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[Editor’s note: About a week ago, Jen Rose Yokel wrote an invitation to all Rabbit Room readers to participate in our very own Rabbit Room book group. In anticipation of Andy Crouch speaking at Hutchmoot this year, we will be delving into his book Culture Making, a wonderful conversation-starter about that timeless question of how to be a Christian in the world. Click through for an excerpt of Jen’s original invitation. Culture Making is available here at the Rabbit Room Store.] “What is it, exactly, that we are called to do in the world? Are we called to ‘transform culture’ or to ‘change the world’? If we are to be culture makers, where in the world do we begin?” – Andy Crouch, Culture Making Laure Hittle and I will be your hosts as we discuss the meaning of culture, the role our Christian faith plays in it, and how we can make something beautiful and true of the world we’ve been given. If you missed our previous reading groups, here’s what you can expect. For six weeks, we’ll read Culture Making together. Each week, we’ll share a reflection here on The Rabbit Room blog, then offer a up few questions for discussion in the blog comments. We have also set up a thread on The Rabbit Room Forums for longer conversations that you can access by clicking here. Here’s the reading schedule (subject to change): Week 1 (8/6): Introduction, Ch 1-2 Week 2 (8/13): Ch 3-5 Week 3 (8/20): Ch 6-8 Week 4 (8/27): Ch 9-11 Week 5 (9/3): Ch 12-14 Week 6 (9/10): Ch 15-16 Culture Making is now available in The Rabbit Room store. Order a copy today, and we’ll see you on August 6th!

In case you haven’t heard, A. S. Peterson (aka Pete Peterson) has written an adaptation of Mary Shelley’s classic Frankenstein for the stage. If you’re anything like me, you have long assumed, without even realizing it, that you know all there is to know about Frankenstein. I mean, it’s just a cautionary tale about the hubris of scientific progress at the expense of our humanity, right? With a Monster that groans inarticulately, groping in the darkness of his brutish existence, his mad scientist-maker laughing maniacally in the background? Not even close. In Pete’s own words, “this is not your mama’s Frankenstein.” And while he’s speaking of his own play, it also turns out that Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was never what the last hundred years or so of pop culture had told us it was in the first place. Show up to the play or look inside the book, and you’ll find an eloquent Monster, theological questions of creation and death just as abounding as questions of scientific progress, and a Victor Frankenstein indelibly shaped by the drama of his family. I had the great pleasure of visiting Studio Tenn’s second read-through of Pete’s play adaptation—his own tenth draft—and I was blindsided by the depth and beauty of the story, the characters, and the symbolism woven gently into every moment of the play. What follows is the first part of an interview with A. S. Peterson—in it, we talk about the transition from novel-writing to playwriting, the hidden treasures within the covers of Frankenstein, the endangered art of theater, and much more. Enjoy, and stay tuned for the rest of our conversation. Show dates begin August 31st and run through September 9th. You can buy tickets here. Pete: One of the questions I think is important to address about this show is simply, “Why Frankenstein?” And I would say this is not your mama’s Frankenstein—as a culture, we’re so familiar with the trope of an inarticulate beast walking around with arms outstretched, and that’s such a crime because it’s not in the book at all. Drew: So why did you choose Frankenstein, and what does it have to say to us now? Pete: I didn’t choose it. Studio Tenn asked me to adapt it because this year marks the 200th anniversary of the publication of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. A lot of people consider it the first ever science fiction novel. It’s one of the most frequently adapted books in the English language, into film and play and so on. So first of all, we wanted to celebrate the anniversary of a monumental work of literature. I think if I create something, it's my responsibility to love it and give it its best chance in the world. And if I don't do that, not only am I betraying it, but I'm betraying my gift. And Frankenstein as a story asserts that if you begin to hate the thing you've created, it can indeed become monstrous. A. S. Peterson Matt Logan, the director, asked me if I’d be interested in working on this—and this is coming right off the heels of The Battle of Franklin—and I immediately jumped on it. Those who know me understand that reaction, because a lot of my work tends to be shaped by high adventure. And at its core, this novel is very much high adventure. That combined with the language, which is very Shakespearean, greatly appealed to me. I had no idea what I was getting into. I thought I knew the story, but it turned out I didn’t really know it at all. It’s far more complex than we’ve been taught to believe based on the last hundred years of adaptations. What surprised me about reading it was the way it challenged my assumption that it was merely about the potential pitfalls of scientific advancement and the moral questions involved in that. I didn’t expect to find so many rich theological implications woven throughout the book. I believe we are all created in God’s image, and that image since the fall has been cracked, so we are now broken vessels. So if we, like Victor Frankenstein, were to attempt to make a life of our own, that means that life is now created in our image. So we are creating a fractured image of a fractured image. What does that mean? Would this new life be beholden to me in the same way that I am beholden to God? And if that’s true, do I have a responsibility then to redeem it of its brokenness? These are all compelling questions to me, and while they are implicit in Mary Shelley’s book, I’ve never seen anyone bring them to light in their adaptations. Taken further, that idea applies to more than just the relationship between God and humanity. I think it’s also about the question of art: “What is my responsibility as a creator to the thing I create?” Whether that’s a child, or a book, or an album, or a painting. I think if I create something, it’s my responsibility to love it and give it its best chance in the world. And if I don’t do that, not only am I betraying it, but I’m betraying my gift. And Frankenstein as a story asserts that if you begin to hate the thing you’ve created, it can indeed become monstrous. Drew: One thing I noticed at the read-through was how fluidly this topic of creation and the theological aspects of Frankenstein are interwoven with family. I was struck by how it presents the father-son relationship and creator-art relationship in dialogue, in analogy. That’s one of those things I didn’t anticipate. All of a sudden I had this lesson in family dynamics and Victor is maybe trying to resurrect his mom, earning his dad’s approval, and his dad is trying to make Elizabeth into his lost wife— Pete: Yeah, we’re all created and shaped by forces outside of us, and what does that look like? That’s what interests me about the play. The book takes that literally: let’s actually create, let the creation be shaped by the forces of a broken world, and see what happens. Drew: Which makes the Monster’s voice so weighty. Did you feel the pressure when you were putting words into his mouth? Pete: You know, the Monster was actually the easiest character for me to write. Drew: Really? Ultimately, if your villains aren't compelling, neither are your stories. It's the job of every storyteller to make all their characters as complex and human as they can be. A. S. Peterson Pete: I feel the deep, lonesome grief of the Monster. And if you look at any poetry, the first poetry people write is about how lonely they are, how awful the world is, how no one understands them. That’s sort of the low-hanging fruit, and that’s who the Monster is. His first encounters with the world are hateful and devoid of love, so he grows into having this voice of absolute grief. And that was fun to write. I put a lot of thought into how to avoid making it sentimental and keep it more universal, but it came pretty naturally. By contrast, it was really hard to write Victor. Because let’s be honest, in Frankenstein, Victor is the real Monster. And if you want to extend that even further, mankind is the monster. My early drafts of the play were much more melodramatic, Victor was very clearly the mad scientist, and you could only really identify with the Monster because he was so clearly being wronged. So in later drafts of the play, it was really important to me that we found ways to make Victor look like ourselves. And that’s where family dynamics come in: in order for me to believe he can do these monstrous things, I have to know who Victor is and why Victor is. That was exciting. When I started to hone in on that, the play really came alive. From scene to scene, I could start to feel my loyalties shift based on who was making their argument. Ultimately, if your villains aren’t compelling, neither are your stories. It’s the job of every storyteller to make all their characters as complex and human as they can be. Honestly, that’s one flaw of Mary Shelley’s book. It heavily employs stereotypes and melodrama. As a result, it’s hard to feel any sympathy for the Victor character. He’s very over the top in his wildness. I had to temper that to tell the story well. Drew: And you tempered his character in part through drawing out his family relationships, correct? Did you find any other ways to do that? Pete: There were two things. One was simply toning down the language. I love Mary Shelley’s high language, but it definitely strays into hyperbole. It’s a caricature of itself; you can lampoon it. I’m not kidding when I say there are probably five or six times throughout the book where Victor tears open his shirt and gnashes his teeth at the moon, crying for all his grief. I mean, okay, nobody actually does that. Maybe one time in your life, but not five times over the course of a year. Drew: That would have to be a bad year. Pete: Oh yeah, a really, really bad year. So toning down language immediately helped Victor’s case. And then bringing in family issues helped make him more believable—and that element was barely there in the book. I felt like I was blowing on the embers of what made Victor who he was. It was so subtle in the book, which is funny, because most of the time Mary Shelley is the opposite of subtle. It made me wonder if she even realized what she was putting in there. In a scene early on in the book, when Victor is born, his parents are fawning over him, and they say, “Look at this thing we’ve created. We will love him and shape him and train him in the way he should go.” Those words directly contrast what Victor says about the thing he makes. His reaction is to hate and loathe his creation. He fails to train it up in the way it should go. Drew: It’s probably helpful to clarify here that the book is basically half and half: first you hear from Victor, then from the Monster. Pete: Correct. I think you’re about a hundred-twenty pages into the book before you even see the Monster as anything other than something laying on a table. The book is told from first-person perspective. Well, it’s more complicated than that—it’s an epistolary novel, meaning it’s made up of letters, and the letters are being written by the captain of a ship and sent to his sister. He’s relating the story that Victor—whom he has discovered in the Arctic—is relating to him. So it’s first-person from the captain, and then it switches to first-person from Victor within that framework. But the point is that all you’re initially getting is Victor’s own commentary on his thoughts and feelings. That’s a really hard thing to translate on stage, so we had to give a lot of thought to how to make it more vibrant, vital, and confrontational, and that required me to alter the story’s structure. So I decided to present the play as a trial in which Victor and the Monster are both making their cases before the audience. My initial goal was to have the Monster alive and on the scene by the fifteen minute-mark. That way, throughout the course of the play, you have his perspective and Victor’s perspective in a sort of tug-of-war, and you’re constantly having to ask yourself who you will believe. Then when you get to the end of the play, you’re compelled to make some kind of judgment. Drew: And do you want the audience to come away from the play having made a judgment that, even in some small way, impacts their own lives as well? Pete: The play has a lot to say to us as a society, and I don’t just mean the low-hanging fruit of science and artificial intelligence. In the end, humanity is being put on trial. The audience should come away with the moral, “If we are not kind to one another, if we do not love one another, we are essentially creating monsters of ourselves and our own society.” Those monsters are being born out every day. So the play is ultimately a plea to find a kinder way to be in the world. Drew: So at the end of the play, the question is not, “Do you side with Victor or with the Monster?” but— Pete: Right, it’s actually you who are on trial. The play is structured to appear as a trial between Victor and the Monster, but the Monster has this ironic line: “Behold, the great justice of man.” He’s pointing out the incredibly broken nature of our societies. That’s at the heart of the play and the book. Drew: It’s cool that you superficially have the audience feel like they’re judging the Monster and Victor, but by the end of it they’ll come away with the sense that they were in fact the ones on trial. Pete: I would be delighted if that’s actually how it works itself out! Drew: It’s a way of getting through to people without scaring them away with the very prospect of evaluating our lives together. It feels more effective than preaching. Pete: I mean that’s the challenge of art, isn’t it? To say something that people might not want to hear— Drew: But slip through the back door to say it. Like Nathan confronting David. Pete: Very much so. And the other challenge is, while these are my intentions for the play, they may go over the head of the general audience. And it needs to be able to work anyway, merely as a cautionary tale about science and discovery. And it still needs to work just as a Monster play. Hopefully we’ll get some jumps and scares, too. But as a creator, we’re always building some kind of architecture that we understand all the ins and outs of, but that nobody else may ever dial into—and that needs to be okay. The architecture is there, regardless of anyone’s exploring it, and that alone is good. Stay tuned for Part II of our interview. In the meantime, you can purchase tickets to Frankenstein (August 31-September 9) by clicking here.

