Yesterday at breakfast, my oldest son had the sniffles. Prone to drama, and with the energy and vigor expected of a sinewy seven-year-old boy, he doubled over and raised up with every sniff. Repeatedly, he threw back his head and collapsed on the table with a force that could incapacitate a grandparent. In short, he was fine. But he sighed and groaned and slouched and barely picked at his breakfast, and his ten-year-old sister Livi said, “Mom, Jonah needs to go to the doctor.” My wife replied, “Oh, I know he’s feeling lousy. You’re sweet to look out for him, but I think he’ll be fine. He’s just waking up.” Jonah gained courage by his sister’s concern. The sniffles became powerful inward blasts, punctuated by more pitiful prostration. And after another moment, the ten-year-old said again, this time with strength, “MOM, Jonah NEEDS to go to the DOCTOR.” Amy and I looked at Livi, and then at each other. Of course, Jonah did not need a doctor. The ten-year-old, having realized that she is old enough to understand some things, had forgotten that she is still a child. I gape and shake my head in wonder at her presumption, because I forget that is exactly how I am with God. I would do much better to recognize the kinship I have with my children in this matter. It would help make me a more patient parent and a more willing child of God. It is so easy for someone with the advantage of age to see the silly mistakes of the young, and that truth makes me shudder at the fierce clarity with which God must see my life of misadventures. How much more ridiculous must I seem to God, having deceived myself, so much more than a ten-year-old, with my shallow wisdom and understanding. But that brings the teeth to the tail, because even at my most foolish and peacocky, God loves me perfectly. He has come to me and has made his home in me. He puts his feet up and gets comfortable and waits for me to listen, like a father waits for his child.

It is always a bit of a mental jolt to discover that one of your best-loved authors greatly dislikes another of your very favorite authors. I felt this way recently as I read an essay by Wendell Berry in which he took great umbrage with the wanderlust of Tennyson’s title character in the poem, Ulysses. I have always loved Ulysses, both the poem, and the man presented in it. I even memorized snatches of Tennyson’s sea haunted poem. When I read those great lines of Ulysses’ longing to “follow knowledge like a sinking star, beyond the utmost bound of human thought,” I knew his hunger. And when I read that face-down-the-night declaration of his purpose to “drink life to the lees,” and “sail beyond the baths of all the western stars until I die,” well, I wanted to take off for the far ends of the earth right then. Something new was waiting to be found. So, you can imagine my dismay when I discovered that Berry found Ulysses’ adventurous fervor to be just the sort of misplaced hunger that sets people off on adventures when they ought to be keeping the faith at home. I’m a bit of a Wendell Berry fanatic. He answers so many of the questions I ask about how to create fellowship and life in a fast, isolated modern world. He’s all for steady cultivation and faithfulness over long years. How can any community or heritage be built, he wondered in his essay, if kings were always wandering off and leaving their people to the wind when the want for adventure struck? I saw his point. I understood. But I also knew that Ulysses’ hunger was more than a selfish whim to travel. It was soul deep, a hunger for something eternal. Somehow, both views had to be true. At that moment, with two great authors juxtaposed over their view of one king’s adventurous heart, I understood that different souls see different sides of life. Different artists find different beauties. Different writers tell different stories. Some find glory in the adventure of life, the great journey required of every soul born. Some find glory in the quiet, daily growth of home life, the small, rich details that come from life carefully tended and lived. Both speak truth, both offer us beauty. Both offer a glimpse into the richness of God’s mind. I sat with my book in hand and thought back over some of my favorite writers and heroes, fascinated to find them each what I will call either a dreamer, or a keeper. Take St. Brendan, for instance. He was a seafarer. Why? Cloistered, devout, he was just a young monk alive in a world still haunted by the furies of old pagan gods, hemmed in by the pathless sea. Danger abounded in brigands and storms and petulant kings. Yet an old monk mumbled a half-baked dream, murmured of paradise gained, and off sailed Brendan over the wild waters, in resolute search of Eden. Jane Austen was an observer. Why? With a knife-keen wit and a mind to unsettle the wisest, she could have striven to philosophical heights. Instead, she spied on her neighbors, and wove the quips and foibles of dining room drama into immortal tales. Brilliant woman, parson’s child, country-bound spinster aunt, she questioned not her lot, but found it to be a merry drama and was glad. Galileo was a doubter. Why? Taught to believe that the earth was settled perfectly in space, the glorious center of everything, he balked. Believe without question? Not him. He studied and stargazed and flung planets from their thrones with never a second thought. One peek through a telescope, one hunch in a prickle up his spine, and off he ran to prove what had never been seen. I think the people of earth are divided by lines of desire. Dreamers stand on one hand, and keepers sit on the other. Restive and restless-eyed souls are the dreamers. They are the hungry-hearted, with wanderlust thrumming in their blood and eager brains, ever in search of what lies a fingertip just out of reach. Truth or beauty, treasure or friend, they would risk their life to find the unseen ideal. In the annals of time, the dreamers play out like high, bright notes in a symphony. St. Brendan had to find heaven if it could be found on earth. The call of it just beyond him was a song he could not resist. Galileo felt that all was not as he had been told. Ulysses wanted to sail beyond one more star. So it is with all dreamers. They are the explorers, the artists, the sailors, and searchers who ever beat down the walls of the known, intent upon finding what has never been found. The keepers wait to welcome them home. They are the glad-eyed and frank-faced souls, who settle and stay with a faithful joy. The song of the unseen troubles them not; they feel instead the dance of the seasons, the cadence of days as time sings in the here and now. The present reaches a powerful hand from the deep earth and roots them, happy, to their one place in the wide world. They craft and build, they keep what is civil and lovely alive, they master the art of life lived richly. In the symphony of time, they are the rich-throated hum of low violins, the myriad voices who weave the steady, marching song of the earth. Keepers are the good kings who set their hearts to cultivation instead of conquest, the Jane Austens who revel in the merriment of every day. They are the rulers and builders, the farmers and reapers of harvests, the faithful who keep all that is good in place throughout the ages. We are born, every one I think, with some leaning toward dreamer or keeper. In most of us, I’m sure there is a bit of both. But no matter which, we must push the song of our soul to its full beauty. The world needs the good that both bring. Evil is defeated by the dreamers whose souls rise to cry against all that is wrong, and the keepers already deep in the daily, gritty work of pushing back the dark. Beauty is cultivated by the keepers who shore up the world with civility, even as dreamers sail back and forth in search of newer, unknown good. Together, they weave the music of their souls, their work, and their wonder into a joyous symphony of fellowship. And this is the song the whole world was made to sing. So, I’ll keep Ulysses and my beloved Mr. Berry. Together, they paint a brilliant picture of the world I am longing to find and create in my own work. Dreamers and keepers; together they paint the wealth of God’s heart. So, the question is, which are you?

Jellybean Highfive’s unofficial detective business was booming -if booms are what explosions make. Oh, the devastation, he thought. It had blown up in his face, his third case –The Case of the Bulimic Fatty. He had found the truth at the bottom of the case, but had uncovered it in such a way as to cause it to be forever hidden, like King Tut’s coffin. Will they ever find it, he thought. “I wonder,” he said. Probably not, he mused. He wondered this while walking down a street connected to many other roads. He wondered how anyone could call a street “secluded.” All streets met up with other streets, didn’t they? He tried to imagine a street all alone, on an island perhaps, sad and secluded, with only its top five books to read. “All roads lead to Rome, Jellybean,” he said to himself, “and Roman roamers roam them. That’s where I come in.” He smoked on a cigarette, imagining himself to be in a movie called “Jellybean Highfive.” He often did this, even while brushing his teeth. He would look himself in the eyes, half-closing them in a dramatic slit, and imagine a gravelly voice-over voice gravely laying out the impossible odds. “But one man stands in the way…Jellybean Highfive.” His reverie exploded when he realized he was standing in the way –of a pretty blonde who needed to get past him in order to board a bus headed who knows where. “Pardon the interruption,” Jellybean said, not able to move due to the magnetic magnetism of her face. Like a tractor beaming its headlights at a deer, he was lit up by a terrifying attraction. “What are you staring at?” she said prettily. “My destiny,” he whispered, slitting his eyes and cocking his head just so. “Oh,” the woman said, embarrassed. “You should never be embarrassed,” Jellybean said, finally moving to the side and making way for her. He extended a hand to help her up on to the bus, then took off an invisible–nonexistent, really–fedora and made a slight bow. To him, she was the queen of the city just then. It seemed as though the entire street inclined her way. Birds seem to sing, people seemed to hum, and the sun broke through the charcoal crush of clouds to illuminate her lovely face. Then she vomited. She looked around for a moment, then escaped into the bus as the doors closed. The bus lurched forward and disappeared into the maze of interconnected avenues in the auburn autumn afternoon. Jellybean stood there, spellbound. All he had was the memory of her. Then his mind started working, dots began connecting in his mind. He walked quickly somewhere, using his mind to think thoughts. He got out a notepad and made massive checkmarks in it. He stopped and shouted, “I have it!” in triumph. But his triumph turned quickly and his face fell. He stood, looking absently around, like a child from a broken home standing in an outfield, realizing that the one he was scanning the bleachers for hadn’t come like he’d promised. “It’s not the streets who’re secluded,” he said in a hoarse whisper. He noted absently the rushing crush of people everywhere. “It’s the people in the streets. For more Jellybean Highfive click here and say “there’s no place like home” with your heels.

