I went to the doctor yesterday for the first time in years. That doesn’t mean I haven’t been sick; it means I’m the kind of stubborn fool who doesn’t like to take an ibuprofen for a headache, the kind of crank who would rather walk around squinting and snappy than to take the blasted aspirin. I just don’t like medicine. I prefer sweating it out, however inconvenient that is for the people around me. So after ten days of coughing and sniffling and whining I finally decided it must be a sinus infection. I have a show in a few days, and I can’t afford to be sick. So I bravely did what any man in my shoes would do: I asked my wife what to do. She told me which doctor to visit and I drove to the offices with a steely resolve. The nurse behind the sliding glass window handed me the clipboard with the dreaded New Patient Paperwork, and then the thing happened that made me want to write this. The questions began. “Do you have any allergies?” “Do you drink caffeine?” “Do you use tobacco?” “If so, how often?” “Do you exercise regularly?” “Is there a history of heart disease in your family?” “Have you had any surgeries? I realized as I answered each question that my impulse was to pad the answers. I had to force myself to be completely honest. For some reason I didn’t want to write down that my dad has type two diabetes or that my grandfather had three heart attacks before he died. No, ma’am, I come from tough stock. No problems at all in the Peterson tree. In the end, I told the truth. I answered “yes” to the exercise question, because it’s true. I do exercise. But then it asked “How often?” Well, that depends. I jog three or four times a week—if I’m home and the weather is nice and I’m not too busy and I’m in the mood. So, sort of often. But I rode my mountain bike twice last year, does that count? “Do you use tobacco?” No. Never. That stuff is gross. But every now and then I like to puff on a pipe, Bilbo Baggins-style, when I’m visiting my dad in the country. And I guess I smoke it when the weather is nice in the spring and my dude friends come over. And on Wednesdays. And Thursdays. Then came the one that really bugged me. For some reason the questionnaire asked, “Have you ever been to counseling?” My pen hovered over the paper. Why is that any of their business? It would have been easy to skip the question, or to lie. But I could see how that answer could give them some insight into high blood pressure or anxiety-related problems. I still think it’s weird that they wanted to know (maybe some doctors out there will shed some light on it), but what was even weirder was how reluctant I was to answer. And even when I answered I wished for space to make disclaimers and justifications. I’ve only been a few times. I’m not like a regular or anything. Why was I trying to distance myself from people with Real Problems, as if I didn’t qualify? By the time I saw the doctor and she prescribed my antibiotics, I was laughing to myself about the disparity between who I imagine myself to be and the person I actually am. I imagine that I’m a person who’s never sick, never needs medicine, has no vices, comes from a healthy family, and is so spiritually and emotionally balanced that he never needs help. The person I actually am is more than a little out of shape, is probably a candidate for heart trouble, enjoys a scholarly pipe smoke a little too much, and has several times been so beset with spiritual and emotional trouble that he needed serious help from a counselor. It’s official. Hello, Doc. My name is Andrew, and I’m a person with Real Problems. I sat on the papery hospital bed thinking about how uncomfortable I was that the doctor knew more about the “real” me than most people. I have always been a private person. The irony is that my whole career is about sharing some of the darkest (and brightest) moments of my life with perfect strangers. That’s what all my records are about, more or less. When I run up against some old sin or doubt or habit in a way that derails my train, and my wife and friends act surprised, I want to hold up a CD and say, “Why are you so shocked? It’s all in there. It’s in almost every song I write. When a lyric says, ‘I’ve got voices that scream in my head like a siren,’ it’s not just poetry or exaggeration. That’s me. That’s what’s really going on.” I don’t have a hard time sharing that stuff from the stage. Then why was I so tempted to pad my answers in the medical questionnaire? There are a lot of possibilities, but one that comes to mind is this: I have control over what I put in a song. When I’m on the stage I can manage what I reveal about myself, I can put a funny spin on it or sugarcoat the real depth of the sin. But when I’m anonymous, answering questions in a different context, I’m confronted with an awful truth: I am not who I think I am. Nor am I who you think I am. I’m much, much worse. I’m much more lost, much less disciplined, much more screwed up than I allow myself to admit. Years ago I read a great op-ed piece in Entertainment Weekly about Netflix. The author talked about how seldom he feels like watching the DVDs that come in the mail, prompting him to wonder what he was thinking when he added them to his queue weeks ago. His conclusion was that he’s two people: the movie watcher he wishes he was, someone who enjoys sophisticated, artful fare like A Trip to Bountiful and Tree of Life—and then there’s the movie watcher he is, who, let’s face it, would rather turn off his brain and watch Die Hard and Terminator 2. It’s true of all of us, isn’t it? I love good books, and count Frederick Buechner, Wendell Berry, C. S. Lewis and the like as my favorite authors—but I read those as a discipline, because I know they’ll be good for me. Yet there’s this other part of me that would rather just burn through sci-fi/fantasy novels that have no more literary value than an episode of CSI. I want to be a healthy eater and I truly love sushi; but man, I can down a deep dish Jet’s Pizza in a way that would shock Marlon Brando. So who am I? That’s the question. Am I the sophisticated art consumer or the brain-dead entertainment glutton? Am I a singer/songwriter with self-control, insight, and integrity or am I a broken man with bad knees and worse habits? The answer is probably more complicated than space allows. In some mysterious way, the answer is both. Maybe the person I wish I were is a projection of the Holy Spirit, calling me upward. Discipline is good. But it’s dangerous to forget how much I need Jesus. It’s like budgeting. Whenever Jamie and I run out of money before the end of the month we always throw our hands in the air and say, “Where did it all GO?” Then we look over the bank statement and remember that we ate out several times, had a few doctor bills, fixed the transmission, bought that one thing that we needed for that other thing, and suddenly it’s clear that we were living beyond our means. It’s easy at the beginning of the month to ignore the awful truth that we are not zillionaires. But at the end of the month, there’s a reckoning. (Of course, in this analogy God’s mercy settles the account. Every time.) But you see, the story we tell ourselves is skewed. There comes a time when we need to sit and take account of how we’re spending our lives, like at the doctor’s office or with the budget, and be reminded that we are not who we think we are. We need Jesus more than we allow ourselves to admit. We are not really so much better than the people around us whose lives are so obviously messy. In fact, we’re not better at all. They may in fact be closer to the heart of Jesus because they are humble enough to admit to themselves that they need help, humble enough to answer the hard questions about their weakness boldly. And humility is a way of dying; it is the crucifixion of our false selves. Humility and death go hand in hand. It is exemplified in Christ, who humbled himself even unto death on a cross. I saw the great Garrison Keillor at the Ryman Auditorium a few years ago when A Prairie Home Companion came through town, and was struck by how comfortable he was in his own skin. He has one of the most recognizable voices in radio history and has been entertaining us for decades—but he has, as they say, a face for radio. He’s not an attractive man. His eyes are bulgy, his nose is a little too small, he’s gangly, he hunches, and though his speaking voice is magical his singing voice is about as plain as you could imagine. But when he steps out onto the stage in his suit and bright red sneakers, he shines. He dances around as awkward as a goose on stilts, singing badly and looking odd—but he’s so joyful, so clearly doing what he loves to do, that he doesn’t care how weird he looks. He doesn’t care about his shortcomings. He’s delighted to be alive and doing something he was made to do. I looked around at the audience and saw that his joy was contagious. Every face was smiling, enjoying the beauty of someone who had made peace with who he was. At some point he may have cursed the way he was made, but now he celebrated it and we celebrated with him. Jesus is making us into something. C. S. Lewis wrote that God is making us into “little Christs.” We all ache for the day when we’ll be free of our sins, our bad habits, our bitterness, the things about us that we think ugly or undesirable. But perhaps the road of sanctification will be an easier one when we recognize in ourselves the sin of self-consciousness, the sin of reputation management, the sin of lying to ourselves. To live our lives with a pretense of self-sufficiency, strength, and have-it-togetherness is to diminish the visible work of God’s grace. One of your greatest blessings to the community around you may be your utter brokenness, it may be something about yourself that you loathe, but which Christ will use for his glory. When Jesus is Lord of our brokenness we are free to rejoice in the mighty work he has yet to do in us. We are free to enter the stage in the face of the devil’s accusation, “You’re not good enough.” The Christian’s answer: “Exactly!” And we dance. (This was first published on NRT.com’s website a few months back.)

This summer, July 4-7, Dave Trout and Under the Radar (UTR) are hosting their first-ever annual conference/music festival called Escape to the Lake on Lake Geneva in Wisconsin. I wanted the Rabbit Room community to know a little more about this Hutchmoot-ish event so I’ve taken the opportunity to interview Dave about it. I hope our conversation will allow you to get to know him a little better as well. EP:  For those who haven’t discovered UTR, what is it that you do for living? Dave:  In short, K-Love (mainstream Christian radio) isn’t for everyone. And Rabbit Room readers already know this, but CCM Top 20 lists are not a really good reflection of the best art being made by Christians. So UTR began about four-and-a-half years ago to discover and share some creative, thoughtful, and truly under-appreciated songwriters who are doing their thing without much support and radio fanfare. We offer a one-hour weekly podcast of “gourmet music”—which also is syndicated on over 225 radio stations every week. But it’s really more of an anti-radio program. EP:  Music is subjective.  Are you trying to get people to buy into your tastes in music? Dave:  Well, I do wish that upon people, but only because of the spiritual effect good art has had on me. Overall, no that is not my intention. UTR is not a pet-project by an indie music mogul. My passion for well-crafted music is really a new thing for me, and UTR is just an invitation to come on that journey. At the time UTR launched, I had never heard of you, Jeremy Casella, Randall Goodgame, Andy Gullahorn, and some of the common favorites between us and the Rabbit Room. But I do remember looking at the Square Peg Alliance page in 2008, thinking, “Wouldn’t it be cool if one day I was friends with these people?” I have become friends with these and many others, which doesn’t always happen for radio people. EP:  These days, there are myriad ways to discover new music. So, at the risk of being blunt, how on earth did you find me? Dave:  When UTR started, I knew nothing about you or your music, other than seeing your name as a Square Pegger and as a Rabbit Room contributor. I actively searched out your website in early 2009. I was greeted by a blog post that read more like a cry for help. You had just welcomed Monroe (child #2) into the clan, and the economic crisis of 2008 left you with little to no work. I then sought out some of your music, and looked for other links about you. There were hardly any photos or videos of you on the web in 2009. I asked you to have lunch with me on an upcoming trip to Nashville—I had never made a request like that with a recording artist before. Funny enough, I was there for GMA (Gospel Music Association) Week. In the midst of this frantic world of Christian music celebrityism, I have this true heart to heart with an indie artist, and it was the highlight of that week—a truly defining moment for me. EP:  Ah yes, I remember it vividly. I took you to The Pied Piper Eatery, hoping that you weren’t opposed to greasy diner-esque food. Just recently, you invited me to be a part of a your latest pet project. Care to share? Dave:  Yes! It’s called Escape To The Lake.  It’s basically the K-Love Cruise, except you stay on land, and it’s with indie artists that K-Love would probably never play. EP:  You’re on a roll. Dave:  It actually is an easy analogy for this event. It’s a music fest, but we want it to be more than that. It’s a retreat on a scenic lakefront, but it’s more than that. An easy descriptor could be a “gourmet music vacation.” We want to create a space for people to enjoy nature, take advantage of the campground recreational activities, make new friends—and oh yeah, mingle with and hear performances by some of the best indie/acoustic artists on the planet, people who are “under the radar!” EP:  You almost make it sound a little like Hutchmoot. Dave:  Yes, that’s intentional. I’ve been to the last two Hutchmoots, and even though this event will be primarily music focused, we hope to foster the kind of genuine community that exists at the Moot. EP:  What are some of the things being offered at Escape To The Lake? Dave:  We have a terrific roster of artists. Fellow Rabbits will likely be familiar with Andy Gullahorn, Jill Phillips, Nick Flora, Jon Troast, and yourself. We also have The Vespers, Christa Wells, Randy Stonehill, Tim Coons, Nicole Witt, and The Farewell Drifters. There will be some planned sessions, like artist Q&As, some unplugged performances, and the makers of the upcoming Rich Mullins film project will be giving us a sneak peek. I’m sure there will be some unplanned moments too, like sharing a meal, roasting s’mores, or a campfire singalong with a favorite artist. EP:  Okay, we got the What. How about the When, Where, and How much? Dave:  It’s July 4-7 on the beautiful lakefront property at Conference Point Center near Lake Geneva, WI. Registration is open now for as low as a $25 deposit (for folks who don’t have all the money in hand right now). Adult registration is $230, which includes 3-nights indoor lodging, all the meals for 3+ days, campground activities, sessions, and all concerts. Folks can register online here. EP:  Since you are a lifelong Chicagoan, and I share your uncanny knack for eating tasty food, can you please tell us what the best pizza is in Chicago? Dave:  Wow, it’s an impossible task, but I’ll try. My personal favorite deep dish is Gino’s East. Andrew Peterson swears by Giordano’s. And Lou Malnati’s gets a lot of votes as well. Those are the big 3. However, Chicago has some stellar thin crust too, and the best, hands down, is Aurelio’s Pizza. EP: Thanks for your time, Dave. You’re a good man. Thank you for caring about music and the arts, and seeking to encourage artists in their endeavors, and to make known their work(s) to a broader audience. Personally, I can testify to your immense generosity and hard work. I hope folks from around the country will consider joining us at Escape to the Lake! I’m looking forward to it. Visit the Escape to the Lake website for more information.

