Normally, I — in this case, portraying a critic – would proceed to try and convince you to read this or that book by using my own words of approval. But I, already too crummy at convincing people to do this or that, choose instead to quote the author’s own characters – two stuffed animals inside a taxidermist’s workshop – to show you my humble appreciation for Yann Martel’s newest novel, Beatrice and Virgil. It’s a harrowing, seeming un-adventure story that builds a slow, awkward tension much like in his previous novel, 2002 Man Booker Prize winner, Life of Pi. Reading B&V, and knowing Martel’s earlier success with Pi, his newest novel, though fiction, seems part autobiography, part fiction, part history, part painting. Though it does not succeed on every level, I find it to be a most-creative attempt to make sense of the dark cruelty that mankind continually inflicts upon itself throughout history from one group to another, from one man to another. That said, I leave you with Martel’s own words via Beatrice, a donkey accompanying his monkey companion, Virgil, during their walking conversation. Virgil: I was thinking about faith. Beatrice: Were you? Virgil: Faith is like being in the sun. When you are in the sun, can you avoid creating a shadow? Can you shake that area of darkness that clings to you, always shaped like, as if constantly to remind you of yourself? You can’t. This shadow is doubt. And it goes wherever you go as long as you stay in the sun. And who wouldn’t want to be in the sun?

Soon after the release of my latest album, Chrome (2009), I had what business executives–and most normal people–would classify as a bizarre and terrible idea for an interview. Producer Ben Shive humored me, and together we (mostly Ben) pieced together this idea, a self-indulgent mollusk of aural awkwardness. If you didn’t already think I was weird, this should clinch the deal. Please, enjoy this, the premiere (and probably final) episode of Silver Tongue : Golden Voice. Features a guest appearance by legendary tire salesman, Wayne Toosun.https://rabbitroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/silvertongue.mp3

From a letter written by Hudson Taylor, the great missionary to China, to his sister. “…I felt assured that there was in Christ all I needed, but the practical question was – how to get it out. He was rich truly, but I was poor; He was strong, but I weak. I knew full well that there was in the root, the stem, abundant fatness, but how to get it into my puny little branch was the question. As gradually light dawned, I saw that faith was the only requisite – was the hand to lay hold on His fulness and make it mine. But I had not this faith. “But how to get faith strengthened? Not by striving after faith, but by resting on the Faithful One.” As I read I saw it all! “If we believe not, he abideth faithful.” I looked to Jesus and saw (and when I saw, oh, how joy flowed!) that He had said, “I will never leave thee.” “Ah, there is rest!” I thought. “I have striven in vain to rest in Him. I’ll strive no more. For has not He promised to abide with me – never to leave me, never to fail me?” And…He never will. Nor was this all He showed me, nor one half. As I thought of the Vine and the branches, what light the blessed Spirit poured direct into my soul! How great seemed my mistake in wishing to get the sap, the fulness out of Him! I saw not only that Jesus will never leave me, but that I am a member of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. The vine is not the root merely, but all-root, stem, branches, twigs, leaves, flowers, fruit. And Jesus is not that alone – He is soil and sunshine, air and showers, and ten thousand times more than we have ever dreamed, wished for, or needed. Oh the joy of seeing this truth! I do pray that the eyes of your understanding too may be enlightened, that you may know and enjoy the riches freely given us in Christ. …it is a wonderful thing to be really one with a risen and exalted Saviour, to be a member of Christ! Think what it involves. Can Christ be rich and I poor? Can your right hand be rich and your left poor? or your head be well fed while your body starves? Again, think of its bearing on prayer. Could a bank clerk say to a customer, “It was only your hand, not you that wrote that check”; or “I cannot pay this some to your hand, but only to yourself”? No more can your prayers or mine be discredited if offered in the name of Jesus (i.e., not for the sake of Jesus merely, but on the ground that we are His, His members) so long as we keep within the limits of Christ’s credit – a tolerably wide limit! The sweetest part…is the rest which full identification with Christ brings. I am no longer anxious about anything, as I realize this; for He, I know, is able to carry out His will, and His will is mine. It makes no matter where He places me, or how. That is rather for Him to consider than for me, for in the easiest position He must give me His grace, and in the most difficult His grace is sufficient. It little matters to my servant whether I send him to buy a few cash worth of things, or the most expensive articles. In either case he looks to me for the money and brings me his purchases. So if God should place me in serious perplexity, must He not give me much guidance; in places of great difficulty, much grace; in circumstances of great pressure and trial, much strength? No fear that HIs resources will prove unequal to the emergency! And His resources are mine, for He is mine, and is with me and dwells in me.

I’m obsessing over the music of Josh Ritter. Last year, Pete and I met Evie Coates at the coffee shop to talk about Hutchmoot 2010. We talked about the program, the menu, the number of forks we needed, then we drove over to Church of the Redeemer so Evie could check out the kitchen. I rode in her fabled old red truck and she asked if I had ever heard of Josh Ritter. When I said no she looked at me like I should be ashamed of myself, then she played me a song called “Another New World” from Ritter’s new album So Runs the World Away. I was mesmerized. The song was about this Ernest Shackleton-type captain, an adventurer who musters a crew to voyage with him to the frozen north because he believes a new world lay hidden, waiting “for whoever can break through the ice”. Ritter’s voice was both intense and easy on the ears, the story the song told was haunting and sad and mysterious, and I wanted to hear it again. And again. But at that point we pulled into the church and planned Hutchmoot instead. Later that day she texted me the two songs I should buy from that album in case I was still wary of getting the whole thing: “Another New World” and one called “The Curse”. I forked my $1.98 over to iTunes and listened to the songs a few times, then one night on the road Ben and I watched the music video for “The Curse”, at which point I realized that–get this–the song was about a mummy who falls in love with the archaeologist who discovers him. And with that, ladies and germs, I was in. I bought the album and listened to it about thirty times, marveling, above all, at Ritter’s lyrics and the stories he tells. If you know me at all, you know I’m a word nerd. I love to read a book in which I can sense the author’s love affair with the tools of his trade. I want to marvel not just at good stories, but good sentences. So I geeked out when I heard Josh Ritter sing these lines (from his tale of the voyage of the Annabel Lee): After that it got colder, and the world got quiet, It was never quite day or quite night. And the sea turned the color of sky Turned the color of sea turned the color of ice. After that all around us was fastness, One vast glassy desert of arsenic white, And the waves that once lifted us, Shifted instead into drifts against Annabel’s sides. Now, before you read on, do yourself a favor and read that lyric again. Read it aloud. If you’re at work, cover your mouth and whisper it to yourself (that’s what I do at Starbucks). That, my friends, is the work of a ninja. That’s the kind of evocative, alliterative, narrative, imaginative, roll-off-the-tongue writing I dream about. Evie has now cost me about thirty bucks, because I’ve since bought Ben Shive So Runs the World Away, and bought myself The Animal Years, Ritter’s previous album, as well as In the Dark: Live at Vicar Street, recorded in Dublin. And that’s rare for me. I just don’t do that. I usually get into a new artist like I get into a cold swimming pool. I’m the guy who orders the same thing at the restaurant every time, not because I’m picky but because when I find something I like I stick to it. If you looked at my iTunes library you’d still see (other than the Square Peg Alliance) mostly Rich Mullins, Marc Cohn, and James Taylor, the three dudes I cut my songwriting teeth on. I just don’t get into new artists easily. That’s why I was excited to discover Josh Ritter. Not only do I love the sound, I love that he’s telling me something, and I get the sense that, whatever it is, he believes it–or at least, he’s willing to ask good questions about his doubts. His songs are rife with Biblical references (enough to make me wonder if he grew up in the church), as well as literary ones, though it’s hard to know exactly where he’s coming from, spiritually. I get the feeling sometimes that he’s mad at the God he doesn’t think exists. Here’s a line from a 9-minute epic from The Animal Years called “Thin Blue Flame”, a song I can’t get enough of: If God’s up there he’s in a cold dark room The heavenly hosts are just the cold dark moons He bent down and made the world in seven days And ever since he’s been a-walking away It’s a bitter and misinformed depiction of God. (The Gospel is basically the exact opposite of what he claims here. God made the world in (six) days, and ever since he’s been interacting with it, flowering it with beauty, redeeming it, calling to his people, and eventually walking not away but into the world itself.) Ritter goes on in the song to sing about the horrors of war, of amputees and missiles as the only answer from above. There’s layer on layer of imagery, everything from Hamlet to Laurel and Hardy, and it builds to a fever of anger and emotion at the state of the world. But at the end of the song, after he’s said his piece, he seems to take a deep breath. He seems to wake from a nightmare and paints, more or less, a picture of heaven: I woke beneath a clear blue sky The sun a shout, the breeze a sigh My old hometown and the streets I knew Were wrapped up in a royal blue I heard my friends laughing out across the fields The girls in the gloaming and the birds on the wheel The raw smell of horses and the warm smell of hay Cicadas electric in the heat of the day A run of Three Sisters and the flush of the land And the lake was a diamond in the valley’s hand The straight of the highway and the scattered out hearts They were coming together they pulling apart And angels everywhere were in my midst In the ones that I loved in the ones that I kissed I wondered what it was I’d been looking for up above Heaven is so big there ain’t no need to look up So I stopped looking for royal cities in the air Only a full house gonna have a prayer I think he’s trying to answer all the outrage of the first half of the song with the reminder that somehow a world of beauty, friendship, and peace persists. This last stanza is loaded with card-playing references (notice all the words like “straight”, “flush”, “hand”, “hearts”, and “diamond”), which is cool, even if I don’t totally get it. But then comes the line, “Heaven is so big there ain’t no need to look up”. I get what he’s trying to say, or at least I think I do, which is that maybe our time would be better spent not dreaming of some pie-in-the-sky in the sweet by-and-by. I think he thinks he’s pronouncing some indictment on Christianity, as if God wants us to let the earth go to rot and ruin because we lucky few are going to heaven anyway. Of course, that’s far from true. The Church is called to love, and love, and love; it’s an army embattled with the forces of darkness–forces that do want to see the world burn. But if C.S. Lewis was right (and I think he was), then those of us in Christ will discover in heaven that heaven had, in a sense, overlapped our time on earth. Heaven really is bigger than he thinks, and because of Christ, it’s all around us, making everything sad come untrue (thank you, Samwise and Jason Gray). From The Great Divorce: “But what, you ask, of earth? Earth, I think, will not be found by anyone to be in the end a very distinct place. I think earth, if chosen instead of Heaven, will turn out to have been, all along, only a region in Hell: and earth, if put second to Heaven, to have been from the beginning a part of Heaven itself.” The many good and beautiful things Ritter describes in that last stanza are, for those in Christ, the waves of heaven lapping up on our shores, washing back over our lives here. Lewis goes on to say that those who give themselves over to Hell will find that the same is true: they were already at its dark edges. Lewis: “And that is why, at the end of all things, when the sun rises here and the twilight turns to blackness down there, the Blessed will say ‘We have never lived anywhere except Heaven,’ and the Lost, ‘We were always in Hell.’ And both will speak truly.’” So Ritter is asking good questions. I don’t necessarily agree with his answers, but that doesn’t keep me from being amazed by the songs–and the songs suggest to me that he’s paying attention, watching and listening to the part of his spirit that resonates with a certain secret fire. And if he keeps writing songs this good I think he’s going to have to try pretty hard to ignore the source of all that richness. His imagination and sense of poetry and narrative are a rare gift, and I’m intrigued enough to keep listening. And listening. The same way I listen to Paul Simon’s Graceland. I don’t get every song, and that’s part of why I keep coming back. My hat is off to Josh Ritter. Please keep writing. Here’s “The Curse”, along with the lyric and a video if you want to know more. Buy the song here. [audio:TheCurse.mp3] The Curse He opens his eyes falls in love at first sight With the girl in the doorway What beautiful lines and how full of life After thousands of years what a face to wake up to He holds back a sigh as she touches his arm She dusts off the bed where ‘til now he’s been sleeping And under miles of stone, the dried fig of his heart Under scarab and bone starts back to its beating She carries him home in a beautiful boat He watches the sea from a porthole in stowage He can hear all she says as she sits by his bed And one day his lips answer her in her own language The days quickly pass he loves making her laugh The first time he moves it’s her hair that he touches She asks, “Are you cursed?” he says, “I think that I’m cured” Then he talks of the Nile and the girls in bulrushes In New York he is laid in a glass covered case He pretends he is dead people crowd round to see him But each night she comes round and the two wander down The halls of the tomb that she calls a museum Often he stops to rest but then less and less Then it’s her that looks tired staying up asking questions He learns how to read from the papers that she Is writing about him and he makes corrections It’s his face on her book more and more come to look Families from Iowa, Upper West Siders Then one day it’s too much he decides to get up And as chaos ensues he walks outside to find her She’s using a cane and her face looks too pale But she’s happy to see him as they walk he supports her She asks “Are you cursed?” but his answer’s obscured In a sandstorm of flashbulbs and rowdy reporters Such reanimation the two tour the nation He gets out of limos he meets other women Her speaks of her fondly their nights in the museum But she’s just one more rag now he’s dragging behind him She stops going out she just lies there in bed In hotels in whatever towns they are speaking Then her face starts to set and her hands start to fold And one day the dried fig of her heart stops its beating Long ago in the ship she asked, “Why pyramids?” He said, “Think of them as an immense invitation” She asked, “Are you cursed?” He said, “I think that I’m cured” Then he kissed her and hoped that she’d forget that question For Josh Ritter, Mummies and Shakespeare Are the Stuff of Music from Mike Fritz on Vimeo.

