I go to the movies for a lot of reasons. I love adventure (John Carter, The Hobbit, The Avengers). I love watching another person’s imagination work its way out in light and color (Life of Pi). I love the way that movies use sprawling images and wild tales to wrestle with intimate, personal questions (Tree of Life), and eternal mysteries—even if they don’t necessarily succeed (Prometheus). But if I had to narrow my love of movies (or stories in general) down to a single defining factor, I think I could make a good case for “moral complexity worked out to an honest end.” What the heck does that mean, Pete? Let me explain—no, there is too much. Let me sum up. The Man-With-No-Name in Drive is so driven to protect what he loves that he becomes a monster, destroying himself, and therefore separating himself from the object of his love and protection. Drive takes a single compelling idea and works it out to its conclusion. Happy ending? Not really. But it delivers an ending that feels true. It doesn’t sacrifice its integrity. Warrior works on a similar level. It’s about two brothers, both of whom we want to see win the title, but one of whom we know must lose. Warrior finds a way to resolve that complex problem with integrity. A story gets really interesting, you see, when a character is faced with having to do the wrong thing for the right reason or the right thing for the wrong reason, or even more to the point, when a character has to choose between more than one equally right (or wrong), but exclusionary, decisions. This is, of course, the definition of “drama.” And that brings me to two movies that I was looking forward to seeing this year: The Dark Knight Rises and Django Unchained. They each appealed to me on this level of “moral complexity,” and while both movies delivered what I’d hoped for in some fashion, they also let me down in pivotal ways. In the run up to the release of The Dark Knight Rises, I rewatched the first two movies, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, and coerced my wife into watching them with me (because she owed me for having watched Anne of Green Gables in its entirety—I even liked it). In Batman Begins, we discover Batman’s origins and meet Ra’s al Ghul, leader of the League of Shadows. Is he an evil man? That’s not immediately clear. Perhaps he is. Perhaps he isn’t. As an antagonist, he’s the sort that’s compelling precisely because he doesn’t think he’s evil. He sees himself as a savior, fighting corruption by destroying everything it touches, the innocent and the depraved alike. Ra’s al Ghul’s is a world of black and white; a society is either good and it deserves life, or it’s corrupt and it deserves death. There’s no room for grace in Ra’s al Ghul’s view; he’s the Javert of Gotham City, so to speak. Bruce Wayne on the other hand believes that people can change and he’s fighting to let them prove it. Fighting not with guns but with wits. Batman is the “world’s greatest detective.” Batman doesn’t kill. Instead he uses the weapon of the enemy: Fear. He turns his fear into his strength. Is that wise? Maybe. Maybe not. The story aims to explore the answer, though, and by the end of Batman Begins, an ominous escalation has begun. The good guys are wearing capes; the bad guys are becoming the Joker. In The Dark Knight the story becomes, not only more complex, but terrifying. The Joker is hate for hate’s sake. He’s evil that wants nothing more than to be fought. “Come on! Hit me!” says the Joker. “I want you to do it.” The Joker preys on our deepest instincts for justice and corrupts them. He doesn’t want to destroy Gotham like Ra’s al Ghul; he wants to blacken the souls within it so that its citizens will destroy themselves. And more than anything he wants to corrupt Gotham’s protector: Batman. He doesn’t want fame, or money, or to put forth an ideal. He wants corrupt and burn. He’s chaos incarnate. True anti-Christ. The only way to defeat an evil that wants to be fought, is to refuse to fight at all. I confidently put The Dark Knight in the same league as The Godfather and Apocalypse Now. Each of those films provides a fascinating exploration of the nature of evil and the ways in which we respond to it. They each force us to look at the state of the world and ask ourselves how it got this way and how we ought to go about setting it right again. So then arrives The Dark Knight Rises, and I was anxious to discover what conclusions the director, Christopher Nolan, might draw from all this exploration of evil and violence and escalation. In the new villain, Bane, we have Ra’s al Ghul and the Joker combined. He’s a man who believes he’s saving the world from corruption, and he does so by unleashing the base human emotions of envy and entitlement, sitting back to laugh as society tears itself apart. And what are his tools? The very tools used to stop Ra’s al Ghul and the Joker—Batman’s own personal arsenal. Bane takes what’s meant for good and turns it to evil. So what new method of war will Batman employ to defeat his own tools used against him? And where will it escalate from there? War without end. Amen? Up until this point, Nolan’s movies, despite their flaws, had done an admirable job of maintaining the integrity of their characters’ moral complexity. There were few easy decisions, everything had consequences, and the resolutions were generally as complex as the problems they solved. But it’s at this point that The Dark Knight Rises lets me down. The culmination of all this escalation of violence ultimately boils down to a fist fight. Batman, who couldn’t best Bane with brute force in Act 2, comes back in Act 3 to best him with the same brute force (even though he’s just recovered from a broken back). This is not a satisfying resolution because there’s been nothing to break the cycle of escalation and violence. Oh but wait, you say, Batman saves the city by making the “ultimate sacrifice,” thereby showing us that the the final solution is something higher. Well, I could buy that if Nolan had the insight to end it there, but he didn’t. The final scenes are of a continuing promise of escalation in which someone new finds Batman’s arsenal and takes on the protective mantle. So has anything changed? Has anything been learned? Has all of our exploration of evil come only to this? A fist fight, and Catwoman pulling the trigger that Batman wouldn’t? I cry foul. I still enjoy the movie and applaud it for what it does well, but I mourn the complexity it failed to maintain. This brings me to Quentin Tarantino. He’s one of my favorite directors. From Reservoir Dogs to Inglourious Basterds, his films have tickled my film-lovers fancy in complex and often troubling ways. Foremost and most simply, he speaks the language of cinema so fluently that even when he hasn’t got much to say, it’s a delight to hear him say it. But that’s also a frustrating thing. What does he have to say, if anything, and how long am I willing to listen? In some ways, Tarantino makes me feel like I’m a parent waiting for a talented child to grow up. With each successive film, I sit down in the theater hoping to discover that he’s arrived and set about the business of his masterwork. Pulp Fiction certainly established such a promise with its denouement of unlikely mercy proclaimed by the “tyranny of evil men.” There have been ups and downs since, but Inglourious Basterds, an incredible film, hinted again at those old promises with its bold ironies and its apparent indictment of violent entertainment. So enters Django Unchained. Django is a fantastic piece of cinema. The dialogue is sharp, the direction (and by extension the acting) is top-notch, the (camera) shots, edits, and music are all the stuff of film-geek heaven. What’s behind it all, though? Anything? A lot of people accuse Tarantino of indulging style over substance, and in that respect I’ve often been one of his defenders. With Django, Tarantino is interested in legend-building. One of the characters in the film recounts the Wagnerian tale of Seigfried and Brunhilde in which the “princess” Brunhilde is imprisoned in a ring of fire to await rescue by a hero who knows no fear. Django’s wife in the film is actually named Broomhilda, and her ring of fire is a barbaric plantation; the analogy is clear. That’s the kind of idea I can really appreciate, and on that level I enjoyed the film. In Django, Tarantino is giving us a legendary African-American hero that Spaghetti-Western cinema has never really had. That’s a great idea to build a story around, and it’s potentially a story well-worth the telling. I worry, however, that Tarantino has begun to repeat himself. Django indulges in the same vengeful fantasies we’ve seen in previous movies, but shows us very little of the accompanying moral complexity. The complexity isn’t gone completely, but it’s certainly not in the forefront as I’d argue it is in Inglourious Basterds. Vengeance is a real thing. We all feel the need for it. We all enjoy seeing justice carried out. We enjoy seeing a bad guy get his comeuppance. But however righteous vengeance may feel, vengeance is not a virtue, and human history is a testament to the damning circular logic of revenge. Attempting redemption through vengeance is a recipe for destruction, and while I certainly admit the enjoyment of the occasional revenge tale (The Crow, Kill Bill, The Princess Bride—mentioned all in the same sentence for the first time ever), it’s not only unsatisfying in the end, it’s dishonest. The answer to the “tyranny of evil men” must, in the end, be something better than the tyranny of vengeful men. If you want to draw me in and show me the pain, price, and nature of human evil, you are going to have to come up with a better resolution to the tale than a spirited fist fight (The Dark Knight Rises) or a gory and inconsequential shootout (Django). In Kill Bill The Bride got her revenge, but she suffered for it, was changed by it. In Inglourious Basterds the gang gets their moment of wrack and ruin, but they pay for it with their lives, dying in the theater alongside the Nazis they hated. But Django dances into the sunset, unscathed emotionally or physically, after killing dozens of people and even lowering himself to the level of a black slaver to do so. Make of Django a 19th century gunslinging Seigfried if you will (please do!), but leave him his complexity. Let us believe his journey has cost him something. Leave us hoping he’s come to the end of his story with a better idea of right and wrong than his antagonists had. That’s where Tarantino seems stuck. That’s where Nolan loses his battle. The final answer to evil and violence cannot really be more violence. I don’t need to see Batman and Django become pacifists, but I certainly don’t enjoy seeing them become the new tyranny, which is arguably where they both end up. I think it betrays, cheapens, and undermines the power of their stories and presents a destructive answer to a world that is full of questions and looking (rightly or wrongly) to society’s storytellers for wisdom. Imagine, if you will, the way we’d have felt had Frodo defeated Sauron in a duel? Would that have been a story for the ages? Would we still be singing Victor Hugo’s praises had Valjean and Javert squared off and traded blows on the banks of the Seine? I don’t think so. And that’s why I’m disappointed in Nolan and Tarantino. I still like their movies, but I had dreamed that they’d dig a little deeper and hit upon something true in the end. All this led to several solemn talks with my wife about gun control, war, pacifism, and the human instincts of defense and vengeance. We didn’t come to any clear answers, and that’s rightly the case. The world is a morass of complexity, and the stories we tell about violence, evil, and human nature should reflect that. We live in a grey mist of moral paradox that none of us can fully navigate, and anyone who offers easy answers is offering the revenge cycle of Django or Ra’s al Ghul. Anyone who claims there is no answer is enslaved to the Joker’s chaos. Somewhere in between is Bane, demanding what is merely fair rather than what is just, and everywhere we turn, what we mean for good is used for evil. When Bob Kane created Batman, the “world’s greatest detective,” he set out to tell fun stories that upheld decency, justice, and law. When The Dark Knight Rises premiered, his dream was corrupted by a madman in a theater with a gun. God tells us that what man has meant for evil, He has turned to good. He untangles the knots we make. He unravels the evil of the world and makes of it beauty, truth, justice, peace, and he does it in ways infinitely complex and beyond our limited understanding. It’s the lack of this mystery that leaves me unsatisfied when films like Django Unchained or The Dark Knight Rises insist that eye-for-an-eye comeuppance are enough. The paradox of our fallen world is that all of our good is turned against us, and yet we must not cease from the good work we do, because we have the assurance of one greater than the world, one who has overcome the world, one truly and eternally incorruptible. Our great hope is of the day when tangling at last shall cease, when of strands both old and new the world shall be remade—incorruptible, unfallen, eternal, yet no less complex—no longer spiraling and twisting in cycles of moral ambiguity and vengeance, but becoming more and more clearly its true shape and self. Until then, we wrestle our broken natures; we strive, like Batman, to be more than merely men, but less than new forms of evil. And like Batman, we often fail. We are tragically and inevitably tempted toward revenge. Do we dare reduce it to the simplicity of just deserts? If we aim to tell stories that are true, then our telling ought to reflect, not merely the false finality of vengeance, but the complex and eternal mystery of mercy.

Here’s a quick list of some good films/television shows I saw this year. (Asterisks signify availability on Netflix Instant View.) I just watched this for the third time. Yes, it’s that good. I paused it a few times when we watched it as a family—mainly to point out where I thought George dropped the ball with his marriage. (The film gives the impression that his marriage was already doomed and he would be better off abandoning it. Obviously that doesn’t jibe with what I want to teach my kids.) Other than that, it’s storytelling at its best: funny, heartbreaking, imaginative, entertaining, inspiring. Re-reading this, it’s a good time to point out that every one of these films probably has moments that might offend more sensitive viewers. Please don’t throw a brick through my virtual window. I’m a bit neurotic about recommendations like this because I’m a pastor’s kid who’s always assuming that something he says will get him into trouble. I’ll do my best to voice any caveats you should know about if you plan to watch these with your family. There. Disclaimer over. I exhaust myself, honestly. —————————————————————————————— I’m a big fan of Wes Anderson films (Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Life Aquatic, The Royal Tennenbaums, The Fantastic Mr. Fox), and if I had to give one reason is this: he’s a great storyteller who seems to care about the audience. His attention to detail is staggering, and it feels like he’s bending over backwards to delight us with his stories.  That said, most of his films have a moment or two that make me shake my fist and say, “Now why did you have to go and do THAT?” Moonrise Kingdom, in addition to having one of the most magical titles ever, is the perfect vehicle for Anderson’s prowess. But it has one scene that, frankly, ticked me off and, in my opinion, kept it from being the classic it might have been. Anyone who’s seen the film knows exactly what I’m talking about. —————————————————————————————— The BBC knows how to do television. There are two three-episode seasons of Sherlock so far, and each episode is about 90 minutes, which gives the story time to develop in ways most feature films only dream of. From a parental perspective, these are probably PG-13, though the first episode of season two, with the Irene Adler storyline, was racy enough that I fast-forwarded quite a bit of it. You wouldn’t be missing anything to just skip it altogether. I watched the last two episodes of season two with my teenagers and we loved them. The ending is ridiculously good. —————————————————————————————— This might be hard to believe, but Warrior might have been my favorite film of 2012. The first thing I should point out is that it’s about MMA (Mixed Martial Arts), but it isn’t at ALL about MMA. It’s about two brothers, their father, and the redemption of their relationship. The fighting is brutal, so if you’re squeamish you shouldn’t watch it. But I basically forced Jamie to watch it and, though she closed her eyes for a lot of the fighting, she told me the next day that she couldn’t stop thinking about it. The last scene made me blubber-cry all six times I watched it this year. The National did a few songs for the film, and from the moment the final song begins to the credits is—and I’m not exaggerating here—one of the most emotionally resonant things I’ve ever seen in a movie. The whole Moby Dick subtext is brilliant, and Nick Nolte’s performance deserved the Oscar nomination he got. I just finished reading Mere Christianity again this year, and I kept thinking about Warrior in the final chapters where Lewis talks about the lengths to which God will go to make us into who he wants us to be. —————————————————————————————— I can pretty much guarantee you’ve never seen a movie quite like this one. It’s half-documentary, half-drama, and tells the true story of something pretty crazy that happened in an East Texas town several years ago. It made me glad all over again that I grew up in the south, where it seems that anything can happen, and usually does. I think Flannery O’Connor would have liked this one. —————————————————————————————— My wife is a food nut. This is one of my favorite things about her. She’s determined to create a healthy eating culture in our home, and I’m confident that we’ll all be happier and live longer because of it. Films like this are really interesting whether or not you agree with their conclusions, but their evidence for vegetarianism here is pretty strong. There are all kinds of takes on the veggie story in Daniel 1, but it’s hard to argue with the idea that vegetables are good, and too much meat is bad. I don’t know that I’ll ever give up my dad’s famous ribeye steaks, but I’m done with pigging out on meat at every meal. —————————————————————————————— My brother recommended this BBC series to me. Once again, those Brits prove they know good stories. Detective Foyle is solving cases in England during WWII—so imagine all the intrigue of a good Father Brown or Sherlock Holmes story with the historical atmosphere of the German air raids. Throw in the occasional Nazi spy and you’ve got Foyle’s War. I haven’t finished it yet, but I watched quite a few of these with my sons and we had a blast. —————————————————————————————— I knew almost nothing of the Korean War before I watched this film. It’s a documentary about one of the most famous battles in any war, told by the Americans who fought it. Like Band of Brothers (which I loved), the best part of this documentary is the first-hand accounts by these beautiful, broken old men who survived something I can’t imagine. —————————————————————————————— This film should have been a gigantic success. Something went wrong (I’m reading a book called John Carter and the Gods of Hollywood which chronicles the making and subsequent bombing of what was actually a really good movie), and for some reason the studios declared it a flop before it even made it out of the gate. My brother described this to me as “The best Star Wars since Star Wars,” and I think he’s spot-on. It’s not perfect (neither was Star Wars), but it made me feel like I was ten again, and woke in me the most delightful longing at the end. Not only that, director Andrew Stanton tweeted Pete’s Rabbit Room post about it, which is cool. —————————————————————————————— I loved this book. I loved this movie. As Thomas McKenzie more or less said in his review, “No, the theology proposed isn’t orthodox, and no I don’t agree with it. Moving on.” It was one of the most beautiful looking films I’ve ever seen, and the story is so good that it’s worth your time. As a Christian, I enjoyed the way it made me think on God, and I can imagine that whoever sees it, regardless of their beliefs, will spend more time than usual considering his existence. With both the book and the movie, the story talks about God and Jesus in a way that isn’t belittling or cynical; it takes for granted that at least some kind of theism is normal and even laudable. That strikes me as surprising in this day and age. The next step, that of believing in Jesus, is another story, of course, but it’s good to start somewhere. Our family conversation on the way home from the cinema was wonderful. Here’s a link to a painting by my son Aedan after seeing the movie and reading the book. Some more that I liked this year, though I’m fresh out of writing energy: The Pirates!, Brave, The Birds, The Hobbit, The Avengers, Lincoln. Let the listing begin!

