for The Habit Podcast. Click here to access them. Sponsorship on the Podcast Network Are you interested in teaming up with us to support the work you love? Send an email to our Head of Development, Sarah Katherine Woodhull, at sarahkatherine@rabbitroom.com if you are interested in becoming a sponsor of our Podcast Network. Rabbit Room Membership Special thanks to our Rabbit Room members for making these podcasts possible! If you’re interested in becoming a member, visit RabbitRoom.com/Donate.

It’s been a long time coming, but today I finally get to unveil the Rabbit Room’s newest program: Rabbit Room Theatre. And on June 30th, 2022, we will launch headlong into our fresh, newly-imagined production of Corrie Ten Boom’s The Hiding Place. By incarnating stories on the stage, Rabbit Room Theatre embodies our belief that beautiful, well-told, and truth-bearing tales are a fundamental means by which we understand ourselves, our world, and our God. Through the unique magic of drama, we aim to nourish Nashville and its theatre community by creating works that reflect our values of excellence in story, art, and music. I initially adapted Corrie’s book for the stage back in 2019 and it premiered at the George Theater in Houston (you can read the Broadway World review of that production here). But in the past couple of years, the play has undergone significant changes and revisions through collaboration and workshopping with the Nashville theatre community. We’re confident that the play is now better than ever, and we can’t wait to show it to all of you. Rabbit Room Theatre is proud to be partnering with Matt Logan Productions to bring the Ten Boom story to life. I’ve worked with Matt on a number of past productions and if you’re familiar with Studio Tenn, you’ll recognize his work from a HUGE number of their past shows. He’s a visionary director and designer and I’m thrilled to be working with him again on this story. We’ll have full information, casting, photos, trailers, behind the scenes material, and who knows what else in the coming weeks. But for now, mark your calendars. You’re invited to a night at the theater. Tickets go on sale soon. Click the button below if you’d like to be notified when they do (along with other theatre-related news). Yes! I NEED this information!

This week on The Habit Podcast, Jonathan Rogers talks with Leslie Bustard, editor of Wild Things and Castles in the Sky: A Guide to Choosing the Best Books for your Children. Leslie is a writer, a teacher, a conference organizer, a publisher, and a museum-goer, among other things. She recruited forty writers to contribute essays to Wild Things and Castles in the Sky, a book she curated and edited with her daughter Carey Bustard and editor Thea Rosenburg. Click here to listen to Season 4, Episode 16 of The Habit Podcast. Transcripts are now available for The Habit Podcast. Click here to access them. Sponsorship on the Podcast Network Are you interested in teaming up with us to support the work you love? Send an email to our Head of Development, Sarah Katherine Woodhull, at sarahkatherine@rabbitroom.com. If you're interested in becoming a sponsor of our Podcast Network. Rabbit Room Membership Special thanks to our Rabbit Room members for making these podcasts possible! If you’re interested in becoming a member, visit RabbitRoom.com/Donate.

Jennifer and I are taking something of a sabbatical this month and walking the Camino de Santiago, a 500+ mile pilgrimage from France, across northern Spain, to Santiago de Compostela, the traditional resting place of St. James. I’m writing a bit about the experience along the way. 29 April (Mile 5.1 / KM 8.35) – Woke at sun-up, around 7am, packed for the day and arrived downstairs to find breakfast waiting. Muesli and fresh bread with butter and jam. Our hosts made us a sandwich to pack for lunch: a pepper and onion omelet in a fresh baguette. A journey of a 1,000 miles may start with a single step, but an omelet sandwich doesn’t hurt. We set off down the cobbled streets of St. Jean and cleared the town after only a few minutes. What waited for us beyond the town border was a lot of pretty country, and a lot of pain. Now listen: I’ve done a considerable amount of hiking, and most of that hiking involved climbing at least some part of a mountain. Last October, we spent five days on the Appalachian Trail, from Amicalola Falls to Neel Gap, and in those five days we peaked 14 mountains along the way totalling around 10,000 feet of elevation if memory serves. So I’m not new at this. But the five miles from St. Jean to Orisson are the longest steep I’ve ever had to walk. According to my watch, we climbed over 2,100 feet of elevation against only 98 feet of descent. Folks, it was hard. Maybe I’m just getting old, but I’m exceedingly happy that we reserved a bed at the Refuge Orisson so we didn’t have to continue on the other 12 miles to Roncesvalles like many folks do. I told Jennifer several times (in order to remind myself) that we are not in a race, and I’m here to enjoy the walk, not to rush to the finish. To be honest though, being passed along the way by a huge group of 30+ tourists hurt me more than the hike. Remember what I said about humility? This is it. Being passed on a hike by an 87-year-old lady who weighs 47 pounds will humble you. Though I suppose passing by my hulking figure of American manhood probably made her day. My pleasure, ma’am. Don’t mind if I do. As we approached the end of our climb up the Pyrenees mountain range, we ascended into the clouds and the world became no more than the few yards before and behind us. At times we teetered at the edge of the pathway, sensing the great expanse of hills and vales that lay below us, but all we could see of them was a vast white emptiness. One misstep and I could imagine falling into the abyss, nevermore to be seen again (in reality, I’d probably just end up in a hedge, pricked by the gorse and filled with more of that every growing sense of humility). Respite: I don’t need language to comprehend that. Pete Peterson But after what seemed like hours and hours of ascent (it wasn’t), a figure emerged into the visible world ahead of us. It was a white-haired woman in a blue coat who was wobbling in a worrisome way and was obviously struggling to put one foot in front of the other. As we passed her (yes indeed, I did pass one white-haired septuagenarian. Thank you, ma’am. Don’t mind if I do), we called out the traditional “Buen Camino!” And she cried unto the heavens “Mon Dieu! Le repit!” (My god! Respite!). We agreed, for she’d shouted the very truth burdened on all our hearts. And lo, a few moments later, out of the cloud emerged the welcome site of the Refuge Orisson. A stout building jutting out of the mountainside with a vast deck of tables and chairs overlooking the valley. At least I assume it overlooked something. As far as we could tell, it merely struck out into nothingness. Inside, on the ground floor, was a bustling pub where 50 or 60 pilgrims were gathered for their longed-for le repit. Ours came in the form of a cafe con leche (glorious) and the much-dreamt-of omelet sandwich. With a sense of legitimate joy, we greeted Gary and Joan and several others we’d dined with the night before. We all had a sense of “You made it!” More than a sense, I suppose, for we had indeed. After eating, we were shown to our room (once again with Gary and Joan). Time for a nap. Now I’m back downstairs in the pub with a pint of beer that tastes heavenly. There’s a group of Asian pilgrims to my left. A few French to my right. A smattering of others around the room. I don’t understand what anyone is saying, and I’m okay with that at the moment, because it’s plain that everyone is happy. Respite: I don’t need language to comprehend that. Click here to read Pete’s first journal entry from the Camino and here to read his third.