It’s Ash Wednesday. Yesterday my friend Father Thomas, an Anglican priest, burned the palm fronds from last year’s Palm Sunday to make the ashes to rub on people’s foreheads today. “Remember that you are dust,” he will say to them, “and to dust you shall return.” I didn’t grow up observing Ash Wednesday or Lent, but I have to say, at this age it helps to be reminded that I am dust and returning to dust. It’s not just a help, but a comfort. This world is forever demanding that we take it as seriously as it takes itself, and it tempts us to take ourselves too seriously too. Ash Wednesday says, “No, no, no, dear sinner. You’re just dust, living in a world that’s just dust, and you and the world both are returning to dust. And you are dear to God nevertheless.” I love the prayer in the Anglican Ash Wednesday liturgy: Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wickedness, may obtain of you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. I used to associate Ash Wednesday–when I considered it at all–with self-flagellation. But, as the apostle Paul said, it is the kindness of God that leads us to repentance–the confidence that God hates nothing he has made and forgives the sins of all who are penitent. For all my ambivalence about T.S. Eliot, there are passages in his poem “Ash Wednesday” that I just love. The lines I love the most in that poem, the lines that most perfectly capture the spirit of the day, are these: Lord, I am not worthy Lord, I am not worthy but speak the word only. “I’m not worthy.” True enough. But not the truest thing. The Lord speaks truer things into being every day. So happy Ash Wednesday, you old sinner. You are dust, and to dust you shall return. And God loves you anyway.

Gus, a delicate yellow gosling, celebrated only a few waddling days on the Mississippi red-dirt farm where my mother grew up. Of the few sights the creature saw during its abbreviated life, the final was the inside of a German shepherd’s toothy mouth. As with King Charles I, heads rolled. Gus’s premature death caused great anguish among the Fortenberry children whose loyal affection was reciprocal to his own. Wilton and Lucille, father and mother to two girls and a boy, quietly and loyally resided over their 80-acre domain with much resolve and relentless labor. Wilton, a denim overall-wearing, quiet, and gentle man, was the rare soul willing to shake anyone’s hand. Lucille, an equally reserved woman, spent many waking hours in the kitchen making chicken-and-dumplings from scratch, and simmering garden-grown vegetables in leftover bacon grease the way only a southerner knows how. Homemade pound cake, temptingly stored beneath a clear glass dome, was nearly always available in her modest, yet insufferably hot kitchen. The day Wilton departed the earth, nine years after Lucille, his head of Absalom-like hair was just as dark and full as the day he was born, and the story of Gus, by then legendary, continued to weave its way throughout the broadening family tree as it was passed down from one generation to the next. The Fortenberry residence, a drab brown, unassuming dwelling rested atop concrete cinder blocks and clung to Rural Route 2, east of Tylertown, the county seat to Walthall County. With a rural Baptist church at one end of the road’s length, five homes — all belonging to Wilton and his four brothers — along its unpainted two lanes, a fire watchtower keeping sentinel above the canopy, a parcel of small ponds, and enough hollows and mixed pine and hardwood stands to adequately separate neighbors, the Fortenberrys eked out a nearly impoverished life amid agricultural fields, longleaf pines, dairy cows, white-tailed deer, thieving raccoons, burrowing possums, the usual assortment of farm cats, a lineage of mutts, each named Rusty, and Gus himself, the singular pet gander. A lifelong farmer, Wilton regularly harbored geese on the property to aid in weed abatement. Released into blossoming cotton fields, these geese, Gus’s cackling poultry relatives, furiously consumed juvenile weeds and grass between the furrowed rows, avoiding the money crop altogether. Once the cotton was harvested, the geese, by then fully grown and fattened, found themselves on the losing end of an altogether different consumption. Such is a bird’s life: for the sake of others, disappear. Gus, born to one of these weed-eating dinner-birds, found a different purpose in and among the farm’s workings — that of pet and companion. His presence, though physically tiny, was no small part of my mother’s story. She joyfully recalls Gus’s daily accompaniment to and from the school bus stop, down the pine-strewn lane to visit neighbors, Gus’s loyal presence at her moments of parental discipline, and the everlasting psychological and visual glee of witnessing an innocent cloud of golden down lumbering through tall, green grass, waddling within the protective reach of her heel. Each morning, with unswerving steadfastness, Gus attended the children’s footsteps along the three-pronged gravel driveway from the house to the bus stop at the property’s outer edge where familiar red-dirt met foreign pavement. Each afternoon, expectantly awaiting the Doppler-effect sound of the approaching school bus, Gus withdrew from the shaded protection of his dusty roost in the crawlspace beneath the Fortenberry home, and clumsily and bravely stumbled his way across obstacles of raised tree roots, various ascents and depressions, and lumps of aggregate debris en route, all for the sake of greeting the ones he recognized and cherished most. Every day, morning and afternoon, Gus repeated this miraculous custom. Wholeheartedly adopted early in life by the Fortenberry brood, Gus had only a short time to make a lasting impression on my mother, who to this day can recount his gruesome death and subsequent burial site. On the day of his funeral, Gus’s mangled head and body were reunited, laid side-by-side, inside a makeshift Diamond matchbox coffin. Little Paul, Sally and Janie were so stricken with Gus’s violent end that they would, with alarming regularity thereafter, exhume his remains, cry again over the murdered creature, and rebury the decaying carcass, which was slowly attempting its natural return to dust only to be periodically coerced out of life’s circle in this innocent, yet morose endeavor. Little wonder that children should recognize and give praise and homage to a small, forgotten miracle; the animal did, after all, meet them at the bus stop each day. Such loyalty is hard to come by; it ought to receive praise. Convenience rarely holds loyalty’s hand; one bears suffering amid struggle, the other flees at first sight of adversity. Intimately wiser, may we, like Gus, leave the world a fuller place than when we entered it. May loyalty and perseverance adorn our necks as peculiar plumage, ruffling at apathy, cackling at the monstrosity of fear’s sharp teeth. May faithful authenticity sustain us the way old-growth pines stand together, entwining roots to collectively bear the brunt of wind, drought, fire, storm and one another’s burdens. May we acclaim and recognize those whom God places in our lives just as innocently, filially, and eagerly as the approaching sound of that strangely familiar and welcome vehicle of grace to our path. May we expectantly await the good and faithful Return, attending grace’s heel to and from daily and momentary deliverance along the triple-pronged path pointing the way within us: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

It’s often the story between the lines that’s most striking — and most surprising. As I’ve prepared for a five-month long teaching journey through the life of Abraham in our church, I recently found myself moved by one of those side notes that seemingly came from nowhere to inform not only my own life but some of the deeper conversations I’ve been having lately. One of the central texts that we often discuss at The Mercy House is the call of Abram from Genesis 12:1-4. The preceding chapter tells of the barren womb of Sarai, a text so strong that Walter Brueggemann calls it a declaration of humans’ inability to create a meaningful future for their own selves. Then God speaks into that barrenness to call Abram and Sarai to a new place, to trust God and obey enough to leave for a far country. Perhaps that idea has been discussed here a time or two before. It’s the next few verses that hit me as I began to prepare for the next sermon. They list the upcoming places along the way that Abram’s caravan encountered and simply note that altars were built in these places. The obvious step is to move on to the next bold heading, the next grand story, the next meaningful event, but like an unexpected gravitational pull, I couldn’t stop thinking about these altars that were erected for no good reason — at least that we know of. I met with a friend named Kevin for lunch the other day. We spoke for hours about the dramatic nature of life and how beautiful it is to live amidst those moments. Then we also shared stories of the struggle to live in between. Kevin graduated from college several months ago, found a steady notable job, settled into an apartment, and is now faced with what was always known as “real life.” I told him the rhythm never changes. It always feels this way, and that grieving the loss of his college community and the constant buzz of events and invitations was okay to do. “How do we live in the mundane?” was the question that emerged. How do we carry ourselves between the grand events? What about the days when we just put in our eight or ten hours? What about the weeknights of homework and bed times and conversations that simply check off the events of the day? Even the artist knows these days quite well, for it’s not every day that an album is released or a tour is launched. It’s not every day that the book is finally finished or the painting finally revealed. The days between are filled with the rhythms of the mundane, the space largely inhabited by the ordinary. The dishes need to be washed. The trash needs to be taken out. No spotlight is waiting and no one is listening. It’s just another city along the way to no place in particular. My conversation with Kevin was illuminated in that moment, for as we asked those questions, I found my own thoughts turning to Abram building altars among the commonplace. Some altars are named for a particular event. Some altars receive commentary on the reason for their existence. Instead of leaving the commonplace common, Abram builds an altar and calls upon the name of the Lord. Perhaps something dynamic happened between Bethel and Ai that we’re not privy to. Maybe Abram was coming off of the high of the God of all creation having identified him personally to carry out his plan, to create a nation through him. It’s possible that Abram had Chia Altar that magically grew with a few drops, so it was really no trouble to build something like that. But as my conversation with Kevin took shape, we realized that the calling of the daily life is to resurrect altars along the way — to recognize the glory of God in the space that we inhabit no matter what surrounds. I believe it’s when we’ve made the habit of constructing altars among the mundane that we see the inspired journey we’ve been on all along.