Click through for this week’s edition of Jonny Jimison’s Rabbit Trails. Click here to check out more of Jonny Jimison’s work at his website.

Heading south from Salt Lake City, you can drive for hours without seeing anything but rocks and scrub. The road is straight and flat, and the darkening April sky closes down on you like the cover of an old hardback. We were staying in Brian Head, at a resort 9,600 feet above sea level. We’d come for the off-season price, not the skiing, so each morning we wound our way past the snow drifts and abandoned ski lifts, leaving the high-altitude winter for the barren country we’d covered on the way down. We wanted to see Bryce and Zion, and both were within a couple hours’ drive. It was a bizarre commute. You’d swing around a corner and see a panorama of snow-capped mountains before passing through a forest of evergreens. Then the trees would vanish as a new desert of tumbled stones spilled out ahead of you revealing some of the most startling and beautiful geological formations in the world. Bryce Canyon National Park is a collection of mangled spires, arches, and tunnels cut in the high, red stone by ice and snow, by wind and time. The red sandstone canyons and soaring mountains of Zion National Park are no less rugged, though they convey a greater sense of grandeur. I’m forever falling short in my attempts to describe the scale of that place, the wonder of it. We camped on a white cliff in Zion, near signs that warned of mountain lions. We huddled in a tent while the frigid wind shredded the canyon. We carried our packs over high meadows and picked our way through stony passes. It wasn’t quite spring. The air was full of—something—uncertainty or anticipation, a sense of almost. The ends of the tree branches were plump, bulging with buds too shy to blossom. Here and there we glimpsed a haze of new green on a shrub. On our second morning we ate breakfast at an overlook and watched the sun touch the edges of the peaks and slide down into the canyon. There were times when we lost the path. We scouted the mountainside for cairns to show us the way. Once, I turned to look over my shoulder at the distance we had covered. I was amazed, pierced by the beauty of the place and the thrill of the journey. Then we were back in the car, weary and exhilarated, driving through barren Utah and forested Utah and into the snowy passes of Brian Head. That was where I heard it. “This is your heart.” Such a strange statement, that Spirit-whisper. The mapping of a heart is the work of eternity. Helena Sorensen I’d been wrestling with myself, in the days and weeks leading up to the trip, frustrated at my inability to manage my feelings. I was Jacob wrestling with Jacob, looking to be wounded in both thighs. I held two conflicting ideas about my internal world. The first related to an Old Testament passage: “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it?” In that final question, I had always heard a horrified resignation. “No one can navigate those waters!” the Scripture seemed to say, or maybe, more accurately, “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.” And yet, I clung to the idea that my heart could be organized like a preschool classroom. In one long weekend, I should be perfectly capable of arranging my thoughts, feelings, memories, fears, and hopes into pre-labeled, color-coded bins. I was confused, mired, drowning when the words came. “This is your heart.” It is vast, diverse. You can drive for ages along the road of a particular feeling or hope, and everything seems simple and uniform. But there is always more to see. There are mountains so high you can scarcely catch your breath. There are canyons of copper stone and smooth-topped pulpits of red stone, pockets of beauty so lovely and surprising that only sorrow and time and the gentle, overpowering work of the Spirit could have carved them. There are fallow fields, trees almost in flower, a wonderful, waiting hope of coming beauty and harvest. There is room here. It will take a lifetime and more to explore it, to understand it. The mapping of a heart is the work of eternity. Madeleine L’Engle, in A Wind in the Door, addresses this confusion about size and perspective. Again and again, she reminds the reader that size is both “relative and irrelevant.” While we are awed by the immensity and complexity of the macrocosm, the expanding external universe, we fail to see that the microcosm is equally immense and complex. “How long does it take the Milky Way to rotate once around?” As no one else spoke, Meg answered, “Two hundred billion years, clockwise.” “So that gives us a general idea of the size of your galaxy, doesn’t it?” “Very general,” Calvin said. “Our minds can’t comprehend anything that huge, that macrocosmic.” “Don’t try to comprehend with your mind. Your minds are very limited. Use your intuition. Think of the size of your galaxy. Now, think of your sun. It’s a star, and it is a great deal smaller than the entire galaxy, isn’t it?” “Of course.” “Think of yourselves, now, in comparison with the size of your sun. Think how much smaller you are. Now think of a mitochondrion, which live in the cells of all living things, and how much smaller a mitochondrion is than you.” “This time,” Calvin said, “the problem is that our minds can’t comprehend anything that microcosmic.” Later in the story, Meg witnesses the birth of a star, but this glorious event happens in such a way that the young star is no larger than the palm of her hand. She is confounded by the shift in perspectives. “How big am I?” she asks. Her teacher is quick to remind her that she must stop thinking about size. We set our goals, and dream our dreams, and pin our hopes on the grand idea of the macrocosmic, and all the while the infinite and microcosmic world of the interior goes woefully untended. This sacred place, and the sacred journey that takes us over each patch of ground, is perhaps the great work of our lives. Helena Sorensen The journey into the interior world of the human heart is not a weekend organization project. But neither is it something to be feared, avoided, or dismissed as insignificant. It is unmanageable, yes, in the same way that the changing terrains of Utah cannot be shoehorned into a single, uniform landscape. This is the dwelling place of the Most High God. He is pleased to dwell here. He knows the subtle textures of the rock formations and the very hour in which each bud will burst open. He is acquainted with the barren places and the frozen ones. His love is written in every drift of snow. We set our goals, and dream our dreams, and pin our hopes on the grand idea of the macrocosmic, and all the while the infinite and microcosmic world of the interior goes woefully untended. This sacred place, and the sacred journey that takes us over each patch of ground, is perhaps the great work of our lives. “Maybe nothing is more important,” says Buechner, “than that we keep track, you and I, of these stories of who we are and where we have come from and the people we have met along the way, because it is precisely through these stories in all their particularity . . . that God makes himself known to each of us most powerfully and personally. If this is true, it means that to lose track of our stories is to be profoundly impoverished not only humanly but also spiritually.” Author Dan Stone puts it even more simply: “Mind the journey inward.” There is room, and there is time. You do not have to wait for God to meet you there. His dwelling place is within you. Take His hand and grieve the ravaged ground. Marvel at the unexpected beauty. Tend the gardens and break up the fallow fields. When the sun drips over the edge of the canyon and you see the fingerprint of God etched into the rock of your soul, pause and take off your shoes. You are holy ground. Check out The Molehill, Volume 5 and all the other wonderful writing between its covers at the Rabbit Room Store.

I often tell people that Flannery O’Connor once wrote “the eye is an organ of judgment.” Turns out, she never wrote that. When I typed “the eye is an organ of judgment” into the Google machine, the only thing that came back was a picture of me, from a previous issue of The Habit in which I had misquoted Flannery O’Connor. Sorry about that. In my defense, however, I will say that my misquotation is a pretty good distillation of something that Flannery O’Connor actually did write, in her essay “Writing Short Stories,” which you can find in Mystery and Manners: For the writer of fiction, everything has its testing point in the eye, and the eye is an organ that eventually involves the whole personality, and as much of the world as can be gotten into it. It involves judgment. She goes on to say that the student-writer is often so interested in thoughts and emotions that he neglects the concrete and sensory details where storytelling actually happens: He thinks that judgment exists in once place and sense-impression in another. But for the fiction writer, judgment begins in the details he sees and how he sees them. The eye is an organ of judgment. O’Connor is specifically talking about fiction-writing in these passages, but she could be talking about any kind of writing. In fact, she could just as easily be talking about everyday life. A familiar scenario will demonstrate what I mean: You are at a stoplight, waiting for a left-turn arrow. You’re the fifth car in line, but you know from experience that six, sometimes seven cars usually make it through before the arrow turns, so you’ll be fine. You get your arrow. The first car starts through the intersection, then the second and the third. You take your foot off the brake to move forward. Then you put your foot back on the brake because you realize that the fourth car, the one in front of you, isn’t moving. You see that the driver in front of you is looking down at his phone. You give a little tap on your horn. Nothing. The turn-arrow turns yellow. You lean on the horn. The driver ahead of you jerks his head up as if from a deep sleep and lurches forward and through the intersection just as the light turns red again. You, meanwhile, are left to wait for the next arrow. Consider how many judgments you make in that moment. You judge that driver’s character and his home-raising. You reach conclusions regarding his ability to consider the feelings of others. You wonder how a person with such convoluted priorities could ever hold a job or otherwise contribute to society. How did this cascade of judgments start? It started with your eyes. You saw an arrow turn green. You saw three cars move. You saw a fourth car not move. You saw that the driver of that fourth car was looking down rather than looking ahead (you didn’t, by the way, even see a mobile phone). Those few visual stimuli were more than enough. The eye is an organ of judgment. This brings us to the oft-repeated writing advice, “Show, don’t tell.” What’s the difference? “Showing” is simply presenting to your reader what she would see and hear (and perhaps smell, taste, and touch) if she were present in the scene where the action is happening. “Telling” is everything else—explaining, editorializing, describing what’s going on inside a character’s head, providing backstory, summarizing action, etc. Imagine there was a video camera set up in the room where the action takes place. Anything that could appear in the video is showing. Anything you write that couldn’t appear in the video is telling. Here are two samples describing the same event; the first is all showing, and the second is mostly telling. Sample 1 (all showing): When the light turned green and the cars started to move, the car in front of me didn’t go anywhere. The driver just sat there, his head pointed down toward his lap, until I honked my horn… Sample 2 (mostly telling): When the arrow turned green and the cars started to move, the jackass in front of me just sits there, gawping at his phone as if it’s the Holy Grail or something, as if there’s not a whole line of people behind him who might have places to be. But God forbid that he should have to wait until he gets wherever he’s going to look at his texts or update his MySpace page or watch his cat videos or whatever he’s doing up there while the rest of us sit there and wait for him to notice that the world hasn’t stopped turning. In Sample 2, everything before the first comma is showing—what anybody at the red light would see—and everything after the first comma is telling—interpretation and commentary and speculation by the writer. The idea behind the “Show-Don’t-Tell” principle is that showing more closely approximates the way experience comes to us in real life. We gather information through our senses, then our logic and judgment go to work making sense of those inputs. When the person in front of you holds up a line of cars because he’s looking at his phone, you don’t need a narrator to tell you that he’s self-absorbed. You take in the sensory data (green arrow, no movement, driver looking down instead of looking at road), and you reach your own conclusion. And, by the way, almost everybody presented with that sensory data would reach a similar conclusion. While most of us need to do more showing and less telling, it's not at all true that you should always show and never tell. I often tell writers, however, that the way to earn the right to tell is by showing first. Jonathan Rogers When you choose to show rather than tell, you are trusting that your readers’ judgment apparatus is intact, and that she will reach the appropriate conclusions without being told what conclusions to reach. But you are also trusting your own ability to show the right things that will lead the reader to the appropriate judgments. Telling is a shortcut: Here’s what I want you to think about this. One important thing to note about showing and telling: it is hard to resist telling when you’re really trying to make a point. You want to leave sensory language behind and instead use emotional language, or maybe do a lot of explaining to drive your point home. But as counterintuitive as it sounds, writing tends to be more emotional when, instead of telling readers what to feel, you provide them with the kind of experience that evokes the emotion you want them to feel. In the two samples above, the second, more “tell-y” sample may have been more entertaining and interesting, but if you want to evoke the righteous anger we all feel when somebody else is texting and driving (a righteous anger that we don’t feel, by the way, when we text and drive), you’re better off writing something more like Sample 1, which gives the reader more space to exercise his own judgment. Along the same lines, if you’re trying to persuade, readers are more easily persuaded when they think they’ve reached a conclusion on their own, by exercising their own judgment, than when you tell them what to think. In both his fiction and his essays, Wendell Berry makes the case for agrarian values and rural living. When I read his essays, in which he is being openly persuasive, I want to argue back: Well, Wendell Berry, I’m glad you like living in rural Kentucky, but I quite like living where I can get decent Vietnamese food. When I read his novels, on the other hand, I want to sell out and move to rural Kentucky. But I digress. Let us return to showing and telling. While most of us need to do more showing and less telling, it’s not at all true that you should always show and never tell. Some of the most memorable writing you’ll ever see is very tell-y (even in the two samples above, I think the second, tell-y sample is more memorable than the first). I often tell writers, however, that the way to earn the right to tell is by showing first. If you want to read a story that is all showing and no (or almost no) telling, check out Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants.” It might leave you hankering for some good, old-fashioned telling. I will say this, though: every time I read that story, I like it a little better. For better or worse, telling tends to bring more meaning to the surface, whereas showing allows for more discovery by the reader. For further reading: The best thing I’ve ever read about showing and telling is the chapter, “Why You Need to Show and Tell,” in Alice LaPlante’s creative writing textbook, The Making of a Story. If you enjoyed this excellent advice from Jonathan Rogers, consider subscribing to his weekly letter, The Habit, to receive lots more. Jonathan will also teach a new section of his online course, Writing Close to the Earth, starting August 6th. The class is limited to twelve students. Click here to sign up.

