What are you looking for?

“On a scale of one to ten, what level is the pain?” the doctor in the emergency room asks me. “Six?” I say. No, it’s more than that, I think to myself. At least a seven. But it’s not a hot pain, like when I sprained my ankle, or a burning pain, like the time I was stung by a hundred yellow jackets. No, it’s a dull pain that started in the morning and has lasted all day. I didn’t even know I was in pain until I started throwing up. Then I was dizzy and couldn’t talk. *** “How painful is the memory?” my therapist asks me. “On a scale from one to ten.” Damn those numbers. “About a six?” I say. Now I’m just making stuff up. I pick a random number that seems right. How do you rate the pain of a memory on a scale of ten numbers? Could we do five stars instead? How about recommended memories? If you like this one, you’ll be sure to like that one? How about a thumbs up or down? Ebert style. *** In the ER, behind a curtain (because they ran out of rooms) the doctor exams me with a nurse standing by. A ruptured cyst, they tell me. I cry. I blubber all over myself. Not because of the cyst—but because I now know I wasn’t crazy, I wasn’t being a wimp—something was really wrong. Something that is more painful than childbirth, they say. The doctor takes my hand, “I’m sorry you had to wait so long.” Seven hours in the waiting room, trying to not move. Trying to hold perfectly still. Don’t speak. Don’t move. Ignore the pain. *** “Now, how strong is the memory? On a scale from one to ten.” After a session of EMDR. I’m a people pleaser, a middle child—I say a five. I want him to think he’s accomplished something. He’s a kind man. And maybe it is better—the memory. We found a lie and replaced it with a truth. We made progress. We brought people into the scene. Things were said. Stuff was accomplished. *** At a party, a friend and I sit in the corner. “How would you rate your life right now on a scale from one to ten?” I laugh. I laugh because of the question. I laugh because I’m in the middle of writing this essay. In some areas it’s a nine. In some a three or a four. Can I even evaluate my own life? Am I allowed to? How can you rate a life that isn’t finished yet, a life that’s tangled up like the yarn on the underside of a rug? Back at the hospital, after the drugs (thank God for the drugs), they ask me again. The scale. What number. I start to say three, maybe four, but then I say no—it’s about the same—I just don’t care about it anymore. The male nurse laughs. He knows. I feel so good. So at peace lying there at three in the morning in the hospital bed. They can take all night if they want. The pain is so far away. It’s a moon traveling around a distant planet. I can’t even see it with my naked eye anymore. My mind is calm. My headache is gone too—a nice side effect. I’ve never felt this good in my life. People are looking after me. There’s a nurse and a doctor assigned to me. They do scans and give me a prescription and send me home. I call an Uber because it’s five in the morning and I don’t want to be that friend. *** I walk out of the counselor’s office. It’s like we’re digging at a weed that is as deep as the Pacific. I feel worse than when I came in. Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around? *** My friend and I sit in the corner and talk about our lives. We guess at how they are supposed to go, and how they could have gone. I go home. I take the pills. I rest. I watch Netflix. I walk slowly. I try to heal. Jesus didn’t ask for numbers. People came to him broken and left healed. Ten to zero. Instant. Immediate. “The old is gone; the new has come.” Are we allowed to be on a sliding scale of wholeness? Slipping back and forth, up and down, forward two steps, back three. Paul says suffering leads to glory. I wonder what glory is and if it’s worth it. Hetty White Or is the scale a figment of our imagination? Are we perfectly well and just can’t wrap our tiny minds around the brilliant light of our own glory? Already. Not yet. Although it tarries, wait for it. It will not tarry. “What do you do when you are falling apart?” a friend asks me. “I curl up like a baby on my bedroom floor, bury my face in the carpet, and put on music. It’s the only thing I can do.” Paul says suffering leads to glory. I wonder what glory is and if it’s worth it. Job got replacement children for the way he handled his own suffering. He also found God. Will he ever get his first children back? Maybe in the same way that you can’t rate pain you can’t rate glory. Paul says they are “uncomparable”—our glory will so exceed our pain. By ten? By a hundred? By a million? Malcolm Smith (and Jeremiah) says that Jesus entered our pain, became our pain, endured our pain. Our very own unique pain became his. And now we have the Holy Spirit. The great Comforter. We are “in-Goded.” I wonder if the Holy Spirit is like the drugs at the hospital, or like the counselor, digging, digging, digging. Or maybe he’s both. Maybe he knocks us out with love and grace like an anesthesiologist, so he can do his awful surgery undercover. The drug rehab orlando helps victims who fall prey to the abuse of drugs with their expertise. If you asked Jesus on the cross, what level is the pain? I wonder what he would have answered. He experienced all of our pain at once. All of our physical, emotional, and mental pain at once. Off the scale—I think that’s the phrase for it. And does he remember his pain at all, or does he only think of us? He got us out of it. Are we worth it? If so, then surely we don’t know what we truly are and what we will become. I wonder if we will remember our pain at all, or if it’ll be like a strange dream that we once awoke from terrified—screaming and kicking in the middle of the night—but which has long since slipped away from our memory in the brightness of the day. Or like the moon of a distant planet that we can barely make out with our naked eyes.

I’ve gotten a few questions lately about how to start writing a book or story or essay. For many writers, the blank page or blank screen is a terror and a seemingly insurmountable barrier. So how do you get started? There are a million substitutes for starting. You can outline, you can puzzle out plot problems, you can research. For years I’ve been wrestling around with a particularly sticky point-of-view problem for a novel that I “want” to write. I put “want” in quotation marks because if I really wanted to write it, I would be writing it instead of wrestling around with point-of-view problems. So, again, how do you get started? You start wherever you can start. What captured your imagination in the first place? What image or idea made you want to write a particular story or essay? Start writing there, and see what happens. CS Lewis said the Narnia books began with the image of a lamp-post in a forest. He started following that image, and it grew into The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and eventually The Chronicles of Narnia. When I began writing The Bark of the Bog Owl, I started with a scene near the end. But the scene was particularly vivid to me, while the rest of the story was still a little hazy. That scene was a way into the story; as I wrote what I could write, things started to sharpen up from there. In the case of The Charlatan’s Boy, the first sentence I wrote turned out to be the first sentence of the finished product: “I don’t remember one thing about the day I was born.” I wrote that sentence in a composition book, and the story unspooled from there. But that seems to be the exception rather than the rule. Perhaps the most important thing in writing is to get your pen moving and keep your pen moving. You’ve got to get yourself immersed in the work and trust that good things are going to happen once the neurons start firing. To do that, you have to give yourself permission to write badly. If you sit with your pen poised over the page and wait until perfectly formed sentences present themselves to your mind, you will be sitting there for a long time. Or maybe not; maybe you’ll sit there a short time and then give up and go fold some laundry or check Facebook again. In any case, you won’t write. I’m talking here about coming to terms with the inner critic. You know that voice—the one that says, That sentence isn’t good enough. That idea isn’t interesting enough. Nobody’s going to want to read that. People who give writing advice talk about how important it is to silence the inner critic. I get what they mean, but I think it’s more helpful to say, Don’t let the inner critic silence you. We have a name, after all, for people who have successfully silenced the inner critic. We call those people lunatics. If the inner critic is causing you to experience crippling shame about your failure to write like you want to write, then ok—maybe you should silence the inner critic. Your issue, in that case, goes a lot deeper than writing issues (indeed, a lot of writing issues go deeper than writing issues). But if at all possible, I suggest that you try this: instead of thinking of the inner critic as your enemy, think of the inner critic is a friend who means well but needs to be told to shut up every now and then. To illustrate a healthy relationship between the writer and the inner critic, I composed the following skit: The scene opens on a WRITER tapping away at laptop. INNER CRITIC enters and looks over WRITER’s shoulder. INNER CRITIC That sentence isn’t any good. WRITER (cheerfully) Oh, I know. It’s a disaster, isn’t it? WRITER continues tapping away at laptop. INNER CRITIC That idea is pretty obvious, isn’t it? WRITER (patiently) Well, sure. But I’m never going to get to the brilliant ideas if I don’t live with the less brilliant ideas for a little while. Besides, I don’t see you coming up with brilliant, original ideas. INNER CRITIC (petulantly) That’s not my job, is it? WRITER Precisely. WRITER continues tapping away at laptop. INNER CRITIC Nobody’s going to want to read this, you know. WRITER (less patiently) No duh. Nobody ever wants to read a first draft. INNER CRITIC (sullenly) I was just trying to help. WRITER I realize that. And after I get a few pages written and it’s time to edit, you’re going to be a huge help. But right now you’re not helping. If you’ll just go away for a little while, I’ll bring you a big pile that we can work on together. You’ll find tons to criticize, and probably a few things that even you will like. I love what you do. But right now I need some alone time. INNER CRITIC You love what I do? Do you mean that? WRITER Absolutely. Now, run along. Exit INNER CRITIC, buoyantly.WRITER continues tapping away at laptop. I often tell my students that it’s quicker to write three drafts than to write one. I’m not just being clever. The inner critic is going to make an appearance one way or another (at least you better hope it does). You can wrestle around with the inner critic at the beginning, staring at yawning blankness until a good sentence comes to you, then staring at the next five inches of blankness until another good sentence comes to you, or you can tell the inner critic just to wait a cotton-picking minute while you revel in the freedom to crank out prose that might be terrible or might be brilliant; it’s not your job to determine the quality of the work while you’re writing. You can figure that out later, after you’ve invited the inner critic back into the room (and please, please don’t neglect to invite the inner critic back into the room). Which brings me to a corollary: If you are comfortable writing badly, you also have to be comfortable throwing away bad writing. I know you might have worked hard for that bad writing. I know it hurts. But there’s always more where that came from. Creativity is not a reservoir, but a river. It keeps flowing. If you keep the pen moving, good things will happen. I know it takes faith to believe that. Have faith. Be of good cheer. If you enjoyed this excellent advice from Jonathan Rogers, consider subscribing to his weekly letter, The Habit, to receive lots more.