Last week in the comments, someone mentioned the Old Testament story of Gomer, the prostitute that Hosea married, and all I could think about was how hilarious that name is to me and how deeply ungraceful and unpoetic it sounds. Fitting, I suppose. So thanks not only to Jim Nabors but to my long nurtured appreciation for ridiculous sounding words like Sponch, Fleep, Yomple, and, yes, Gomer, I just don’t think I could ever listen to someone sing that name in a song without snickering a little. What can I say? The ten-year-old in me is alive and well. I haven’t asked, but my theory is that Gomer tickles my brother Andrew’s funny bone in the same way it does mine. So when he wrote a song about Gomer’s story, he managed to do it without ever mentioning her name. Of all his songs, it’s one of my favorites, and I don’t snicker a bit when I hear it. Hosea by Andrew Peterson Every time I lay in the bed beside you Hosea, Hosea I hear the sound of the streets of the city My belly growls like a hungry wolf And I let it prowl till my belly’s full Hosea, my heart is a stone. Please believe me when I say I’m sorry Hosea, Hosea You loveable, gullible man I tell you that my love is true till it fades away like a morning dew Hosea, leave me alone Here I am in the Valley of Trouble Just look at the bed that I’ve made Badlands as far as I can see There’s no one here but me, Hosea I stumbled and fell in the road on the way home Hosea, Hosea I lay in the brick street like a stray dog You came to me like a silver moon With the saddest smile I ever knew Hosea carried me home again Home again You called me out to the Valley of Trouble Just to look at the mess that I’ve made A barren place where nothing can grow One look and my stone heart crumbled It was a valley as green as jade I swear it was the color of hope You turned a stone into a rose, Hosea. I sang and I danced like I did as a young girl Hosea, Hosea I am a slave and a harlot no more You washed me clean like a summer rain And you set me free with that ball and chain Hosea, I threw away the key I’ll never leave [“Hosea” is from Resurrection Letters, Vol. II which is available today in the Rabbit Room store at Song of the Day prices ($10 CD/$7 Download)]

One of the most meaningful moments at Hutchmoot 2010 happened before the event officially began. There we were, huddled in small, safe groups, smelling freshly delivered pizza, holding tightly to the backs of cushy chairs in order to avoid tripping over ourselves. The tension was palpable, at least it was for me. Many of us were meeting for the first time. Some of us had been driving in anticipation for most of the morning. Still others of us were wondering if anyone would notice our absence should we choose to go and hide in the bathroom. “Us” is the group of people, writers, speakers, cooks, organizers, and performers, who worked that weekend to make everything happen. I was scared and nervous. I wanted people to like me. I worried over what to wear, and what I would talk about, and if anyone would even talk to me. We had all looked forward to the day for so long, and it had finally come. Would everything work out like we had planned? Would our participants have a great time? Would it all turn out to be a colossal mistake? But most of all, this group of people who normally took its time when communicating, was now forced into impromptu, off the cuff, conversation. No deleting lines and backspacing over misspellings now. If you couldn’t think of the right words to say, you might have to sit silently, awkwardly. And your awkwardness might cause you to miss out on communicating face to face with the very people you’ve dreamed of speaking with for months. Thankfully, there was the aforementioned pizza to help break the ice. So we all loaded our plates and filled our cups with carbonated, caffeinated beverages–ice cold, liquid courage for this Christian conservative introvert. Finally, Andrew Peterson asked everyone to sit in a circle. He got out his guitar and we all held hands as he sang kumbayah and everything was magically different. We were all greatly at ease and ready for anything. No, that’s not what happened at all, though we did gather semi-circle-like on the comfy furniture. There was a lot of “no, you sit there” met with “please, I insist,” and then we took turns introducing ourselves to the group. I hated this part immensely, and felt like I could not have made a worse impression had I turned up in a three-piece power suit and six inch heels. But it’s all because I’d only been thinking about me, me, me. What will I say? How will I act? How will I be seen? And then, prompted by AP, Russ Ramsey put on his pastor hat and we donned our church faces as he told us a little story about how he had lost a dear friend earlier that week, about how he couldn’t stop thinking of his friend’s first moments in heaven. About how the black and white must have suddenly become color, how the spiritual, heavenly realm had turned into the real world and the two-dimensional stick man was transformed into undeniable 3-D. I’ll admit I got a little teary-eyed as the metaphor took on new meaning for this group of formerly square profile pictures lately changed into fleshy human shapes and steadily beating hearts. But what happened during the next twenty minutes is what truly changed my heart and my outlook for the weekend. We bowed our heads for prayer. Not everyone spoke aloud, but those who did openly shared their hearts with the group and with God. And the desires they expressed were not about how they wanted to say memorable things and teach great lessons on art. They simply prayed for the people who were on their way to this crazy event. They asked for humility and the ability to serve. They prayed for those who were coming to be blessed and comforted by the weekend, by their stay, and by God’s presence. They prayed that everyone would feel at home, that no one would be left out or feel small, and for the love of Jesus himself to be on display, predominant above everything else about to take place. Let Christ’s love be felt and shared in everything we do and say. In Jesus name we prayed, Amen. And in that holy time I saw inside the hearts of the men and women surrounding me, and I remembered the original reason I wanted to be a part of this community. It’s the reason I’ll keep writing as long as they’ll let me and the reason I’ll keep reading posts and buying products and attending events created by its many various members. That reason is love. Love of art, love of man, but most of all, love of Love himself. When the prayer was over, I got to go and sit behind the registration desk for a few hours as attendees trickled in and fragrances from the kitchen wafted up the stairs. Getting to talk one on one with Sarah Clarskon and Jennifer Trafton really helped me settle in behind the scenes of Hutchmoot, and though I continued to have awkward moments and intimidated feelings during the weekend, none of them were caused by anything outside my own noisy head. Everyone I encountered was gracious and understanding. It’s true, there are those of us wallflowers who will always hold some measure of reserve and unevenness, and it’s all too easy to let those internal storms ruin the sunshine of a beautiful afternoon. I can’t speak for the extroverts out there as to what steals the warmth of a room from them, but I believe the cure is the same for both groups: loving the person beside you. Long live the Rabbit Room, and may we all have many happy returns to Hutchmoot!

Last winter when we first played with the crazy notion of holding a Rabbit Room conference, we had no idea where it would lead. We didn’t even know if anyone would sign up. We prayed we could talk fifty people into registering. Would people really travel from all over the country merely because they shared our unique interest in music and storytelling, art and faith? Surely not–but maybe, just maybe. So, fearfully, we plowed ahead. And to our surprise, you came. You came from as far as California and as near as the house down the street. Painters, writers, moms, dads, bankers, teachers, thinkers, and wanderers, you came. And, miraculously, through a weekend of discussion and fellowship and good, good food, people were nourished, rekindled, and moved. The Spirit, in his wistful and mysterious way, slipped among us, and we heard his whisper as he passed. So let’s do it again. If you’re willing, we’re ready. So what’s in store? First of all, we’ve added a day. We wanted to give people more time to relax and get to know each other without having to rush from one event to the next. And adding that extra day has allowed us to add meaningful content as well–things like small group discussions with a variety of artists across a number of disciplines, common interest groups which will allow you to meet and talk to other people who love the same books, music, or arts that you do. We’ve doubled the number of sessions and will have speakers to talk about a far wider range of issues. We want to maintain an intimate atmosphere, so, yes, we’re keeping it small. Registration is limited to 100 people, just like last year. And then there are the concerts and special guests. We’re not quite ready to make those announcements yet, but I think you’ll be as excited as we are. To get the full scoop, visit the Hutchmoot 2011 website and check out the schedule. I think you’ll like what you see. If I had a gavel, a black robe, and a pair of rabbit ears, I’d don the frock, walk briskly to the lectern, perk my ears up straight, pound the gavel, lean forward, and proclaim in a deep, portentous voice: “Convene the Hutchmoot!” Sadly, I haven’t the proper costume, nor lectern, nor gavel, so you’ll just have to imagine it. Nevertheless, a convening there shall be. We’ve listened to your suggestions and made adjustments. We’ve added some things, taken others away, invited new people, involved new artists, and finally we’re ready to make the announcement. On September 22-25 the Rabbit Room will convene the 2011 Hutchmoot at Church of the Redeemer in Nashville, Tennessee. Coffee be brewed and food be eaten. Songs be sung and stories told. A fine weekend be had by one and by all. So be it.

