What are you looking for?

For 2021’s Advent season, we’ve shared curated collections of art, short essays, music, and more each Monday. This final week’s Advent collection includes a short essay from Kirstin Jeffrey Johnson called “That Holy Thing;” a painting called “Incarnation” by Tim Joyner; and “Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus” from Page CXVI. “That Holy Thing” by Kirstin Jeffrey Johnson All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Emmanuel” (which means “God with us”). —Matthew 1:22-23 (NIV) They all were looking for a king to slay their foes and lift them high; Thou cam’st, a little baby thing That made a woman cry. —George MacDonald, hymn, “That Holy Thing” The bone-chilling sea-damp is what I remember most from our first Christmas Eve service in Scotland. That, and the singing. Romantic on paper: a fishing village, an ancient stone church, the bells . . . but reality included huddling together for warmth. As we shivered the congregation rose for a hymn new only to us: “That Holy Thing.” “That Holy Thing” is not a typical Christmas carol; MacDonald reminds us that holy is not comfortable, let alone predictable. We want holiness to sweep away all ills and be cozy and Christmasy too. But holy does not avoid pain or difficulty, even while making way for good. It facilitates vulnerability; it usurps assumptions; it invites—sometimes even causes—tears. Here is real flesh-and-blood, breaking forth via real sweat-and-tears, into this real dust-and-mud world of his own Triune making. Kirstin Jeffrey Johnson The Child comes and instead sweeps away our ideas of triumph. A “little baby thing,” the long-awaited Messiah is born into a low-income, scandal-threatened, displaced family. This seed of royal lineage is destined to become a border-crossing refugee before he is old enough for school. Instead of conquering the opposition and asserting the rights of his people, he arrives as a helpless infant that makes a woman cry. Here is real flesh-and-blood, breaking forth via real sweat-and-tears, into this real dust-and-mud world of his own Triune making. Woven into the pain of his unglamorous arrival is the promise of goodness beyond conception, but not in the way that even those who expect challenges expect. Christ asks not for political strength or financial security or even familial ease. Rather he asks that we welcome weakness, embrace the uncomfortable, step into that which may hurt—and promises that throughout he will be with us. The invitation is into an unpredictable holiness that is sometimes joyful and sometimes hard. But Emmanuel’s chosen identity pledges also, always, this: that even when huddled against cold or tears, we are never, ever, alone. Emmanuel, make us ever more aware of your abiding loving presence; may that give us courage this Christmas to be humble servants of your love in spaces we might otherwise avoid. Amen. Click here to visit Kirstin’s website and read more of her writing. “Incarnation” by Tim Joyner Foraged pigment on board-mounted paper 4×4” Incarnation, 2021 Every year my family picks out an ornament for our Christmas tree to represent a big moment or theme from the previous months. Last year’s ornament was a laser cut wooden dumpster, emblazoned with the dreadful numbers 2020 and spewing cheerful flames from an inferno within. This seemed funny at the time because, yeah, it had been an awful year, but we’d made it. We had cried and mourned and prayed, but now we were arriving on the other side of hope. And the Advent season had seemed the richer for it. In what year had we needed the light, warmth, and inevitability of Christmas more? And then there was 2021. I know I’m not alone in experiencing this past year as even more difficult than the one before. I could spend a few paragraphs examining why that is, but we’ve all lived it together. You already know. And so this Advent has been kind of weird, right? I’ve felt disengaged from the season. I’ve been dragging my feet decorating. I’ve struggled to enjoy the traditions that I usually cherish. Setting out to create a piece for this year, I started by trying to develop my standard Advent themes. I love painting for this season. Themes of arrival, hope, joy at the other end of sorrow, healing at the other end of brokenness—this is good stuff. But this year, I was having trouble seeing it. I was trying to convince myself of a truth I couldn’t feel. So I let the brush take over. Underpainting The painting that I wound up with is pretty dark for an Advent piece. It’s primarily Lamp Black (a pigment that I associate with longing and prayer because I make it from the discarded stubs of vigil candles), with some even darker Jet Black. There’s some white from Jingle Shells and a bit of Verdigris, but those are there mostly to make the black pigment look even blacker. Even the orb of gold leaf in the very center of the painting is obscured enough that it mostly just draws attention to the rising movement of dark pigment. Collecting Lamp Black pigment This painting is a reminder to myself that, yes, at the end of all this waiting there is an arrival. But it’s not me arriving at the other end of darkness or doubt, brokenness or betrayal. It is the Christ Child who arrives. He meets us here. And rather than chasing away all that it means to be human—including the pain and the longing unfulfilled—and banishing it forever, He wraps Himself in it. We find Christ not on the other side of our longing, but within it. “Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus” from Page CXVI Come, thou long expected Jesus Born to set thy people free From our fears and sins release us Let us find our rest in thee Israel’s strength and consolation Hope of all the earth thou art Dear desire of every nation Joy of every longing heart Born thy people to deliver Born a child and yet a king Born to reign in us forever Now thy gracious Kingdom bring By thine own eternal Spirit Rule in all our hearts alone By thine all-sufficient merit Raise us to thy glorious throne Click here to visit Page CXVI’s website. And click here to listen to the Rabbit Room’s Advent playlist on Spotify and here to listen on Apple Music.

As I listened to Sara Groves’s new album on repeat, my mind grasped for the best way to describe what makes her songwriting so special. And as I grasped away, a moment from one of my favorite movies kept stubbornly arising in my head. It’s a scene from towards the end of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, a special moment of understanding that unfolds between the story’s eponymous protagonist and his elusive, enigmatic idol, Sean O’Connell. Spoiler alert (but seriously, this movie came out in 2013, so if you haven’t seen it yet, then that’s on you): Walter Mitty has finally found Sean O’Connell in the Himalayas after spending a large portion of the story chasing him around the world. The moment Sean is spotted, he raises his finger to his lips to hush Walter and invites him to look through his camera lens. He’s found a snow leopard, or what he calls a “ghost cat,” and he wants Walter to see it before he snaps a picture. But even after Walter has taken a look, Sean does nothing. Walter urges him and asks, “When are you gonna take it?” Sean responds, “Sometimes I don’t. If I like a moment…I don’t want to have the distraction of the camera. I just want to stay in it.” And sure enough, after a few seconds, the ghost cat recedes into the shadows, un-captured. I always get a bit teary-eyed at this point of the scene, and I think it’s because of the altogether different posture that Sean demonstrates by resisting the urge to immortalize that moment in film and instead inviting Walter simply to see. The first posture of “capturing the moment” would do the work of seeing for us in exchange for the ability to see it again anytime we like. But that second posture of “staying in it” gladly sacrifices the accessibility of a photograph for the profoundly fleeting experience of an intimate, irreplicable encounter. (Disclaimer: I’m not trying to make some absolute, moral claim that it’s always better to live “in the moment” and resist the urge to capture life with cameras and microphones. Far from it—if we did that, we wouldn’t have this amazing album from Sara Groves! Just using this scene as an illustration.) In resisting the urge to capture what she sees, Sara Groves leaves open the possibility that we as listeners might see what we need to see for ourselves. Drew Miller I’m reminded here of Malcolm Guite’s distinction between comprehension and apprehension (which he and Mark Meynell discuss—among many other things—here). By freezing their subject in one frame, photographs tend to convey a sense of having fully comprehended that subject. But the act of seeing is one of apprehension—looking through the frame of our eyes at a world that vastly exceeds what we could ever see of it. In the quest to comprehend, we seek to reduce reality to its lowest common denominator and say “mine.” But in the stillness of apprehension, we simply bear witness to reality. We ask for true testimony, aware that we will only ever know or be known in part. And why do we only ever know in part? Because humility demands that we acknowledge we are not finally in control of what makes it through. If you’ve spent some time with What Makes It Through, then those last few phrases will ring some bells in your mind. Imperfect though the analogy is, Sara Groves writes songs with something of Sean O’Connell’s love of bearing witness. She respects you, listener, far too much to take the picture for you. Because who’s to say that we’re seeing the same picture in the first place? Instead, ten times out of ten, Sara Groves will choose to write a song that models the act of seeing with unflinching faithfulness. As a result, you won’t be able to help but feel the irresistible invitation to see as well. How does she do it? Well, that’s the million dollar question, isn’t it? There’s no telling how she does it (I’ve been asking myself for years), although I have a feeling it has something to do with attentiveness, persistence, and definitely the Holy Spirit. Since I have no chance of comprehending for you what makes these songs tick, I can at least share with you what I’ve apprehended of this album, whose lyrics elude capture as surely as the ghost cat of which they sing. Speaking of which, What Makes It Through brings us face-to-face with the ghost cat from the very beginning with track 1, “Soul of Things:” How is it a stranger Can know you for a moment And call out pretty closely What it takes years to name? Why is it so hard To tell yourself the truth To see into the soul of things? What a mystery Your very heart Held inside you And known in part —Sara Groves, “Soul of Things” What Makes It Through begins with a song that models the path of all the songs to come: present an indecipherable conundrum, a tightly-wound knot; sit with it for a couple verses, examining it from different angles and wondering how it came to be tied so tight; then put a finger on the thread which, with the gentlest tug, may not unravel the whole dilemma but will at least loosen the tension, pointing to the possibility of wonder instead of vexation, liberation instead of constriction: Somewhere in the vast Waters of my mind A memory resurfaced And I’m looking in your eyes You are trying to tell me A better way to see Into the soul of things —Sara Groves, “Soul of Things” It is this quality in Sara Groves’s songwriting that brings me to tears as I listen. These are not “eureka” tears. Even less are they the tears of emotional manipulation. These tears are the subtle beginnings of a relief in tension from having watched the knot loosen. Many of my favorite songs from Sara are “slow burns,” working their magic with a disciplined steadiness, phrase after phrase, melody after melody, until the marvelous wonder of the ghost cat could not be more plain to see. The following quote from Alan Jones on the three imperatives of the Christian desert tradition perfectly describes this sort of contemplation that Sara’s songs invite me into: Look! Weep! Live! These three great imperatives from the desert tradition open up for us a way of believing that is life-bearing… In this process we are born again and again and again… The first imperative is, Look! Looking means a contemplative willingness to see what is there in front of us without prematurely interpreting what we see. The desert tradition claims that if we look long and accurately enough, the tears will begin to flow. Thus the second imperative is, Weep! The fruit of honest contemplation is “the gift of tears”; and the sure sign that our attentiveness has been focused and honest and the tears cleansing is joy. Joy is the fruit of desert patience. Thus the third imperative, Live! —Alan Jones, Soul Making, p. 22 Another song that had me looking and weeping was “Deal Breaker,” which soberly narrates the distance that has emerged within a precious relationship. Again, Sara honors and bears witness to the complex tensions of the situation, yet manages to pull at the thread that will loosen that tension before the song is over: And there’s grief like a black bird Ever present in the sky And I can feel all our distance And the hidden reasons why But some days I can see us And we’re soft and reconciled Last night we walked the riverbed Listened closely for what’s not been said Last night I dreamt of jubilee New beginnings as far as the eye can see —Sara Groves, “Deal Breaker” As I write this, I realize that this album is like a beloved book whose every word has been highlighted, rendering the highlights themselves useless—my own urge to “capture” this record for you and show you everything I love about it would have me quote the entirety of it right here in this review. Needless to say, that would be counter-productive. So for the remainder of this review, I’ll move on from lyrics and share a few closing thoughts on how this record sounds. (“But you haven’t even talked about ‘Reach Inside’! Or ‘Nothing’!” my betrayed inner voice says. I heartlessly ignore it). This album sounds like the desert, like the wilderness. It’s Sara’s first foray into self-production, and she’s taken these songs into a fittingly sparse direction, matching lyrical cues with finesse. Unsolvable mysteries are presented with parched sonic landscapes, dry and spacious with questioning. Moments of relief and epiphany bring with them swells of energy, riding on the backs of effortless drum-and-bass feels, string arrangements like underground wells springing up from below, and careful vocal layering (ex. the loosening of tension towards the end of “Nothing”). The amount of empty space that occupies the mix throughout much the album serves to make those breakthrough moments all the more compelling and satisfying. Sara Groves has made a life’s work out of paying attention, bearing witness, and telling the truth in her songwriting, and she’s been rewarded for that work with countless ghost cat sightings. In resisting the urge to capture what she sees, Sara Groves leaves open the possibility that we as listeners might see what we need to see for ourselves. I believe that this invitational posture has much to do with why her work has managed to reach inside the hearts of so many listeners—true testimony has a way of getting through to us just when we most desperately need to hear it. Click here to listen to What Makes It Through on Spotify, and here to listen on Apple Music. And click here to visit Sara Groves’s website.