“I started listening to the wolves in the timber at night. I don’t know how they found me, I’ll never know quite how.” – musician, Josh Ritter “The shadow proves the sunshine.”– musician, Jon Foreman Whether one believes in origins as a matter of seven simultaneous 24-hour days carved out of emptiness, as the result of billions of years of settling and seething, as a lone voice speaking the entirety of everything simultaneously into existence, or as mere ornamental accident, the artist’s act of creating—the effort to birth something new, previously unknown or unseen into the world—is inherently the creation story retold in its most primitive, though fallible, form. Any artist worth any grain of salt must, even on their worst, most godless day, admit that the act in which they engage themselves is an effort to replicate origins. The artist fully engaged in his or work knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that nothing he creates did not already previously exist. Worse still, neither the shadow nor the doubt will ever leave him in peace. Though not present at the original unveiling of time, the artist yearns jealously to participate, to have a hand in emulating beginnings. Though plagued by cavernous insecurity and grave doubt, the artist is, ironically, a hopeful soul by nature. He seeks to eradicate the dark by introducing light, struggling to fight off the bloodthirsty wolves, and contending however feebly to muzzle the odious butcher voices. The artist is a figure in storm, rapt and straining to hear melody amid chaos, not at all aloof or immune to projectile shrapnel, very much aware of and susceptible to the pain. If lucky, in the end the artist is able to walk away, but never without a limp. Even luckier is the soul with friends and an audience who listens, affirms and joins in harmony. I am a dabbler and a sparer. I paint canvases. I spare and repurpose dilapidated wood. I collect old books. And, the way I see it, I dabble in the art of lawn mowing. None of these acts involve the writing of words, and, for me, that is entirely the point. Creating is my way of fending off the sadness. When painting a canvas, I am wringing the throat of darkness, forcing its movement, coloring the vacuum of shadows, answering the aching, dull melancholy with color of my own. When working with castoff slabs of old, dingy wood, I am repurposing an atom of origins, and lending it an atom of myself. By reclaiming lost, unwanted, unnoticed debris, and wiping away the grime of plaguing memories, chipping away tormenting layers of paint, I am reintroducing the refashioned work into the living fold. When mowing a lawn, I am laboring over something unkempt, perhaps hideous, and wrestling it—toiling, even—to make it pretty again, albeit temporarily so. By revering the meek, undistinguished objects and scenes of earth, the artist seeks to recapture a grain of the original garden; that place where the soul first felt its worth. The artist sings a song over his subjects’ unrequited lives of possibility, their lifeless carcasses, and, necessarily, dies a little bit himself. Not all death is to be avoided. The artist wants. In wanting, he must fight a good fight. Under these terms, fighting “good” is not to be confused with fighting fair. I must push back against the darkness, if necessary using darkness itself as a weapon. In proclaiming origin, the artist humbles himself before the blank space and the medium, and asks of them, “What do you wish to be?” By such expression, the engaged artist wittingly or unwittingly pleads, Your will be done, not mine. In submission, I am shredding the darkness, and flinging it back at itself. We are, after all, replicators seeking to help the near-blind see their own origin of color. In engaging his heart and hands the artist stares through the well of life into the implacable sadness and yanks out the light from the dark depths. In the original garden abounded radiant light, bounty, and beauty, and in his heart the artist continues clinging to, and fighting for, his own shimmering origin. And he hopes that light is enough.

Hello, rabbits. Here’s a short list of a few books I read and liked this year, very few of which were published in 2012. They’re not in any particular order, and a few may have actually been read at the end of 2011. Here goes. I stumbled on this one at Goodwill and picked it up because I had the creepy feeling the title was describing me. I had, after all, just spent thirty minutes with my head cocked to the right so I could read every single spine of a hundred yards of used books. I’m a sucker for a good detective story—if it’s based on actual events, then even better. One of my hobbies on the road is visiting used book stores, so learning about not only the world of rare book collecting but the world of rare book thievery was fascinating. I’ve read every book by Larson—first Devil in the White City, then Thunderstruck, then In the Garden of Beasts. He’s a great writer, and has carved a niche by unearthing relatively obscure bits of history and humanizing them as deftly as he researches them. His books are usually about two things: Devil in the White City isn’t just about the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, it’s also about a serial killer who was in the middle of it; Thunderstruck isn’t just about a famous English murder, it’s about the invention of the radio; and Isaac’s Storm isn’t just about the tragic Galveston flood of 1900, it’s about the beginnings of meteorology and the anatomy of hurricanes. Anyone who’s interested in American history and is awed by the power of storms will love this book. It is no secret that Flannery O’Connor is one of the great American writers. I have read and appreciated many of her stories without going bonkers over them. I find that O’Connor only appeals to me when I’m in a certain mood, and I’m seldom in that mood. But Jonathan’s book changed that for me. I found that after reading The Terrible Speed of Mercy her stories feel deeper, more human, less eccentric—no longer do they feel like they’re written by the fierce, intellectual lioness of Georgia who doesn’t much care what I think, but by a weak, lovely and lonely girl who sees her writing as a way to wake the world to the glory of God. This isn’t the greatest book ever, but it’s one of the most interesting. Lindskoog died a few years ago, having gone perhaps a little crazy trying to get the world to believe her theories on corruption in the C.S. Lewis estate. I finished the book feeling like Lindskoog was truly out of touch with reality on some points and yet raised some excellent questions about others. If even 10% of what she proposes is true, then I’d love some straight answers from the C.S. Lewis camp. It would make for an amazing documentary film. Merton lived and wrote at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky, which is where I spent the weekend in 2002 that led me to a song called “The Silence of God.” The Seven Storey Mountain is probably his most famous work, and I’m sad to say I’ve never read it or anything else by him until now. I found a first edition of Jonas at a bookstore on the road (I forget where) and started it one afternoon when I was feeling particularly sinful. It was just what I needed: the journal entries of a man in love with the mystery of God, who is discontent with his own sin and yet gives thanks for his suffering as the Lord’s loving discipline. Giving thanks for my own suffering is a virtue I hope to practice in the coming year. There’s so much to learn from Merton, and I’m excited that this is only the tip of the iceberg. Sometimes you don’t feel like reading a book written by a Trappist monk. Sometimes you read a book just for fun. If a tale about a Houdini-esque magician on the run from FBI agents who think he killed the president isn’t fun, I don’t know what is. I think this is Gold’s first book, and I think they’re making it into a film. I’m not the kind of guy who thinks every great book would make a great movie (Narnia is a case in point), but I kept thinking while I read this that it would make for a great ride in the theater. A few of the songs on Light for the Lost Boy were influenced by this book—“Day by Day” is probably the most obvious, and I had the honor of singing it for NTW himself at a Rabbit Room event earlier this year. Chapter after chapter I found myself thinking, “I hope this is true,” and because Wright uses so much scripture I then found myself thinking, “It is true.” I’ve read a few theologians’ critiques of this book, but even the harshest admit that there’s much to be learned from it. Every October I get out my collection of spooky stories, and Russell Kirk is at the top of the list (thanks to Jason Gray). I’ve read most of Ancestral Shadows, his collection of ghostly tales, but this was the first time I read Old House of Fear. If you’re ever in the mood for foggy moors, old castles, dashing heroes, ancient mysteries, and shipwrecks, then this is the book for you. And if you haven’t read Ancestral Shadows, it’s great. Search for Jason Gray’s excellent review of it. Cartoonist Jonny Jimison was at Hutchmoot this year, and we talked a bit about Doug TenNapel. I had heard a lot about him (and knew of his creation, “Earthworm Jim”) but hadn’t read any of his graphic novels yet. Then at a local bookstore I was arrested by the cover of a book called Cardboard. I thumbed through it and loved what I saw: big, bold lines, cartoony but artful and bursting with energy—at times the panels felt like the best Bill Watterson drawings. I was sold before I ever realized it was a Doug TenNapel book. And it’s so good! I pushed it on my kids immediately. Then I went on a TenNapel binge and read Ghostopolis, Bad Island, and Monster Zoo. I grew up reading comics and graphic novels, but I’ve never read stories quite like his. He’s unabashed about being a Christian, and yet is well-respected in the comic world. That’s saying something. (His newer books are kid-appropriate, but Creature Tech, for the record, isn’t. I’m working my way through the back catalogue.) There’s my short, off-the-top-of-my-head list. If I think of more I’ll tack them on. What about you guys?