Mid-February morning, silent house, a steaming cup of fresh brewed coffee, and a rare quiet moment to myself in the stillness of the early hours. I need this moment. Peering through the blurry condensation on the kitchen window overlooking my lumpy and weed-riddled Nashville backyard, it is evident that my labor yesterday pruning low-hanging walnut, hackberry, and poplar branches successfully opened the understory, offering a newer, wider and brighter perspective on the whole. It is my hope that in doing so, adequate sunlight will at long last bathe the threadbare ground, offering what little grass is there the fighting chance to thicken, spread, even thrive. As a result of the low trimming, we were obliged to relocate bird feeders along with a tin-roof birdhouse of kitschy Elvis motif to alternate locales. Wanting to keep them as close in view as would be comfortable for the birds, if only for the gift of being able to casually witness their avian pecking, flitting, chirping, and occasional disagreements. These tiny, alert, and nimble reminders of living abound amid shared black-oil sunflower seed and suet offerings. Repositioning one feeder near its original hackberry perch just outside the back room window, we hung the tin-roof dwelling and a moldy suet feeder along the northwestern corner of our home within the forked boughs of a leafless crepe myrtle towering above a sleeping bed of perennials. The final feeder we hung in a young redbud on a branch admittedly far too flimsy, too near the ground, and much too easily accessible to pillaging squirrels and preying cats. A herd of Carolina chickadees, tufted titmice, white-throats, cardinals, and the occasional lollygagging mockingbird, each in their naturally miraculous custom, have quickly ascertained this new location and source of food. This particular feeder has not been in use since we first moved into the house four years ago. It, like so much of natural creation, has been reclusive in hibernation, avoidance, and generalized hunkering down. How wildlife adjusts with such brisk seamlessness to the blunt, enigmatic realities of winter, to unrequested change, to honing in on new and plentiful sources of sustenance with such talent and determination remains a source of great wonder to me. My observation point this morning, a child’s wooden chair — short but sturdy, a veritable Lilliputian throne – accompanies the matching two-foot-tall multi-purpose table where my children eat, drink, spill, play Star Wars, color, sort beans, and carve Play-Doh. A giant in this seat, my knees uncomfortable at near chin level, I hunker down and peck away at vowels and consonants in an attempt to summon words out of the world. Parula blue skies overhead – a psychological balm during winter’s morose lordship – the sun’s dawning light bounds and multiplies off the neighbor’s already golden yellow exterior paint causing me to wince at unexpected brightness. Squinting my eyes, the crow’s feet gather at my temples. Winter’s slow but resistant recession has begun, and every part of me approves of the transformation. Robins know, too. They sing differently in this air. With more intent, their warbles cascade with less timidity, more gallantly, with greater vigor, more musically sweeping. They know. I listen. I myself become blurred, an unreasonable facsimile of myself beneath winter’s monochromatic gravity: graying eyes, dimming mind, exiled frustration, pent-up cabin fever, hands aching to labor, to feel soil within the creases of my palms, on fingertips and beneath nails once again; all tell-tale signs of my desire to undertake the creative act, to relocate wish and aspiration from the boughs of mere hope to that of deliverance. This longing to act, to construct, to build, to be in motion — even to fail miserably in the attempt — wells up in me, and the innate desire to work, to create, to bow before natural miracle, somehow resurrected and rekindled in a new locale among newfound sustenance, is a bounding source of bright illumination. I welcome the opportunity to wince at its presence, to relocate entombed ambitions and goals, to awaken from the slow pulse of hibernation, to exhume myself from the isolation of hunkering down, and at long last to listen, and to summon the world out of words.

Some may recall that Andrew Osenga used to be a member of a band called The Normals. He’s not normal anymore because he only has nine toes. Tragic. We’ve got a few of The Normals Coming to Life CDs in the store. Here’s one of my favorite songs off the album. It’s called “We Are The Beggars At The Foot Of God’s Door.” Long title. Long song. Not normal, yet undeniably awesome. We Are The Beggars At The Foot Of God’s Door We are gathered in cathedrals on a Sunday We are shrouded in our pride and lust’s despair We have heard that you said to go to where your hearts once were Trusting we’d arrive to find you there We have known the empty senses of a funeral We are haunted by the promises of death We have asked to see your face and noticed nothing But a well-timed honest smile from a friend Oh we of little faith Oh you of stubborn grace We are the beggars at the foot of God’s door We have grown cold to the kisses of our lovers We have rolled the windows up and driven through The forests of the autumn, the innocence of snow The metaphor of Jesus in the dew We have known the heated passion of the cold night We have sold ourselves to everything we hate We’re hypocrites and politicians running from a fight We’ve cheated on a very jealous mate Oh we of little faith Oh you stubborn grace We are the beggars at the foot of God’s door We have known the pain of loving in a dying world And our lies have made us angry at the truth But Cinderella’s slipper fits us perfectly And somehow were made royalty with you We are the beggars at the foot of Gods door And you welcomed us in

Note: Yesterday I sat at a table on my back deck with Jason Gray, Pete Peterson and Jonathan Rogers and declared that I never wanted the Rabbit Room to be one of those blogs that always lists things, (i.e., “Four Ways to Make Your Life Awesomer”). Then I had to go and find this on my hard drive. I don’t remember what publication I wrote it for, but I offer it here in case it’s helpful to any of you. 1. Write—This is the most basic, and most important. There’s quite a market out there for books on writing. I know this, because I supported it for a while by purchasing the ones with the coolest covers. Those books aren’t necessarily bad, but I don’t think they teach you as much as you’d learn by just writing. If you’re going to read one of these books, look for the one’s that are more about the why than the how. (Four good ones: Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott, Mystery and Manners, by Flannery O’Connor, Walking on Water, by Madeline L’Engle, and The War of Art, by Stephen Pressfield.) 2. Read—I don’t mean reading books on writing. I mean reading books that feature good old fashioned excellence. Fill your brain with beautiful language. It’s okay to read a popular novel for fun (I do it all the time), but try temper it with reading a classic now and then. C.S. Lewis said you should read an old book after every new one. He was pretty smart. (If you’re a songwriter, listen to good music–and you should dig into music you may not prefer. I decided several years ago to find out why Bob Dylan was such a big deal, and MAN I’m glad I did.) 3. Write—This may seem like I’m trying to be funny. (“Oh, so he’s repeating the first one for emphasis. That old gag.”) That’s exactly what I’m trying to do. After you’ve read an old, stirring work of art (see #2, above), I bet you a Barnes & Noble gift card you’ll be in the mood to write. When that mood arises, latch on and don’t let go, because the mood will be gone before you can say “Facebook status”. 4. Community—You need people around whom (a) you respect, (b) who respect you, and (c) who will tell you the truth in love. Art begets community, and community nurtures art. It may take a long time, but if you’re working in earnest at your craft, you’ll encounter others who are doing the same. Meet with them once in a while and talk about story and song. Talk about what you’re reading and listening to. Muster the courage to let them read your work and then (gasp!) make them critique it. You may be a good writer, but you aren’t a great one. You should aspire to be a great one, and the only way to do that is to discover your blind spots by listening to instruction. And by remembering point five: 5. Write—Look! I repeated numbers one and three for even greater emphasis! I’m hilarious! But seriously. After you’ve stopped laughing, wiped the tears from your cheeks, and taken a deep breath, lean in close and hearken unto me: Whether you’re a songwriter or an author, a basketball player or a preacher, there’s no way to improve your craft except by practicing. After you’ve stopped reading how-to books and begun to write, after you’ve read great books and listened to great songs, after you’ve written some more, after you’ve gathered a community of songwriters or writers around you and raised the artistic bar, you keep working. Write terrible first drafts (thank you for that advice, Anne Lamott), ask the Creator to help you create, and get to work. Shed light.

