It seems unlikely that an Irish stranger would be invited to pull her chair out of the shadows and join the conversation, yet here I am, and for that I am grateful. As I began to write this post I found myself searching for beautiful words that would somehow be worthy of the rich surroundings. If I’m honest, in my head the accent that is part of who I am began to take on a hint of Tennessee. What I ended up with was a post that may have been beautiful (at least that is what I tell myself) but it wasn’t true. And what is beauty if it isn’t true. For the past few months, truth in my life has been less about beauty and more about brokenness. Last July I watched helplessly as my ten-year-old daughter faced for the first time the moment when childish innocence is invaded by something dark and cruel, an intruder whose presence is a constant and unwelcome reminder that bad things happen. Unexpectedly diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, she discovered first hand that this story we live in has evil villains and dark forests with monsters who sneak up on us when we least expect it. For every needle that pricked her skin and broke my heart a little more, another question came. It just felt wrong. For me, the deepest pain is in the knowledge that something has happened to my child which I can’t fix. No matter how much I want to, I can’t make it go away. I can’t make it hurt less. For Ellie, whose willingness to allow me share this is testament to her courageous honesty, the struggle goes deeper still. Oddly, the least difficult thing for her is not the condition itself. Medical advances and a tenacious determination mean that physically she is doing really well. The hardest thing has been the internal struggle that follows in its wake. The sudden intrusion of deep questions that many people don’t have to face until well into their adult lives. Why did God allow this to happen to me even though I have chosen to follow Him? Why does He not heal me when all it would take is a word? Does He care that I am hurting? Is He even there at all? One of the reasons the Bible remains deeply and authentically real, regardless of your vantage point, is that it does not hide from these questions. Actually, it embraces them. Within the Psalms in particular there is a depth of intimacy with God and freedom before Him that has pursued me again and again, breaking me apart and breathing strength into my legs in equal measure. It has struck me that whatever situation the psalmists find themselves in, whether unfettered joy or pain and betrayal, through it all they cling doggedly to two truths which are stronger than their enemies and deeper than their pain. The first is that they continue to intentionally anchor their lives in God’s word. The second is that they choose to believe that God is ultimately in control. This voluntary framework for hope is so important that it is laid down right at the beginning of the Psalms. Psalm 1 paints a beautiful picture of the child of God who, regardless of circumstance, chooses to place his delight in His word. Rather than being led and shaped by surrounding culture, such a child makes the word of God his home. Reading it, studying it, meditating on it and allowing it to speak truth into his moments and his days. The image the Psalmist uses is of a firmly planted tree, with deep roots that are nourished by life giving water whose leaves do not wither despite the buffeting of storms and the passage of time. Instead it produces fruit and, according to the final verse of the Psalm, the fruit is the intimacy of knowing and being known by God. There is a beautiful passage in George MacDonald’s At the Back of the North Wind that brings home to me again one of the reasons why we must immerse ourselves in God’s word and in pursuing His heart and His character within it. In the story a young boy, Diamond develops a relationship with the North Wind, who appears to him in many different forms. There comes a moment when Diamond is faced for the first time with a side of the wind that scares him, sitting at odds with the goodness he has known until that point. The conversation goes as follows: “Well, but listen to me Diamond. You know the one me, you say, and that is good.” “Yes.” “Do you know the other me as well?” “No. I can’t. I shouldn’t like to.” “There it is. You don’t know the other me. You are sure of one of them?” “Yes.” “And you are sure there can’t be two mes?” “Yes.” “Then the me you don’t know must be the same as the me you do know—else there would be two mes?” “Yes.” “Then the other me you don’t know must be as kind as the me you do know?” “Yes.” “Besides, I tell you that it is so, only it doesn’t look like it. That I confess freely.” If I’m honest, there are times when aspects of God’s character leave me shrinking back in uncertainty, wondering whether my limited understanding of His heart was ever true at all. Then I remember the story that is at the heart of Psalm 2, of a king whose name is love and a kingdom that is coming. The great story that reminds me of all that I know Him to be and gives me the courage to believe that the part of Him I know is consistent with the part I cannot fathom. That, whatever the circumstances suggest, His heart and His love are constant. Those are the times when I climb like Lucy onto Aslan’s back, burying my face in His mane and holding on even as all of Narnia shakes with the thunder in His roar. By the very act of deliberately and intentionally placing our delight in the word of God and obedience to Him we are taking our place within the kingdom where He is already king. If this is true then choosing to live within the borders of this kingdom is not a restricting of our freedom, but a stepping into something which is infinitely greater and more real than what we see around us. These boundaries of commitment and belief are the ancient writing engraved around the entrance to the place where “why?” is not a hopeless question thrown into the void, but the cry of a heart prepared to accept that God can be trusted even when the answer does not come. It seems almost unnecessary in the Rabbit Room to state that the brokenness we live with is passing; the truth of it whispers in every song and story, but for a ten-year-old whose little ship is being tossed on the waves for the first time, the wonder of it is a longed-for harbour. I am often asked if Ellie will grow out of her need for insulin and the question is usually followed with the whispered ending “Will she have to do this forever?” I don’t know what medical advancements the future holds but I can answer with absolute certainty that it is not forever. If only the true survives, then all that is not true will one day be consumed by the fire that makes things beautiful, and the only thing remaining of the struggle will be the beauty that was formed within it. The reality is that, as people who were created for eternity, we are defined not by the things that will soon be cast away like an old winter coat with the coming of summer, but by the things that will endure because they are made in the image of God. I think there are two reasons why I can’t shake the feeling that God is doing something here which goes beyond what we can see. The first is that the God whose heart is evident throughout Scripture is always for His people. He is always about the business of restoring and redeeming, even if it seems at times to us that he has taken the long way round. The second reason is that often, despite the darkness, glimpses of beauty shine through, as though this temporary veil of shadows is being pierced by the light of all that is to come. And so my prayer for my family, born out of this season in our lives, is that we will allow God to fashion in us the treasure that will last, whatever form that takes. That we will choose to anchor our lives in Him and in His word and, believing that He is ultimately in control, we will have the courage to step through the sacred door into a kingdom where broken wings are no barrier to flight and joy is all the deeper for having been born out of tears.