The spice of it caught their notice first. As they entered the chapel for the Christmas Eve service, they lifted their noses to scent the air like a pack of curious hounds. The dim place was fragrant with the sharp green tang of holly and fresh air and the undertone of something sweet. Old and young, dean and student, the freshness spurred them to a sprightlier step toward their accustomed pews. Instantly, they spotted the gifts. A chorus of tiny gasps fluttered through the chapel as the people filed in, for perched atop each hymnal was a tiny trinket with a paper folded neatly beside. Neglecting even to sit or straighten their coats, they pulled off their gloves and reached for the treasures. A tin car, a teacup, a rusted brooch, they cradled the trinkets in their hands and glanced at their neighbors, eyebrows arched in curiosity and amusement. That’s when the laughter began, a polite twitter that sounded like a flock of small birds chirping in the seats. When they opened their notes to find angels laughing, dancing, or waving at them from the paper in their hands, the smiles burned in the dim shadows. A little boy, clutching a tin soldier, pointed from the paper to the ceiling with immediate recognition. “Look mum, it’s the angels in the rafters,” and his stage whisper reached every ear within six pews and turned every face skyward on the instant. Then the thrum of whispers grew like a gathering storm, and laughter rumbled up and down the pews and giggles flocked up like sparrows. When everyone stood for the first hymn, there was a good deal of jabbing of elbows and pointing of merry fingers and arching of amused eyebrows. The people leaned a little closer to each other, glad to savor an unexpected delight together on so festive a day. But Eric was the last to notice. He had, in fact, walked his solemn way down the aisle and taken his seat before he realized that something was up. There were chuckles, deep, throaty, smothered laughter coming directly from the pew where the oldest professor and his primmest of all prim wives always sat. Eric craned his neck and caught a distinct glimpse of a pile of buttons on top of the old man’s hymnal, and a silver spoon on his wife’s. Old Mrs. Monroe, next to them, cradled a tin car in her hands and was grinning from ear to ear. But before he could sufficiently absorb the shock of these foreign objects in his chapel, he became aware of a sea-like rustling amidst the choirboys. Their heads bobbed up and down like waves and their robes swished against the smooth wooden pews. They were distinctly sticky; Eric could see it now. Every single boy had a full mouth and most were surreptitiously licking their fingers. “What in heaven’s name is going on?” he whispered to the choir director, a few seats in front of him. His shock was immense when the sophisticated young man turned to him with a mouth as full as the boy’s and whispered back “chocolate drops on every boy’s books, and ridiculous trinkets on each seat. The dean got a teaspoon! Great fun indeed. Ellie’s idea?” And he turned back just in time to prod the choirboys to their feet for the first hymn. In helpless bewilderment, Eric sank back into his seat and gazed about him. Every person in the chapel seemed to be smiling or nudging their neighbor as they lifted their voices. Even Ellie was beaming, for she caught his curious glance on the instant, and waved the rose she was holding at him across the aisle. He dropped his eyes, crimson with embarrassment, and finally spotted his own gift. No trinket for him, just a fat missive waiting on top of his hymnal, his name scrawled across it in big, red letters. Slumped in his seat, with head bowed in mock meditation, he unfolded the paper. His eyes widened and his hands shook. For an angel stared back at him, an angel unmistakably drawn from those hovering in the shadows far above his head. And the angel was winking. With an ear-to-ear smile and wings waving up and down (this was illustrated by an immense number of fluttery lines) the angel stared straight at Eric in an endless, comradely wink. For one instant that blazed like the noonday sun and filled Eric top to toe with warmth, he felt a bright shot of hope. Perhaps it was all true. How could anyone else know of the wonder he used to glimpse? But Eric dropped the paper and shivered. The sight bewildered him. And then it angered him. Someone had discovered his secret thoughts and set this before him as a cruel joke. He was humiliated to be found out in his childish fancy and need. Of course, none of it was true. He crumpled the paper in both his hands and glanced around at his congregants. Who, he wondered was at the bottom of this foolishness? Who had scattered cheap toys through his chapel and made a mockery of the angels? Who was it that had mentioned angels? He sat suddenly straighter as he remembered his encounter with old Father Jonas that morning. Crazy old priest. Of course it was him. Eric pulled his robes straight and peered into the shadows for a glimpse of the old man. He was not to be spotted, but the minute the service was over, Eric planned to search him out and give him a lecture that he would not forget, however bad his memory was. Winking angels indeed. *** Father Jonas looked distinctly like a small, fierce star as he bid each visitor to his chapel a happy Christmas Eve. He twinkled, he hopped, he laughed, he spun. It had worked. In his marrow, in the very beat of his heart, he knew their scheme had worked. Swathed in shadows by the door, he had spied upon the people as they found their gifts. He saw full rows of eyes turned merrily toward the angels, he heard the murmurs and the laughter, and he saw the lightening that came to darkened eyes. It took every ounce of discipline he possessed to stand and sparkle by the door until the last person had gone. Only then, when it was safe, dared he patter up the stairs to the loft to celebrate with the angel’s boy. “Bren,” he hissed when he reached the loft, “Bren! Come out lad, it’s safe. We did it!” When no movement met his voice, he entered the first rows of pews. “Bren!” he said it aloud now, “come out!” But his words were greeted with a silence that set the hairs on the back of his neck in a sudden prickle. A low little moan came from the far corner. “Jonas?” Bren peeked out from his cubbyhole at the foot of an old pew and tried to stand. But he wobbled like a toddler and the old man rushed forward to catch him just in time. “I don’t feel well,” Bren whispered when Jonas had him settled on the stones, back against the pew. It took only a touch of his hand on the little boy’s face for Jonas to realize that Bren was in a fever. “I felt a little dizzy earlier, but I got so cold sitting here during the service, and the lights look blurry now and I can’t stop shaking.” The words melted Jonas’ heart within him and made his knees feel like water. Somewhere in the dim past, amidst the blackest thoughts that had fallen from him was another child’s cry, another burning face, and with the memory a sense of grief so great he could still taste its sour tang on his lips. In one instant, it wiped out the joy from his mind. There was no time to think, to wait, or hide and all he knew was fear for the angel’s child. With the swift insight of terror, he knew that he was powerless to help in this matter and. He must reveal Bren to at least one person. But he knew just the one. Trembling, he forced himself to his feet and dragged Bren up too. Fear lent a taut, wiry strength to his muscles that carried the both of them down the stairs and out of the great door into the freezing air. Bren bent nearly double at the slap of the cold upon his skin, but Jonas wrapped his old arms tightly about the boy and hurried him on. Down silent cloisters under a blackened sky, in an eerie silence with damp and dust all about them, they limped until they came to a tiny house tucked into the far corner of a shadowy courtyard. Jonas rapped upon the door with three hard strokes. It was opened by a woman with a quiet face. A low, flickering light seeped into the darkness from behind her and danced over Jonas’ face and Bren’s bent head as she looked down upon them from its midst. “He needs help, the boy needs help, please,” Jonas pled, “he’s quite ill and I don’t know what to do. I knew you’d help.” Ellie stared just for a second before she pulled both of them into the small sitting room and shut the door tight. In an instant she was on her knees, feeling the boy’s face, chafing his hands, and firing questions at poor Father Jonas. “His name’s Bren,” Jonas said in answer to her first query. “I don’t know how old he is. I found him in the chapel, the angel’s sent him and we left the Christmas gifts together.” “The angels?” Ellie lifted an eyebrow at this explanation but led the boy to the sofa and began to cover him with blankets. “Jonas, how long has he been there? And gifts, was it you who left all those funny little things? And the angel drawings?” “Yes,” admitted Jonas with just a hint of sprightliness. “We wanted to make their thoughts light again. It was his idea,” he finished sadly. “And you left me a rose, it was so lovely,” sighed Ellie, gazing at the boy with gentled, curious eyes. “But Jonas,” her voice was businesslike again, “how long has the boy been in the chapel? And who is he?” “I found him this morning, and he had been there through the night. I don’t know anything else,” said Jonas humbly, thinking for the very first time that there might be a tiny bit of truth in the thought that his mind wasn’t quite all there. Both of their eyes shot to Bren as he gave a tiny little moan. His eyes were barely open now, his little body so wracked with chills he could barely speak, but he sat up just enough to clutch Ellie’s hand and whisper “please, please don’t tell them I’m here.” “Tell who?” she questioned gently, leaning close, but Bren closed his eyes, breathing very hard.  Jonas stood back, twisting his hands until they were red and sore as Ellie tucked a last blanket around the child and tiptoed back to Jonas. “Listen to me Jonas, I think he is very ill. He must have caught cold in that drafty old chapel last night. Do you know when he ate last?” “We had a chocolate drop,” murmured Jonas with a red face. Ellie rolled her eyes. “I’m going to ring for the doctor, and you must run to Mrs. Murray and ask her for an extra hot water bottle. I’ll see to the boy. Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of him.” Jonas hopped to attention and turned toward the door. “Don’t let anyone take him,” he whispered, hand on the knob, his huge eyes like a child’s in their fear and yearning. “I won’t,” she promised, “and hurry back. He’ll miss you.” Jonas slipped out into the darkness. His bones ached and his many years suddenly felt like countless heavy weights upon his back. He got lost almost as soon as he began. The chapel he knew like the back of his hand and the college ways were clear enough in daylight. But the grey, moonless dark, the wind’s hiss, and his own worry muddied his thoughts so that it took three times as long as usual to find Mrs. Murray’s door and ask for the water bottle. But she had none to spare, and he was sent hobbling through two more courtyards in search of another, and by the time he finally began his walk back to Ellie’s cottage it had been almost an hour. As he neared the house, a strange urgency pulsed through him. The image of Bren’s frightened face filled his thoughts and the fear that the child felt at being discovered beat in his own heart. A great darkness was headed toward the little boy. He stumbled forward with all the haste his old, tired body could muster. He burst in the door without knocking and looked toward the couch. But a tall, dark figure blocked his view. “I can’t believe you!” came Ellie’s angry voice from the fireside, where she huddled on a stool, staring up with snapping eyes at the stern face of her husband. “A little child needs our shelter, and you are going to turn him right over to the people he fears. What is wrong with you?” “Why can’t you see that this is a matter of practicality?” Eric growled back. “He’s a runaway. His foster mother came looking for him two days ago and it’s only right we call them.” “Even though he fears them so much he ran away? Just leave it until later!” “I can’t. I won’t. He’s already been gone two days, and in that time he’s made my chapel ridiculous. Did you see what he and that crazy old man did? Junk on the seats. A mockery of the angels in those ridiculous drawings. I want him gone as soon as possible. He doesn’t belong here and I will not keep him!” Jonas’ fierce slam of the door made Eric whirl around. He glared daggers at the intruder, but Jonas did not even look at Eric. Bren was nowhere to be seen. “Where’s the boy?” his question was terse and directed at Ellie. “I put him in the bedroom. I’m so sorry about this Jonas.” But Jonas didn’t listen. He bounded across the room and barged into the bedroom, with Eric’s protests nipping at his heels. The shadows of the small room blinded him for a moment, but it took only an instant to see that the bed was empty, the blankets cast aside, and the room filled with the bitter darkness of the freezing night. The window was open and the boy was gone. Jonas turned on his heel. He was fevered now too, but it was anger that reddened his face and made his very fingers tremble. He marched straight to Eric and stood before him, half his height and less than half his size. But Jonas’ black eyes snapped in his lined face, and his wild white hair made a halo in the firelight as he pointed a rigid, accusing finger at Eric. “You drove him away,” he shouted, “The angels sent him to us and you sent him away. He was the answer to your prayer!” Eric raised an angry hand at this and towered over Jonas. “Angels had nothing to do with it! He’s a foolish, runaway boy! And you know nothing,” he hissed, “nothing at all about my prayers.” “Oh but I do,” whispered Jonas, suddenly very still. “I hear you there in the chapel. I’ve heard you cry to God so very many times. I’ve heard you pray for him to come, and weep when you thought he didn’t.” The room grew heavy with Jonas quiet words, each dropped like a stone into Eric’s startled silence.’ “But God heard you. He sent a little boy to answer your prayer. He sent that child to all of us, to lighten our darkness, to make us laugh.” Jonas was moving again from foot to foot, sputtering with anger, “they laughed tonight! They laughed! But you,” his finger jabbed the air near Eric’s face, “all you see is the darkness. You don’t even look at God anymore. You don’t want to laugh or be glad again. Your heart is dark and you drove the child away!” Jonas thundered and turned a circle in his fear and grief and rage before he whirled back to stand in front of Eric and shake his finger good and hard. “God didn’t leave you,” he spat. “God never left you. But you left him. You turned him out into the cold!” For a moment, Jonas glared into Eric’s stricken face with the steely anger of an avenging angel. But the iciness broke abruptly and he began to wail, “and now he is lost. And he will be so cold. My poor little boy!” And Jonas wept like a tiny child. He dropped onto sofa where Bren had been and shook with sobs. Ellie held him, her own tears hot on her face as she turned to address her husband. But Eric was not there. The front door was open into the black night and the sound of steps pounded away into the darkness. ***** Bren knew only one shelter and he made straight for it. Back through the silent cloisters, two turns left, one right, he thought he remembered the way to the chapel. He found the door and stumbled inside. He was shivering so hard now his teeth clattered in his head and drove away his reason. He couldn’t think what he ought to do. He could not plan or protect himself. He turned his glossy eyes to the ceiling, trying to see the angels, but everything blurred together and billowed like waves on an ocean. He shuffled to the window where Christ had laughed, but tonight no eye glimmered to life, no bell chimed, no voice sounded in the echoing dark. A terrible sense of isolation engulfed him. He ran toward the altar, as the walls seemed to bend and the ground to swell beneath his feet. He stared up at the statues, but they did not speak. Instead, their faces grew long and their eyes seemed to glare at him so that he was afraid. He stepped back, ready to run. But at that moment, a door slammed in the outer hall and heavy steps thumped down the aisle toward him. He had only an instant to scramble for cover and the first thing his blurred eyes saw was the life-size manger just beside him, part of the altar crèche scene. It was deep and filled with hay. He crept in as quickly as he could, and pulled the hay around him. “God, God! What have I done? Have I lost you forever?” The chapel was suddenly filled with a terrible cry. It came from a voice shattered into a million little pieces of ragged grief. Sobs echoed in the cold, high spaces of the chapel and the footsteps shuffled closer to Bren’s hiding place. “Oh God,” it was the voice of the young, angry priest and Bren shivered even harder, “What have I done? Who have I become?” And the steps shuffled closer. Bren heard Eric’s ragged breath as he knelt at the altar. “I have been blind. I have hated you. All I saw was the darkness. But oh God,” Eric’s voice was just a whisper, “please let me find him. Help me to find everything that I have lost.” For a moment, a silence that felt as deep and final as death filled the chapel. But then, a sneeze gave Bren away. A sneeze followed by a wild fit of coughing, followed again by a tempest of sobs as Bren knew himself revealed. At any moment, he expected rough hands to pull him out and march him back into the cold, straight into the things he feared. He heard Eric rise and he trembled amidst the hay. But there was only the catch of a breath, then the scramble of Eric’s feet as he ran to the manger. And then Bren was lifted and cradled in strong arms whose gentleness was like the dream he had of his mother’s touch. Eric lifted Bren from the manger, sat down on the cold stone floor and held the boy, rocking him back and forth. Bren looked up, wondering, into a face in which tears had rubbed out all the hard lines. The dark eyes met his own, and there was a light at back of them that reminded him of the brightness in Jonas’ gaze. “I found you,” Eric whispered, “God heard me, and I found you, and manger isn’t empty anymore. You’re safe now. Don’t be afraid.” For the first time that night, Bren felt warmth seep through his body. His eyes cleared slightly and he leaned against the man who held him so gently. He wanted to sleep. But a rustling in the rafters caught his ears and turned his gaze. His eyes suddenly widened. “Look,” he whispered. And Eric lifted his eyes. An angel waved its wing and winked. Part One Part Two Part Three

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty.” –John Keats “Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson In preparation for a History of Modernity mid-term this week, my fifteen-year-old daughter is listening to a lecture on the Romantic Poets. As I’m sitting in the same room, I’m afforded the possibility of reclaiming a few bits of literary knowledge grown fuzzy in the couple of decades since my last British Lit class. The lecturer is describing how the works of the romantics in art, poetry and literature were expressive rather than imitative in nature, focusing on experience rather than objectivity. To experience turbulent heights and depths of sensation and emotion was their desired end both in life and art; emotion and sensation divorced from any objective construct wherein they might serve anything larger or more lasting. Keats’ declaration that “beauty is truth, truth beauty” takes on a somewhat disturbing light in this context. Without ever critically examining the poem, I had long assumed Keats was speaking of the inherent beauty of objective truth. Alas, now I think not. It seems that he’s actually subverting the idea of an objective truth. His “beauty equals truth” statement is less than a degree removed from saying “If it produces pleasure, then it’s good,” or, to phrase it as a more contemporary mantra “If it feels good, do it.” The experience is regarded as its own moral proof text. I suppose if that’s the case, then he must also be inadvertently subverting the idea of beauty. The earlier pre-enlightenment geniuses like Shakespeare—though masters of the use of emotion in their stories—operated from a different worldview, one that didn’t employ emotion as an end in itself. Instead, emotional responses served some larger reality that was informing the meaning of a story, poem, play, or painting. This is interesting to me from a personal journey standpoint, as only in my mid-twenties did I begin to appreciate the structures of truth and the requirements a concern for truth might place on literary expression. From the ages of sixteen to twenty-four, I was much more in sync with the romantics. I wanted to feel deeply, and I did. High highs, deep lows. I approached both theology and romance this way. It was raw emotion that fueled my poetry. I courted darkness and despair for the added edge such experience gave to my expression. Having no windswept moors to haunt, I wandered Southern fields on dark and stormy nights. I swung wildly between acts of asceticism and lapses of mild indulgence, partially because I had no understanding of the liberating message of the gospel, and partially because I prized sensation, emotion, giddiness and pain so highly as fuel. For the sake of everyone around me, it’s a really good thing I didn’t remain twenty-one forever. It wasn’t until my mid-twenties that the strictures of Truth entered the picture. Till then, form & emotion had been paramount. Now there was this whole added consideration of meaning. And the question of whether my writing lined up with, or failed to line up with, an objective reality. And whether the artifacts I created were ultimately redemptive or counter-redemptive in their effect. Writing suddenly became a whole lot more difficult. If things meant something, if art incarnated ideas and if ideas had consequences, if truth was not the same as beauty (at least not in the way that Keats believed it), then I was responsible for the impact of the things I made and therefore had need to be sensitive and discerning. It wasn’t enough just to spin evocative, poetic phrases that were fragments of no greater whole. This was a holier vocation than I had imagined. I became a much slower writer, which is to say, for the first time in my life, writing truly became work. It was no longer enough just to bleed all over the page. Truth is not something we often arrive at by chance after all. It must be sought and discerned. One does not want to blithely misrepresent those things that Flannery O’ Connor referred to as lines of spiritual motion*, for on some level by attempting to name such things, one is attempting to create roadmaps and signposts for others to follow. Nothing less than the recognition of grace as grace hinges on the act of naming the stuff of reality rightly. If we fail to name rightly then we as humans will never make sense of the twin wounds of our seemingly indefinable, unfathomable loss and of our seemingly inexplicable, lingering hope. If one believes that such things as these spiritual lines of motion do exist, then one will probably agree that artistic portrayals of these lines might more often and more easily be drawn falsely than truly. Especially in a culture that has lost it’s place in the larger narrative and so has little point of reference by which to rightly name anything. This is where romanticism plunged us off a steep cliff. But maybe we were already going there anyway. It is perhaps the holiest work of the artist to discern and divine and reveal the names and locations of these lines of spiritual motion accurately. It is easy to create when one is a romantic after all, for no emotion or experience has to line up with anything beyond the glorious (or inglorious) abandon of the emotion or experience itself. It is declared to be its own validation simply because it is. But when we come to see ourselves as servants and stewards of an unyielding truth and love that preexisted the universe, forever unchanging, then we assume a quite different posture. We are humbled. We wonder whether we are fit to employ such tools at all in stumbling service of something beyond our comprehension. And yet, there remains the thumbprint of God in our souls, compelling us to create, compelling us to press forward, laboring to capture those lines of spiritual motion in lines of poetry, in brush strokes, in film. And so we do. Stumblingly. Haltingly. Imperfectly. Weakly. Brokenly. But oftentimes beautifully as well. I’ve been ruminating on such things lately because of my involvement in an ongoing, collaborative art project that in some way hinges on detecting those fault lines along the surface of our existence. Several years ago, public spaces painter Jonathan Richter invited me to create pieces with him for a gallery show. Richter spends evenings in public spaces (mostly pubs) painting an ongoing series of off-kilter, spontaneous portraits. These paintings give off a vaguely disturbing, surreal aura, sometimes seeming fraught with a subconscious and archetypal symbolism, other times feeling like fragments from the watery language of dreams. At any rate, Richter is quick to say that the pieces in this series are not created with forethought or planning. Rather they emerge from the process itself, from the layering of paint, the subjects sometimes achieving a definite shape only towards the end of the physical process. Once the paint has dried, Richter turns the paintings over to me. I meditate on the images, mulling the portraits for however long it takes to begin to tease out their secrets such that I can express something of their essence in a line or two of poetic prose. There’s something about this process of filtering a work through two imaginations that seems to put a finer edge on it. Like double-distilling a vodka. For my part, the process is all about trying to discern and name rightly whatever spiritual lines of motion might be inherent in the paintings. I recognize such a statement will sound strange to some. I’m certain it would have sounded strange to me in my romantic phase. I probably would have thought it ridiculous. Inherent meaning? In a spontaneously-wrought surrealistic painting? Are you kidding me? Doesn’t it just have whatever meaning each person subjectively brings to it? Isn’t the “truth” in it just a product of each person’s emotional and aesthetic response? To respond in a word—No. To respond in five words—No, I don’t think so. Real choices have been made in the act of creation, and real things have consequently been set in motion. Something else is going on that, if not as predictable as clockwork gears, at least has the mysteriously organic physics of storm winds or ocean waves. We might apprehend only whispers and fragments of the songs such things are perpetually singing, but they are singing. As a song lyricist of some eighteen years or so, I’ve found the most difficult cuts to write are the ones that an artist has already fleshed out musically and melodically when they hand them off to me. The first time I hear the song, it is already complete save for the thematic concept and the lyric. Shouldn’t that be easy though? After all, in such a situation one could write about anything: Butterflies and moonbeams, a tragic ballad of ice road truckers, an ode to parasites that inhabit the lining of intestinal walls, young love, old love, lost love, found love. Anything! But alas, as I learned the hard way years ago, writing about anything is precisely what one must not do in that situation—because the music, the structure of the song, and especially the vocal meter and melody, is already saying something rather specific. The trick is to get inside the song far enough that you can look out at the world through it, casting about in your own soul and experience for an answer to the question “What is it in existence, in reality, in creation, in the human experience, in my own past or present,” that conforms to this same pattern, this same movement? What spiritual lines of motion are already being described here by this phrasing and melody and interplay of voices and instruments? What true thing is being described here?” At the end of the day, there usually aren’t many things a particular vocal melody can say. At the end of the day, you find that you’re choosing from a very limited palette. From among all the colors in the visible spectrum say, it has to be red. And from all the varieties of reds, it has to be some variation of a rosy hue. That’s your wiggle room. Dark rose, light rose, redder, pinker, etc. Yes, you can still divide hundreds of variations from that little slice of the color wheel, but you can’t go blue or gold or even barn red. All of those options were excluded from the start by the melody itself. If you ignore this as a writer, you do so at your own peril, because you’re going to build a song that’s trying to pull in different directions. When Richter gives me his paintings, I go through an almost identical process of narrowing what the possible meanings might be. The difference is that instead of melody, meter and inflection revealing the meaning, it’s the lines, the colors, the expressions on the faces of the figures, the objects they’re holding, their postures and positions. When I first began to work on these pieces, I had no assumption or expectation that this would be the case. It was only as I sat with the first few pieces that it became clear that this was not going to be a process of me assigning meaning to the paintings, but rather of identifying meaning that was already latent within them. It was a dawning revelation. Nowadays, I begin my relationship with a painting believing that there are lines of spiritual motion embedded in it, though they are oftentimes wary and reluctant to show themselves. I wait them out. Armed with a pen and a yellow legal pad I sit quietly, watching the painting, making no sudden moves. Some reveal their secrets within a few minutes time. Others take hours, even days before the meaning begins to emerge. I return over and over to the clearing where I sit and wait for something to step into the open and give me a clear line of sight. I scour the ground for clues. I follow game trails into the bushes. I make notes. I attempt writing lines that branch off into new ideas. Eventually, the thing itself is revealed, standing there right in front of me. I nab it. I know it’s the thing I’ve been waiting for when, in hindsight, the conclusion feels inevitable. How could I not have seen it from the beginning? It was so obviously already there, waiting in the painting. Apparently, some doors must be knocked on before they will open. It would be very safe to say that I am no longer a romantic in the sense that the romantics were romantic. I regard my own emotional reactions to things with a great suspicion nowadays, as I recognize how dangerous and misleading my own sentimentality can be. And yet, I can’t help but believe that what I do believe is more wildly and frighteningly and wonderfully romantic than any merely emotional or sensational experience the romantics would have deemed romantic. Is it not more wildly romantic to operate from a premise that every facet, detail, and pattern in creation, even those that we perceive as random, are fraught with meaning far beyond our ability to comprehend? To believe that the stars are singing? To believe that the objective evidence points to the conclusion that we are living in an actual fairy tale? To believe that hunger and hope are our true guides, pointing us to something objectively real that will ultimately satisfy our deepest hunger and our most achingly beautiful hope? By my reckoning, all of that adds up to something far more romantic than the pursuit of intense but unmoored moments of sensation and emotion, divorced from any larger story. Romanticism is dead. Long live romance. ______________________________ *“When a child draws, he doesn’t intend to distort but to set down exactly what he sees, and as his gaze is direct, he sees the lines that create motion. Now the lines of motion that interest the writer are usually invisible. They are lines of spiritual motion.” —Flannery O’Connor, remarks at Hollins College, Virginia (October 14, 1963) [You can help make Subjects With Objects a reality. Visit the Kickstarter page. There are only five days left to participate in this unique project.]