As for the man: he is about 52, of humble origin (there are still traces of cockney in his voice), ugly as a chimpanzee but so radiant (he emanates more love than any man I have ever known) that as soon as he begins talking whether in private or in a lecture he is transfigured and looks like an angel…In spite of his ‘angelic’ quality he is also quite an earthy person and when Warnie, Tolkien, he and I meet for our pint in a pub in Broad Street, the fun is often so fast and furious that the company probably thinks we’re talking bawdy when in fact we’re very likely talking Theology. —C. S. Lewis He was the one running back and forth from the bar, keeping everyone supplied with ale and good cheer during the weekly meetings at the Eagle and Child (or “Bird and Baby”, to the seasoned Oxonian). He scarcely uttered a word, playful or serious, into which he did not thrust the intense vitality of his entire personality, for better or for worse. Largely self-taught, he couldn’t even boast of a degree (excepting the honorary MA Oxford eventually conferred upon him near the end of his life), though he sat at ease among some of the greatest minds of the twentieth century. In terms of elegance and concision he was a terrible novelist and a largely unremembered poet. C.S. Lewis esteemed him among the chiefest of his friends and lauded the deep spirituality of both his writings and his life. The wary Tolkien wasn’t so sure. The readers of Charles Williams are as divided as the Inklings themselves were. To some, his books have been the catalyst to a mind-blowing experience of true Christ-like living. To others, equally devout, they reek of the cockamamie, if not the downright heretical. Dorothy Sayers has said of this phenomenon of polarity that “[Williams’ writing] is so individual as at a first encounter to disconcert, perplex, or even antagonize those on whom it did not, on the contrary, break as a sudden light to them that had sat in darkness.” I heartily concur. I picked up his novel Descent into Hell a few years ago upon the trusted recommendation of one of my favorite authors, Sheldon Vanauken, anticipating, I imagine, the same soaring and lucid sublimities in the one as I had found in the other. If I was looking for the beauty of my faith all laid out in beautiful and logical array, what I found was an (apparently) chaotic jumble of events past and present that seemed to all be happening at the same time and a confusing array of symbols I was not yet friendly enough with my Dante to fully appreciate. In short, I was right merrily kerflummoxed. But it was the merriment, methinks, that took hold and insisted that there was something there worth the trouble of seeing. A merriment not related to content (heavens, no—Williams’ books are notoriously dark) but in the larger sense of commedia: the hell and purgatory one must slough through in quest of the bewildering glories of paradise and the often humorous, often tragic performance we all make of it every day of our lives. I couldn’t help being haunted by it and its suggestion of a larger life than even many Christians dare to dream of (not to mention its sobering conclusion to the rejection of that life). Not long after that I found, quite by accident, the key to many of the riddles of Descent amid the verses and notes of Sayer’s immortal translation of the Comedy (highly recommended!); many, but certainly not all by the least stretch of the imagination. For Charles Williams did not merely reaffirm the tried and respected imagery of the Christian faith, much as he revered it. Dante was his father in many ways, but Williams had a natural predisposition to view his life—and the faith that defined it—as a high romance of pilgrimage, expressing the inexpressible along the royal road with a series of carefully-constructed symbols which he was to call “The Way of the Images”. Nothing was without potential, in Williams’ economy: anything and everything might illumine, in some flashing moment of insight, the character and attributes of the God whom he lovingly referred to as “the Omnipotence”. For Williams, an image was not a snare of idolatry such as the forbidden ‘graven image’ would be (in other words, an image crafted with the intention of reproducing or replicating God) but a sudden, striking, unlooked-for shaft of glory piercing the veil between time and timelessness. Such a likeness noted and looked beyond was an image; grasped after, clutched for, it became an idol. And thus it was that an image of peaceful jurisdiction might leap from the tattered history of the Byzantine empire as easily as one car yielding to another in traffic might provide a practical expression of love at its most basic and fundamental. And perhaps, most earth-shattering of all, the uniquely human experience of falling in love—what Williams called ‘the Beatrician moment’—had the most potential of any image, granting a peep, however flawed, not only into what our love for God can look like, but what His love for us does look like. “This also is Thou; neither is this Thou.” Thus runs the famous (at least among Williamsites) maxim that defined his theology. Any created thing can be a God-bearer to us, translated by an extraordinary grace into a language that our hearts know and understand, a speech transcending words wooing us back to the Lover of our souls. And any image, however incandescent with holy fire, will eventually burn itself out and return to the dust from whence it sprang. The reflection is not reality; the God-bearer is not God. But all this accepting and rejecting of images is only one facet of the gorgeously-textured pattern of splendor that comprises Williams’ theology. At the very heart of it all lies a glorious experiment in holy living that calculates on nothing less sublime than the revelation of Christ in the life of any believer, however sin-scarred and inept. “Christ in you, the hope of glory”—and in Williams’ mind, that glory was not only a promised destiny but an immediate and imminent possibility, sleeping just beneath the surface of the everyday, awaiting only the electric touch of love to set every nerve and fiber thrilling with the life that is truly Life. It’s under such a conviction that he is able to make a heroine in one of his novels literally enter into the sufferings of Christ for another, a friend scarcely regarded before. And to set a fearful young woman before the face of terrifying evil with a fearless smile on her lips—a smile that is the evil’s undoing as much as anything. All of this comes under what Williams would call the doctrines of “exchange” and “substituted love”, and the lesser images of it are cropping up all over the place, from the substitution of a grain of wheat falling into the ground to provide our bread, to the exchange of our hard-earned money to pay for it. (It’s a truly fascinating world of thought and awareness and should you care to read more, Mary McDermott Shideler has written a thorough study of Williams’ writings that will give you palpitations if you go in for that kind of thing. And I trust I’m in good company there.) Last fall, my husband and I read All Hallows Eve, Charles Williams’ last novel and the only one that the Inklings actually weighed in on, with a group of close friends. Friends close enough to disagree with—vehemently—and I was as excited at the prospect of mirthsome debate as I was in finishing the book. “There’s such a hilarity of joy here, such a glorious acknowledgement of interdependence among believers in this book,” I wrote in my journal. “And there is a great and bracing sense of chastening. You get what you ask for—you get what you really want. That is righteously terrifying. Evil is real and at work. But no matter how dark this book got—no matter what places Williams took us—there was always a saint ready to laugh.” What I had found in the pages of Williams seemed strangely—wildly, madly—familiar. I can only describe it as a recognition. Hints of a glory I’d dreamed of. Resounding yeses to things I’d always hoped were true—things I didn’t even know I’d hoped for till the light shone on them and I realized, suddenly, matter-of-factly, that I’d hoped for them all along. Williams through his fantasy showed me that everything matters in the real world—from the slightest inclination to the most valiant deeds—and, oh! isn’t that what we both long and fear to hear? Everything matters and everything is redeemable. The choice between a practical heaven and hell lies open for all of us at every second. Not in terms of a shaky plan of salvation, of course, but in the sense of a moment to moment preference of our souls. To dwell in love is to soar towards heaven with the springing joy of a homing dove. To choose love’s antitheses is to make my bed in hell. Sitting by the fire that night over sherry and coffee, Williams in one hand and the venerable Thomas Howard in the other, we lit in with unmixed civility. And it soon became evident that not a one among us was on the fence. One sat by in a mostly bemused silence, breaking it only with a wry and well-timed remark on some of the characters’ resemblances to the apparently undead models in the latest Anthropologie catalogue. Another was on the edge of his seat, figuratively if not literally, a finger poised between the leaves and senses tuned to the perfect moment for sharing a loved passage or two. “That was the darkest book I have ever read,” said yet another, with a shudder and a wrinkling of the nose. I said I’d never been so accosted by a story. I felt like Williams was dragging me along by the collar, unwilling to let me rest or flag till I had some inkling of this stupendous Love that he was breaking every literary rule to show me. I said much more than that, little that’s worth repeating, and in my zeal received the occasional raised eyebrow from my husband across the room, roughly translated as “let someone else have a go, sweetheart”. But the conversation hasn’t really ended, even to this day. A few weeks ago a dear, wise, well-read friend parenthetically remarked that All Hallows Eve was certainly not a favorite. “It seemed cumbersome to wade through all that weirdness to get any nuggets worth bending the page for.” I imagine Tolkien would lift his glass to that. “I was and remain wholly unsympathetic to Williams’ mind,” he wrote. “We had nothing to say to one another.” To each his own. But in the proper Inklings spirit, allow me to suggest making his acquaintance if you haven’t already. You may not be on speaking terms with Williams at the end of it all, but I can assure you it’ll be one heck of a ride.

Note: This is a short fable I wrote a few days after Hutchmoot. -Sam There once lived several people. These people, the several of them, lived on different corners of a flat earth. One day they each received a letter. This story is about those letters and what happened after the several people got them. The letters were different than the auto-messages they were used to. (The auto-messages came through a series of tunnel-tubes and were sucked into a giant tray by an impossibly complicated pneumatic system. But there was no spirit in the auto-messages; they were mostly regulations and bills and new regulations about bills.) The letters were heavy to hold and tied with a blue bow. It was not a womanly bow, or a manly bow. It was lovely and strong, if you can imagine such a thing. Evanthia received her letter on a Monday. She had heard of such letters, but had never yet held one in her hands. So she opened it, like almost everyone who has ever gotten a letter does. Inside the letter was written, “Come. You are welcome,” in a fine hand. There had never been a welcome for her anywhere. A thrill danced up her back, a lightning ship which at last wrecked on the rocks of her golden hair. Well-used to hurt, she was suspicious. She looked on the back of the letter (where she had heard the sender’s place was to be found) and it said, “Middlehouse.” She looked around to be sure there was no one near. Confirmation came at once, for Absence was her constant and only companion. Then she decided her decision. She set off for Middlehouse, with something like a smile on her face. Wuncellown and Mutch were not alone, because there was the other of each of them. Mutch got a letter, but Wuncellown did not. Wuncellown said, “Go friend.” “I will,” Mutch said, “and you with me.” So Middlehouse-ward they went, laughing as friends do. This kind of thing happened at each kind of place. So it happened that many got on roads and made for Middlehouse. Weary, they arrived at last and stood before the place. It was plainer than many expected, and grander for others, who were poor. “Let’s go inside, friends,” Mutch said. Evanthia’s ears blanched at that word. Friends? Crimson colored her face like a glass of cherrywine. Red and gold, her face and hair. When they reached the door, it opened. In the doorway stood a wizard. (They knew by all the tell-tale signs people everywhere have used to identify such men.) He said, “I am your host. Welcome.” He wished them to doubt he was a wizard, but they knew better. Wuncellown said, “Master, why have you written these letters to us?” “Not to you,” he said, smiling. “I came with Mutch,” Wuncellown said. “And you will leave with more,” the wizard said. Some wrinkled their noses at that, others laughed politely. “Come in, come in. It looks as if it might rain. I have much to show you and more, no doubt, to be shown.” At last Evanthia was the last one outside. Once more alone. Where she had a moment before been a part, she now stood apart. The wizard’s head reappeared in the doorway and he nodded for her to enter. She balked, afraid of the joy that sloshed around in her like an open jug in the hands of a clumsy child. Easily lost, she was sure. “Come, beautiful,” the wizard said. “Come, Evanthia. We’re waiting for you and cannot be what we ought without you. Besides, there’s food in here.” She approached the door, but stopped again. The door almost closed, but at the last moment a hand struck out and grabbed her own, pulling her inside. The door closed on the sound of laughter.