One of the most meaningful moments of my life was last year at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. I wasn’t supposed to, but I used my phone to record the sounds of the Jews singing as the sun set that Sabbath, marking the beginning of the Jewish new year. I wanted to see the King in the New Jerusalem so badly I literally felt a pain in my chest. At the end of Fiddler on the Roof, one of my favorite musicals, the displaced Jews say to one another, “Next year in Jerusalem.” It’s a phrase often used at the end of a Passover meal, pointing to their longing for home, and it sums up my own longing for the New Jerusalem well. You can pick up Resurrection Letters: Volume I in the Rabbit Room Store and listen to “Maybe Next Year” here:https://rabbitroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/06-Maybe-Next-Year.mp3

At the beginning of November, I began a weekly habit of posting art to my social media feeds—Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. I call it Art Wednesday. Every Wednesday, over the course of the day, I post a series of eight to ten paintings based on an artist or a theme. I name each work and usually offer a small comment about each one. I began this weekly ritual before I had a vision for what I was actually trying to do. It started because I had been to The Museum of Modern Art and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, and wanted to share some pictures I took of paintings I’ve loved since my youth. But I found the act of sharing art to be good for my soul. Curating a weekly art series became for me a source of comfort, peace, and even worship. Creating an Art Wednesday series usually involves interacting with Scripture in some way, or at least thinking through some theological truth. I sense the Lord’s presence and His pleasure as I search, sort, write about, and schedule the art. I’ve had time to reflect on why I do this, and I thought I’d share some of those thoughts here. We need to interact with beauty. Life, both individually and collectively, can get dark, and we need light. This can be an ugly world, and we need to be reminded of its wonder and glory. We’re surrounded by the profane, and we need to lash ourselves to the mast of what is sacred. Not long ago, I was doing some research which involved studying Genesis 2-3, in which the Lord tells Adam not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If he did, God told him, he would die. The serpent came along and told Adam and Eve that God was withholding something from them—the ability to be like God, knowing good and evil. This fruit, the serpent said, would open their eyes. They didn’t want to go through life blind to reality, did they? So they ate. Both of them. And their eyes were open to good and evil. There are a million profoundly deep theological pools a person can dive into from the platform of this passage of Scripture. I want to highlight one. It is hard on the human heart to know as much as we do about evil—the evil in this world and the evil in us. Because of God’s grace, we only see it in part, as through a glass darkly. For this I am grateful. But still, we see more than we’re made to. I know that for me, the unrestricted access I have to everything that is wrong with the world can be a light so blinding that I lose the ability to see, or the capacity to empathize well, with the real and present struggles and sorrows of those in my own community. Russ Ramsey These are unprecedented times. Anyone who uses social media or is connected to the internet has access to information that is free, immediate, and global. We see a steady stream of all sorts of evil, suffering, and catastrophe in the world. We know more than we ought to know about celebrity marriages and affairs. We have access to stories and hot takes about disgraced clergy and prospering politicians, natural disasters and deliberately crafted genocides, cases of abuse and miscarriages of justice. I want to be careful here, because much good comes from living in an information age. People have done amazing things by using technology to push back against the darkness of social injustice. I am thankful for how technology gives a voice to the defenseless, how abuse victims are able to share their stories and find solidarity with others, how funds are quickly gathered for people in need, and all the other ways evil deeds done in secret are exposed to the light because of technology. With that said, here’s my question. Have you ever wondered if we are built to handle this much knowledge of evil? What effect is this having on the human heart? I know that for me, the unrestricted access I have to everything that is wrong with the world can be a light so blinding that I lose the ability to see, or the capacity to empathize well, with the real and present struggles and sorrows of those in my own community. I don’t want to become a blind and numb media consumer with a three second attention span because my mind and eyes are continually feasting on a diet of evil, cynicism, scandal, and hot takes. And some days, that’s exactly what I am. I started Art Wednesday to introduce beauty into the media stream. I need to be online. My work, family, and life are such that going off the grid is not an option. I need to learn how to live with it and in it. Today, the knowledge of evil is less like a tree and more like a stream, and everyone I know is in the stream. We are surrounded by it, and, to borrow a term from my friend David Dark, we’re soaking in it. In other words, we’re all affected by it. With Art Wednesday, I’m trying to spend time with what is good, and share that knowledge with others. In Confessions, Augustine wrote, “I have learnt to love you late, Beauty at once so ancient and so new! I have learnt to love you late! You were within me, and I was in the world outside myself.” Art Wednesday is an exercise in learning to love beauty. It is an exercise in cultivating an inner hunger for beauty, rather than spending our lives living in the world outside ourselves. It is never too late to learn to love beauty. If you want a dose of weekly beauty to show up in your social media feeds, feel free to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Or maybe you can bring art into your own personal circles of influence. I certainly don’t own the rights to sharing beautiful images and thoughts on social media (or to #ArtWednesday, for that matter), and nothing would please me more than to see others take up the habit of sharing what is true, beautiful, and good in their own way. As of now, I plan to post 52 consecutive Art Wednesdays, one year’s worth, and then reevaluate. I’m over halfway there, and I find that creating each week’s series of posts continues to be a source of joy and worship. I didn’t start doing this to build a following or sell a book (as of now, I have nothing of the sort in the works.) I do it because I like it. It is truly a labor of love. To all of you who follow along, thank you. Every week I get to show and talk about art and beauty with my friends. And this, I know, is very good.