Justin Gerard created this Christmas card a few years ago and posted it on his site today. It was too good not to repost here, in light of our rodential leanings. Thanks, Justin, and all you Rabbit Roomers for another great year. Be sure and visit Justin’s blog for mounds of artistic inspiration. (But don’t worry–no recipes.) Also, for you Tolkien fans, he’s got an amazing array of original Hobbit pictures here.

His breath made a rope of mist in the icy air. Like a dancer, it whirled and climbed toward the brightening sky as Father Jonas turned two merry little twirls beneath it. His old bones were stiff in the bitter cold of the damp courtyard, but the sun was sitting in triumph on the chapel tower, and a brave bird was crying so wild a good morning that his heart leapt up to meet its note of joy. Christmas Eve had dawned and Jonas felt as weightless in spirit and free in soul as the misty air. Birdlike, he hopped through the courtyard, chirping a carol under his breath. Despite his thin skin and rheumatic bones, he felt this lightness most days, for the self he had always been was slipping away, replaced by something that felt like sunlight. He was very old and couldn’t remember much, even his own name at times. But oh, he was happy. People, he knew, whispered that he’d lost his mind. This assumption left him quite indignant, for his mind gleamed and shimmered within him like a newborn thing. He heard myriad voices and saw half shadows of things that took his breath with their beauty. The only things he’d lost were the heavy thoughts that set him too roundly in his body, the little worries that stuffed the minds of everyone else too full for wonders. Most of his life, they filled his mind too and forced him to all sorts of practical deeds. But now, old age had set him free. With stiff fingers, he unlocked the chapel door. Sweep out the cobwebs, set the hymnbooks straight, light the candles, the old man could at least do that they said. He could indeed and relished every minute, for he loved the chapel. He felt vaguely that it was his last home, a place in between, already tinged with the air of the unknown world that called him on. He was a daily presence in the great place, a tiny figure scurrying about in his billowy black robes with a face that looked ancient as the hills and eyes that were fresh as a child’s. His hair was a poof of unruly whiteness that looked like a dandelion ready to blow away in the wind of his constant bustle. “Bring joy to this house O Lord,” he sang his daily prayer as he opened the gate this morning, for however old he got and however many thoughts he lost, the prayers never left. “Bring joy, please, oh please” he added once more, for the sorrow he felt in the people who came to the chapel hurt him long after they had gone. In the absence of his own heavy thoughts, he found that he often knew the dark thoughts of the people near him. Not the substance so much as the essence. Anger, grief, joy. He carried it with them somehow, when it came, and lately, all that came was sorrow. Every soul that entered his chapel seemed bent and battered by it. And he felt battered himself and sometimes, the heavy thoughts seemed about to fill his own mind too. But not today. Having prayed for the sorrowful, he nearly skipped in the door and down the aisle. Christmas Eve had come and there was so much to be done. He must hurry his inspection. Hands on hips, he stood for an instant, smack in the middle of the chapel and gave it a quick looking over. All was calm and still and bright with new morning and he was just about to scamper to the closet for the broom, when something caught his eye. Then fixed it still. He took a long, quivering breath. Slumped in the back corner pew fast asleep, his head on the cold wood, his feet dangling in the air, was a little boy. For an instant, Jonas was still as a startled rabbit. Then he leapt for the corner. He stood over the child, unsure of what to do. He felt that there were some old, heavy thoughts that ought to dictate his reaction, but he could not recall them. All he felt was wonder at the small, flushed little thing, sleeping there like a little sparrow fallen from its nest. He glanced toward the rafters where the angels slept. He shook the boy’s arm. But the child’s deep breathing did not cease until Jonas bent near to his face and reached one gnarled finger to touch the flushed little cheek. And the boy awoke. Two blue eyes fluttered open and instantly widened at sight of Jonas’ startled face just inches a way. The boy scrambled to sit up, his eyes filled with a quick succession of sleepiness, bewilderment, and fear. “I fell asleep,” he began, then “the angels were singing,” then, with a cut of despair across his face, “ oh, please don’t tell anyone I’m here.” To Jonas’ utter dismay the blue eyes brimmed with tears. He swiftly grabbed the child’s hand and gave it a fluttery pat. “I won’t, don’t worry,” an odd smile came to Jonas’ face, “I don’t have to anymore. But what is your name?” he chirped, flitting about the boy like a small bird in restless curiosity. “Brendan,” the child replied, and dashed the tears away. The fear ebbed from his eyes as Jonas laughed and tapped his feet and took his hand. The boy yawned, suddenly unafraid. “Bren for short. Who are you?” “Jonas. Ooh, Brendan’s a lovely name, ah, oh!” said Jonas, and his eyes widened. “Brendan. Like the saint. The adventurer who went in search of wonders. Well,” Jonas’ face was once again an inch from Bren’s nose, “have you found them yet?” “Found what?” swallowed Bren, his own eyes a little wide in meeting so fierce and inquisitive a gaze. “Wonders! Wonders, of course, boy, have you found the wonders of God like the saint you were named for?” “Well,” said Bren, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, “the windows talked to me last night, and the statues, and the angels in the ceiling sang. Does that count?” “Count, count! Of course it counts! I’d stand on my head for a day to see such a sight,” Jonas sang, then dropped abruptly beside Bren in a motion that belied his age. “Those angels? Up there in the rafters?” and he pointed toward the dark ceiling where the angels kept a demure silence. Bren nodded. “They told me to come back, so I did.” “I knew it,” whispered Jonas, eyes wide. “I always knew it!” he crowed, leaping to his feet, “but my eyes aren’t light enough to see them yet. I think my mind is though,” he nodded at Bren, as if this explained a great deal, “but since you saw them and came to tell me it’s almost as good! What did they sound like?” Bren gave his best imitation of the angel’s tune, waving his arms wildly to indicate the swelling harmonies and the breath like wind or ocean waves filling the chapel. Jonas laughed aloud and waved at the angels just to see if they might stir. “And the windows?” he begged after, clasping his hands and shifting from foot to foot in his longing, “what did the window people say?” And Bren, fully awake now and entirely forgetful of caution, grabbed his friend by the hand and pattered with him from pane to pane, describing the bell-like chiming and the jeweled laughter. When he came to the figure of Jesus, he halted. He tried to put words to the way the light had filled the rooms in his heart, the way that it had made him part of itself, but he fumbled. Jonas put his hand on Bren’s head. “I know, lad, I know,” he whispered, and his gnarled hands went to his heart in a fist of worship as the two stared up, silent, at Christ in the window with the sunlight streaming through his heart. The sudden scratch and slam of the outer door jolted both of them from their thoughts. A set of footsteps echoed in loud, hard falls throughout the chamber and Bren dove behind the nearest pew just as Eric strode into the nave. Jonas, hands still clasped over his heart gave a gasp, turned on the spot and looked wildly about him. With the instinct of the child he was again becoming, he knew that Bren must not be discovered. His hands were still clasped at his heart and he dropped them suddenly into a most awkward, straight-armed freeze at his side. Fixed in place, eyes set upon Eric’s dour face, Jonas looked as if he was shrugging a question to the air. Eric glanced up from his dark gaze into some distant and apparently troublesome space, and raised an eyebrow as he drew even with Father Jonas. “What in heaven’s name are you doing?” he barked. “Isn’t it early for you to be cleaning the chapel?” The peremptory way that Eric spoke and his apparent ignorance of Bren put Jonas at a strange and sudden ease. One glance into the younger priest’s face showed him the great, brooding storm of bother that darkened his eyes. His thoughts, Jonas felt, must be very heavy indeed. “It’s never too early to be here,” he smiled arms loosening. He folded his old hands in a deliberately peaceful motion and rested them on the belt that cinched his long, black robes. His own eyes gleamed with gentle curiosity as he took a step toward the younger man. But Eric only raised an eyebrow and slightly rolled his eyes as he kept on his way toward the front of the church. “Well. See that you dust the alter,” he called back over his shoulder, “I was in here earlier and it is filthy. It looks like the statues are shedding, I can’t understand it.” Jonas gave a huge wink in the direction of a certain pew. A muffled giggle sounded from behind it and Eric whirled round. “What was that?” “What was what?” replied the unruffled Jonas. “That sound, like someone was laughing,” growled Eric. “Perhaps,” said Jonas, with the smile of an utter innocent, “it was the angels in the rafters.” He was not prepared for the fierce frown like a jagged scar across Eric’s face, and the younger man’s stomp back down the aisle toward him. Jonas stepped back a pace like a frightened child as Eric glowered down on him, blue eyes navy with anger. “Nonsense,” he hissed. “And foolishness.” Without another word, he stomped past Jonas and the hard clang of the outer door proclaimed his departure. Bren, still on his knees behind the pew, peeked his curly head just round the edge. Jonas stood still looking off toward the entrance as if his sight followed Eric into the courtyard beyond. One thin hand fluttered to his heart. “Why is he so angry?” whispered Bren, standing up and moving close to the old priest. Jonas turned a bewildered face to the boy. “I don’t know lad. He’s that way all the time now. But he’s never been like that before.” Bren moved a little and Jonas absentmindedly put an arm round the boy’s shoulders. His own shoulders slumped and his head drooped by the second. “Everything feels different these days,” he whispered to the little boy. “No one is happy anymore. Even here.” He sat down in the nearest pew and his great eyes, like two pale pearls in his parchment face were bright with sorrow. Bren wriggled up next to him and leaned his head against the old man’s shoulder. “They bring the darkness in with them,” Jonas sighed, remembering the storm in Eric’s eyes, “their thoughts are too heavy. They don’t notice anything else. I’ve prayed and prayed for them, but nothing seems to help.” “How awful,” whispered Bren as the old man’s voice trailed off. The thought of having a mind so full of shadows that no angel’s laughter or music could reach it was a dismal idea indeed. But Jonas suddenly stiffened and grabbed Bren’s hand. “You’re going to help,” he whispered, “I’ve prayed, I’ve prayed lad. I prayed that God would send us joy. And he sent you!” His voice rose and he stood, face beaming, “The angels sent you for Christmas! We must help them, lad,” he grabbed Bren’s hand, “you and I, our thoughts are light,” Jonas released Bren’s hand  and waved his arms wildly about in his distress “we have to help them, help that poor young priest. Somehow. We have to make them forget the darkness so that they can see. The angels sent you so you have to tell me how.” Jonas turned a gaze of saintly demand upon Bren so that the boy stared back with eyes turned sapphire by the intensity of his startled deliberation. Bren felt quite nervous, for though the angels had certainly brought him, they hadn’t mentioned his being an answer to anyone’s prayer. Bren’s face scrunched into deep thought. He squirmed. He shifted. He looked all round as if the answer might float down from the ceiling. And then he sat upright as a small flame and turned eyes like starlight upon his friend. “It’s Christmas,” he stated. “Yes,” blinked Jonas, “I know.” “Yes, and that means gifts,” crowed Bren, “You can’t be sad when you have a Christmas gift! I know, because my mum used to give them to me.” “Gifts! For all the people?” laughed Jonas, slightly incredulous. But the thought took swift hold in his mind. Of course a Christmas gift would do the trick. He eyed Bren with respect. The angels knew their business. “How will we do it?” he asked. “We’ll put gifts everywhere,” sang Bren with a fling of his arms, “and when they all come in next, for the service– that priest and all the people and the boys who sing – they’ll find something nice and they’ll think the angels left it for them and they’ll remember to look at the angels and then they’ll laugh and forget to be so sad.” This made startlingly good sense to Jonas. “What will we give them?” came the next fierce question. “Well,” pondered Bren, “if you have some money then we can buy things and I’ll help you put them all over. One for each place where they sit.” “I only have a few coins, they will have to be small,” said Jonas doubtfully. “Little presents,” pronounced Bren, remembering candy and tiny toys and warming to his role as the answer of the angels, “are the best. And I will draw pictures of the angels to put with them. And we will leave a special picture for the angry priest and the pretty lady. And we can gather holly outside,” but he halted as he remembered that he could not risk being seen. “Well, you can, and you’ll have to show me where to hide while you’re getting the presents.” During Bren’s small speech, Jonas’ lined old face had widened into a grin like a boy’s. His eyes danced and his fingers drummed and at the last words he stood and did a small dance so that the mad poof of his white hair looked more than ever like a dandelion in the wind. “Glory be to God in the highest,” he trilled, “and on earth peace. Peace to men – that’s what they’ll feel when we remind them tonight. Oh, and then,” he sat back down beside Bren and his face was almost grieved with the depth of his pleading, “will you introduce me to the angels? I think I could hear them if you were with me.” Bren simply grinned. The schemers stood. Jonas held out his hand and the little boy took it. Together, they pattered up the aisle and set about their plan without further delay. In less than an hour, Bren was cozily stowed in a little alcove in the balcony, where he could spy on all who entered and sketch the angels. Jonas, meanwhile, filled his pockets with every spare coin he could find, set a basket on his arm for the holly and made for the streets with strict instructions and a shopping list from Bren. Candy. Toys. And one red rose for the pretty lady. He returned apologetic, for those commodities were rare in time of war. But a brilliant (Jonas thought) idea had come to him (Bren’s approval made it doubly so), and he had gone to all the friends he could think of, mostly the kindly wives of the oldest dons, and begged what seemed to him quite a treasure trove of trinkets. Buttons, pens, a brooch or two, a tiny toy car, a tin soldier, even a necklace and an orphan teacup lay piled in his basket under the bright holly. Best of all was the bag of chocolate drops from the youngest wife. When told that they were for a little boy, she set them in his basket without another word. At sight of these Bren crowed in delight, then added his stack of drawings to the trove. The treasure was ready for distribution. The afternoon was waning as they set chocolate drops on top of every choirboy’s books (and ate a few for sustenance themselves). The trinkets, they placed on top of the hymnals and prayer books, with sprigs of holly and drawings of angels beneath. Under Ruth’s window, in the pretty lady’s seat, they placed a rose, and two very special drawings, while Eric’s hymnal was topped with a drawing much larger than the rest, folded, and addressed to him in big letters. Bren had drawn his favorite angel winking, for Eric was a special case and needed extra treatment. The old chapel echoed with laughter that day. Bren filled the air with tunes from his whistle, the old stones warmed to the shuffle of such friendly steps, and a fresh air – spiced with holly and chocolate and merriment –  danced into the farthest corners of the church. By the time the sun winked its last through the stained glass and sent tall shadows leaping through the aisles, all was in place. Bren ran for the balcony when the first step sounded in the courtyard, and Jonas joined him soon after. With a comradely glance toward the angels, they set their elbows on the rails and held their breath as the first people entered the church. Christmas Eve had come and something new was about to begin. Part One Part Two