Have you ever been enamored of a book because of who wrote it? The story may be good, excellent, even, but the sheer force of the personality behind it lends the book an extra “star” or two or whatever is your cosmological equivalent of a good rating. Such is the case for me when it comes to Brian Jacques, author of the Redwall series, which recounts the epic struggles of good and evil between rats, mice, stouts, weasels, cats, badgers, moles, hares, and other woodland creatures in the land of Mossflower and beyond. Think The Lord of the Rings meets The Wind in the Willows. Now, in my self-imposed literary “reeducation” process (in which I forego the literature that makes me look and sound smart and instead find enjoyment, once again, in a darn good yarn), I stumbled upon Redwall. My curiosity was immediately perked by the picture of the author on the back cover. This is Brian Jacques: I know, right? He looks like the grizzled old captain of a whaling ship, not a children’s author. Downright scary. So I did a bit of googling, and found some audio/video of him speaking at a Borders and as a keynote speaker in Liverpool, his hometown, and seriously, if my first choice of which author to have a pint of beer with is C.S. Lewis, a close second is Brian Jacques. A truly infectious personality, he tells bad, corny jokes and laughs at them himself if no one else will (“What creature goes ‘zubb, zubb, zubb’? A bee flying backwards.”); and he’s self-deprecating (“I originally thought all authors had first names of “Sir”- Sir Walter Scott, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle- I didn’t realize I could be one.”). He’ll retell the same stories about himself over and over like he’s saying it for the first time. There’s an old-fashioned sense of uncontrolled vitality about him- keen, refreshing, like a good, sharp, chilly Northeasterly wind. He’s decidedly old-school as well. A definite “medieval dinosaur,” as CS Lewis once put it. “My chief delight and satisfaction,” Jacques once wrote, “is annually to desert the world of modern technology.” Delivering milk to a school for the blind, he was eventually invited to read to the students, and noted that publishers used to send books for the kids, and, as he tells it, “I didn’t like those books. Technology, teenage angst. Ugh. They were all about the now. What happened to the books that I used to read? What happened to the magic?” It comes out in his books. Amid the clutter thrown at us in our daily lives, when modern technology seems to yell in a digitized voice that disrupts all quiet conversations over a pint of stout, a Jacques book invites a warm fireside to illuminate its pages, rather than the glow of a computer screen. It sounds quaint (and incredibly ironic, as I write this on my laptop), but Jacques writes the kind of books we need for an “out,” from our daily hustle and bustle. Not, let me be clear, as an “escape,” but rather, like all good literature of its sort, as a “recap,” or reminder of what being human is truly all about: fidelity to friends and family, sharing of food, discovery of purpose, and acknowledgment of the worth and value of those who may be different from you. And as the prospect of becoming a dad begins more and more to fill my everyday reality, it’s good to know that books like this are still being written. “Questing, feasting, singing, and battling to defend good against evil,” as Jacques puts it. What a marvelous concept for a post-modern age. All this from a man, who states, quite simply, that an author is “a person who can paint pictures with words.” [Editor’s note: Today’s guest writer, Greg Pyne, is the author of the Wandering Tree blog located at wanderingtree.wordpress.com. Do yourself a favor and watch the videos below in their entirety.] Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five

A few readers may recall Dawn Marie’s review of On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness. After nearly three years, she’s back, this time with her thoughts on my brother’s book, Fiddler’s Green. Enjoy.

Last week, the Proprietor and the usual suspects put on a special performance of the Behold the Lamb of God show for the Re:Create conference here in Nashville, and I was reminded once again what an amazing bunch of musicians those guys are. One attendee summed the show up nicely on twitter: “I dreamed that I celebrated Christmas in February while eating M&Ms and being serenaded by the world’s greatest songwriters. Wait. That just happened.” This is one of the songs Andy and Jill Gullahorn sang during the in-the-round portion of the show. Fantastic stuff. It’s called “That Guy” and it’s from Andy’s album Reinventing the Wheel (available today at Song of the Day prices: $10 CD / $7.50 Download.)

My first journal was a yellow legal pad. So was my second. Then came a series of leathers, hardbacks and spiral bounds. The pens evolved from whatever was on hand to a few chosen favorites—mostly black, mostly medium point. Early on, the pages were filled with the prayers of a high school kid who wanted everything and understood little. I wrote in code about the girls I liked and with bravado about the quality of my faith. I’d finish the last line of the last page of one journal, select its successor and keep writing. The journals from this era make a stack more than a foot tall. And then somewhere along the way, the writing slowed. What used to be ten pages per week became more like three. And then what was three pages per week became more like three pages per month. Vincent van Gogh wrote, “In most men there exists a poet who died young, whom the man survived.” Was the poet in me dying a little more with every unfilled page? Could any day be a good day if at the end of that day its page was empty? Recently, I noticed that I had taken on a strange behavior. If I went too long between journal entries, I would shelve the journal and buy a new one, as if what words that old journal did hold might blow off the pages like dust if I opened it again. A new book would be a kind of do-over. My first entry would always contain an apology to God, followed by a determination to write more. But, inevitably, before long the journal would find itself at the bottom of my backpack, on hand but unused. So now I have two stacks of journals, both over a foot high. In the first stack, every line of every page is filled. As for the second, hundreds and hundreds of the pages are empty. I’ve always carried my current journal with me everywhere I go. I still do. But I’ve hardly written a thing in fifteen months. And sometimes, the sight of that little book no longer filling with words like before embarrasses me, like the truest part of me—the part that prays—is fading. But only sometimes. More and more I’m making my peace with the empty pages. I know the poet is still alive, it’s just that he’s had a tough year. Sometimes he doesn’t know how to say what is in his heart. Other times he does, but chooses not to write it down. Other times, he’s just too busy to carve out the time it takes to sit still long enough to make a record of the moment. Regardless, I’m beginning to understand that those empty pages tell a story too. And an important one. It is the story of following a call with my wife, of raising children, of grieving a farewell from a church and friends I’ve loved more than I can express, of selling a house and buying another, of entering in to a new community, a new church, and a new role in a city we love—along with all the new relationships, challenges and adjustments these circumstances bring. I’m sure your life, like mine, is filled with disciplines abandoned, traditions forgotten and eras undocumented. So we must ask ourselves, is the discipline the excellent thing, or the way to it? Is the tradition itself what is meaningful, or a sign pointing the way? Is an era of life something words can preserve on paper? What are we really losing in the empty pages? Sometimes the words don’t come. Or they come, but they don’t do justice. Sometimes we just have to put down the pen and leave the journal in the bottom of the backpack and let the empty pages tell the story. Listen. When the time comes back around to pick up your pen and write, then write. And write without guilt.  It’s okay.

Note: I read this last night at a February performance of Behold the Lamb of God at a conference for creative-types here in Nashville called Re:Create. It’s from the conclusion of a four-part series I wrote last year called “Money, Part 4: Little Things Matter“. Art, if it can be ascribed value, is most valuable when its beauty (and the beauty of the truth it tells) bewilders, confounds, defies evil itself; it does so by making what has been unmade; it subverts the spirit of the age; it mends the heart by whispering mysteries the mind alone can’t fathom; it fulfills its highest calling when into all the clamor of Hell it tells the unbearable, beautiful, truth that Christ has died, Christ is risen, and Christ will come again. None of these songs and stories matter if the beauty they’re adding to isn’t the kind of beauty that redeems and reclaims. That doesn’t mean every song and every story has to be a sermon. Not at all! But the very existence of great stories and stirring music and good art is a sermon itself. That anyone at all in the world would set their sad heart and tired hands to working beauty out of chaos is a monument to Grace. It reminds us of light and high beauty, and it laments the world’s great sorrow. It gives the heart language to rejoice and language to mourn. Creation groans like a woman in labor? Even so. And we know every birth is a tight-wound cord of fear and joy, pain and pleasure, striving and surcease. Let those who can, tell that story. Let those in Christ whose hands paint worlds, whose tongues limn loveliness, whose ears hear astral strains–let them make, and make, and make. And let the made things adorn the dark and proclaim the coming Kingdom till the King himself is come.