The following intro is obviously unnecessary here at The Rabbit Room, but it was included at my website –when I originally posted this there— because some of my readers don’t know that Pete is a wrestling phenom. And by wrestling I mean attacking innocent people who were minding their own business. -Sam A.S. “Pete” Peterson is a Marine Corp veteran and the author of two novels, The Fiddler’s Gun and Fiddler’s Green. He also is a bit of a pioneer in the fascinating modern world of independent publishing. Get Pete’s book right now, or suffer a similar fate. Here’s some questions I asked Pete as an expert journalist and part time wrestler. 1. Fiddler’s Green features some excellent writing. Tell us about your theory and method of sentence-crafting and what it means to you to “feed the troll?” Thanks, Sam. I don’t know that I’ve got a ‘theory of sentence-craft” but words and sentences certainly do sing a kind of music to me that I love to read and therefore love to write. I often find myself having to admit to people that I’m slow reader. I wish sometimes that that weren’t true but the fact is that when I read, I read “aloud” in my head because I want more than just the information a sentence conveys. I want the flavor, rhythm, and sound of it, too. When I read a book I often read sentences and passages multiple times just to appreciate them, especially if it’s a good book. So my love of the sound and mystery of words is such that I find I’m skeptical of people who are quick readers. If a person can read a book in a day, I have to wonder if they are really taking the time and putting in the effort to appreciate what they read. Maybe they do, but consider me a skeptic. The job of any good writer (and I hope to be one someday) is to pay attention to the way words are put together. It’s not just about what the words are telling the reader, it’s about how they tell the reader. Ideally, every word, every sentence, every paragraph should be working overtime to convey more than one piece of information at once. If I can get a single word to communicate character, theme, and plot all at the same time then I’ve found the correct word and putting together sentences and paragraphs filled with those exactly correct words is what the art of writing is all about. I think the end of your question is referencing the term “feeding the gnome” which is an idea that Stephen King talks about in his excellent book On Writing. He suggests that every writer has a gnome in the basement that supplies the writer with his stories. To get good stories from him, you’ve got to feed your gnome well. If you don’t feed him at all he might die. So feeding the gnome is about remembering to refuel yourself creatively. It’s about reading. It’s about watching movies. It’s about hiking through the woods and paying attention to the world around you. And it’s also about doing these things well. I could feed my gnome a steady diet of reality TV but guess what kind of stories that gnome is going to hand back to me? Not the kind I want to write, that’s for sure. My gnome is currently looking a little thin. I’ve just come off finishing Fiddler’s Green and haven’t had much time to feed him. I’m looking forward to fattening the ugly little guy up after the first of the year. 2. What has having a community of artists, readers, and other weird people so close by and connected to you meant for you as an author? Being a part of a thriving artistic community has been invaluable. It’s great to be able to look around and see other people working hard to put beautiful and meaningful things into the world. The best part is seeing the day-to-day reality of it. New artists often have an idealized vision of what it means to live the artist’s life. They imagine it’s having the time and luxury to spend every waking moment pursuing your creation. The reality is that artists are really hard working people–not only working hard at what they are creating, but working hard to support their families, to pay their bills, to survive another month. Very few subsist on their art alone and there’s no shame in having to work a real job. That’s part of the deal. If you aren’t willing to work a nine to five job and pursue your art at the same time then you might be in the wrong business. Being in a community of artists who have worked their entire lives without giving up on what it is they love is a real inspiration for me when I go through periods of feeling like I’m doing it all for nothing. Doing it for nothing is kind of what it’s all about. You’ve got be willing to do it for nothing. You’ve got to love it that much. 3. Describe how your vision for Rabbit Room Press figures into the complex and ever-changing future of publishing and tell us whether or not you’re optimistic about independent publishing? I think one of the areas where a lot of publishers have let readers down is in their failure to brand themselves, and that’s what I really want to see Rabbit Room Press do. In the film industry the analog is Pixar. People will go to a Pixar film simply because it’s Pixar, because they trust that Pixar knows good stories and will not disappoint. I want to develop a press with that kind of reputation, and I think that’s something that today’s incredibly vast market is hungry for. There’s actually too much choice in the market. I think readers are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of product available and they have few ways to discern the good from the bad. The solution to that is to provide an offering of work that’s guaranteed to be good so that if someone enjoys one Rabbit Room Press book, they’ll be comfortable reading another even if it’s outside of the genre they typically read. Twenty years from now I want readers to be able to walk into a book store and head straight for the delightfully English-looking Rabbit Room Press section because they know it’s filled with exotic worlds, and big ideas, and beautiful things. I want the Rabbit Room Press logo on a book’s spine to be an invitation that a reader can’t refuse. Idealistic? Maybe. But it’s always best to aim high. 4. What is your life for? My life is for Taco Bell Chili-Cheese Burritos. I die a little every time I enter a Taco Bell that doesn’t serve them. This is my most desperate hour. Save me, Taco Bell. You’re my only hope. 5. Now that Fin’s Revolution is finished, what’s next for A.S. Peterson, author? Can we get a scoop on some future novel possibilities? I’ve got a few things stewing and I haven’t decided which I want to commit to. One is a sort of middle grade science fiction novel, one is a comedic mystery set in early 20th century St. Louis, and one is an epic western. I’m currently leaning toward the western but I haven’t yet found a way into the story I want to tell. We’ll see. Sounds excellent, Pete. I vote for St. Louis science fiction and according to a commercial I saw, my vote counts. Find Pete at his website. On Twitter. On Facebook. On/At/Behind? The Rabbit Room.

PREFACE: Chrome has been in the public eye for over a year, and though I am grateful for the positive feedback, I get the distinct impression that more than a few songs on the album are difficult to decipher. Though the following may, too, be abstract, it is my hope to offer clarity and insight into one (or more?) of the songs. What follows are my reflections in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Gustav, Labor Day, 2008. The resultant song is “Louisiana in the Dark.” (9/1/08, Baton Rouge, LA) Driving south from Tennessee to Louisiana in the pitch of night, several thoughts appeared on my mind’s horizon as the darkness opened its tree-lined jowls and welcomed me into the gut of impending reality. These are no ordinary days, no ordinary circumstances, and it was far from being a casual or relaxing drive into the oncoming path of a history-making hurricane brooding immediately off Louisiana’s shores. As would prove to be the case, I was also driving to a funeral. Pulling into my parents’ Baton Rouge driveway two hours before sunrise, Hurricane Gustav broached the shores of the state by 10am, and for the next 36 hours the wind blew trees older than World War II at 45-degree angles, toppling some, maiming many others, and deconstructing a capital city. My parents went without electricity for six days. Idling generators could be heard up and down streets. We cooked baked beans out on the propane grill as the oppressive September heat offered little comfort during the daylight, and much, much less at night. The rain fell in opaque sheets filling gullies, rivers and swallowing entire street blocks. The tempest quickly turned earth to mud, and so much of which eventually dried out remains forever buried, turning gain to loss. My father-in-law, for many years hampered by a litany of health issues, succumbed to the most treacherous of them all early that Labor Day morning at 3:35am, mere minutes before we managed to arrive and stand at his hospital bedside one final time to kiss his shriveled, bony face, and wish him a final peace and Good Hope away, away from the shrunken fuselage of body and captor Earth. The spirit is always willing. Vehement winds, days of constant rain, the capitulation of otherwise sound, elderly trees, and the deconstruction of life; few tragic-comedies could have been scripted with more accuracy. Tragic in that the gulf-laden skies stumbled across the region with a steamroller effect, comic in terms of the utter preposterousness of kicking someone already down. In the year 2008, my wife’s family suffered the loss of three family members in the span of five dubious months. We exhale something between utter consternation and a wry chuckle when reality persistently kicks at the battered realm. There is no ordinary day, no ordinary darkness, and we are no ordinary creatures who inhabit their space. From dust we came, to dust we return, and though we open our hope-lined hearts to its jowls, reality does its best to deconstruct every ounce of hope in our possession. But we yearn for the light that shines with far more eminence than the thickest darkness could ever swallow, and we hope that the pain of loss and grief will eventually be bearable, habitable, even an altar unto life itself. Like the wandering Israelites finally crossing the River Jordan into the long-awaited Promised Land, we stack stones upon your altar; we proclaim both the blessing and the ache. Remember life as the fragile construction it is, cherishing the ones still present in your life. These are no ordinary days.https://rabbitroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/LouisianaintheDark.mp3 [Editor’s note: Eric’s album, Chrome, is available today at Song of the Day prices. $10 CD / $7 Download] Louisiana In The Dark Sleep in peace tonight After a long, slow fight We lost more than sleep More ache than a soul can weep When the daylight shows That all you love is gone And the only thing that’s left Is the tempest’s aftermath In my father’s house The last and lonely sound Is a breaking heart Louisiana in the dark We laid your soul to rest With the earth still wet Some days don’t feel like grace When there’s a hole in a once-filled space In my father’s house The last and lonely sound Is a breaking heart In my father’s eyes Must we say goodbye To a breaking heart Louisiana in the dark No more breaking hearts Louisiana in the dark

I have just realized something awful about fatherhood. It’s something I’ve read about, but have always thought was one of those things that didn’t apply to me. But I was wrong. It’s something I hoped to avoid, something that will cause much pain, for my children and for myself. About a year ago my boys came in from playing in the woods. It was raining outside, and they were covered in mud. I didn’t want them slogging dirt through the house, so I told them to strip down to their Underoos on the porch while I ran to get a towel. We live in the country, so our nearest neighbor is seventy yards away—besides, it was raining pretty hard. No one was outside. Moments later I wrapped them in the towel and sent them straight to the bath. A few nights ago as I tucked my sons into bed, I was trying to understand why one of them was so embarrassed to change into his pajamas. Something about it struck me as odd, so things got serious. “Did something happen? Did someone make fun of you?” I asked. My other son started crying and told me, “Yes.” I was horrified. I imagined the worst, and I was prepared to do terrible things to the person who had wounded my boys in this way. Then they lowered the boom. “It was you.” They reminded me of the previous year’s incident with the muddy clothes and the front porch and the Underoos. They said the girl next door informed them a few days later she had looked out her window and seen them all but naked. They cried and cried. They were shamed, their little boy hearts were wounded–and I did the wounding. Of course I didn’t mean to, but that doesn’t matter. My carelessness led to their shame. It’s something they’ll always remember, and it will shape them in ways that it’s impossible to foresee. The thing I’ve realized about fatherhood is this: I will fail. No matter how hard I try to be a perfect father, I will fail. Miserably. I will love my children imperfectly. Their malleable hearts will be shaped not just by my successes, but by my failures, and they’ll bear those intimate wounds all their lives. Praise God, He somehow makes good of our worst. As a friend recently told me, my realization that I will fail is a great success on this long journey of becoming like my Father in Heaven. *This was first published in Homelife magazine in 2009.

I am delighted to present to you this short interview with the very talented and funny Jennifer Trafton. Jennifer is the author of The Rise and Fall of Mount Majestic, a novel for young readers and old readers (see Question 1). Idea: Why not spend some of that Christmas cash you got on a fine, beautifully illustrated story? Or you can spend it on illegal drugs? I think the choice is clear. Jennifer is personally autographing every edition purchased from The Rabbit Room bookstore. I assume that other people are autographing the copies sold in other locations. (Bad form. Not very British of them.) My 7 year old daughter has The Rise and Fall of Mount Majestic sitting beneath our tree, awaiting her discovery on one of these 12 days of Christmas. We’re all very excited to get our hands on it after she reads it in one day. Some dude named Andrew Petersomething reviewed this book here at the RR. He said, like, it was good. And stuff. 1. What are your thoughts on what makes a story “for children” and, conversely, “for adults?” Any thoughts on what makes “children’s lit” unique/worthwhile? I’ve never been very concerned about putting things into categories. Good stories are good stories. In my view “children’s literature” is any literature children like to read – which can, of course, differ from child to child. When I think of the stories that have tickled my funny bone the most, that have stretched my imagination in myriad directions, that have dealt with profound issues of life and death in ways that are searing in their simplicity, I usually end up in the “children’s section” of the bookstore. If such stories are not “for adults” as well, I pity the adults. There is nothing wrong, of course, with a book having a specific intended audience. A story has two participants, the writer and the reader, and they make a kind of magic together. Whether or not that relational magic works has less to do with formulas than with empathy. When I picture the readers with whom I want to be in that relationship as a storyteller, I picture kids (often particular kids I know) because I love their imaginative scope, their freedom from many “adult” concerns and hang-ups, their lack of cynicism, their embrace of silliness as well as mystery. So I write “for children” because I feel like, at the level of the imagination, and in the stories I love to read and love to write, I’m one of them. 2. What is your favorite color and what do you want to be when you grow up? My favorite color is joyful and I want to be red when I grow up. Wait. Stop. Reverse that. Okay, continue. 3. Is there a deeper reason why you believe you are called to write novels other than for the billions of dollars you make? No, the billions are enough. Occasionally I wake up in the morning and say to myself, “Jennifer, you have all those imaginary dollars lying in your imaginary bank account, doing nothing but gathering imaginary dust. Isn’t there more to life than this? Making art is a treacherous and beautiful adventure. It requires great courage and creative playfulness and a healthy sense of self-mockery. A story can change someone’s life; it can wiggle its way into a child’s heart and plant a seed there that will grow and blossom as the years go by, until one day that grown-up child (who has never fully grown up, thankfully) will look back and say, ‘That story was one of the things that shaped who I am as a person.’ What a terrifying privilege for a storyteller! What a responsibility! What a calling!” This line of reasoning convinces me until my rent is due. Then I pray everyone rushes to the store and buys my book. 4. On a scale of 1-3, how irritating do you find scales? Seven, at least. Seriously, they are the bane of my existence these days. I’ve tried everything—soap, rubbing alcohol, scouring pads, pliers . . . They will not come off. And believe me, they itch. I think my next book should be about a dragon. 5. What’s next for Jennifer Trafton, author? A new novel? A line of knitted green berets for the “army stuff” section at Wal-Mart? A run for Governor of Puerto Rico? Spill the beans! In 2011 I’ll be diving back into a third novel I’m in the middle of writing, which I am very excited about, because I will get to think about giraffes and ridiculous inventions and call it “work.” (How many of you can say that about your jobs? Other than the zookeepers and mad inventors reading this, of course.) I will also be rearranging my closet, editing things that need to be edited, washing dishes occasionally, warning people about giants, and eating way too much ice cream. Beyond that, I’ve given up on “planning ahead” in life. The best (and worst) things come unexpectedly. I hope there will be many new friends to meet, great books to read, travels to new places, much to laugh about, a lot of Oreos, and very few beans, spilled or unspilled. Like the heroine of MOUNT MAJESTIC, Persimmony Smudge, I am craving a new adventure right now. But as Bilbo Baggins once wisely said, sometimes all you have to do to start having an adventure is to go out your own door: “You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no telling where you might be swept off to.” Thanks, Jennifer. Find Jennifer at her website. (You can read the first chapter of her book here.) Jennifer on Twitter. Jennifer at The Rabbit Room Store. (Autographed copies.) Note: Originally posted at my website. In Klingon. Not really. -Sam