For a child reared in the back alleys and knotted lanes of East London, to slip unnoticed out a window as dawn breathed blue beneath the stars was easy as taking a breath. The man and woman in the next room did not even stir. To patter down the tree-lined street of an Oxford neighborhood was even easier, and to slip into the shadows at sight of an adult, like a slim, swift shadow himself, was easiest of all. When the neighbors were questioned later that day, not one of them remembered seeing a small boy, freckle-faced and thin, though many had passed him unaware on their way to work or early church. Bren loped through the dim streets, loving the ease of his stride. He did a small dance, and shook his skinny arms as if to rejoice that no hand held his own and curbed his movement. When he crossed the bridge by Magdalene College, he knew himself safe and free as one of the birds cutting circles through the cold dawn sky. The morning crowd was at flood tide; at the least scent of danger he could disappear within it, darting through its flow like a minnow disappearing in a stream. In the city, with the hard cobbles firm under his feet, with the shouts of the morning merchants like a chorus of trumpets and the air taut with the wakening day, he was at home. He stood a moment to watch the does graze in the misty Magdalene deer park and then he was off in a scamper. The tide of noise and the rising light were in his very bones and he scampered down the streets twirling circles as he did. He followed his nose as he always had in London and it led him straight to a bakery in Cornmarket. He spotted a plump old woman with a face creased in all the right corners for smiles and kindness. His blue eyes widened to an enormity that gave the impression of starvation and he gave her a shy smile. “Please ma’am, just a bit of bread? I’m so hungry.” The woman’s face creased with instant motherliness. He presented a far more piteous sight than he knew. His small face was thin and wizened, not by hunger, but a fear too great for his size. She saw the dart of his eyes toward her giant of a husband, and knew that he was too wise in the ways of hard men. With a glance of caution herself, she snatched two rolls and put them in his hands. “There you go love,” and she rumpled his hair with the lightest touch and shooed him off with a smile. He scampered away but something in his throat swelled and his eyes stung so that he blinked them hard and fast. For two months he’d known only cold eyes and hard hands from the people who told him they were saving him, a refugee child, from the dangers of wartime London. He’d take bombs any day. Even bombs at the orphanage. But the thought of his hosts spurred him to a faster trot. They would know he had escaped by now. He ducked down two side streets and into a graveyard where he sat behind a giant, moss-eaten headstone and tore into his roll with a swiftly-beating heart. The sun reached over the church roof to pour a dazzle of golden light over his head. Calmed by its warmth, mouth full of bread, Bren considered his next step. His escape of that morning had been sheer impulse. The resolve had come as a flare of hope in the darkness of his bewildered, childish despair. The sudden joy he had tasted, the wink of the angels, put life back in his bones and the first move they made was toward escape. Now, the only plan he had was his desire to get back to that dim, friendly cave of a place. He opened the small bag he’d brought with him and rummaged through it, gratified at touch of a pocket knife, a half burned candle, a packet of matches, the penny-whistle that was like a friend to him, and a thin woolen blanket. Food was his first need, followed by a cap to hide the mop of rusty curls that quite distinguished him in a crowd. A few tunes on his whistle would earn him enough pennies to begin and then he could search the old stone streets until he found the entrance to the college he planned to invade. All he had to do then was scheme a way to get past the porter. By the sun’s slow set behind the hoary old walls and sharp-nosed towers, he would be safe in the destination that glowed in the back of his mind as brightly as the new day sun. He leapt to his feet, dusted the crumbs off his jacket and shouldered his pack. In half an hour he was happily ensconced on a street corner with his penny whistle summoning the sunlight to dance and chasing the birds in giddy circles through the sky. Pennies were scarce with the war on but when the hurried travelers heard that merry, haunting music and saw the piqued face and star-bright eyes of the boy who made it, they reached for their pockets. By noon, Bren had four coins winking in his palm. The last one had barely clattered to rest when he was up, whistled stowed, pack slung as he ducked through the crowds back toward High Street. The afternoon he spent in scouting out the best deals for his money. It took him three shops before he was satisfied with his purchases and gratified at the plumpness of his pack. This, however, exhausted his cash. He roamed the streets, ducking his head to hide his bright hair. He was very afraid that if he tried to enter the college without a hat, he would be remembered, and if his pursuers came searching, recognized. When he sat for a moment of rest on a park bench and found a tweed cap right beside him, he gasped. It was as if an angel had dropped it from the sky. He took it in his numb little hands and plopped it on his head; it perfectly covered the mop of curls. Could the angels in church ceilings communicate with those in the sky? He felt sure they must and off he scampered with joy in his heart. (The poor gentleman who had stepped away to retrieve his wind blown newspaper would have been quite shocked to know that angels had appropriated his hat.) When the murky glow of the early winter dusk made a twilit land of the streets, and the windows of the shops burned like hearth fires in the gloom, Bren turned his steps toward the college gate behind whose walls his shelter waited. When he arrived, he loitered about the entrance, careful not to catch the porter’s eye.When regular knots of well-bundled people began to drift through the gate, headed for Evensong, he stood in the shadows of the taller men, kept his head down, and shuffled through. Once in, he stopped, breathless. His heart quickened, his cheeks reddened with the sudden rush of joy that flooded his heart. He was almost there. Above him, the first stars laughed their congratulations and he sped like a small star himself through the shadowed courtyards and cloisters. When he reached the great wooden door far back behind the oldest walls of the college, it’s oaken beams strapped by iron as if to guard a mighty secret, he slipped into a far corner of the courtyard. As the dons and their wives passed him on their way into the chapel, he pulled off his cap and spit in his hands and ran them through his unruly hair. He scrubbed at his face and hoped it wasn’t dirty. With a last tug at his jacket he gave up, squared his shoulders, and slipped through the giant of a door. Light gripped him the moment he entered, a strong arm of brightness that reached toward him from the candlelit nave. A thousand whispers scampered to greet and tug him toward the inner, sheltered room of the chapel. He ran for the entrance, careless of curious glances or donnish frowns, and when he got inside, for one swift moment, he stared up at the rafters. The angels grinned down at him and he thought he saw the tip of one wing tilt a hello over air filled with candlelight and the swoosh of long robes. A laugh rose in his belly and he could not keep it down. He grinned. He chuckled. He almost danced a jig. But the raised eyebrow of an impatient elderly gentleman reminded him of the need for caution. He doffed his cap and slipped into a high corner pew. He sat just under a stained glass portrait of a woman holding a sheaf of wheat. Her face was round and homely and glad and he loved her. He loved everything he saw and everyone near him. As the rest of the congregation filed in, he swung his small feet and feasted his eyes upon the gem-toned windows and counted the rows of martyrs and kings that lined the alter wall in a great tower of saintliness. Just before the service began, a tall, pale woman slipped into the seat beside him. She stared at him a moment, then gave him a smile that made him feel he had arrived on his own doorstep after a long and arduous journey. But he quickly dropped his eyes and tried to look as if he was part of the family on his other side lest she realize that he was alone. The service began. The tall priest with the dark hair and the face of a disappointed boy sang out the prayers and Bren watched him closely, surprised to realize that he moved with the same dejection that Bren himself had known through all the past months. How could anyone be downcast in so friendly a place, Bren did not understand. But he forgot the priest in his eagerness for the service to end, for the only really risky part of his scheme was about to begin. When the last note of the organ died away, he shuffled out with the rest, chin tucked down, face appropriately solemn. But when he reached the narthex and the others were distracted by buttoning their coats against the cold that huffed through the open door, he slipped behind an old statue. For a moment, he held his breath and peeked round a stone arm. No one even glanced his way. He sighed and crouched deeper into the shadows. All he had to do was wait. An hour crept by in which he heard the last voices echo and die in the deepening night. He heard the giant groan of the chapel door and the crash of its closing as all the bolts and locks leapt into place. He waited until silence crept into every corner of the church, until the night and quiet were unbroken by a single sound. Finally, he was alone. Out he crept into the blackness. Not a single light burned, but he felt his way straight to the gate pulled across the arched entrance to the chapel. He held his breath and slipped through the iron bars and the great quiet of the chapel gathered around him. He shuffled forward a few steps and craned his neck, trying to see his angel friends. But the darkness was very thick. His steps sounded like the lonely drip of water in an eerie cave. For the first time that night, he felt suddenly cold. “Hello?” he whispered toward the ceiling, “are you there?” Just then, the thick swathes of night mist parted outside and several things happened at once. A full moon glimmered through the stained glass windows and filled the nave with fairy light. Bren leaned forward to touch it, and just as he did, there was a loud rustle in the ceiling far above him and a low note of song. He looked up. The angels in the rafters were awake. Their wooden wings swept the air and swayed like trees in a mighty wind. They reached long, wooden arms toward Bren, waving and beaming a wordless greeting to their friend. “Hello!” Bren shouted, his high voice like a bell ringing his amazement as he waved frantically back. “You are real! I knew I saw you wave.” His answer was the tumult of great wings fluttering swiftly as giant butterflies so that the roar of their movement was like the pound of the ocean as the angels opened their mouths to reply. No words came forth, only music, eight voices, each holding a single note in perfect harmony as the sound of it swelled, filling every corner of the church until it seemed one with the silver light. And the music came to Bren as meaning itself, an instant infusion of welcome and exultation that needed no words and felt familiar as his own thoughts singing in his head. “Glory to God in the highest,” he suddenly sang, and startled himself, for the angels music had been so loud in his ears he felt an urgent need to join them, but the idea sounded so different when it came from his mouth in words. “Glory, glory, glory!” he chuckled and spun in circles, face lifted to the ceiling where the angels watched him and laughed their tuneful mirth and sent storms of angel breath whirling warmth through the church in gusts that blew the hair from Bren’s face. A screech and scratch from the corner distracted him and he whirled toward the altar to see the first of the statues on the east wall shrug a stony shoulder and shake its head as if to cast off a long sleep. Bren ran down the aisle and stood just beneath them as the church filled with the smooth grating of a dozen statue saints awakening. The middle statue spoke first. His stone curls were cropped close over a wide, square forehead and he had a nose that was a small mountain over a mouth like a wide river and he brandished a fist and looked as if he would step straight down from the wall if he could. “I am Peter,” he growled, “and on this stony head my Master has built his church. Do you know that, boy?” And he stared fiercely at Bren until Bren nodded a vehement yes despite the fact that he knew nothing about it. He was glad when the statue next to Peter interrupted him. “The Word became flesh,” he whispered dreamily, eyes raised as if to a vision, “and he dwelt with us, with us. Boy,” and his eyes too dropped to Bren’s and he reached out his long stone fingers as if to offer something to the child who stood beneath him, “do you understand?” “The kingdom has come!” shouted the next shadow, before Bren could answer the dreamy one. This statue stood stout and tall with mischievous eyes and muscular arms that he flung to the sky as he closed his eyes and reveled in his proclamation again, “the kingdom has come!” But Bren did not wait to hear what the other statues might say, for a sudden sway in the light turned his eyes to the windows. The moonlight rushed through the jeweled panes so that the room glowed with orbs of emerald and ruby set amidst a million pearls of moonlight, but the light now began to bend and whirl into a river woven of rainbows that leapt through the darkness. The people in the windows were moving. Their gemlike arms and bright, jeweled faces turned toward Bren as they stretched themselves like children waking from a long sleep. Bren turned to look at the window with the woman holding her armful of wheat. She caught his eye and smiled. He ran across the aisle to her window and clambered on top of a great monument and stood on the stone belly of a sleeping knight who showed no signs of waking yet. He reached up to touch Ruth’s feet. She beamed down upon him, shaking her bundle of wheat so that tiny bursts of gold dust mixed with moonlight shimmered down around his hands. She set her head to one side and her eyes grew tender and she looked so much like the image he made of his lost mother in his mind that he felt tears in his eyes. She blew him a kiss. He laughed and leapt away with a wave, running from window to window as the people came fully awake. The window folk could not speak any more than the angels, but a faint chiming attended their movement so that a choir of fairy bells joined the hum of the angels. Bren barely stopped for breath, scampering back and forth between the windows. The prophets on the north aisle glared upon him with fierce, sapphire eyes, and jagged eyebrows, but when he gave them a tiny bow their faces erupted in smiles. Moses held his stone tablets a little higher, Isaiah and his glass angels lifted their arms and Aaron struck his staff hard into the glimmering, emerald mountain at his feet. In the south aisle, the disciples were in an uproar of argument and laughter, Bren could see it in their vivid faces, almost hear the exasperation that Peter thundered at Andrew, and the quite intellectual discussion between Philip and Thomas. Many of them broke off mid-word or gesture to wave at Bren or give him a brisk, manly nod. But John, the gentle one nearest Jesus, turned from his introspection to kneel on his glass knees so that his face was nearly level with Bren’s own. Bren met his gaze bravely, steeling his muscles a little, for it is a strange thing to have one’s soul searched by the gaze of a saint in a stained glass window. But John like what he saw. He gave a short nod and a long smile and his gleaming hand pointed toward Jesus, who stood a little apart from the busy disciples. A bevy of radiant children frolicked round him, and his golden face darted back and forth between theirs. As Bren obediently inched toward them, Jesus turned abruptly from the midst of their tumble and looked straight into Bren’s eyes. To meet that gaze was to look at the heart of the noonday sun or all the stars combined and for a moment it blinded Bren. All he knew or felt was light, a diamond light that did not burn or chill him, but rather filled him as if with breath, breaking in even to the secret rooms he locked within his heart. No door of thought could keep that light at bay and as it rose within him, he felt that he was becoming the light, no longer separate from its brilliance. All of the sudden he could see again, and what he saw were two eyes, merrier than any he had ever known, the eyes not of a saint, but of a child, and with a single dart they invited him into the whirl of light that the children made on the stone floor. For what felt to him a small eternity, he danced in the woven, glittering rainbow of the children. Their color and bell-like laughter spun a circle that seemed to reach out and envelop him so that he was almost part of their world. He laughed and jigged and caught the merry glances of ruby and sapphire and emerald eyes and felt the brilliance of the face that smiled above them all. Round and round he spun, swift came his breath, swifter still the mirth that was greater than any he had ever known. He danced and laughed until he could not breathe and stumbled back, panting. Exhausted, he took a few paces back and looked round the church. The angels above still hummed their golden music, like giant, holy honey bees at rest in an ancient hive. The statues continued their pontifications, to each other if they could, or the air in general if no one else was in reach. And the window people sparkled and danced and argued and waved in the strength of their light. Ruth caught Bren’s eye and he trotted back to the pew beneath her, slumping into the wooden seat and leaning his head against her gleaming feet. She put a hand to her heart and shook her bundle of wheat again and again so that the gold dust shimmered over him in tiny flecks of light. A sigh, a deep, gentle breath of relief came from deep within him, from one of the rooms that the light had opened in his heart and Bren forgot the fear that set his muscles taut and ready to run. The darkness was gone and he was at home. He needed to find a hiding spot and make a small camp so that he could remain within his refuge. But comfort delayed him. He rested there on the pew, warmed by Ruth’s light and the angel’s breath, with the faint lullaby of bells all around him. Before he could resist, he fell fast asleep.