We are having a very special Local Show tonight to celebrate the release of Russ Ramsey’s The Mission of the Body of Christ! The evening will feature not only Russ Ramsey, but Andrew Peterson, Sandra McCracken, and Melanie Penn as well. This evening is sure to be a rich collection of songs and stories, and we’d love to have you join us. Advance tickets to this show are sold out, but there will be tickets available at the door for $5. And be sure to check out Russ Ramsey’s brand new book, The Mission of the Body of Christ at the Rabbit Room Store.

When I was in New Orleans a couple of weeks ago, a friend got to telling about the neighbors along her block, just off Magazine Street. One of the more memorable characters was a woman who invited the whole street to her sixtieth birthday party—a party that started at 11pm. Another of her neighbors was a young woman who had late-stage cancer. When she was finally done with hospitals and went home to die, her family came down from whatever northern state they lived in and painted her house for her—blue and purple and white with gold trim. “It was so beautiful,” my friend said. “There is a beauty that goes beyond taste.” That phrase stuck with me—”a beauty that goes beyond taste.” For one thing, the phrase exposed me utterly. My first reaction to the purple paint and gold trim on one of those lovely old New Orleans houses was, “How tacky.” But if a dying woman wants purple walls and gold trim, and the people who love her most give them to her, tacky is an odd judgment indeed. I’ve been doing some soul-searching, I don’t mind telling you. There truly is a beauty that goes beyond the narrow confines of taste. That beauty—and our longing for it—is a clue to what it means to be a human being. We are the creatures who make things more beautiful than they have to be. (I’m still thinking about those gorgeous cave paintings from last week’s letter). I have borrowed that language of “making things more beautiful than they have to be” from the writer Elizabeth Gilbert. I recently listened to her conversation with Krista Tippet on the On Being podcast. I commend that episode to you. In it, Gilbert discusses the dangers of thinking of art and creativity as things that only special people do. When you think that way, she says, art “becomes something that isn’t part of daily life; it’s not embroidered within you, not a natural part of you. It’s this artificial thing that you have to go get expensive training in.” We make things more beautiful than they have to be because the world is more beautiful than it has to be. Jonathan Rogers But, as Elizabeth Gilbert points out, no four-year-old boy has ever sat in front of a pile of Legos and said, “I just don’t have the creativity to make anything out of these Legos,” or “I’m not even going to try, because last week I made a Lego sculpture that was so good, I know I couldn’t do so well again today.” If you put crayons and a piece of paper in front of a toddler, she’ll know exactly what to do with them. My friend Andrew Peterson goes on the occasional rant against the noun “creatives,” as used to describe a special class of people. We are all creative, just as surely as we all have a liver. Exercising your creativity makes you more fully human. If that sounds too touchy-feely, let me put it this way: Creativity is one of the most important ways that you engage reality. We make things more beautiful than they have to be because the world is more beautiful than it has to be. “The arts,” by the way, are a relatively small sliver of creativity, and not the most important sliver, either. Any act that brings truth, goodness, or beauty to light is a creative act. Friendship, hospitality, entrepreneurship, gardening, cooking, parenting—these are all acts of creativity (though these, too, represent only a sliver of the whole pie). They all say, “See? this world is more beautiful than you thought.” Which brings me back to Magazine Street. As my wife and I walked up and down those tree-lined blocks in Uptown New Orleans, admiring the beautiful old houses, it was hard to imagine that any one of them might be beautified by purple and gold paint. But there is a beauty that goes beyond taste. It’s true that this world has cancer and hurricanes and crime and corruption. But those aren’t the truest things. Genuine creativity reminds us that the status quo isn’t the same thing as Reality. This world is more beautiful than you thought. If you enjoyed this excellent advice from Jonathan Rogers, consider subscribing to his weekly letter, The Habit, to receive lots more.

Did you watch the Wingfeather Saga animated film and feel deeply moved by the mysterious, enchanting music that helped tell the story? Did you think, “I wonder what that song is—I sure do wish I could listen to it anytime I wanted!” If you answered yes, then today is your lucky day. The soundtrack to the Wingfeather Saga animated film is now available. The soundtrack features the original score, a collaboration between Kurt Heinecke and The Arcadian Wild, as well as original songs by Andrew Peterson and The Arcadian Wild. This film is a feast not only for the eyes and the imagination, but for the ears as well. You can purchase the soundtrack here at the Rabbit Room Store. Happy listening!

If you’ve been a Christian for a while, then chances are you’ve ended up in conversations about culture. At least, I know I have. As a child and teenager, being “in the world, not of it” meant no rated R movies or secular music recorded after sometime in the 80s. (Thankfully, The Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel were fine.) As an adult, I realized there was no escaping the world, so I turned to examination and participation. I read books and articles about film, felt super-hip-and-edgy when I convinced myself to like Radiohead, and started noticing the little quirks that made up the American evangelical and homeschool cultures that shaped me. It’s still fun to talk about these things. Chances are, you found your way to The Rabbit Room because talking about the intersections of faith, life, and art is exactly what we do. But are conversations enough? “What is it, exactly, that we are called to do in the world? Are we called to ‘transform culture’ or to ‘change the world’? If we are to be culture makers, where in the world do we begin?” – Andy Crouch, Culture Making Laure Hittle and I will be your hosts as we discuss the meaning of culture, the role our Christian faith plays in it, and how we can make something beautiful and true of the world we’ve been given. If you missed our previous reading groups, here’s what you can expect. For six weeks, we’ll read Culture Making together. Each week, we’ll share a reflection here on The Rabbit Room blog, then offer a up few questions for discussion in the blog comments. We’ll also set up a thread on The Rabbit Room Forums for longer conversations. Here’s the reading schedule (subject to change): Week 1 (8/6): Introduction, Ch 1-2 Week 2 (8/13): Ch 3-5 Week 3 (8/20): Ch 6-8 Week 4 (8/27): Ch 9-11 Week 5 (9/3): Ch 12-14 Week 6 (9/10): Ch 15-16 Culture Making is now available in The Rabbit Room store. Order a copy today, and we’ll see you on August 6th!

We’re proud to announce that Hutchmoot 2018 will feature not one but TWO incredible events. On Thursday, October 4th, Hutchmoot will host Andrew Peterson’s Resurrection Letters live with a full band. This show is free to Hutchmoot registrants and a limited number of seats are available to the public. Then on Friday, October 5th, we are absolutely delighted to be hosting The Tokens Show. A Nashville tradition from Lipscomb University, Tokens celebrates artistic brilliance; critical thinking; and friendship. They have fun, and they make fun: of religion, politics, and marketing. And themselves. You might think of Tokens as something like musicians without borders; or as poets, philosophers, theologians, and humorists transgressing borders. But no matter how you define the show, it’s a full evening of music, laughter, and celebration. The Rabbit Room is proud to be hosting them at Hutchmoot 2018. Admission is free to all Hutchmoot registrants and a limited number of seats are available to the public. Visit www.TokensShow.com for more information. Click here for tickets to Andrew Peterson’s Resurrection Letters. Click here for tickets to The Tokens Show. And save 10% when you buy a ticket to both!

Click through for this week’s edition of Jonny Jimison’s Rabbit Trails. Click here to check out more of Jonny Jimison’s work at his website.