How do you portray a villain like Thanos? When your heroes have faced and defeated the god of mischief, the dark elves, a heartless celestial, an other-dimensional dark lord, and the goddess of death, how do you present your ultimate villain as a threat and not as a standard-model Big Bad Guy of the Week? I wasn’t sure if Avengers: Infinity War could pull it off, but it did. Before we discuss why, though, you should know that there are MAJOR SPOILERS ahead. Seriously, do not continue reading if you haven’t seen the movie. Almost from the beginning, superhero movies fell into a predictable pattern: a hero acquires powers. A villain becomes a threat. The third act is a big battle in which the hero almost loses, but ultimately wins. We grew desensitized to the pattern long ago, and although the powerful villain is still a mainstay of the superhero movie, that’s not why we keep coming back. We come back for the heroes. So how do you portray a villain as powerful as Thanos? How do you deliver on the ten-year build-up of the Infinity Stones? How do you raise the stakes yet again without falling into cliche or hyperbole? Well, defeating the Hulk at the start of the film helps. Ending the film without a victory does too. But Infinity War does something even more radical—something that turned the entire film upside down. This is not an Avengers film. This is a Thanos film. This is the hero's journey subverted; this is a villain's journey, which I didn't even know was a thing. Jonny Jimison Infinity War doesn’t waste time with origin stories, side quests or extraneous story arcs. From the first moment of the film to the last, every scene is about Thanos’ goal: either Thanos acting on it or the Avengers responding to it. Thanos acquires powers. The Avengers become a threat. The third act is a big battle where the villain almost loses, but ultimately wins. This is the hero’s journey subverted; this is a villain’s journey, which I didn’t even know was a thing. We don’t root for Thanos, but he is truly the protagonist of the film. The Avengers are the antagonists, the obstacles in his way. By developing him as a central character and not simply a challenge for the heroes to overcome, Infinity War turns Thanos into the most imposing, compelling, downright horrifying villain in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But that’s just the external conflict. What about the internal struggle of the characters? What themes does the story explore? What questions do the characters face? This is where Infinity War’s hyper-focus on Thanos’ mission really shines. Thanos has a clear goal: bring balance to the galaxy. He believes he can achieve this through destruction of half the population, so he has no problem sacrificing innocent lives—he even kills the one person that he cares for, trading her life for the sake of his mission. Contrast that with his opposition. Their goal is even more desperate: stop Thanos from committing genocide on an unfathomable scale. But unlike Thanos, they let things get in the way of their objective. Gamora begs Star-Lord to kill her so that she can’t assist Thanos’ mission, but Star-Lord hesitates. Vision insists that Wanda kill him to keep the stone out of Thanos’ fist, but she refuses. As with Hamlet's brooding meditation on mortality or Macbeth's inexorable path of obsession, Infinity War takes a deep dive into a single, troubling aspect of the human condition. The dilemma of the film is summed up by Steve Rogers' insistence that 'We don't trade lives.' Jonny Jimison Gamora weakens when she sees her sister being tortured. Doctor Strange bargains for Tony Stark’s life. Over and over, our heroes are faced with the cost of human lives, and unlike their enemy, they balk. Because Thanos’ mission is the heart of the film, Infinity War becomes a study of his objective: murder for the greater good. Why compare this film to Shakespearean tragedy? As with Hamlet’s brooding meditation on mortality or Macbeth’s inexorable path of obsession, Infinity War takes a deep dive into a single, troubling aspect of the human condition. The dilemma of the film is summed up by Steve Rogers’ insistence that “We don’t trade lives.” Infinity War is many things. It’s certainly not the most accessible Marvel film, relying on familiarity of the past films and ending on an uncertain cliffhanger. Its brutal ending has the potential to alienate the audience or invite despair. But what I found is a film that challenged my thinking in the best way, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since. I feel certain that there is astounding redemption yet to take place in my life—redemption that I (and the mad titans that ravage me) cannot see in my darkest moments, but that has already been written in the wider scope of eternity. Jonny Jimison If Thanos exemplifies the hero’s journey that I so admire, do I need to examine my heroes more closely? Do I need to examine my own missions and motives? Or do I need to re-evaluate the journey itself? Do I have the commitment to pay any cost for my goals, like Thanos? Or, like Steve Rogers, do I possess the tenacity to commit myself to moral principles even when circumstances call for drastic measures? Standing outside the film, in the real world, I know that several of our dead heroes have sequels in production, so I know that somehow those characters will return. But inside the story, the surviving Avengers don’t know that, and neither does Thanos. I feel certain that there is astounding redemption yet to take place in my life—redemption that I (and the mad titans that ravage me) cannot see in my darkest moments, but that has already been written in the wider scope of eternity. If you mourn for fallen Avengers, mourn away. I mourn with you. Fictional or not, when someone I care about is lost, grieving is the right reaction. Fictional or not, when I witness an act of evil, horror is the right reaction. But grieving doesn’t mean losing hope. There is still redemption to be had in this broken multiverse. If there is a way to undo the damage Thanos has done, you had better believe that Steve Rogers and his team of Avengers will find it. Meanwhile, there has never been a better time for Wakanda to step out of its isolation and share its wealth and technology to aid a devastated planet. And don’t forget, we know something that Thanos doesn’t — Help is on the way.

Like me, some of you are old enough to remember the “funny papers.” There’s not a lot I miss about reading a daily paper, but I do miss the comics, and especially on Sundays. Back in the now-hallowed ’80s we’d wander home from church and sit on the porch ruffling through the full-color pages in search of Peanuts, Calvin & Hobbes, The Far Side, and B. C. while waiting for the pot roast and mashed potatoes to hit the table. I miss that. And what is Silly-Putty even for without the funny papers? I’ve wished for years that the Rabbit Room had its own comic strip featuring a quirky cast of characters, but I was never able to envision exactly what it should be. Then, a few months ago, a light bulb went on. It occurred to me that over the past ten years, a whole community of quirky characters has developed all around me. And maybe, I thought, that was it. Maybe that was the comic. I shot Jonny Jimison an email and laid out the idea—he was in. I’ve been a fan of Jonny’s work for a long time and it’s been a delight to feature his Getting Ethan comic strip here on the Rabbit Room (not to mention his Dragon Lord Saga graphic novel series). So this seemed like a perfect next step. And here we are. I have no idea where this might lead, but Rabbit Trails are, at least, a good place to begin. Enjoy. Take a minute to click over to Jonny’s Patreon page and support his work. And share the comic on your social media feeds!

The Orchardist’s Janie Townsend recently wrote a compelling reflection on our first Supper & Songs show, specifically what it was like to play the roles of host, event organizer, and performer in the same evening, the low-level panic of watching water refuse to boil while anticipating a large swath of hungry guests, and the meticulous, often un-Instagrammable pursuit of community through meal and song. You can read that post here. Meanwhile, we have a video to share with you, a compilation of clips to give you a taste of what our first event was like. It was a challenge and a gift to share that evening with friends old and new. The goal of Supper & Songs in the long run is to sustain a recurring space in Nashville not just for great music, but also for the practices of hospitality, eating together, and getting to know one another. We’re so grateful to The Rabbit Room for sponsoring these events and setting the gold standard for what it means to build community around thoughtful, creative work. We’ll have a handful more of these events throughout 2018, each at a different home or venue, featuring a different guest artist, and serving a different meal. When you attend, you’re not just a member of our audience; you’re our honored guest! The next event will be the evening of May 14th in the Crieve Hall area, and tickets are now available for purchase here. You can learn more about Supper & Songs and The Orchardist at our website. Meanwhile, Liz Vice is excellent at her craft and was a joy to share the (figurative) stage with. You can listen to her music and check out her website here.

My friend Russ Ramsey, who was a pastoral consultant for this album, once preached a communion sermon on 1 Corinthians 11. You can pick up Resurrection Letters: Volume I in the Rabbit Room Store and listen to “Remember and Proclaim” here:https://rabbitroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/05-Remember-and-Proclaim.mp3

If you wander through downtown Knoxville on a Wednesday or Saturday morning from May to November, you will likely chance upon the Market Square Farmers’ Market, and what a happy accident it will be. Your eye will feast upon a kaleidoscope of homegrown vegetables. Heirloom tomatoes bejewel the boxes and crates, their variegated skins like the cloud-cover of exotic planets. Peppers of all sizes and colors spill out from baskets, drawing the brave and foolhardy with mythic names like Carolina Reaper and Trinidad Scorpion. Greens of every shade festoon the tables. Several years ago, in a fit of either wisdom or brazenness, the market decided to issue its own currency. If you go shopping now with a card instead of cash, you can visit the central tent first and purchase a few stamped wooden tokens labeled ‘Market Money.’ Then you’re all set. You want kale or leeks? Hand your Market Money to the tan-shouldered lady who picked them that morning, and she’ll hand you a bag of fresh produce. Buying some basil plants for the garden? Same deal. I love this system for two reasons. First, I don’t have to carry cash, which tends to burn a hole in my pocket. Second, Market Money lets you know you have verged upon different territory. Like Lesotho or Vatican City, you have left the mere confines of the surrounding country and entered another land. As if the bright arrays of kingly garden fare aren’t enough to lend a sense of place, Market Money puts a full stop at the end of the idea. When we offer the token of kindness to others, especially when they expect an exchange of money, we let them know that they have verged upon another land. Here, their money can buy nothing, but if they offer their need, they can dine on the richest of fare. Adam Whipple I love visiting places that require different money. I took great joy, the times I went to Scotland, in making the changeover before I left. Not only the look, but the feel and the sound of the currency were different. The metal jangled in my hands and pockets with a meatier, more muted timbre than nickels or quarters. The engravings and fonts were curious and beguiling. More than the plane tickets or the looming dates, it was this foreign clink in my pocket that let me know I was no longer going to be in America. Then, upon arriving at Heathrow in desperate need of coffee, I had to remind myself to pull out the correct money. You try and spend a few dollars, and they look at you like you’re an idiot. Your money’s no good. More and more, I’ve found that kindness works in this way. My elderly neighbor asked me for help with his TV speakers. I’m fairly inept with technology, but I toted a mess of cables over to his house to see if I could fix the problem. Long story short, nothing I did worked, but I left him a few likely cords, hoping that if this end were plugged into that jack, and this button pushed, and so forth, he might happen upon the right combination and get sound out of the contraption. He tried to slip me twenty bucks. It wasn’t the first time he had done so. I’m certainly not against being paid for little helps here or there (especially if I’m actually successful at fixing the problem), but if it’s not an official job, I can easily do it for nothing. In those situations, the kindness of laboring for free works like a foreign currency. People get a sense of being in a different place. Let us be honest: we love getting paid. It’s wonderful and blessed to be able to feed one’s family and earn one’s living in this world. There should never be any shame associated with a decent and honest living. Yet that is not the most elemental remission of which we are a part. The Kingdom of Christ and its economy of grace run deeper. When we offer the token of kindness to others, especially when they expect an exchange of money, we let them know that they have verged upon another land. Here, their money can buy nothing, but if they offer their need, they can dine on the richest of fare. If we don't give our needs as tokens of payment, we cannot have what is offered. In the Kingdom's economy of kindness, our old money is no good. Adam Whipple Years ago, the church my wife and I attended helped us patch up our house. With smiles on their faces, our friends scuffled around the crawlspace with me, tearing out molded insulation and spraying chemicals estimated by the State of California to cause unseemly demise. Over the months, they also helped us with childcare when I had to be out of town. They delighted in our help at times too, saying, “Thank you for serving,” something I hadn’t heard before. By degrees, they taught us the barter system of helplessness-for-help, the barter system of Christ. At one point, our friend Michael pointed out a peculiar fact. “The one thing you brought to the congregation,” he said, “was your needs.” That was the other side of the coin. Americans are often great at helping. If you’ve got a natural disaster, we’ll send a team of skilled workers to get you on your feet. If some tragedy befalls you, we can easily show up with extra meals and ready hands. This is well and good. Often, though, the people most prepared to give help are the least prepared to receive it. The other face of the Kingdom economy is accepting grace and mercy. People who cannot accept help cannot be a part of the holy barter system. If we don’t give our needs as tokens of payment, we cannot have what is offered. In the Kingdom’s economy of kindness, our old money is no good. Sally Lloyd-Jones has a great line about Naaman the Syrian in The Jesus Storybook Bible: “All Naaman needed was nothing. It was the one thing Naaman didn’t have.” To participate here, you must bring your need. “Come buy wine and milk, without money and without cost! Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.” -Isaiah 55 I know altruism is in vogue these days, but when we can serve others with little or no fanfare, those who get to see it can be well blessed by our work. When kindness is marked by the narrative or fragrance of the Gospel, lending it backstory and depth, it becomes the jangle of Kingdom treasure in the hand, ringing with the sound of a land where we bring our needs and find grace.