In grade school, my report cards were continually marred with the letter ‘X’ — not that my academic performance was so poor, but that alongside my ‘A’ or ‘B’ effort, each teacher felt compelled to let my parents know that I “talked excessively.” It’s no wonder, then, that I ended up as a writer and pastor. Just when I thought such grading scales were over, I stepped into the world of professional ministry over a decade ago where, once again, I was graded every quarter on my performance. In my first church experience, I’d receive the expected range of comments under “Strengths” and “Areas to Improve” but one always remained: “you’re too personal.” That remark came every quarter in response to my teaching style where they said I shared too many stories of my own sin or failures or messes that didn’t have a nice red bow on the end. I now pastor a church that I started seven years ago, so I guess you could say I’ve been able to set my own rules, so to speak. That’s a rather selfish perk to the job of church planter, but it occurred to me along the way that I wasn’t going to change. I wasn’t going to stop talking in grade school (apparently), and I wasn’t going to be able to stop sharing the interior of my own heart, the stumblings of my own journey, the weaknesses in my own armor. Words like “authentic” or “honest” or “real” have been thrown around since the beginning of pastoring The Mercy House. Perhaps those could be called cultural buzz words and some ministry experts will tell you that certain generations appreciate such characteristics. But I couldn’t care less about those studies and believe that it’s something deeper. It’s the very reason why I couldn’t care less about a slapstick comedy and why I get upset if you’re interrupting the intense, Oscar-winning drama. It’s the reason I choose to become lost in a challenging novel or listen again and again to the gritty songwriter. I read a recent Wall Street Journal interview with Colin Firth concerning his performance in The King’s Speech. Firth describes this very quality when he says, “The reason why people tell stories and read stories and see films is to feel less alone. And if there’s a story that takes everyone through something like this, it’s a way to say to others, ‘Now you live through it and see how it feels.’ And if my profession gets that wrong, we’ve lost that opportunity.” Eminem would back up this point more forcefully than I can (or choose to). While we might get more than “one shot,” the chances we’re given to share that song, that story, that sermon, that journey are too few. On a Sunday morning, I find that moment is a sacred space that I’ve been gifted to share the resonant story of God and the echoes of that kingdom’s glory in my own life — successes and failures. If I get any chance at all to speak with the words given me, I want to speak the full truth — knowing it’s in that complicated, messy tale that walls begin to crumble and hope shines through, because somehow we’re not only communicating our own story but their story as well. It’s healing for me to know that I’m not the only one finding marriage to be a difficult run. It’s healing to know that others’ lives are also barren, hurting, or broken. Not that we remain there in some misery-loves-company sort of way, but instead that we believe maybe one of the people in that place with us will pick us up and help us forward. #Vulnerability

I recorded this the other night for fun in my basement studio with a 1938 Martin D28, playing both parts. The older I get, the more these words resound in my heart; we have a Friend who will never leave or forsake us. I love how the song doesn’t give the impression that the life of walking in the Spirit is about avoiding suffering; it’s about finding redemption and relationship in our trials and temptations. _____________ What a friend we have in Jesus, All our sins and griefs to bear! What a privilege to carry Everything to God in prayer! Oh, what peace we often forfeit, Oh, what needless pain we bear, All because we do not carry Everything to God in prayer! Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere? We should never be discouraged— Take it to the Lord in prayer. Can we find a friend so faithful, Who will all our sorrows share? Jesus knows our every weakness; Take it to the Lord in prayer. Are we weak and heavy-laden, Cumbered with a load of care? Precious Savior, still our refuge— Take it to the Lord in prayer. Do thy friends despise, forsake thee? Take it to the Lord in prayer! In His arms He’ll take and shield thee, Thou wilt find a solace there.

Conversation one: I was talking recently with a high school student, a girl I’ll call Keisha, who lives in a single parent home with siblings and a wonderful, caring mother who has done a praiseworthy job of loving her children and raising them “in the way they should go” — a task, she would tell you, that takes strength and wisdom which she does not possess on her own. Keisha and I were sharing thoughts about the Christmas holiday when our conversation turned to her dad, a man whom she rarely sees and whom she only talks to a time or two a year, despite the fact that he lives less than a couple of hours away. I asked her if she misses not having a father in her life. She does. Enough to tear up at the question. She said that she misses having someone to help her make decisions. She misses having someone come to her special events at school and celebrate holidays and birthdays with her and her siblings. She misses knowing that someone is helping her mom with all that goes into keeping a household, providing for and raising children. She misses a lot. And then she added, almost as an afterthought, that she wished she had a dad to give her a “special nickname.” I’ve never thought of nicknaming as a parental duty or a child’s expectation but, in Keisha’s mind, a daddy-born term of endearment is obviously some sort of treasure lost. It is symbolic perhaps of the countless small things – the shared experiences, the unique language, the inside jokes, the quirks and habits — that make each family different from all the others, and every child seem one-of-a-kind in the eyes of their parents. I couldn’t help but wonder as I listened to Keisha how a dad could ever walk away from a daughter and essentially disown three children. And I wondered what their nicknames might be if their father had chosen to be part of their lives. Conversation Two: Last night, I had dinner with an old friend and his wife. We’ve not visited, at any length, in a couple of decades and had lots of questions about where the years have taken us. He’s a well-known and respected surgeon who is the proud, and very involved, father of three children, two sons and a daughter. She’s a full-time mother and does the work necessary to run a busy household. I asked them about their children. When the dad started talking about his daughter, an eighth grader who is the youngest of the three, he simply could not find words to describe her. “It’s as if she belongs to another world.” I think he might have used the word “angel” a time or two, might have said that her feet don’t touch the ground. His praise of the girl made me want to write her a letter just to remind her how blessed she is to be the object of such a deep affection. Maybe I will. I would imagine he has a nickname for her. And while I am sure that my old friend would be quick to recognize her imperfections, they obviously do not dominate his perception of her or overshadow the good things that he believes to be true about her. The contrast between the two girls, their dads, the realities in which they live and move, could not be more stark. I wish Keisha had a dad who believed in nicknames and who was committed to the hard work of parenthood. For now, I pray and trust that God can and will be the father she needs. And he calls her, and us, by names that only a doting father would choose for his children: beloved, little one, saint, bride, friend. A few nights ago I was tossing and turning about something, something not worthy of sleeplessness but bothersome just the same, when I began to think of how God loves me. I brought to mind some passages that remind me of how, as a loving father, he wants good for me, always good. And as I thought of those nicknames and titles he gives to his children, so help me, the knot in my stomach eased up and sleep returned. I belong to a father who might well tell inquirers that, despite the spots and blemishes, his children “belong to another world.” I pray that you can hear the God of all creation, the one who showed himself to us fully in Jesus, “rejoicing over you with singing” and calling you by name.