I think we wind up saying to others what we need to hear the most. We know what’s right and true, but it doesn’t always sink into our own skin. Perhaps that’s why we keep telling other people about it over and over again—we need the repetition. I’ve consoled friends over coffee, speaking Holy Spirit-inspired words of wisdom, while internally chuckling at the irony that whatever I’m saying is what I should be doing. I’ve written talks preaching the importance of reflection and discipline that I so desperately need, yet often fail to maintain. When I manage to write a lyric that hits home, it’s usually not because I’ve mastered the sentiment behind it, but because it’s what I need to be reminded of. In this place of knowing the truth but doubting that I’ve fully grasped it, I’ve seen a film that makes me feel less alone. Won’t You Be My Neighbor is a beautiful documentary in which we get to know Fred Rogers and his journey in public television through treasured clips of him and the observations of those who lived and worked with him. We see glimpses of children’s responses to his program and his presence. We are shown a man who loved greatly and the ways that he was loved in return. This is a man who knew his mission, who poured out his ordained ministry in a unique setting, recognizing that children needed to be valued and brought into conversations about hard topics with gentle honesty. We follow Fred as he greets children in person, and he famously and resolutely tells them, “I like you just the way you are.” We then get to see and hear a few of their reactions, and one small girl approaches him and says, “I want to tell you something… I like you.” Another exuberantly tells him exactly what he emphasized to them on so many, many episodes—“I love you just the way you are!” It is special to hear an adult say this to a child; it undid me to listen to children say it back to him unprompted. It’s language I tried to use for a long time as a teacher with my students, but it’s language that I don’t always believe about my own self. I so badly want the kids I meet to be sure of their value, perhaps because in a deep-down place I forget or doubt my own. As the film continues, we catch moments where Fred Rogers may have wrestled with that same self-doubt. It’s stunning to me that such a tender, loving heart would question his own worth and ability. But that is precisely what so many tender hearts do. After stopping production on Mister Roger’s Neighborhood and launching an ultimately unsuccessful program for adults, he faced the possibility of making more episodes of the Neighborhood. The doubts he typed in a note break my heart and sound chillingly familiar. “Am I kidding myself that I’m able to write a script again?… Why don’t I trust myself. Really that’s what it’s all about… that and not wanting to go through the agony of creation. AFTER ALL THESE YEARS IT’S JUST AS BAD AS EVER. I wonder if every creative artist goes through the tortures of the damned trying to create?” I wonder that, too, Fred. It’s true for me. And I like to tell myself it’s just me, that there must be something wrong with me, that maybe I’m not meant to create after all… oh, the temptation to doubt that steers us away from the very things we are made for! His note continues: “…Oh well, the hour cometh and now IS when I’ve got to do it. GET TO IT, FRED. GET TO IT… But don’t let anybody ever tell anybody else that it was easy. It wasn’t.” I think I’m going to adapt it and put it on my wall. GET TO IT, SELF. Doubts be damned. Years later, he was asked to come out of retirement to record a televised response to 9/11. His nerves were evident, and he confessed, “I just don’t know what good these are going to do.” The man whose platform was constructed upon doing good was not infallible. He doubted his gift, the goodness that spread from his wisdom and engagement of helping children interact with themselves and the world. Especially when faced with the enormity of a nation grieving unthinkable terror, he was blinded to how his meager offering could bring healing and peace. I have heard similar words from so many who are tempted to shy away from their calling, or even from a simple act of mercy. I have said them myself. Imagine the good the world would be deprived of if Fred had succumbed to his uncertainties—if we all succumbed to them. Each time the film revealed a moment of Mr. Rogers' doubts, I felt both the pang of wanting him to know that yes, he was good and loved and it was worth it, and the pang of familiarity with my own struggles in that arena. I wonder if the former is how God feels when he hears our thoughts enter that skeptical territory. Jenna Badeker His wife and colleagues give insight into how different characters he created were extensions of him and those around him. They suggest that Daniel Striped Tiger voiced the little boy still inside him, the boy who questioned and felt deeply. In one episode, Daniel sings out loud what so many of us have wondered inside. “Sometimes I wonder if I’m a mistake I’m not like anyone else I know When I’m asleep or even awake Sometimes I get to dreaming that I’m just a fake I’m not like anyone else Others I know are big and are wild I’m very small and quite tame Most of the time I’m weak and I’m mild Do you suppose that’s a shame Often I wonder if I’m a mistake I’m not supposed to be scared am I Sometimes I cry and sometimes I shake Wondering isn’t it true that the strong never break I’m not like anyone else I know I’m not like anyone else.” Sure, it’s a song written for children. But it sounds honest and confessional from the author. (It also sounds like what I’ve read about Enneagram type fours…) Moments like this are what made the program so powerful. Rogers’ ministry feels so profound not merely in spite of his self-doubt, but because he pours it out into his characters. His vulnerability creates a space for anyone who has thought such things to hear it spoken aloud and be met with a message of love and reassurance. Joanne Rogers reveals an instance of this self-doubt close to the end of Fred’s life. They had been reading from Matthew 25, which includes the passage on the separation of the sheep and the goats. A while later, from his bed, Fred asked her, “Do you think I’m a sheep?” He dedicated his life to serving God by serving children, he poured himself tirelessly into his ministry, and yet he still questioned his salvation and his worth. I have fallen prey to this perpetual doubt. We have a blessed assurance, promises from the Lord, and I am ready to remind other hurting souls that they are seen and loved and treasured. I fully believe it, too—they’re not a set of platitudes, but a burning desire for another person to see what I see and know how wonderfully he or she is made.  Yet deep down, the question remains, “…me, though?” I keep an endless laundry list of the ways I’ve come up short, the limitations of my creativity and my stamina and my craft. The ways I could be considered unworthy of love. The wondering if my efforts will really do any good. Each time the film revealed a moment of Mister Rogers’ doubts, I felt both the pang of wanting him to know that yes, he was good and loved and it was worth it, and the pang of familiarity with my own struggles in that arena. I wonder if the former is how God feels when he hears our thoughts enter that skeptical territory. Doubts like these can keep us from serving others and making art. However, they are the very reason we need to press on and do it. For every negative thought, there is likely someone else thinking the same thing. They need to know they’re not alone and need to be told they are loved just the way they are. And we need to receive that reassurance when it’s spoken back to us. In this way, we can continue the legacy of honesty and worth that Mister Rogers left behind, and we can continue to impress the essence of the love of God on those we encounter.

Way back in 2011, Rabbit Room Press was proud to shepherd into existence Russ Ramsey’s first book Behold the Lamb of God: An Advent Narrative. Over the past seven years, it’s been a joy to watch Russ grow and stretch his legs as an author—since that first book, he’s published his second and third (Behold the King of Glory, and Struck). Today we’re delighted to help him celebrate the release of his fourth, The Mission of the Body of Christ. Today marks more than the release of a single book, though. This new book, in which Russ unpacks the events of Acts and the birth of the Church, is actually the third of the series that began with Behold the Lamb and Behold the King of Glory. Those books have been picked up and repackaged by the good folks at InterVarsity Press and today they are all available in a complete set called the Retelling the Story series. So in other words, Russ isn’t satisfied just to release one book today. He’s dropping an entire trilogy in one fell swoop. It’s like he’s bringing the Netflix binge-viewing model to books. Well done, Russ. Well done. We’ll have an in-depth review of the new book in the coming weeks, but you can pickup the entire series in the Rabbit Room Store today. “God had not just sent his Messiah into the world. He had sent him to them. They were known. In all their guilt―intended and unintended―they were known and invited to find refuge in the grace of God, accomplished through the life, death, and resurrection of his Son. And the church continued to grow.” Russ Ramsey’s dynamic narrative traces the journey of the early church with thirty-one daily readings through the book of Acts, as the people of God carried out Jesus’ mission as his ambassadors. This unlikely band of believers faced enormous challenges yet experienced God’s power and grace as they moved forward in the Spirit. Through this new community, a movement spread around the world that continues to this day. Come discover the transformation that energized the early church. And you too can play your part in the unfolding story. The Retelling the Story series explores the narrative arc of the Bible from Genesis through Revelation in compelling language that is faithful to the text of Scripture. The stories are told afresh to help readers hide God’s word in their hearts by way of their imaginations. [All three books of the series are available in the Rabbit Room Store.]

Have you ever felt confused by someone’s inability, or refusal, to listen to the viewpoint of another? One episode of this that plays in my mind was grad school days at Notre Dame: I was a teaching assistant for one of the theology professors. He assigned an essay by Leo Tolstoy to his class. It was one of Tolstoy’s classic scathing essays of social critique. When the prof opened the class up for discussion on the reading, the first student to make a comment said: “I did not know Tolstoy was a heretic.” The student refused to engage. He wanted to dismiss Tolstoy altogether because of particular elements of Tolstoy’s theology. The professor looked stunned, almost personally insulted. He was one of the few truly big-brained people I have known, and knew how to do theological critique of Tolstoy’s heterodoxy certainly better than the student ever could, and had loads of published works to prove it. But this professor steadfastly refused not to listen to someone’s argument. He believed it to be part of the Christian tradition itself, a sort of non-violent listening to the claims and words of another. As a matter of fact, he would tell me that year that he wanted me to go to a conference held by a Catholic priest on economic questions which he knew I would find distasteful. “You need to understand their arguments,” he said to me, “so you need to go.” I dutifully did so. Through such experiences I learned how much I could learn from people with whom I disagree about really important matters. More than learning a lot from the Catholic-priest-with-whom-I-disagreed, I ended up writing a chapter in my dissertation on Tolstoy. He was, as the student had noted, a heretic; that is, Tolstoy did reject certain basic tenets of Christian orthodoxy. But here was the deep irony: he made a convincing case that the Orthodox church had, in its supposed orthodoxy, and allying itself with the violent power of king and emperor, corrupted the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. He was a “heretic” not in service to some new-fangled fad; he ended up a heretic as a sort of effort to be conservative, a conservatism which sought to honor the radical teachings of Jesus regarding love of enemies and sharing of wealth. In our days of supposed enlightenment, glutted with the world of knowledge at our fingertips, we are increasingly siloed in our pre-formed convictions. Just think, there’s probably some Google AI algorithm trying to sort out whether this blog post is “conservative” or “liberal,” “Republican” or “Democrat,” “Christian” or “Muslim,” or whatever. We all want to be heard. It is central to the nature of our being, a sort of validation of our existence, for someone to pay attention to us. Lee Camp Perhaps this plausible suspicion that algorithms of so-called artificial intelligence are determining what gets served up to us means at least two things are required of us in the realm of social disagreement: One, we need to learn how to talk and think in a way that is not reducible to stereo-typical categories, not reducible to partisan commitments. I’m reminded here of Wendell Berry’s “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front,” in which he counsels us to “be like the fox who makes more tracks than necessary, some in the wrong direction.” A bit of mis-direction, a bit of non-malicious mischief may be the new necessary norm, simply as a way to get a hearing for any sort of good news which will transcend sectarian hostility. Two, we may have to keep going a long way out of the way to hear what others are saying. A friend shared with me last year David Augsburger’s wisdom: “Being listened to is so close to being loved that most people cannot tell the difference.” We all want to be heard. It is central to the nature of our being, a sort of validation of our existence, for someone to pay attention to us. And because of this, in some cases, it may be that the best way to defeat a really horrible idea in the mind of another is not to refuse to listen, or be the first to launch a pre-emptive attack to convince them otherwise, but first really to listen. And it may be that we also learn some things along the way we would not have known otherwise. No guarantee of that, of course, but we may. And even if we learn nothing intellectually, we will undoubtedly grow in the virtue of patience. It’s a liberating experience, to be free to listen to and learn from people with whom one disagrees about deeply important matters. Hospitality, in other words, is not merely a gift to the recipient but to the giver. I’d challenge you to go out looking this week for someone with whom you could have a good argument. Then, once you find them, take the posture of listening and loving, and see what you can learn. This post was originally published here at TokensShow.com. You can receive a free PDF download of Lee Camp’s thoughtful and clever ten-step guide, “How Not To Be A Sectarian” by clicking here, then scrolling to the bottom of the page.