This is a version of an article I wrote for LifeWay’s ParentLife magazine. It appeared in the July, 2010 issue. At writing seminars everywhere, writing teachers are giving stuck story-writers the same advice: “Ask yourself, ‘What is it that my character wants?’” Why? Because once you know what a character wants, you know what choices he or she is likely to make. Once your character starts making choices, consequences follow. And then a story begins to take shape. Desire. Choice. Consequence. That’s what a story is made of. When we speak of the other kind of character—an individual’s character or integrity—we’re usually talking about the choices that person makes. A person of character chooses the good over the bad, the better over the good, the best over the better, whatever the circumstances. And why does a person make such choices? Because he or she wants what is good or better or best. Each of us is a welter of warring desires. You want to lose weight, but you also want that other piece of cake. You want to make good grades, but there are a million things you want to do instead of studying. You want to please God, but you also want to please yourself. So how do you choose? You choose according to what you want at the moment of choosing. And your choices have consequences, which shape the next part of your story. Desire. Choice. Consequence. It’s what character is made of too. It is that parallel between story development and character development that makes story such a valuable tool in shaping your child’s character. In the midst of life’s battles, it can be hard for a child—for any of us—to step back far enough to see the connection between desire, choice, and consequence. In a well-told story, on the other hand, it is easier to see the big picture, even as we inhabit it in a small way. If you are going to use stories as a means of shaping your child’s character, it is important, of course, to find stories that teach the right things. But that is not the only important thing; it is at least as important that you get in the habit of talking to your child about the stories he or she experiences. Help your child see the connection between desire, choice, and consequence by asking questions like these about the stories you read together: -Why do you think the character made that choice? What was he trying to get? -Did that choice get him what he wanted? -What else did it get him? -What was the cost of that choice? -Do you think the choice was worth the cost? And here’s the thing: these are the kind of questions that can help redeem even a questionable story. You might slip up with a book choice or a movie choice; it happens. But if you’re talking with your child, helping him or her make explicit the connection between desire, choice, and consequence, even a story that isn’t altogether appropriate can be a great learning opportunity. As character-building goes, a questionable story with great follow-up questions might be more valuable than a perfectly appropriate story with no discussion. I don’t mean to suggest, of course, that any old story will do for your child or that all stories are of equal value when it comes to character-building. Some are indeed better than others. In the examples below, I offer three foundational character truths, each with three books that portray it. Character Truth #1: This world does not define you. Children’s fiction is full of stories in which the main character suspects he isn’t who he appears to be. Why does that idea ring so true? Because it is true. We weren’t made for this world, and in the end it’s not the world that names us or gives us our identities. To live a life of Christian character is first to come to terms with this truth. Consider the mouse Despereaux in Kate DiCamillo’s The Tale of Despereaux (Candlewick Press): he is rejected by his fellow mice because he cannot bring himself to cringe or scurry. He is brave, adventurous; and as he follows his heart he finds out who he really is. Another of my favorites in this vein is Andrew Peterson’s Wingfeather Saga (On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness and North! Or Be Eaten, Waterbrook Press). In these fabulously engaging books, two brothers and a sister find out that they aren’t who they thought they were. The Story of Ruby Bridges (Scholastic) is a non-fiction picture book that tells the beautiful story of a six-year-old black girl who faced incredible hatred from whites in her hometown of New Orleans when she became the first black child to attend Frantz Elementary School in 1960. Her determination not to be defined by the hatred of the whites who verbally abused her every day—and her willingness to forgive—is inspiring. Character Truth #2: You find your life by losing it. This paradoxical truth is at the heart of the Christian faith. As with any paradox, we come closer to understanding it in story form than in its stated form. Generations of children have been introduced to the sacrificial nature of friendship through the spider Charlotte, who devotes the last of her life’s energies to rescuing the pig Wilbur in Charlotte’s Web (HarperCollins). And The Velveteen Rabbit only becomes “real” after his beauty has been loved to shredded ugliness. Kate DiCamillo’s The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane (Candlewick Press), also about a toy rabbit, plumbs a similar theme. Character Truth #3: Grace is primary. True character is not a question of will power. Character that lasts must grow out of God’s grace—and the realization that we don’t have it in us to live a life that is up to God’s standards. That’s a hard thing to teach; grace is another of those paradoxes that can be better grasped as story rather than as precept. And yet it is hard to find children’s books that truly make grace come alive for the reader. I have fallen in love with a picture book called Sidney and Norman: A Tale of Two Pigs, by Phil Vischer (Nelson Publishers). Sidney the Pig is a mess, even by pig standards. His neighbor Norman has it all together. Both pigs are astonished to learn that God loves them without regard to their ability (or lack of ability) to keep things together. Eleanor Estes’s The Hundred Dresses (Sandpiper) is an achingly beautiful depiction of a poor girl’s willingness to show grace and forgiveness to classmates who torment her—and her willingness, in the end, to bless them with beauty. And I couldn’t offer a list of character-building children’s books without mentioning Sally Lloyd-Jones’s Jesus Storybook Bible. It is a reminder that the Bible is a series of stories that add up to one big story—the story of Jesus. “The Bible isn’t a book of rules, or a book of heroes,” Lloyd-Jones writes. It’s an adventure story about a young Hero who comes from a far country to win back his lost treasure. It’s a love story about a brave Prince who leaves his palace, his throne—everything—to rescue the one he loves. It’s like the most wonderful of fairy tales that has come true in real life! That, in the end, is why story is so valuable to the parent who wishes to shape a child’s character. All the best stories are but faint echoes of the truest Story. And as that Story finds its way deeper into our hearts, we cannot help but be changed. [Editor’s note: Jonathan’s blog is full of all sorts of great stuff. Be sure to check it out at Jonathan-Rogers.com]

At the close of another year, I love to ask people what their 5 favorite films, records, and (especially since it’s the rabbit room) books were of 2010.  (Note: said films, records, or books need not have been released in 2010 – only discovered and enjoyed.) 2010 was an exceedingly busy year for me with little time to take in much in the form of entertainment, and as I sit down to make my own list, I realize that I don’t have much to draw from.  But here it goes anyway: BOOKS I actually read exactly 5 books this year (and started my 6th yesterday).  But if I was only to read 5 books, these were really good ones! 5. Telling Secrets – Frederick Buechner In preparing for my Hutchmoot talk, I revisited my favorite author and for the first time ever read a book for a second time.  It was even better than I remembered. Telling Secrets is the third of four memoirs written by Buechner and is also my favorite of his books. 4. Birthright – John Sheasby John spoke at an artist retreat I attended this year and what he had to say was exactly what I needed to hear at this time in my life.  His talks at the retreat are what this book is comprised of and though I may enjoy him more as a speaker than an author, his insights on our identity in Christ are truly transformational. His book helps lead us from the servant’s quarters to take our place as sons and daughters in our Father’s house (and heart).  (This post from earlier this year is the fruit of this message’s work in my life: http://bashful-building.flywheelsites.com/?p=10054) 3. Letters From The Land Of Cancer – Walt Wangerin Jr. Again, in preparation for Hutchmoot I turned my attention to one of my favorite authors and picked up this journal of his experience of being diagnosed with cancer. Full of grace and soul-baring honesty, this is a book that will be meaningful for people whether they have had to deal with cancer or not.  Mortality is a teacher that leads its students into depths of wisdom usually reserved for the dying.  Think of this book as an opportunity to gain access to wisdom and beauty without having to pay the usual harrowing price of admission. 2. Fiddler’s Green – A. S. Peterson Pete entrusted me with an advance copy of his new book and honored me by inviting me to make suggestions and speak into his creative process.  It was a generous invitation and I had a blast returning to the world of Fin Button!  I couldn’t put it down and was delighted to witness my friend discover his creative voice with such surety. I loved it! 1. Intimate Allies – Dan Allender This is perhaps an unusual entry, but I regard Allender’s book as the single most transformational book – outside of the bible, of course (that’s for the fundy watchdogs out there ;- ) – that I’ve ever read.  After 18 years, Taya and I were both surprised to discover our marriage was more fragile than either of us suspected.  The Holy Spirit used counseling, community, and this book to guide our ship to safer waters.  I’ve already read this book twice and will be reading it soon again. It gets to the heart of what’s broken in all of our relationships, focusing on the curse detailed in the opening chapters of Genesis, helping us to see the Big Idea of marriage as a holy means of sanctification.  So good – even if you’re not married or if you’re marriage seems healthy and happy.  This book revealed to me the fallout of the curse and how it affects every area of my life. NOTABLE MENTION: Yesterday I just started reading The Charlaton’s Boy by our own Jonathan Rogers and so far I LOVE IT!  I’m two chapters in and can’t wait to get back to it… FILMS I didn’t see a lot of movies either.  Or if I did, they weren’t all very good. (Yes, I’m one of those who saw The Last Airbender).  Though I don’t think my list is particularly interesting (I didn’t see a lot of art films this year), I still offer it humbly: 5. Shutter Island It was good clean fun to see a legit suspense/psychological thriller with such a signature atmosphere and competent performances from both cast and director. 4. Toy Story 3 My low expectations were blown away by the emotional weight of this family film!  I laughed, cried, and thoroughly enjoyed it in spite of myself. Pixar for the win.  Again. 3. Harry Potter My favorite of the Harry Potter films so far.  I really like the Harry Potter universe and have enjoyed the films thus far for what they were, but this was the first one that delivered more than I expected.  (Though I wish the one – for lack of a better descriptor – “love scene” had been handled a little differently.) 2. Up In The Air This is a 2009 film that I saw in early 2010.  I thought it lived up to the hype and especially resonated with me as a person who travels extensively and experiences first hand the challenges of staying connected with community and resisting the constant temptation of isolation.  A great film with great performances that skillfully explores it’s themes with a light touch. 1. Inception Loved it.  Just like most everybody else. What I loved most about it was that I had never seen anything like it. A great idea well executed that generated a lot of great conversation (especially here in the rabbit room!). RECORDS: 5. Sigh No More – Mumford & Sons This gets my vote for the raw passion of it alone. This record also gave voice to many of the things I was feeling in the midst of a turbulent season in our marriage. I felt like they wrote the soundtrack to my journaling.  Interestingly, Taya felt much the same way, and so this record became a kind of common ground for us in a time when we needed it.  Besides that, the post-Christian consciousness of much of the lyric content provided good fodder for reflection and understanding the current zeitgeist. 4. Waking Up – Onerepublic An unapologetically great pop record.  My sons discovered this one and shared it with me, which was a rewarding experience in and of itself.  Big, hooky, anthemic melodies set to classic pop music with a hip-hop rhythmic sensibility.  A fun record with surprisingly organic production and GREAT sounding drums. 3. Flamingo – Brandon Flowers Another great pop record recommended to me by Andy Osenga.  Thanks Andy! Brandon sings with 80’s alt/pop bravado and brings Daniel Lanois in to participate in the production, bringing musical gravitas to these catchy melodic gems that harken back to the hip records of the late 80’s. This is more than your average pop record, with a sonic landscape that calls to mind the open lonely spaces of New Mexico and the shiny “all that glitters is not gold” lights of Las Vegas, Nevada. 2. Scratch My Back – Peter Gabriel Peter Gabriel has been one of my favorite artists of the 80’s, 90’s, and now into the new century with the best cover record I’ve ever heard.  Here he takes a sampling of songs that have meant something to him and covers them backed only by orchestration, thus rescuing the songs from the sonic era that would otherwise entrap them.  The orchestration is timeless and progressive in it’s elegance.  It was also fun to learn what Gabriel is listening to, from David Bowie and Lou Reed to Arcade Fire and Bon Iver. “The Book Of Love” alone is worth the whole price admission.  (I wrote a review of this record here: http://bashful-building.flywheelsites.com/?p=6559) 1. The Suburbs – Arcade Fire Though I was initially disappointed with it, this became my favorite record of the year.  Worthy of an entire post, it’s hard to sum up what I love about this record in a paragraph. It’s reflections on the spiritual and emotional sickness of the modern man is insightful and artfully rendered, describing the hangover of modernity (or what I’d like to think of as our generation’s version of what Walker Percy called the “malaise”).  In a single line, Winn Butler names what we’ve lost for all that we’ve gained: “I used to write… I used to write letters, I used to sign my name…”  Check out the remarkable interactive video for their song “We Used To Wait”: http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com/ So what have you been listening to this year?

Today I’m excited to introduce you, if you haven’t met, to a guy named Dave. Dave Bruno. Dave is the author of a new book, The 100 Thing Challenge. Dave and I met at Hutchmoot (The Rabbit Room retreat/conference/whatever) and spent a wonderful weekend not talking at all. He really regrets this as do, I’m sure, all those people who kept avoiding me the entire time.  Weird. (Actually we just didn’t get to connect and both hope to remedy that next time. There were so many wonderful people there. By that I don’t mean Aaron Roughton. I mean, Aaron was there, but…) I think Dave has some real wisdom for us and I hope you’ll give his answers a read. 1. Tell us about how you got from ChristianAudio.com to the 100 Thing Challenge and a little about yourself. I tell the story in chapter 2 of my book (plug, plug) about how I’m a reluctant entrepreneur. Sometimes I feel like a tired out labrador retriever who wouldn’t mind taking a long nap, but there’s always someone throwing sticks to fetch. It’s in my blood to pursue entrepreneurial opportunities, especially when it can bless people in the world. Here’s a secret, I’m not personally a big fan of audiobooks. I’m a reader. I like to underline and write little notes in the margins. But when my buddy Cory Verner (now ChristianAudio’s president) approached me with the idea of starting a company to publish thoughtful Christian titles that had been overlooked as audiobooks, I couldn’t resist. There was a market need to fill and we’d bless people by being successful with the business. No brainer! The whole ChristianAudio experience was great. My plan was to try to spend about 5 years growing the company and then sell it or my part of it to free myself up for “the next thing.” Well the next thing, the 100 Thing Challenge, came along 4 years into running ChristianAudio. I’m a writer and a huge believer that average Americans need to pursue simplicity instead of affluence in order to generate economic and cultural wealth. When my crazy idea to live with only 100 person possessions turned into a worldwide movement and an opportunity to publish a book, there was no way I wasn’t going to fetch that stick. 2. What is the 100 Thing Challenge and wouldn’t the 101 Thing Challenge be just a bit better? Just one more thing; that’s all I need to make it “just a little better.” Right? Well, I think the 101 Thing Challenge — the Just One More Thing Challenge — would be a perfect match for what I call “American-style consumerism.” That’s the kind of consumerism that always wants to get more in the hopes of arriving at the dream life. The problem most of us have faced is that we’re always getting, but never getting there. It never stops. 101, 102, 103, and on and on. So I conceived of the 100 Thing Challenge as a way to break free from the bondage American-style consumerism. My theory has been that if I remove myself from the routine of excessive consumption, my behavior would change. And it has! The “official” 100 Thing Challenge that I write about in my book has been over for a year now. But I still have about 100 personal possessions. I’m happy to say that I’m no longer a participant in the unending cycle of acquisition that used to characterize my consumer behavior. The 100 Thing Challenge isn’t about “100.” It’s about helping people who feel stuck in stuff free themselves. 3. But Dave, things aren’t bad are they? Didn’t God make the world? Your book is a thing!? 🙂 Can you contrast your position with the dangers of Gnosticism (the body, pleasure is bad) and Asceticism (enlightenment, spiritual elevation comes from denial of food, pleasure, things!)? Sam, I think all of your readers should flee from Gnosticism . . . right to Barnes & Noble to buy my book. 😉 Seriously, though, I do have strong theological convictions here. There’s a lot to say about this. But I’ll just mention that Ecclesiastes was much on my mind during the 100 Thing Challenge. It says, “There is a grievous evil that I have seen under the sun: riches were kept by their owner to his hurt.” Seems like riches are bad, right? But Ecclesiastes goes on to say, “Everyone also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them . . . this is the gift of God.” That is the guiding principal, I think, where possessions are concerned. It’s all from God. Not just the things, but also our power to enjoy the things. American-style consumerism says that the things come from brands (preferably luxury brands) and the power to enjoy the things comes from within ourselves. That attitude doesn’t square with a Christian worldview. 4. The Bible is filled with admonishes not to envy, but politicians (“You have a right to what your neighbor has”) and advertisers (“Your life is incomplete without this thing I’m selling”) are continually working to encourage just that. How do you call on Christians to simplify, while making it clear that God does call some to the responsibility of greater wealth and all to contented thankfulness? Well, God’s yet to call me to the responsibility pursuant to tens of millions of dollars, so I’m just guessing here. I do have a couple of thoughts, though. First, fill your ears with admonishments that don’t encourage envy (and other vices). How? Ditch the TV. I wish I had more time to extol the glories of not owning a TV. Look, I truly believe that Christians are fighting a losing battle if they fill their minds with hours of television. It’s like a law of the universe: watch a lot of TV and you will succumb to American-style consumerism. It’s not worth it. Get rid of the TV. Second, in America we’ve come to associate wealth with outward displays of affluence. But that’s not the biblical perspective. A Christian should be rich on the inside, regardless of outward display. Christians in American need to retrain themselves to not only believe this (we all say we believe it) but to actually act like we believe it. This cannot be theoretical. So I strongly believe most Christians in America should pursue simplicity for an extended period of time, a year or more. It’s the only way to deprogram ourselves from the consumer conditioning we’ve received and accepted. A life of simplicity leads to a life of contentment. 5. Any helpful tips for parents during Christmas on how to avoid (even with good intentions) training our kids to become slaves to envy/thanklessness/idolatry/selfishness etc.? Time. I’m really serious about this. Time. Put a five-year Christmas plan into action. Aim for this: after five years of a concerted effort to prioritize Jesus’ incarnation and family time and charity during the Christmas season, your children are glad to celebrate Christmas without being showered with consumer junk. Don’t try to “make a point” this Christmas. Parenting isn’t about making points every now and again. It’s about passing on a heritage of virtuous behavior and healthy emotions and strong faith to children. This takes time. That’s my main “tip.” Commit to training up your children over time. And be gracious. They’re just kids. While they don’t need lots of junky toys, neither do they need lots of lectures. Celebrate Christmas with them. Thanks so much, Dave. Here’s Dave’s website. Dave on Twitter. Dave and The 100TC on Facebook. Again, consider getting David’s book. Note: Originally posted at my website, which is like The Rabbit Room, only dumb. -Sam

Let me put this out there. Over the next month, I’ll find myself with a long span that will fill inevitably itself with fireplaces, family, friends, and falafel (first food with ‘f’ that I could think of). It will be a joyous time of crisp nights with hot cider, memorable moments with my wife and extended family, and decorating our family cat, Murph. But there will be a margin. Oooh, that margin. The project is sitting on the desktop of my Macbook. I started it four months ago, before another semester of grad school kicked in and the church calendar took off. It’s a book idea I’ve had for some time. I love it. I hate it. And now I have to face it. Yet if I’m honest, I have to tell you I’m afraid to do so. I know that I’ll try my best to fill the margins with every movie the honorable Rev. Thomas McKenzie tells me to see. I have one Jennifer Trafton and two Pete Peterson works waiting to be read. And I will get to all of those. But I also know that family only stays so long, and that presents only take a few minutes to unwrap. But the church calendar slows considerably for us these days, while the school takes a longer break. Thus, the marginal space will continue to call and ask me what I’m doing with it. I’ve been journeying into some Emerson lately and an essay, “Heroism,” emerged with a particular quote that Emerson remembered hearing in his youth: “Always do what you are afraid to do.” There are a few key things ahead for our church next year that I’m afraid to ask our community to move toward. There are issues in my marriage that need to be addressed that either my wife or I am generally afraid to bring up. And there’s this stupid book that makes me believe no one would ever want to read it and that it’s a dumb idea in the first place — any excuse to mask the fear. It reminds me of something else I read in The War of Art (seriously, read that book!) where Steven Pressfield writes, “Fear tells us what we have to do.” I hope my holiday season is filled with cheer and peace and joy and love and every other descriptor that adorns a Christmas card. But I also hope it’s filled with fear — at least enough to point the way to where I’m supposed to go.

The good S.D. Smith quoted C.S. Lewis at his blog a while back: …only Supernaturalists really see Nature. You must go a little away from her, and then turn round, and look back. Then at last the true landscape will become visible. You must have tasted, however briefly, the pure water from beyond the world before you can be distinctly conscious of the hot, salty tang of Nature’s current. Here we have the key to what Lewis (and the other Inklings, and all the Romantics, dating back to S.T. Coleridge) believed about literature. All created things are icons, in some form or another, of spiritual reality. This is what I mean when I talk about “logos epistemology.” It’s the belief that the creative logos, the Word, is within and behind all creation, and all creation points to that Christ/logos. What we can know is all built on the foundation of the logos, to which physical reality points. But this nominalistic thinking – that the physical reality only has surface meaning and nothing beyond it – is severely limiting and dehumanizing, because we are so much more than bare physical fact. This is why embedded in C.S. Lewis’s Narnia septology is planetary symbolism; we experience the deeper levels of reality while interacting with these symbols, even if we don’t understand them. This is why his Ransom trilogy is built on the scaffolding of literary alchemy. We pass through the stages of black (grief/loss), white (purification) and red (eternal life) with Ransom, whether we understand alchemy or not. This is the exact opposite of gnosticism. It’s not “secret knowledge,” which is more important than the physical symbols, but the belief that the physical symbols do indeed picture reality. In gnosticism, the physical imprisons reality. In logos epistemology, the physical is part of reality and points to the Creator.

I’m on a plane flying home after the last date of the Behold The Lamb of God tour. I’m tired (to the point that I fear I’m not up for writing this post–forgive me if it meanders…), excited to see my family who I miss so much, and I’m filled with a gratitude that warms my heart even as I return to the cold Minnesota winter. The common sentiment I heard night after night from countless people after the show was that they felt like “Christmas can begin now.”  And it’s no wonder. Andrew Peterson’s Behold The Lamb Of God may be his masterpiece–a remarkable Christmas record that quietly defies all of the conventions of what we’ve been taught to expect from a Christmas recording, eschewing sentimental favorites in favor of a wholly original work that is a potent reminder of what happened 2000 years ago and still has the whole world talking. If you, reader, have never heard this record, do yourself a favor: stop reading and order it right now. This isn’t just another Christmas record.  Nor was it just another Christmas tour. For those not familiar with it, Behold The Lamb Of God: The True Tall Tale of The Coming Of Christ takes us on a journey through the ages to reveal how the Old Testament is as much about the coming of Jesus as the New Testament is, from Abraham, Moses, the kings and prophets, all the way to the young girl in a shabby stable giving birth to the Hope of all mankind. That I got to be a part of the “telling” of this story night after night is one of the more meaningful things I’ve gotten to be a part of. Each night began with an artist in the round segment where Andrew introduced us as his friends, bragging a bit on each of us individually before inviting us to play a couple of songs. This is very generous of Andrew – it’s his night, the people are there to see him, and he doesn’t have to share the evening with anyone, and yet night after night he gives most of the evening away to his friends and their songs and stories. As a fan who often attended the show, the artist in the round segment was my favorite part of the night, though that’s not necessarily how everyone feels. Andrew told me “I know some people don’t enjoy the artist in the round part as much as others, but I feel that it’s good for them, like I’m giving them their vegetables.” As the tour went on, the beautiful balance of it revealed itself to me. As I said, the evening starts with each solo artist introducing and playing one of their songs before passing it to the next artist, two times through. Ben Shive kicked it off, followed by Andy Osenga, then myself, Jill Phillips, and Andy Gullahorn, before going back to Ben for another round. You should know that these artists are my heroes and that every night I marveled at my good fortune to get to share the stage with these people whose voices have sung to me the grace of God in times when I’ve desperately needed it. None of them get much if any radio airplay and work in relative obscurity, yet they are among the best at what they do – their work marked not only by the excellence of their craft, but the generosity, courage, and humility of their spirit. And it’s their generosity and courage that moved me most and that I want to talk about here. They sang of hope and grace, yes, but always in the face of their fear, shame, and doubt, exposing the places where their hearts have been broken. They didn’t have to do this, risking such vulnerability, returning to their wounds, but they did this night after night, naming the broken places for the healing of those who would receive it. Andy Osenga would sing like he was opening a vein: “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus I did what I planned to do And I feel like I knew I’d feel But I want to come back to you… Jesus you’ll have to come get me Cause it’s too far to walk from here.” Jill and Andy together singing of the lowest point in their marriage that was tested to the breaking point: “Gaining back the trust we lost was harder than just losing it But if we wanted change at all The pain was a prerequisite Little by little, one piece at a time We were putting back together what was left of a broken life It wasn’t quick, it wasn’t easy But that kind of change doesn’t happen overnight… I wouldn’t have it any other way No I wouldn’t have it any other way…” I am moved to tears even in the remembering of it now as I write. And then Ben Shive would sing what is quickly becoming one of my all-time favorite songs–a song about death called “A Last Time For Everything”–which he introduced each night by talking about how he realized that one day there would be a last funeral. “It will be like any other funeral. Nobody in attendance will know it, but it will be the last one. And I like thinking that this is how death will pass from existence: with no fanfare to dignify its passing.” And then with a touch of his fingers to the piano that is distinctly his, he would sing one of the saddest and loveliest melodies I’ve heard. “You need to look death in the eye, in the eye… You need to see that he’s afraid to die, he’s afraid to die But you my love… You’re going to wake up soon In your lonely room To the sound of a singing bird Throw the curtains back To find your bags already packed And the cab is at the curb And like a bad dream Unreal in the morning light So will the world seem When you see it in the mirror for the last time There is a last time, a last time for everything” Every night these words of my heroes, my friends would kindle the fire in my heart, to keep it warm and soft to the touch. The artist in the round was bookended by Andrew Peterson himself singing his beautiful songs “Dancing In The Minefields” about marriage and “The Reckoning” with its longing for the return of Christ who will set all things right and make everything new. It occurred to me toward the end of the tour how inspired the flow of the evening was–how the first part with our stories of hope, grace, and all that we long for in the face of all of our shame, fear, and doubt asks the questions that God answers so completely and kindly with the mystery and beauty of the Incarnation, God with us, breaking into the run down tenement hall of our humanity to take us to the home that we’ve never seen but that we know is real if only because of our homesickness. The shame of our sin, the struggles we’ve known, the fear of death are all answered by: Emmanuel. “Gather round, ye children, come and listen to the old old story…” The last night of the tour, Todd Bragg (drummer, tour manager extraordinaire, and one of the kindest people I’ve had the pleasure of working with) prayed over our last dinner together before the show. “Lord, we thank you that we get to tell this story…” his voice cracking with emotion, halting as we waited in pregnant silence, the words we all waited on gathering weight and depth. “It’s a good one.” Amen.