Tomorrow night’s Local Show is going to be something special: Randall Goodgame, Buddy Greene, Christopher Williams, and Jordy Searcy. Chances are you’re familiar with most if not all of these folks, but we’d like to take a moment to introduce you specifically to Jordy Searcy. He’s a class act, and an all around excellent songwriter, vocalist, guitarist, and performer. If you crave tightly written lyrics put to catchy melodies, lots of energy coupled with quiet, significant moments, and an altogether smooth delivery of pertinent subject matter such as race, class, and the rapid gentrification of Nashville, look no further. Here’s a video of his favorite song he has ever written, “Explaining Jesus.” Tickets for the show are available here.

A promising new offering from Clay and Sally Clarkson, The Lifegiving Parent, will become available tomorrow, May 1st. Modern parenting is a vocation in need of much more than superficial self-help programs—this book fills that need with lasting impact, offering abiding wisdom and true mentorship to tired mothers and fathers. “In today’s world, it’s easy to become overwhelmed and even paralyzed by the constant flow of parenting advice. We’re flooded with so much practical information that we wonder if we’re choosing the right way. And we may be missing the one thing God really wants us to give to our children: His life. God doesn’t include a divine methodology for parenting in the Bible, but He does provide principles that can enable any faithful parent to bring His life into the life of their home.” – The Lifegiving Parent website You can purchase the book at the Rabbit Room store and explore its website here.

We’ve got some good news for you to ring in the weekend! Two new releases have graced the Rabbit Room Store: Sing the Bible Volume 3 and a paperback version of Henry and the Chalk Dragon. Happy Friday to all. Click through for links to both items in our store. Click here to view Sing the Bible Volume 3 in our store. And click here to view Henry and the Chalk Dragon in paperback form. Enjoy, and The Rabbit Room wishes you a delightful weekend.

I have found through the years, as I am sure many have, that some of my favorite albums are those connected to a live performance. The album itself tells a story, but the subconscious narrative underneath is the memory of what I shared in a room with the artist that first time. In the spring of 2004, Maroon 5 had just made their somewhat lyrically scandalous splash among college students around the country. When a few friends and I heard they were playing in the gym of a small nearby campus (…the band’s hard work in that era seems to have paid off), we made the trek to see the show. We stood through the sadly forgettable first opener, and then a girl took the stage with her piano and small backing band. She opened her mouth to sing, and as the jazzy-pop melodies tumbled out of her mouth, mine fell open. I need to know this person, I thought. I need this music. This feels like ME. Judging by the pictures I took, I enjoyed Maroon 5’s set after hers was over, but I remember none of it. My goal was to get to the end of the show so I could reach the lobby merch table. She was there when I dashed out, and she introduced herself as Sara. Her freshly run independent album, Careful Confessions, sat in small stacks on her table. I wish I could remember the specifics of what we said to each other—I probably gushed, trying to articulate what had just happened to me. I may have tried to describe how the way she wrote and sang had given a key to sounds in me I had never known how to let out. How if I wrote more songs, they would likely sound like hers. How she had illuminated a part of my musical puzzle that I didn’t know was missing, interlocking with pieces that artists like Jennifer Knapp and Plumb and Jars of Clay had begun to stir in me. In reality, I am sure my 19 year-old self was nowhere near as coherent as all that. I bought the CD, she signed it, and we took a picture together. I was floating and ecstatic and couldn’t wait to get back to school to play and write. My copy of that Sara Bareilles CD is scratched to high heaven. It didn’t leave my car CD player for months. I knew—and still know—every word and vocal inflection. I wondered at her wordplay, at how she carried her songs on the piano, at her soaring long-held vocals at perfect moments. The delicate melancholy floated around my brain unceasingly, starting with the opening major seven and nine chords preceding, “Something always brings me back to you, it never takes too long” on “Gravity.” It continued into “Undertow,” with the bass line intro under a dejected vocal and then descending, suspenseful chromatic piano chords before the full band arrangement kicked in. The punchy, syncopated beginning to “Love on the Rocks” was reminiscent of “Benny and the Jets” (which I probably didn’t even know at the time—in some ways, Sara Bareilles became my education on Billy Joel). It gave way to the rhythmic acoustic guitar of the next two songs, setting up a musical familiarity with melodies I just couldn’t stop singing. The top note in “Have I already tasted my piece of one sweet love?” served as a constant playground of flipping into head voice and figuring out how to do such things quickly. “Fairytale” was an obsession of mine—she had taken my beloved princess folktales and flipped them on their heads, defiantly singing against age-old ideals of femininity. The sass and bravado made its way into my brain in both the way I belted out the song in my car and the copycat versions I started to make up with different lyrics but much the same chord structures and patterns. This first time-capsule of an independent female trying to make music that didn't quite fit in the boxes set before her changed my life. I felt understood, seen, inspired. It gave voice to musical parts of me I hadn't yet found. Jenna Badeker The album contains seven studio tracks and ends with four live recordings of other songs. They are imperfect. But I was utterly delighted to be let in on performances like the Hotel Cafe shows I read about and dreamed of attending across the country. In those tracks, the loneliness of “City” gave me an endlessly emotional ballad to sing on late-night drives. I pondered the glimpse into the darker side of performing for a living and what I would do in that position. I wondered who sang the harmony parts at those shows and daydreamed about doing so. “Red,” with its bouncy energy and encouraging sentiment, became a watershed song for me. I served at a week-long summer church camp for years, and it always had a counselor/staff performance night. I had played Careful Confessions for many people at that camp, resolutely assuring all the fellow music-lovers that they would love it, and a group of younger girls had indeed joined my unofficial fan club. I grabbed a few of them who also loved to sing and play so that we could figure out a performance of the song. Until this point, I had always recruited someone older and more experienced to play guitar or piano for me, passing the job of determining chords and arrangements to more capable musicians. For this performance, for the first time, I figured out the chord progression by listening, tested it with the girls, and played it on piano myself. It was clumsy. It was messy. But, with a girl playing guitar and three of us harmonizing together as we belted out the line “How you love is who you are,” something changed. We were a group of passionate young women who stepped out of our comfort zone of having an older guy play for us. We took it into our own hands. For the first time, I could influence what happened on that stage instrumentally. I knew I wanted to do it again and again and again. Careful Confessions isn’t a perfect album. Her subsequent records pursue greater depths of songwriting and musicality—she re-recorded some of the songs from her debut for her first label album, and her later record The Blessed Unrest was nominated for a Grammy. But this first time-capsule of an independent female trying to make music that didn’t quite fit in the boxes set before her changed my life. I felt understood, seen, inspired. It gave voice to musical parts of me I hadn’t yet found. It gave me the courage to press into the role of songwriter and pianist, no longer only a girl who sang songs other people wrote. The tattered lyric booklet and CD will always remain on my shelf for when I need a reminder of what it felt like to imagine that kind of life for myself and to start tiptoeing into it.