A few years ago I read N. T. Wright’s wonderful book Surprised By Hope and had my mind blown by all of the beautiful implications of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. Being an artist and songwriter, I naturally started to wonder how I might explore ways to connect with the resurrection musically. I found myself day dreaming about writing an album full of songs that sounded like they were coming from the other side of renewal, but with lyrics tethered to the present. I wanted to explore the “already/not yet” tension of living with expectant hope in the midst of suffering. In addition to this, I wanted it all to sound like joy. Joy is an elusive thing for an artist to capture. It is not something you can fake or conjure up at will. It is the presence of the Holy Spirit and, at least in my experience, seems to blow in and out like the wind. It is wonderful when it is present, but it’s absence can be frustrating, especially when you are trying to coax it onto the canvas of your work like a child fumbling with crayons. Time passed and I kept reaching out for joy. I kept writing, struggling, and dreaming. I would fail and scrap everything then start over. Rinse and repeat. I had this joke of a phrase I would rhetorically ask myself: “I just want all my songs to sound like glory and feel like resurrection. Is that too much to ask?” It may sound funny, but months turned into years and before I knew it I found myself at the cross section of suffering and hope, standing there with a big, bright cloud of joy swirling overhead. My vision for this collection of music took all sorts of odd twists and turns—deep into the mystery of where all of the goodness in this life comes from—and I discovered that it’s true what my friend Billy Cerveny says, “My cup of joy is only as deep as my sorrow.”* It took me a long time to find a lyrical voice for these songs but in the end I drew heavily from the scriptures, from the stories of my friends and family, and from my own life—wearily looking into my heart, searching for signs of resurrection in everything and everywhere. What resulted is an album called Death In Reverse, and I couldn’t be more excited or confused after such a long process of writing, reaching, dreaming, and hoping for something powerful to happen in these songs I’ve been wrestling with over the last few years. Don’t get me wrong. I am super excited about the album. But the process itself—the songwriting and recording process, the painting across the canvas and the subsequent discipline of facing yourself in your work—can be a painful experience, because in order for it to be good, it has to be true. And in order for it to be true you have to face yourself, which can be the scariest thing of all because that means you have to trust. Last summer, Andrew Peterson came over to my house and we visited for a couple hours on my front porch. We were trading stories and at one point he told me that pain is a sort of anointing. I think he’s right about that. C. S. Lewis says that pain is God’s megaphone to a deaf world. As far as this record goes, you might say that God has my full attention. In the span of creating these 11 songs, I have seen the hand of God working in my life and in the lives of my friends and family. I’ve been taken to places I never thought I’d have to go—distant, dark and lonely places—only to find the presence of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost closer than I ever dared to dream or imagine. The Lord carries us through this life. We are not alone. And now, I can sing you some songs about it. [To support Death in Reverse, check out Jeremy’s Kickstarter campaign.] *Billy Cerveny, “Donnelly’s Lament” #DeathinReverse #JeremyCasella

A few weeks ago I woke up to a powdered-sugar dusting of snow on the ground, rolled out of bed, and opened up my computer to Facebook. The headline, “Why I Bought A House In Detroit for $500” caught my eye, and soon I was engrossed in the story of Drew Philp, who at 23 decided to purchase an abandoned house in Detroit in an area that many people are deserting as the city slowly crumbles into chaos. He and his neighbors rebuild their homes, grow vegetables, raise chickens, start schools, build ice rinks in abandoned back yards in the winter, and generally create community in a place that most of the nation has consigned to hell. They are doing something amazing in the face of despair. As he says at one point in his adventure, “It was the first time I really felt I was bringing something back to life, like performing CPR on a corpse that just took its first greedy gasp of air.” There’s something strangely and fascinatingly pioneer about his story, like a 21st century explorer plunging into untamed wilderness, except this “wilderness” is one of America’s best known cities. Drew and his friend share a Promethean moment of glee when he turns on the electricity in his house for the first time. It feels like something out of a history book, and yet when have I ever been so simply happy over something like that? Nevertheless, Drew doesn’t really look at himself as anything special: “I’m not certain I’ve accomplished anything other than taking one abandoned home off the street, teaching a few kids how to read, or bearing witness to a something larger than myself. I’m not certain I’ve become an example to anyone or necessarily changed a whole lot for the better. But I’m still here. I go to bed and I wake up every day in Detroit, in a house I built with my own hands. Sometimes success means just holding on.” Creating light in the darkness. Cobbling together a sense of order in the midst of chaos. Growing gardens in the urban wilderness. It sounds to me like redemption, like resurrection, like new creation in slow and steady ways. His words reminded me of a song by Sara Groves: We come with beautiful secrets We come with purposes written on our hearts, written on our souls We come to every new morning With possibilities only we can hold, that only we can hold Redemption comes in strange places, small spaces Calling out the best of who we are And I want to add to the beauty To tell a better story I want to shine with the light That’s burning up inside —“Add To The Beauty” The beauty of what’s expressed here, and in Drew’s story, is that sometimes the most striking things are the most simple, the most unheroic. We’re not all called to paint the Sistine Chapel, but we can all add to the beauty of the world. Or we could forfeit this calling and do what Switchfoot calls “adding to the noise”. It’s very easy to do this in our age of social media, frittering time away over sharing amusing YouTube videos, cat memes, and inane details about our lives and the lives of others. None of these things are really wrong in and of themselves, but I’ve found they can provide an easy and lazy trap from spending time on things of substance. They can become the trap of nothingness that C. S. Lewis describes in The Screwtape Letters: “Nothing is very strong: strong enough to steal away a man’s best years not in sweet sins but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why, in the gratification of curiosities so feeble that the man is only half aware of them, in drumming of fingers and kicking of heels, in whistling tunes that he does not like, or in the long, dim labyrinth of reveries that have not even lust or ambition to give them a relish, but which, once chance association has started them, the creature is too weak and fuddled to shake off.” Sound a bit like our culture of endless entertainment? Reading Drew Philp’s story on a snowy morning while still in my pajamas sparked a little something in me. It doesn’t mean that I’m going to go do something big and bold like he did, and it doesn’t mean you or I have to. But it should cause us to ponder, what are we bringing to the world with our time, our talents, our resources? Are we adding to the beauty, telling a better story, or are we just adding to the noise?

Untitled 13, the painting featured in this post, is now available as a new limited-edition, signed and numbered art print. These prints (and other SubwOb art prints) are available in runs of only 100 per piece. You can find them in the Rabbit Room store.] An Explanation for the Uninitiated: Subjects With Objects is an ongoing, collaborative art project forever ordered according to the following rules: A shadowy public spaces painter sets up in pubs and bars and executes spontaneous portraits at the rate of one painting per pint. He then hands off those enigmatic little ocular disturbances to a semi-anonymous poet & novelist who lives with them long enough to solicit their otherworldly mumblings and ephemeral whispers, distilling each of their essences into a line or two of poetic prose. The painter is Jonathan Richter. The poet is UNKNOWN & UNKNOWABLE, so it is best NOT TO EVEN ASK! However, for the sake of convenience we may refer to him as DKM. Subjects With Objects Unplugged Untitled 3 (2013) Be Careful What You Wish For… I can’t claim a consistent creative process. When Richter presents me with a painting, sometimes I do my thinking on paper, capturing every thought that lights long enough to be considered as a possibility. Every half hour I’ll go back and read through the lines I’ve already scrawled, and when one jumps out at me as having a kernel of something essential, I’ll begin to riff a little more on that one. But there are other times when I just sit and stare at one of Richter’s dreamlike paintings, trying to absorb it without too much filter, waiting for the meaning to suddenly emerge. If you’ve read Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink, you’ll understand what I’m waiting for in such moments. I’m trusting that my brain is working behind the scenes to do what brains naturally do: cipher meaning, make connections, establish context. This can lead to one of those epiphany sort of moments when the answer suddenly comes clear, seeming to arrive fully formed. It’s very much like what happens when my mind is muddled by some script or story problem, and I lay down at 3:30 in the afternoon for a short power nap. My mind begins to drift, I slip away into a half-sleep state, and then BANG! In an instant I’m suddenly wide awake twenty minutes later with the obvious answer to my creative problem. The older I get, the more I’ve learned to trust this process of some part of my brain working in the background on a level that isn’t always entirely conscious. For last week’s SubWOb Unplugged column I chose a piece that was worked out in lengthy detail on the pages of a legal pad. This week I’ve chosen to highlight a piece that shows the other method. Around a year ago, Richter and I were working in his Nashville studio on a couple of different projects. There was one evening when I found myself alone in the old factory, overlooking the ghostly cut of the train tracks. I might have been waiting for some effects-laden piece of video to render. I walked over to the stack of SubWOb paintings that still needed text (alas, I had fallen far behind, DEAR READERS) and began to sift through them. I passed this one over and then stopped and went back to it. There was something haunting in it. There was the fact that the woman was seriously overdressed for a beach excursion, yes. But there was also her face. Her face half in shadow, half in light, looking back at something her whole body was turned away from. Her head and figure a little unnaturally long as if compressed between that same light and shadow. Her expression reflecting no joy in the sort of occasion her dress would suggest she’s a participant in. And then there’s the red buoy floating in the sea behind her, telling us what? That one thought, one realization has risen to the surface of her own consciousness and cannot ever be submerged again? I carried the painting to a desk and sat in the near darkness, staring at it for some time. I don’t know how long. Trains blew past in the night. And then, in the empty stillness, I saw it. The meaning arrived whole, in a sort of quiet devastation. I say devastation, because just as you can’t write compelling fictional characters if you don’t care about them and the choices they make (even the villains!), I don’t think I can really articulate what’s going on with the subjects of Richter’s paintings till I’ve been able to posit myself inside the emotional space they’re inhabiting. At the end of the day, I wished better for this woman. I did not want her, by her own past choices, to have trapped herself in such vacancy. Hers is a sad wisdom to apprehend by experience. Be careful what you wish for. I trusted him more when I was the other woman. Funny how much more I trusted him when I was the “other woman.” When I was his mistress, I felt like I could trust him more. I trusted him more as his mistress than I do now as his wife. And why should I trust him? It was easier to trust him as his mistress than as his wife. I trust him less now, because there’s more to lose. I trusted him more as his mistress. The first phrase I wrote was also the obvious choice—no reason to complicate it further. No reason to hit the reader over the head with a more detailed explanation either. Better to let the meaning unfold in the reader/viewer’s mind based on this brief phrase. Everything we need to know is already contained in it. The meaning ripples outward. Of course, that didn’t stop me from trying to tinker with it, but in the end, it was the first phrase I wrote that easily won out.

I can’t remember how it happened, but a decade ago I ended up with a song called “I Am the Sword” on my iPod (one of the big chunky ones that made clicking noises). I recall being baffled by the song and going back to it again and again to try to puzzle out its meaning, which wasn’t readily apparent to me until I read the lyrics years later. I also hadn’t realized until recently that the song is an early instance of a theme running through much of Eric’s music (and writing), a theme of plumbing the thoughts and cares of inanimate objects (like bikes and onions). Eric is one of my finest friends now, but the beginning of my friendship with his music goes all the way back to that one song, which is one of the gems on this new EP, Counting My Rings. Last week, Eric wrote up a history of each of the tracks on Counting (click here to read that post), and the (digital only) album is now available in the Rabbit Room store. Here’s the song that made me an Eric Peters fan. I hope it does the same for a few of you. “I Am the Sword” by Eric Peters from Counting My Rings: B-sideshttps://rabbitroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/IamtheSword.mp3 Cold, hard steel on a weary battlefield Makes for stuff of legend and of myth Forged from the ore which never should have bore The brunt of such a war to begin with Bedded down for the eve, I easily drift off to sleep without a care, without a second thought I am the brazen bearer of a great and holy terror a venom and deliverer of sorts I am the union, I am secesh I am the musket in the field at wilderness I am the foe, I am the friend I am the bloodied saber at the battle’s end I am the rifle, and I am the sword I helped to turn the tide while still on the rebel’s side the master in the slave’s lowly hand once you realize that all the promises were lies you never want to be used again once you realize that all your truths were only lies you never want to be held again I am the union, I am secesh I am the musket in the field at wilderness I am the foe, I am the friend I am the bloodied saber at the battle’s end I am the murderer of brothers from both near and far I am Grant, I am Lee I am the wedge dividing men and their beloved country

When we launched this website back in 2007 none of us had any real idea what it might grow into. Andrew invited a bunch of (mostly) strangers to start writing together just to see what would happen and, well, things definitely happened. We grew from a simple private blog, to selling a few odd books and some music, to selling a lot of odd books and music and founding a small publishing house. We’ll host the fifth Hutchmoot in Nashville this October, and in just a few weeks we’ll hold the first ever Hutchmoot Retreat at Laity Lodge in Texas. And all this has happened because of you, a vibrant community of readers and supporters that reaches around the world. In the last seven years, though, we’ve all grown and changed, and as a result, a lot of us don’t have as much time to devote to the Rabbit Room blog as we once did. But that’s not a bad thing—it just means we’re doing other kinds of work. A few cases in point: Russ Ramsey published Behold the Lamb of God: An Advent Narrative, Jonathan Rogers has written a few books, one of which (The Terrible Speed of Mercy) was dedicated to the Rabbit Room community; A. S. “Pete” Peterson published his Fin’s Revolution series; Andrew’s final two Wingfeather Saga books will be published by Rabbit Room Press; S. D. Smith started a beautiful website called Story Warren, which we think of as a super cool cousin of the Rabbit Room; all of our writers have written and published poetry, short stories and essays in The Molehill; and that’s not to mention all the good music the Rabbit Room community has been a part of promoting. Still, the thoughtful posts and conversations begotten by the website itself are at the heart of what keeps the community active. So if we want to continue the good work that the Rabbit Room does, we need to find ways to keep it healthy. This is something that’s been on our minds for months now. We’ve spent many a day wondering what the future of the Rabbit Room looks like and how best to nurture it. You gave us some encouraging and insightful feedback in answer to Andrew’s “What is the Rabbit Room For?” post, and Pete has discussed this with many of you, exploring the nature of the issue and the possibilities it presents, and at last, we’ve made some exciting decisions. The first is that we’re moving the Rabbit Room to an open submissions policy. We get submissions on an almost daily basis and sometimes they’re great. But we’ve never had a clear policy in effect for how to handle them. So as of today, we have a comprehensive submissions policy posted on the site (the link is at the top of the page). The purpose of this change isn’t to flood the Rabbit Room with random posts from strangers. The purpose is to invite folks to write, to create, to take some ownership in the Rabbit Room, and to give us a structured way to select the best for use while having clear grounds to turn down others. (Click here to check out the Submissions page.) The second is that we’re going to change up the masthead, which means two things: 1) We’ve invited some fresh new voices to be contributors. Many of them will be familiar to you, some may not be, but all of them have interesting perspectives on life, art, faith, and community, and we’re excited to see what each of them will bring to the conversation that the Rabbit Room fosters. 2) The new masthead will be missing some old friends. Let me assure you, though, that no one has been “fired.” If you notice that a name that has always been on the list is gone, that doesn’t mean we’ve kicked someone out and don’t love them any more. We’re merely graduating some folks to alumni status. All of our writers are still more than welcome to post as often as they’d like. But the fact is that the contributor list needs to reflect the writers who are actively contributing to the content. As some people have grown over the years, they’re no longer able to post as often as they once did, and we totally get that. They’ll be by to visit as often as they can. So, to the new contributors: Welcome! I’m glad you’re here and I can’t wait to see how your spot at the table is going to change you and us and build the Kingdom in ways that we can’t imagine. Allow us to introduce everyone to the new kids on the block: Rebecca Reynolds – Rebecca is a writer, teacher, poet, songwriter, mom, preacher’s wife, and two-time Hutchmoot speaker. Mix all that together and she’s bound to have something unique to offer. If you’ve seen her on Facebook, you’ve probably noticed that she’s incredibly articulate, passionate, contemplative—and not at all scared to write about it (at the very least, she exercises exceptional bravery in the face of fear). David Michael Bruno – Dave is the author of The 100-Thing Challenge. He and his wife live in California but that hasn’t stopped them from coming to Hutchmoot at least twice (maybe three times). We’ve always been impressed with Dave’s thoughtfulness and look forward to hearing more from him. Chris Slaten – Chris is a singer-songwriter and literature teacher. Need we say more? Last year he released his first EP, The Mantis and the Moon, and some of us played it non-stop for about two months. He’s getting ready to start a new project with Ben Shive. David Mitchel – David has been to two Hutchmoots now and he’s become a big part of the online community. He’s a lawyer, but we like him anyway, and we’ve always appreciated his humor and well-spoken nature. Chris Yokel – Chris is a poet, teacher, and soon-to-be husband. He’s published six (?) books of his poetry and even teaches online classes about The Silmarillion, for which he wins huge nerd points (a good thing). Jen Rose – Jen has been a part of the Rabbit Room community for as long as we can remember. She and Chris (Yokel) met at Hutchmoot and are about to become the third official Hutchmatch. She’s a fine writer and thinker and we can’t wait to see more of her work. Barbara Lane – Barbara has a Fiddler’s Gun inspired tattoo, so she’s in. ‘Nuff said. (She’s also a teacher, a great writer, and an accomplished doodler.) Joe Sutphin – We wanted to bring aboard more visual artists and Joe is one of them. Joe is an illustrator and he’s currently hard at work illustrating The Warden and the Wolf King. We love his style, and we’re happy to have him aboard. Chris Stewart – Chris is the second of our visual artists. He’s designed the covers of The Molehill vols. 1 & 2 as well as the Hutchmoot 2013 poster. He’s an illustrator, loves cats, and hopes one day to write and illustrate children’s books. Also, he lives about three blocks from here, which means we can go choke him if he doesn’t contribute often enough. Heidi Johnston – Heidi is the author of Life in the Big Story, and is Irish—she lives just outside of Belfast, not far from C. S. Lewis’s birthplace. Andrew and his family got to know her and her sweet family during their visit to Northern Ireland last summer, and her daughters video chat with Skye from time to time. Jamin Still – A few years ago, Jamin met with Andrew at a little coffeehouse in the Midwest and gave him a painting. That painting now hangs on a wall at the Warren, and Andrew looks at it every time he brews coffee. Jamin has been plugging away at his otherworldly art for years now, and we’re glad for this chance to peek into his process. So there you go. Many of the original contributors are still here and still active. Expect to see them for years to come. But we also want you to get to know these new folks. You might call them the Class of 2014. It’s going to be a great year. Thanks for being a part of our community.

[Editor’s note: Eric Peters’ new EP, Counting My Rings: B-Sides, comes out next Tuesday. We asked Eric to spill the beans and give us a song by song breakdown of each track included on the new release. Here’s resulting spilt-bean pattern.] Occasionally in an artist’s (me) career (mine), there are leftover songs, extras, B-sides—lagniappe, if you will. These are complete songs (produced, recorded, and mixed) that, for various reasons, have failed to find a home on any album. I’m fortunate enough, if fortune is the right word, to have a few such extra songs—rings—hiding in the recesses of my portfolio. I’m currently between studio albums (BiRDS OF RELOCATiON was released in 2012), and I thought it would be a good a time to make this selection available. I see these B-sides as an opportunity for folks to count a few of the rings in the Eric Peters canon that, until now, have remained uncounted and unheard. These recordings are laden with my usual lyrically-knotted abstracts, and for the instances in which I inexplicably sing with nothing shy of a twang, or I simply try too hard to “mean it,” I can only beg your grace. Track 1: “Bedlam and the Fuse” In 2006, a friend of mine attending Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) had a class project in which he had to produce and mix two original songs by someone/anyone. He asked if I’d be interested, and whether I had any new songs I’d like to have recorded. I had just written “Bedlam,” and was eager to hear a produced version of it, so I volunteered it (along with another new song, “The Traveling Onion”). Written during the so-called war on terror, Bedlam is my response to what I perceived to be the futility of fighting in a no-win situation. It was not at all my intention for it to be a “statement” song in the political sense, but merely my own response to the chaos (bedlam) of a world on the verge of self-destruction (fuse), a world willfully ignoring the use of common sense. Track 2: “Counting My Rings” Written no later than 2002, and recorded in 2002/03 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana for Miracle of Forgetting, this was another of my attempts at empathizing with inanimate objects. For whatever reason, I am naturally inclined to give a voice to things that cannot articulate their own stories. My interpretations may not be remotely close to actual truth, but they inevitably reveal a bit of my own story. In “Counting,” I empathize with a tree facing its own mortality. Its hidden annual rings are proof of living and survival—of fire, drought, pestilence—and only in its felling will it fully reveal those layers of struggle and thriving, holding them up as little offerings and victories. Track 3: “I Am the Sword” In this song, I empathize with a nineteenth-century weapon in the hands of a Union or Confederate soldier. Written sometime between 2000-2002, “Sword” is further proof that history-themed songs elicit very little interest from the general population, which explains why the song has never been on one of my studio albums. You either love history or you hate it—or so I’ve heard. A Bachelor of Arts degree in history firmly in hand, I remain a fan of the lessons of the past, and for as long as I live I will continue to bore people with the merits of history married to song. This was recorded in 2002/03 for the Miracle of Forgetting sessions in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, but since it didn’t fit with the overall production or subject matter of that record, it was cut. When it came time to make the followup (Scarce, 2006), I presented it to the producer, who took no interest in it whatsoever, merely responding, “What is that about?” So we moved on, and the song was shelved once again. I kept hoping “Sword” would find a home somewhere, and this EP seemed as good a niche as any. Outcasts, after all, must stick together. One day I would like to record a Louisiana-tinged, history-themed album that I hope will include this song. Hold your breath. Track 4: “Traveling Onion” Written in 2008 at the urging of my wife, who first introduced me to the poetry of Naomi Shihab Nye. Smitten by her brilliantly simple prose, I absconded with Mrs. Nye’s poem of the same title, and wrote this song. I may or may not have plagiarized her words. This was the second of the two aforementioned MTSU song demos, and though I liked this version, overall it felt a bit heavy-handed, especially for inclusion on Chrome (2009). I wound up re-recording the song with producer Ben Shive at The Beehive in Nashville in 2008/09, and I felt Ben’s deft artistic touch better fit the overall melancholy of Chrome. After recording the album version, I was squeamish for not having asked Mrs. Nye’s permission to transform her wonderful poem into an eccentric song comparing life as an artist to that of the translucence of an onion on the chopping block. I mailed Mrs. Nye a copy of the CD and a handwritten letter begging grace and forgiveness, hoping for the best. She was kind enough to reply, expressing her joy at the final result, and I remain glad for her edification and her accessible poetry, as well her blessing on the existence of the song.

Here’s a story I once heard about a colorful character somewhere in the great state of Missouri. It was told to me for the truth. The fellow who told me the story had been a lawyer near Kansas City. He was coming out of the courthouse one bright afternoon, he said, when he saw a family across the way: a four- or five-year-old daughter, a mother, and a father whose hair was styled in a feechie-ish manner—short in the front but cascading in the back down below the scoop of his white tank top. Also, he had a parrot on his shoulder. The father nudged the little girl and pointed up at the upper floor of the courthouse. “Baby,” he said, “wave hello to Granddaddy.” The little girl waved enthusiastically, and the onlooking lawyer looked up to see a wizened old hand reaching through the bars of the upstairs cell window to wave back. “A touching scene of filial devotion,” I think was how the lawyer described it. The errand of mercy complete, the little girl looked up at her father and sweetly asked, “Diddy, can you take me to McDonald’s to get some french fries?” “I sure can, darling,” the father answered. Then he pointed at the parrot on his shoulder. “Just let me swing by and take Freebird home first.” Before I heard that story, it had never occurred to me to want a parrot. Now I want one just so I can name him Freebird. Bonus parrot-related anecdote: A friend of mine has a parrot named Mr. Quito. (To my friend’s chagrin, Mr. Quito turned out to be a she-parrot—a fact that came to light when Mr. Quito was several years old.) When my friend moved to a new house, he locked Mr. Quito in the closet below the stairs so that s/he would be out of the movers’ way and wouldn’t be stressed out at the sight of the house being in such disarray (who knew parrots were so particular?). But Mr. Quito was a little stressed out in spite of it all. He spent much of the day repeating, “Let me out of here! Rrrawk! Let me out of here!” It was discomfiting to the movers, who gave each other concerned looks every time they walked past the stairs. Finally, unable to stand the cruelty of it any longer, one of the movers leaned down and called through the keyhole, “It’s all right, Grandma—we’ll be out of here in a little while. I’m sure he’ll let you out then.”

[Editor’s note: If you were at Hutchmoot 2013 you’ll almost certainly remember Doug McKelvey’s mesmerizing reading, explanation, and example of the Subjects with Objects project. Many people (I’m one of them) considered it one of their favorite moments of the weekend. So I’ve asked Doug if he would begin a regular series here on the Rabbit Room to continue giving us glimpses into the process that results in the strange magic of Subjects with Objects. Here’s hoping that this is the first of many.] Subjects With Objects is an ongoing, collaborative art project forever ordered according to the following rules: A shadowy public spaces painter sets up in pubs and bars and executes spontaneous portraits at the rate of one painting per pint. He then hands off those enigmatic little ocular disturbances to a semi-anonymous poet & novelist who lives with them long enough to solicit their otherworldly mumblings and ephemeral whispers, distilling each of their essences into a line or two of poetic prose. The painter is Jonathan Richter. The poet is UNKNOWN & UNKNOWABLE, so it is best NOT TO EVEN ASK! However, for the sake of convenience we may refer to him as DKM. P. Peterson (Editor, The Rabbit Room) recently extended an invitation for Subjects With Objects to open a window into the creative process that yields the eventual gallery pieces, including those collected in the recent book Subjects With Objects, Vol I. After much deliberation, cajoling, intimidation, and consultation of various charts related to tidal patterns and moon-phases, it was agreed. But on the one condition that a rare, silver sparrow be captured and displayed in a gilded cage hung from the prow of a lost, ghostly schooner in the North Atlantic. Pete assures all concerned that this requirement has now been met. He cowers in a corner, shivering uncontrollably, LOUDLY INSISTING it is true. For the time being, Pete has been taken at his word.* But enough about Pete. Subjects With Objects Unplugged Untitled 26 Pondering the luminescence that is not our own. When Richter hands me (DKM) a painting, it’s rare that the meaning and subsequent text surface quickly. It’s more often a meditative process of seeing, of studying the figure, the lines, the colors, the relationship of subject to object, etc. Given enough time, potential meanings begin to surface and to narrow down. Certain relationships become apparent. Certain moods. Certain possibilities. And so I begin chasing various observations, chronicling them on the pages of a standard yellow legal pad. I’m searching for the phrase that feels right, that provides a doorway into a larger world, that taps into the shared human experience in all it’s manifold weariness and brokenness, yet still fraught round the ragged edges with that faded but perceptible glory. I want a phrase that leads without forcing. Frequently it’s somewhere in the middle of the page that the right trail begins, the one that will ultimately yield the final word choice. Sometimes in going back months later to peruse my original musings, I realize that I settled on the wrong choice altogether, but most often one of the phrases will, given time, emerge unchallenged and stake it’s rightful claim. What we plan to offer in these “Subjects With Objects Unplugged” columns are the artifacts of the behind-the-scenes journeys to reach those final text choices. We’ll be posting finished pieces, along with the lists of yellow-legal-pad-phrases that led up to that piece. In scanning through them, you can usually work out the game trails my thoughts went hunting along. For whatever reason, several people have remarked that this process intrigues them as much or more than the finished pieces. I can’t say why that would be so, but at the end of the day, who am I to stand in the way of the happiness of others? In Untitled 26, Richter gave me a lot to work with. The Moon, after all, arrives with a boatload of meaning and associations, spanning human history, myth, and literature. The more immediate questions were, “Why is she now holding an armful of lightbulbs?” and “What is she explaining?” because to me it seemed immediately obvious from the shape of her mouth and the position of her hands that she was in the middle of explaining something important. Something she’s been thinking about for a good, long while. And then, suddenly, everything just went dark. And everyone just kept looking at me and I got really self-conscious. It’s hard not to compare yourself to the girls in the advertisements. So it was always like, yeah, they write poems about me, but when they actually see the real me, they run. So it was always like, yeah, they write poems about me, but when they actually see me for who I am, they don’t want anything to do with me. They want me to be this luminous beauty, but all I can think about is this crater problem. Yes, I’m aware I’ve got craters. Are you aware you’re stupid? Yes, I’m aware I’ve got craters. Are you aware you’re a stupid-head? And I was like, yeah, but for once instead of being the one inspiring the poetry, I’d like to actually be the one getting kissed. Eventually, I gave up on the idea of ever being kissed, and just made peace with the idea that I would always be the one setting the mood. I just feel better knowing I’ve got a backup. And ever since, I’ve been afraid of the dark. It’s hard not to compare yourself to the moons you see in photographs. It’s hard not to compare yourself to Jupiter’s moons. It’s hard not to compare yourself to the Hubble images. It’s hard not to compare your own brightness to images from the Hubble. Because, as it turns out, I don’t have any of my own. Because, as it turns out, what I thought was my light was only reflected from Mister Flameface. Because, as it turns out, what I thought was my light was only reflected from old mister what’s-his-name. Because, as it turns out, I don’t have any light of my own. Because, as it turns out, I was only reflecting the light from somewhere else. And now they’re telling me it was always reflective. And now they’re telling me all I was ever doing was reflecting. Do you have any idea what it’s like, after all those years, to find out the light wasn’t your own? Do you have any idea what it’s like, after all those years, to find out the light was never your own. And now they’re telling me it wasn’t actually my own, but just something I was reflecting. I gave and gave and gave, only to find out all I ever really did was reflect. The truth is, it felt like I was glowing, but now they tell me I was only reflecting. In my more honest moments, I suspect I always knew the light wasn’t my own. There was always that little voice that said perhaps the light wasn’t really my own. I claimed the light as my own, and eventually I believed it. But it was they who told me the light was my own. All I did was believe them. But it was they who told me the light was my own. Was it so wrong to believe them? The danger of being worshiped is that you so easily begin to believe the light is your own. The biggest shock was learning that the light was not actually my own. The biggest shock was learning that all my light was borrowed. I was afraid that if they ever knew my light was borrowed, they would stop writing poetry about me. It wasn’t my fault that they believed the light was my own. It’s not my fault they believed the light was my own. It’s not my fault they believed it was my light. In a sense, wasn’t it my own light, though? Because I was the one reflecting it. I mean, technically it was never my own light, but after a while you just kind of get used to people thinking it is. After a while you get tired of explaining it’s not your light but just something you’re reflecting and you just start saying “Thanks.” After a while you get tired of explaining it’s not your own light and you just start saying “Yeah, thanks. Glad you enjoyed it.” *P. Peterson (Editor) recently returned from a three-week absence with telltale claw-scarring around his knuckles, and a verbal assurance that the mandate had been accomplished (though THE AUTHORITIES are still awaiting photographic proof). In Pete’s defense, as he cowers beneath his bed, downing gallons of “Spanish Lemonade” and scrawling runes of warding in charcoal upon his baseboards, he does indeed bear the glassy stare and “variegated whiskers” most commonly associated with the “soul harrowing” required in the capturing ceremony of any magical sparrow North of the Equator.

My cousin Jason worked for a heating and air conditioning company when he was in high school. They took care of the huge air conditioning units that sat atop the local mall. The mall had pigeons. Looking up through the skylights, a shopper could see them bobbing and strutting on the roof. They were picturesque, but when they took up residence in the air conditioning units, they played havoc with the interior climate of the mall. Jason, the youngest (and, presumably, the least skilled) of the company’s employees, was assigned the task of discouraging the pigeons. So one summer morning he carried a BB gun to the mall and climbed through the roof hatch with it. Jason was popping away on the roof of the mall when a shopper looked up and screamed at the sight of a young man aiming and shooting a gun. It hadn’t been two weeks earlier that a man in Florida—Jacksonville, I think it was—had climbed on top of a building and started shooting people. That episode weighed on the woman’s mind as she looked for the security guard. Once he was good and awake, he seemed to agree that a copycat crime could be in the works. Over the next few minutes, the mall was encircled by every police car in town, news trucks from all three Macon TV stations, photographers from both the Daily Sun and the Telegraph, a SWAT team, and agents from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Jason, for his part, heard the sirens and wondered what was afoot, but he soon turned back to the matter at hand. Pigeons were flapping and feathers were flying, and there was a flurry of activity on Jason’s side of the AC units, which blocked his view of the SWAT team positioning themselves around the parking lot. He blithely went about his business while Middle Georgia’s media and law enforcement personnel went about theirs. It being a hot day, Jason put down his BB gun and headed down the roof hatch to get a drink of water and cool off in the mall. As he came down the ladder, he was met by a surge of policemen coming up. A red-faced lieutenant grabbed him by the back of the shirt and pulled him down. “Boy, are you crazy?” he shouted. “Get down here! There’s a sniper on the roof!” Jason’s heart jumped into his throat. “A sniper?” he gasped. He felt weak through the knees. “I didn’t see any sniper.” “There’s a man with a gun,” the police officer said. “You’re lucky you didn’t get hurt—or worse.” “The only person up there with a gun was me,” Jason said, and he immediately realized he had said the wrong thing. The policemen frog-marched Jason to the mall management office, where they asked him some pointed questions. It didn’t take too long for them to sort everything out. The mall manager had known that somebody was coming to service the AC units; he just didn’t realize that the service call would involve the shooting of pigeons. Jason’s boss came to the mall and corroborated his story. The SWAT team packed their gear and climbed back into their van. The news reporters went away sad. And life in Warner Robins, Georgia mostly returned to normal.

Many of you know Helena Sorensen from Hutchmoot last year. She is the author of Shiloh, a Young Adult Fantasy I am eager to read. I love this post. It gets at something we value so deeply at Story Warren and, I think, at The Rabbit Room as well. –Sam I really don’t know how Lewis did it, how he stuffed so many little gems between the pages of The Chronicles of Narnia. As a child, I saw them sparkling, and they were lovely. As an adult, having done a bit of living and then returned to the tales, I’ve been able to pluck out the shiny things and put them in my pocket. I found one recently in the closing chapters of The Silver Chair. For those unfamiliar with The Silver Chair, [spoilers in this paragraph] this story follows Jill Pole and Eustace Scrubb on a quest to find the lost prince of Narnia, Prince Rilian. Along with Puddleglum, the children free the prince from his long imprisonment in the Underworld. In the process, they help Rilian kill the witch/queen/sorceress who had bewitched and enslaved him. But it’s not until the company escapes the Underworld and returns to Narnia that they piece together the whole of the witch’s plan. At the very end of their quest, they realize “how she had dug right under Narnia and was going to break out and rule it through Rilian: and how he had never dreamed that the country of which she would make him king (king in name, but really her slave) was his own country.” That passage stopped me cold, the strength of my reaction seemingly disproportionate to the words I’d read. I moved on to the next chapter, while my son listened and squirmed. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that some great, eternal bell had tolled, and I was changed. Perhaps most of you have gotten this revelation already, and I’m slow on the uptake. It wouldn’t be the first time. But Lewis’s lost prince and the bleak future that awaited him are finally getting through to me. I’m realizing a terrible truth. I have lived as a slave in my own kingdom. In this little house, with the front closet that’s always filling with damp and mildew, with the warped boards in the floor beside the washing machine, with the shelves spilling over with books, and the walls covered with photographs of chunky babies . . . in this place, the place where God has given me some measure of dominion, I have lived like a slave. I’ve seen every mess, every meal, every load of laundry as a link in a chain. I’ve answered endless questions and filled endless mornings and changed endless diapers as acts of penance. The Enemy is so subtle, and I am so easily bewitched. Ever he comes to “steal and kill and destroy,” and I relinquish my freedom, my authority, my joy. I let him take it all, without a fight, without a word of protest. That’s slave mentality for you. Three lines from an old Henry Van Dyke poem keep running around in my head. This is my work; my blessing, not my doom; Of all who live, I am the one by whom This work can best be done in the right way. My days are filled to overflowing with work. It’s very rarely the neat, organized, sitting-behind-a-desk variety. More often, it’s the smelly, frustrating, down-on-your-knees variety. But my work is my blessing, not my doom. Of all who live, I am the one best suited to bring order and beauty to this little kingdom. “It is for freedom that Christ set us free.” (Gal. 5:1)  Lewis knew it. He knew also how often we become entangled in yokes of bondage. One thin veil of lies, one small net of self-pity, one little spell cast over us, and we forfeit our freedom. Prince Rilian was given the rule of a country. I’ve been given rule over a little house and some little souls. It’s a high calling, a blessed rule, a joyful endeavor. If only I have eyes to see it. “By entering into the world and confronting the Evil One with the fullness of Divine Goodness, the way was opened for us to live in the world, no longer as victims, but as free men and women, guided, not by optimism, but by hope.”  —Henri Nouwen “Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.”  —Romans 8:21

The Rabbit Room, both as a community and as a website, has been in a state of evolution since its inception. It started as a glorified blog, the content of which was provided by a ragtag group of acquaintances and friends who had very little idea what they were getting into. We also sold used books by our favorite writers, books usually culled by Eric Peters and I from the shelves of bookstores around the country. Then the website evolved into a ragtag group of actual friends—no longer just acquaintances—whose enjoyment of music and books and writing spilled over into the website. We began to realize that the website was perhaps more than just a glorified blog, read by more than just our moms. The world is a different place than it was seven years ago, but if you look at this vision for the Rabbit Room from 2007, you’ll see that two of our guiding principles haven’t changed much: I always envisioned this website having two functions: 1) supporting the readers/listeners by exposing them to art that is edifying, beautiful, true, and 2) providing an opportunity for the readers/listeners to support the artists by purchasing their works. But there have been lots of additions to that vision, additions that came as a complete surprise, starting with Hutchmoot in all its strange glory (with Walt Wangerin!). Then we rented office space, with Pete Peterson masterfully at the management helm, diversifying the Rabbit Room Store. Then came another Hutchmoot (Sally Lloyd-Jones!), and Rabbit Room Press, and the publication of the Molehill, then another Hutchmoot (Phil Vischer!), and another (Leif Enger!). Our little community grew and grew to include men, women and children all over America–poets, artists, parents, pastors, authors, pipe makers, screenwriters, cooks, and—yes— accountants. See what I mean? Evolution. We have big dreams for where this thing might go—like bolstering the Rabbit Room Press (there’s a long list of books we wish we could publish), and opening a brick-and-mortar Rabbit Room here in Nashville (so if one of you wins the lottery, please let us know). One of my favorite verses in the Bible is that one where it talks about that one thing. Another favorite is Psalm 127:1: “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.” That principle was at the front of my mind when we were dreaming up this website/community/experiment, and I pray that the same is true today. We want this place to be fully and unabashedly under God’s dominion, which means that if it continues to evolve, then great—if it runs its course and dies a grisly death, we have to be fine with that, too. So the time has come to take inventory, to open the suggestion box, to ask you, dear readers, what we’re missing and how the Rabbit Room can serve you better. So let us have it. What needs to change? Why do you come here, if you come at all? What, oh what, is the Rabbit Room for?

Kelly Keller is another Hutchmooter from the amazing and terrifying Charlotte hordes. This post reminds me of a quotation our noble Proprietor often shares in concert, about how despair is not just a sin, but a mistake, because we don’t know how the story will end. I don’t know who said it, or if I said it right, but it’s good and I like when AP says it. This appeared at Story Warren and now it appears here and we have no idea where it might appear next because we don’t know the end of the story.   –Sam This week in our read-aloud, we rounded the bend towards the end of The Fellowship of the Ring. Gandalf thrust down his staff, blew up the bridge, and said, “You cannot pass!” to a balrog. There was the anticipated silence when Gandalf disappeared down the crevasse after the creature. Even Maddie knew what had happened without any explanation. I used to say that I only felt comfortable in this story when Gandalf was around — and at this point, he’s gone. Everything is different. We as readers anticipate the unknown with dread. The description Tolkien gives of the balrog plays upon our tendency to make things more terrifying in our minds when they are abstract. Here is how the balrog is described: “. . . it was like a great shadow, in the middle of which was a dark form, of man-shape maybe, yet greater; and a power and terror seemed to be in it and to go before it.” He does go on to say that it carries a blade in one hand and a whip in the other, but not much more information is given. When I reread that passage to the kids, I realized that Tolkien doesn’t really give much visual information about some of his villains. There is plenty of detail about the hobbits, elves, dwarves, and other heroes, but some of the bad guys get talked about in very abstract terms. It’s genius. They stay in the shadows. His description of the creature Shelob, who appears at the end of The Two Towers, is similarly vague. She is not a spider, but “in spider-form.” We are then told about what she has done and the dread she inspires. Tolkien, in his task as master storyteller, plays on our ability to make things worse in our minds. This is why books can be scarier than movies. Movies give you the picture—they limit the terror in a way. Sometimes these creatures appear in film and I think, “That is not how I pictured it at ALL,” and I’m tuned out. What appears onscreen is limited to a few people’s vision of what it should be, and if I am not one of those people, I am held at a distance as a viewer. It doesn’t scare me as much. Imagination is a powerful tool, and it can work against us sometimes. I’ve been thinking lately about my tendency to make anticipated things worse than they really are. Tolkien creatures are worthy of dread; most of the things I fear are not—or at least not as worthy of dread as I make them out to be. I look at situations in my life and make them out to be far worse than they are in reality, because the details are hidden. I am like the little hero facing down an unknown monster, and for some reason I sketch in the missing details in the bleakest way possible. All those things I don’t know must certainly be the worst. I know I am not alone in this tendency. The term “mommy guilt” came about because of it. The entire line of “Worst-Case Scenario” products played on it. We look at the scene we are in and skip to what must surely be an unhappy ending. If the characters in the story could step back and see what the storyteller sees, they might not despair quite so keenly. They would trust the twists and turns as part of the greater narrative. May it be so for me, and for all of us. —–   —–   —– Featured image courtesy of Chinwe

I love that moment in “The Ugly Duckling” when the poor, persecuted duckling, set upon on every side by ducks and hens and cats and henwives, sees a flock of swans: The duckling had never seen anything so beautiful. They were dazzlingly white with long waving necks. They were swans, and uttering a peculiar cry they spread out their magnificent broad wings and flew away from the cold regions to warmer lands and open seas. They mounted so high, so very high, and the ugly little duckling became strangely uneasy. He circled round and round in the water like a wheel, craning his neck up into the air after them. Then he uttered a shriek so piercing and so strange that he was quite frightned by it himself. Oh, he could not forget those birds, those beautiful birds. Was there ever a better depiction of what it’s like to be a child? The duckling, so full of self-doubt, marvels and trembles at the thing he is destined to become. We know what he doesn’t know: he will be that beautiful someday. Beautiful someday. The duckling’s great revelation is that he is himself a thing of wonder. He admired the swans, but it never occurred to him to aspire to swanhood. When he finally comes face to face with the swans, he assumes that they will kill him for his ugliness. Bowing his neck for the fatal blow, he sees his reflection in the water. And there he sees a swan. It’s the divine comedy. Our wildest dreams turn out not to be wild enough. Our fondest hopes turn out to be pale beside the truth. And we long and ache for that which turns out to have been true all along.

I’ve been reading some old stories in preparation for sharing some on Fridays over at Story Warren and I came across this little gem from Mrs. W. K. Clifford. It’s from her collection, Very Short Stories, written around the turn of the last century. While it’s probably too didactic for children to enjoy and has no real plot, I found it inspiring and lovely. It gets at something I believe many of us care deeply about. See if you feel the same. —Sam The Light on the Hills by Mrs. W. K. Clifford “I want to work at my picture,” he said, and went into the field. The little sister went too, and stood by him watching while he painted. “The trees are not quite straight,” she said, presently, “and oh, dear brother, the sky is not blue enough.” “It will all come right soon,” he answered. “Will it be of any good?” “Oh yes,” she said, wondering that he should even ask, “it will make people happy to look at it. They will feel as if they were in the field.” “If I do it badly, will it make them unhappy?” “Not if you do your very best,” she answered; “for they will know how hard you have tried. Look up,” she said suddenly, “look up at the light upon the hills,” and they stood together looking at all he was trying to paint, at the trees and the field, at the deep shadows and the hills beyond, and the light that rested upon them. “It is a beautiful world,” the girl said. “It is a great honour to make things for it.” “It is a beautiful world,” the boy echoed sadly. “It is a sin to disgrace it with things that are badly done.” “But you will do things well?” “I get so tired,” he said, “and long to leave off so much. What do you do when you want to do your best,—your very, very best?” he asked, suddenly. “I think that I am doing it for the people I love,” she answered. “It makes you very strong if you think of them; you can bear pain, and walk far, and do all manner of things, and you don’t get tired so soon.” He thought for a moment. “Then I shall paint my picture for you,” he said; “I shall think of you all the time I am doing it.” Once more they looked at the hills that seemed to rise up out of the deep shadows into the light, and then together they went home. Soon afterwards a great sorrow came to the boy. While the little sister slept, she wandered into another world, and journeyed on so far that she lost the clue to earth, and came back no more. The boy painted many pictures before he saw the field again, but in the long hours, as he sat and worked, there came to him a strange power that answered more and more truly to the longing in his heart—the longing to put into the world something of which he was not ashamed, something which should make it, if only in the person of its meanest, humblest citizen, a little happier or better. At last, when he knew that his eye was true and his touch sure, he took up the picture he had promised to paint for the dear sister, and worked at it until he was finished. “This is better than all he has done before,” the beholders said. “It is surely beautiful, for it makes one happy to look at it.” “And yet my heart ached as I did it,” the boy said, as he went back to the field. “I thought of her all the time I worked,—it was sorrow that gave me power.” It seemed as if a soft voice, that spoke only to his heart, answered back— “Not sorrow but love, and perfect love has all things in its gift, and of it are all things born save happiness, and though that may be born too—” “How does one find happiness?” interrupted the boy. “It is a strange chase,” the answer seemed to be; “to find it for one’s own self, one must seek it for others. We all throw the ball for each other.” “But it is so difficult to seize.” “Perfect love helps one to live without happiness,” his own heart answered to himself; “and above all things it helps one to work and to wait.” “But if it gives one happiness too?” he asked eagerly. “Ah, then it is called Heaven.”