[The Molehill, Vol. 5 will be officially released on July 9th, but because Chris Thiessen, our intrepid manager of sales, is on the ball, books are already shipping out to readers. Here’s a little taste of what’s inside. This essay of Lanier’s was the first of hers I ever read, and it remains as good now as it was when I first encountered it nearly a decade ago. Enjoy. –Pete Peterson] And Ezra blessed the LORD, the great God, and all the people answered, “Amen, Amen,” lifting up their hands. And they bowed their heads and worshiped the LORD with their faces to the ground.  —Nehemiah 8:6 I was a Christian, and I was a dancer. A ballerina, as I liked to avow with all the solemnity of seventeen. Studying classical ballet three and four days out of the week, showing up early to stretch before class, wrestling against all the opposing forces of aching muscles and tight tendons to add a fraction of a degree to my arabesque or half an inch of height to my grande jete’. I loved it, and I worked hard, both of which I owe almost exclusively to the much greater fact of a superlatively excellent teacher. She drew me out of the back corner of regional ballet school indifference and she scraped grimly away at an acquired layer of sloppiness and mimicking conformity, down to the very bones of my so-called technique. We spent untold class time spread out on the floor with anatomy books and I was made to perform all manner of ridiculous maneuvers in order to find and feel the muscles we were talking about. I danced for months without any shoes at all, and marched across the floor, en pointe, holding chairs over my head. She would call for sixty-four changement at a time and then call for them again, and drill me on the names of the famed “Eight Positions” as I assumed them in rapid succession. In short, she taught me how to dance.  She set something free within me; something longing for expression, but something equally desirous—even dependent upon—the limitations of form and structure that make classical ballet the art form that it is. I loved it more than ever; the more that was required of me—the more I experienced the essential freedom of the form—the more lovely it became. The restlessness and joy and angst and elation of youth found voice and wing in that simple studio, all alone, under the eye of a fiercely loving taskmaster. And I was happy. And I read in the Bible about ‘doing all things as unto the Lord’, and I was happier still. But I had no idea what it meant, that majestic little verse and the worlds of possibility it suggested. I had never gotten my mind and heart around the concept of art as worship. Never, that is, until the day we began working on our piece for the recital. There were three of us at that first rehearsal: my sister and another friend and myself. We were stretching out, whispering and giggling, and speculating inwardly, if not outwardly, about the diaphanous costumes the occasion would doubtless require. (It didn’t, by the way—plain white tunics and single silk flowers softening harsh little buns turned out to be the order of the day. And nothing could have been more perfect or appropriate to accompany Bach’s Sheep May Safely Graze, though not-too-distant memories of Nutcracker performances and pink net made it hard for me to see it that way at first!) We were talking—but suddenly our voices dropped and we looked around us a little awkwardly. Where was our teacher? She had been there a moment before, watching us stretch or cuing up the CD player. We hadn’t even noticed when she’d left, and it was odd that she’d disappear so soon upon the start of the rehearsal, being the stickler for time that she was. I looked around the open studio, beyond the marley floor which delineated our classroom, past the piano and chairs and shelves of music. And I saw her—in a heap in a back, dark corner of the studio. She was on her knees and her face was to the ground. And she was praying. At first I was frightened—had something terrible happened, or had she just learned of some disaster that had catapulted her into such a desperate, un-self-conscious attitude of prayer? But as the mists of my dullness gradually cleared, the truth broke with a light that pierces to this day: she was praying for inspiration, for the choreography and for the execution of it. She was entreating the favor of God upon this endeavor and imploring His ability to procure it. She had the spiritual vision to see that this was not just a workshop recital for families and friends at a little performing arts school—it was a chance to honor the God of the universe. To love God with the heart, soul, mind and strength. To create something beautiful out of love for Him and to lift it up as an offering of praise. That moment changed everything for me, in the way that small, seemingly trifling moments often do. All my loves—writing, music, dancing, homemaking, gardening—have since been charged with the influence of it. And not only by the ‘glory’ side of the equation; by the appeal, as well, if not more so.  I have in that memory of my beloved and respected teacher, face down before the God she adored, an image of the creative process that I will carry with me for the rest of my life. Creativity is a giving, an offering to others and a glory to the Creator-God. But it is also a receiving. And the courage to create and not valuate our offering by the market standards of the world is, I believe, a gift in itself, and one to be sought most earnestly by the likes of such frail co-creators as we humans prove ourselves to be. I used to love to tell my ballet students and piano students what we all probably know and already admire about Bach, namely, that he ever signed his scores and compositions with the letters S.D.G. at the end: Soli Deo Gloria. But of equal insight to me is the way that he opened them: J.J. Jesu Juva. Jesus, help. Jesus, help me to make something beautiful for You. In this poem. In this bit of earth. In this story. In this cake or loaf of bread or painting or song. Not only can I not do it truly, essentially, without You. I can’t do it for You without You. The very acknowledgment is an act of worship, and I see the humility of the ‘great ones’ in this practice. Madeleine L’Engle underscores that writing—or any art form—is an act of faith. Not a blind fumbling in the dark but a reaching towards what we know is there. She loved to image artists as midwives, assisting in the birth of some bright gleam from heaven upon our world. I smile at the thought of C.S. Lewis by his study fire, musing patiently over the mysteries of God to the good of us all. And I read, with, O, what joy, of Sheldon Vanauken praying “daily, almost hourly, that God would speak through [his] two typing fingers” as he fulfilled his vocation to write A Severe Mercy. It’s a beautiful thing, this holy desperation, and liberating in the extreme. God is not going to magically make me write like Elizabeth Gaskell or Jane Austen or George Eliot just because I ask Him to. But He is going to enable me to write from the burden of love He has laid upon me, to the end that He desires, which is more desirable than all to me. And the desire and the desiring draw me irresistibly into the heart of Love itself. It’s one of the lovely paradoxes of this pilgrims’ way: we pour out our hearts in worship and find them filled in the very act. We stumble under our weakness, our grasping at words and colors and notes, and just when we think we’ve fallen we find the grip of a mighty embrace lifting us with wings like eagles’. We imagine we know the end of our art—where our ambitions lie—and we make our plans accordingly, only to discover we’re being propelled merrily along in some kind of crazy empowered helplessness towards a dream we’d likely have laughed at in our saner moments. I found myself toward the end of last year under a big writing deadline, the enormity of which I hadn’t the least idea until I had assumed it. To say that I spent most of November with my head down upon my desk asking God for help would not be too far off the mark. (I wish I could say that I spent as much time thanking Him for it when it came.) I have never felt so out of my league and over my head. And, as I told my husband, the joy of it was an almost incandescent thing. I wished that I could always live with such intensity, such dependence upon God and awareness of His help. Exhausting as it was, it was one of the shining seasons of my life. It was a glimpse, I think, small but lucid, of the great antiphonal exchange of prayers and praises, giving and receiving, with which art greets worship and worship quickens art. A snatch of the music of the spheres. A hint of what it’s going to mean to love God face to face. I think there’s only one thing I’m going to be able to do then: …And they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.  —Revelation 7:11, 12 [The Molehill, Vol. 5 is available in the Rabbit Room Store.]

This summer, the recommended reading list for my church community includes titles like The Rule of Benedict (Chittister), St. Francis of Assisi (Chesterton), and Establishing a Rule of Life (The Trinity Mission). We’re considering what it means to create a personal culture of faith by establishing a “rule” for living. For some, this looks like a detailed list of activities to be done every day, week, month, or year (like those who choose to live under Benedictine or Franciscan rule). For others, though, it’s simply a matter of deciding how we’d like to invest our time and resources and translating that into everyday life. My husband and I feel strongly about family culture, about having the big questions answered so that on the average day, we know what we’re working toward. We love nature, for example, and we want our children to love and care for the earth, so we plant gardens and make compost. We hike in our local parks and nature preserves. We learn the names of the birds we see and how to tell the difference between a maple and a mockernut. When we’re able, we visit the National Parks, and every other year we return to the same little town in Maine to play in the harbor and ramble over seaside cliffs. Sarah Mackenzie feels strongly about family culture, too, but in her newest book, The Read-Aloud Family, her emphasis is on creating a love for reading. Sarah opens with a memory from her early days of motherhood, when she first began to envision a family culture in which books and stories were vital. She carries us with her, to three children, to six, weaving accounts of personal failure and triumph and renewed vision into the why and how of creating a read-aloud culture. A key element (and one I appreciate) of Sarah’s vision is the idea that books bring us together. An exhausting day with a rambunctious toddler can end on a sweet note when mother and child snuggle up to read a picture book. Parents in conflict with a teenager can find moments of connection when they share a great story. An engaging audiobook can put an end to siblings’ squabbling and turn a tiresome road trip into a joy. “The stories we read together,” says Sarah, “act as a bridge when we can’t seem to find another way to connect. They are our currency, our language…The words and stories we share become a part of our family identity.” This is exactly the kind of bond I hope to create, and it’s my chief motivation for reading aloud to my kids. I want to raise a boy who watches in delight as the mother bird guards her nest, as the chicks hatch, as they learn to fly. I want children for whom love and delight are the driving forces behind all they choose to do. Helena Sorensen Another thing I love about Sarah’s approach is her focus on the heart. She’s not an elitist (an unfortunate tendency of many readers), and she’s not hell-bent on using books as a tool to improve her children’s academic performance. She’s committed to making reading a matter of delight, not merely a means to an end. Sure, reading (and being read to) increases a child’s vocabulary and his capacity for connecting ideas. Sarah’s suggestions for compelling questions to ask after reading a book are wonderful tools to encourage high-level thinking. But that’s not the point. Sarah quotes colleague and friend, publisher Rea Berg: “…we don’t want to create intellectual geniuses who don’t have humanity, compassion, and empathy. Intellectual genius without heart is a dangerous, dangerous thing.” I could teach my son everything there is to know about Eastern bluebirds—their anatomy, their call, their nesting habits. But without heart, without love for the beauty and grace of those birds, he might be inclined to walk out to the nest on our deck, grab a bluebird by the throat, and dissect it. Like Sarah, I’m far more concerned with my son’s heart than his storehouse of knowledge. I want to raise a boy who watches in delight as the mother bird guards her nest, as the chicks hatch, as they learn to fly. I want children for whom love and delight are the driving forces behind all they choose to do. I’m not new to the read-aloud culture. We read a great many books at our house. There are loaded bookshelves and stacks of books in nearly every room, and the kids know to expect books for birthday and Christmas gifts. But like all mothers (and perhaps especially homeschool mothers), I worry about whether I’m doing enough. I worry that maybe there will be holes in my children’s education, that I will fail them in their academic preparations and wake one morning to find they’ve posted something like this on social media: “Your not gonna believe wut just happened too me lol!” That little worry knot in my stomach relaxes when I read Sarah’s words. Her conversational style and her candor set me at ease, reminding me that small investments add up over time, that it is never too late to begin or improve. Her passion reminds me of what I’m aiming at: a family of word-lovers, book-lovers, story-lovers, a family with a shared vocabulary, shared jokes, shared memories, a small community of people whose hearts have been shaped by truth and beauty. If you’re looking to clarify your vision for your family and you’d like reading to play a more prominent part, Sarah Mackenzie’s The Read-Aloud Family is an excellent resource. As a bonus, Sarah includes several chapters with book recommendations and reviews for different age levels, as well as an extensive book list in the index. For a limited time, The Read-Aloud Family is on sale here at The Rabbit Room Store.

Each time I set out to put together a volume of The Molehill, I’m faced with a mystery. You see, unlike many magazines or journals, this isn’t a collection compiled according to a theme. There are few boundaries for what goes in and what stays out. “What are you looking for,” writers ask. I tell them to submit anything they’ve got; I’ll know it when I see it. But that itself is not the mystery. The mystery is that in an anthology of work that has no binding theme, a theme inevitably emerges. This year’s volume was, for me at least, even more mysterious than those before it. It’s taken over a year to pull the book together, and I’ve felt more disconnected from it than in past years. We have lots of new writers included, and a month ago I still had no firm conception of what might bind these disparate creations into any kind of coherent larger work. And yet… In the end, these works turn to the eternal. In Dawn Morrow’s poem “Intermezzo” and Andrew Peterson’s “Lenten Sonnets,” and G. K. Chesterton’s “The Wild Knight,” we are delivered through the fog and into the hope of all things made new, into the clear air where we see at last the world as it really is and not as we feared it to be. The Molehill’s tagline or motto is the Latin phrase e collibus montes: out of hills, mountains. I think this Molehill bodies forth that idea more surely than any past volume, for in these works, we learn that the smallest of us, even the most unworthy, may find our last home in the beauty of the high mountains. When our perspective embraces the full measure of that truth, we will see the distant hills for the small wonders they were. A. S. “Pete” Peterson Editor, The Molehill [The Molehill, Volume 5, will be released on July 9th. It is now available for pre-order in the Rabbit Room Store.] [Also a shout-out to Stephen Crotts for his amazing cover design!]

Click through for this week’s edition of Jonny Jimison’s Rabbit Trails. Click here to check out more of Jonny Jimison’s work at his website.