In a conversation with a friend a few years ago about why I’m a Christian, my answer boiled down to this: I’ve seen too much. There are too many good and beautiful things, too many stories that cry out for things to be made right, too many lives changed, too much healing, too many examples of humble sacrifice in the face of great evil for there to be no meaning, no bright love on the other side of the veil. You can pick up Resurrection Letters: Volume I in the Rabbit Room Store and listen to “I’ve Seen Too Much” here:https://rabbitroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/04-Ive-Seen-Too-Much.mp3

“What does it mean to be home? Sarah Jane sat on the edge of a cliff asking herself this question as she listened to the wind carry whispers of new places through Juniper Vale. She knew the answer lay beyond the boundaries of her village, so for the last time she said farewell and hopped atop the shell of Senalala, her turtle companion, her place of rest. Together they venture through a world overgrown, searching for a sense of home.” – from The Traveler’s Tales Through Juniper Vale One of my favorite new music discoveries is Through Juniper Vale, an artistic collaboration between singer/songwriter Sarah Wood, songwriter/producer Vian Izak, and visual artist Hein Zaayman. The music is catchy, percussive and joyous, but what fascinates me all the more is the way that the journey is presented across different forms of media. In addition to the thoughtful songs and their beautifully imaginative album art, there is an online comic and a series of audiobooks, fleshing out the world of Juniper Vale beyond the music. Because Juniper Vale is vast, there are a lot of web links to share. For your convenience, I have collected them here. Once you’ve had a taste of the art and music in this post, dive in for more at these links: Through Juniper Vale – Website | iTunes | Patreon | Instagram Also from Vohnic – Vian Izak | Vohnic Music | Vohnic Media It was a joy to interview Sarah, Vian and Hein and hear their insights on the project. My questions revolved around two things: the project’s preoccupation with the concept of home and the collaborative process that brings it to life. Before we get started, can you each introduce yourself and describe how you got involved with your chosen creative field? Sarah: I’m Sarah Jane Wood. I grew up in Pueblo, Colorado and my dad has always been very musical. Growing up, he and I would sing and jam together, and when I got into high school he helped me start playing gigs all over town. I moved to Nashville in 2013 to attend Lipscomb University, and during my time at Lipscomb, I started a folk band called The Arcadian Wild with a couple guys from my choir class. We spent all four years touring and playing house shows all over the country. It was truly such an unforgettable and invaluable experience. It was through the band that I met Vian and Hein. Vian ran sound for one of our shows and ended up producing our first album for us. After that album was released, Vian and I started co-writing and creating pop songs, and Hein’s illustrations are just so phenomenal we decided it would be a neat idea to pair his artwork with the music. And so Through Juniper Vale began! I learned how to play banjo with The Arcadian Wild, and now we use that folksy banjo as a driving percussion element in our music. We have so many fun plans for this year, new singles, comic books, and fan focused projects! I am grateful and so excited. And working with these guys is always such a blast and a blessing. Vian: I got started in music at a young age and played in bands all through school. I studied audio engineering and opened a studio on Music Row in Nashville after graduation. Since then I have been producing artists like Through Juniper Vale and releasing my own music. About a year and a half ago I launched Vohnic Music, a digital label, to promote these talented indie acts. It’s been very exciting for us to create every month and to engage with fans. Hein: I got started when I was in middle school, just drawing and sketching characters. Before I knew how to draw, though, I built all sorts of fantasy worlds. Worlds with moving sand oceans, god-like robot people, or flying machines. These were sort of primitive and played off of a lot of fantasy tropes. Through school I learned to build worlds that cultivate dramatic stories and are now more commercially focused as well. So the world surrounding the Through Juniper Vale project is focused on the concept of home, just like Sarah’s music, while also creating opportunities for dramatic stories that reflect things in Sarah’s life. I am now always playing this game of how to meld the art and music in a meaningful way. Vian, you have your own catalogue of music, also illustrated by Hein. Is this mix of music and visuals a staple of your Vohnic label? Vian: Absolutely. Vohnic launched initially as a label focusing on my friends’ music and my own music, but over time it has evolved into a “Concept Art meets Music” label—the folks at Spotify, for example, are starting to see us as the “comic book” label. Through Juniper Vale and the Vian Izak project have definitely been at the forefront of developing what we are about. We recently signed new acts that are also developing their own concept worlds. It’s something we enjoy immensely and are starting to focus on more and more: concept worlds and music merging so that fans can explore. Hein is such a talent when it comes to creating captivating landscapes so I am so excited for what is to come! Sarah: We are always trying to come up with cool, out-of-the-box ideas to create a unique experience for our fans. Vian is about to create something very similar to the Tales Through Juniper Vale audiobooks for his own music, and we are also about to start doing a little more with platforms like Youtube and Twitch. We just launched a Vohnic Instagram, in addition to the blog posts on the Vohnic website, and we are about to launch a Patreon that we are hoping to make the main hub for each artist with exclusive artwork, music and news. We are trying to come up with the most creative ways to connect with our fans and to give them a chance to really step into these worlds and almost have a voice in the work we are creating. Hein, how much direction are you given on your illustrations? Do you have free reign to experiment or is it a collaborative effort? Hein: It really depends on the project. For some I take direction from the artist and try and bring their vision to life. For Through Juniper Vale, I start with some direction and then Sarah is really awesome about just letting me work. This usually leads to the best stuff. With the Vian Izak project I am given complete creative control, which is daunting at times. I usually check with the artist once I have a sketch, and then again when the line work is done, just to make sure they like it. Sarah, what led you to build this project around the concept of home? Sarah: While I was at Lipscomb, I was in a lot of incredible Bible classes through the Theology department, and I was reading a lot of books on the eucharist and thanksgiving. I think that season of growth was really what sparked this search for home. I was taken aback by the idea of heaven existing in the moments that we give thanks and commune together. I think it really hit me that we are truly created for the giving thanks and the being together, and when we are participating in those acts we are the closest to being who God created us to be. Around the same time, I was moving out of the dorms into an apartment with some friends, and my family was uprooting from Colorado to Murfreesboro, so there was this questioning of home inside of me. How many different types of “home” feelings are there? Maybe, like the Greek language has multiple words for love, home can also be defined in many different ways. And is it our “homes” that bring us together, that connect us? And what would happen if we really leaned into what is “home” to us as individuals? What would we learn about ourselves or how would we connect with others? Maybe we all can find home in every person and every place we go. If the grace of God is in every corner and in every face, I believe that home may be be found everywhere and in everyone. What would happen if that “home feeling” is the first thing we recognized in strangers or odd places? Maybe the more we find this grace and seek out the comfort of home the closer we are to being fully alive and fully who God created us to be. Do you deliberately focus on the idea of home while writing the songs? Sarah: The way that I have been writing music has started to change as the project becomes a little more developed. Recently, instead of sitting down with the banjo or piano and writing a song all at once, I have been bringing Vian some hook ideas and we have been writing the songs in the studio. So Vian will make some cool dance beat on Logic and then we will mess around and sing over it and try a bunch of crazy ideas until we find a melody that fits. Then we will usually have deep talks about what is on our hearts and the lyrics will stem from those talks. And because my mindset is sort of stuck on thinking about home all the time, the songs usually have something to do with this home idea even if we don’t realize it at first. It has been such a blast, just a lot of trial and error until we find exactly what the song needs to be! Vian and Hein, as Sarah explores the concept of home, how has that focus affected you? Do you find yourselves bringing your own ideas of home into the project? Hein: It has definitely affected how I approach the project. The entire world has a calling towards home in it, and I try to reflect aspects of home in the album covers. As far as character design, the fact that she rides a giant turtle (who carries its home on its back) came out of Sarah’s focus on home. As for how my thoughts of home have made their way into the project, I don’t really know. I am sure they have. I mean, with art, your subconscious really becomes the loudest voice. So I am sure if I reflect back on all the work I have done for the project there is probably a ton there—like how I immediately came up with a traveling home rather than a stationary one for the characters probably says something about me. Vian: We are both (Hein and I) originally from South Africa, so I think moving countries and re-learning how to create a home in a new culture plays a role in how we see this project. I think that finding home is a journey undertaken through a lifetime. For example, I’ve noticed lately that life is a series of resurrections. Every moment of learning new information is a moment where the old must die for the new to take root. And that process of deaths, if they lead to truth, is a daily process of slowly learning what home is. So with Sarah’s project I have lately tried to listen more than steer the ship, so to speak, and learn from her perspective. She is very perceptive and has changed the way I think about home and life quite a bit. So the Through Juniper Vale project has been vital in how it has shaped my life concerning home. I’m grateful and can’t wait to learn more as we dive into this very layered concept. That’s awesome. I love how the collaborative process helps perspectives grow! Vian: Absolutely. It’s wonderful when people come together in the pursuit of truth. We’ve all been challenged in the last year in the best of ways. I’ve learned that there’s nothing better than being challenged on your previous assumptions about the world. “I might not be right about this” is a great place to live as it seems like that’s where creativity and connection through vulnerability thrive. The songs clearly influence Hein’s artwork, but does the artwork ever influence the music in turn? Sarah: Awesome question! With the latest single we kind of decided to take more of a 1920s feel with the art and the music, so we sample a song from 1918 in “Everything Is Color.” But then Hein made the album art and I think just seeing the Art Deco design is influencing us to take more of a jazz approach to the upcoming songs. We are also going to be focusing on more comic book type projects with the releases, so the art and music will definitely continue to play off one another. I have to know—what is the song from 1918? Sarah: The song is called “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows.” Once we started writing “Everything Is Color,” we looked up songs from 1918 and this one fit perfectly. So the sample at the beginning is from that tune and then throughout the song we say “I’m always chasing rainbows” to point back to that sample throughout the song. One final question: Where did the name Juniper Vale come from? Sarah: I really wanted to find a band name that payed homage to my hometown in Pueblo, Colorado. There is a lake in my town that is surrounded by Juniper trees, so that aspect of the name eludes to the Juniper Breaks on the lake. My hometown is also located in the Arkansas Valley and the word “vale” means valley. So Juniper Vale is home to me, but then became the name of the world that these characters Senelala and Sarah Jane live in. You can listen to “Everything Is Color” here:

At my church, a small processional begins each service. The acolytes walk in holding a processional cross, the Gospel, and some candles. And as the cross passes in procession, it is appropriate to bow. I am relatively new to this, so most of the time, I have taken a tiny bow, almost non-existent. I’m not usually one to make commotion out of my ignorance. I tried to keep the bowing as calm and unnoticeable as possible. But a few weeks ago, I got bold and took my first deep bow as the cross passed by. And as I rose my chest up again, it occurred to me perhaps for the first time in my life that my body could be a means of worship. It hit me hard in the heart and it was with tenderness that God spoke quietly, “How could you have hated this good thing?” As an Anglican, there’s a focus on embodied liturgy. Giving nod to the Incarnation, this takes seriously the thought that it’s not just our minds and our hearts that Christ dwells in, but even our very bodies. We don’t just worship him with our adoring thoughts, but action too, allowing our bodies to move on behalf of that adoration. This could mean, among other things, feasting, fasting, crossing myself, or kneeling at his Table. For me, though, this becomes a little complicated. In short, I have hated my body for fifteen years. There is probably not a more graceful way to say it. This fact is almost incomprehensible to me. But it’s true. Since about the time I was eight years old, before my body began to even consider puberty, I have felt much shame over my flesh, at times with a hatred that has frightened me. Though I have battled raging shame for most of my life, something essential in me knows that my flesh was not made to be an enemy to God or to me. It was made for delight. Kelsey Miller This hatred has changed shape over time, almost in the same way that my body has changed shape as I’ve matured and grown. It has been all-consuming, ravenous, much like the hunger I’ve forced myself into at my worst. It has been lonely and isolating, similar to when I’ve been in obsessive modes of calorie-counting. Sometimes it has led me to cling closely to a mirror, inspecting myself at every angle, and other times, it has led me to avoid any mirror at all costs, lest I am disgusted by my own reflection. At all times, it has put me at odds with the Creator of this flesh, confused about my anger towards the only skin I’ve got. That same Sunday that I took my deep bow, our priest added right before we went to communion: “I’m going to be in the back for prayer. I encourage you to come if you’re having difficulty feeling God’s delight for you.” My face was wet with tears. Though I have battled raging shame for most of my life, something essential in me knows that my flesh was not made to be an enemy to God or to me. It was made for delight. That is the task right now, to take back the delight I have been sacrificing on the altar of my self-made condemnation. Delight in God’s creation, including my very own flesh, requires reverence, a declaration of authority: “Look with awe! God is in this. How could he not be?” It is hard for grace and shame to live in the same room, to breathe the same air. One will surely extinguish the other. Kelsey Miller Of course, this is not a magic fix. I am not suddenly healed of almost two decades of embodied shame. I have wished that was the case, and naively thought it was the case before and the reality is that there are no quick fixes in this life and we know that, even by the way that God’s healing is coming into the world. It’s slow, often painfully quiet, but it’s coming. The same follows in the healing He does in us: it’s slow, it’s quiet, but I really do believe it’s coming. Instead of magic, God gives us habits, and for better or for worse, we are shaped by our repetition. Right now, I am awkwardly learning some new practices, the ones that sing of delight rather than despair. And as the work continues, I notice the hatred is a little quieter these days, perhaps even softening. It is hard for grace and shame to live in the same room, to breathe the same air. One will surely extinguish the other. I have found healing in small places, in small doses, in the careful repetition of healing habits. In practicing yoga at my home, toppling over while attempting crow pose. In inviting friends to eat at our home. In wearing less makeup. In my husband’s touch. In bowing deeply to the cross. But most of all, on my knees at the altar, hungry and thirsty for the meal Jesus gave us. It turns out God has never asked me to make myself smaller for his sake. He's never asked me to starve. Kelsey Miller These are my new habits, the ones that bend towards worship, rather than my old twisted form of self-idolatry. Every week I will keep bowing towards his cross, bending my body on behalf of my adoration. It turns out God has never asked me to make myself smaller for his sake. He’s never asked me to starve. He’s asked me to delight in him with my whole self and he matches that delight, filling my cup to overflowing. How could I have hated this good thing? I’m not really sure. With time and healing, by the sweet grace of God, I await with hope that the end of the hatred is fast approaching. It is about time.

The first quarter of 2018 has come and gone and we’re delighted to be able to say “Thank You!” to our members with an exclusive special edition download of The Orchardist’s latest album, People, People (they’ve even included coloring pages!). Members check your inboxes, and enjoy the music! Keep reading for a look at what’s been going on in 2018. We are a 401c3 non-profit organization, and we rely on the generosity of our members to support the work the Rabbit Room does. If you’re interested in joining us in that work, for a monthly gift of $25 or more, we’ll send you an exclusive hand-made Rabbit Room mug, a free copy of Every Moment Holy, a free download of over 20 hours of audio archives from Hutchmoot 2018, and an amazingly powerful Rabbit Room Membership card. You’ll also receive a thank you gift from us for each quarter that you maintain your membership. Visit donate.RabbitRoom.com to join. We’d love to have you on our team. Become a Member The first quarter of 2018 has been an exciting time. Here’s a look at what we’ve been up to: Conferences and Conventions – We’ve enjoyed seeing many of you at the Great Homeschool Conventions across the country as well as a number of other conferences such as the Festival of Faith and Writing and the Grove City Christian Writers Conference, and we look forward to more of these opportunities in the coming months. We’ll be at the FPEA homeschool convention in Florida in May, and we’ll be at the St. Louis Great Homeschool Convention in July. The Local Show – The show is in its fourth year now and we love this chance to introduce our community to new songwriters and voices. The Spring season of the show is underway and we’d love to see you there. Dates, line-ups, and tickets are available at store.RabbitRoom.com. The Rabbit Room Retreat – Laity Lodge in Texas hosted our third Rabbit Room Retreat in March. This year our guest speaker was Russ Ramseyand the entire weekend was a refreshing time of contemplating the power of art in the world and in our communities. If you haven’t been to Laity Lodge, you must. Look for the 2019 Rabbit Room Retreat to be added to the calendar in the coming months. Hutchmoot 2018 – Hutchmoot tickets went on sale in March and sold out in 9 minutes! We hope to see most of you there! We held our first planning meetings this week. Our keynote speaker is Andy Crouch, and we can’t wait to announce the rest of what we have in store. Every Moment Holy – The third (!) printing is due here the first week of May, so if you’ve been waiting for your pre-ordered copy, the wait is almost over. We’d also be delighted if you’d pop over to Amazon and leave a review of the book. Believe it or not, those reviews are a big help! Henry & the Chalk Dragon Paperback Edition – The hardcover edition was released a year ago this month, and we’re excited to release the paperback version next week. We’re so proud of the way this book has been received by kids, parents, teachers, and libraries and we can’t wait to see what new opportunities the lower-priced paperback edition will open for it in the future. The Molehill Vol. 5 – Editorial work is well underway and we hope to have this new volume of our literary anthology out this summer. We’ve got a number of other irons in the fire and we’d be grateful if you’d keep the Rabbit Room in your prayers. Thank you for being a part of this work we’re doing. We couldn’t do it without you.