Today was a hard day. Ben Shive’s “A Last Time for Everything,” kept running through my head as I watched the news updates from Connecticut. In Ben’s book, The Cymbal Crashing Clouds, he tells the story behind the song and I think it’s especially appropriate today. I’ve excerpted it below in images to maintain the unique formatting of the book. “A Last Time for Everything” by Ben Shivehttps://rabbitroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/ALastTime.mp3

Tell us, ye birds, why come ye here, Into this stable, poor and drear? Hast’ning we seek the newborn King, And all our sweetest music bring. ~ Charles L. Hutchins, Carol of the Birds I had been looking for them for weeks, from the first real shock of cold weather in early November, expecting at any moment to be brought up short in the midst of a day’s round by the sound that is at once the most wistful and the most exhilarating I have heard in nature. To be arrested with the wild, sweet declaration of change in the air and the turn of the seasons. To be held fast and fixed in a spell of wonder that is the yearly migration flight of the sandhill cranes. I remember so many late afternoons in autumn, the yard around us violet with gathering shadows and the day’s last gilding just ebbing from the treetops as we stood with heads thrown back in a compliment of complete silence, watching the tiny black mass swirl and mount its heavenly way before pressing southward in a somewhat ragged ‘V’, always cherishing the jumbled cacophony of cries that must be deafening at close range and yet has about it all the poignancy and bewildering exactitude of change-ringing at such a distance. They have always been a herald, a harbinger that electrifies me with aliveness and anticipation, and I love them for it. But they have never been so late, in my memory. And I hadn’t realized just how intently I’d been listening for their glad tidings until it came. It was one of those days that every second seemed to count. Every hour so carefully planned so as to press the last oil of productivity out of every moment. A day of loved preparation, no doubt, but ever teetering dangerously in the balance between ‘bustle’ and ‘huffing about’. The last sugar cookies were cooling on the racks and I was just measuring out the ingredients for gingerbread when I stopped as if I’d been tapped on the shoulder and caught my breath over that familiar ache of joy. I set down the jar of molasses and flew out the kitchen door, into the keen chill of a December afternoon, and whirled about, searching the sky. I think I felt them before I saw them, in much the way that a person senses they’re being observed. For just as I turned in their direction, they appeared with a gliding sweep above the proud hedge of hollies that border the kitchen yard. At first I was too fascinated to realize that I had never seen them at such close range: their bodies were grey, not black as they always seemed, and I could even make out the darker tips of their enormous wings. I wondered wildly for a moment if they were going to land in our pasture, until it became obvious that the slow and solemn circle was on the ascent. Perhaps they had taken off from the watering hole out front—had been there for quite some time while I was inside and all oblivion, up to my ears in flour and colored sugar! I stood transfixed as they mounted heavenward, as stately as a liturgical procession, with the occasional bird-shout of praise for good measure. And as they reached a certain height and came into a level with the slanting rays of the departing sun, an absolute miracle transpired. Each time the wheeling throng passed through the light, a wash of pure glory set them ablaze, running over them like the ripples of some heavenly watercourse, so that every wing was sheathed with silver and every feather a flash of gold. On and on they soared, higher and higher, passing from shadow to splendor in a recurring parable of unearthly beauty. Light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death… Soon after they forsook the charmed hold of light, and in a matter of a breathless moment or two they had unfurled themselves into perfect formation. And like a giant bracket with one leader at the fore and two lieutenants flanking him on either side, they passed swiftly over my head in reverent silence and glided away towards the south. I was shaken as I went back into the kitchen and regarded my late occupation. It seemed almost silly to reassume something as earthly as the baking of cookies after so heavenly a benediction. And yet, not silly. Sanctified, somehow, in the purifying glow of this holy Advent which appropriates all willing things unto itself and makes of a flight of birds or a flour-dusted kitchen a sacred thing and an intersection of the lay and the liturgical. Philip and I later talked long by the fire of why I was so moved: why the advent of a flock of birds would bear such a palpable weight of glory to my waiting heart. Why their shrill, metallic cries would seem the very voice of one calling in the wilderness. “It’s because we see them every year,” he said, “and we know what they mean.” That is precisely it. It’s that same paradox that Lewis talks about in The Screwtape Letters in speaking of our thrill at the change of seasons juxtaposed with our love of the familiar: He gives them the seasons, each season different yet every year the same, so that spring is always felt as a novelty yet always as the recurrence of an immemorial theme. And that is precisely why Advent is such a present promise and Christmas a yearly miracle. If our own hopes and longings are a recurring theme, how much more so is God’s everlasting “Yes!” to our eternal “Why”? The ‘Yes’ is Jesus, of course: Jesus in a manger; Jesus on a cross; Jesus coming again with power and great glory. Jesus coming in familiarity and great particularity to our present need and thrilling us with a hope that defies reason. The sandhill cranes were not late, any more than the God Who made them is late with the delivery on His promise. I’m so glad that they mingled themselves with my expectation this year and that Advent is the season they exulted over with their jubilant song. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. Celestial fowles in the air, Sing with your notes upon the height, In firthes and in forests fair Be mirthful now at all your might; For passed is your dully night; Aurora has the cloudes pierced, The sun is risen with gladsome light, Et nobis puer natus est. ~William Dunbar, Rorate caeli desuper

Father Eric knelt to pray in the college chapel just before Evensong a few days before Christmas. The long, high dark of the church leapt away behind him, a dusk he used to love for the star-like glimmer of the stained glass and the whispers that filled its watchful heights. Tonight though, it was only a vast, chilled cave at his back. Even the rustling far behind him in the shadows did not turn his head. It would have once. When he first came to be chaplain he knew, sure as he took his own breath, that the great angels carved in the dark wooden rafters of the ceiling sometimes stirred. He could swear it. A half smile, a teasing beat of a great wing just to keep him lively as he went about his work in the echoing old place. They laughed at him, they sang, even if he only caught the faintest echoes of their song when he entered and they froze in holy mischief. Once, the whole world hummed with music and the birds told of a country far up in the sky and the trees he passed in the lane looked as if they knew great secrets if he could only learn their language. But now, all was silent. The music was gone, the angels did not laugh or stir, and the rustling in the far back pews was only old Father Jonas with his wild eyes and shuffling steps, setting the hymnbooks straight and lighting the candles for the choir. Since the letter had come a month before, Eric felt that a great door had slammed in his face, for the world had become a silent place in which he was utterly alone. The day the letter came, he had staggered into his chapel and knelt, as he did now. His own voice echoed off the stones in the awful dusk of that afternoon, rose to the rafters and when he was exhausted, died. That was when the hush began, a silence so mighty he felt that he must have gone suddenly deaf. At his first cry the angels froze and the music ceased. Now, he set his elbows on the alter rail, put his chin in his hands and let his shoulders slump like a very small boy. His clerical collar cut uncomfortably into his neck, and the crèche scene next to the altar caught his despondent gaze. The choir boys loved the life-sized figurines and this year, in defiance of the rationing and restraint imposed upon them by the war, they had decked the figures out in brilliant old shawls and cast off clothes. But all Eric saw was the empty manger at heart of it all. It was empty by long tradition, of course, for the children could not place the baby within it until Christmas day. But a deep line of fear rutted his face at the sight. “Where are you?” He barely formed the words under his breath. He was a priest, but his heart was as empty of God as that manger and no angels or wise men sang to announce the coming of a child who would fill it. The only news that came to him was war and pain, and it came not in angel’s songs but in telegrams whose tiny typewritten letters unraveled his faith thread by thread. The words of Advent echoed in his mind, the words he proclaimed as priest in the services of this season; “come, Lord Jesus, come.” But the holy child had come thousands of years before, and died, and gone, and what good had it done? For the world warred on and pain was a thief in the night that no soul could escape and the child did not halt the breaking of the earth. The empty manger gaped up at Eric. The holy child was missing from his heart. Eric’s brother, the only family left to him was missing, a soldier lost in battle. And now Eric’s faith was missing too, as if it had gone in search of the others. His trust in God had always been the simple one of boyhood, a marveling at the beauty of the world, a giddy sort of joy that knew someone must be thanked for the splendor of it all. But there was nothing left to marvel at anymore. “Come, Lord Jesus,” he whispered, as if to test the words one last time, “come and save us.” But not a breath of response stirred about him, even in the secret places of his heart. Feeling fully adult for the first time in his life, old, creaky in all his bones and stiff in his skin, he rose and forced himself to an almost militant stance. They would soon come, all the old, faithful dons and their polite, grey-haired wives with saintly faces, and the choir boys whom not even war could scare into solemnity, and the few (very few) students more intent upon choir songs than pub tunes and another pint. He must play a grand charade for them tonight. Let them keep their faith as long as they could, and he his good position. Ellie, his wife, would be there too, slim and pale and looking a little too transparent for his comfort. He could not set the sorrow of his disbelief in her hands for there was a burning, heavy lump of it there already that set the navy tint of grief at back of her eyes even when she smiled. She met him now, at the wide arch that led into the freezing narthex where the choirboys gathered and a few candles shivered in the dark. How sword-straight she stood, with her neat, dark hair pulled back and her face paled by sorrow. Her beauty had never been the kind to shout at one. Her bearing was so quiet, her hands so calm that most people passed her by before they had time to glimpse the great brightness of her eyes and the smile that came like the rising of the morning. She was like his angels in the rafters, a secret glory. He could not bear to lose her too. She reached out a gloved hand to him and he bent to kiss her cheek so that she would not read the thoughts in his eyes. “Ready darling?” she asked, pulling his robes straight, “did you snatch a few good moments of prayer before Jonas showed up?” Her eyes were playful even in their quiet, her hands gentle, and he was grateful for laughter to cover his face as a mask. “Yes indeed, though I think he chased a few more mice than usual, it was quite the racket, ah – there’s David, I must speak to him about the anthem,” and he left her quickly. “I’ll see you after service,” he called back over his shoulder, watching her take her place in the high pew under the south window, its stained glass gleaming with the gold of wheat piles and the ruddy face of the diligent Ruth. Ellie always sat there, insisting that Ruth, the steady worker, kept her mind from wandering quite so much. She was never meant to be the prim wife of a college chaplain. His Ellie was like a living flame in the wind, a presence ever alight with the brightness of her own impassioned thought, her quiet, burning love of all things beautiful, of art and song and dance. She was a London girl, a writer’s daughter, raised in the vivid company of dreamer’s and artists until she married him. But then, he had never thought of himself as a staid and solemn priest. They both thought it a great, divine joke when he was installed in a position of such grown-up solemnity. At first, his laughter, his childlike sight of little wonders, and her fire had made his work, and their tiny home of stone and ivy within the college walls feel like a fresh story told at the end of an ancient tale. Life was a grand drama to Ellie and she told her own vivid imagination into the chapel world. In the ancient silence, she heard the echoes of prayers and the cries of babies baptized and the sighs of lovers wed, and she wove it into a living story for him. And of course, back then he could still catch the angels at their games. Now, as the choirboys gathered in rows and the choirmaster scolded until they were halfway straight, he took his place near the end of the procession, under the garish gold cross on its pole that always looked ready to crash upon the heads of the people below it. Perhaps, he mused, grief had finally made adults of him and Ellie both. She held silence to her now as if it was the child she had lost, and though she loved him, she could not lay it down and be glad. Well, no more could he. Life had finally made them the upright, solemn church couple they ought to be. Eric took a last glance up into the dark rafters. The angels were stone faced. He tucked his chin into his collar and shuffled ahead behind the choir. As the first hymn played, the congregation stood in a swish and rustle that filled the chapel with whispers. They shivered as they sang and drew a little nearer their seatmates. Usually they did not notice the chill. The starlight of the stained glass and the soaring of the music wove a circle about them that shut all worry away. But that night the music seemed thin and the light weak. The cold came at them like an invader, staining the air and battering them where they stood so that they felt accosted by a force much larger than themselves. Father Eric, whose ecclesiastical jollity and badly hidden mid-service grins at his wife usually provoked such pleasant gossip, looked grim and grey as the oldest man among them. He sang the prayers in a cold, harsh echo that startled rather than solaced them. Perhaps it was to be expected. It was the war, they supposed. The news was worse of late, the bombs in London heavier. They glanced up as the service progressed; the flames of the candles battled the darkness and the shadows leapt above them in a grotesque dance. They felt very small. The eyes of the angels in the windows looked shifty and the stone saints seemed very, very cold. They simply could not concentrate, and when the mischievous choirboys settled down to the anthem, their eyes wandered off uneasily into the shadows crouched in the high corners. They fidgeted and buttoned their coats and paid almost no attention to the ending of the service until Father Eric’s voice rang out in the last prayers: Lighten our darkness, we beseech Thee O Lord, and by Thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night… A few of the women jerked a curious glance in his direction, wondering if – heaven forbid – their chaplain had tears in his eyes. This was unheard of, but the grating unsteadiness of his tone made them suspicious. There was, of course, the awful news about his brother to be considered, and that disappointment with the baby a few months back, but priests were expected to leave their personal complaints at home. A glance at Father Eric’s stony face reassured them and they dropped their eyes in relief. The minute the service ended, they hurried out of the chapel into the night. The bitter cold of the open sky was a relief. But one small person looked back over his shoulder and dragged his feet as he went. The tall, gaunt-faced woman beside him jerked his hand so that he winced and hurried his steps. But he did not turn his gaze from the long, dim nave. The candlelit shadows had encircled him like the strong, sweet arms of the mother he barely remembered. For a few rare moments, he had forgotten to be afraid. And there were voices; the church echoed with lively whispers that set his eyes darting up and round and through the darkling corners. The candlelight glinted off the faces of the saints like a merry wink, and the music still seemed to leap and sing and echo in the shadows. The woman gave a final, exasperated jerk of his arm. A great sigh escaped him and he glanced back for the last time. He gasped. The angel in the rafters just above him had waved its wing and winked.

“At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the peoples of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory.” Matthew 24:30, TNIV Peter Jackson, the man most responsible for the great Lord of the Rings film trilogy, is about to premier the first part of his The Hobbit in the U.S. These movies are, of course, based on the splendid books by J.R.R. Tolkien. In preparation for the Hobbit movie, my daughters and I are watching all nine hours or so of the extended edition of the Lord of the Rings. While watching The Fellowship of the Ring the other day, I was struck by something that Boromir says. As you may recall, Boromir is from a country called Gondor. Many years ago, the King of Gondor left his people and did not return. Since then, they have been governed by a succession of men who’s title is “The Steward of Gondor.” The Steward’s job is to keep the throne open for the eventual return of the true King. The Steward is a lot like us. Our King, through his ascension, has gone back into Heaven. He tells us that he is coming again. In the meantime, we are left to watch after the Kingdom on his behalf. Of course, this parallel is very incomplete. We are not alone. Christ is present with us, we have the Holy Spirit, etc. But I hope you get the point. Over the years, some of the people of Gondor have given up on waiting. The current Steward of Gondor essentially acts as if he is the king, and a demanding and difficult one at that. Boromir happens to be the eldest son of the Steward, so he is set to become Steward when his father dies. When Boromir meets a man named Aragorn, and learns that Aragorn may be the rightful heir and true King of Gondor, he is not happy. In the film version, he practically spits out this great line: “Gondor has no king; Gondor needs no king.” How many times have we felt that way? When things are going well it is easy for us to think that we don’t need a King, we don’t need a God. When things are going poorly, when we are fed up and God does not seem to be hearing us, we might also say that we don’t need him. Sometimes we pay lip service to wanting a King, but our lives and actions show that we would rather not have one. What is true of us as individuals has also been true of large groups of people. Nations, companies, schools and even churches have essentially said “We don’t need God, we can do this on our own.” As the Lord of the Rings story progresses, Boromir gets to know Aragorn. He finds someone who is strong yet compassionate, wise yet humble, a leader who is a servant. A moment comes when it looks like Boromir may die (I don’t want to spoil anything, so I’ll leave it at that). He looks up at Aragorn and says “I would have followed you, my brother… my captain… my king.” Boromir didn’t want a king because he had never known a good one. He had only known self-serving rulers. But as he got to know Aragorn he came to respect him, trust him, and even love him. Perhaps we are like Boromir. Perhaps we would rather take care of ourselves because we don’t know a better alternative. But what if there is a better alternative? What if Jesus Christ is a good and loving and merciful king? That could be a king worth following, even a king worth turning over charge of our life to. Advent is about waiting for the King. It is about saying “I have no king, but I need the King.” Today let me suggest turning to King Jesus, asking him to reveal himself. As we spend time with him, perhaps we too will get to know a good King whom we might trust with our lives.