There is always a line the scoundrel steps across and becomes a wanted thing. Sometimes the line is theater and robbery and kicking the fellow off the bridge; sometimes it’s simply a signed sheet of paper. Perhaps it is fitting that my own line was merely the end of a dock. – p. 51 Thus begins the third part of So Brave, Young, and Handsome: “Jack Waits.” There was so much in this section—too much to cover thoroughly without our conversation feeling like a dozen are taking place at once. Here are a few questions to get us started, but as always, feel free to pose your own and talk about things that stood out to you: “What do you dream of, Becket, at night?” “That I am at sea, or in a snowstorm.” “When I was young I used to dream of escapes, and wake up sweating,” Glendon replied. “Now I mostly dream of captures, and you know what? I wake up calm.” – p.75 1) What do Becket’s dreams reveals about his longings? What is he looking for as he accompanies Glendon on this journey? 2) What do you make of Glendon’s response? 3) Earlier, Glendon had talked about the hard reality of jail. “A jail ain’t nothing but a collection of corners.” – p.63 Does his dismal synopsis of jail conflict with the response to his dream of being captured? Is there significance in comparing the “collection of corners” to the “curved line”? When seeing his reflection, Becket says: “I’d even begun to imagine myself a better individual, one tempered by experience and loss . . . I was just barely me. I used to resemble what I was—a well-meaning failure, a pallid disappointer of persons, a man fading. This fellow looked tired and rough, but—if I may say it—capable. “ – p.76 4) What had changed in Becket? What was the “loss” to which he was referring? 5) Enger uses the imagery of vision (or difficulty in seeing) throughout the book—Fog, night, a man “fading.” Where and how in the story do you see “vision” used? 6) Becket, Glendon, and Roberts are each in a different stage of life. What is each man looking for, and does age play a part? Bonus question: The book draws on classic themes and archetypes of “The Western.” How so? How is it turning the classic Western on its head? Have you read Westerns before? Are you a fan of Western films? Other than setting, what do you think defines the genre. Discussion Introduction Week 1: “A Thousand a Day” Week 2: “The Old Desperate” Week 3: “Jack Waits” Week 4: “The 101” Week 5: “The Fiery Siringo” Week 6: “The Rarotongans”

I’m sitting in a Starbucks in Osage Beach, Missouri. Ben Shive is in here, too, working on a string arrangement for the upcoming CALEB record. The weather is chilly, I’m a little homesick, I’m wearing three-day jeans, all adding to a pleasant melancholy brought on by the fact that today something is ending. A story that started last January, which actually started many years before that, about a little kid from Illinois who grew up and lost his way a million times but was found a million more by God himself, is reaching its final chapter tonight. I’m glad. And, as I said, I’m feeling a little blue about it too. I’m glad because singing these songs every night has been painful. I’m sad because the little community that gathered to tell this story has been deeply encouraging and Christ-like in humility. You know, it’s not just music that makes high school kids want to be in bands–it’s brotherhood. It’s belonging. It’s that peace-giving fellowship of locking arms with friends in defiance of something. There are few things so moving as watching a team of people with diverse gifting, temperament, and background working together to accomplish something greater than any of them could do alone. It’s a good picture of the church. Whenever someone says, “I want to join a band,” I try to remember the word “band” is older than rock and roll. I think of Robin Hood and his Band of Merry Men, or Shakespeare and his “band of brothers.” The kid isn’t just saying, “I want to play some songs,” he’s saying, “I want to belong to something.” I was that kid, so I know. And so, I’m sad this tour has come to an end. I’ll miss Michael “Raz” Razmandi, our humble sound ninja. He smiles more than anyone I’ve ever met, and he loves eggs more than anyone I’ve ever met, too. I never heard him say an unkind word to any of the volunteers as he worked harder than anyone else on the tour to set the stage, run the sound, and load the trailer after the show. I’ll miss Riley “Squez” Vasquez, our tour manager, whose job from the time he woke to the time he went to sleep was to serve the needs of our little mobile community. Last night after the concert I was near the front of the stage talking to folks, pretty wiped out after the concert, and Riley appeared out of nowhere with a table, a chair, and a waterbottle. I wanted to hug him. I’ll miss seeing Ben Shive on a regular basis. He’s a great musician and a loyal friend (eleven years and counting!). These days it’s harder and harder to find time to hang out in Nashville, so being on the road is a sure way to have good conversations with him–conversations that quiet those voices I’m always griping about. In the same way, I’ll miss Andy Gullahorn, whose skillful, uber-tasteful musicianship disproportionately raises the level of all our playing. Also, any games we play on the road are way more fun when he’s around. He’s a good man. I’ll miss Julia Chapman, who helped with merchandise and, more importantly, Show Hope. She quietly and diligently worked with Show Hope to build that bright, lovely bridge between the orphans of the world and the families ready to adopt them. I’ll miss the CALEB the BAND guys. Scotty Mills, who’s a really great guitar player, though he ended up playing bass on the tour without a single complaint. Scotty treasures his friends in a way that makes me want to be a better one. Also, he has the best hair in North America. Then there’s Will Franklin Chapman. I love it when someone is so completely themselves that they can’t help but make your life richer. He’s as unself-conscious as anyone I’ve ever met, but it doesn’t end there. He’s others-conscious, too. One night after a hard show, Will was the first to ask me how I was doing, and I could feel his concern from across the room. Caleb Chapman’s humility runs deep, evidenced by the fact that when he’s listening to someone talk he seems to be absorbing their words like a sponge–not to evaluate or to criticize, but to learn. He’s quick to laugh, but his level-headedness is the perfect foil to Will’s passion. I look forward to the day when the world knows about this band, and I shall profusely brag about them being on this tour. One of the elements of this concert that differentiated it from others was the video content. Nathan Willis and William Aughtry of Little Rock, the guys who put together the “Rest Easy” video, interviewed several people in Little Rock about their childhoods and put the footage together into the intro and outro videos. I’ll never forget that rich voice of a guy named Tucker saying, “Oh, morning at the brown brink eastward springs,” reading the Gerard Manley Hopkins poem. The people in the video were willing to share some of their pain with a bunch of strangers. Then there’s Christie Bragg, my manager, plus her assistants Andrea Howat (last fall) and Alicia Featherstone (this spring), and the good people at the booking agency, and all the promoters at churches and the volunteers who all worked WAY harder than anyone realizes. All that, and I didn’t even mention the making of the album, with Cason Cooley thrown into the mix, as well as the many musicians and engineers–or the record label! It’s crazy how many people are responsible for that album you download or that show you attend, isn’t it? The humbling thing about all this is that there’s really no way to repay that kind of friendship. You can only be grateful. And in the end you realize that you can only turn that gratitude to Christ himself. I’m humbled by the fact that all these folks could have chosen many, many other things to do with their time, but they agreed, for a season, to help me tell a story. The fact that so many gave so much is a good reminder that it isn’t just my story that was being told. Sure, the details may have been mine, but the themes belong to all of us. Good old Frederick Buechner strikes again: “The story of one of us, in some measure, is the story of us all.” So let this be my resounding THANK YOU to all of you who came to the shows, and to my band of brothers (and sisters) who gave so much to the Light for the Lost Boy tour. At most of the shows you guys may have noticed we had fake trees arranged around the stage. They were quite a hassle for Andrea, Squez, and Raz to load in, set up, and load out, all to try and convey to the audience the feeling that we were all in the forest with the lost boy on the album cover. Well, now that the tour is over and we’ve made it out of the woods, so to speak, we’re going to burn those darn trees. I can’t wait to see the faces of my good friends and traveling companions illuminated by that happy fire. From that little Illinoisan-Floridian-Tennesseean kid in my heart who used to dream of being in a band, I thank you guys for your love and friendship. Here’s a video of us performing “Carry the Fire,” which I here unabashedly dedicate to my tour-mates.

[Clay Clarkson is a treasure too wonderful to bottle up over at Story Warren. Here’s more on fostering (and equipping) holy imagination in your home from a very wise man. –S.D. “Sam” Smith] Bear with me. This will make sense in a moment. I got a new car this year. Gently used, actually. I turned in the keys to the family van that had been mine, a well-worn 2002 Honda Odyssey. Sally wisely declared that at 61 it was time for me to have a bit more manly ride. My son Joel found the car at a used lot in our little town. It was a good fit, and a quick decision. A late model, dark grey Subaru Outback with 70,000 miles. My car’s name is Gandalf (the Grey). As I drove my “Subie” to my office this morning, I realized that being in a new car has changed my self-perception and outlook on life. When I am in my new ride, I enjoy the trip, listen to great music (like “Light for the Lost Boy” and “Birds of Relocation”), and find myself imagining new books, songs, ideas, and projects. I think about new things. Maybe it was just the change that changed me, and not the car. But reflecting on its effect reminded me of a principle of cultivating creativity in our children that was a fixture in our toolbox of parenting: New things do things. Way back in the beginning of our family, we read an article that argued for investing in tools for making a living, rather than just in static monetary instruments. It was an early expression of the 10,000-hour rule Malcom Gladwell talks about in Outliers. As intuitives and parents, that idea made immediate sense to us. We got it. Rather than always focusing on our money, we would focus on using our money to invest in our lives and our children’s lives. While some parents might withhold big items to be earned or received as gifts, we would very often simply give our children those kinds of items because of a budding interest or area of giftedness. We wanted them to have tools—special books, electronics, software, musical instruments, science equipment, sports gear, special furniture—so they could do what they wanted to do, at the time when they were wanting to do it. We gave them new things without strings. That concept inspired a part of our homeschooling model in Educating the WholeHearted Child. We created “Discovery Corners” throughout our home, specific spaces dedicated to self-directed learning in areas such as music, art, nature, science, cooking, calligraphy, and many others. We made sure each corner was amply stocked with good tools for exploration and discovery. We were investing in their creativity and imagination. Some might wonder if our children became spoiled because we didn’t always make them wait or earn the big stuff, or if some things we got went unused. No they didn’t become spoiled, and yes some things didn’t get used, but they were good investments nonetheless.  Let me fast forward to Joel, my now-26-year-old oldest son and successful car-picker, to illustrate how it worked in one child’s life. We knew early-on Joel was musical, so we always encouraged that giftedness with instruments to try out, books, music, and much more. We kept his life filled with the musical. We tried to get him to take lessons, but he resisted them and insisted on playing by ear. We didn’t think much about that until he decided to apply for Berklee College of Music in Boston. During his interview, since we had failed to make him learn to sight-read music, he was not able to explain some basics of musical notation. And yet he was accepted based in part on an original piano composition he had written that week. This past spring, Joel graduated summa cum laude, was a composer of the year, and was writing forty-piece orchestrations and sacred choral music. Now he is studying for a Masters of Composition at Denver University. Whatever else we did wrong or didn’t do right with Joel, there was one thing I think we did well: we made sure to keep his world, even at a young age, filled with musical tools, resources, and events. And we gave him those things when he needed them, not when he had fulfilled some kind of “delayed gratification” mandate. It was those tools—those good gifts given many times just out of grace—that kept his imagination amply fed and growing. He used them because they were “new things” coming into his life at the right time. New things do things, and I think they did for Joel. So here’s the point: Don’t be afraid to cast your bread (your money) on the waters of your children’s imaginations, hearts, and minds (Ecc. 11:1). It will come back to you. As with any investment, there is a risk (11:6), but I believe the greater risk is in not giving your children all the tools and resources they need, when they need them, to give full expression to the creative imago dei developing within them. And remember that God is a God of new and good things (Is. 48:6, 2 Cor. 5:17, Jas. 1:17), so you will be following the lead of our heavenly Parent. Now I realize your children probably don’t need a Power Wheels Jeep Wrangler, even a gently used one (if there is such a thing). But maybe one of your kids needs a good tool set. Or a violin. Or a computer. Or a camera. Or a digital keyboard. If the time is right, just surprise them with a gift of grace. They will feel loved, not spoiled, and I think you’ll see that new things do things. ——————————————————————- Featured Image courtesy of Rebecca Smith Photography

The choirboys sang at dawn in Oxfordtown, birdnotes chiming from tower’d nest of stone above the mink-brown Cher. I have never heard them do it but by the heart’s hard listening, that fancy-flight of longing that makes an actuality of the imagined, till the real is more dream than the dream. And while I dreamed an inexorable sea away, they sang, white robes ruffled like fledgling feathers breathed upon by auroral breezes, round mouths wide to drink in all that dew of blushing morn and maiden May. The earth is glad once more— their sweet song rouses it with a shout! And I awake, dispossessed of all that happy dream. My morning broods, welling tears of unshed rain, while the green world waits, shuddering at one long, low sob of thunder. Yet the wild roses breathe out a holy incense, flouncing their frills over western hedges and showering a veil of bridal white from the low-sweeping pines. In the breathless orthodoxy of this newborn day that first, wild, young madness of honeysuckle plies an arrow through my awakened heart. And at evening, we sit beneath a windswept sky, remembering how the sun kindled her honeyed face and how the rain silvered the hoary fretwork of her spires. “To England,” he says, lifting a glass of stars, summer wine enflamed by one glance of that great light.

This is week two of our discussion of Leif Enger’s So Brave, Young, and Handsome. Week 2 – “The Old Desperate” In “The Old Desperate,” Glendon and Monte embark on their adventure toward Mexico. Each interaction with the folks they meet along the way—Samuel Cobb of the Globe, Mr. Franco the waiter, Detective Davies and his wife Celia, and their granddaughter Emma—is revealing. Incriminating details begin to surface about Glendon’s convoluted past. His response to being exposed is telling of his character. Monte’s required attendance at the Davies’ dinner party plays a similar, yet more subtle, role in giving us insight into both Monte’s inner turmoil and his deeper longings. “The charges are bigger than you imagine,” he replied. Morever, they are true. There is no forgiveness for me under the law . . .” says Glendon. – p. 40 1) If Glendon had expanded on that statement, what do you think he would have said? Give it a shot—2-3 sentences max. 2) What response did his comment evoke from you? Have you ever been at a similar place in life? I [Monte] smiled and Royal Davies nodded, “You’re doing these youngsters no service, you know . . . You authors, I mean—this world ain’t no romance, in case you didn’t notice.” “So I am discovering.” I replied. It was, I suppose, the expected wry answer, and made my host chuckle, but now I am taking it back. I take issue with Royal, much as I came to like him; violent and doomed as this world might be, a romance, it certainly is.” – p.43 3) How do you think Davies was defining “romance”? How about Monte? 4) Why did Monte default to the “expected answer” both here and in the conversation with Celia Davies regarding the author Boyd Singleton Ample? 5) At the end of “The Old Desperate,” Emma shows Monte a list of her favorite books. He calls it “a peep into her life” and responds by asking her, “Have you a favorite character among all these?” If someone wanted to peep into your life, what books would they see on your shelves, and who is your favorite character? Bonus Question: What shifts in American literature were taking place in 1915? How is the literary environment relevant to the story? Discussion Introduction Week 1: “A Thousand a Day” Week 2: “The Old Desperate” Week 3: “Jack Waits” Week 4: “The 101” Week 5: “The Fiery Siringo” Week 6: “The Rarotongans”

George Jones died today. When he was a young man, famous for his hard lifestyle of drink and drugs and for outbursts of anger, nobody would have expected him ever to be an old man. But his fourth wife Nancy, with whom he just celebrated his thirtieth wedding anniversary, helped him settle into a more sustainable life and live to the respectable age of 81. Most of us are able to keep our failures more or less private. We make mistakes, but the selves we present to the world are  our better selves. Things didn’t work out that way for George Jones. Any pleasure he took from the adulation of his many fans was surely tempered by the fact that those fans also knew of his personal failings. Everybody knew the story of the time he piloted a riding lawnmower to the liquor store because his wife had taken away his car keys [ed. that liquor store is one block from the Rabbit Room office, by the way]. They knew about the trashed motel rooms, the fistfights, the holes he shot in the floor of his tour bus. An anecdote is just a sad story told for laughs; George Jones was the subject of more than his share of anecdotes. I have written elsewhere about the practice of nicknaming people by their infirmities. Two nicknames stuck with George Jones for most of his life: No Show and Possum—No Show for the many tour dates he missed when he was too drunk to play, and Possum for the close-set eyes and sloping nose that gave him a look reminiscent of North America’s only marsupial. I have often wondered what it would be like to be universally acknowledged as one of the greatest country music vocalists of all time (Waylon Jennings once said, “If we could all sound the way we wanted, we would all sound like George Jones”) and yet still be known as “No Show” or “Possum”–drunk or ugly. I stopped listening to country radio twenty years ago or more. You might say I quit listening to country radio because country radio quit sounding like George Jones. He hailed from an era when country music’s predominant key was hurt. Mainstream country music these days plucks any number of emotional chords, from the various manifestations of romantic love to daddy-daughter sentimentality to swaggering jingoism to a version of down-home country pride that owes more to focus groups than to any time the songwriters and performers have actually spent on tractors or on Main Street. None of it hurts like “He Stopped Loving Her Today.” “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” George Jones’s biggest hit, is easily my favorite country song. In fact, I can’t even think what my second-favorite country song might be. He said I’ll love you ’til I die She told him you’ll forget in time As the years went slowly by She still preyed upon his mind He kept her picture on his wall Went half crazy now and then He still loved her through it all Hoping she’d come back again Over-the-top sentimentality, you say? Emotional manipulation? Oh, it’s worse than that. There’s a lap steel mimicking human crying throughout. He kept some letters by his bed Dated 1962. He had underlined in red Every single ‘I love you.’ I went to see him just today, Oh but I didn’t see no tears– All dressed up to go away, First time I’d seen him smile in years Now comes the string section—a string section!—to goose up the emotion through the chorus: He stopped loving her today. They placed a wreath upon his door. And soon they’ll carry him away. He stopped loving her today And then George Jones launches into a verse of spoken-word with the background singers oo-oo-oohing behind him: You know she came to see him one last time Oh and we all wondered if she would And it kept running through my mind This time he’s over her for good. In short, if I were to make a list of things I can’t abide in a country song, “He Stopped Loving Her Today” checks most of them off. George Jones himself reportedly said when he finished recording it, “Nobody’s going to buy that morbid son of a bitch.” And yet this song stops me in my tracks every time I hear it. I stop what I’m doing, look down at my hands, and halfway wish I had some really good reason to feel sorry for myself. I don’t mean any of this as a back-handed compliment. I genuinely think it’s a testament to George Jones’s genius that he made such a moving song out of elements that are so manipulative and obvious as to be almost laughable. Nor am I appealing to a “purer” music of an earlier, less commercialized era. I’m saying that there is something real and soulful in George Jones’s voice that can’t be neutered by all that overproduction and emotional button-pushing. That hurt you hear in this song is real hurt, George Jones’s hurt, hard-earned and genuine. A few years ago my wife was in Bread and Company, a shi-shi bakery and sandwich shop frequented by Ladies Who Lunch. In front of her in line was an older man who turned out to be George Jones. The young man at the cash register recognized him. “Mr. Jones,” he said, “I’d like you to know how much your music has meant to me.” When my wife first told me that story, it hurt my feelings. “My” George Jones should have been hanging out at Bobby’s Idle Hour drinking beer and eating peanuts, not nibbling on a scone at Bread and Company. But now that I think on it, it makes me happy to know that George Jones made it after all—a respectable old man in a respectable establishment where he was called by his real name—not No Show, not Possum, but Mr. Jones.

[Thomas McKenzie here. I’d like to introduce you to my friend Chance Perdue. We’ve known each other for some years now, and he’s the youth minister at our church. On Good Friday this year, I asked Chance to give one of the seven meditations during a service called The Seven Last Words. It’s a three-hour-long vigil during which we ponder the sentences Jesus spoke while on the Cross. I loved what Chance had to say, and I commend it to you here as a RR post. I hope it’s a blessing to you.] “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus knew these ancient words long before he was hoisted up onto the instrument of his execution. How many times had he chanted them in the Temple, around the table with his family at Shabbos, in the silence of his own heart? They are the cry of David from Psalm 22, and any Jewish boy would have learned the Psalter at an early age. So when Jesus cries out in agony from the cross, it’s as much a well worn prayer as it is a doubt in the presence of the Divine—there’s no need to assume that you can’t do both at the same time. There are moments when the Scriptures we’ve heard over and over again become the truest way for us to express our hopes, our hurts, our fears. I imagine this was true for Jesus throughout his life, but especially so on the cross. His broken and dying heart became a vessel that only Psalm 22 could fill. But he isn’t the only one. Very recently, I saw that same cry of David and King Jesus come alive right in front of me. And yes, it was painful. Last week I got a call from Mom. “Hank is on his way out. They found the cancer just a few days ago. It’s been growing for years and it’s aggressive and could you and your brother please come. They’ve removed all monitors and the feeding tube, according to his wishes, and it’s only a matter of time until nature takes it’s toll. He’s going to lay here and starve to death.” I made the necessary arrangements, packed a light bag, drove to the airport to pick up my brother, and we headed for North Carolina. From the moment I received the call, I’d been thinking about Hank. His life is full of outlandish tales, and my mind went immediately to the many stories of faith he used to tell about a great grandmother. “Grandma would pray, and things would happen,” he used to say. Suddenly, I could hear the words of David from that old psalm: “Our forefathers put their trust in you; they trusted, and you delivered them.” This was going to be an interesting trip. On top of the sadness, the whole situation was tense and awkward. Hank has spent the last few years of his life, inexplicably pushing away those who love him the most. A few months ago, he formally disowned my brother over the phone. So you can imagine the feelings of my dear brother, ever the cynic, as we drove into the night. He was less than cordial, dreading the whole scene, certain that we’d all be forced into a “come to Jesus” moment over this dying man’s body, and he was having none of it. It seemed unreal to him, disingenuous. And again, in the back of my mind, I heard the psalm: “they curl their lips and wag their heads, saying, ‘He trusted in the LORD; let him deliver him; let him rescue him, if he delights in him.’” After some hours of driving, we made it to the solace center in Asheville. The other side of the family was already there. They’ve spent most of Hank’s life draining his billfold and casting him aside when the money runs out. We are not friends. As my brother and I made our way into Hank’s room, we saw them first. I admit that they looked to me like vultures gathered around the bed, and the psalm went on: “They stare and gloat over me; they divide my garments among them; they cast lots for my clothing.” When the group of people spread, we saw him. He was a thinned out suggestion of the man I knew. It was terribly disturbing to see him lying in this place, his emaciated frame twisted this way and that, his head back and mouth open as if crying out to the ceiling. It looked like his limp body had just been dumped there, but once again David said it better than I could: “I am poured out like water; all my bones are out of joint; my heart within my breast is melting wax.” We spent the rest of the night and the next day at his bedside, taking turns holding his hand and talking to him. The nurse assured everyone that he could hear us—I’m still not sure if that’s true. It was fairly somber until my brother and I got everyone laughing, telling wild stories about Hank and all his funny antics. I kept wondering absent-mindedly when someone would feed him, then I would remember. Through it all, he mostly lay there with his mouth open, his breathing labored. You can’t give food or water to a dying person, as it only does more harm. The only “relief” you can give them is wetting their lips every so often, using little moisteners from the drawer next to the bed. As I sat beside him, using this little tool to give a tiny gift of water to his dry lips, I heard it again: “My mouth is dried out like a pot-sherd; my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; and you have laid me in the dust of the grave.” On Saturday, we took his hand, said our goodbyes, and my brother and I headed back toward Nashville. It was strange to drive away, knowing that I’d seen my grandpa for the last time. We tried to talk and laugh as much as we could during the trip, but long and uninterrupted silences kept getting in the way. Death is such a bothersome thing—not like a fly in the kitchen or an untied shoelace, but a bother that’s hard to get at, hard to work out. Why is it that no matter the passion we bring to the table, we all end up splayed out on a sterilized bed, helpless and feeble? It is the great injustice of this universe, and there’s nothing we can do about it. I couldn’t quite put my finger on how I felt or what I needed to say. We got back to my house late on Saturday night and made it to church the next morning to wave our palm fronds and whatnot. I admit, this year the cry of Hosanna felt more like a funeral dirge than a triumphal announcement. Things just felt a little out of place for most of the day. Then, on Monday, as I sat in my office studying, it came full circle. I saw my grandfather’s life spread across years and miles. I saw the hurt and frustration of a failed marriage, a retirement lost, the abandonment that he faced from so many, the abandonment he measured out toward others. I saw him lying there in that bed, unable to speak, unable to think coherently, unable to make amends. Then the words of David became his words, my words, our words: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” I’ve spent more than my fair share of time and research on these words, but it’s a different thing altogether when you can no longer analyze them because they’ve begun to well up deep inside of you. For better or worse, the feeling of abandonment, fear of isolation, and utter injustice of this planet is part of what it means to be alive. In all likelihood we will each of us feel it rise from within at one time or another. This is the point of Scripture—it’s the description of human experience, handed down to us from our forebears. There really is nothing new under the sun. The fear, the confusion, the hurt has all been felt before, and these sacred words testify to that truth. But it’s more than that. In these very old words, we also hear the story of the One who is truly man and truly God, walking among us, feeling our joy, taking on our abandonment and despair as his own. The Word through whom all things were made humbles Himself and allows the very human and broken words of mortals to become the cry of his own infinite heart. And that changes everything. See, it means that no matter how abandoned, how hurt, or how utterly god-forsaken we may feel, it’s okay. To cry out with David, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” is no act of unfaithfulness, because Jesus cries out with us from the agony of the Cross. He has touched the deepest and darkest parts of humanity, and that is Good News indeed. And even if we can’t see the light when we cry out in despair, that’s okay too. Sometimes our forsakenness is so deep that it can only follow us from the hospital bed to the grave, where it must wait in the silence and darkness of the tomb. But Jesus has been there, too. Amen.

In the middle of my ballet class last week I was struck with a sudden memory that almost made me topple out of a pirouette. (At least, that’s what I’d prefer to attribute it to, and not to mere laziness over finding my center before attempting said pirouette.) For whatever reason, my brain chose that inopportune moment to summon a recollection that was nearly twenty years old. I was nineteen (I said nearly twenty years, mind you) and I was attending the teachers’ intensive put on by Ballet Magnificat in Jackson, Mississippi. (Y’all do know about Ballet Magnificat, right?) For three weeks I had been taking master classes from some of the best teachers in the country and scribbling frantic notes on lectures ranging from anatomy to choreography to grant writing. (Okay, I confess, I kind of checked out during the grant writing session.) Every day I got to attend morning chapel with a roomful of dancers who were head over heels in love with Jesus Christ, and every night I fell into bed wholesomely exhausted from an impossibly rigorous schedule. It was an amazing time that left a permanent mark on me, and I loved every minute of it. Almost. You see, there was one item on the schedule that made me a little uneasy. Creative Worship. I heard alumni talking about it in reverential tones almost from my very arrival on the Belhaven Campus. It sounded interesting, so long as it didn’t turn out to be a bunch of people dancing around extemporaneously all at the same time. That just seemed a tad—I don’t know, unrefined—to my meticulous little sensibilities. I worried, and gathered clues from my fellow dancers (I seemed to be the only one that was squeamish about it) and, long story short, that’s exactly what it proved to be. On one of the final nights of the intensive the whole company was to gather in the gym, prepared to worship God with all of our strength, as creatively as we knew how. We had had classes in improv—nothing about Ballet Mag is desultory. But making things up in front of a room of one’s peers just seemed like a whole different ballgame than—a bunch of people dancing around extemporaneously all at the same time. I talked to my teacher about it (you may remember her—she is amazing), sitting in the car one night after a long day of classes. She heard me out, listened patiently to my litany of very religious reasons why I was uncomfortable with the idea. Then she pursed her lips and drew her breath in that way she had that always alerted me she was about to say something important. You know, one of those things I would remember all my life, or something. “Lanier, when my sister was little—probably about four years old—she saw all of us giving presents to our dad for Father’s Day. She didn’t have a gift, so she went through the house and picked out pretty things she thought he would like, and wrapped them up and gave them to him. It never entered her mind that those wouldn’t be considered ‘real’ gifts.” My teacher looked me right in the eyes with that piercing blue gaze of hers. “And do you think that her presents were any less precious to my dad than the ones we bought at the store and wrapped up with beautiful ribbons?” I swallowed in the darkness and admitted that I supposed they were at least as precious. If not more. That father knew the heart of his little girl, and he cherished the offerings of her heart, no matter how humble. (Or, in this case, repurposed.) I appreciated the vignette and the prayers she whispered over me in the half-light of the car, and I thought about her words a lot over the days that followed. She had so much wisdom—it had chiseled away at my assumptions plenty of times before this—but I still felt uneasy. It wasn’t my self-consciousness that was on the table, I insisted, so much as my principles. And my principles had just never considered doing anything quite this weird. I went to the Creative Worship session. I found a girl who was almost as uncomfortable as I was and we sat down on the floor together. Someone opened with prayer and someone else turned on the music—a gentle, rippling stream of melody that I can still hear the ghost of to this day. And then, nearly as a body, the company rose and began moving around the room in an elliptical of orderly individuality. A censer was lit and gently passed from hand to hand amid the revolving throng, and the aroma filled the gym with a spice-laden haze. I remember one dancer in particular, a girl from New York I had met at the airport and one of the most gifted ballerinas I have ever seen: every movement was poetry and the look on her face was nothing short of beatific. She danced like there was not another soul in the room—or in all the world—but Jesus. At length my friend got up and joined the quiet circle of worship. I know you’re thinking that the moral to this story is that I did, too—that I conquered my self-consciousness (or was at least too self-conscious to sit there all by myself!) and smashed my silly ‘principles’ to smithereens in the act. With all my soul, I wish I could say that was what I did. I think it would have been an experience of genuine abandonment to God, which can only and ever be a good thing. To my shame, however, I sat there, watching, longing for I scarce knew what. And that was the memory that assailed me the other day as I was cringing at my reflection in the mirror in ballet class, hoping everyone else was too occupied with their own pirouettes to notice how badly mine had just turned out. It all came back in a rush, and I felt my cheeks grow warm, twenty years after the fact. If I could go back, I would yank my nineteen-year-old self off of her derrière and shove her out on the floor with the others. (Lovingly, of course, but, heavens, that girl could use a bit of roughing up. She thought she knew everything.) I think it’s sad that I missed such an opportunity of corporate worship, simply because I had learned to mask my fear with a set of cozy convictions. I have so much respect for the souls who are able to worship God with all of their might—wielding pens, pointe shoes, paintbrushes, cellos, what-have-you—without being restrained in the least by what others think. God knows it’s difficult—almost super-human, you might say. But it’s the joy of our souls, and the fuel to more formal pursuits in His name. I know that Jesus is tender towards that nineteen-year-old me with all her answers and insecurities. He doesn’t despise my weakness the way I do. Twenty years from now I will doubtless have plenty of other missed opportunities to chafe at. But today, burning from an old shame yet standing in grace, I offer myself anew, re-purposing these gifts (that are not my own anyway) to my Father’s good pleasure. Because, in the end, isn’t it all Creative Worship?

Welcome to week one of our discussion of Leif Enger’s So Brave, Young, and Handsome! We’re so very glad that you’re here. Please speak up, share your thoughts, and pose additional questions to the group. Your voice matters. For the over-achievers in the class who’ve read ahead, let’s agree to keep conversation within the boundaries of the reading schedule—i.e., no spoilers in the comments! Thanks in advance for waiting on the rest of us. Discussion Part One: “A Thousand a Day” In the opening pages, the narrator gives an orientation of his writing career and family, and we’re given glimpses of his longings and fears. Out of the mist rows a mysterious vagabond, whose presence sets the action of the story into motion. When Redstart, the narrator’s son, is talking with his parents and insisting that the stranger would indeed be joining them for dinner, he explains, He told me his name. He didn’t want to say it, but I tricked him and out it came. You know what happens, once you get a person’s name. . . Why, then you have power over him. —p.9 1. What do you think he means? What other stories come to mind? 2. Do you think it’s significant that we learn the narrator’s name only after this conversation takes place? What other passages refer to the importance of name? 3. What themes do you see being introduced? A line only gets grace when it curves, you know. –p.19 4. What images/stories does this bring to mind? 5. What does this tell us about Glendon? What insight do we get from Becket’s response? Let the discussion begin, and don’t be shy with questions of your own. Bonus questions: The novel is set in 1915. What was the state of the country at that time? The state of the world? The state of American literature in which Monty is a sudden hit? Discussion Introduction Week 1: “A Thousand a Day” Week 2: “The Old Desperate” Week 3: “Jack Waits” Week 4: “The 101” Week 5: “The Fiery Siringo” Week 6: “The Rarotongans”

[Stephen Lamb (no stranger in these parts) recently had an essay featured on the Art House America blog and it’s too good not to share. Is it a record review? Yes, sort of, but it’s also a lot more. The opening paragraphs are posted below; click over to Art House America and read the entire piece. It’s great.] The day I turned thirty, I met some friends for drinks and celebratory cigars at a smoke shop across the street from one of my favorite restaurants, an Asian bistro where the sushi bar offers a roll that uses raw filet mignon instead of rice to hold everything together. After a couple of beers, and halfway through my cigar, I responded to the question someone had posed, asking what I wanted from the future. For one, I said, I hoped I’d be married before another decade had passed. “I’m not looking for someone to take away my loneliness. I know another person won’t do that. It’s just that sometimes I think I’m ready for a different kind of lonely.” * * * I listened to Leonard the Lonely Astronaut seven times in a row the first day I heard it. A concept album from Andrew Osenga, it tells the story of a man named Leonard, set in the year 2365. While in the process of finalizing his divorce, his wife and child are killed in a car accident. Crippled by grief, Leonard decides to volunteer to pilot a transport shuttle to a distant planet. The trip will take a year—six months there, six months back—but due to the laws of relativity and such, everyone he knows will be dead by the time he returns to earth. “I’ll make some new friends / maybe with their grandkids,” Andrew (Leonard) sings, ready for a new start, hopeful things will turn out differently this time. I loaned Andy my old 60s Rogers drumset for the project and helped him build the spaceship in which to record it (yes, you read that right), so he sent me a copy of the record as soon as he had the final mixes. A couple days after my first listen, still hitting repeat over and over, I read Terry Tempest William’s new book, When Women Were Birds: 54 Variations on Voice, in two sittings. A beautiful book, equal parts reflection on her own relationships and meditations on the ways women find their voice in a world that often says their voice is unimportant, she has this to say about her marriage: “I have never been as lonely as I have been in my marriage. I have also never been more seen or more protected.” That night, I e-mailed the quote to Andy (one of the friends who had been around the table when I’d answered that question), saying I didn’t think I could come up with a better short summary of Leonard, no matter how hard I tried. Click here to read the entire post at Art House America.

[This is a short piece I wrote for Story Warren that may resonate with Rabbit Roomers as well. –S.D. Smith] “Wonder is involuntary praise.” Edward Young said that and I’m glad he did. What are we doing to facilitate wonder in our families? C.S. Lewis said we need an enchantment to set us free from the bondage of worldliness. How are we working for our children’s liberty? If it is only in books and art and literature, then we are only making them more interesting slaves. As Lewis says, the true thing comes through the books, or the art. The art is not the thing. Beauty will not save the world, really. I believe we fail our kids insofar as we perpetuate in their lives the mirage of Godless Delight. We fail them if we convince them, by the forms of our lives or by our words (or both), that the basic reality of the world excludes God. The sad reality is that this is an assumption that flavors much of the stories and art we receive and which shape our spiritual formation. I confess I sometimes live like this. I need not only wonder and gratitude, but to know the One to whom my wonder and gratitude are rightly directed. We talk a lot about imagination here and I stand by that, but it is holy imagination we are after. If our imagination isn’t doxological, it is diabolical. We are for the liberty of families. We are foster parents of wonder. We aim to be an ingredient in the spell cast to break the enchantment of worldliness. The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited. Do you think I am trying to weave a spell? Perhaps I am; but remember your fairy tales. Spells are used for breaking enchantments as well as for inducing them. And you and I have need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness which has been laid upon us for nearly a hundred years. Almost our whole education has been directed to silencing this shy, persistent, inner voice; almost all our modem philosophies have been devised to convince us that the good of man is to be found on this earth. C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory The wonders really are all around us, pointing us to God and his kingdom of light. But we live in a dark enchantment. How are you working for the liberty of your family? What machines are you building to frustrate the darkness? Let’s conspire in our construction. Let’s form an alliance. The hole in the enemy’s lines is made gloriously wide. Once more to the breach, dear friends, once more… —–   —–   —– Images by Boekell/Boekell.

Well, it’s time. High time. I’ve been hoarding a literary treasure for far too long. I did tell a few good souls about this gem of a writer at Hutchmoot, but really, the whole world needs to know and its time I sound the trumpet. Have you ever discovered an author who speaks the language of your inmost thoughts? A writer who answers the questions that were just beginning to ghost about your mind before you even knew what to call them? Have you, moreover, discovered such a writer who is also a poet, a priest at a Cambridge college, a masterful sonneteer, a folk musician, and, well, has an air definitely hobbit-like? Let me introduce you to the inimitable Malcolm Guite. I first encountered this lovely writer several years ago as a speaker at a C.S. Lewis conference, where he gave an intriguing talk on the spiritual value of poetry. I loved it, but several years passed and I forgot the encounter. When my Dad got me his just-published Faith, Hope, and Poetry last year for my birthday, my memory stirred and my curiosity was piqued. But when, in the first chapter, I encountered Guite’s central theme of defending “the imagination as a truth-bearing faculty,” I was captivated. I had just come off a course of study with Michael Ward (author of the marvelous Planet Narnia—another book you must read (reviews here and here), in which we explored the difference between analytical knowledge and the knowledge that comes through experience, through emotion, and most importantly to me, imagination. My studies affirmed everything important to me—the value of beauty, the power of story, the truth that comes through physical creation—and I was hungry to learn more. Guite’s book became my feast. In Faith, Hope, and Poetry, Guite explores, consideres, and concludes many things I have felt about knowing God through imagination, through poetry and story, but have struggled to articulate. In the opening chapter, he traces the history (a story that begins with the Enlightenment) of our modern dependence on reason, logic, observation, and analysis as the sole means of knowing what is true. He explores the false divide of imagination from reason, and challenges the modern skepticism toward imagination as a truth-bearing faculty, arguing that poetry, myth, and story are vital and powerful ways through which we know what is true. Sounds like the topic of many a conversation at Hutchmoot. The book offers a grand survey of poetry starting with The Dream of the Rood and ending with Seamus Heaney, in which Guite demonstrates how the faculty of imagination aids us in apprehending that which is real, but just beyond our sight. To quote him quoting Shakespeare: “This is the heart of the art: to create a shape that can be sounded, a network of vocables, a nameable name, in which to incarnate insight, so that the remote or uncatchable is caught in the net of sound and has ‘a local habitation and a name’ that can evoke it forever after.” (The Shakespeare line is from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.) Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings basically saved my faith, and poetry, story, and myth are the means through which I have always most poignantly encountered the world of faith. They are also the means by which I seek to communicate my faith, so for me (and I bet it might be for many of you) his book was a powerful affirmation of imagination as the spiritually potent thing I had always known it to be. But the book is just the beginning. Hungry for more, I logged onto Guite’s website and discovered that he is also a skilled and poignant poet. His sonnets are masterful, and he just finished a collection called Sounding the Seasons, a cycle of sonnets to mark the church year. His poetry has been a gracious presence during my devotions this year. On top of that, I discovered his podcasts, in particular, a series of talks he did on the Inklings that explained the common vision that drove their desire to “re-enchant the world.”  That website is a goldmine. So fellow rabbits, I present the good Mr. Guite. Dig in. He is a friend to all lovers of imagination. You should visit his website. Listen to his podcasts on the Inklings. And look at his books as soon as may be. You can thank me at Hutchmoot. The featured image of Malcolm Guite is used with the kind permission of Lancia Smith. Image copyright Lancia E. Smith, 2011, www.lanciaesmith.com.

Last night I saw it on Twitter: “Brennan Manning has died.” His death has been coming for quite some time now. I’ve been expecting it. However, I questioned the news initially, not having seen any legitimate source for the information (an obituary, a news article, his website, or his Facebook page). But this morning it was confirmed on his website. If his recent autobiography is correct, Brennan’s drinking killed him. Depending on how you view alcoholism, Brennan was either the victim of a terrible disease, or he was just a lush. In any case he made a long habit of lying (at least through omission) about his condition. That, by the way, is a symptom of the disease. He was a victim and a perpetrator, a liar and a sufferer, a vow breaker and a people pleaser. He was no plaster saint, no image on a holy card, no bearer of hagiography. Brennan Manning was a man who loved Jesus and, most importantly, was beloved of Jesus. He was a sinner but a forgiven one. He was a liar who spoke the truth. He was a broken vessel, a jar made of clay, who nonetheless bore the Good News of Jesus Christ to millions—myself included. Brennan Manning taught me the Gospel. If I have ever shared the love of Jesus with you, you can be sure that Brennan was partly to blame. If I have ever pointed anyone to kindness, forgiveness, or hope, you can be sure that Brennan’s words helped to form my message. Though I only met him twice, he was one of my most important mentors in the faith. Now he joins most of those mentors in glory. I commend to your reading the treasures Brennan left to us. Abba’s Child and Ruthless Trust are my favorites, but The Ragamuffin Gospel was his best-known work. If you read him, please remember that the Holy Spirit is working through him in spite of all his personal failings. Thank God, because that’s how He works in all of us.

When Jarrett J. Krosoczka was a kid, he didn’t play sports, but he loved art. He paints the funny and touching story of a little boy who pursued a simple passion: to draw and write stories. Watch the video. It’s well worth your time.

[She will be miffed at me for saying this, but it would not surprise me at all to find that, in twenty or thirty years time, my singular claim to fame was being friends with Rebecca Reynolds. She is one of the finest writers I have ever read, combining profound intelligence with wizardly worsdmithery, and besides that she’s a real swell gal. The “Letters” series she has been sharing at Story Warren has been priceless, connecting deeply to so many readers. This one, “On Creativity”, seems especially appropriate for The Rabbit Room crowd. —S.D. “Sam” Smith] There was a bad storm rolling, so we piled in the basement to wait it out. As far as I can remember, I was five, which means it was probably the spring of 1977. Your grandparents have always been fond of simple, self-driven entertainment. They respected me enough to believe I could find something worthwhile to do in an hour alone, so they handed me a pencil and seven pieces of pink paper. The pages were ripped from a carbon copy stack, fronts scribbled with charts and numbers, backs blank with potential. Mom showed me how to fold them in half and staple the middle to make a binding. I sat on the cool concrete floor and began to mark out chubby new sentences. “Once there was a wolf. He did not eat girls. He ate wolf food.” It was the first time I had ever written a story. I remember distinctly because my life is divided in two by that day. March lightning crashed somewhere distant while a sharp thrill ran through my arms and up into my brain. Stories could be made, and I had the power to guide them. It should have been a given, I suppose. There’s a certain ontology about the thing, like a watch found on the beach. Yet I remember how strange it was to me in the beginning, because stories didn’t seem like made things. They seemed like things that had always existed. Baby brothers grew in the swollen belly of my mother, and this was completely logical. I had seen puppies born, and I knew human infants were also barfing, pooping creatures who squawled for milk and chewed their own paws. Progeny was a comic reduction, that was how the thing worked. We giggled and condescended over our creations, for the most precious reflections that we could stir together emerged weak, helpless, and dribbling out mashed peas. Stories, on the other hand, were perfect. Stories seemed better than we were, not lesser. I wouldn’t have been more shocked if someone had handed me a magic wand. For in fact, a magic wand had been handed to me. Typing this to you now, electricity still runs up and down my arms. I have never recovered from the invitation. Watch, here. Watch how it works! I might write any word next that I like – any word at all. If I am careful, I can make you remember how your sheets feel cool at the bottom of your bed in the morning or how the ocean wind runs like a woman’s hand through your hair. I can bond us or divide us. I can tend to you, or I can wound you. I can help you see things I have seen. I can show you a dark night on foreign waters, then speak into it, “Let there be light,” for the Maker made me a sort of maker, too. There is a reverence to it, Child. I felt it from the first moment I saw how the thing worked. A story emerges from the womb of a soul, screaming and sucking in the air of our world, exhaling the air of another. All my life your grandmother kept a quote taped on our refrigerator. It was a wrinkled bit of paper, clipped from a magazine, hidden between recipes for oatcakes and newspaper pictures. “Give me twenty-six lead soldiers, and I will conquer the world.” I always knew it was a commission. And will you, Child? Will you conquer the world? How will you do it? I have spent sixteen years watching you all grow into such fine, strong things. I listened when you asked Jesus to dwell in your hearts. I have seen you make wise, hard choices and learn from failures. You have gifts beyond what I could have bestowed upon you. You take up simple things: paper, pencils, clay, wood, string, cans, leather, insects, instruments, and found bits with industry in your eyes and fire in your minds. Beholding you, I have worshiped God with an awe stronger than that which ran through me when I was five, sitting on the cold concrete floor, watching letters make words, watching words make sentences, watching sentences make a book. Here a new story is coming to life. The image of the Creator of creators is alive in you. The Grand Artist danced glory through the firmament. He established rhythms of science and beauty; then He bestowed upon you also some small bit of His ability to separate land from sea, light from darkness, to organize gardens and medicines, and to grow up food for a world that hungers. He waits each morning like a master artist preparing for a pupil, distributing planting and cultivating, offering an eternal communion. For you were made imago Dei. You are a vessel formed for filling. Sometimes you feel the vacancy of working your lone self, don’t you? It is like an itch or an ache, like a drawing that needs to be put to paper, like a story unwritten, like a mathematical equation unfigured, like an experiment untested. The stuff of man thirsts for the indwelling Creator, thirsts for those rivers of sweet water that never run dry. It is such a tender kindness that He offers us a sort of co-creation with Him. Good works were prepared for us from the beginning, good works we cannot do alone. These creations are to be wrought through our particular temperament and training in the power of holy company. Because the gift is powerful, there is a sobriety to it, as well. Men and women have set off boldly to make things for Jesus, and they have done damage instead. In fact, I have made this mistake myself too often. I will caution you then a little. Mind the Bible. Mind the wisdom of good elders. Mind the temptation to do for God instead of in God. Run to Him unguarded for alignment, willing to hear whatever He says to you. Walk filled with Him, for you are filled with Him. Then go as He leads. Go with all your heart. Makings and cultivatings of a thousand sorts are waiting. There are sick to tend. Meals to stir together. Songs to sing. Bridges to build. Accounts to balance. Hungry to feed. Feet to wash. Deaths to die. Souls to woo. Books to be written. There are Sabbath rests to take, and fields to walk, and silent prayers to pray that seem to accomplish nothing at all, but accomplish everything instead. Yield. Yield. Yield to Jesus in you. The Creator flows in You, alive and rushing. Drink Him up, swim, and be baptized, and baptize in Him, Child. Yield to the One who made you to remake. Walking with Him, you will form because you were formed, and nothing else will do for it. There is birthing yet to be done. I can feel it in you. And if God wills, when I am a grey old woman, I will gather around my red-headed grandtales, and the freckle-cheeked grandtamings, and the shy grandsongs, and the grandgardens of your hand. I will kiss them all and laugh a deep old laugh. Because this is the story of us, the story the Maker making through us. It is full as one that has always been written.

[Editor’s note: We’re really excited about having Jeffrey Overstreet as one of our guest speakers at Hutchmoot 2013. Jeffrey has long been one of my favorite film critics and his book Through a Screen Darkly is a must read for anyone who loves movies—expect to see it on the Hutchmoot reading list. Jeffrey’s blog, Looking Closer (hosted at Patheos.com), is always insightful and the following post is a perfect example of why I enjoy it so much. He was kind enough to allow us to repost it here on the Rabbit Room. Click here to view the original post at Looking Closer.] This article on “Christian fantasy” by novelist Lars Walker confesses something that may surprise his readers: I don’t read much fantasy, and I read almost no Christian fantasy. I’ve been burned too many times. You buy a book, hoping to experience over again the joys great fantasy can provide (for me, the Mines of Moria, the Ride of the Rohirrim, and the resurrection of Aslan provided the greatest moments of joy I’ve ever experienced in literature), and what do you get? Wannabees. Wannabee Tolkiens, wannabee Lewises, wannabee (christened) George R. R. Martins. While I might have named different storytelling moments—scenes from Watership Down, The Tale of Despereaux, Winter’s Tale, along with some from The Fellowship of the Ring—I found myself nodding in agreement. But then I came upon this surprising paragraph: Who’s writing good Christian fantasy today? . . . Walter Wangerin Jr. wrote one of the best fantasies of any kind I’ve ever read, The Book of the Dun Cow, an amazing animal story that I promise will break your heart and put it together again. Stephen Lawhead is an excellent writer who has never (in my opinion) soared to the heights he’s capable of. Jeffrey Overstreet may be the best. Wow. I’m honored and grateful and inspired to get back to work on my new novel. I’m grateful that Walker appreciates these books so much. Walker’s a formidable storyteller himself. His novel Wolf Time is on my nightstand right now. (I tend to read a dozen books at a time, little by little, over many months, and this is the only fantasy novel currently in the mix.) So, to be highlighted by him is a huge encouragement, and it sends me toward a weekend of writing with new enthusiasm and confidence. However—friends, family, and those who have been reading my blog for a while probably know what I’m about to say—for the sake of preventing misunderstanding, I am duty-bound to offer a contrary opinion. I know, it feels kind of self-defeating to disagree when somebody says something complimentary about my work, especially when that somebody is more experienced and more accomplished. But here I go anyway . . . I don’t write “Christian fantasy.” I write fantasy. While I do have some Christian readers, I don’t write stories for a Christian audience, nor are my stories designed to deliver “Christian messages.” There is no reason for my novels to be segregated from other novels, to be branded as part of some sub-genre. I want my stories to be held to the standards of great fantasy writing. They may fail by that standard—only time, and greater imaginations than mine, will determine that. But “make-believe” is the game I’m playing, the tradition I’m following, the goal I’m seeking to achieve. I wouldn’t know how to write “Christian fantasy” if I tried. I don’t know what it is. I don’t see labels for “Hindu fantasy” or “Buddhist fantasy” or “vegetarian fantasy” or “atheist fantasy” in the bookstores, and there’s a good reason for that. Art is about exploring possibilities, not fashioning messages or proselytizing. When artists start trying to “make points” or “deliver messages,” their art suffers and becomes something else. Much of what I’m saying has been expressed here many times before, primarily in the foundational vision of my blog: “Mystery and Message,” by Michael Demkowicz. If you haven’t read it, check it out. It says a great deal in a few words. You’re probably familiar with author Katherine Paterson. She wrote Bridge to Terabithia and Jacob Have I Loved. In a Books and Culture interview, she once said: Novelists write out of their deepest selves. Whatever is there in them comes out willy-nilly, and it is not a conscious act on their part. If I were to consciously say, ‘This book shall now be a Christian book,’ then the act would become conscious and not out of myself. It would either be a very peculiar thing to do—like saying, ‘I shall now be humble’—or it would be simple propaganda… Propaganda occurs when a writer is directly trying to persuade, and in that sense, propaganda is not bad.. . . But persuasion is not story, and when you try to make a story out of persuasion then you’ve done something wrong to the story. You’ve violated the essence of what a story is. Is this place a work of “Christian bricklaying”? I don’t have the stature of Paterson. I am not one of the great fantasy writers of the world. But that’s not something I worry about. When artists concern themselves with their own greatness, they’re in trouble. I want to focus the energy and time I’m given differently. I want to discover stories that are unfamiliar, that wrestle with questions that are new and challenging for me. I’m focused on developing characters I find interesting, so I can follow them. And I trust that if I pay attention and work hard, they will lead me to all kinds of truth, all kinds of beauty. My grandfather didn’t build “Christian houses”—he built spacious, sturdy, wonderful houses worth exploring. In a way, I’m doing my own work inspired by him. My stories are not “Christian stories” any more than my coffee is “Christian coffee,” and my favorite hill climbs of the Pacific Northwest are not “Christian hiking trails.” I don’t want my companions on the journey to think that we’re engaged in some kind of illustrated sermon. We’re on an adventure. “Ah,” you might say, “but you are a Christian. Your beliefs will affect your story. So your stories will reflect truth differently than secular stories do.” My answer to that—“No, not necessarily.” In my life of reading, moviegoing, listening to music, and studying visual art, I have encountered truth, beauty, and mystery as much in the work of non-Christians as I have in the work of Christians. I’d even go so far as to say that the truth and beauty I have found in the work of unbelievers has strengthened my faith even more than what I’ve found in “Christian art.” And that’s to be expected. I believe that we are all made in the image of God, and that eternity is written in our hearts . . . in all of our hearts. Thus, when anybody achieves any kind of beauty or truth in their work, that goodness is from God, whether the artist likes it or not. I want to write stories for the whole world, stories that enchant readers with their beauty, provoke readers with their questions, haunt readers with their mysteries. I want to write stories that inspire readers to investigate important questions, rather than illustrating arguments in hopes that they’ll agree with me. If my work is categorized as “Christian fantasy,” all kinds of trouble and misunderstanding begins. People begin to assume—wrongly—that they should be looking for religious symbolism and and allegories that I seek to avoid. They write reviews on Amazon that severely misinterpret the stories. (Many of the reviews of The Auralia Thread there, even the positive ones, make me cringe because readers have read them with only one set of lenses—lenses you use when you think that your job is to discern a religious allegory. As a result, they’ve missed out on much of what I believe these stories are about, and they ignore all kinds of details and characters and subplots that are essential to the story.) Novels by Marilynne Robinson, Leif Enger, Katherine Paterson, Wendell Berry, Madeleine L’Engle, J.K. Rowling, Walter Wangerin Jr., Tim Powers, Gene Wolfe, and J.R.R. Tolkien are shelved in Literature or Fantasy. I’m not saying my work is as accomplished as books by those great writers—Christians, all of them—but if Auralia’s Colors, Cyndere’s Midnight, Raven’s Ladder, and The Ale Boy’s Feast are branded as “Christian fiction,” they’ll remain set apart from the books that inspired them, taken away from the audience for whom I wrote them. Even if my stories pale by comparison, they were written in the same genre as books by George R. R. Martin, Neil Gaiman, Mervyn Peake, and Patricia McKillip (writers whose stories are, by the way, filled with echoes of Christ’s teachings . . . whether they intended that or not). If you were a winemaker, and you found your bottles shelved with diet soda, or vice versa, you’d be bothered, wouldn’t you? If you made a sports car, and found it advertised as a family SUV, you would suspect—correctly—that its real purpose would never be discovered or acknowledged. Further, it would greatly confuse shoppers who were looking for a family SUV. If truth and beauty and mystery—those things that make us wonder about God and salvation and the meaning of life—are what make a book “Christian,” than I’d argue that most of the best “Christian books” were not written by Christians, and you can find them all over the bookstore, not just in the “Religion” section. Finding Nemo, WALL-E, and John Carter were all stories written by the same filmmaker—who happens to be a Christian—and all three were full of ideas and themes that Christians will celebrate. But they were not “Christian movies.” Here’s a passage of Walker’s article that made me cheer: How do you produce good fantasy (I won’t say great fantasy; that’s beyond my expertise)? First of all, remember this truth—e-books make it possible to publish your own book. That does not earn you the right to expect anyone else to read it. Writing is a craft, like shoemaking. I don’t care how sincerely the guy who made my shoes loves shoes. The main thing I want from him is expertise, the practiced knowledge of how to put together a shoe that fits, won’t give me blisters, and lasts a while. Your sincerity may please God, but He also says, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men” (Colossians 3:23, NIV). It’s possible you may be a prodigy, a literary Mozart capable of amazing the world right out of the gate. But probably not. Amen to that! That’s why I buy the best shoes I can buy. And I have never, ever, ever shopped for “Christian shoes.” That is why you should check out Lars Walker’s fantasy novels. They are heavy, challenging fantasy stories that fans of the Inklings—and beyond—will find rewarding. So again, sure, it’s encouraging that someone familiar with “Christian fantasy”—whatever that is—would say that he likes my work. Especially an accomplished writer like Lars Walker. But to be honest, I’m hoping that somebody somewhere will someday read them the way they read any other fairy tales or fantasy novels, find something that troubles or intrigues or haunts them, and tell their friends, “I just read the strangest fantasy series.” To deliver that—instead of something called “great Christian fiction” (as nice as that might sound)—would feel like a mission accomplished.