This is the eulogy I read at my grandmother’s funeral on November 29, 2010. Evelyn Dowdy Ross was born May 10, 1918 in Pitts, Georgia, a tiny little town in Wilcox County. She was raised mostly in Fitzgerald. She was one of eight children in a loving and lively family that worked hard to scratch a living out of South Georgia’s sandy soil. There were two older brothers—Carl and Oliver—and then six beautiful girls: Leone, Aline, Irene, Judy, Evelyn, and Audrey. Evelyn was the one with flaming red hair—a slip of a girl with a ready smile and blue eyes that were quick and kind. The story of how Evelyn learned to play the piano tells quite a bit about who she was and where she came from. On her eighth or ninth birthday her brothers—who had gone away to Florida to seek their fortune—sent her a little money for her birthday. She spent it on a correspondence course to learn to play the piano. This in spite of the fact that her family had no piano. But Evelyn loved beauty, and she believed as firmly in things she couldn’t see as in the things she could.  When the correspondence course arrived in the mail, she found a plank and measured and marked the 88 keys of a piano—the white keys and the black keys containing every musical possibility there is…but only in the imagination of a little girl who heard music where others heard silence. Every day she pounded away on that plank, as faithful to the work as any concert pianist. And every day she prayed that God would give her the gift of musicianship, that she might give the gift right back to him for his glory. In time her father, seeing how hard his daughter had worked, figured out a way to buy a used piano on installments, and little Evelyn filled that dusty farmhouse with the hymns of the faith. She was never a great musician, but she was faithful to her promise. She gave her gift back to God, serving for years as a church pianist. The brothers convinced their parents to move with the girls to South Florida, where the Land Boom of the twenties was creating more opprontuities than there were people. It was a short sojourn in Florida, but it was eventful, and Evelyn often told stories of that time. She told, for instance, of their move from Georgia. The family’s household goods were piled in a pickup truck, and she was perched on top of the pile like Grandma Clampett, facing backwards as the truck drove southward. Trundling through one little town, she waved at the locals as if she were the Rose Bowl Queen and the piled-up pickup were her float.  The locals waved back and smiled. As they got further down the main drag, the people waved more enthusiastically. Evelyn stepped up her waving, pleased at the townspeople’s reception. A few locals started waving with two hands. Some pointed, some laughed, and some yelled something to her, but little Evelyn couldn’t understand what they were saying. Sensing at last that something was amiss, she turned around just in time to duck beneath a banner stretched across Main Street (it was advertising a Tomato Festival or something) that the townspeople were trying to warn her about. Evelyn loved to tell that story. She didn’t mind being the butt of her own joke, as long as it was a good joke. While in Florida, Evelyn was baptized in the Atlantic Ocean. She also spent a night in jail. (Now is not the time to keep secrets). They hadn’t been in Florida very long when a terrible hurricaneblew through–the still-famous Hurricane of 1926. She was staying with a cousin whose father was the sheriff of the little town. He decided the jailhouse was the safest place to weather the storm, so he sent his family there along with little Evelyn. As far as I know, it was the only night she ever spent behind bars. I love to picture that little girl having these adventures so far from home. The Florida adventure didn’t even last a year. The Dowdys were Georgia people, and farmers, and the prosperity of the Florida Land Boom was no match for the hardscrabble comforts of kith and kin back home. Her next big adventure was college—as far-fetched a scheme as the piano lessons. She got accepted into Norman Junior College in Norman Park, GA, but it wasn’t at all clear how she was going to pay for it. Some of the money she borrowed from the bank, but every term it was an adventure figuring out how she was going to pay. Her sister Judy paid some of her tuition. Leone made the clothes she would need. She scratched and fought to go to college. When she got there, however, she was terribly homesick. “If I could have just seen a yellow dog I recognized from Fitzgerald,” she said, “I would have cried for joy.” It wasn’t long, however, before she settled in.  She made friends at Norman Park who remained her friends as long as they lived. From Norman Park she went on to Tift College in Forsyth. She started her teaching career in Fitzgerald in the 30s. That first year she lived in a house with three other young teachers. The four of them remained close for the rest of their lives. You may notice a pattern emerging. Everlyn had a gift for deep and abiding friendship. She wasn’t just personable, though she was certainly that. She was a true and faithful friend.  She was genuinely interested in other people and she genuinely hoped the best for them. She was generous with her time, generous with compliments and good will. She made everybody feel better about themselves, especially men. Anybody who came into contact with her thought, “Well, maybe I’m more lovable than I realized.” Which is to say, Evelyn was truly an agent of grace. She was eager for everybody she met to know that God loved them unconditionally, and she treated people in a way that it wasn’t so hard to imagine that it might be true. One Sunday in 1940 or 1941, a young man Evelyn had never seen before came to her Sunday School class. He was new to town, a salesman for a meat packing house. His name was Abe Ross. They married on December 12, 1941, just five days after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Evelyn taught school that day; she also made the chicken salad for the reception. She was an outlandishly faithful wife to Abe. He was a big-hearted man and one of the funniest. Evelyn lived to serve him. I don’t suppose he ever saw the bottom of an ice cube in his tea glass from the day they married to the day he died. That marriage was a picture of grace if ever there was one. Surely Abe wondered every day what he had done to deserve such beauty and such devotion. The only answer, of course, was that he didn’t. Nobody could. Together Abe and Evelyn raised three children—Betsy, Dan, and Nancy—whom Evelyn never spanked. Having taught for ten years, Evelyn took ten years off to be at home with the kids while they were little. In 1955 the Rosses moved to Warner Robins, Georgia. I think it might have been the best thing that ever happened to Warner Robins. Evelyn taught for a year at Thomas Elementary, then she settled in at Lindsey Elementary. She taught there, mostly third grade, for twenty-three years, until she retired in 1979. For the rest of her life, it seemed, every time she went to a restaurant or any other public place in Warner Robins, somebody stopped her to say she taught them in third grade. For her family, it is always a pleasure to hear “Your mother (or grandmother) taught me in third grade.” We never fear what the person might say next. Evelyn had a gift for handling difficult students. She always gave the hard ones a job to do and praised them for handling their responsibilities so well. And soon they were great friends. As a former student told me at the visitation, Evelyn was never punitive, but she always communicated to her students what she expected of them. And they always met her expectations—eventually. I’ve also spoken with more than one former colleague who said, “Evelyn taught me how to teach.” She was as generous to her peers as she was to her students, and they loved her for it. Evelyn made everything seem easy. But things were never as easy as they seemed. Abe ran a sausage plant on Ignico Drive and later on 247 near the banks of the Eecheconnee Creek. That was a hard business, and at times it seemed all the money Abe made had to go back into the business. Many were the days when Evelyn got up, got the kids off to school, taught a full day of school, came back to the sausage plant to work a few hours, cooked and served supper, put the kids to bed, then graded papers. Not to mention the Wednesday evenings when she had to play the piano for choir practice and prayer meeting. But she never complained. She never looked harried. She carried on with that almost otherworldly serenity that came from a deep and abiding faith in a God who loved her and had a good plan for her life. She was truly graceful. I mean that literally. Her life was full of grace—grace received and grace extended. Evelyn scattered beauty wherever she went, and everyone she knew was better for it, whether they deserved it or not. She had a dignity about her that had nothing to do with her outward circumstances. Whether times were hard or relatively easy, she was just Evelyn. She dressed beautifully even if she had to make the dresses herself, and she always wore her lipstick—and strongly recommended that the women she was close to wear theirs too. She had the same ready smile and gentle laugh; her beauty seemed to deepen as her red hair faded to white. Even as her body declined, she never lost that dignified bearing of hers. And she never failed to honor the dignity of others. Evelyn had seven grandchildren and nineteen grandchildren, each of whom had reason to believe that he or she was her favorite. Every one of us was her sugar baby, as she told us every time she saw us. She never failed to tell one of her children that she loved them every time she saw them. She loved well, and she was well-loved. Evelyn was the last of her generation. Her brothers and sisters all went on before her, along with their wives and husbands. Abe died in 1983; his five brothers and sisters and all their wives and husbands have died too. Evelyn loved that wild rumpus of a family, and they loved her. But they were all gone in her last years—every one of them. For twenty-seven years she was a widow—twenty seven years! Shortly before I got married myself, she told me, “It’s a hard thing not to be the most important person in anybody’s life.” She never quite understood how much she meant to so many people. But look around. This room is full of people to whom Evelyn Ross was exceedingly important. And, by the way, she thought you were exceedingly important too. For ninety-two years Evelyn kept reaching out beyond herself. She never grew tired of loving people. If she was physically able, she was in church every time the doors were open. She was traveling all over the country with her roving band of tourists until not very long ago. For nine years, well into her eighties, she taught English as a second language in Central Baptist’s language school. She always had time for anyone who needed her time and attention. She was a joy to the very end of her life. As her body failed, she could have gotten grouchy and no one would have blamed her; but she never did. Evelyn Ross was a woman of deep faith and remarkable faithfulness her whole life. She was always that little girl who took piano lessons without a piano. She lived by faith, not by sight. But she doesn’t live by faith any more. Now her faith has become sight.  And things she only glimpsed in a glass darkly she now sees fully and face to face. Yes, she was faithful, but as she knew all along, what really mattered was God’s faithfulness in Christ, who has now received her into his rest. The work he began in her long ago is now complete. After twenty-seven years of widowhood, Evelyn is a bride again, feasting at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. And her beauty here is nothing to her beauty there—where the beauties of her youth combine with the beauties of her old age and beauties that we can’t even imagine yet. Her hair isn’t white there, but red again, blazing with the brightness of a dozen suns. As Frederick Buechner said, “What’s lost is nothing to what’s found, and all the death that ever was, set next to life, would scarcely fill a cup.” What a joy it is to think of Evelyn reunited with those she had lost—her parents, her sisters, her husband Abe, her son Dan, all those friends. After so many goodbyes, there she is, waiting to welcome us into the Long Hello. Halleluiah.

While living in Umeå, Sweden I worked occasionally (when I was bored with window shopping, reading and writing) at a cool place called Kafe Station (pronounced stah-SHOON, not STA-shen). Moving right along. A local church turned an old fire station into this cafe and it stands as a major component of their ministry, staffed and managed by the church and used as a really neat gathering space for concerts, meetings, minglings and such. When I had just barely acclimated to the new pace/language/wonder, Maria and I went shopping one morning for organic lavender for our morning baking. Curious, I thought, as we shuffled through the snow to the shops down the street. We found a medicine and herb shop where we purchased a little plastic pocket filled with teeny purple buds. This was going to be both fun and educational. Once back in the little green-tiled kitchen and with the local radio playing songs in a language I could only scarcely grasp, we tied on our aprons and started mixing a dough for the day’s skorpor (Sweden’s answer to biscotti). My job was chopping chocolate chunks off a good size block and running a knife through some toasted hazelnuts, both of which would eventually be folded into the soft mound of sweet dough, along with the aromatic lavender. Just enough to perfume the biscuits, though, not enough to render them soap-like. They baked, nestled in their long, perforated baguette forms, while we cleaned our workspace. When they came out, fragrant and golden, we quickly sliced them into inch-thick pieces, laid them out on sheet trays and slid them back into the oven for their second and final baking. We retired to a cafe table for fika and enjoyed the tiniest cups of the darkest coffee with the cutest spoons. Soon the sweet, floral, nutty scent settled into air of the warm, sunlit room, quiet save for the clinking of said cute spoons, the hushed murmur of the lilting, sing-songy language, and the occasional squeal of a beautiful, rosy-cheeked Swedish baby in her stroller. Skorpor were taste-tested, naturally (my tongue can still remember the foreign but marvelous combination), slid onto trays and then into the lighted case, ready for the day’s dunking.