I first heard bluegrass as a 12 year old in Southern California. Lester Flatt, once a leader of Flatt & Scruggs of Beverly Hillbillies fame, was on television. I pestered my Dad for a banjo after that, and he often says he got me a banjo when I was 13 and I didn’t come out of my room until I was 21. Flatt & Scruggs In 1946 Bill Monroe kicked country music into high gear with his own hopped-up version.  This seminal bluegrass band had Lester Flatt on guitar and Earl Scruggs ripping the banjo. Earl literally blew people’s minds back then; I have a recording of one of the first Grand Ole Opry shows with Monroe and his new band. When Earl would play an instrumental solo, the crowd would scream and shout like they were watching Eddie Van Halen in the 1980s. Shortnin’ Bread (banjo instrumental). One of my main banjo heroes. Watch the sense of ease in his playing and demeanor. I Ain’t Gonna Work Tomorrow The Stanley Brothers The Stanley Brothers had an edgier sound. They basically took Monroe’s music and used it to supercharge their old-time mountain music. Very soulful. Worried Man Blues George Shuffler on lead guitar, a great old Christian gentleman and one of my early guitar heroes. Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys Carter Stanley, the rhythm guitarist and lead singer, passed away in the mid-sixties. Several other great singers took his place, many of them going on to their own careers. Here’s one: Keith Whitley, who turned into a major country star by the 1980s. I Hear a Choo-Choo Coming Larry Sparks and the Lonesome Ramblers Larry Sparks stepped into Carter Stanley’s shoes in the mid-sixties, and went on to become a bluegrass legend. He’s one of my all-time guitar heroes, and one of the most soulful bluegrass singers ever. A Face in the Crowd and Carter’s Blues David Grisman David Grisman brought a jazz sensibility to bluegrass in the seventies and eighties. This is with Tony Rice, Mark O’Connor, and Rob Wasserman – jazzed up instrumental bluegrass with no banjo. E.M.D Tony Rice Tony Rice has had a career spanning over four decades, becoming synonymous with the idea of bluegrass guitar. This is from an instructional dvd he made in the early eighties. The guitar lead he plays looks deceptively simple, but anyone who’s tried to play it knows it just ain’t so. Also check out his rhythm behind his singing; his guitar jumps out between vocal lines. Tony is one of the best artists in American music; here he sings a Norman Blake song that still gives me chills after all these years. Church Street Blues J.D. Crowe and the New South A few years earlier, in the early to mid 1970s, Tony had played with J.D. Crowe and the New South, along with Ricky Skaggs and Jerry Douglas. This bluegrass supergroup redefined the music. J.D. Crowe is my other main banjo hero. Also, check out the solos on this next tune. Tony’s guitar work is stellar as usually, and J.D. busts the daylights out of it. Nine Pound Hammer If I could suggest one record to get, recorded with more modern techniques yet capturing the spirit of Bluegrass, it would be The Bluegrass Album, pictured up at the top of this post. Tony Rice, J.D. Crowe, Doyle Lawson on mandolin, the great Bobby Hicks on fiddle, and Todd Phillips keeping the upright bass steady. That record exploded my world back in 1981.

There is an episode of Star Trek The Next Generation entitled “Darmok.” The set up is that the Enterprise meets an alien race with which humanity has never been able to communicate. The humans have a “universal translator,” which means that they can understand the words that the aliens say. But they can’t comprehend their meaning. Why not? Because the aliens only communicate through allusion. Instead of saying something directly, they use metaphors based in the common narratives of their culture. So, instead of saying “I am having romantic feelings” they would say something like “Juliet on the balcony.” The captain of the alien ship teaches Captain Picard how to communicate by forcing him to have a shared experience, a fight together against a common enemy. While working together, Picard comes to understand how the other captain communicates. Of course, the biggest problem that the humans are going to have in talking to these aliens is that they don’t have common stories. So, when the alien says “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra,” he means that two heroes must fight for a common goal. Unfortunately, the humans don’t know that story, so they have no reference point for what the aliens are trying to say. I recognize how increasingly like these aliens I am. I was sitting in a meeting a few weeks ago. The person leading the meeting was talking about “spiritual formation.” That’s kind of a buzz word in the church world right now. He had lots to say about this topic, and what he had to say was very well thought out. I, however, had a hard time understanding what he was saying. Why? Because he didn’t use any stories. There were not examples, no parables, no narrative. Because there was no narrative, no “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra,” no “Juliet on her Balcony,” I couldn’t grasp the material. I understood every word he was saying, but the words were like vapor in a disembodied haze. I find the same thing to be true when I watch movies. I love movies, but one of the things that makes me hate certain movies is their lack of narrative structure. Take “Babies,” a sort of documentary that follows the first year in the life of four newborns. It is cute, it is sometimes beautiful to look at, and it gave me an appreciation of some of the different ways people raise babies around the world. However, I hated the movie and was ready for it to be over 15 minutes in. Why? Because the narrative was so weak, really non-existent. Clint Eastwood’s latest “Hereafter” also struggled to have a real narrative structure, putting it on my “bad list.” Then there was Transformers 2 which, apart from terrible acting, had a maddening lack of narrative continuity. Therefore it sucked. All of this leads me to a greater point. I think about the people who are outside of the Church, those who don’t know the great stories of the Bible or of Church History. They come into our church, and we might as well be talking about Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra. We have common narratives within Christianity, but for those outside I would assume that these can be hard to connect with. If I were a “seeker sensitive” guy, I would say that the solution to this is to stop using Biblical narratives. Instead, I would rely on movie clips and pop songs. Another way I could respond would be to just not worry about those people. I’ll just use my church language, my “Christianese,” and they can just figure it out or not. I don’t wish to accept either of those options. I believe it is essential to maintain our stories, we just have to do a better job of teaching the Grand Narrative to those on the outside. We have to be careful to use language that invites them in, while recognizing that there simply is no slang word that can substitute for “propitiation.” I think the best way to do this is to tell the Grand Narrative each and every Sunday, which is in fact what we do in the Anglican tradition. Through our Eucharistic liturgy (two Church words to be sure!), we tell the story of the God who took on flesh, was born, lived, taught, suffered, died, rose, ascended, sent the Spirit, and promised to return. I’m not talking about what we say in the sermon, I’m talking about the entire movement of worship. I am a person who loves good stories. I love to read them, hear them, watch them, and tell them. Most of all, I love the story of Jesus and I long to tell that story over and over again until the whole world has heard.

Several years ago, I discovered a book called The Ragman And Other Cries Of Faith by Walt Wangerin Jr who is, among other things, a pastor and award-winning novelist. The combination of his pastoral heart and his gift for storytelling are a potent mix that have been a companion and comfort in my journey. I can’t recommend his writing enough. There is a remarkable chapter from Ragman called “An Advent Monologue” about the mystery of the incarnation that is strange, poignant, and utterly beautiful. It has haunted me ever since the first time I read it with its story of an abused woman whose history and heartbreak have caused her to be suspicious of any kindness and resistant to love. The story is narrated by a Protagonist who is determined to gently break through her best defenses to heal and love her, and ultimately deliver her from the prison of her own misery. The story has never failed to move me and about 6 years ago I was compelled to write a song inspired by Wangerin’s beautiful vision of the incarnation. After many starts that never quite felt right, I started to be afraid of failing the material – Wangerin’s prose was so beautiful, I feared ruining it. And since fear is the chief enemy of creativity, I knew early on that I would need some help finishing it. The idea was pretty precious to me, so I was very guarded with it, bringing it only to a few writers who I felt might be able to help me make the most of it. No one that I shared it with seemed to resonate with it the same way that I did, until years later – when my record company was asking me to write an original Christmas song for a compilation they were putting together – I remembered the song and brought it to my friend Andy Gullahorn. Andy is one of the most gifted songwriters I know, and his work never fails to move and inspire me. His songs have the magical qualities that mark all the songs I love the most: they surprise, fill me with wonder, and create a quiet place in me where the Holy Spirit can speak. I’m a big fan. That I also get to call him a friend is one of the great blessings of this season of my life. Sitting in his songwriting room above his garage, grateful for another chance to collaborate with this giant of a songwriter (Andy and I have written a number of songs together, including “Holding The Key” and “How I Ended Up Here” from my last record), I shared Wangerin’s “Advent Monologue” and was encouraged when I saw it hit him much the same way it hit me. [spoiler title=’Spoiler!’ style=’default’ collapse_link=’true’]Let me say here how nervous I am to presume to put words in the mouth of the Almighty by doing a song from God’s perspective, but for this particular song, it seemed there was no way around it. But it also seemed fitting to be so bold in a story depicting the boldness of the Incarnation. So with a sense of—I don’t know…God’s approval? Blessing?—we put pen to the paper (or fingers to the laptop) and started writing. [/spoiler] I had written a bunch of verses that we were able to keep much of for the middle two verses in the song (it’s always gratifying to raid the bone yard), but I was having trouble figuring out how to hang the song on a singular idea that could be the chorus. Years ago, I had arrived at the idea of the Protagonist singing: How should I come to the one I love so she will receive me… or … so she won’t be afraid… But it just didn’t seem quite right. I liked the vulnerability of the question, “how should I come to the one I love…” but the next line made the Protagonist feel weak and anxious to me. Andy’s first suggestion was that the next line in the chorus should be “I will find a way,” so that it would be: How should I come to the one I love I will find a way, I will find a way… And that was when the Christmas lights turned on for me and I knew we had a song. The earnest longing of “how should I come to the one I love”, answered by the unrelenting determination to “find a way” – that was when the song began to take the shape I had always hoped it would. Andy has an amazing knack for getting to the heart of things – and he helped to make sure that every line had heart. In the world of songwriters, Andy is definitely one of my all time favorites. I might even go so far as to say I have a kind of professional crush on him as a writer. Oh, uh… hi Andy… I didn’t realize you were here… um. Did you hear any of that? Enter ANDY GULLAHORN: Yes, I am here. But don’t worry, I didn’t read that last part. First let me thank you for bringing this song to our writing appointment. I remember having some hesitations when you said you wanted to write a Christmas song. If I have any strengths as a songwriter, writing Christmas songs is not one of them. But as you explained Wangerin’s story to me I quickly realized that this wasn’t going to be a typical Christmas song – so I could jump in with you. It isn’t a secret to anyone who knows me that I am not a well-read individual. Most of my knowledge about books comes from listening to friends talk about the books they are reading. So although I had heard of Walt Wangerin before that day, I am pretty sure I hadn’t read any of his work. I remember when we first started trying to write the song, I didn’t want you to show me the actual story – I was just going to go off of your re-telling of it. But it didn’t take long before I caved in and asked for the book. I was blown away when I read the story. I know I read it at least twice while you were sitting there pretending to think of lyrics but actually checking email or something. I think my first response to you was something like, “Instead of writing a song about this, you should just give a copy of this story to everyone in your audience.” I am grateful that you didn’t listen to me. You have had a vision for a long time of making this story accessible to people in a new way – and I hope we came close to that. JG: I couldn’t have hoped for it to turn out better than it did! What I loved about the story and had hoped to capture in the song is a sense of the mystery of the incarnation. Because we’re so familiar with the concept of it as a doctrine I suspect that we’ve forgotten how radical it is that God chose to infiltrate humanity this way. Wangerin’s story awakened me again to the messy mystery of it and forced me to reckon with it all over again. AG: I have been playing this song most nights on this Christmas tour. Every night that I play it, at least one person finds me after the show to ask me about it. The standard comment I get is “I really like the song but can’t figure out what it means.” The funny thing is that in some ways I feel the same way about the original Wangerin story as well as the song – and that is part of why I think it is special. I mean, on one hand I can easily say what the song is about – the Incarnation. On the other hand, none of the metaphors in the story tie up neatly. It is about a battered woman – but it isn’t. It refers to Mary – but it doesn’t. All I know is that when I read the story I am deeply moved – but it isn’t a movement I can easily explain. It is like the truth in the story completely bypassed my brain and my reasoning to take up residence somewhere deeper. So although I can’t really explain it, it feels more true to me than some things that are more easily explained. JG: What I like about it is that it refuses to be reduced, categorized, and then shelved. Something about the messiness of it forces me to engage it (and therefore the mystery of the incarnation) every time. AG: Ok. I have to say this feels a little weird talking about a song I “wrote” in this way. I am not saying it is one of the most powerful songs ever written. I can say, however, that it speaks to me as much or more than any other song that I have had a part of. I think I can say this because the most powerful part of the song (the story) is something that neither one of us can take credit for. That is all Mr. Wangerin. So even as I play the song, I am still moved by the story – every time. And I don’t say that to take away from the work that we put into making this song come to life – it was just as challenging (if not more) than writing something from scratch. But I have to say it is fun to sing a song that always feels like someone else is telling me a story. JG: I suppose it doesn’t hurt that it’s the greatest story ever told. ________ I Will Find A Way JGray & Andrew Gullahorn At the end of this run down tenement hall Is the room of a girl I know She cowers behind all the dead bolt locks Afraid of the outside world So how should I come to the one I love I will find a way Many thieves and collectors have used that door But they only brought her shame So she won’t even open it anymore Still I will find a way I could call out her name with love through the walls But condemnation is all she hears I could break down the door and take her into my arms But she might die from the fear So how should I come to the one I love I will find a way, I will find a way How should I come to the one I love I will find a way No hiding place ever kept her safe So she hides inside herself Now to reach her heart the only way Is to hide in there as well I will hide in there as well She gave up on love waiting for a change But a change is coming soon Cause how could she not love the helpless babe Who is waking in her womb I found a way She’ll know I am coming before I am here When she hangs her head she’ll see me there And then when I come she won’t turn away All the beauty and joy will return to her face And what of the loneliness? Now it is gone Lost in the bond of the mother and son Every sin that she suffered at the hands of men Every single disgrace will be washed clean again I will love her completely and when I am grown I will carry her out of that tenement room I am doing a new thing and soon you will see I am coming among you and my name shall be Emmanuel, Emmanuel ________ After writing the song, it felt like it wouldn’t fit very well on a compilation record that included Christmas classics recorded by other artists in various styles, so I wrote another song for that project. I hope to record “I Will Find A Way” in the future, but in the meantime I couldn’t have been happier to learn that Andy included the song on the Christmas record he made with his wife Jill Phillips (he sings and plays it better than me anyway). I hope you’ll check it out! You can buy the record here in the rabbit room store or on iTunes. Click here to buy Walt Wangerin’s book that includes “An Advent Monologue” from the Rabbit Room Store And here’s a recent live performance of “I Will Find A Way” from this year’s Behold The Lamb of God tour.