This week on The Habit Podcast, Jonathan Rogers talks with John Cal, a celebrity chef—at least among those who have participated in the Rabbit Room’s Hutchmoot gathering in the past few years. His food-related essay/orations are a Hutchmoot highlight. In this final Habit Podcast episode of 2021, John and Jonathan talk about feasting, fellowship, and other pleasures relevant to the Christmas season. Click here to listen to Season 3, Episode 51 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, 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.

Advent has always been described to me as a time of waiting for the coming of the Christ child, and throughout my childhood, I accepted that information and didn’t waste too much brain space on it. Even when I did consider the implications of Advent, it always seemed so ceremonial and almost archaic to me, a beautiful ceremony without an abundance of practical application. The birth of Christ had already happened in time and space, in history, and while I understood the need and desire to celebrate that fact, I didn’t really understand why we still insisted on waiting. The light of the world has come. What are we waiting for in the Advent season specifically? Is it just a reminder? A sacrament like the Eucharist that mysteriously points back to the crucified Christ and forward to the renewal of all things? Maybe. I certainly don’t pretend to be an expert, but this year, Advent has meant something else to me. I got in an argument with a friend of mine a couple of days ago, right in the middle of the Advent season. It was a small thing, but there was hurt on both sides, and that one simple disagreement sent me reeling. I always feel relational damage at the core of my being, especially when the damage is my fault, and for some reason, the tiny gulf that it created felt impossible to cross. I wanted to build a bridge, or better yet, pretend the gulf had never happened and everything could be as it was before, but I felt guilty and weak and my usual perfectionist veneer had sprung a leak. There was a chink in my armor and I felt like I was bleeding security and identity, one drop at a time. It turned out to be a week for conflict. One of my closest friends found herself in her boss’ line of fire for no discernible reason and she came home shaken and scared and unsure how to get up the next day and face it all again. Another close friend found herself at odds with her roommates, and as the situation grew more and more toxic, she brought her stress and sorrow to her friends and we mourned with her. The relational fractures may have been small, but they were fractures nonetheless, and we all felt, by turns, the breaking of the world around us in hurtful, tangible ways. By the time the third conflict surfaced in our small group of friends, I became suspicious that God might be trying to get my attention and it was high time I listened. The feeling of loss, the gap between what I want to be and what I am, the heart-stopping struggle of loving people and being loved by them in return outside the gates of Eden, has given me the unexpected gift of returning to Advent. Carly Marlys Perhaps it’s my inner “Enneagram 1 idealist” springing to life, but I never feel the brokenness of the world more completely than when a relationship starts to fray at the edges, whether it is misalignment with my parents, a disagreement between friends, or the disapproval of someone I look up to. I never feel the need for hope and healing more than when I am living in the gulf between what I wish could be and what actually exists in this strained and shattered world of people who sin and misunderstand and grieve. Not every argument can be fixed in the moment. Not every mistake can be mended with frantically applied tape and glue. Sin and interpersonal struggle often force me to wait for God in the broken and voided places of the world. The feeling of loss, the gap between what I want to be and what I am, the heart-stopping struggle of loving people and being loved by them in return outside the gates of Eden, has given me the unexpected gift of returning to Advent. This year, Advent has been a time of waiting for the world to be made right. And yes, that does mean hearkening back to the way that the Israelites waited for the arrival of the Messiah, but I think there is more. We are waiting for the sharp edges and frayed nerves and hurt feelings that surround us to be healed. The realization that something is very wrong with our world and ourselves—that we stumble together through the darkness, waiting for a great light and not knowing when it will come—is the struggle of Advent. The glory of Advent is that it’s only a few weeks long. For the people of God, the wait does end. The promise of the coming savior is that the wrongness I feel, the brokenness of my friendships, the mistakes that I make, are not the end of the story. I don’t need to convince anyone that this created world is full of conflict and struggle and hurt feelings and rough words. I may try to forget that fact, but I know it to be true. This year, I have been forced to remember that Jesus, our Messiah, came because this is not how it is supposed to be. Wiping away every tear from every eye also means mending what is broken, our imperfect and stumbling love for each other, our self-condemnation, our long and unforgiving memories. As Christmas comes, as the waiting ends, conflict and guilt and the need to constantly heal and be healed will not just disappear, but this time of waiting, this time of feeling the fallenness of the world will not be wasted, because it does point to a time when sin has no more power to pull us apart from each other. May that day come quickly, and until then, we wait, for the God of peace and renewal to meet us at the end of Advent, pull us into his embrace, and heal what we have broken.

In college I had a housemate who was a DJ at a Christian radio station. He believed (and freely admitted) that the music he played at the radio station was mostly a watered down imitation of the pop and rock music that was his first love. He viewed it as an act of spiritual sacrifice to give up “secular” music for “Christian” music that he considered artistically inferior. At the time I didn’t know what to think of this pious sentiment. I have since decided that this kind of thinking is a threat to civilization. I hear a lot of folks complain about bad art, and especially bad Christian art. I’m not really interested in jumping on that dog pile, but I do want to offer a distinction that might be helpful—a distinction between the right kind of bad art and a wrong kind of bad art. The right kind of bad art is the bad art that you make on the way to making good art. If you’re trying to make something good, but you just aren’t there yet, that’s nothing to be ashamed of. That kind of bad art is just part of the process. Keep fighting the good fight; you’ll get better. In fact, you’ve already gotten better. Just think what you used to write and draw when you were little. You wouldn’t believe some of the garbage I’ve seen posted on preschoolers’ refrigerators. It is exceedingly hard to make good art. With very limited tools (words, pigments, paintbrushes, musical notes, musical instruments, etc), you’re trying to create for the reader/viewer/audience an experience that feels in some way like the world God made. People fail at it more often than they succeed. As I said before, there’s no shame in failing at a task so rigorous. What hurts my feelings is all the art that is put into the world by people who aren’t even trying to do good work. The very idea that the sensory world is shot through with meaning is a spiritual principle first and an artistic principle only by extension. The habit of art is a spiritual habit. Jonathan Rogers Flannery O’Connor, a very good Catholic fiction-writer, wrote of the bad Catholic fiction-writer, “usually his sorry productions are a result, not of restrictions that the Church has imposed, but of restrictions that he has failed to impose on himself.” Yes and amen. My DJ-housemate thought he was circumscribing his expansive tastes, submitting them to the limitations of his faith. In fact, I think he was doing the opposite: by accepting and propagating substandard (but Jesus-adjacent) art, he was excusing Christian artists from the limitations of their art, which, as O’Connor points out, are considerably narrower than the limitations of faith. I don’t mean to suggest that faith commitments put no restrictions on the cultural artifacts we make or consume. There can be no such thing as Christian pornography, for instance. We are surrounded by cultural artifacts produced by people who believe that non-artistic concerns (including but not limited to theological, ideological, emotional, and especially commercial concerns) excuse the artist from the rigors imposed by art. I’m not just talking about “Christian” art. This criticism applies equally to Ayn Rand, Hallmark movies, pedantic children’s books, and much of the music produced in my adopted hometown of Nashville, Tennessee (Bobby Bare, Jr. was onto something when he said that Nashville produces the best music in the world, and also the worst). “If writing is your vocation,” writes O’Connor, “then, as a writer, you will seek the will of God first through the laws and limitations of what you are creating.” To write that way requires that one develop what O’Connor called the habit of art: “I think this is more than just a discipline, though it is certainly that; I think it is a way of looking at the created world and of using the senses so as to make them find as much meaning as possible in things.” The eye of the artist sees through manners to mysteries. The very idea that the sensory world is shot through with meaning is a spiritual principle first and an artistic principle only by extension. I may be stating the obvious here, but the habit of art is a spiritual habit. Besides being a habit of mind and spirit, the habit of art must also be a daily habit. “The artist knows total dependence on the unseen reality,” writes Madeleine L’Engle. “The paradox is that the creative process is incomplete unless the artist is, in the best and most proper sense of the word, a technician, one who knows the tools of his trade, has studied his techniques, is disciplined.” It is true that writing involves mysteries over which we have no control. The wind—including the wind of writerly inspiration—blows where it wishes. But some factors we can control, and those factors are largely a matter of habit. We can sit down every day. We can turn off the Internet. We can put our words down on the page, as uninspired as they may be on any given day. We can sharpen our skills. We can stay in the chair in the hope that today is the day that the wind will blow. As we commit to the slow work of habit, we create places where the mysteries can find purchase. Perhaps that’s just another way of saying that we commit to making bad art until we finally make good art; we make bad art, but we don’t settle for bad art. All of which means we have to leave room for grace. I work pretty hard at writing, and yet every good story or essay I’ve ever written has felt like grace. In daily practice, the mere act of sitting down and doing the work is a spiritual discipline. Most days, I don’t write anything that’s fit to show. Most days, the best I can say is, “Lord, I believe. Help me in my unbelief.” Then I wade in and hope for the best. Every day I have to learn what I’m doing, as if I’ve never done this before. Then sometimes, for reasons that remain mysterious to me, the wind blows and I manage to forget about myself long enough for something good to take shape. 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 interviews author and professor of theology at Covenant College, Kelly Kapic. His most recent book is You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News. Dr. Kapic and Jonathan discuss productivity shame, gratitude, and the truth that finitude is not a sin. Click here to listen to Season 4, Episode 3 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, 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.

Artists & is back! Join hosts Jamin Still and Kyra Hinton as they review the old year and walk into the new one, through the lens of visual artists. What worked? What didn’t? What gave you joy? What drained you? How can you shape your studio practice to focus on your priorities? They discuss these questions and more. Click here to join the artists & group on Facebook. Click here to begin with the first installment of artists & their stories.

If I say “pottery show,” chances are good you think of form and color: whimsical mugs on a shelf, maybe, or the elegant curve of a well-made vase. Images of 4th century monasticism probably don’t spring instantly to mind. I wouldn’t connect the two either, apart from friendship. But my longtime roommate Becca is a potter, and I study the early church. For a couple of years now, we’ve worked together on her shows—hammering out concepts in conversation and layering her clay-craft and my writing. Typically, our collaborations start with one zany idea. This time it was Becca’s. “You know how bowls look like inverted shields? I’m picturing a medieval hall decorated with heraldic shields, but they’re all serving bowls.” It was a promising riff on swords into plowshares. As we talked, it turned into an inversion of the emperor Constantine’s story as well. Go back in time with me for just a second: in 312 AD, Constantine was marching to battle his rival for possession of Rome. Around noon he saw a cross of light in the sky above the sun, and he heard a voice saying, “In this sign conquer.” So Constantine made a cross out of gilded spears. His soldiers inscribed the symbol on their shields. Then Constantine defeated his enemy, successfully launching his own empire and the fraught entanglement of cross and sword. Back to 2021. Becca and I wanted to tell the story of a different power, and in the hour after midnight we searched our knowledge of Christian symbols for images of self-giving instead of conquest. The pelican that wounds herself to feed her young. The seed that dies into life. The apple tree. “The apple tree?” And here is that other elusive link between pottery shows and 4th century monasticism: the Song of Songs. Strange as it sounds, the Song was the favored text of monks and nuns. They read it as a drama between Christ and the Church or Christ and the soul. In their hands, that riot of images turned the whole Bible into a poem. “As an apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my kinsman among the sons,” the Song goes, and theologians hear the music of Incarnation. The apple tree shares woodiness with the trees of the thicket—Christ bears our nature completely, without sin—and like the apple among thorns, he overflows our darkness with sweet, lifegiving fruit. Our whole life of desire is meant to lead to that tree. To see it is to behold the life of Jesus: the place we learn gentleness and forgiveness of enemies, where self-control and longsuffering teach love for even those who do harm. I didn’t have my early church bookson hand that night, but I must have managed a half-coherent summary because the tree made the list. Then Becca and I remembered that neither of us can draw. Fortunately, our friend Deirdre can. When she called to ask if she could do anything for the show, Becca appointed her Chief of Heraldry. It was an excellent appointment. Within twenty-four hours, she was sending us texts of shield shapes, meaningful color combinations, and Ogham signs for trees and their symbolic properties. The curve of the shield signals the wisdom of a king and the hazelnuts in the bowl's border stand for divine wisdom. Taken together with the apple tree, they spell out the head-spinning logic that God became flesh and the king died in his subjects' stead. Leah McMichael The apple tree was the first of her sketches, I think. And I know you’re supposed to let the art speak for itself, but we’re in the world of heraldry where everything means something by rules older than our own. I feel compelled to let you know that the curve of the shield signals the wisdom of a king and the hazelnuts in the bowl’s border stand for divine wisdom. Taken together with the apple tree, they spell out the head-spinning logic that God became flesh and the king died in his subjects’ stead. Such is the wisdom that confounds the wise. It slips through the hands of emperors and makes nonsense of all spear-wrought crosses. The hazel also nods to Lady Julian of Norwich, who saw the world as small as a hazelnut and still created, sustained, and held in the love of God. It’s a power Constantine had no category for: the Love that rules through self-giving and triumphs in descent. In this sign, conquer. [The apple tree and the larger series of heraldic bowls is part of the show “In This Sign,” which displayed in Indianapolis’s Harrison Gallery in August, and online at prakunpottery.com.]

Hello, folks! I had good intentions of adding this resource list to the Rabbit Room’s annual “Stuff We Liked in 2021” post, but the document kept growing and I missed the boat. I ended up posting these on social media, but thought it would be helpful to compile them here for your perusal. One of my favorite parts of writing The God of the Garden was the excuse to read a whole bunch of books about place, culture, gardening, community, and the natural world, and to read them through the lens of my belief in Christ, his Kingdom, and the promise of a New Creation. Lest you think I read more than I do, I confess that I read a few of these in 2020, and a couple of others were first read years ago but were referenced in my book. I hope some of these will ignite in you a love for this creation that God so loves. As I wrote in the afterword, “We have a mandate to take care of the place, and we’re told in Scripture that the master of the house is returning. This is more than an environmental concern (though it is certainly that, too). It extends to the way we build things, the way we get around, the way we do the business of life. If God intends for us to flourish, we disregard the flourishing of his creation at our peril. Infrastructure, city planning, creation care, justice, neighborliness, and stewardship of resources are all theological concerns.” Happy reading! William Wordsworth: Poems Selected by Seamus Heaney It can be difficult to know where to begin with a poet, so it’s not a bad idea to let another Great Poet point the way. This little pocket edition lived in my backpack for about a year, and is the reason the chapters of The God of the Garden were structured around Wordsworth’s “Ode: Intimations of Immortality.” Gilbert White’s Natural History of Selborne Selborne is a lovely little village in Hampshire, England, right up the road from English L’Abri. I have good memories of walking with Jamie through the pasture below the church and into the hills along muddy footpaths, where we were chased by cows. We learned that it’s difficult to run in Wellies, especially in ankle-deep mud. We also climbed the famous zig zag path he cut with his brother in 1753, up a steep hill into Selborne Hanger, where White spent a lot of his time carefully observing the minutiae of natural life. It’s a lesson in paying attention. Last summer we met some good friends for tea at the museum there, where we saw his original manuscript and then wandered the gardens he planted. He was a humble man, and pastored the church there for his whole life. His grave in an unassuming corner of the churchyard is nondescript, which feels beautifully appropriate. Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry I’ve written at length about this one, so if you aren’t convinced yet, you never will be. One of the great works of American literature, says I. In 2014 I had the honor of “opening” for Wendell at an event here in Nashville, where I played about five songs, all of which were inspired by him (“Planting Trees,” “The Magic Hour,” and “World Traveler,” among a few others) with Mr. Berry and Tanya listening on from the front row. I was a mixture of wildly intimidated and wildly thankful. I brought my first edition for him to sign, and it’s probably the one book I’d rescue if the Chapter House were ever on fire. The Art of Pencil Drawing by Ernest W. Watson Drawing trees has taught me as much about them as reading. For the most part, the drawings in this book are all from either sitting in front of the tree itself, or from pictures I’ve taken with my phone. A few people have asked for sketching advice, which is kind of hilarious because I don’t really know what I’m doing. But songwriting and book writing have both taught me that the only way to learn is to do, and I’m committed to the long game. It really does come down to practice. That said, this book is full of good, practical advice on things like which pencils to use and when, how to compose a sketch, and techniques on textures and such. To be honest, though, YouTube has also been just as helpful. Simply find a how-to video of a tree you like, turn on some good music, and prepare to be disappointed. Try again the next day, then the next, and in a week your disappointment will decrease a little. Whatever you think of the final product, you’ll have learned a bit about trunks, branches, the habits of certain species, and I guarantee you’ll find yourself looking at the trees in your backyard with a better eye. For what it’s worth, I like Strathmore drawing paper and Derwent pencils. If you’re working from a photograph, edit the photo to black and white, since those are the values you’ll be working with. Once you lose the color, sometimes you’ll find that the photo you like doesn’t make for a good drawing because the values aren’t varied enough. As you’re finishing the drawing, don’t hesitate to darken it up. If it’s black on the photo, make it black on your paper. I’ve found that even the drawings I don’t like get better once the darks are really dark. Finally, don’t be afraid to screw it up, because there’s always more paper. Tree of Life by The BibleProject I love everything the BibleProject team does, from the videos to the printed materials to the podcasts. Their “Tree of Life” video and podcast series are excellent primers on the centrality of trees in the Bible narrative. Gardener’s World by Monty Don In February and March, when I can’t stand another dreary day of winter, I find myself wistfully watching old episodes of Gardener’s World. It’s a feast for the eyes, but it’s also extremely practical. Monty and the team are genuinely interested in helping viewers to see the great good of gardening and to grow things better. A Hidden Life by Terence Malick It’s safe to say that no film has ever affected me like this one. Made by a Christian, about a Christian, pointing to the suffering of Christ, the beauty of his world, and the coming of the New Creation, it is a resounding rebuke to anyone claiming that there’s no good art by Christians. Many of Malick’s films are eccentric, experienced more like poems than stories, but this I think is the one with the most straightforward narrative—that of Austrian Franz Jäggerstätter, who because of his faith refused to swear allegiance to Hitler and was executed. I beg you to see this film. So many of the themes of The God of the Garden are much better expressed there. A stunning portrait of moral courage—and timely. All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot This is the kind of book I would have rolled my eyes at when I was a teenager, but I gobbled it up as an adult. It’s a somewhat fictionalized memoir about a 1930s country veterinarian in the Yorkshire Dales, telling his tale with good humor, as well as lush descriptions of the fells and valleys of one of the prettiest places on earth. The opening scene features the rookie vet in a barn, his arm buried up to his shoulder in the rear of a pregnant cow, while the old codgers tease him. It’s a funny scene, but it’s also subtly profound, demonstrating in just a few pages the deep connection between the people and the land, the beauty of community, and the noble humility of humans willing to work and keep God’s creation. (P.S. The new show is a bit hokey, but it’s wholesome and beautifully made.) The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben What a splash this book made! Wohlleben’s research peels back just one layer of the onion of creation, showing that trees are more alive and mysterious than we ever knew. It changed the way I see the little patch of trees on our property. Culture Making by Andy Crouch I think every American Christian should read this book, especially in light of the craziness of the world in the early 21st century. Andy casts a beautiful vision of the Christian’s role in the world, which is more about caring for and building cultures than waging war on them. The Shepherd’s Life and English Pastoral by James Rebanks Rebanks is a Lake District sheep farmer, and he talks like one. I imagine him as a sort of British Wendell Berry with a twist of sea pirate. These two books are memoirs of his life as a farmer and are funny, wise, and elegantly written. The Brother Gardeners by Andrea Wulf This one traces the history of horticulture in England, demonstrating how it became the garden mecca that it is. The “brothers” she focuses on were 18th century botanists John Bartram (America), Peter Collinson (England), and Charles Linnaeus (Sweden), among several other luminaries. It was a true delight to read of their delight of the natural world, and the great pains they took to catalogue and name the thousands of species. Gardening trips to Lowe’s and Home Depot were richer because I recognized plants Collinson had naturalized, and could chortle with self-satisfaction and inform other customers the significance of this or that Latin genus. I’m sure they were quite impressed. Mariner by Malcolm Guite If, like me, you’re relatively new to the wonder of poetry, Malcolm Guite’s spiritual biography of Samuel Taylor Coleridge is a great place to start. A fun fact: in 2019 Jamie, Skye, and I spent a few days in Devon, in the southwest of England. I booked a random Airbnb room in an old parsonage, and just happened to be reading Mariner on the trip. We checked in, and I opened the guest information book to discover that the very room we were staying in was where Coleridge wrote “Kubla Khan,” one of his most famous poems. I almost fell out of my chair. He was well-known for his epic walks all over England, sometimes with William Wordsworth as his companion. Footpaths and poetry. How could I not love him? A Contemplation Upon Flowers by Bobby J. Ward This is the perfect bedside book. It’s an index of flowers, and each entry compiles references to poems, plays, and novels written over the centuries. It’s a wonderful thing to learn, for instance, that hellebores (which are growing right outside the Chapter House door) are mentioned in 16th century Christmas carols, Swedish folk tales, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and even as far back as 2,200 years ago by Hippocrates as an ingredient in a “poison paste to kill wolves and foxes.” The Well-Gardened Mind by Sue Stuart-Smith Smith, both a clinician and a gardener, makes a strong case for the psychological, physiological, and even relational benefits of getting your hands dirty. The Geography of Nowhere by James Howard Kunstler A great primer on how the U.S. became so placeless. It’s enlightening and infuriating in equal measure—infuriating because of the greed and shortsightedness that got us to where we are—and though I don’t agree with all of it (mainly Kunstler’s disdain of Disney World), I highly recommend it. Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson If you’re not too put off by Bryson’s occasionally salty language, I don’t see how you couldn’t love his writing. He somehow manages to be at once hilariously wry and deeply thoughtful, cantankerous yet kind. He grew up in Iowa but married a Brit and now makes his home in England, so he has in some ways a deeper appreciation for the island than Brits do. He makes plenty of fun of them, which is their love language. I don’t know that I’ve ever been in an English house that didn’t have this book on the shelves—which makes me happy because it’s a rousing call to protect their precious countryside. The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs I have my editor to thank for this one. Jane Jacobs was a New Yorker who stood up to mogul Robert Moses and basically saved Greenwich Village from being bulldozed to make a highway. It’s a tome, but if you’re interested in digging deep into the way cities work (or ought to work), this is a good one. She spends about 100 pages on sidewalks. Sidewalks! And it’s fascinating. We live on the outskirts of Nashville, so a lot of Jacobs’s analysis doesn’t directly apply. She makes a disclaimer early on that her expertise is city life, which has completely different rhythms and principles than country, suburban, or even town life. And yet, her work demonstrates how deeply one can think about the way humans flourish (or don’t), depending on the built environment. There’s a documentary about her called Citizen Jane: The Battle for the City, if you want a lower-risk commitment than a 1,000 page book. The Wilderness World of John Muir by John Muir I’d never read anything by Muir before, so this was the perfect primer—a chronological collection of his writings, along with notes on his life. I was stunned when I read about his thousand-mile walk from Indiana to Florida in 1867. I got out a map and retraced it, discovering happily that he would have walked right past my Florida hometown of Lake Butler just a few years after the Civil War. Also amazing, Muir wasn’t just a naturalist, he was a genius inventor. When he was young he invented and built an alarm clock that flipped up his bed in the morning, a la “Wallace and Gromit.” My dad told me to read this because Eugene Peterson told him to read it (as a recommendation in one of his books). I’m so glad I did, because few people have written with as much affection for God’s creation than Muir. The writer of the preface points out that Muir’s favorite descriptor is the word “glorious,” and he’s not wrong. Glory is indeed what you experience when you read about his time rambling across our continent. Ents, Elves, and Eriador by Matthew Dickerson and Jonathan Evans I met Matthew Dickerson at Laity Lodge a few years back, and I loved his lectures on Tolkien. This book is an academic work, so don’t expect a breezy read, but it was a convicting and enlightening exploration of the way Tolkien’s love for Creation and his understanding of its proper stewardship shines forth in The Lord of the Rings. I love this: “…environmental writers like Wes Jackson, Wendell Berry, Gene Logsdon, and others have not been deterred from trying to foster an alternative perspective on farming, food production and consumption, agriculture, and the economic and cultural issues surrounding them as part of the broader environmental movement. We suggest that the name J. R. R. Tolkien belongs on this list. His perspective on Christian stewardship—heartfelt devotion to a particular place, knowledge that the place ultimately does not belong solely to us, and a willingness to give it up to preserve it for others—is his plan for how such an idyllic vision can have a positive influence on this world.” A Natural History of Trees by Donald Culross Peattie Someone heard that I was working on a tree book and emailed me a few suggestions, including this one. It’s a big, fat, beautiful book with tons of illustrations and everything you ever wanted to know about the trees outside your window. The Seven-Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton A soul-stirring memoir by a truly great writer. His physical and spiritual journey from his birth in France to the monastery in Kentucky is remarkable. An American classic. Oak & Ash & Thorn by Peter Fiennes A fascinating history of England’s trees and forests, abounding with references to poetry and mythology. Walks and Talks of an American Farmer in England by Frederick Law Olmsted The undisputed father of landscape architecture is Frederick Law Olmsted. He designed Central Park, Biltmore Estate, and the interconnected park system of Louisville, among many other notable projects. Imagine my delight when I discovered that when he was a young man he sailed to England and wandered on foot for a month in 1850. Walks and Talks was a fascinating glimpse into what would inspire Olmsted’s passion for shaping the land. Native by Patrick Laurie I absolutely loved this book. Patrick Laurie bought a piece of ancestral property in Galloway, Scotland and set about reclaiming the land and raising a rare breed of traditional cattle. He’s a gifted writer, and we get delightful passages like this: Every ripple and rock in Galloway has a name of some small fame; there’s Gutcher’s Lane to the Brockhole Stane; and the Hingin Bane by the Cuddy’s Wame; there’s words and words to the far horizon, but you soon lose words if you don’t use them. And there’s no logic to the ones we keep. Of course we respect old names for mountains and rivers, but I like the tales we tell for smaller things because those are all around us. There’s Crummie’s Knowe, where the bold dog Crummie went in for a fox and never came out. And that wide tree is called Chick’s Brolly because Chick was an old Clydesdale horse and he’d always stand there when the weather was wet. —Patrick Laurie, Native Until I read this one I didn’t know much about curlews (there’s one on the bottom left of the cover), and his descriptions of their call made me ache to hear one. When Mark Meynell and I reached the end of Hadrian’s Wall and stood wearily at the shore of Bowness on Solway at dusk to read the Every Moment Holy liturgy for arriving at the ocean, I heard my first curlew. It took my breath away. Farming and Gardening in the Bible by Alastair MacKay The title says it all. If, like me, you ever wondered how many species of trees show up in the pages of scripture, or how people would have farmed, or what kinds of things people ate back then, this is the book for you. A simple and practical reference. Landmarks by Robert MacFarlane MacFarlane is one of my very favorite writers (perhaps best known for The Lost Words, his poetic collaboration with artist Jackie Morris, written to rescue vanishing words like “acorn,” “bramble,” and “otter”), and this is a collection of essays about varying landscapes in the UK (flatlands, uplands, waterlands, coastlands, etc). Each chapter features a “word hoard,” a glossary of words that, because of our modern disconnection from the land, are falling out of use. For example, “ammil” is a word for “the fine film of silver ice that coats leaves, twigs, and grass when freeze follows thaw.” Or this one: “pirr,” which is “a light breath of wind, such as will make a cat’s paw on the water.” One of my favorites is “smeuse,” which is “the gap in the base of a hedge made by the regular passage of a small animal.” I see gaps like that here at the Warren and I love that now I can call them something. If you’re a word nerd with an affinity for the created world, you’ll love this book. The final chapter on childhood is marvelous. And if you don’t have The Lost Words, then fix that right away. Click here to view The God of the Garden in the Rabbit Room Store.

We’re excited to share that Every Moment Holy, Vol. 2: Pocket Edition is now available for pre-order in the Rabbit Room Store—the complete second volume of Douglas McKelvey’s book of liturgies, at a fraction of the size and cost of the original. Every Moment Holy, Vol. 2: Death, Grief, and Hope is a book of liturgies for seasons of dying and grieving, including “A Liturgy for the Scattering of Ashes,” “A Liturgy for the Loss of a Spouse,” and “A Liturgy for the Wake of a National Tragedy.” These are ways of reminding us that our lives are shot through with sacred purpose and eternal hopes even when—especially when—suffering and pain threaten to overwhelm us. Every Moment Holy, Vol. 2: Pocket Edition is now available at the Rabbit Room Store

This week on The Habit Podcast, Jonathan Rogers talks with political and cultural commentator David French. French is senior editor at The Dispatch, a contributing writer at The Atlantic Monthly, and the author of several books, including Divided We Fall: America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation as well as the French Press newsletter. He’s the co-host—with Curtis Chang—of the new podcast, Good Faith. In this episode, Jonathan and David discuss persuasion in a polarized and ideologically super-charged climate. Click here to listen to Season 4, Episode 4 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, 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.

Jonny Jimison is back with a special, Creaturepedia-themed edition of his beloved comic, Rabbit Trails. Click here to pick up a copy of his latest, full-color graphic novel, The River Fox. And click here to visit Jonny Jimison’s website.

When I was a kid, my favorite thing to do was to play pretend. My friend and I created an entire town in her backyard. Our house was inside a meticulously de-cobwebbed corner of her crawlspace. The market area stretched around her back deck. The battlefield where we fought bloody wars against the tyranny of the king was the sprawling woods beyond. I was always good at playing pretend; I could see the town and hear the voices of our comrades in battle. The clashing of swords and the tang of fear were all real to me. I was so good at playing pretend that when I realized my imaginative thoughts would not be valued during discussions in school, church, or other “serious” settings, I simply pretended I wasn’t imaginative whenever speaking. In time, I wasn’t even imaginative when thinking of ideas while in those settings. I put my imagination in a box, only to be taken out under proper circumstances. As I grew older, those proper times for imagining grew fewer and farther between until eventually I forgot who I truly was. I pretended a part of myself away, but the problem was that no matter how good I was at pretending, that part of me was never truly gone. It was doing puzzles with my mom during my high school years that began to reawaken the part of me I had locked away for so long. Credit does not go so much to the puzzles themselves, but the movie we watched as we worked, Anne of Green Gables. From the moment Anne named the Barry’s pond the Lake of Shining Waters, I knew Anne’s heart was kindred to mine. By the fourth puzzle my mom and I undertook, I realized that Anne Shirley was the person I knew myself to be in my heart—a person whose imagination is shamelessly free instead of crammed inside a tiny box. Anne awakened in me a restlessness that I loathed but could not ignore, a deep knowing that I was so much more than the prevarication I pretended to be in order to gain assurance that I would be valued and loved. To ease the restlessness, I started writing stories, giving my imagination free rein to create whatever worlds and joys and tragedies it saw fit. When I got a little braver, I began exploring the imagination academically, looking at how the imagination can be an agent of healing when a person creates or consumes art. But still my imagination and my thoughts on God remained carefully separate. At least, they did until I wandered into a plenary session during Hutchmoot 2019. “Imagination and the Voice of God” was hosted by Helena Sorensen. Waves of people crowded into the room as the start time for the session approached. I ended up sitting my 4’11” frame on the floor beneath a white board because there was no more room for chairs. I had only been involved in the Rabbit Room for three years, and though I was comfortable with my imagination as a writer, I had no idea how imagination and God could mix. Everyone in my church growing up was clear that the Bible was all we needed for our faith. Scripture left nothing for me to imagine; at least that’s what I always pretended I thought. When Helena began speaking, though, it was like she knew the secret longing of my heart. The imagination, she said, is our way to enter the unseen realm—it is the way we commune with God. And with that one idea, the last of the true me was set free. We’ve spent an awful lot of time interpreting Scripture and arguing Scripture and learning and teaching and trying to rightly divide. But some of you know about a contemplative practice called “entering the scene.” How many divinity doctorates do you need in order to imagine yourself on the hillside with Jesus? You might not come out of that encounter with a systematic theology, but you’ll come out changed. —Helena Sorensen, “Imagination and the Voice of God” Have you ever had a secret that you felt would lead to questions about how much you love God? I did for a long, long time. I don’t feel connected to God when I pray. Oh, I’ve begged for lives to be saved and pleaded for the safety of the ones I’ve loved. I’ve even tried having a prayer closet with notecards full of prayers taped up on the walls. No matter what I try, I just feel like I’m saying words that God hears. I’ve never felt the intimacy—the presence of God—that others describe when they pray. But sit me down with a pen and a story swirling in my head—that’s prayer for me. Give me my wounds laid out in verse before me—that’s how I feel I was purposed to commune with my Creator. Or give me a cloudless day where the sky is such a rich blue that I just want to swim in it until the rest of the world disappears—that’s when I feel God right beside me. Or give me a book that makes me feel known, that speaks in a language only my soul knows—that’s when I know I’ve been praying. I’ve never walked away from one of these moments with any new theological insights, but I always walk away changed. I walk away knowing more of who God is, who I am, and how I am to love the world around me. I walk away, and my restlessness is gone. Why must people kneel down to pray? If I really wanted to pray I’ll tell you what I’d do. I’d go out into a great big field all alone or into the deep, deep woods, and I’d look up into the sky—up—up—up—into that lovely blue sky that looks as if there was no end to its blueness. And then I’d just feel a prayer. —L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables We squeeze every ounce of mystery we can out of faith because we so desperately want to know we're doing okay. But when we deflect the weight of mystery, we toss away chances to experience God more deeply. Hannah Mitchell As I began to explore imagination as a spiritual practice more in my own life, this moment just after Anne Shirley comes to Green Gables kept coming to my mind. Why do people kneel down to pray? Why must my prayer be like anyone else’s to be more “right”? I’m sure there are plenty of verses people can share with me as to why prayer must look a certain way. But I think, at its core, we want prayer to look a certain way because it is easy to know if we are doing it right. The existence of God alone is a lot for our rational brains to handle, so we cling to any benchmark that lets us know we are doing this whole faith thing the way God wants. We say the “sinners’ prayer” to be saved. We go to church on specific days of the week. We get baptized or we don’t. We search only in the places we know God ought to be to find God’s truth. We squeeze every ounce of mystery we can out of faith because we so desperately want to know we’re doing okay. But when we deflect the weight of mystery, we toss away chances to experience God more deeply. Mystery is who God is, and we will never know God as fully as we might unless we allow our imaginations to freely rest in the tension of the unknown. This resting in Mystery allows us to ask the secret questions of our heart, like, what if we create art not to praise God, but to be healed by its making? Does God not glory in the lessening of our pain? What if God does not demand perfection or even excellence from our battered souls, but is simply thrilled that we exist in this big, wide world of light? As we lean into the tension of these questions, they lead us to hope. Hope that one day we will no longer be afraid of the person we are in our hearts. Hope that maybe God loves all of who we are—that maybe it wasn’t God, but people, we were pretending for all along. Hope that we will be brave with our love so that no one will ever feel they have to pretend for us. There’s a lyric in the penultimate song of the musical Waitress in which the main character sings, “And I know in due time every right thing with find its right place.” Whenever the weight of the time I wasted forcing my imagination into its box presses in upon me, this lyric’s truth rings in my heart. In due time, my right self found its right place. And as those who speak so loudly of loving God and loving people, we must be brave enough to help others find their right places as well. Somewhere our worthy pursuit of sound theology morphed into an unspoken spiritual hierarchy: the truths we learn from works focused on theology are of more value than those that are not. We learned early on that a study of Mere Christianity is of more spiritual worth than a visit to Narnia. More than that, though, we learned that those who prefer to commune with God among Narnia’s rolling hills are less serious in their spiritual pursuit than those who prefer to dive into Miracles. People put the things of childhood behind them, leaving Narnia so that their adult faith can grow. But by fleeing Narnia’s hills, they close the door on some of the truest ways to experience God. They pretend until they forget the deeper, truer way they once knew. They pretend until all but a shell of their spiritual self is gone. How many people have missed deeper truths of themselves and God because they fled back through the wardrobe? How many people have felt cut-off from God because we decided which ways were right and which ways were wrong? How many people may yet stop pretending because of our choice to live boldly and to love bravely? We must swallow our fear of the spiritual imagination’s mystery and lament the pain and loss we have caused. We must talk without shame or fear of the truths of God found among the brushstrokes of a painting or the score of a song. We must lift up the theologians, the artists, and the dreamers, because for so many, the courage to imagine empowers us to see the fullest image of God. Click here to read “Imagination as an Agent of Healing (Part 1 of 3)” and here to read “Imagination & Kubo and the Two Strings (Part 3 of 3).”

While we celebrate the diverse witness of God’s people year-round, February offers a special opportunity to listen to and learn from Black authors and musicians—both those who have gone before us and those who are sharing the Good News today. If you don’t know where to start, check out these books and albums in the Rabbit Room Store.

We’re excited to share that Every Moment Holy, Vol. 2: Pocket Edition is now available in the Rabbit Room Store—the complete second volume of Douglas McKelvey’s book of liturgies, at a fraction of the size and cost of the original. In the season of Lent, we devote special attention to the ache of incompletion, suffering, and trial. Lent begins with the dust of mortality on Ash Wednesday and ends with the broken bread of the Last Supper on Maundy Thursday before leading into the great hope of Easter. Lent is considered a season of “prayer and fasting,” and it’s into this tradition that we release the pocket edition of the second volume of Every Moment Holy: Death, Grief, and Hope. This collection of prayers and liturgies reminds us that while darkness is ever present in the moments of our days, it does not have the final word. The final hope of Lent is that by acknowledging the depth of our ache, we are led to greater depths of joy through resurrection. Every Moment Holy, Vol. 2: Death, Grief, and Hope is a book of liturgies for seasons of dying and grieving, including “A Liturgy for the Scattering of Ashes,” “A Liturgy for the Loss of a Spouse,” and “A Liturgy for the Wake of a National Tragedy.” These are ways of reminding us that our lives are shot through with sacred purpose and eternal hopes even when—especially when—suffering and pain threaten to overwhelm us. Every Moment Holy, Vol. 2: Pocket Edition is now available in the Rabbit Room Store.

Rabbits have always only been incidental to the scope and purpose of our organization. After all, we weren’t the ones who named that fateful room where the Inklings regularly met in the Eagle & Child pub “The Rabbit Room”—we were merely the ones to name our organization after it. And while we at the Rabbit Room feel no particular antipathy toward the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed among us, we’ve acquired a certain reluctance over the years regarding the rabbitification of all our organization’s doings. Quite frankly, it’s become all “rabbit this” and “rabbit that.” Can you honestly say you’re not tired of encountering that joke that begins “A priest, a minister, and a rabbit walk into a bar…”? Well, believe us—we are. We’re tired of that joke. In addition, as we’ve sought to understand the kind of messaging and metaphor which most compels Generation Z to join in the work of a nonprofit like the Rabbit Room, one resounding lesson has reared its bunny ears time and again: they don’t like rabbits. Why? We’re not sure. But one thing we do know: they like frogs. Our organization’s new logo Now, you may react with the same skepticism and distaste as we did at first: Frogs!? Are frogs really a step forward from rabbits? And we’re here to say: absolutely they are. In fact, they’re an enormous leap forward. But in order to understand this paradigmatic shift, it’s crucial to be reminded of what an unsung-yet-influential role frogs have already played in the life of the Rabbit Room. The Rabbit Room team has decided to take the biggest leap yet in our young organization's history—the leap from the cabbage patch to the lily pond. The Ribbit Room While it may not be immediately obvious to you, dear reader, the amphibians among us have contributed significantly to the growing body of literature and art which constitutes the Rabbit Room canon. In Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows, for instance, we’re presented with Toad, a character whose thirst for adventure embodies our organization’s core conviction that both leaving home and returning home are indispensable facets of narrative storytelling as well as humanity’s spiritual journey. Chris Wheeler summed it up quite well in his 2019 blog post: “Say what you will about Toad (and there is plenty to be said), but his motivations begin and end with longing—the longing for adventure and the longing to return home after said adventures.” Or take the most famous green, slippery friend among us: Kermit himself. Given the search for a figure emblematic of such values as an unwavering commitment to collaboration in the face of seemingly impossible circumstances; love of theater and storytelling; and, perhaps most of all, legendary songwriting as glimpsed in his culture-defining “Rainbow Connection;” who could possibly find fault with the Rabbit Room’s choice to finally associate itself with such an upstanding figure as Mr. the Frog rather than the very paragon of frivolity and sabotage, Bugs Bunny? Click to listen. Those who have been following the Rabbit Room’s work closely will surely find themselves remembering in this moment the legendary performance of “Rainbow Connection” by Rabbit Room collaborator Jeffrey Overstreet at Hutchmoot in 2013. The wisdom of frogs has long been with us. If the examples above are not enough to win you over to our side of the pond, consider the parable of abiding commitment to relationship that is the Frog and Toad series; the old fantasy trope that when a princess kisses a frog, the frog becomes a prince, revealing to her the authenticity of her true love (a highly honoring portrait of the amphibian according to the most accomplished of literary critics); or even, on a more lighthearted note, the playful dance of Warner Brothers’ Michigan J. Frog—an enduring icon of classic cinema (and, we might add, a noteworthy early example of frog employment in the entertainment business). With all of these considerations in mind, the Rabbit Room team has decided to make the biggest leap yet in our young organization’s history—the leap from the cabbage patch to the lily pond. In an effort to more equitably represent all of God’s creatures, we are changing our name from The Rabbit Room to The Ribbit Room. Who knew that a single vowel could make such a world of difference? In celebration of this long-overdue shift, we will be announcing over the course of this year several new offerings from The Ribbit Room. For instance, we will be launching the Ribbit Room Lilypadcast Network, a new arts conference aptly titled Toadmoot, and the upcoming Andrew Peterson album, Metamorphosis Letters, Volume II. But we are perhaps most excited to share with you the first book to be published by Ribbit Room Press: Every Amphibian Holy, a book of new liturgies from Douglas McKelvey, specially written to support the life and faith of frogs. Examples include “A Liturgy for Beholding the Lilypads of the Pond,” “A Liturgy for the Transition from Water to Air,” and “A Liturgy for when Being Green is No Longer Easy.” What an exciting transition this will be! We can’t wait to have you along with us on this journey from rabbit to frog. Stay tuned for more pond-side announcements as we leap ahead and metamorphose into an entirely new phase of this organization. Sincerely, Content Developer The Ribbit Room

Coming up one week from today, Andrew Peterson’s Resurrection Letters show will be livestreamed in celebration of Easter Monday, and you’re invited to tune in! Read on for more information and to purchase tickets. Click here for tickets.

April is upon us, my rabbity friends. And boy, do poets love to start long poems by mentioning this month! In the opening of The Waste Land, T. S. Eliot writes: April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. Geoffrey Chaucer takes a more sanguine view of April in his Prologue to The Canterbury Tales: Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote, The droghte of March hath perced to the roote, And bathed every veyne in swich licóur Of which vertú engendred is the flour… But for those of us in the Society for Galahadic Study and Emulation, commonly known as “Galahoodlums,” this month is significant not for its rainshowers, nor for its mixing of memory and desire, nor yet for bathing every veyne in various licóurs. No, for us, April means the parturition of a work over which we have labored for these many months. I refer, of course, to The Lost Tales of Sir Galahad, a collection of recently discovered tales about the adventures of Sir Galahad in the Wild Forest. It was truly a consuming process to discover, reassemble, translate, annotate, and sometimes tentatively lick these ancient texts to see if we could figure out what on earth those stains were. The final publication represents many sleepless nights, many pots of mediocre coffee, and many trips to the facilities as a result of drinking too much mediocre coffee. But I digress. I had the honor to work on a couple of small texts in this book, so I thought it fitting in this joyous release month to share some reflections on one of them, entitled “Sir Galahad and the Ruin.” I should start with a disclaimer: Much of my life has been spent among ruins of various sorts. As a boy, I loved exploring abandoned cabins and outbuildings left behind by early Kansas settlers. I still occasionally dream of ancient doors creaking open and wolf spiders scuttling to find shelter under rotting, dust-layered floorboards. In high school, I sacrificed two weeks and about thirty percent of the skin on my hands to dig out a dirt-packed basement under the 19th-century limestone home that housed our county genealogical library. Then, in my sophomore year of college, I came to realize that I’d spent my entire life immersed in perhaps the greatest ruin of them all: the English language. For years, I’d been plagued with questions like: Why does literally every single English-speaking child need to be instructed that “goed” isn’t the past tense of “go”? Why does “island” have an “s” in it? How can “tough,” “trough,” “though,” and “through” possibly sound so different from one another? I began to find answers to these questions as I studied the history and structure of the language. Most of the answers were some variation of: “Because this language is like an old junk drawer full of things that were once useful to someone.” And for a while, those answers were satisfying. But as I gained more knowledge, my obsession grew, claiming more and more of me until it finally drove me to the unthinkable: graduate school. There, in a class on the Anglo-Saxon language, I encountered yet another ruin: a poem fragment from the Exeter Book, entitled “The Ruin.” It was truly a consuming process to discover, reassemble, translate, annotate, and sometimes tentatively lick these ancient texts to see if we could figure out what on earth those stains were. Micah Hawkinson The poem became a fragment because it’s located near the back cover of the book, and at some point about a thousand years ago, a drowsy monk dropped a firebrand onto it. The fire was quickly extinguished, but not before partially ruining “The Ruin.” Which is pretty appropriate when you think about it. And believe me, people think about it. You can’t sneeze without hitting an Anglo-Saxon scholar saying something like, “So, you see, ‘The Ruin’ is actually something of a ruin itself!” Even in its present state of disrepair, “The Ruin” remains lovely. It begins, Jewel-like is this wallstone,    Fate-broken. The castle burst;    its giant-work crumbles. Roofs have fallen,    towers lie in ruin. The frostgate is riven,     rime on lime, The storm-refuge in shards,    shorn to disaster, Eaten from beneath by age.    Earth’s grip holds The castle’s mighty makers,    withered and gone. —from my own translation of the poem I had not read this old poem in more than a decade, but the text of “Sir Galahad and the Ruin” brought it back to mind instantly, for the following reasons: It is clear at a glance that both texts are badly damaged. The Galahadic tale was not burnt by a clumsy monk, but it has been ravenously nibbled upon, as well as slathered in butter and a mysterious substance that might be blood, or possibly pork gravy. Both texts tell of a mysterious ruin, built by a people long gone, yet used for a time by others after them. Upon closer reading, many specific details of the two works are also quite similar. Perhaps almost… too similar. But you needn’t take my word for it. The proof of the pork-gravy blood pudding, as the saying goes, is in the eating. So here are some specific examples to sink your teeth into: The Castle Gates “The Ruin” poet writes, “Oft this wall endured, / Lichen-grey and red of hue.” “Sir Galahad and the Ruin” begins, “Deep within the forest, Sir Galahad came upon a ruined castle of enormous size. Its gates were layered in grey lichen, its granite face was stained with ancient rust, and its turrets were all but hidden behind a cape of thick ivy.” The Castle Makers The poet writes, “The castle burst; its giant-work crumbles. / Roofs have fallen,    towers lie in ruin.” In the tale, Galahad speculates about the ruin’s origins: “Perhaps the builders were giants; he’d heard rumors of a lost city inhabited by that monstrous folk.” The Castle Rooms The poet continues, “Bright were the castle-halls, many bath-houses, / High treasure-horns, great troop-sounds, / Many meadhalls, full of men’s joy … A wall surrounded it all, / Its bright bosom, where the baths were, / Hot in its heart. That was convenient.” Again, the Galahadic tale seems to echo these features: “He passed a cavernous mead-hall, an indoor bathhouse whose cracked pools emitted steam from a hot spring, and a room that must have been a treasury, though it now contained only a few forlorn vessels of lead and tarnished silver.” It is hard to deny the parallels between these descriptions. They suggest three possible explanations, which I list here in order of likeliness: Sir Galahad happened upon the same ruin described in the Exeter Book’s poem, or The writer of “Sir Galahad and the Ruin” was familiar with the poem from the Exeter Book and used it as a convenient setting, or The similarity between the texts is merely coincidental. Having personally reassembled and deciphered much of the Galahadic tale, I must say I do not think its writer had read the Exeter Book (or indeed, much of anything beyond “the Catte Saith Meow”). Is it possible that the writer of the Galahad tale merely happened to imagine so many of the same features mentioned in the Exeter Book’s poem? Perhaps. It is also possible that Sir Reginald Overbottom is correct about his ridiculous hypothesis regarding the stains on this manuscript, but I shall graciously withhold all judgment on that matter. One thing is certain, dear reader: If you do not immediately order The Lost Tales of Sir Galahad, you will be unable to arrive at a fully informed conclusion on this vital matter. And you’ll also be missing out on some pretty good stories. So why are you still here, reading this? Get thee to the Rabbit Store! Click here to orderThe Lost Tales of Sir Galahad in the Rabbit Room Store.

This week on The Habit Podcast, Jonathan talks with children’s author Mitali Perkins. Mitali Perkins has been a nominee for the National Book Award. She was born in India, but has lived all over the world. So it comes as no surprise that her books for young readers all explore the crossing of borders of one kind or another. Her newest book, Bare Tree and Little Wind, is a picture book that tells the story of Holy Week. In 2021, she published her first nonfiction book for adults, Steeped in Stories: Timeless Children’s Novels to Refresh our Tired Souls. In this episode, Mitali and Jonathan Rogers discuss the benefits of being an outsider, the transmission of morality and hope, and literary “aunties and uncles.” Click here to listen to Season 4, Episode 15 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.

[Editor’s note: For this year’s Passion Week, we share an oldie and a goodie from Russ Ramsey, which originally appeared on the blog ten years ago. In this post, Russ outlines the narrative arc of Passion Week one day at a time, from Palm Sunday through Good Friday and into Resurrection Sunday. We hope Russ’s words bring you closer to the story, and we encourage you to revisit them throughout this week.] (Passion Week is upon us. We ran this post last year, and it occurred to me—a little late this year, I’m sorry to say—that it might be a good one to run again as we prepare our hearts to celebrate Easter. As a pastor, I have the honor of putting together and leading not only an Easter worship service, but also a more contemplative Good Friday service for our congregation. That Good Friday Tenebrae service stands as a sober reminder that the greatest gift God has given his people came at so great a cost. The daily readings below, which reflect my best estimates concerning what happened during the last week of Jesus’ earthly ministry before the cross, take us deep into the drama, the hope, the violence, and the unmatched mercy unfolding in God’s answer to our deepest need. I hope these readings help to immerse you in that story this week. —Russ Ramsey, March 25, 2013) In John 10, Jesus said, “No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I alone have the authority to lay it down, and the authority to take it up again, and this charge I received from my Father.” This is a statement worth testing. Does the Scriptural narrative tell the story of an inspirational man martyred because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and simply couldn’t avoid capture? Or do the last days of his life tell the story of someone intentionally offering himself up, on his own terms, by his own authority? As we approach Easter, have you ever taken the time to really examine what took place on each day of the week from Palm Sunday to Resurrection Sunday? Here’s a daily reading guide for each day of Easter Week. Palm Sunday (See Matthew 21:1-11, Mark 11:1-11, Luke 19:28-44, John 12:9-19.) When Jesus rode into Jerusalem perched up on a colt on Palm Sunday, it was the first time since raising Lazarus from the dead that he’d shown his face in the city. The story of Lazarus’ resurrection had circulated so that even those who only heard about it later regarded Jesus as a celebrity. Everyone wanted to catch a glimpse of Jesus. They went out to meet him and received him like a king, because they heard he had done this. (Jn 12:18) Jesus said Lazarus’ death would end in the faith of many, and in the “glory of God—that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” (Jn 11:4) But the glory he had in mind was even more glorious than his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. In fact, he wasn’t referring to the glory these people gave him at all. Lazarus’ resurrection would steel the resolve of the religious leaders to hand Jesus over to a death he would freely accept—a death he would conquer. That was the glory he meant. As he rode into Jerusalem, the people cried, “Your King is coming!” They praised his victory over Lazarus’ death. But the irony was that he wasn’t coming to claim his crown on account of Lazarus’ death and resurrection, but on account of his own. Monday (See Matthew 21:12-22, Mark 11:12-19, Luke 19:45-48.) If Jerusalem was a beehive, with Jesus’ triumphal entry the day before, Jesus had hit it with a stick and you could hear the buzz grow as the anger within got organized. With that kingly arrival, he made a strong declaration about his authority over all the conventions of man. On Monday, he returns for more, this time to declare the failure of his own people to live up to the covenantal mandate God had given them to be a blessing to the world. Much of what the Gospels tell us about Monday centers on the theme of Jesus’ authority—both over the created world and in his right to pass judgment over it. Everything Jesus did, he did with authority. So when he woke his disciples Monday, saying he wanted go back into Jerusalem to teach, as risky as it sounded, it wasn’t surprising. But everyone sensed something stirring, as if Jesus had rounded a corner and his end was coming fast. He was a marked man. Tuesday (See Matthew 21:23-26:5, Mark 11:27-14:2, Luke 20:1-22:2, John 12:37-50.) If Monday’s arrival in the temple was marked by Jesus’ all-inclusive, living parable of cleansing God’s house, Tuesday’s entrance is marked by a direct, verbal confrontation with the appointed leadership. After Jesus makes the point that he refuses to regard these leaders as having any authority over him, he elects to spend the rest of the day right there in the temple so that he might teach the people the word of God. But Tuesday afternoon would be the last time Jesus would publicly teach in the temple as a free man. His words on this day would be his closing argument—his manifesto. When Jesus left the temple that Tuesday, “the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to arrest him by stealth and kill him.” (Mk 14:1) But they couldn’t take his life from him solely on the strength of the charges they meant to bring—not if he defended himself. But he would not. Instead, by his silence, he’d offer up his life for a world of blasphemers and traitors and liars who so desperately needed to be upset. This was what he had come to do, and as he left the temple that Tuesday afternoon, he knew he would do it soon. Wednesday (See Matthew 26:6-16, Mark 14:3-11, Luke 22:3-6.) The past several days have been a rush of tension and anger for Jesus’ opponents and of unflinching resolve for Jesus. Words have been his currency, and he has spent piles of them. But on the Wednesday before his death, Jesus was still. He was in the home of Simon the Leper, a man known by what was wrong with him. During their meal together, Mary of Bethany, Lazarus’ sister, (Jn 12:3) came to Jesus with an alabaster flask of perfume. She had been saving this perfume, worth a year’s wages, for this very occasion. (Jn 12:7) She began to pour the perfume on Jesus’ head and feet, which required breaking open its container. (Mk 14:3) Like popping the cork on a $20,000 bottle of champagne, this was a very intentional act. She was there to deliberately offer Jesus everything she had. By giving to Jesus her most valuable possession, she was expressing that she knew what he was about to give of himself was for her. What Mary did was beautiful and Jesus wanted everyone to know it. She was preparing him for burial. There was honor and kindness in her gesture. He returned the honor by saying history would never forget her act of beauty. And we haven’t. Thursday (See Matthew 26:17-75, Mark 14:12-72, Luke 22:7-71, John 13:1-18:27.) The Thursday prior to Jesus’ crucifixion fills many pages in Scripture. It begins with John and Peter securing the upper room. There, Jesus washes his disciples’ feet, explaining he was there to make them clean. As they begin to eat, Jesus announces one of them is about to betray him. Each wonders if he means them. Then he dispatches Judas to do what he intends. During this last supper, Jesus sets apart the Passover bread and cup and reassigns—or better, perfects—their meaning. The bread is his body. The cup, his blood. This meal will no longer primarily remind them of God’s deliverance from the external tyranny of Pharaoh, but rather from the internal tyranny of their own guilt and sin against God. Jesus prays for these his friends and those who will come to know Christ through them—that his Father would make them one. (Jn 17) Then Jesus and his friends leave for the Mount of Olives to pray. (Mk 14:33) But he isn’t there only to pray. He is also there to wait. Soon a line of torches snake their way toward him in the darkness. This is what he has been waiting for. Good Friday (See Matthew 27:1-61, Mark 15:1-47, Luke 23:1-56, John 18:28-19:42.) On Thursday night in Gethsemane, Jesus was arrested—betrayed by one of his own disciples and abandoned by the others. The Chief Priests and the Sanhedrin called for secret trials in the dead of night, and the verdict handed down was that Jesus would be crucified. This was something the Roman Prefect, Pontius Pilate, would have to execute. And reluctantly, he did. After a severe beating, Jesus was nailed to a cross where he’d remain for six hours until dead. Never in human history, before or since, has more been lost and gained at the same time as at Jesus’ crucifixion. The world gained the atoning sacrifice of Christ. But for those present, either the significance of the moment was lost on them or their hearts broke because the one they believed to be the Savior of the world was dying at the hands of Rome. They couldn’t stop it and they didn’t realize it was for them. They hoped in him, and though he had told them he would suffer many things and rise three days later, (Mk 8:31) how could they have possibly known this was what he meant? Saturday: The Forgotten Day (See Matthew 27:62-66.) The Saturday following Jesus’ crucifixion might be the most unique and overlooked day in the history of the world—the day between Jesus’ death and his resurrection. Less is written about this day than any other in the scope of this week. Yet what makes it so unique is that this is the only full day in history when the body of the crucified Christ lay buried in a cave. The day before, he was crucified. The following day, he rises from the grave. But what about Saturday? Though we may not make much of this day, when we look at the few verses the Gospels give us accounting for it, we find this was by no means a forgotten day to the Chief Priests who had handed Jesus over to death. During his earthly ministry, Jesus said many times that he would die in Jerusalem at the hands of the Chief Priests, but on the third day rise again. (Mt 12:40, Mk 8:31, 9:31, 10:34) Of course, the Chief Priests scoffed at this. But they didn’t forget it. On the day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, Jesus’ prediction preoccupied their thoughts such that they simply couldn’t leave it alone. Matthew 27:62-66 tells us the strange story of how they couldn’t seem to simply dismiss out of hand the possibility that Jesus might have known something they didn’t. Resurrection Sunday (See Matthew 28:1-20, Mark 16:1-8, Luke 24:1-53, John 20:1-21:25.) Early on this Sunday morning, some of Jesus’ friends set out to his grave to anoint the body of their friend and teacher. But when they arrived, they were greeted by what one of the Gospel writers calls “a man dressed in lightning.” He tells them Jesus is not there, as he said. He is risen. In the week leading up to his death, Jesus, the Good Shepherd, went out to meet the wolves of judgment, sin and death, and he did so with all authority. One might wonder, what good has it ever done anyone to die for some cause? This is the glorious beauty of the Gospel: Jesus didn’t die as a martyr for a cause. He was never in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was never at the mercy of anyone. He lived, died, and was buried because he meant to be. No one took his life from him. He laid it down. For who? For his flock, his people. And he laid it down only to take it up again. The point of the cross was not to die, but to die and rise again, defeating the prowling wolves of sin and death themselves. He said, “I have authority to lay my life down, and I have authority to take it up again.” And this is just what he did. Easter says of Jesus, “He meant it! He meant to lay down his life for you! And as sure as he has taken it up again, he knows you!”

This evening at 7:00pm CDT, Andrew Peterson’s Resurrection Letters show will be livestreamed in celebration of Easter Monday, and you’re invited to tune in! Read on for more information and to purchase tickets. Click here for tickets.

Tickets are now available for Rabbit Room Theatre’s production of Corrie Ten Boom’s The Hiding Place! Opening night is June 30, 2022. The show will run through July 17, 2022 at Christ Presbyterian’s new Soli Deo Center in Nashville, Tennessee. Visit RabbitRoomTheatre.com for ticketing information. WORLD WAR II. DARKNESS HAS FALLEN OVER EUROPE. The boots of the Third Reich echo through the streets of Europe, but on a quiet city corner in the Netherlands, some choose to resist. Corrie Ten Boom and her family risk everything to hide Jewish refugees by the hundreds and ultimately face the consequences when they are discovered. The Hiding Place is their story—a story of faith, hope, love, and forgiveness in the face of unthinkable evil. Adapted by A. S. “Pete” Peterson, directed and designed by Matt Logan, this is the first production of the Rabbit Room’s newest program: Rabbit Room Theatre. Mark your calendars. Gather your friends. Secure your seats. Join us for our presentation of this remarkable true story. Yes! Group pricing is available for anything from a circle of friends to an entire church congregation: When buying 10+ tickets, an automatic 10% discount will be calculated during checkout. When buying 20+ tickets, an automatic 15% discount will be calculated during checkout. For purchases of 30+ tickets, contact boxoffice@rabbitroom.com. Click here to purchase tickets at RabbitRoomTheatre.com.

The Faerie Queene is an epic poem written by Edmund Spenser in the late 1500s. This pioneering work of world-building inspired writers like William Wordsworth, John Milton, James Thomson, Alfred Tennyson, John Keats, George MacDonald, and L. Frank Baum, and it was a favorite of C.S. Lewis. In fact, Lewis thought all teenagers should read Spenser’s poem on a rainy day, in a large, illustrated volume because Faerie Land is chock full of rich characters, wild lands, and grand adventures. Adults who fell in love with these stories as children also reread them over the course of a lifetime, finding more and more meaning at every pass. Sadly, however, The Faerie Queene is not as well known as other Renaissance works by Shakespeare or Marlowe. (At least not yet.) This is, in part, due to the language Spenser uses—diction even more archaic than the period in which he was writing. Many adults cannot understand the poem, let alone teenagers. So, I’ve spent the past four years working with Renaissance scholars to create a line-by-line, text-faithful prose rendering of Spenser’s work. I’ve included many footnotes referencing Spenserian scholars while offering a version of the text that allows readers to move easily through the plot. My goal isn’t to replace Spenser’s original work—that would be impossible—but to provide a transitional work that gives modern readers the confidence to tackle the original. Art wizard Justin Gerard has illustrated this project, and we will soon release the three-volume work through Sky Turtle Press. I’ve recorded a brief video introduction to Spenser’s work here. It isn’t necessary for you to view this before our session “She Slays in Mysterious Ways” at Hutchmoot, but if you’re new to Spenser, it might help orient you before we jump into exploring a single character. For more detailed information about The Faerie Queene, as well as an explanation of our work rendering a text-faithful, modern prose version of Spenser’s work, you can visit our website here.

It’s been months, maybe even a year or more since I’ve written anything of substance. I sit down at the computer and I stare at the screen. I’ll be at a coffee shop with my notebook, pen in hand, and stare at the page. I might scribble a sentence down, maybe two before shutting the cover and diverting my attention to my latte instead. My journaling is sporadic. A paragraph here and there over the last two or three years. The last entry in it is from July 22: Oh Great Mystery – help me pay attention to the rhythms inside me and the rhythms around me. May 12 before that: In Portland. Feels ghostly. Both the city itself and my memories of it. A bullet list from a year ago October: You don’t seem like you’re stuck. I don’t think you’re stuck Sometimes you need a mirror and a dolphin. Once you leaned back and crossed your legs Exhale. In the 30 or more years I’ve been writing for fun, and the more than a decade or so that I’ve been writing professionally, it’s the worst writer’s block that I’ve ever experienced. A few years back, I started writing a project of my own: a collection of essays centered around a year of travel I did around the U.S. with my dog Lucy in a camping trailer. It’s the closest I’ve ever come to finishing a book. About a year ago, I told my friend Casey, a writer buddy of mine, “I think I’m two or three months away from being done.” “That’s awesome,” he replied. “Yeah, but I don’t wanna jinx it. So I’m just taking it slow. It’s not about getting it done. I don’t want to force myself to do it. It’s about the writing. I still have to like the writing,” I said. A year later, and I’m still 2 or 3 months away from being done. When the world started to change in the early part of 2020 more rapidly than I recall experiencing in my lifetime, something in me clicked into survival mode. I remember packing up a friend’s car with his computer and boxes of office supplies from work late one night because he wasn’t sure he’d be able to go back to the office the following day. “Should I get the plants?” he asked. “Yeah,” I said, “this could be months.” At home, I took inventory of the applesauce I had canned the summer before. “20 quarts left,” I remember counting. “This’ll last two-and-a-half months if we ration it to two jars a week,” I thought, and while it hasn’t quite been the post-apocalyptic world from a book by P.D. James or Cormac McCarthy, it has been hard and different. I stopped running, or exercising altogether, really. I gained 50 lbs. As a person of color, I began to tense up when a police car passed me on the road. I avoided walking my dog past the house on my block that had a huge political sign for the candidate I didn’t vote for. I got let go from my job for lack of work, and subsequently rehired after business picked up again, then agreed to work overtime for weeks and months in a row, so afraid it would all go away again without notice. I jiggled windows at night to make sure they were locked. I kept recounting the jars of apple sauce. I know this wasn’t everyone’s experience. Some people baked more bread. Some people adopted a dog. “I’m reading more,” my friend Scott told me, “more than ever before.” I, on the other hand, haven’t finished a book for the last two and a half years. Some people believed that so many of the changes weren’t real or that we were all overreacting, and maybe we were—maybe I still am overreacting. But with whatever did or didn’t change, it’s very palpably true to me that when I pick up a pen or turn on my computer, something in me is different. Something in me has changed. Last spring I started seeing a therapist with the express goal of working through my writer’s block. “What do you do for fun?” she asked during our first appointment. “What brings you joy?” I shared with her that I’ve always been so skeptical of fun, or joy, unsure of their purpose, unsure of their importance. “I just want to work through whatever I need to work through to get me writing again,” I told her. Often the art, the creating, is so intangible, so wily. You can’t do much to control how it manifests, but you can, with some practice, control the life around your writing. John Cal “There’ll be lots of time to talk about that,” she said. “And it’s going to be really hard, and we’re going to have to process some things, and it’s going to be a lot of work. So I want to talk about fun and joy first to make sure that when you go home after we do our work here, after you’re emotionally exhausted, you have a way to regain your strength.” We’ve been seeing one another every other Wednesday since March, and I’m still not sure if I believe her, but I want to. I’m trying to believe that joy could help me write again. I borrowed a bird-watching book from the library. I sat on a bench down the street and identified the juvenile robins as they imitated their parents flying to and from their nest. I learned new music on my ukulele: “The Pretender” by Jackson Browne and Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Only Living Boy in New York.” I went to the garden store. I bought seeds. Casey, that writer buddy of mine, calls it “the life around your writing.” Often the art, the creating, is so intangible, so wily. You can’t do much to control how it manifests, but you can, with some practice, control the life around your writing. Casey’s writing life often includes making dinner for his wife—burritos or veggie bowls—or walking their dog Finnick. He likes the challenge of a good escape room and is possibly the most prolific podcast listener I know. I still haven’t written much (if anything) lately, and I don’t know how I’m doing with the fun or joy, but I do believe I am getting better at living the life around my writing. I finished a pint of ice cream the other day — rum raisin, my favorite flavor — with satisfied incredulity and with very little guilt. I read a chapter most mornings out of a book I have sitting on my nightstand in conviction and hope. And while I haven’t started running again, I did buy a new pair of socks for whenever I muster up the desire. Last night, I went across the street to spend some time with Jeff and Sharon, neighbors my roommate Arthur and I met when I first moved to Washington three years ago. “Come over for a glass of wine on the deck,” Sharon said one day while out walking her dog. We kept putting it off. The world was changing so fast. It was hard to keep up with it all. I don’t know what finally made us get around to it, three years later. Jeff and Arthur texted through the details. They’d get snacks. We’d bring something to drink. I bought a bottle of non-alcoholic grapefruit soda for those that needed to abstain. I, myself, don’t drink very much, maybe a glass or two of something a month, sometimes less, but since this meeting was three years in the making, I splurged on a bottle of my favorite red – a reserve Trivento Malbec from Argentina – and a bottle of my favorite white – a perfectly chilled Zaca Mesa Viognier. I brought a loaf of bread as a gift, and as soon as we crossed the street between our houses, walked the short path up to their front door, and knocked, we were welcomed in with as much boisterous enthusiasm as when we sporadically encounter them about the neighborhood either one or the both of us walking our dogs, and I got a huge hug from Sharon for the loaf of bread. I still haven’t written much (if anything) lately, and I don’t know how I’m doing with the fun or joy, but I do believe I am getting better at living the life around my writing. John Cal In the house, Sharon sidled up next to a bowl of plums and sliced them onto some mixed greens for a salad. She fussed with a few errant vegetables on her counter and then invited me to walk out with her to the garden to pick more tomatoes. “They seem to be spoiling on the vine this year,” she said, indicating mysterious brown bottoms on most of the red fruit she was picking. “We better enjoy them while they last.” When the food was ready and out on the deck table, we passed the garden salad, poached shrimp with cocktail sauce, bowls of toasted pistachios, glasses of wine, and dark chocolate truffles. I learned that Sharon was a writer, is a writer, and that she wrote a book called “Curse of the Seven 70’s,” a vampire comedy about falling in love. “It’s also about forgiveness,” she said, “like when Jesus says to forgive seventy times seven.” I’m not so good at forgiveness, especially when trying to forgive myself. In the last year or so, Sharon got cancer. I don’t know what kind. I didn’t ask. I just noticed her walking around the neighborhood in baseball caps and artfully tied scarves, and then over at her house, a bare head covered in soft peach fuzz. “I have such a hard time writing these days. The chemo makes me so foggy and tired,” she said. “Maybe, next year, I’ll get back to it.” She shared some about how much harder her life has been lately but had much more to say about how much she loves when her friends visit and how she and Jeff are wanting to remodel the kitchen, and how she can’t wait to get back to New York to wander around the Met. She kept pouring me much too full helpings of Viognier and beckoned us all to raise our glasses before toasting. “To neighbors,” she said. I often forget that I am not just a writer, or perhaps I should say, I am not only a writer. I am also a neighbor, a friend, a son, a musician, a chef, a baker, and someone who is doing his best to allow just a little more fun and joy through the cracks in his armor. We sat on their back deck for nearly four hours. Talking a little about how we were having such a hard time writing, yes, but even more, about how good the company was, how much fun we were having, and how the lives around our writing were just starting to get a little bit better.

Today, with a mixture of sadness and joy, we announce that Drew Miller is stepping away from his position as Content Developer for the Rabbit Room. Our sadness is the natural result of waving goodbye to a teammate, and the joy is our right and proper acknowledgement of the many ways we’ve seen him grow while he’s been with us and our hope for what the future has in store for him. Drew Miller stands boldly in a wood. For the past five years, Drew has diligently worked behind the scenes of the Rabbit Room. He’s not only crafted, curated, and edited content but has gleefully cultivated the huge community of writers who contribute to our website. And since the launch of the Rabbit Room Podcast Network, he’s been the producer behind many of our shows, including The Second Muse, The Artists Creed, The Habit, Call It Good, The Hutchmoot Podcast, The Molehill Podcast, and more. But most of all, he’s been a beloved part of our team, a willing partner in all manner of shenanigans, a ready chortle when a pun is loosed, an invaluable ally in brainstorming, a purveyor of befuddlement, an insightful voice in vision-casting, and one of our favorite songwriters. It’s been a great five years. And here’s to the years yet to come. If you’ve been blessed by any of the content the Rabbit Room has put into the world since 2017, join us in saying, “Thank you, Drew.” We can’t wait to see what’s in store for him next.