I think I made the wrong move. At least that’s how it feels. A few weeks ago I resigned from my job as the teaching pastor at a church, a role I’ve held for the last two years. In the days immediately following the decision and announcement, I met with several people to explain my decision further. One meeting was particularly probing, a concerned acquaintance who was intense in his queries, almost investigative. What will you do next? Was your decision based on fear or fleeting emotions? What was God telling you about your calling? “I don’t know,” I answered, again and again. “I really don’t.” Weeks later, I still don’t know. The best I can offer is a shrug and acknowledge that what’s done is done. I’d love to wake up to a pillar of cloud or fire. I’d be happy to come across a burning bush. I’d appreciate a talking donkey, even a burro who could connect with my elementary Spanish skills. Instead, all I’ve had for months is a heightened level of anxiety and negative emotions that led me to make the decision that I did. And now it’s done. To be candid, it’s exactly how I felt taking the job in the first place. Two years ago, I was approached about going back into ministry after a six-year absence, one I believed to be permanent. I’d certainly thought about jumping back into church work over the years, since I love teaching more than any other vocational responsibility I’ve ever had. It’s the place I’m most confident and comfortable. When you’re not doing the one thing you’re gifted to do more than anything else, there’s a nagging void that takes up space in your mind and heart. So when the inquiry came about my potential interest and availability, I decided to look at the job description after some family discussion. That led to a prolonged interview process during which I even backed out, nervous about what I was getting into. During the process of answering the church’s questions about my calling, I made it quite clear that I wasn’t entirely sure I was up for this again. But they seemed nice. I missed teaching. I also felt well-rested from previous ministry experiences. Am I called to vocational ministry or am I addicted to the validation that comes with it? Did God place me within a community of people to teach or did I figure out how to scratch an itch? Should I have stayed obediently to learn a hard lesson or did I make the right call by walking away? Matt Conner The best I could offer was “let’s give this a try.” Two years later, the friction became too much. Working in a church, or any public sphere for that matter, is going to require thicker skin than what I’ve developed. Over time, my ability to handle expectations as a spiritual leader, criticism as a public speaker, and demands as someone helping to run an organization all eroded. I began to hide on Sunday mornings to avoid crowds. I dreaded leaving my house for an event I knew would be entertaining and filled with people I legitimately love and appreciate. The same fears, emotions, and anxiety that caused me to resign from my last ministry position slowly crept back until they occupied my mind at all hours. So I quit. The reality is I haven’t seen a pillar in several years. I haven’t felt called to anything in a very, very long time, and even then I look back and wonder whether it was the emotions of the moment or religious jargon I learned to employ. Am I called to vocational ministry or am I addicted to the validation that comes with it? Did God place me within a community of people to teach or did I figure out how to scratch an itch? Should I have stayed obediently to learn a hard lesson or did I make the right call by walking away? I cannot tell the difference. I wish I could. I’d love to feel connected to any sort of symbol to which I could apply meaning. I’d love for my heightened senses to see or hear something unexplainable. I’d love to discern some internal compass that points undeniably toward its own magnetic north. Instead I’ve been wandering in a professional wilderness for the last decade or more, uncertain of when and where to settle or keep walking. The best I know to do these days is to simply lean in where I sense energy, toward the creative tasks that currently excite me, while remaining open to the places and people God may use to shape and mold me. Maybe I will teach again someday. I love it and know I will miss it. I also know that I’ve been a shadow of my best self for quite some time, without any real plan to claim it again. Maybe someday I will tie a nice bow around all of this and even teach some lesson learned about the beauty of not knowing. For now it’s a daily discipline of leaning into the unknown.

When I was going through a particularly hard time a few years ago, a friend encouraged me with a story from Corrie ten Boom’s book, The Hiding Place. As a child, Corrie was having a difficult time dealing with the fact that her father would die one day. She and her father had this dialogue: I burst into tears, “I need you!” I sobbed. “You can’t die! You can’t!” “Corrie,” he began gently. “When you and I go to Amsterdam, when do I give you your ticket?” “Why, just before we get on the train.” “Exactly. And our wise Father in heaven knows when we’re going to need things, too. Don’t run out ahead of him, Corrie. When the time comes that some of us will have to die, you will look into your heart and find the strength you need—just in time.” My friend said that God gives us tickets of grace to get through any given situation and that he would give me my ticket when I needed it. I loved this idea, but I didn’t think he had given me my ticket. I cried out to God one night, “Where is my ticket? You didn’t give me my ticket!” I thought my ticket would be an angel that would touch me and give me strength, a miraculous healing or a vision. Soon after, I had a dream that a friend gave me a sweater that I loved. The next day when I was pondering the dream, I felt that God was saying the sweater was the ticket of grace I was looking for. Life is too hard to take straight, to take alone, without the oil of friendship, without the intoxication of grace offered to one another through shared laughter and tears. Without music or walks in the woods. Without silliness and stories. I couldn't take life straight; I would die under the weight of grief. Hetty White I do not mean to diminish the hardships of life to say that a lovely cardigan can fix them. I mean to say that we underestimate cardigans. And gifts from friends. And flowers. And a nice card. And the perfect song. And a smile and a deep hug. I think when we receive them for what they are, we find ourselves surrounded by tickets of grace from God that enable us to ride the train of suffering and despair through this beautiful, crazy life. In the film Song to Song, one of Terrence Malick’s characters says, “I can’t take life straight.” I think he meant he needed to be under the influence to deal with life. I can’t take life straight, either. Life is too hard to take straight, to take alone, without the oil of friendship, without the intoxication of grace offered to one another through shared laughter and tears. Without music or walks in the woods. Without silliness and stories. I couldn’t take life straight; I would die under the weight of grief. The train is too hard of a ride. I once had the privilege and sobering opportunity to be with a friend when he died. I traveled by Megabus from Nashville, Tennessee to Brainerd, Minnesota to be with him in the last minutes of his life. After it happened, I was exhausted and if I’m honest, a bit traumatized. I called my mom from the room I was staying in that night. How was I supposed to sleep? Could I keep living after seeing what I had seen? After seeing how God had allowed a brutal sickness to ravage my friend’s body until almost nothing was left? I wasn’t sure what life looked like for me after this. Would I ever be happy again? Could I ever laugh again? And the most frightening thought of all: what if something like this happened to my family? To my brother or sister or mom or dad? That thought, I couldn’t deal with. It was too big, too horrific. “I can’t handle that,” I thought. “I wouldn’t be able to handle that.” As I talked with my mom on the phone that night, she encouraged me to remember all the things that had happened on my journey to see my friend. She didn’t know what that meant, but she sensed that God was wanting to remind me. The trip had been a hard one: it was freezing winter and I didn’t have a smart phone and I was trying to catch bus after bus, be at the right stop, and avoid unsafe parts of downtown cities at three in the morning, all while facing the fact that my journey ended in the death of a friend. But all along the way, people had helped me. There was an older woman in Memphis who waited with me for the bus. She was headed to a memorial service for a dear friend who had died at her house on Thanksgiving morning. I didn’t tell her where I was going. I didn’t have the strength to speak of it yet, but I found camaraderie in her. There was a girl on the bus to Minneapolis with short hair and a spunky attitude that helped me figure out where to get off the bus and find a coffee shop open at five in the morning. I was able to fall asleep on the table and charge my cell phone in a warm space while I waited for the next bus instead of standing around in seventeen degree weather in the dark hours of the morning. Then there was my guitar. I would not go without my guitar—I wanted to sing for my friend who had so loved music. Every Megabus let me put the guitar down below with the suitcases, even though they weren’t supposed to. And even more miraculously, it survived! In a soft case, no less. It still has thin white scars running up and down its body from that frozen trip where it cracked but did not break. Perhaps I still have some scars, too. When I got to my friend’s house, his father picked me up from the bus station. The sadness in his eyes was all I could see. I sat in the living room next to the bed where my friend lay, who looked like a shell of himself. His eyes darted back and forth, but finally fixed on me. I saw him. There he was: my friend, Doug. I got out my guitar. I sang for him and he died while I played. His sister said, “He waited for you. I told him you were coming.” I like to think that I helped him go—I opened the door for him. I gave him his ticket right before he needed it, and with the sound of music enveloping him, he boarded the train. Seven years later, the horrible thing that I couldn’t imagine has happened: my mother has cancer. My worst fear. The thought I couldn’t think is now my reality. My own mother. Since October, this season has been riddled with questions, tests, doctor appointments and above all, waiting. Waiting for bad news, waiting for good news, waiting for answers to questions that can’t always be answered. But somehow, we get through it. Over and over again, the Lord shows up in unexpected ways. Over and over, we are given tickets to get through the next hurdle, the next thing. I have a friend at church whose mom also has lung cancer and all along the way she has encouraged me, texted me, “How did the test go? What’s the news? How are you doing?” Another friend sent me a necklace with a lantern on it and a note that had the quote from when Galadriel gives the light of Eärendil’s star to Frodo: “May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out.” I reach for it often these days and hold onto it. Months after he died, I had a dream about Doug. It was simple: he was well and whole, he looked the way he did when I first met him. And he gave me a big, long hug. And that was it. Call me a mystic, but I think that was really him giving me back something I gave him: comfort, relief, grace.

Janie said it could be the beginning scene of the indie movie about my life that, if you ask me, will probably never be made. On my first day of therapy three summers ago, I walked into the front room, confused by the lack of official-looking-person who was to tell me what to do. Couches. Doors. A vase of flowers. Peaceful noisemakers drowning out the sounds of tears and sorrow (I couldn’t imagine then that laughter might be an option). But there was no front desk, no greeting. I sat down on the couch. I stood up. I walked down the hall, but the rooms with open doors were empty and the ones with closed doors? There was no way I was going there. I returned to the front and joined the only other person in the room. He was maybe eight years old with blond, scruffy hair, glasses, and he didn’t look nearly as uncomfortable as I did as he sat on the couch across from me reading a book. I leaned in for a second. “Excuse me?” I whispered. He looked up, surprised. “What do I do? It’s my first time.” “They’ll come out for you. You just wait here,” he said. Just the simple facts. I sat back, comforted. I knew what to do. And so I waited. It felt like I didn’t have much of a choice about being at the counseling office at that point. Well, of course I did. I drove myself and all. But I had let the anxiety go too far unchecked and I knew it and my body knew it and it seemed all the cells that knew it revolted against me, making themselves known as though saying, “We need help. Please don’t ignore us anymore.” I heard them this time, loud and clear, unmistakeable. From the reference of a trusted mentor, I made the call for an appointment. “What in particular is going on?” the woman on the phone had asked. “Definitely anxiety. Perhaps depression. I’m not really sure,” I whispered the words because they didn’t seem real, not in reference to me at least. I don’t remember much about the specifics of that first session, except that my therapist commented on the quietness of my voice and used words for my feelings that I would have never afforded myself. She asked a few questions and I mostly cried and sometimes tried not to cry and told her why I thought I was there. She gave me tissues and prodded gently. Over the course of the next few months, I reconsidered ideas I had never once questioned. It was disorienting and dizzying and everything felt new, like I was a learning how to do the very basics again, like walk and talk and tie my shoes. Sometimes it is as simple as that I learned to tie my shoes one way and that way isn't working as well as it used to and I'm tired of tripping over my own feet. Kelsey Miller And truthfully, for me, that’s what counseling ended up being.  For the most part, my counselor Melanie and I would sit there and I would talk and then she would look at me and say, “Have you ever considered a different way of tying your shoes?” She never said that exactly, but the sentiment of that: noting with gentleness that I have been operating under some assumptions for so long that I never considered there might be another better, healthier, perhaps sometimes easier, way. There were those first few weeks of dizzying disorientation, but as time charged on and I along with it, it became less dizzying and in fact, it became a place of orientation, a place to practice my new walk in my newly tied shoes. We all have weird habits and ways of being with varying degrees of wonkiness and sometimes the best thing we can do is laugh about them, call them funky, and then move forward differently. Often, those closest to us are so privy to our own ways of tying our shoes that it takes a truly third party to note the particularities. That is where therapy came in. “Have you ever considered that you don’t have to apologize when you cry?” “Why is ‘hurt’ always the last emotion you’re able to name?” “Has your voice always been this quiet?” I guess I write this to say that even those of us who lived largely dreamy childhoods and have suffered relatively little still didn’t make it out unscathed. This is not to say that I am a tortured soul, but just to say out loud with confidence that I am a human being with a story that has included joy and sorrow and pain and love. Those of us who need counseling are not only those who are particularly sensitive or sufferers of abuse or those with a mental illness. For me, I was, and am, a human being who was finding it difficult to be a human being for a time. It is no more important or dramatic than that. Sometimes it is as simple as that I learned to tie my shoes one way and that way isn’t working as well as it used to and I’m tired of tripping over my own feet. And so I went and kept going even when I thought I might die if I had to say that one thing I hadn’t ever told anyone before. And in the process of telling my secrets and sharing my wounds, I recovered pieces of my heart I was ready to throw out with the cold bathwater and it is truly God’s grace that they were saved in time. And though I am still tripping over my feet over here, it doesn’t feel as fatal as it used to. Maybe that’s the real gift of it. Tripping, falling, and finding myself on the ground laughing at the newfound view. It’s so much more beautiful than I remembered.