The dictionary definition of omnipresence is “(of God) present everywhere at the same time.” I’ve been thinking on this for the past month and wonder how many of us really live from this very orthodox truth on a daily basis. Suppose I did begin to recognize this Fact. How would it change my relationships? If I was frustrated or hurt by someone, and yet chose to recognize that God is present all around me, in me, and that He “works all things after the counsel of His own will” in my situation, how would that change my course of action? In my creative life as a musician, singer, songwriter, how would it change my creativity and output to know that the true Muse is always present with me, brooding over the waters, ready for the moment of creation? How would it change my worship of God to know that I am literally living and having my being in Him? Would every moment become a different facet of worship? Would washing dishes or writing a song or spending time with my children become a form of worshiping God? When I walked into the church for worship with others, would it change the atmosphere if we all knew as Fact that God was already present, that we didn’t have to coax Him to “come down,” that we didn’t have to “invite Him” or sing songs asking God to come to us? Can it be possible that the manifestation of that Presence is merely awaiting our recognition, our trust, our faith-response to the Fact of omnipresence that is stated in the Word of God? How would it change our sense of security, of being protected, of having a mission and a purpose in life to know that God is always present and working His eternal purposes – working all things together for good to them that love Him, working everything for good to those who have been called according to His purpose and plan? What if we ate, slept, and breathed this truth for awhile? Would it become part of our consciousness, a subconscious undercurrent of faith?

My eight-year-old’s cub scouts served supper to a group of homeless men through Nashville’s Room in the Inn ministry, and I had the privilege of sitting at table with a man I’ll call Roderick and hearing his story. I thought you should hear it too. Roderick looked to be in his fifties. He was a handsome black man with a well-kept beard and intelligent eyes. He wore a green army coat. His hands, like the hands of all the men who ate with us that night, were chapped and battered, but nothing else about his appearance telegraphed his homelessness. “Where do you sleep most nights?” I asked him. “At the Rescue Mission,” he said. “How many men are there on a given night?” “About eight hundred,” he said. “Some are there for a couple of nights. Some are there for a months. I don’t know they stories. I try to talk to folks, but a lot of folks at the Mission don’t want to tell anything about theyselves. Some of them’s got something to hide, some of them’s ashamed. Me, I like to tell my story. It does me good. I don’t know what other folks has been through, but I been living on the streets for twenty-one years. “I come to Nashville in 1989,” he said. “I aint had a home since I got here. Come from Humboldt. A hundred and forty miles west of here.” “And how did you end up here?” I asked Roderick thought on that a little while. “Let me squeeze twenty-one years into a minute. Then let me squeeze a minute into ten seconds: I ended up here and homeless because of a judge, a prosecuting attorney, a po-lice, and a landlord. “I grew up in a shotgun shack. You could see right through from the front to the back. After I was grown my mama got an her apartment in Section 8 housing, and we thought that was going to be a lot better than the shack. But the way we be living in the fifties and sixties, that’s the way my mama living now. The landlord tell my mama what to do, and she got to do it. “They changed the lease law in 1989, you see, and after that the landlord could do whatever she wanted to do. She could say who stayed and who had to go. It was my mama’s apartment, but she didn’t have no say about it. I come to see her one day. I got there about noon, but she didn’t get off work until three that day, so I set on the steps in front of her door to wait for her. I hadn’t been there long before a po-lice drove up. He started coming up the steps with a white woman I didn’t know. Looked like maybe he was there to serve a warrant to somebody lived in the apartments. I wasn’t feared at all. I sort of scooted over on the step to let them get past, and the po-lice said, ‘It’s you we come to talk to. This woman has some things to say to you, and I want you to listen to her.’ “The woman said, ‘Do you know who I am?’ “I said, ‘No ma’am. I might have seen you around town once or twice, but I can’t say I know who you are.'” “She said, ‘Well I’m the landlord here, that’s who I am. I own this place, and I get to say who can stay here and who has to go.’ She explained how I wasn’t welcome at Hillview Manor any more, and she waved a paper that said I was permanently barred. I couldn’t come set foot at Hillview Manor again. “Well I was so surprised I didn’t know what to say. I started to ask a couple of questions, but the po-lice shushed me. This was her apartments, he said, and folks had to do whatever she said. I just wanted to know what I had done to get treated that way, and the po-lice said the landlord didn’t have to tell me. “I said, ‘But this is my mama’s house. You telling me I can’t come to my own mama’s house?’ “The lady said, ‘This aint your mama’s house. It’s my house, and I’m saying you can’t come back. I got a paper here from the law says you can’t ever come back.’ “I told her, ‘You aint even told me what I done wrong,’ and she didn’t have no answer for that. But the po-lice said, ‘We stood here and talked long enough. It’s time for you to get moving, Roderick.’ “I did come back a few times to see my mama, but somebody called the po-lice every time, and they run me off. The last time I went was eighteen years ago. That time the po-lice really threatened me, and I been feared to go back. I aint set foot in that county or seen my people in eighteen years.” “So you’ve been living on the street twenty-one years,” I said. “Did you ever find work? Couldn’t you have gotten a job, found a place to live?” I couldn’t help noticing he appeared able-bodied, even after twenty-one years of homelessness. But Roderick ignored the question. “And now just about everybody’s dead or gone, but I still aint been back. My brothers and sisters, my aunts and uncles… My mama’s still there, still in that same apartment in Hillview Manor. Landlord’s gone too. I don’t know if she’s dead or if she just went away. The judge that give me the lifetime ban, he’s dead, and so is the prosecuting attorney.” “Wait a minute,” I said. “If everybody’s dead and gone, why don’t you just go back and see your mama?” “They’ve still got that paper. It’s a lifetime ban. The new landlord said they still got it in the file cabinet.” “But who could possibly care?” I asked. “It’s been twenty-one years.” “I’m feared of them po-lice,” Roderick said. “They threatened me. “The legal aid called the new judge for me, and the judge said I was welcome to come to his county any time I wanted to. I just couldn’t set foot in Hillside Manor as long as that paper is in force. Except Hillside Manor is where my mama is. It’s the only place in the county I want to go.” “You’re telling me nobody can do anything about the paper?” “Judge said I could fill out some papers and get an inquest, and I can go before the court in thirty days and he could probably get it taken care of.” His passivity was maddening. It was clear he was leaving something out of the story. “Then why haven’t you gotten it taken care of?” I asked. “My legal aid quit me. Last time I talked to him…I don’t even know why I said this…It just flew out of my mouth…but I said, ‘You aint done a very good job for me.’ And he said, ‘I don’t like what you just said to me.’ And there was a click, and the line went dead. And I didn’t know if he hung on me or if we just got disconnected. “So I called him back, and I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. I said, ‘We got disconnected right after you told me you didn’t like what I said to you,’ and he said, ‘I reckon we did.’ And I said, ‘I don’t even know why I said that thing.’ And he said, ‘I’m finished working on your case. I don’t want no more to to with you.’ “I really don’t know why I told that man he wasn’t doing a good job.” “But there are plenty of other legal aid lawyers in Nashville,” I said. “Yeah, but they aint been much help. Ever time I get an appointment with one, I get there and it’s another one there besides the one it was supposed to be. The last time it was was two ladies I hadn’t never seen before. I told them they wasn’t who I had come to see, and we got all sideways, and I told them I’d never step foot in that building again.” It wasn’t hard to imagine Roderick getting sideways with people who wanted to help him. In this whole peculiar story he had never mentioned any effort to take responsibility for his own situation or solve his problem in any way. The landlord’s antipathy, by his account, was entirely inexplicable;  he apparently had chosen twenty-one years of homelessness over getting a job; and now it was the lawyers’ fault that he hadn’t completed the simple process of getting this situation sorted out. “I know it’s aggravating,” I said. “But can’t you push through it? After twenty-one years, you’re so close. If you fill out that paperwork and set things in motion, you’ll be thirty days from being able to go back and live with your mama.” “That’s right,” he said. “After twenty-one years on the streets.” “How long ago did you find out that you could get an inquest and get this over with?” “Two months ago. Maybe three.” “But you still haven’t filled out the paperwork.” “I can’t get no legal aid to help me. I’m going to have to get a real lawyer–the kind you pay–and I aint got the money.” “How old is your mama?” “Eighty, eighty-one. We thought she was going to die a few weeks ago.” “Then what are you waiting for, Roderick?” For the first time since Roderick began his story, there was a pause. “A while back a legal aid asked me a question. He said, ‘How do you know it aint your mama behind all this. How do you know she aint playing both sides?'” At first I thought Roderick was just adding to the list of wrongs that the legal aid lawyers had done him. But Roderick leaned toward me across the table as if to whisper. His eyes were wet. “I believe it is my mama been keeping me from coming home. She been putting it off on the landlord and the po-lice and the judge, but I believe she’s the one don’t want me there. I’ll tell you one thing: every time I ever showed up at her house, the po-lice was right behind me. And I don’t know how else the po-lice could have known if she wasn’t the one calling them.” I knew he was right. He had to be. The peculiarities of his story suddenly made a kind of sense–this “lifetime ban” honored by a new judge and a new landlord twenty-one years after the fact, the arbitrariness of the landlady’s persecution, Roderick’s delays and self-sabotage. It finally occurred to me how little of Roderick’s version of things needed to be true if that last part were true, if indeed his mother didn’t want him near her. Roderick’s whole story, I realized, was another way of telling that story. I wondered what had happened in that home that made this twenty-one-year exile seem necessary–what wrongs done by Roderick, what wrongs done against him. Roderick pushed his chair back and stood up to leave. He shook his head and said to nobody in particular, “This here’s a long way from home.”