In my daily Frederick Buechner a few days ago, I read about the time he received his first book deal, only to immediately hear about a classmate’s dissimilar misfortune. And as he walked away, his joy could not fully withstand the grief of his friend. “There can be no real joy for anybody until there is joy finally for us all,” he wrote. And isn’t that the way it is with everything in our broken world? One man’s fortune is another man’s burden. The same hill means one man’s climb and another’s coasting descent. Sometimes in the effort to encourage the pursuit of simplicity, proponents point to the joys of letting go of consumer values, to the shame of living for cheap, monetary thrills, to the true cost of our endless appetites. I believe in that joy, and in that shame, but I forget sometimes, that while there can be great reward for making sacrificial changes, those changes very often feel like loss. Change is never without a feeling of loss, even happy change. A wedding is a great beginning, full of hope and the promise of a timeless friendship, but it is also an end. Isn’t it a common story for a best friend to spend much of the wedding grieving over the forever-changed nature of their friendship? Or a child is born and amidst the parents’ joy, they are quickly adjusting to the sudden demands of their new charge, likely without the indulgence of previous comforts like sleeping in or a simple cup of coffee. When we leave one thing behind in order to gain something better, moving on into joy is part of the story, but the other part is loss. Whether it’s moving across the country, signing a book deal, or giving up Netflix (I know . . . it’s a doozy), we must give ourselves the freedom to grieve the fear or loss we feel. Because regardless of how good the change may be, the pain it brings along the way is real. I love Eric Peters’ song that I posted for the new year. “So much to be thankful, so much to be forgotten. Gonna cry when I need it, smile when I need it, laugh when I need it. Good-bye denial, good-bye. Good-bye.” Pursuing a more simple, focused life is a common response to the rampant consumerism and disposability of our time, and I believe an appropriate one. And when I am visited by the longing for what I have left behind, I must see it, name it, and then remember that I have not so much given up what I had gained as begun to hope for something different. To pursue the life-giving habits that depend less on accumulation, and more on expression, enrichment, service, is for many of us a hoping for the day when there is joy without sadness, for us all.

Author’s Note: The following anecdote first appeared in a comment on my blog. My store of anecdotes is finite, as my long-suffering wife can (and often does) attest. I can’t afford to bury them in, say, the fifth comment on a post about some other subject. That’s just a rookie mistake. In blogging, as in buffet-style dining, one must pace oneself (especially if one has already re-posted most of one’s pieces here at The Rabbit Room). In that spirit, and in honor of the fact that I am writing this on a plane trip to Charlotte, North Carolina, I hereby promote the following anecdote from comment to post. I hope you find it edifying. I went to college at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. Greenville was close enough to Charlotte for me to form opinions about that city. They were largely unfavorable opinions. I don’t remember the details of my case against Charlotte, but they were summed up by the bon mot, “I’ve got no use for a city whose goal in life is to be the next Atlanta!” (I had opinions about Atlanta too.) Not long after we married, my wife and I were driving through the Carolinas, and as we approached Charlotte I once again laid out my strong anti-Charlotte position for her benefit. “It doesn’t seem so bad to me,” she said as we passed beneath the shadows of the great glass buildings where bankers were going about their bankerly business. “Pshaw!” I said. “I’m hungry,” she said. “Do you know any good places to eat in Charlotte?” “How would I know?” I said. “I’ve never been to Charlotte in my life!” I don’t suppose I’ll ever forget the expressions on my wife’s face at that moment. A look of astonishment gave way to an angry scowl that shaded into a squint that said, if I read it right, “What have I done? I have just attached myself intimately and irrevocably to a man who speaks very articulately of things he knows nothing about.” I could see the wheels turning as she wondered how many of my other well-considered opinions had no basis in reality. I am happy to report that I have mellowed on the subject of Charlotte, North Carolina. My prejudices were no match for the reality of the place, which is actually quite pleasant and populated by fine people who have plenty of other hopes and dreams besides trying to be the next Atlanta. Incidentally, I’ve decided Atlanta isn’t so bad either. Bonus Fact: Charlotte is the largest city between Atlanta and Washington, DC. Bonus Story Recommendation: In his short story collection Here We Are in Paradise, Nashville writer and Charlotte native Tony Earley has a brilliant story called “Charlotte” that I commend to you. I also commend to you everything else that Tony Earley has ever published.

Superman has the Fortress of Solitude. Batman has the Batcave. The Justice League has the Watchtower. Sherlock Holmes had 221b Baker Street. Bilbo had Bag End. Michael Card has Mole End. It’s my pleasure to announce to you, ladies and germs, the Rabbit Room finally has official headquarters. Quarters for our head. A hutch. A lair. (Can good guys have lairs?) Monday morning I stood in the new office with Pete Peterson, Thomas McKenzie, Jason Gray, Russ Ramsey and our friend Josh Petersen (who was taking the picture) and gave thanks to God for the place. What happens in a base of operations, you ask? Other than plotting to take over the world, it’s where we package and ship all the books, CDs, mugs, and Father Thomas bobblehead dolls. For years now, the base of operations has been in my manager’s basement. It’s been a good basement, as basements go, but even the best basement setup can’t compete with an actual above-ground office. Whoever filled orders had to step over boxes and hunch, not to mention the lack of sunlight makes one cranky (and pasty). If we needed to do any webwork or planning or brainstorming or writing it tended to be in whatever coffee shop we could find. As many of you know, we tried for several months a while back to open a bookstore/coffeehouse, but realized that it’s impossible right now. In the meantime we’ve been looking for a happy medium, a place between the basement and a bricks-and-mortar Rabbit Room store. Enter Ben Shive (a.k.a., one of my best compadres). Ben needed a bigger studio for all his production work. The Rabbit Room needed a lair. Yesterday I signed the lease on an office space that will house both. The Beehive (where Ben does his mad science) and the Rabbit Room will share a space right in the heart of Berry Hill, behind Baja Burrito and next to Sam & Zoe’s coffeehouse. It’s the neighborhood where our uber-talented friends Andrew Osenga, Mitch Dane, Shane Wilson, and a bunch of other great producers and musicians also work and play and eat burritos. It also happens to be about a five-minute drive from the Gullahorns, the Goodgames, the McKenzies, the Ramseys, and–well, you get the idea. It’s in a great spot. Ben will be making fine records in his part of the space and Pete will be in the other, working on things like Rabbit Room Store orders, the website, planning Hutchmoot 2011, and building Rabbit Room Press. (He’ll also probably write his next novel there.) People have asked me what this will allow the Rabbit Room to do that it wasn’t already doing. It’s a good question, and I don’t really know the answer. It’ll be a much better place to fill orders. It’ll be a good place to meet and discuss the overtaking of the world with Rabbity goodness. This phase of the Rabbit Room’s growth won’t include retail sales, so you won’t be able to swing by just yet (though we encourage you to dine at Baja Burrito as often as you pass through town, since food will taste better in the vicinity of our lair). The biggest thing for me is something I learned at Hutchmoot last year: there’s a big difference between existing online and existing in the real world. I don’t mean to overstate, but I think of it as a kind of incarnation. The thing takes on a new life. Years after this whole idea struck, I’m grateful to see it moving forward, building community, and shedding light. Thank you, dear readers, listeners, and encouragers, for being a part of this story. Sincerely, The Proprietor P.S. Shameless plea: If anyone lives in Nashville and has any cool furniture, we’re looking for some. You can see from the pictures that we don’t have much yet, besides the crate Pete’s sitting on. We humbly reserve the right to be picky, but if you have anything you’d like to donate (i.e., bookshelves, floor lamps, club chairs, love seat, coffee table, lava lamp, wooden desk, etc.), we’d be happy to take it off your hands. Shoot an email (and a picture of what you’ve got) to info@rabbitroom.com and we’ll let you know if it meets our impeccable standards.