Just in time for Christmas, we’ve got a new batch of mugs in the store. Supplies are VERY limited (there are fewer than forty), so get ’em while they last. We’ve secured some special shipping boxes that we hope will prevent the breakage we’ve experienced in the past. Also be aware that our inventory system is imperfect at times, especially when multiple people are trying to buy a single item. If the mugs oversell, we apologize and will refund the unlucky late-comers as quickly as possible. Our mugs are each unique, hand-crafted works thrown by the pottery-wheel wielding potters at Sunset Hill Stoneware. The current set includes the following: “The Frederick” comes in two varieties: Old Wear (pictured at top) and The Hermit (pictured bottom). “The Walt” comes in two varieties: Beryl (pictured top) and Tuck Tucker (pictured bottom). “The MacDonald” comes in two varieties: Goblin King Green (pictured at top) and Sir Gibbie (pictured bottom). “The Eliot” comes in two varieties: Dry Salvages (pictured at top) and Burnt Norton (pictured bottom).

Trevin Wax (is it just me or does that sound like a Jedi name), with The Gospel Coalition, recently put up a great interview with Jonathan Rogers in which they discuss O’Connor’s work and Jonathan’s new book, The Terrible Speed of Mercy. Great reading. Here’s an exerpt: Though O’Connor was writing from a distinctly Christian worldview, religious readers didn’t seem to understand her any better than the literary elite, and they liked her less. She was misunderstood because she was writing into a culture that expected Christian truth to be nice and safe and tidy, and she refused to accommodate those expectations. The Jesus of O’Connor’s fiction is a “wild ragged figure,” not the sort of fellow you would invite to Sunday dinner unless you were ready to get your table tipped over. I’m reluctant to use the term “prophetic” to describe O’Connor’s work, but I will say that her fiction is uncomfortable and offensive in some of the ways that the Old Testament prophets’ words were uncomfortable and offensive to their original audience. For that matter, Jesus’s parables are calculated to offend and are easily misunderstood. Read the entire interview here.

Every year we transition from Thanksgiving to Advent, a strange segue in many ways. But there’s at least one thread that passes through these very different celebrations. The Pilgrims left the Old World, hoping to find in the New World a place where they could worship in liberty. A place to be with God. They did and did not find it. Since the first century, Christians here and everywhere have been living in the tension of having, and waiting to have, the New World. Come, Lord Jesus. Advent is a period of focusing on the longing we feel for the true New World, when the dwelling place of God will be with man and each man will sit beneath his tree and we will be home again on earth. New Earth. We long for that New World, the new heavens and new earth, completed recreation in and by the Second Adam. He was conceived as a man as the Holy Spirit hovered over the formless void of the virgin Mary’s womb. So began the New World. He arrived and nothing has been precisely the same since. Glory to God, the King has come. So he came and rescued his own from a threat mightier than the Roman occupation, mightier than all the armies of man joined in war. He came to destroy the works of the Devil, offered himself as a ransom for many, and inaugurated the Kingdom of God. When he performed miracles, he was not suspending the laws of nature, but authoritatively (under his Father) reasserting them. Jairus’s daughter cannot die in the New World. Ceremonial cleansing pots teem with wine in the New World. But he left, evacuated. He flew away. Didn’t he? He ascended, with all authority in heaven and on earth. He is the King of Kings in reality. There really is a Jewish King in the Sky. He rules with all authority and must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy is death. And when that damned foe finally falls we will know we are in the New World. And by many other signs, like the ubiquity of justice and peace, will his kingdom be known. And we will know him. And the earth will be filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea. I don’t know exactly how or when it will all happen, but I’m confident in the one who will accomplish it all. And the work is begun. We are the new creation. We are the seeds of the garden growing. Come, Lord Jesus. Come. Come and rule, long-expected King of Heaven and Earth. New World without end. Amen. Amen.

G.K. Chesterton: “The worst moment for an atheist is when he feels a profound sense of gratitude and has no one to thank.” C.S. Lewis: “Gratitude exclaims, very properly, ‘How good of God to give me this.’” Annie Dillard: “Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery, like the idle, curved tunnels of leaf miners on the surface of a leaf. We must somehow take a wider view, look at the whole landscape, really see it, and describe what’s going on here. Then we can at least wail the right question into the swaddling band of darkness, or, if it comes to that, choir the proper praise.” Kate DiCamillo: “Dear God, thank you for warm summer nights and candlelight and good food. But thank you most of all for friends. We appreciate the complicated and wonderful gifts you give us in each other. And we appreciate the task you put down before us, of loving each other the best we can, even as you love us. We pray in Christ’s name, Amen.” Sally Lloyd-Jones: “Behind what you were doing, underneath everything that was happening, God was doing something good. God was making everything right again.” N.D. Wilson: “What is the world? What is it for? It is an art. It is the best of all possible art, a finite picture of the infinite. Assess it like prose, like poetry, like architecture, sculpture, painting, dance, delta blues, opera, tragedy, comedy, romance, epic. Assess it like you would a Faberge egg, like a gunfight, like a musical, like a snowflake, like a death, a birth, a triumph, a love story, a tornado, a smile, a heartbreak, a sweater, a hunger pain, a desire, a fufillment, a desert, a waterfall, a song, a race, a frog, a play, a song, a marriage, a consummation, a thirst quenched. Assess it like that. And when you’re done, find an ant and have him assess the cathedrals of Europe.” George MacDonald: “To receive honestly is the best thanks for a good thing.” Flannery O’Connor (on the deterioration of her body): “I can, with one eye squinted, take it all as a blessing.” J.R.R. Tolkien: “Where there’s life there’s hope, and need of vittles.” Thomas Merton: “To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything He has given us – and He has given us everything. Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it immense graces from Him. Gratitude therefore takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder and to praise of the goodness of God. For the grateful person knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience. And that is what makes all the difference.” Frederick Buechner: “Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.” Wendell Berry (excerpt from his poem “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front”): “Expect the end of the world. Laugh. Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.” Marilynne Robinson: “It has seemed to me sometimes as though the Lord breathes on this poor gray ember of Creation and it turns to radiance—for a moment or a year or the span of a life. And then it sinks back into itself again, and to look at it no one would know it had anything to do with fire, or light. Wherever you turn your eyes the world can shine like transfiguration. You don’t have to bring a thing to it except a little willingness to see. Only, who could have the courage to see it? Theologians talk about a prevenient grace that precedes grace itself and allows us to accept it. I think there must also be a prevenient courage that allows us to be brave – that is, to acknowledge that there is more beauty than our eyes can bear, that precious things have been put into our hands and to do nothing to honor them is to do great harm.”

This is an excellent painting. The lighting, the composition, the execution—they’re all excellent. I look at it and don’t know what is going on exactly, but I love it. I want to know more about it. I want to know what compelled the painter to make this image. So I look at the title. The title is “The Old Shepherd’s Cheif Mourner,” painted by Edwin Henry Landseer (1802-1873). I enjoyed the technical excellence of the painting, but it wasn’t until I read the name that I truly appreciated the painting’s narrative excellence as well. I look at the painting again, and now the dog’s face takes on a heartbreaking sense of loss. Layers of story now begin to unfold around the image for me. Most of the time I dismiss titles as unnecessary nonsense by which lazy artists prop up technically inferior work because it lacks the ability to stand on its visual merits alone. And while it’s true that in the past there have been instances where artists have taken a shortcut to applause by coming up with names for their work that sound fashionable or hyper-intellectual, there have also been hapless artists who just wanted to paint something simple, like a lake, because it made them happy, but who then felt compelled to add some title implying that the image is really a statement on the post-industrial consumerism or the plight of the proletariat in eastern Bulgaria or some fashionable elitist cause. All because they were afraid of their work being labeled sentimental or anti-intellectual because it was representational and wasn’t shocking. This appreciation of psuedo-intellectual titles seems to have fallen away somewhat in the past few years. (I personally thank Frank Frazetta and video games for this.) But there even exist online name generators to lampoon the whole idea of this sort of naming. Consider this site, which will generate three pieces of abstract art at random, all with suitable titles. However, this cultural reaction against fancy names has its drawbacks–mainly that we may forget the great value of a title. I certainly do. In my efforts to avoid trying to sound pretentious I generally name my work something like: “Painting #2,” “Monster #15,” “George Washington Field-Tackling a Bear #34,” and so on. But there’s a classical use for titles. And that is to take an image that is already technically excellent on its visual merits alone, and then provide the viewer with further context and insight into it. “The Old Shepherd’s Chief Mourner” is an excellent example of how a name can add to an image, and not be a replacement for technical excellence in one.

[Editor’s note: This post is adapted from Jonathan Rogers’s portion of the Hutchmoot 2012 session entitled “The Gospel Uses of Comedy.”] I love a good tragedy. Hamlet and Oedipus and Medea and Dr. Faustus and Macbeth have plenty to tell us about the human condition. But I don’t think they show us any more than Charlie Chaplin’s little tramp—loose of limb and baggy of trouser, continually embarrassed, forever getting in over his head, getting out again, escaping ruin not by wit or social influence or main strength, but by happy accident—by a kind of grace. The tragic hero falls because he cannot come to terms with his own finitude. The comic hero survives because he can. The comic hero is able to say, “I’m only human,” which needn’t be a cop-out or an excuse for bad behavior, since there was a time when God himself became human and dwelt among us. You’re only human. Halleluiah! For human beings are exactly who God rescues in Christ. I might as well start where everybody starts when talking about laughter in the Bible: Genesis 17-19 and the laughter of Abraham and Sarah, whose sardonic, self-protecting laughter got swallowed up by the laughter of joy. Russ Ramsey writes beautifully about this story in Behold the Lamb of God, and so does Sarah Clarkson in a recent Rabbit Room post. I commend both pieces to you. For that matter, I commend Frederick Buechner’s writing on the subject, in Telling the Story: the Bible as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale. You probably know this story already. Abraham was a hundred years old and Sarah was ninety. God had promised decades earlier that he would make a great nation of their offspring, but it wasn’t looking like it was going to happen, since they were childless. Abram had the one son Ishmael, whom he had fathered with Sarah’s serving woman Hagar in an effort to help God do his job, but Sarah still hadn’t borne any child of promise. When God told Abraham once again that his wife was going to have a baby, he fell out laughing: “Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said to himself, ‘Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Shall Sarah, who is ninety, bear a child?’” What he said next is just as telling. “Oh that Ishmael might live before you.” Abraham laughed at God’s plan and offered his own in its place. Shortly thereafter, the three angels appeared at Abraham’s tent and announced again that Sarah would bear a son within the year. “So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, ‘After I am worn out, and my lord is old, shall I have pleasure?’” Abraham laughed. Sarah laughed. I don’t wish to suggest that either laugh was an evil laugh or even a consciously disrespectful laugh. It was probably involuntary laughter. Still this was laughter of self-protection, plastering over decades of disappointment and sorrow. It was sardonic laughter. It was the laughter of people who were saying, “Yeah, right! I’ve been around the block before. I know how things work around here.” You know how this story pays off. A year later, Sarah had a baby, and she laughed again, this time not sarcastically but out of irrepressible joy. I love the way Buechner talks about it: It all happened not of necessity, not inevitably, but gratuitously, freely, hilariously. And what was astonishing, gratuitious, hilarious was, of course, the grace of God. What could they do but laugh at the preposterousness of it, and they laughed until the tears ran down their cheeks. They laughed sardonically when they heard the prediction. They laughed for joy when the prediction came true. So they named their boy “Laughter.” It’s a beautiful story. I love it. The spiritual ramifications are tremendous. Again, read Russ, Sarah, and Buechneron the subject. But I want to draw your attention to something that Russ, Sarah, and Buechner mostly spare you from. I want to pay attention to the path by which Abraham and Sarah got from point A—the bitter laughter of the old and disappointed–to point B—the joyful laughter of a couple who understand how outlandishly they have been blessed. Consider the simple biological facts of where babies come from. Remember, there is no suggestion whatsoever that Sarah got pregnant through immaculate conception or by any means other than the tried and true method. What I am pointing out is that some time within three months of the angels’ visit, a hundred-year-old Abraham and a ninety-year-old Sarah took the necessary steps to make a baby. Pause for a moment and envision that. It may help to close your eyes. Take as long as you need. I first pondered these peculiar facts after hearing an old radio preacher in Georgia some twenty-five years ago preaching on this text. I have forgotten everything about the sermon except one sentence spoken in a husky, suggestive voice: “Abraham looked over at Sarah, and she looked-ed good to him, and Sarah looked over at Abraham, and he looked-ed good to her . . .” Do you think I’m making a dirty joke? Listen, I’m not the one who made the joke; it’s all right there in Genesis. Abraham and Sarah thought they knew how things were going to work out. They understood how the world works: you win some, you lose some. They had come to terms with the fact that they weren’t going to have any kids, in spite of what God had told them so many years before. In God’s apparent failure to keep his promise, they formed a Plan B, and they were working it. Abraham had impregnated Hagar, Ishmael was born. It wasn’t what they originally had in mind, but it was working. Abraham and Sarah had settled into the dignity of old age. Then Abraham looked over at Sarah and she looked-ed good to him, and he looked-ed good to her, and next thing you know they’re engaged in most undignified behavior, and Sarah is pregnant with the child of the promise. She had laughed at the angels, but now the joke is on her—90 years old and pregnant!—and she laughed and laughed. Surely she said, “The joke’s on me—Halleluiah!” And Abraham surely said, “I’ve been such a fool! Halleluiah! … Halleluiah that I have been so wrong about how this universe works!” There’s a deep pleasure in the gospel that nobody talks about very much, and it is the pleasure of saying, “Oh, What a fool I have been! I was so sure I knew how this thing was going to turn out. I shaped my life around a foolish assumption that the world was telling me the truth about itself and my place in it. I was so wrong! Halleluiah! I lived in fear of things that had no power to harm me! I thought I had to exert my will and get my way! But now I don’t have to anymore. Halleluiah!” If I were a preacher, I would have an altar call, and all you would have to do would be to come down to the front and say, “Oh, what a fool I’ve been! I took myself so damned seriously!” I’m not using that word “damned” casually. Is there anything so damning as excessive self-regard? I love what G.K. Chesterton has to say on this subject: Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly. This has always been the instinct of Christian art. . . In the old Christian pictures the sky over every figure is like a blue or gold parachute. Every figure seems ready to fly up and float about in the heavens. The tattered cloak of the beggar will bear him up like the rayed plumes of the angels. But the kings in their heavy gold and the proud in their robes of purple will all of their nature sink downwards, for pride cannot rise to levity or levitation. Pride is the downward drag of all things into an easy solemnity. One “settles down” into a sort of selfish seriousness; but one has to rise to a gay self-forgetfulness. . . . Seriousness is not a virtue. It would be a heresy, but a much more sensible heresy, to say that seriousness is a vice. It is really a natural trend or lapse into taking one’s self gravely, because it is the easiest thing to do. . . . For solemnity flows out of men naturally; but laughter is a leap. It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light. Satan fell by the force of gravity. The surest sign of a fool is a terror of being laughed at. And, ironically, that’s part of what makes him so laughable. I realize that there is a delicate balance that I haven’t paid much attention to. We need to acknowledge the deep dignity of our fellow human beings. For that matter, we need to acknowledge our own deep dignity, and laughter in many cases (or perhaps I should say laughter in many kinds) doesn’t help us acknowledge or honor that dignity. Consider the oft-quoted passage from Lewis in “The Weight of Glory”: It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare . . . There are no ‘ordinary’ people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. My point, really, is this: all these immortals also have bodies. They live here in this world in bodies that make noises and smells, that sometimes fall down and sometimes lift them up, that fail them, that sometimes lead them into temptation and sometimes carry them into battle or into a hospital ward where they serve and love other immortals in their bodies. Every funny thing you ever saw or heard was funny because of some incongruity—and usually, this specific incongruity: you are a little lower than the angels, and yet you live here in this imperfect world in this imperfect body. Comedy acknowledges that we are body and soul both. So if the history of Israel begins with a bawdy joke, so be it. Abraham—Exalted Father—and his Princess Sarah were the butts of a joke we’re still telling 3500 years later. The punch line isn’t just that Abraham and Sarah were ridiculous—the laughers becoming the laughed-at. The punch line is that they are themselves welcomed into the great joke that is the Kingdom of God—where (to borrow from Buechner) salvation can’t possibly happen because it can only impossibly happen.