[Editor’s note: Leif Enger’s So Brave, Young, and Handsome is such an incredibly readable book (chapters are rarely more than 3 or 4 pages) that we thought it would be a great idea to read through it as a community in the months before Hutchmoot. I’ve asked a good friend, Julie Silander, to set things up and lead the discussion and I look forward to the conversations to come. You can click here to read my original review of the book, but whether you think it sounds like your kind of story or not, I challenge you to give it a shot; you won’t be sorry. The discussion won’t start for a couple of weeks so you’ve still got time to pick it up from your local library (or support the Rabbit Room by picking it up from the Rabbit Room store). Please welcome Julie to the Rabbit Room and give her a big welcome.] Discussion Introduction Week 1: “A Thousand a Day” Week 2: “The Old Desperate” Week 3: “Jack Waits” Week 4: “The 101” Week 5: “The Fiery Siringo” Week 6: “The Rarotongans” You are cordially invited to join the Rabbit Room community as we read So Brave, Young, and Handsome by Leif Enger. For those who will be attending Hutchmoot in October, this is an opportunity to become more familiar with Enger’s work. If you won’t be making the trip to Nashville, the reading group offers a great way to participate from afar. It’s an invitation to experience truth and beauty not only through story, but also through each other as we read and discuss. The book is divided into easily digestible parts and beginning on April 22nd, we’ll cover one of those parts each week. A few questions will be posted in order to prompt conversation, but we’ll all share in the heavy lifting as we work through the book. Consider it a virtual mini-moot that extends for weeks. The Rabbit Room is a relatively new discovery for me. Two years ago, I learned of open spots for Hutchmoot only after the waiting list had been exhausted. I had three days to arrange travel and get my ducks in a row. Although familiar with a few names, when I arrived I had no real connection to anyone other than my roommate. There wasn’t time to pour over the schedule. There wasn’t time to think through and consider which seminars I wanted to attend. There wasn’t time to do the suggested reading. But for three days in Nashville, my soul was well fed. I returned home with a grateful heart and a yearning for more. In an effort to catch up on missed reading, a small group of us committed to trekking through Dorothy Sayers’ Mind of the Maker together. It’s a dense book, the kind that evokes good intentions—intentions that wane in direct proportion to the number of esoteric references by the author. I had never been a part of a reading group and didn’t know what to expect. We started our time together as casual acquaintances, at best. Diverse in age, geography, and literary experience, this new community seemed to have little in common. Yet through the following weeks, strangers became friends. Folks posed questions, made observations, and shared personal experiences. As a result, we all worked harder and our reading was much richer than it would have been alone. And as an unanticipated byproduct, we received the greater gift of getting to know one another. Please consider joining us as we read Leif Enger’s So Brave, Young, and Handsome. The schedule is as follows: Week of 4/22 A Thousand a Day Week of 4/29 The Old Desperate Week of 5/6 Jack Waits Week of 5/13 The Hundred and One Week of 5/20 The Fiery Siringo Week of 5/27 The Rarotongans “In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets.” C. S. Lewis

Tradecraft: noun ˈtrād-ˌkraft – skill acquired through experience in a trade; often used to discuss skill in espionage. One long standing hope since the Rabbit Room’s inception was that this online community would become a place where we look over one another’s shoulders at what we’re reading, thinking about, listening to, and learning. In an effort to focus in on learning how to grow in art, life, and faith, I present this new Rabbit Room series: Tradecraft. These posts will look behind the curtain into the mechanics of how things work in the world of thinking, composing, engaging, and creating. I hope the content of this series will reach well beyond the arts themselves and into every facet of life. Today’s tradecraft deals with critical thinking—specifically, reasoning and logical fallacies, helpfully and humorously presented by the folks at yourlogicalfallacyis.com. I found them through one of my favorite websites in the world—twentytwowords.com—which linked to a much more interesting high res PDF of the image and content I’ve included below. The poster says a logical fallacy is: “a flaw in reasoning. Strong arguments are void of logical fallacies, whilst arguments that are weak tend to use logical fallacies to appear stronger than they are. They’re like tricks or illusions of thought, and they’re often very sneakily used by politicians, the media, and others to fool people. Don’t be fooled! This poster has been designed to help you identify and call out dodgy logic wherever it may raise its ugly, incoherent head.” If you’re anything like me, you’ll probably find yourself guilty of more than a few of these. Here they are—24 logical fallacies. 1. Strawman Misrepresenting someone’s argument to make it easier to attack. By exaggerating, misrepresenting, or just completely fabricating someone’s argument, it’s much easier to present your own position as being reasonable, but this kind of dishonesty serves to undermine rational debate. After Will said that we should put more money into health and education, Warren responded by saying that he was surprised that Will hates our country so much that he wants to leave it defenseless by cutting military spending. 2. Slippery Slope Asserting that if we allow A to happen, then Z will consequently happen too, therefore A should not happen. The problem with this reasoning is that it avoids engaging with the issue at hand, and instead shifts attention to baseless extreme hypotheticals. The merits of the original argument are then tainted by unsubstantiated conjecture. Colin Closet asserts that if we allow same-sex couples to marry, then the next thing we know we’ll be allowing people to marry their parents, their cars and even monkeys. 3. Special Pleading Moving the goalposts or making up exceptions when a claim is shown to be false. Humans are funny creatures and have a foolish aversion to being wrong. Rather than appreciate the benefits of being able to change one’s mind through better understanding, many will invent ways to cling to old beliefs. Edward Johns claimed to be psychic, but when his ‘abilities’ were tested under proper scientific conditions, they magically disappeared. Edward explained this saying that one had to have faith in his abilities for them to work. 4. The Gambler’s Fallacy Believing that ‘runs’ occur to statistically independent phenomena such as roulette wheel spins. This commonly believed fallacy can be said to have helped create a city in the desert of Nevada USA. Though the overall odds of a ‘big run’ happening may be low, each spin of the wheel is itself entirely independent from the last. Red had come up six times in a row on the roulette wheel, so Greg knew that it was close to certain that black would be next up. Suffering an economic form of natural selection with this thinking, he soon lost all of his savings. 5. Black or White Where two alternative states are presented as the only possibilities, when in fact more possibilities exist. Also known as the false dilemma, this insidious tactic has the appearance of forming a logical argument, but under closer scrutiny it becomes evident that there are more possibilities than the either/or choice that is presented. Whilst rallying support for his plan to fundamentally undermine citizens’ rights, the Supreme Leader told the people they were either on his side, or on the side of the enemy. 6. False Cause Presuming that a real or perceived relationship between things means that one is the cause of the other. Many people confuse correlation (things happening together or in sequence) for causation (that one thing actually causes the other to happen). Sometimes correlation is coincidental, or it may be attributable to a common cause. Pointing to a fancy chart, Roger shows how temperatures have been rising over the past few centuries, whilst at the same time the numbers of pirates have been decreasing; thus pirates cool the world and global warming is a hoax. 7. Ad Hominem Attacking your opponent’s character or personal traits in an attempt to undermine their argument. Ad hominem attacks can take the form of overtly attacking somebody, or casting doubt on their character. The result of an ad hominem attack can be to undermine someone without actually engaging with the substance of their argument. After Sally presents an eloquent and compelling case for a more equitable taxation system, Sam asks the audience whether we should believe anything from a woman who isn’t married, was once arrested, and smells a bit weird. 8. Loaded Question Asking a question that has an assumption built into it so that it can’t be answered without appearing guilty. Loaded question fallacies are particularly effective at derailing rational debates because of their inflammatory nature – the recipient of the loaded question is compelled to defend themselves and may appear flustered or on the back foot. Grace and Helen were both romantically interested in Brad. One day, with Brad sitting within earshot, Grace asked in an inquisitive tone whether Helen was having any problems with a fungal infection. 9. Bandwagon Appealing to popularity or the fact that many people do something as an attempted form of validation. The flaw in this argument is that the popularity of an idea has absolutely no bearing on its validity. If it did, then the Earth would have made itself flat for most of history to accommodate this popular belief. Shamus pointed a drunken finger at Sean and asked him to explain how so many people could believe in leprechauns if they’re only a silly old superstition. Sean, however, had had a few too many Guinness himself and fell off his chair. 10. Begging the Question A circular argument in which the conclusion is included in the premise. This logically incoherent argument often arises in situations where people have an assumption that is very ingrained, and therefore taken in their minds as a given. Circular reasoning is bad mostly because it’s not very good. The word of Zorbo the Great is flawless and perfect. We know this because it says so in The Great and Infallible Book of Zorbo’s Best and Most Truest Things that are Definitely True and Should Not Ever Be Questioned. 11. Appeal to Authority Saying that because an authority thinks something, it must therefore be true. It’s important to note that this fallacy should not be used to dismiss the claims of experts, or scientific consensus. Appeals to authority are not valid arguments, but nor is it reasonable to disregard the claims of experts who have a demonstrated depth of knowledge unless one has a similar level of understanding. Not able to defend his position that evolution ‘isn’t true’ Bob says that he knows a scientist who also questions evolution (and presumably isn’t herself a primate). 12. Appeal to Nature Making the argument that because something is ‘natural’ it is therefore valid, justified, inevitable, good, or ideal. Many ‘natural’ things are also considered ‘good’, and this can bias our thinking; but naturalness itself doesn’t make something good or bad. For instance murder could be seen as very natural, but that doesn’t mean it’s justifiable. The medicine man rolled into town on his bandwagon offering various natural remedies, such as very special plain water. He said that it was only natural that people should be wary of ‘artificial’ medicines like antibiotics. 13. Composition / Division Assuming that what’s true about one part of something has to be applied to all, or other, parts of it. Often when something is true for the part it does also apply to the whole, but because this isn’t always the case it can’t be presumed to be true. We must show evidence for why a consistency will exist. Daniel was a precocious child and had a liking for logic. He reasoned that atoms are invisible, and that he was made of atoms and therefore invisible too. Unfortunately, despite his thinky skills, he lost the game of hide and go seek. 14. Anecdotal Using personal experience or an isolated example instead of a valid argument, especially to dismiss statistics. It’s often much easier for people to believe someone’s testimony as opposed to understanding variation across a continuum. Scientific and statistical measures are almost always more accurate than individual perceptions and experiences. Jason said that that was all cool and everything, but his grandfather smoked, like, 30 cigarettes a day and lived until 97 – so don’t believe everything you read about meta analyses of sound studies showing proven causal relationships. 15. Appeal to Emotion Manipulating an emotional response in place of a valid or compelling argument. Appeals to emotion include appeals to fear, envy, hatred, pity, guilt, and more. Though a valid, and reasoned, argument may sometimes have an emotional aspect, one must be careful that emotion doesn’t obscure or replace reason. Luke didn’t want to eat his sheep’s brains with chopped liver and brussels sprouts, but his father told him to think about the poor, starving children in a third world country who weren’t fortunate enough to have any food at all. 16. Tu Quoque Avoiding having to engage with criticism by turning it back on the accuser – answering criticism with criticism. Literally translating as ‘you too’ this fallacy is commonly employed as an effective red herring because it takes the heat off the accused having to defend themselves and shifts the focus back onto the accuser themselves. Nicole identified that Hannah had committed a logical fallacy, but instead of addressing the substance of her claim, Hannah accused Nicole of committing a fallacy earlier on in the conversation. 17. Burden of Proof Saying that the burden of proof lies not with the person making the claim, but with someone else to disprove. The burden of proof lies with someone who is making a claim, and is not upon anyone else to disprove. The inability, or disinclination, to disprove a claim does not make it valid (however we must always go by the best available evidence). Bertrand declares that a teapot is, at this very moment, in orbit around the Sun between the Earth and Mars, and that because no one can prove him wrong his claim is therefore a valid one. 18. No True Scotsman Making what could be called an appeal to purity as a way to dismiss relevant criticisms or flaws of an argument. This fallacy is often employed as a measure of last resort when a point has been lost. Seeing that a criticism is valid, yet not wanting to admit it, new criteria are invoked to dissociate oneself or one’s argument. Angus declares that Scotsmen do not put sugar on their porridge, to which Lachlan points out that he is a Scotsman and puts sugar on his porridge. Furious, like a true Scot, Angus yells that no true Scotsman sugars his porridge. 19. The Texas Sharpshooter Cherry-picking data clusters to suit an argument, or finding a pattern to fit a presumption. This ‘false cause’ fallacy is coined after a marksman shooting at barns and then painting a bull’s-eye target around the spot where the most bullet holes appear. Clusters naturally appear by chance, and don’t necessarily indicate causation. The makers of Sugarette Candy Drinks point to research showing that of the five countries where Sugarette drinks sell the most units, three of them are in the top ten healthiest countries on Earth, therefore Sugarette drinks are healthy. 20. The Fallacy Fallacy Presuming a claim to be necessarily wrong because a fallacy has been committed. It is entirely possibly to make a claim that is false yet argue with logical coherency for that claim, just as is possible to make a claim that is true and justify it with various fallacies and poor arguments. Recognizing that Amanda had committed a fallacy in arguing that we should eat healthy food because a nutritionist said it was popular, Alyse said we should therefore eat bacon double cheeseburgers every day. 21. Personal Credulity Saying that because one finds something difficult to understand, it’s therefore not true. Subjects such as biological evolution via the process of natural selection require a good amount of understanding before one is able to properly grasp them; this fallacy is usually used in place of that understanding. Kirk drew a picture of a fish and a human and with effusive disdain asked Richard if he really thought we were stupid enough to believe that a fish somehow turned into a human through just, like, random things happening over time. 22. Ambiguity Using double meanings or ambiguities of language to mislead or misrepresent the truth. Politicians are often guilty of using ambiguity to mislead and will later point to how they were technically not outright lying if they come under scrutiny.
It’s a particularly tricky and premeditated fallacy to commit. When the judge asked the defendant why he hadn’t paid his parking fines, he said that he shouldn’t have to pay them because the sign said ‘Fine for parking here’ and so he naturally presumed that it would be fine to park there. 23. Genetic Judging something good or bad on the basis of where it comes from, or from whom it comes. To appeal to prejudices surrounding something’s origin is another red herring fallacy. This fallacy has the same function as an ad hominem, but applies instead to perceptions surrounding something’s source or context. Accused on the 6 o’clock news of corruption and taking bribes, the senator said that we should all be very wary of the things we hear in the media, because we all know how very unreliable the media can be. 24. Middle Ground Saying that a compromise, or middle point, between two extremes must be the truth. Much of the time the truth does indeed lie between two extreme points, but this can bias our thinking: sometimes a thing is simply untrue and a compromise of it is also untrue. Half way between truth and a lie, is still a lie. Holly said that vaccinations caused autism in children, but her scientifically well-read friend Caleb said that this claim had been debunked and proven false. Their friend Alice offered a compromise that vaccinations cause some autism. Of course we could go on all day about how other people abuse these (I’m looking at you, Texas Sharpshooter, with your political charts all over Facebook, and you, Bandwagon, when you tell me I don’t care about something if I don’t repost your “Appeal to Emotion” info-graphic) but wouldn’t it be more fun to turn to focus on ourselves? Which are your favorite, most worn logical fallacies? What draws you to them? Which of these had you never considered before? Why does it matter that we would care about the integrity of an argument? Let’s hear your thoughts? —Tradecraft, Pt. 1 ___________________ Follow Russ on Twitter

On a recent afternoon, I had the chance to break bread with several friends here in Nashville. (Actually, we broke chicken tenders.) The conversation was lively, but it was the lingering moments outside, after nearly everyone had left, that stirred me most. Russ Ramsey asked me what I was writing lately, and instead of answering the question, I updated him on the latest freelance assignments I’d been given. He politely listened to my answer and then asked me again, “What have you been writing lately?” I told him about the essays and ideas I’d been planning to write as soon as I cleared my slate. Simply put, I gave him an embarrassingly short progress report. After lunch, I went back to the Rabbit Room office and sat down with Pete Peterson to discuss some future ventures for the site. The conversation turned again to my own writing and the exact same thing happened, another gentle nudge reminding me to dig for what is meaningful. Twice in the same day, I’d had someone push me to move beyond immediate tasks for the sake of something meaningful. Sometimes it’s a hectic schedule that keeps me from plowing the ground I truly want to cultivate. Other times, the fear of failure is to blame. Perhaps both are at work. I don’t know. What I do know is that I often desire to dig more than I actually do. That fear is what Steven Pressfield describes in The War of Art when he writes: Are you paralyzed with fear? That’s a good sign. Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do. Remember one rule of thumb: the more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.” At a recent Sara Watkins show I was reminded of one of my favorite tunes. Her latest solo album, Sun Midnight Sun, came out in 2012 and it closes with the song “Take Up Your Spade.” The song (posted below with video and lyrics) is a beautiful, simple reminder to be obedient to the day before you and nothing more. Since hearing this song again and taking part in these conversations, I can say with some level of confidence that it’s less about inspiration and overcoming fear, and more about simple obedience. It’s the daily dig, so to speak, that eventually gives way to the garden. I’m making progress and I hope I will have something real to report the next time someone asks. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLpBPiGt248] “Take Up Your Spade” by Sara Watkins Sun is up, a new day is before you Sun is up, wake your sleepy soul Sun is up, hold on to what is yours Take up your spade and break ground Shake off your shoes, Leave yesterday behind you Shake off your shoes, But forget not where you’ve been Shake off your shoes, Forgive and be forgiven Take up your spade and break ground Give thanks, for all that you’ve been given Give thanks, for who you can become Give thanks, for each moment and every crumb Take up your spade and break ground Break ground, break ground, break ground #SaraWatkins

Randall Goodgame has a new Slugs and Bugs record in the works and it’s going in a whole new direction. We sat down with him to hear what he had to say, and before we knew what was happening, Buddy Greene walked in the door and kicked up a hootenanny.

On April Fools’ Day my grandmother and her sisters packed their lunch pails like any other school day. Their mother walked them to the dirt road and kissed them goodbye, but instead of turning left to walk toward school, the girls turned right toward the train tracks. They walked up the tracks a piece until they got to a little marshy pond, a favorite spot of theirs. They lay beside the pond in their school dresses and watched the clouds drift by and giggled at the thought of their classmates sitting at their desks that bright spring morning. They pulled out their lunches and ate them. It was only nine in the morning, but they felt like eating, and it was April Fools’ Day, and who was going to stop them? They caught some bugs and picked some wildflowers and got mud on their dresses, and then decided to catch the last half of the school day. So they walked back down the train tracks and up the dirt road toward the school. When they passed the house, their mother waved at them from the porch. When they got to school the teacher said, “Where have you girls been?” “At the marshy pond,” they said, “beside the railroad tracks.” “And why were you at the marshy pond?” the teacher asked. “It’s April Fools’ Day.” The teacher made the girls stay in from recess for a couple of weeks–a punishment they willingly accepted. From what I understand, this happened more than once. Apparently it was sort of a Dowdy family tradition, to act the fool on April Fools’ Day, and to receive the punishment for that foolishness without complaint or rancor. I love that picture of my great-grandmother waving to the little truants as they pass back by. Having given them room to try out a little harmless foolishness, she waves them on toward its logical outcome, not intervening on either end, but rather letting her daughters experience the truth that wisdom and foolishness are a matter of choice, and that choices have consequences.

[The following is an excerpt from N. T. Wright’s Surprised By Hope.] “…Many churches now hold Easter vigils, as the Orthodox church has always done, but in many cases they are…too tame by half. Easter is about the wild delight of God’s creative power…we ought to shout Alleluias instead of murmuring them; we should light every candle in the building instead of only some; we should give every man, woman, child, cat, dog, and mouse in the place a candle to hold; we should have a real bonfire; and we should splash water about as we renew our baptismal vows. Every step back from that is a step toward an ethereal or esoteric Easter experience, and the thing about Easter is that it is neither ethereal nor esoteric. It’s about the real Jesus coming out of the real tomb and getting God’s real new creation under way. But my biggest problem starts on Easter Monday. I regard it as absurd and unjustifiable that we should spend forty days keeping Lent, pondering what it means, preaching about self-denial, being at least a little gloomy, and then bringing it all to a peak with Holy Week, which in turn climaxes in Maundy Thursday and Good Friday…and then, after a rather odd Holy Saturday, we have a single day of celebration. …Easter week itself ought not to be the time when all the clergy sigh with relief and go on holiday. It ought to be an eight-day festival, with champagne served after morning prayer or even before, with lots of alleluias and extra hymns and spectacular anthems. Is it any wonder people find it hard to believe in the resurrection of Jesus if we don’t throw our hats in the air? Is it any wonder we find it hard to live the resurrection if we don’t do it exuberantly in our liturgies? Is it any wonder the world doesn’t take much notice if Easter is celebrated as simply the one-day happy ending tacked on to forty days of fasting and gloom? …we should be taking steps to celebrate Easter in creative new ways: in art, literature, children’s games, poetry, music, dance, festivals, bells, special concerts, anything that comes to mind. This is our greatest festival. Take Christmas away, and in biblical terms you lose two chapters at the front of Matthew and Luke, nothing else. Take Easter away, and you don’t have a New Testament; you don’t have a Christianity; as Paul says, you are still in your sins… …if Lent is a time to give things up, Easter ought to be a time to take things up. Champagne for breakfast again—well, of course. Christian holiness was never meant to be merely negative…. The forty days of the Easter season, until the ascension, ought to be a time to balance out Lent by taking something up, some new task or venture, something wholesome and fruitful and outgoing and self-giving. You may be able to do it only for six weeks, just as you may be able to go without beer or tobacco only for the six weeks of Lent. But if you really make a start on it, it might give you a sniff of new possibilities, new hopes, new ventures you never dreamed of. It might bring something of Easter into your innermost life. It might help you wake up in a whole new way. And that’s what Easter is all about.” [And just because it’s awesome, here’s Rev. Wright to sing you a song. Happy Easter. Now get off the internet and go celebrate!] N.T. Wright Sings Bob Dylan from Thomas McKenzie on Vimeo.

[This post by James Witmer is one of my favorites. It really captures what we mean at Story Warren by saying we want to be “Allies in Imagination.” I think it will ring true to the rabbits over here in this excellent room. –S.D. “Sam” Smith] What is imagination good for? And why do we need imaginative stories? The real world is full of beauty. Normal lives are full of drama. And beneath it all is Truth; bright, hard, sharp as the point of a spear. So why make stuff up? Why read (or play at) things that aren’t real? Because a healthy imagination is necessary for love. Jesus said, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you…Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. (Matt 7 & Luke 6) The sum of the Law and the Prophets! And it requires putting yourself in place of someone you have never been, imagining how you would want to be treated. If you think this is easy, you have: 1. never been married 2. not worked with many people 3. perhaps not yet been born It’s not just the sacrifice of love that’s hard. It is getting far enough outside ourselves to remember that other people experience the world differently, and have needs, desires, and insecurities apart from ours. The less imagination we have, the less we are able to empathize with those in need. And the less we empathize, the more likely we are to miss the deeper issues. (Issues in the old sense, that of waters which seep up from subterranean deposits, poisoning clear streams with the alkalines of rejection or fear.) If we cannot imagine, we are likely to see others’ sin as alien (and worse!) than ours. To say, “There, but for the grace of God, go I” depends on a vibrant imagination. It needs the ability to see similarities between ourselves and the fallen, and to understand by imagination what our sinful natures would do without divine mercy. Without imagination, this saying becomes the prayer of a Pharisee: “God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.” I have heard imaginative work rejected because it “has nothing to do with my life.” In other words, including swords, dwarfs, and orcs makes a story irrelevant because they are outside our personal experiences. But this is a false distinction, as C.S. Lewis shows in An Experiment In Criticism: The most unliterary reader of all sticks to ‘the news’. He reads daily, with unwearied relish, how, in some place he has never seen, under circumstances which never become quite clear, someone he doesn’t know has married, rescued, robbed, raped or murdered someone else he doesn’t know. But this makes no essential difference between him and…those who read… fiction. He wants to read about the same sorts of events as they. The difference is that, like Shakespeare’s Mopsa, he wants to ‘be sure they are true’. This is because… he can hardly think of invention as a legitimate, or even a possible, activity. Rejecting imaginative stories (and play) atrophies the “muscles” we need to love each other, by refusing to see the world from a different perspective. It encourages the assumption that our perspective, our way of life, is most important. Only after surrendering to a story, walking in someone else’s shoes, can we recognize their triumphs, struggles and sins as fundamentally human, and therefore akin to ours. But if approached with humility, this discovery of kinship can uniquely encourage and convict us. Remember that Jesus taught with stories. By compelling us to identify with his characters, He provided a relational knowledge of God that transcends facts. We teach that God is merciful. Jesus told a story about a Master who paid slackers a full day’s wage (Matthew 20:1-13). If we enter His story with our imaginations, we find ourselves responding emotionally, and are challenged by finding with whom in the story we most identify. The object of faith is not what we should learn, but who we should become. Answering it takes imagination. And imaginations should be exercised.