[Note from Joe Sutphin: A few years ago my buddy Sam (S.D. Smith, author of the Green Ember series) asked me to do a few doodles for a serial that was running on Story Warren. It was a great little Mark Twain-like story about an everyday kid whose world is turned upside down the day that a shyster’s son comes to town. The story was tentatively referred to as Tumbleweed Thompson and was written by Glenn McCarty. I met Glenn later at a children’s conference in Charlotte and we became quick friends. Glenn texted me sometime last year to gauge my interest in revisiting the story of Tumbleweed Thompson and to tell me of his hope to put together a Kickstarter campaign to self-publish the book. Knowing what a great storyteller and all around great guy Glenn was, I certainly was interested. We talked more about it at Hutchmoot last year and set our plans in motion. I’ve now illustrated the cover and Brannon McAllister has created the cover layout and title design. I’ll also being illustrating the interior of the book, with Brannon doing the interior layout. Now, with the Kickstarter having launched this week, I asked Glenn if he would introduce our Rabbit Room community to The Misadventured Summer Of Tumbleweed Thompson. Here’s Glenn.] Community. Collaboration. We pay lip service to these ideals often, but it’s only in the presence of the incarnated form of them that we can truly appreciate their value. I’m not sure I would have come to this realization as keenly as I have were it not for my experiences working on The Misadventured Summer of Tumbleweed Thompson. This week I launched a Kickstarter campaign for the book, a frontier adventure for young readers that has its origins at Story Warren, where I’ve published several short stories featuring the main characters. It’s not an exaggeration to say this book wouldn’t exist without The Rabbit Room. Over the past three years that the book has taken shape, I’ve crossed paths with dozens and dozens of folks who have embraced, encouraged, exhorted, challenged, and inspired me with a vision of the faithful Christian artist that has helped me get this close to the finish line. Like many of you, I’m by nature a bit of a lone wolf. Give me a laptop and a quiet room, and I’m cocooned in perfect contentment. But when you’re writing a novel, which is pretty much like building a house by yourself, this sort of bravado is fool’s gold. The voices of self-doubt, what Steven Pressfield calls “The Resistance” in his book The War of Art, seem to grow louder with every passing moment alone with the work. But at every step of this journey, so many people have denied me the tantalizing chance to attempt this thing solo. They’ve grabbed me around the shoulders, yanked me close, and held me until I knew my work mattered, and that I needed to persevere to the end. Here’s a scene for you. November, 2015. I’m just home from my second Hutchmoot, staring at my computer screen and about to lay out the story pitch for a Tumbleweed Thompson novel to six trusted collaborators (and Rabbit Room regulars) through video chat. Was I scared? Well, laying out a story pitch is the ultimate exercise in vulnerability, kind of like juggling chainsaws naked. But I wasn’t really afraid. I knew I was among friends. They were locked in and committed to help me take the story somewhere I couldn’t take it alone. I owe so many of you a great big 'thank you' for helping to incarnate the truth that we're meant to labor in the field shoulder-to-shoulder, that we've got to hold each other up to face the light with clarity of vision and firmness of resolve. Glenn McCarty Over the next six months, as I drafted the story, they held me upright, lashed me to the mast of my vision for the book, and wouldn’t let me get wrecked on the rocks of the Resistance. There’s so much of them in this book. And that’s the way it should be. Through the long days of revision, others have stepped in to offer critique and encouragement, over and over, even when I thought I had overstayed my welcome and over-extended their offer of assistance. It turns out that with friends and collaborators, that offer of grace through collaboration extends much, much farther than I thought. When I made the decision last fall to Kickstart this thing, still more have stepped up to say how much they support the decision. Dare greatly, they said. Take the plunge. At a house concert a month or so ago, when my nerves were decidedly frayed, Jeremy Casella pulled me aside and gave time, wisdom, and encouragement about the whole process. It’s a crazy ride like no other, he said, but you’ll make it. So here we are. I owe so many of you a great big “thank you” for helping to incarnate the truth that we’re meant to labor in the field shoulder-to-shoulder, that we’ve got to hold each other up to face the light with clarity of vision and firmness of resolve. And now, it’s time to take the next step together. I can’t wait to share this book with you! You can visit Glenn and Joe’s Kickstarter here.

What do you do when life gets hard and you just don’t want to feel anything? There are so many ways to hide from suffering, but real change comes in facing the pain, with the hope that Jesus will meet us there. This week’s Rabbit Reads selection is an excellent memoir about sobriety and so much more. Let us introduce you to Seth Haines… Why We Love It: “…we seem to have a way of losing ourselves in our manmade salves—the bottle, the pill, the cheeseburger, self-inflicted starvation. I suppose we’re all drunk on something.” It could be easy to ignore a memoir of sobriety if you’ve never found yourself in the middle of specific, debilitating addiction. At least, that’s how I felt, and if I wasn’t already interested in anything Seth Haines has to say, I might’ve overlooked this book. But I am so glad I didn’t. Coming Clean is, indeed, the story of alcoholism and sobriety, but it’s so much more than that. It’s about faith shaken and found, a father’s ache, anxiety, forgiveness, and the ways we all seek to numb our pain. It’s about going straight into the dark cave of your fears and disappointments and facing the dragons. And whether we find ourselves medicating through alcohol, drugs, social media, or elite theology, Seth’s wisdom has something to say to us all. This book came to life as a journal through his first 90 days of sobriety. He tells the story of his son Titus who was born with a mysterious health condition, the fear for Titus’ life that led him into alcoholism, and the long journey through the pain and into a deeper understanding of God’s grace. Much like Russ Ramsey's Struck, this is a book that resists easy answers, running headlong into the pain and finding hope on the other side. Jen Rose Yokel Perhaps the most compelling thing about this story is how it isn’t about looking back on a hard time and compiling neat lessons on the experience. Instead, we’re invited to journey with Seth through those first 90 days: the brushes with temptation, the confrontations with the past, the sweet memories of a child meeting God among the Texas mesquite trees, the setbacks and questions and doubts. Much like Russ Ramsey’s Struck, this is a book that resists easy answers, running headlong into the pain and finding hope on the other side. Perhaps the author’s own introduction best describes what readers are in for: “This is not a program; it is not the last chapter of a journey. This is the beginning—my beginning. Maybe even yours.” So it turns out Coming Clean is a book for everyone. Not just recovering or hoping-to-recover addicts, not just for those in the middle of darkness. For me, I read the book a year before a particularly difficult season, and found the lasting resonance of it comforting when I needed it most. Perhaps it could do the same for you, wherever you are. Learn more about Seth Haines on his website and pick up a copy of Coming Clean on Amazon.

I think I’ve cried more while listening to this song than any other in my career, and it’s partly because I didn’t write it. I wish I had, because it’s everything I love about songwriting. You can pick up Resurrection Letters: Volume I in the Rabbit Room Store and listen to “Remember Me” here:https://rabbitroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/03-Remember-Me.mp3

We have a stellar lineup this Thursday evening at The Local Show: Andrew Osenga, Josh Wilson, Ginny Owens, and Zandy Fitzgerald of The New Respects. If you haven’t yet listened to The New Respects, we’re here to remedy that. To put it simply, they play like they love each other. Their songs overflow with life and energy, well-crafted yet well-worn, like your favorite pair of shoes. And as you listen, you get the sense that they’re laying it all on the line with every lyric and melody. There’s no hiding here; only heartfelt, transparent truth-telling. What’s not to love? There are still some tickets left for Thursday night—grab them here for a chance to hear Zandy Fitzgerald, lead singer of The New Respects, in the intimate and song-centric setting of The Well Coffeehouse. Tickets available here.

“Heaven’s kingdom realm can be compared to the tiny mustard seed that a man takes and plants in his field. Although the smallest of all the seeds, it eventually grows into the greatest of garden plants, becoming a tree for birds to come and build their nests in its branches.” It could have been any sort of day, the day when the seed was planted. I imagine, for I know the sensation, that the seed felt like a splinter grown infected. The heat and tenderness of the spot made it almost intolerable. It had to be removed. I wonder what it was that brought it to the surface, for the Artist was full of seeds, many thousands. Perhaps this one travelled quickly, burst from its bounds by a keen disappointment, a crippling loss. Perhaps she went to draw water from a familiar well and found it dry. I couldn’t say. But those seeds, the ones dug like bullets from visible wounds never produce as much as the other kind. The others are all but invisible, all but forever. They float from the deep, fathomless dark, rising to the surface oh, so slowly, spending time like a profligate. Those seeds surface without a ripple. They settle lightly, never eager to make themselves known. Seasons strip the earth or color it anew, and they wait, until one day, as an afterthought, the Artist tunes his attention to their presence—forgotten, familiar, ubiquitous. It must have been one of those seeds she planted that day, and if I could, I would thank her for planting it. She could have cut the skin and drawn the seed out and flung it away or ground it between her teeth in payment for its long torment. But she knelt in a barren place and moved the earth with her fingers. She placed the seed in the ground and covered it and sang a song over it before she walked away and left the land, by all accounts, unchanged. That’s years ago now. When I came upon the tree, I’d spent what felt like half my life plodding through a wasteland. The road was no more than a rut between scattered stones, and the sun beat down on my head with scorn. The little weight in my pocket had grown over the miles until my gait was uneven. I had walked beyond the memory of the past, and without hope for the future. I knew the road and the glare of the light and the golden haze at the edge of the horizon, and nothing more. Well, one thing more. On some mornings I woke to a throbbing point of heat in my forearm. The irritation grew until I thought my whole body pulsed with the fury of this little thorn. I slipped the blade of my knife beneath the skin of my inner arm. A drop of blood welled up, then another, then a rounded fragment of something. Not a thorn. Something tiny and rounded, like those already in my pocket. I pinched it between my fingers and held it up, squinting, trying to unravel its mysteries. But like the rest it was unremarkable, and I dropped it in my pocket and went on. On that day, instead of dropping the seed into my pocket with the others, I remembered the shade, and the Artist. I took two long strides away from the road and dug a hole in the dusty soil. I planted the seed and covered it up. Helena Sorensen It was at a point of utter weariness that the tree caught my eye. I’d run out of defiance. My feet shuffled through the sand only because they feared to stop. Then I saw it. A fragment of darkness bisected the sun and settled into a larger darkness. Another joined the first, sinking into the branches, and I heard a cry of greeting from its fellow. Birds. They’d come to make a home in the wide, welcoming shade of the tree. I sprinted for the cover of the tree, for the break in the glare. After uncounted days in the white heat, its shade felt like the beginning of the world, like the cradle that soothed me before I set out on the road, like a home that waits at journey’s end. I sat awhile with my back to the trunk and watched how the green of the leaves altered the sunlight. I watched the birds assembling their nests and listened to the music of their comings and goings. I fell asleep and dreamed of water—deep, subterranean wells of clear water. It’s the dream I carry with me now, and the memory of the shade. Understanding came later, on a day when the sun pressed so hard I sat beside the road and hung my head. I felt the familiar prick of fire, this time beneath my tongue, and in a heartbeat, with the flick of a blade, I had it. I held the thing between thumb and forefinger while my mouth filled with saliva and blood, and I thought of underground springs. On that day, instead of dropping the seed into my pocket with the others, I remembered the shade, and the Artist. I took two long strides away from the road and dug a hole in the dusty soil. I planted the seed and covered it up. I would like to thank the Artist, the one who waited, the one who planted. Were it not for the memory of her courage, I would have stopped there to watch, to see what grew. But she didn’t think that task worthwhile. She pressed on along the road, along the path of heat and sorrow, to the edge to plant the seeds, and back to the road, and the road again. So I set my eyes to the sun and walk. One day something may grow so tall its shadow falls across my back. And if I feel its shade, I will not turn, but smile. There are seeds to be planted, and the road is calling.

Have you ever tried to cook ten pounds of pasta all at the same time? Add a guest list of thirty people plus two bands of hungry musicians, then imagine trying to cook ten pounds of pasta in water that refuses to boil without experiencing even a pulse of anxiety. Miraculously, the water boils (after you frantically separate the unyielding noodles into three separate pots) and there’s more than enough penne for everyone attending the event, plus extra penne which you later find has melted together at the bottom of the cookware. The night isn’t a blur, exactly—it starts and stops. You meet a man who’s lived in Nashville since he was a kid, a woman who came for school and stayed for one reason or another, a girl who moved to England and then moved back to embrace the joys of culture shock. Friends are there, strangers are there, you make sure there’s toilet paper in the bathroom and you triple check that you didn’t forget to bring all necessary capos, tuners, picks and instruments. Between greeting folks and hearing blips of their stories and making sure there’s enough cheese on the charcuterie table, you realize that moving between the roles of Martha and Mary is not unlike being a windshield wiper that sticks to one side but continues a twitchy, almost laughable attempt at full function. And you realize that the creation of space and the pursuit of community are intensive work, and at the same time are almost painfully simple. We conceptualized Supper & Songs out of the desire for a community of supporters and fellow musicians in the place where we live, the place we call home, that feeds us. As people, we have community. As a band, playing live shows in Nashville has, at times, felt like trying to dig our roots into the soil of the Bermuda Triangle. Trusting in the power of presence and consistency (and food—as a band rule, we never underestimate the power of food), we’ve now pulled together the resources offered to us so we can offer others some kind of togetherness as we search for it ourselves. Funnily enough, scrambling from kitchen to guitar-tuning and back again can feel like a perfect storm for isolation, regardless of the goal for unity with others. It fades, or cuts in and out, as we play the music we’ve set out to share and welcome our friends onstage after us (the “stage” being a living room rug and our friends being the outstanding Liz Vice, in this case). And we notice people are really listening to the music and to each other, and really receiving, and that beautiful fact is the thing we receive—that’s where the togetherness begins. It reminds us that success isn’t a matter of flawless vocal performance or a diverse enough charcuterie selection. It happens with or without our competent hosting or punctual cooking, as long as we bring ourselves and as long as the listeners do the same. All that is to say, the first Supper & Songs was indeed a success—not because everything happened more or less according to plan or because the house didn’t abruptly collapse, but because people came with open hands and kept them open for the duration of the evening. We move forward excitedly, humbly, and resolved to keep our own hands open. With another Supper & Songs event around the corner, we move forward having been reminded what it is to give and receive. The next Supper & Songs show will take place May 14th. Tickets are available here. You can learn more about Supper & Songs and The Orchardist here. And be sure to check out Liz Vice here.

I found a dead baby mouse on the bricks of our driveway. I picked it up and looked it over. It was so perfect, as if it were only sleeping. Tens of thousands of soft, little downy hairs lined its body, its muzzle covered in minute whiskers. Delicate little ears and fingers and toes. One of the sweetest little innocent babies of this world, and a true work of art. I contemplated how God could put such care and thought, even tenderness into his creations, only to allow them to fail. Then I began to look around at all the creation in my reach. Tiny green sprouts growing into complex structures capable of reproduction, capable of completely overthrowing and eradicating other species if they were designed that way. So complex, each tender sapling growing into a hearty, wooded pillar, each intricate insect crawling within countless individual blades of grass, each one a work of art, and each one disposable. My heart ached for this little dead mouse as I carried it to the field out back and laid it beneath the stalk of an ironweed. When I make my art, when I labor to conceive, compose and create it, it hurts when it fails. It hurts even more if I came close to completion and then it failed. And none of my drawings or paintings have ever breathed. None have ever utilized photosynthesis or reproduced on their own, thought their own thoughts or even thanked me for their creation. None told me they loved me. That little mouse was absolutely a work of art created by an intelligence and a heart that of which I cannot conceive. It was beautiful, well designed, and to my eyes perfect. And God has been making them by the billions since the beginning of our time, each to exist in obedience to His Word, and to pass away without cause, never to be remembered again. Does it cause His heart to ache, as it did mine, to see that little mouse lying dead on the bricks of my driveway? It seems to me that He doesn’t get attached to each individual piece of His art. He’s capable of letting go. After all, nothing He has made, save our souls, is indestructible. All is ephemeral. All will pass away. All is disposable. Yet, He still made it all. Even though He purposed that it all would pass, He made it. Even though it would hurt and suffer and fade away, He made it. With care and affection and attention to a billion different details, each one unique and flawless and functioning perfectly within a grand design, He made it. Why would He make beautiful art that hurts Him? Maybe He takes more joy in the constant rebirth and newness than in the aging and ancient. No matter the reason, I cannot help asking myself: Could I repeatedly put my heart and soul into creating beautiful works of art if I knew that each one would last but a breath? If I knew each one would suffer through pain, heartache, misery and then death, could I still create art? What if no one were ever to appreciate a single one? Like the countless creatures He has placed in the remote places of the world, each to take its first gasp of breath and then pass away with only His knowing, could I create that kind of art? I don’t know if I could, but our God clearly loves to design and to create, and He has created an overabundance of disposable beauty. And that thought alone makes Him unfathomably great and mighty in my eyes.

When my dad answers the phone on Easter Sunday, he doesn’t say, “Hello?” He says, “He is risen!” And he won’t say anything else until you respond with “He is risen, indeed.” I thought it was goofy when I was a kid, and now it makes me cry. Dad didn’t invent it, after all. That response from my Lord is what I ache for more than anything—to one day see him in the misty dawn of a new garden, and for him to lovingly call my name. In the meantime, we’re called to rush away from the empty tomb to tell everyone with ears to hear it that he is, indeed, risen. You can pick up Resurrection Letters: Volume I in the Rabbit Room Store and listen to “Risen Indeed” here:https://rabbitroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/02-Risen-Indeed.mp3