The Slugs & Bugs Christmas records are finally in stock, the CDs have been shipped, and most folks have received their pre-orders. This seems like a good time to say, once again, thank you. Decent and faithful people of the Rabbit Room, you collectively pre-ordered over 850 CDs and flat out donated another huge chunk toward the making of A Slugs & Bugs Christmas, and we’ve done the very best we could to make a record worthy of your trust. And If you do like it, and especially if you LOVE it, please tell the world over the next two or three days, since the market for Christmas music won’t last much longer. One of the standout features of A Slugs & Bugs Christmas is the Slugs & Bugs Choir, singing their hearts out on 75% of the songs. The kids were amazing, but you don’t have to take my word for it. With footage from the Rabbit Room’s own Jonathan Rogers and The Proprietor himself, we compiled a short video clip of the choir at work. Ladies and gentlemen, with my most sincere thanks, I give you the Slugs & Bugs Choir! (click HERE to order your copy of  A Slugs and Bugs Christmas)

Today marks the official release of A.S. Peterson’s (that’s Pete Peterson to you) new book, Fiddler’s Green, the follow up to his debut novel, The Fiddler’s Gun, published last year by Rabbit Room Press. The Fiddler’s Gun was a labor of love birthed through the encouragement of family and friends and financed by patrons who partnered with Pete to make it happen. Part adventure, part love story, part historical fiction, it’s the tale of Fin Button: orphan, pirate, and revolutionary. Fiddler’s Green picks up where Gun left off and hits the ground running. The tale that unfolds is epic in scope, sweeping the reader not just to the far reaches of the world, but deep into the brokenness of Fin Button’s heart. I couldn’t put it down. So I offer to you, on the day of its release, the top 10 reasons why you should check out Fiddler’s Green: 10. If you liked The Fiddler’s Gun, you’ll LOVE Fiddler’s Green. I couldn’t have hoped for a better conclusion to the redemptive story of Fin Button. 9. Being that it’s Fiddler’s GREEN, it is the perfect gift for environmentally conscious readers. 7. For all of its swashbuckling, it’s also a genuinely touching love story. I mean, come ON. 6. And it’s an historical novel, so you kind of get brownie points for reading something that might make you smarter. It might, in fact, make you want to say “an historical” instead of “a historical”. 5. Did I mention that it had pirates? 4. …and knights? 3. And because of passages like this:  (upon entering the Strait of Gibraltar . . .) “Though Fin couldn’t see it, she felt the closeness of land around her. From beyond the grey veil she could sense the oppressive weight of two great continents crowding down to the sea, each to kneel and contemplate the nearness of an ancient earthen brother.” 2. Because the sooner people buy this book, the sooner Pete can publish his next one (which, rumor has it, might be an epic western. And that is awesome). And as I said in my official endorsement of the book (printed on the inside flap – which is like a bonus reason to get it), the number 1 reason to check out Fiddler’s Green: “The best of Peterson’s work in The Fiddler’s Gun is matched and tripled in his action-packed sequel, Fiddler’s Green. He proved himself an able writer of a worthy tale in Gun, but as I read Green, I felt like I was witness to the magical moment of a certifiable author being born. There were passages that took my breath away and brought tears to my eyes. Stunning prose, unforgettable characters, a rip-roaring page-turner of an adventure that I couldn’t put down. I thoroughly enjoyed this book! Now, tell us another story Mr. Peterson.” Available now in the Rabbit Room store and wherever great books are sold.

If you’re anything like me (and I’m betting you are) you’ve got a huge list of books that you know you should have read but you haven’t. They’re the sort of books that you hear about (and are threatened with) in school. You might have been forced at far too young an age to read one of them and were bored to tears. You might see these books referenced in other, newer works and feel like you’re on the outside of an inside joke. You might hear them quoted by people who sound far smarter than you and you suspect that if only you’d read a few of those books you’d sound smart, too. This dreaded list of books probably includes names like Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Melville, Milton, Dickens, Nabokov, Hugo, Faulkner, and Steinbeck. Over the years the weight of all those pages piles up and becomes so heavy that you fear you’ll never have the strength to turn them all. Let’s be honest, the Classics are scary. They are long, boring, hard to read, and scarcely relevant to the modern world. Right? Earlier this year I began meeting once a week with a couple of friends for the purpose of getting some of those books read–not read in an academic setting but read for fun, read for enjoyment, read because we wanted to rather than because we were made to. We started with Paradise Lost and we’ve gone through a variety of daunting books, finishing up A Tale of Two Cities a few weeks ago. The surprise of reading these classics has been how completely wrong most of our assumptions were. I wasn’t surprised that they were good books, of course they are, that’s why they’re still around. But what has continually surprised me is how contemporary they are. Let’s take Paradise Lost, for instance. It’s an intimidating book, no doubt about it. It’s four hundred years old. It’s big. Its language is dense. It’s epic poetry. But the biggest hurdle for me was that I thought I knew the story–Adam and Eve. We all know what’s going to happen. What was the point of putting in the hours when I already knew the ending? Well, as with all great storytelling, the “what” is only half the fun. The”how” is where the magic happens. And in Paradise Lost the “how” is spectacular. There are passages so visual, so visionary, so cinematic that the pictures Milton paints are like scenes out of a comic book, or out of the Matrix. The action is vivid and epic in ways that can’t rightly be translated visually even in our age of digital cinema (although there’s a movie in the works that I have no hope will be any good.) See for yourself. Read the following excerpt in which, after two days of war, Satan’s ranks assault Heaven with cannons and siege engines and the Lord’s army becomes enraged. The angel legions throw down their weapons in anger, and begin hurling hills and even the mountains themselves at the enemy: Forthwith (behold the excellence, the power Which God hath in his mighty Angels plac’d) Their Arms away they threw, and to the Hills Light as the Lightning glimpse they ran, they flew, From their foundations loos’ning to and fro They pluckt the seated Hills with all their load, Rocks, Waters, Woods, and by the shaggy tops Uplifting bore them in their hands: Amaze, Be sure, and terror seiz’d the rebel Host, When coming towards them so dread they saw The bottom of the Mountains upward turn’d; Till on those cursed Engines triple-row They saw them whelm’d, and all their confidence Under the weight of Mountains buried deep, Themselves invaded next, and on their heads Main Promontories flung, which in the Air Came shadowing, and opprest whole Legions arm’d, Their armor help’d their harm, crush’t in and bruis’d Into their substance pent, which wrought them pain Implacable, and many a dolorous groan, Long struggling underneath, ere they could wind Purest at first, now gross by sinning grown. [Now Satan’s angels start throwing their own hills . . . ] The rest in imitation to like Arms Betook them, and the neighboring Hills uptore; So Hills amid the Air enounter’d Hills Hurl’d to and fro with jaculation dire, That under ground they fought in dismal shade; Infernal noise; War seem’d a civil Game To this uproar; horrid confusion heapt Upon confusion rose: and now all Heav’n Had gone to wrack, with ruin overspread. [Then the Almighty Father looks on all this and has had enough. He calls the Son forth and says. . .] ‘Effulgence of my Glory, Son belov’d, Son in whose face invisible is beheld Visibly, what by Deity I am, And in whose hand what by Decree I do, Second Omnipotence, two days are past, Since Michael and his Powers went forth to tame These disobedient; sore hath been their fight, As likeliest was, when two such Foes met arm’d; [. . . ] War wearied hath perform’d what War can do, And to disorder’d rage let loose the reins, With Mountains as with Weapons arm’d, which makes Wild work in Heav’n, and dangerous to the main. Two days are therefore past, the third is thine; For thee I have ordain’d it, and thus far Have suffer’d, that the Glory may be thine Of ending this great War, since none but Thou Can end it. [. . .] Go then thou Mightiest in thy Father’s might, Ascend my Chariot, guide the rapid Wheels That shake Heav’n’s basis, bring forth all my War, My Bow and Thunder, my Almighty Arms Gird on, and Sword upon thy puissant Thigh; Pursue these sons of Darkness, drive them out From all Heav’n’s bounds into the utter Deep: There let them learn, as likes them, to despise God and Messiah his anointed King.’ [. . .] So said, he o’er his Scepter bowing, rose From the right hand of Glory where he sat, And the third sacred Morn began to shine Dawning through Heav’n. . . . and then it starts to get good. All throughout these scenes of staggering breadth, beauty, and sheer, gosh-wow, eye-popping action (written by a blind man no less) is the gospel—the gospel in ways that you’ve scarcely imagined. A gospel in which Christ is envisioned as Heaven’s greatest champion, charging across the empyrean on a great chariot, the enemy fleeing before him, preferring to cast themselves voluntarily into the gaping abyss rather than risk the fury of the Son. You may have heard that Satan is portrayed as a sympathetic figure but that’s a claim that embraces a vulgar misreading of the story. Milton leaves no doubt that Christ is the hero of creation. So here in a book that predates cinema by three hundred years, is an adventure so grand that nothing I’ve ever seen with my eyes can match it. Another example of how wrong assumptions can be comes from Tolstoy. I haven’t read his novels yet but after reading two of his short stories, The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Master and Man, I’m aching to. What I expected was stuffy Russian society, clunky, boring prose, and perhaps a few insights into the time period. What I got were stories that read as if they’d been written yesterday in America. In fresh, lively, and often hilarious writing, Tolstoy points out the emptiness of consumerism and materialism and corporate ladder-climbing. When the vain Ivan Ilyich decorates his new house, Tolstoy tells us that the result was a house that was made to look somewhat richer than it was, yet never so rich as to be actually so, the result being that in Ivan’s effort to distinguish himself from (and look richer than) his neighbors, he invariably looked exactly like them. Tolstoy could be describing any suburb in America. The story is 150 years old and yet thoroughly contemporary. One more example and I’ll wrap this up. A Tale of Two Cities. Dickens’ style is incredibly cinematic. He turns his environments themselves into actors, infusing them with character and vivid color. The ever-present mob of Paris revolutionaries becomes a raging ocean surging and breaking in the streets. The district of St. Antoine, at the center of the revolution, becomes a bloodthirsty giant described as a madman who’s got his blood up and has gone in search of vengeance. And worst of all, La Guillotine, the dread mistress, insatiable and requiring of Paris her daily wine. Everything is alive. The city. The streets. The grindstone and the Bastille. And amid the seething madness of the Reign of Terror, a small family is caught in the swift current, swept along, and saved by an unlooked for savior. We all know the last lines of the book, but what a journey it is to get there. So, so good. “It is a far, far better thing I do than I have ever done . . .” The thing about a good ending like that is that it’s got to be earned. And maybe that’s what classics do best. They earn their status, and they force us to earn their rewards. Are they hard to read sometimes? Yep, you bet. They make you work for it. But they deliver. The last chapter of A Tale of Two Cities might be one of the most beautiful there is. I’m glad I put in the hours and earned the right to appreciate it. Boring? Stuffy? Irrelevant? Nonsense. Do yourself a favor. Find a friend or two. Pluck one of those musty old books off the shelf, you know the ones I mean, the good ones. Start turning those pages. You might be surprised at what you find.

Hey, folks. I’m two shows into the Behold the Lamb of God tour, and officially in the Christmas spirit, whatever that means. I guess it means I feel a little more like a 10-year-old kid and a little less like a 36-year-old guy who has to fix the sink and the muffler. We’re in Milford, Ohio, and big, fat snow is falling. That reminded me of this poem about winter. Thanks for reading! (From the Bench at the Bend in the Trail) I know that I should cringe When I think of the muddy cold Of winter in Tennessee. But today, with my daughter And her friend prancing In the brown grass yard, Crunching leaves, singing, Rosy cheeked and rowdy In the chill of Autumn, Refusing their sweaters, Drinking the dusk Like a mug of cider, I look to the early dark Of winter with easy joy, Because those are the days We light candles, eat soup And keep the water hot For tea, or coffee, or cocoa With those crunchy little Marshmallows. Those are the days We wrap ourselves In quilts my mother made To watch our favorite movies. Or we dust off the gameboard And look out the windows At the weak light and yearn For past (or future) graces, For dying days like this one, Or days like last April When I felt against my lips How the new leaves On the maples were soft As a baby’s foot. We find some peace In warm pleasures: In the smallness Of our heated house Beneath the vast Mountain of cold air Piled on us clear To the stratosphere, Trying to freeze us In our lamp-lit hollow, Our cleft of calm and longing Where we tend the fire: Memory of Autumn’s embers, Coming song of spring, Summer kicking in the womb. Winter is where hope lies happy.