When we first envisioned Supper & Songs, we considered it an exercise in thinking small: cozy homes as venues, a small enough guest list that we could get to know each other throughout the night, and just two artists. We had thirty guests at our April event with Liz Vice and forty in May with Jordy Searcy. We realized after the May event that, strange as it may seem, we were already thinking too big. Our Head Chef Kelsey Miller, in preparing dinner for these large groups, had to sacrifice some of her home-cooked ideals for the sake of quantity. But we want this to be more than just a house concert plus food. So we are going to scale this thing back to just fifteen tickets, sit all at one table for a delicious and wholesome supper, and invite you to ask questions between our songs. We’ll have three of these little evenings in August, September, and October to see how they feel. If you’ll be in the Nashville area August 7th, mark your calendars! The next Supper & Songs event will take place in the Cane Ridge area and tickets are now available, but they will go quick. Click here for more information. After the May 14th event, The Orchardist’s Janie Townsend wrote about the paradox of loneliness within community. You can read it here on the blog.

[With the release of the documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor? (which you should all go see immediately!) we thought we’d repost this excellent article from Jason Gray.] “L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.” (What is essential is invisible to the eyes – from Antoine De Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince) These are the words on a plaque that hung in the office of my new hero. Who might that be you may wonder? Kierkegard? Billy Graham? Bono? Would you be surprised if I told you it was…Mister Rogers? Let me explain: During a run of dates in TX in 2009, I was talking with keyboardist Neil Tankersly about what we were reading when he recommended a book to me about children’s television icon Mister Rogers. My interest level in this kind of book was at about negative 137, but I pretended to be interested enough to be polite, but not enough to encourage him to tell me any more more about it. Whether my passive cues went unrecognized or ignored, I’m not sure, but Neil kept on telling me about how life-changing this book was and then went so far as to begin looking up YouTube videos of Mister Rogers for me to watch. I felt that brand of social anxiety that comes on you when you’re getting pulled into a conversational vortex about something you couldn’t care less about. His enthusiasm made me seriously doubt not only my new friend’s taste in books, but also question his masculinity. I mean, what kind of man gets that excited about Mister Rogers of all people? I remember dying a little bit inside at the prospect of having to sit there and watch what I imagined would be lame video clips of a man I had pre-judged as a bland, out of step, sweet but weak cardigan-wearing milquetoast with little to interest or offer a cultured and savvy sophisticate like myself. But then the video started playing. But my second and more relevant confession to you today is that I couldn’t have been more wrong about Mister Rogers. We were barely 30 seconds into the first clip when tears started welling up in my eyes and I had to do my best to choke back embarrassing sobs as I watched Fred Rogers’s acceptance speech at the Emmy Awards—a speech so utterly disarming in it’s selflessness and grace that as the camera scanned the audience it was clear that, for all the propriety and pretense that might be expected at a gathering of Hollywood’s powerful and elite, there was something more powerful still: love. As Rogers invited each of them to think of someone who had loved them into being, the emotional armor fell away, the make-up ran. What was visited upon them—and me—through this remarkable man (via my kind friend Neil) was a powerful moment of humanity and grace. So now I come to you, reader, willing and even eager to risk you thinking me uncool by daring to recommend, as Neil Tankersly did to me, that you too would do well to spend a little time in Mister Roger’s neighborhood. After returning home, I immediately ordered the book, I’m Proud Of You by Tim Madigan, the story of a surprising friendship that was born out of a visit when Madigan—a journalist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram-–flew to Pittsburgh to interview Fred Rogers for a piece he was writing. Not expecting much, Tim was immediately disarmed by the intense sincerity and humble kindness of this unassuming man who was a giant in children’s television. As Rogers spoke to him about his philosophy of imagining he was looking through the camera into the eyes of each child watching, trying to be fully present to their feelings and needs, Tim writes of how Rogers demonstrated this the first time they spoke: “Do you know what the most important thing in the world is to me right now?”“No,” I said.“Talking to Mr. Tim Madigan on the telephone.” At the time of their initial meeting, Madigan was in the throes of a desperate depression and on the verge of divorce. His personal and professional life caving in around him, he found an unlikely offer of friendship from Rogers—a relationship that would help shape his reformation in the years to come. I don’t want to give too much of the story away here, but the book chronicles how Rogers’s wisdom, kindness, and unconditional love guided Madigan through the darkest days of his life, giving him the grace and the courage to find a way out of the darkness, and giving him a glimpse of the Jesus Rogers testified about. The book is named after a key moment in their relationship when Madigan realizes that much of his pain and inability to love stemmed from never feeling like he could be good enough for his dad. In a moment of truth, Madigan wrote a courageously honest letter to Rogers saying: “…the last several years have been a very profound time of intense personal pain and great healing, a time of great self discovery as I’ve tried to come to terms with the realities of my life, past and present. At the forefront of my mind and soul right now is how hard I tried to get my dad to be proud of me, through sports, through school, through the ways I tried to be obedient and good. But no matter what I did, it never seemed enough. I could never wrest from him the sense of acceptance I so desperately craved as a child and have been craving ever since.I realize now that God is the ultimate source for that kind of love and acceptance. But I have also realized that I have gravitated toward older men in my life without really knowing why. Now I think I know….…I read Henri Nouwen this morning, and several chapters in the book of Matthew, and meditated for a long time on my pain, and realized what I need to do… In your letters and during our brief time together, you have done so much to teach me how to be a person and a man. And now I have this favor to ask of you. Will you be proud of me?“ Such risky vulnerability! A risk that was rewarded: Rogers’s reply was immediate and transformative: “YES! A resounding YES!I will be proud of you. I am proud of you! … Nothing you could tell me could change my YES for you. Please remember that…. I feel blessed to be one of your friends. Only God can arrange such mutually trusting relationships…. YES, Tim, YES.” Every letter Madigan would receive from Rogers after this closed with the initials, IPOY—I’m proud of you—a simple and constant affirmation that would seep like water into the deepest, darkest corners of his life. Throughout the book, Madigan invites us to eavesdrop on their conversations and correspondence, which throughout reveal Fred Rogers as a faithful Christian man who lived out the gospel with the kind of grace, kindness, and unconditional love that every soul longs and hungers for. “He was a man in touch with the eternal,” his friends would say of him after his death. Mister Rogers could be an easy target of ridicule and parody (and even was in Eddie Murphy’s “Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood” on SNL), and the book talks about a piece that Esquire, a men’s magazine whose content is just shy of Playboy in its edginess and carnal sensibilities, did on Rogers in the late ’90s. What good could come of a feature in a magazine so antithetical to Roger’s priorities? The worldly and cynical journalist—whose predisposition to Rogers was much like mine—was surprised to find himself victim to the irresistible kindness, selflessness, and humility of this man who saw his ministry as not only broadcasting grace to children, but helping to put us in touch with the child in all of us. The journalist recounts their first encounter: “…and though I tried to ask him questions about himself, he always turned the questions back on me. And when I finally got him to talk about the puppets that were the comfort of his lonely boyhood, he looked at me, his blue eyes at once mild and steady, and asked, ‘What about you, Tom? Did you have any special friends growing up?’‘Special friends?’‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Maybe a puppet or a special toy, or maybe just a stuffed animal you loved very much. Did you have a special friend like that, Tom?’‘Yes, Mister Rogers.’‘Did your special friend have a name, Tom?’‘Yes, Mister Rogers. His name was Old Rabbit.’‘Old Rabbit. Oh, and I’ll bet the two of you were together since he was a very young rabbit. Would you like to tell me about Old Rabbit, Tom?’And it was just about then when I was spilling the beans about my special friend, that Mister Rogers rose from his corner couch and stood suddenly in front of me with a black camera in hand. “Can I take your picture, Tom?’ he asked. ‘I’d like to take your picture. I like to take pictures of all my new friends so that I can show them to Joanne [his wife]…’ And then in the dark room, there was a wallop of white light, and Mister Rogers disappeared behind it…” In another scene, we are witness to the tender sensitivity of Rogers when he goes to visit a severely handicapped boy with cerebral palsy: “At first the boy was made very nervous by the thought that Mister Rogers was visiting him. He was so nervous, in fact, that he … got mad and began hating and biting himself, and his mother had to take him to another room to talk to him. Mister Rogers didn’t leave though. He wanted something from the boy, and Mister Rogers never leaves when he wants something from somebody. He just waited patiently, and when the boy came back, Mister Rogers talked to him, and then he made his request. He said, ‘I would like you to do something for me. Would you do something for me?’ On his computer the boy answered yes, of course, he would do anything for Mister Rogers, so then Mister Rogers said: ‘I would like you to pray for me. Will you pray for me?’ And now the boy didn’t know how to respond. He was thunderstruck… Because nobody had ever asked him for something like that, ever. The boy had always been prayed for. The boy had always been the object of prayer, and now he was being asked to pray for Mister Rogers, and although at first he didn’t know if he could do it, he said he would … and ever since then he keeps Mister Rogers in his prayers and doesn’t talk about wanting to die anymore, because he figures Mister Rogers is close to God, and if Mister Rogers likes him, that must mean that God likes him too. As for Mister Rogers himself… he doesn’t look at the story the same way the boy did or I did. In fact When Mister Rogers first told me the story, I complimented him for being smart–for knowing that asking the boy for his prayers would make the boy feel better about himself–and Mister Rogers responded by looking at me first with puzzlement and then with surprise. ‘Oh heavens no, Tom! I didn’t ask him for his prayers for him; I asked for me. I asked him because I think that anyone who has gone through challenges like that must be very close to God. I asked him because I wanted his intercession.’ The book chronicles how Rogers’s friendship helped walk Madigan through the process of reconciling with his wife, forgiving and loving his father, surviving depression (“The Furies” as Rogers called it), and grieving his brother’s death from cancer. Throughout are excerpts from their conversation that make us witness to an unabashed commitment to intimacy that, for me as the reader, had the effect of gently shining a light on my own sad attempts to keep people and love at arm’s length, my own fear of risking love and intimacy. Throughout the book, I was delighted to learn that Rogers and I shared an admiration for many of the same spiritual writers like Frederick Buechner, Anne Lamott, and Rogers’s friend and favorite: Henri Nouwen—an author whose work the Holy Spirit has used to shape and guide my own ministry. “What is essential is invisible to the eye,” reads the plaque on the wall in his office, and it was the essential that Rogers was always trying to impart to us. In the book we learn how intentional he was in his television show, understanding it as a ministry and lovingly using it to impart the values of the gospel that were so dear to him: grace, forgiveness, kindness, and trust in an Unconditional Love. I’m Proud Of You is an understated, well-written, and modest book. But within its pages I found something more than the sum of it’s parts. It is the kind of story that not only inspires you to be more human, live an ennobled kind of life, and to love better than you thought you could, but also reveals the grace that makes these things possible. It’s a cleansing book, one that blew through me like a light and fragrant spring breeze, warming places where the frost had set in. But looking back over what I’ve written here, I can’t help but feel I’m failing this book because I keep talking about what it’s about, sharing little passages and tidbits that are interesting as matters of fact. But what the book is about is less important than what the book is and what it did to me. Because what it is, of course, is a window in the world to offer a glimpse of another kind of life that could be lived—the kind of life the gospel reveals. In Mister Rogers we discover a man shaped by the tender heart of Jesus, and as I read I found myself looking for ways to bless others, to be more present to them, to be less afraid to speak tender words of intimacy to those around me, to be kinder and more forgiving. As for what the book did to me, it caused me to ask myself: “what might my life look like if I better incarnated the grace of God? How might the lives of those I love–my family, friends, loved ones–be different? Or any of those whom my life touches? Though I was never crazy about the whole What Would Jesus Do craze a number of years ago, I nonetheless find myself asking a similar question: what would Mister Rogers do? I mean no disrespect to Jesus, of course. It’s just that Jesus sets such an impossibly high bar, you know? But in Mister Rogers I find a flesh and bone man, an imperfect sinner like me, set free to love and live the kind of life that Jesus revealed. If Mister Rogers can find that kind of grace, maybe it’s available to me, too. In other words, I found I’m Proud Of You to be a potent invitation to spend beautiful days in the neighborhood of Mister Rogers, a neighborhood made beautiful by the grace of God. It has stirred a desire in me to live a life that makes space for that kind of grace and beauty in my own neighborhood—the one I take with me wherever I go. (Here are the two video clips I mentioned earlier, both from the presentation of his Lifetime Acheivement Award at the Emmys.)

That’s right: you may now order a copy of Every Moment Holy from the Rabbit Room Store (or Amazon!) and expect to receive it in the mail in an altogether reasonable amount of time. To celebrate this milestone as well as the travel-filled season of summer that is now upon us, we share with you “A Liturgy For Leaving on Holiday.” In the same spirit, if you will be going on vacation any time soon, enjoying the outdoors, convening with friends, or engaging in other such summer activities, we encourage you to consider how you may put Every Moment Holy to good use in these settings. Examples include “For Arriving at the Ocean,” “For Those Who Sleep in Tents,” “For Sunsets,” “For Feasting with Friends,” and “For the Marking of Birthdays.” Most of these are available for download at EveryMomentHoly.com if you do not have the book. Enjoy this liturgy, and we at the Rabbit Room wish you a wonderful summer. Leader: O Christ Our Sabbath, You have fashioned us to function best in rhyming lines of work and rest; our relaxations and recreations like unspoken invitations to that still greater holiday to come— when all burdens will at last be shed and weariness be put to bed, and gladsome joy stretch endlessly before us. People: Bless now, O Lord, this happy foretaste of that good end! Bless our pending trip here at its first christening. Bless the days to come: the days of duties undone, unbuckled, unbound. Bless our pilgrim quest for restoration! Prepare our hearts to revel in new exploration of cities not our own, and of landscapes less familiar. Along our way, in such places whose contours you deliberately created, may we pause to savor the evidences of your diverse imagination expressed in glories of scenery, and in an artistry of peoples and cultures. Waken our vision to perceive such subtle expressions of your nature. Rouse also our hearts that we might be quietly shaped by those whisperings of divine beauty. In our days away let us play together. Let us laugh together. Let us be moved to speak such meaningful words as ought to be spoken among family and friends. Let us linger long at tables and drink deeply of one another’s company, enjoying each for who they are with the steady pressures of our ordinary days now lifted. As you called your disciples to come away with you, retreating from the crush of crowds, pausing in their long work, simply to rest, to reflect, to enjoy your company, your words, your conversation, to enjoy their fellowship with one another, so help us also, in this time of our vacation, to carve out spaces merely to be, to be with you, to be together, to be refreshed. Ah, how we long for that fierce freedom for which we were created! Let us taste of it here in our travels! Bless our journey and our arrival. Bless our days spent away. And bless also our eventual passage home, that we might return as those who have been revived, with hopes resurrected, delight restored, hearts readied again for forward movement into life, strength renewed to shoulder once more the meaningful labors assigned to us in this season. You are our rest, Jesus. May this vacation serve your holy purposes. May the deep enjoyment and the grand adventure of it stir within us eternal longings, whetting our anticipation of that best holiday celebration that will one day encompass all days, and all of heaven and all of earth. Amen. You can order your own copy of Every Moment Holy at the Rabbit Room Store as well as Amazon. Individual liturgies are also available for download at EveryMomentHoly.com

There I stood, in front of the fireplace with my guitar strapped on and dozens of lyric sheets in my hands with songs like “This Is My Father’s World” and “Be Thou My Vision.” I turned to my left and gave the nearest student that familiar instruction to “take one and pass them back,” watching the sheets of paper make their way around the circle we had formed along the perimeter of the room. On this Wednesday morning, chapel was held not at school, but at our neighboring nursing home. In the middle of the room, couches were filled with residents, some smiling pleasantly, others vacantly, and still others giving the appearance of being annoyed at the general state of things. The smell of artificial maple syrup wafted through the air. The school is comprised of a mere sixty or so students, from kindergarten to twelfth grade, and it occurs to me that every age from six years old to perhaps eighty-five is fairly represented in this room. This must be the most multi-generational room I have ever found myself in. When I took this teaching job, the leader of the school told me, “I want my students to be able to sing together, really and truly. I want them to experience the struggle and reward of learning to use their voices in harmony.” Every Wednesday morning before chapel, the school recites together a list of virtues and their accompanying descriptions from memory as guiding principles for how to interact with one another throughout the week. The list includes traits like “attentive: listening with ears, eyes, and heart,” “tenderhearted: feeling the joys and hurts of others,” “orderly: keeping everything in its place,” and “discerning: able to see things as they really are.” Every music class I teach the students hymns, in two-part harmony for the third through sixth graders and three-part harmony for the seventh through twelfth graders. The students are not always attentive, tenderhearted, orderly, or discerning, but I watch them learn how to become these things by trial and error. Music teaches them how, more viscerally than I had imagined. My ears perk up whenever I detect any potential for discussion of how music intrinsically embodies God’s intent for his creation. It’s what led me to the Rabbit Room, to Belmont as a Religion & the Arts major, to Tolkien’s Silmarillion, to the Punch Brothers, to write songs and start a band, and of course to write this post. Some days, my desire to experience something irreducibly true about the world through a song is what honestly gets me out of bed in the morning. Right now, the particular train of thought I can’t get over goes something like this. It's not that if you sing this note and I sing that note, we'll hear some compromise of a note created as a result, like how red and blue make purple. No, we will hear red, blue, and purple. If that's not magic, I don't know what is. Drew Miller In most arts, there is an element of hospitality, relationship, and proportion built in. Generally and traditionally speaking, visual art strives for balance of color and composition. Dance carves out physical space for bodies to inhabit. Poetry commits to a form, a structure, a method of phrasing and rhyme that results in a pleasing sense of unity. But two words cannot occupy the same space on a page. Neither can two dancers occupy the same physical space. It feels like a feat of magic to watch red and blue make purple, but once purple happens, red and blue are out of the picture. They cannot occupy the same space without forfeiting their identities as “red” and “blue.” On the other hand, in music we hear multiple voices occupy the same space. And the magic of it is that, when true harmony is achieved, we hear not only the new, unified voice created by the joining of multiple voices—we can still hear the individual voices that comprise this new voice as well. Individual identity is retained even as a new voice is made. It’s not that if you sing this note and I sing that note, we’ll hear some compromise of a note created as a result, like how red and blue make purple. No, we will hear red, blue, and purple. If that’s not magic, I don’t know what is. Those thoughts are a long way off as I stand amid the chaos of this room, wondering if we as a school are not in fact imposing on this nursing home with our clan of bumbling children. One of my superiors, also a teacher, leans over to me and says, “Thanks as always, Mr. Miller, for riding this wave.” My mind only begins to grapple how fitting an analogy this is as he introduces our school to the residents: “Our music teacher, Mr. Miller is going to lead us in some hymns for you this morning, songs we have sung many times in chapel together, and we’d love for you to sing with us. Our first song will be ‘Nothing But The Blood,’ which should be #135 in your hymnal.” I jump right in and start a two-step strum on my guitar to begin our song. The younger the student, the more their singing resembles shouting as they raise their voices: “OH! precious is the flow!” I’m overpowered by their enthusiasm. The older students look across the room and smile with polite tolerance at their younger companions. We’re making space for each other, or at least trying to. It may feel more like a cacophony than a symphony, but it is doubtlessly a “joyful noise.” After a few hymns, I lay my guitar in its case as one of the residents takes her turn to lead us in song. A fellow teacher guides her to the piano in the far corner of the room and helps her take her seat. She is blind, but she seems to know every note from the hymnal by heart. She prepares to play “Victory In Jesus,” one of her favorites. I feel the collective energy of the room shift as the student body is transferred from familiar hands to less familiar hands, from familiar songs to less familiar songs. The students now look with intimidation at their hymnals, attempting to sight-read while readying themselves for the unsteady, often abrupt cues of our pianist. Younger students begin to eye older, more experienced singers for direction. I have experienced time and again music's power to make one out of many, give voice to everyone in the room, and provide an occasion to receive the hospitality of others. What is simultaneously challenging and profoundly freeing for me is to witness this power even when the result doesn't sound 'good' to my Nashvillian ears. Drew Miller Then something altogether new and unexpected happens. As our pianist begins the song, everyone in the room both cringes and tries not to cringe. The piano is so badly out of tune that even the most musically skilled in the room can barely discern what key the song is in and what note to start on. Two things happen in rapid succession: first, everyone’s desire for harmony gains more resolve at this greater threat of dissonance; and second, like a parasite on the first, students fight nobly against the urge, primal as hunger and thirst, to laugh. Tension builds and it occurs to me that there is a music unfolding, a conflict awaiting resolution, a narrative with a most uncertain ending, that vastly supersedes this unfortunate rendition of “Victory In Jesus.” Teachers hold their breath, hoping for and desperately counting on their students to be tenderhearted, orderly, and every other virtue we recite on Wednesday mornings. Our pianist stops at nothing and students sing with their eyes closed, giving the impression that their goal is now merely to drown out the piano. The struggle is very real. I take comfort in the thought that God is probably laughing. We finish “Victory In Jesus” and begin “What A Friend We Have In Jesus.” Shortly thereafter we sing “How Great Thou Art.” By the middle of the second song, the school has miraculously adjusted to the new status quo, and I’m impressed by the tenuous order we’ve managed to find together. I’m also impressed by our pianist’s unflinching devotion to finishing the hymns we had set out to sing. The show must go on. I have been moved by the act of making music, of joining voices, countless times. Whether it’s tearing up at the sound of the Doxology in church as voices find their place in that resounding “amen,” arranging a song with my band and having my mind blown at its potential fully realized, or singing playfully around the house with my wife, I have experienced time and again music’s power to make one out of many, give voice to everyone in the room, and provide an occasion to receive the hospitality of others. What is simultaneously challenging and profoundly freeing for me is to witness this power even when the result doesn’t sound “good” to my Nashvillian ears. Yet there is a sophistication to the joining of a kindergartener’s voice with an eighty year-old’s voice that is perhaps audible only to God’s ears, and if we listen close, we can catch a glimpse of it. If we let it, the out-of-tune piano can be the greatest gift of all, instructing us in extending grace, telling us simply to relax—it’s all going to be okay. We’ll get through the song. God is not afraid of chaos; after all, he made the world out of it, and all evidence suggests he’s inviting us to make something of it, too.