This week I checked out Wendell Berry’s The Country of Marriage and stumbled on a poem I hadn’t read before. Just a few days ago my kind neighbor Tommy gave me permission to harvest a few maple seedlings from his property and I spent an afternoon replanting them around the Warren with these same hopes for the blessing they might be to my children’s children. Once again, the sage words of the Mad Farmer gave me a clear picture of what it means for us to be keepers of his creation, standing amidst a breadth of old beauty that we didn’t ask for and don’t deserve. I’m tempted to draw out a metaphor, like I did in my song of the same title, but I think maybe it’s good (especially in light of the glorious autumn all around me in Nashville right now), to let the trees in the poem stand in their own bright significance as members of God’s creation. PLANTING TREES In the mating of trees, the pollen grain entering invisible the domed room of the winds, survives the ghost of the old forest that was here when we came. The ground invites it, and it will not be gone. I become the familiar of that ghost and its ally, carrying in a bucket twenty trees smaller than weeds, and I plant them along the way of the departure of the ancient host. I return to the ground its original music. It will rise out of the horizon of the grass, and over the heads of weeds, and it will rise over the horizon of men’s heads. As I age in the world it will rise and spread, and be for this place horizon and orison, the voice of its winds. I have made myself a dream to dream of its rising, that has gentled my nights. Let me desire and wish well the life these trees may live when I no longer rise in the mornings to be pleased by the green of them shining, and their shadows on the ground, and the sound of the wind in them. Check out Wendell Berry’s books currently in the Rabbit Room Store.

I sat in my seat like a sitting sitter. I was preparing to watch TV with my eyes. So far, so good. On the TV? The GOP Convention, live from Tampa. Ha ha. Time for scorn. I’m so scornful I even feel scorn towards uber-scornful “above-it-alls” like Jon Stewart. That’s really, really scornful. I was prepared to let my superiority drip off my nose and mingle with my potion of negativity and cynicism. They make that drink, yes. I was sure all the speeches would be dull, insincere, pandering designed to trick independents, and to inspire the brain-dead bought-ins with shallow sloganeering for the sycophantic. In short, I was prepared to judge like a majorly judging judger. Then I saw on Facebook that a friend of mine was one of the people writing the speeches for the convention. Uh oh. I thought about this friend, her face recalled in memory. She’s smart, sincere, sensitive. She cares about the work she does. She believes in doing what’s right, has a passion for her nation. She isn’t a brainless party hack. I’ve heard her thoughtfully disagree with her party’s decisions, or representatives. She’s a nuanced thinker, a clever, kind person working to make things better in America. She’s someone who has encouraged me many times, valued my own comparably unimpressive work, bucked me up with bracing words. Also, she’s a sister in Christ. My plan was falling apart. Now, where I had been prepared for scorn, I was looking for the true words. I was sifting the speeches to locate, and appreciate, the hopeful, the sincere, the eloquent. Familiarity had changed something. Was I suddenly all-in with every word from the GOP Convention? No. But it was very different to experience it with a friend on the inside. My point isn’t to prod a discussion about the GOP, or their opponents (if you really want to hear scorn from me), but to talk about how familiarity can breed compassion. Just knowing one person –one person on the inside– changed my attitude dramatically. It makes me wonder if many of the places I am prepared to heap up scorn would be impacted if I knew someone inside, going through whatever I’m making fun of, struggling with a sincere hope in a battlefield of lies and cynicism. I am amazed at my ability to fail to notice with any real insight things outside of my own little selfish kingdom. For instance, I never notice the make, or model of cars. I just don’t care. Unless I happen to own that car, then suddenly I see them all over. They have been allowed inside the privileged world of my attention. Congratulations, car. Welcome to my vehicular awareness club. But cars don’t have souls. How quick I am to pour on scorn, to withhold compassion, when someone is struggling with a sin that doesn’t tempt me. But when I love someone in that fight, the whole thing changes. The abstract sin that’s so wicked becomes personal in a new way. Sympathy grows within me, scorn begins to evaporate. And not just for my friend. Suddenly, all the people struggling with this sin have become more human in my imagination, because I know and love someone in that fight. The sin doesn’t become less awful, in fact it becomes more threatening, because now it doesn’t threaten “people,” but a person. A person I love. I’m now more likely to see the similarities between the sin that drags me down and the sin that drags them down. Their challenge becomes like my challenge. I hope that doesn’t mean we all surrender those fronts. Compassion and capitulation are different. Hitler must still be defeated, because embracing him is to be swallowed by death. But perhaps it means we’ll consider fighting in a different way. I may be less likely to hoist a sign and more likely to lend a hand. Hopefully I’m less likely to scream judgement and more likely to pray and focus on the liberating Good News of Jesus for sinners. I am humbled by the newly discovered intimacy. Suddenly I’m more able to imagine how I’d like to be treated were I walking a mile in those moccasins. I see it from the inside. I hope this growing awareness is genuinely humbling for me. I’m so proud that I’m pretty embarrassed to even admit what a jerk I can be, how quick I can be to heap up scorn and be dismissive. But maybe you need to hear about that from someone on the inside. ———————- Featured image cropped from Zach Franzen’s illustration.

One night last summer Philip and I were driving back from Birmingham in our little roadster, Happiness Runs. We had been visiting dear friends and a gorgeous sunset was already simmering in the west by the time we managed to tear ourselves away. It had been a weekend of work and wonderful food and iron-sharpening fellowship, and we were feeling so brimful of God’s goodness we both just wanted to sit in silence and enjoy it, like the quiet satisfaction after an exquisite meal. We had the top down as it was such a fine night, and I slid Andrew Peterson’s Counting Stars into the CD player, nestling back in my seat to look at the real stars overhead as we sped eastward towards home. About the time we reached the dark stretch on I-20 that is the Talladega National Forest we started to notice a few splatters on the windshield, and I looked up to see that the starlit sky was now racing and tearing with ragged clouds. The cool thing about a convertible is that if you are going fast enough (ahem, well within the speed limit, of course!) you can drive through a reasonable amount of rain and not get wet. I know there’s some fancy scientific principle at play here, but what this means to me is just an added spice of drama to an already fun ride. (It can also mean a lot of laughter if we fail to gauge our storm and end up getting soaked.) Just as the rain began to fall in earnest and the storm-black clouds swallowed the last star over our heads, the opening guitar notes of The Reckoning warbled out of the speakers. I grinned across at Philip in delight and reached over to turn up the volume. There’s just nothing like the appropriateness of a perfect song matched to a perfect occasion. And as our little car hurtled through the darkness of that long road home, the heavens literally whirled and thundered and exploded in bursts of light over our heads, like some wild-eyed hints of a glory too great to be told. I watched, breathtaken, as the silver tongues of lightning split the sullen clouds, baring for a moment a rose-colored sky, and as the trees by the wayside twisted and bowed in this great dance with the wind. I felt as if, in the splendor of all that tempest and song, we might just drive straight up into heaven itself. It was magnificent, a moment of pure, painful delight. A foretaste of the satisfied longings the music had put a voice to. And the beauty is that it was another person’s gift that had conspired with the very heavenlies to usher me into this suffocating explosion of joy, and, afterward, the deep, rumbling quiet of the knowledge of God’s love. I don’t know about you, but that’s pretty incredible to me: that the Maker of the universe would create all these creators in his own image, and then go on revealing bits of himself through the medium of their art. The mighty weather that night, unfolded like a tapestry of omnipotence, made me long for heaven. But Andrew’s music stabbed me with the joy that perhaps heaven was longing for me. I thought about that night and what it meant to me when Andrew closed his album release show in Nashville during Hutchmoot with that same song. It seemed such a fitting image of the ‘Moot itself, and all that The Rabbit Room stands for. All of these wildly talented people, I kept thinking, lifting up their gifts for the love of God and the love of people. What could be more beautiful? Earlier that day, Sarah Clarkson and I had spoken on the art of subtext, the way that the best authors underpin their stories with ideals and graces that literally woo the reader, rather than preaching and proselytizing. Sarah brought up the point that the spiritually-minded writer is actually making a refuge with her work, creating a sacred space within which another soul can encounter God. Like a builder, the artist goes on making these places, filling the rooms with rare and beautiful treasures. And then with a holy self-forgetfulness, they pull the door to on the deep magic between God and another soul and tiptoe quietly away. I saw this very thing in action all weekend long at Hutchmoot. This essential humility coupled with a childlike joy in creation. It graced the meals at our tables; it spiced and seasoned our conversations. It was the noble spirit of the kingdom and the courtly dignity of broken people beautified by an unfathomable love. It was the reason Phil Vischer could stand up before a room packed with starry-eyed artists during the keynote speech and tell them they needed to basically crucify their own dreams—and get a standing ovation. Driving home through the green Tennessee hills after Hutchmoot, Philip and I asked each other: “What was your favorite part, the best moment that seemed to epitomize the whole weekend?” The car was quiet for a while as we both stewed on this question, raising in our minds doubtless a dozen possible answers. But in the end, it was the same thing, the same moment of grace: Saturday afternoon, sitting out under the tent, listening to Eric Peters give an impromptu, unplugged concert. The sessions were over, as was the gift of one of Evie’s legendary meals. I was feeling tired, my introverted self a little drained, and I had told Philip after lunch I thought I’d go find a quiet place to rest for a while and just not talk. But the moment Eric started to play, I sat down again and neither one of us moved a muscle—except only to draw our chairs out into the sunshine and throw back our heads to its warmth. I’m a huge fan of Eric’s music; I told him that Birds of Relocation was basically the soundtrack of my life for 2012. He gives himself in his songs without stint, and that is the very reason why they give such a resonant image of grace and the human heart. But there was something so kind, so generous, in that informal afternoon concert of his—when I knew that he was as tired as all the rest of us, and yet he stood there with his guitar taking requests for over an hour and pouring out living water by the pitcher-full. I felt my springs filling up as I sat there in the warm blessing of the sun, my heart renewed as no amount of ‘down time’ could ever hope to accomplish. It was something akin to prayer; a lovely blend of corporate and private worship. It was the Body of Christ, nourishing and being nourished. But most meaningful to me was the way that Eric would talk about his songs, about his own journey and the broken places out of which the music was born. In the most genuine way he told us we were not alone by telling us how God had met him in pain and darkness, not in spite of it. I tend to always be tripping over the idea that God is waiting for me to get my act together so we can get on with this Christian life. Eric reminded me, yet again, and in a way that I will not forget, that my brokenness is all I have to give to the world—that and the beauty of Christ’s redemptive, re-creative love, which is the very song the world is longing to hear. God doesn’t write novels or paint pictures or compose symphonies—but He makes men and women that do. Human beings have this amazing potential to tell each other the truth; to gather the glimpses of God entrusted to them individually and give them back to the world in flashes of story and color and song. All these reflections of Him cast into the world like the million tiny stars thrown from the heart of a sun-shot diamond. A million, million holy lamps burning within the sanctuaries of our art. I remember praying as I was getting ready for my sessions, feeling more than a little overwhelmed at the idea of speaking to a roomful of people who were all smarter and better educated and more articulate than I am. “Lord,” I said, “I am just so afraid that I’m going to give myself away.” I could almost feel the chortle of celestial laughter in the room. It warmed me to my bones. “Why, yes, my dear,” he chuckled back at my heart, “that is exactly what you are going to do. What else?” That was the essence of Hutchmoot for me this year. Strength in weakness; beauty for ashes. Men and women beloved of God—oh, so beloved of God—giving themselves away for each other. Broken bread and poured out wine and a Feast of which we’ve had only the least glimpse. But oh, what a glimpse it was. Photo by: NASA, Hubble Telescope.

[Editor’s Note: Some of you may remember meeting Jonny Jimison at Hutchmoot. You might have missed the fact that he draws comics—which is awesome. Here’s a look at one of his post-Moot comics. Visit his website for more of his work.]

[Editor’s Note: Thank you for the Hutchmoot reactions you’ve all been posting. I’ve tried to read them all and I’ve enjoyed each of them. Alyssa Ramsey sent this to me last night. She’s done a good job of capturing my own thoughts, so I thought I’d post it here. Thanks, Alyssa. –Pete Peterson] A few days ago I wrote a blog post reflecting on the Hutchmoot weekend. When I finished it and read back over my own words, it was like hoping for an Evie Coates feast but being served Vienna sausages and old socks instead. I had proved Pete Peterson right. At Hutchmoot 2011 he said, “The reader can easily hear the moment you stop telling the truth.” Those words had nagged at me as I attempted to put the experience into written form. I knew I was not telling the truth—at least not about this year. I was writing what was true a year ago, what I wished were still true, what I thought you would believe. The truth is, Hutchmoot was a battle for me this year. Not every moment, but some of them. The trouble wasn’t the planning, or the sessions, or the speakers, or the food. It certainly wasn’t the fellowship. It was that I expected you to be Jesus, and you were not. I want you to know I love you all. Many of you have become friends. And even those of you I haven’t met are brethren to me, dear ones with whom I share the kinship of Christ and rabbits. The time spent in your company was a deep pleasure and our conversations were a delight. But in the quiet moments when I faced my thoughts alone, the enemy assailed me. You don’t belong here. You’re a fraud, and they know it. They don’t want to talk to you, they’re just too polite to walk away. I sat in on Russ Ramsey’s Friday morning devotion and heard him say, “It doesn’t matter what others think of you. It doesn’t even matter what you think of you. Ultimately, what God thinks of you is all that matters” (from 1 Cor. 4:3-4). Yes! I thought. I knew it was true. I found momentary comfort in those words. Yet deep down I harbored the suspicion that God’s thoughts toward me needed to be proved by his saints. And so I set you up for failure. No community of humans can fill a soul’s cavernous longing. They can encourage you, affirm you, support and serve you, and point you toward your purpose. All of this you did. But even the most genuine, loving community will always fail to fill our deepest longings. It must. This is by God’s good design. In his opening remarks, Andrew Peterson read a quote from George MacDonald, part of which said: “In every man there is a loneliness, an inner chamber of peculiar life into which God only can enter.” Community has limits because God will not let his children settle for less than himself. As far as I understand it, God often uses community to draw us to himself, but never to satisfy us. In many ways it is an avenue through which Christ reveals himself to us. But when it is asked to play a part that only Christ can fill, it becomes an idol. This is true of any community—a homeschool group, a sports team, a Bible study class, a band, a writers’ club, a family. These were never meant to substitute for Jesus, or even to supplement him. They were meant to be a fleshing out of divine character: the mind and body of Christ in action. It seems to me that the danger is in allowing a community to function as Christ rather than to demonstrate Christ. When we depend on it for our worth rather than letting it simply remind us what we’re already worth in Christ, we’ve stumbled. To ask any community to be our all in all, even unconsciously, is an injustice, a delusion, and a sin. But God is gracious. Because of his great love, he will allow the communities we idolize to leave us in our insecurities. As Phil Vischer said (if you took notes you can give me the exact quote), God cares far more about owning our hearts than about giving us our dreams—even dreams as small as inclusion and recognition among groups of admirable rabbit-humans. I haven’t told you this for the fun of a public confession. The thought of you reading it nauseates me. I still feel the need to assure you that when I spoke with you last weekend, my heart was full of love and admiration. That is true. But much of the time, the voices of insecurity and fear nibbled at the back of my mind, until in the post-Moot letdown they came raging to the surface. They roared in my ears as I wrote a dishonest essay. But louder still, another voice persuaded me that I’m not the only one—that someone besides me has wept more since Hutchmoot than they did during it. That the lies have chased others home as well. That someone else needs to remember that it doesn’t matter what others think of you. It doesn’t even matter what you think of you. Ultimately, what God thinks of you is all that matters. And what does he think? That you are the righteousness of God in Christ. Chosen and dearly loved. His radiant bride. So how did Hutchmoot change me this year? By not filling my deepest longing. By reminding me that no human being, even the most gracious and loving, will ever fill it. By leaving me only one option: Christ. To my fellow Hutchmooters: I demanded the impossible, and for that I ask your forgiveness. But you were a vessel of Christ’s love and discipline to me, so for that I thank you. From now on, can we be nothing more to each other than what Christ says we are? Because what we are is enough: fellow travelers, and a holy family, and a royal priesthood. And Jesus is King. [Photo by Mark Geil]

Here’s a look at the way we approached the stories of Joseph and Mary for my Christmas record: