The Habit Podcast is a series of conversations with writers about writing, hosted by Jonathan Rogers. This week, Jonathan Rogers talks with Scott Sauls, Senior Pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church in Nashville and author of Jesus Outside the Lines, Irresistible Faith, and most recently A Gentle Answer, which released two days ago. In this episode, Jonathan and Scott discuss the difference between being for and being against, why we’ve recently seen such a renewed interest in Fred Rogers, writing as an instrument of peace, and how gentleness can survive in a world that has made hostility into an asset. Click here to listen to Season 2, Episode 23 of The Habit Podcast.

In Season 2, Episode 10, Drew Miller talks with Taylor Leonhardt and Lucas Morton about the making of Taylor’s new song “Hold Still” from her upcoming album. Drew, Taylor, and Lucas discuss Taylor’s quest to dig deeper into the songwriting process for her second album, songs as streams of water always seeking new spaces to fill, and the imperfect magic of recording an album live in the room with other musicians. Click here to listen to Season 2, Episode 10 of The Second Muse. Transcripts are now available for The Second Muse! You can find them by clicking here. They are typically one or two episodes behind. Special thanks to our Rabbit Room members for making these podcasts possible! If you’re interested in becoming a member, visit RabbitRoom.com/Donate.

I thought I was a peaceful person. I’ve been given titles like “Laid-Back, Chill, and Easy-To-Get-Along-With” all my life, and I thought that was peace. I thought keeping the peace meant being a level-headed bystander, one who doesn’t stir the pot or get involved in arguments, but instead avoids conflicts and keeps conversations lighthearted and surface-level. Because creating conflict or inviting others into my pain or the pain I see in the world would hinder peace, right? This is the philosophy I’ve lived by all my life. In tense situations, I try to change the subject or leave the room. Otherwise, things might get ugly. And ugliness and peace can’t coexist, I told myself. Lately, I can’t stop thinking about peace. Let me explain. Ever since I was first introduced to the Enneagram system a few years ago, I believed myself to be a Five. For those unfamiliar with the Enneagram system, Fives are The Investigators. They’re “the intense, cerebral type: perceptive, innovative, secretive, and isolated.” I saw myself in all those adjectives (well, maybe not the “intense” bit). I thought it all made sense. I’m a nerd. I’m curious about the world. I thought I was a world investigator, devoted to life-long exploration. Just two months ago, I realized I hadn’t even investigated my own Enneagram type closely enough. It turns out I’m not the investigative Five at all, but a Nine, otherwise known as The Peacemaker. This should’ve been clear to me from the beginning based on the Enneagram Institute’s description: “Nines are accepting, trusting, and stable. They are usually creative, optimistic, and supportive, but can also be too willing to go along with others to keep the peace. They want everything to go smoothly and be without conflict, but they can also tend to be complacent, simplifying problems and minimizing anything upsetting.” Well, that all sounds too familiar. These new revelations sent me into a minor existential crisis. I couldn’t stop thinking about the weight of this title—Peacemaker. It hadn’t occurred to me until I saw it spelled out on the Enneagram’s website that I hate the definition of peace I’ve created for myself. I’ve embraced the complacent resistance of conflict as the ultimate vessel of peace when I should have embraced the resistance of injustice and untruth instead. As this sank in and I began to question how I could make peace in this world, Ahmaud Arbery—shot. Breonna Taylor—shot. George Floyd—publicly executed by asphyxiation. It’s become painfully clear that peace is not a status quo to keep. For so many, it doesn’t exist. I need to play a part in making it. I’ve embraced the complacent resistance of conflict as the ultimate vessel of peace when I should have embraced the resistance of injustice and untruth instead. Chris Thiessen In the wake of this violence, I attended a vigil held in the parking lot of a Missionary Baptist Church (situated directly behind our city’s police headquarters). Many spoke. Many prayed. But I was most struck by a young high school student who shared his experience as a black American. He was shaken, nervous. He stumbled through his notes a few times. Heck, he was speaking in front of a thousand people and vulnerably asking, “Why is there no peace in the ‘Land of the Free’?” I don’t think I could share my fears in front of a thousand people today, let alone when I was a high schooler. But this high school student was making peace by sharing himself—his voice, his fears, his hopes for the future—with an audience he didn’t know. Despite the fear he may have experienced—the anxiety about saying the right thing, the worry about what response he would elicit from the white people in the crowd—he did it anyway. The courageous speech of this young high schooler reminds me of an entirely different voice which has played over and over in my head recently, that of country rock artist Jason Isbell. Through his 2020 album Reunions, Isbell shares in heartbreaking detail the shortcomings of his marriage, the guilt of self-preservation, and the pain of recovering from alcoholism. “Last night I dreamed that I’d been drinking / Same dream I have ’bout twice a week / I had one glass of wine / I woke up feeling fine / And that’s how I knew it was a dream,” Isbell sings on “It Gets Easier.” He continues to warn that doing the right thing and overcoming your demons will never be easy, no matter how much progress you make. It’s a courageous record in which Isbell invites us into his process of making peace with himself, his wife, and God, even when it hurts. For Isbell, this process boils down to a simple, unshakeable mantra which offers the perfect definition of peace-making courage: “Be afraid, be very afraid / But do it anyway.” Friends, I’ve been afraid, and I’m ashamed to admit the inconsequential objects of my fear. I’ve been afraid a post on Facebook might make a family member uncomfortable. I’ve been afraid to share my opinion or challenge a joke made in bad taste. People have been afraid of much darker and harsher realities than I, yet here am I, trembling at the keyboard and second guessing every word. I’m not going to change overnight, but I long to share myself with the world without these inhibitions of fear. Be afraid, be very afraid. But do it anyway. Jason Isbell I’m comforted knowing even Jesus, full of sorrow, longed for a different way of making peace. He agonized in the garden with a pain I can never know. He had spent three years of ministry making peace in so many ways—healing sickness, flipping tables, imparting wisdom, embracing the broken, rebuking Pharisees, raising the dead. Still, there was work to do. Jesus was afraid of this work, yet he offered himself for the peace of the world anyway. He shared himself totally—his body, his blood, his breath—so we too could overcome our brokenness. He didn’t avoid the conflict. He dove headfirst into its midst and wrestled and anguished and after three days, he conquered. He may have upset thousands, especially the overly-religious, in the final days before his crucifixion, but countless brothers and sisters remain united in his resurrection. It’s become clear to me that I have not been a peaceful person. I haven’t earned that title or followed Christ’s example of making peace even when it’s agonizing. I’m afraid of what that means—for my habits, my relationships, my choices. But even if that fear never subsides, I pray Christ grants me the courage to share my blood, sweat, tears, time, fears, hopes, attention, and passion with my neighbor. I pray Christ will make me a peacemaker. Right now, we’re faced with a global challenge to see injustice undone and hearts drawn toward Christ. Thousands are fighting this battle in myriad ways and locations. At the Rabbit Room, we believe music is a real vessel for change, and so we have curated a playlist titled A Lament For Justice. Our responses to injustice are always varied and progressive. In that spirit, I’ve ordered these songs to reflect this progression. We begin with songs of lament where we’re faced with the evil in our world and ask God, “How long, O Lord?” We then move to songs of action, songs that remind us to be the hands and feet of Christ in crises, songs that remind us to break chains where bondage remains. Finally, we land in the comfort of Christ and the hope we have to embrace the peace he has already made. I pray these songs challenge you and minister to you in this present crisis of justice and in whatever future crises may come. Take heart. “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.” Click here to listen on Spotify. And here to listen on Apple Music.

[Editor’s note: What follows is the text of Andrew’s commencement speech, which he gave last week to celebrate his daughter, Skye, on her graduation day. We offer it here for all of 2020’s graduates, and all humans living in this calamitous year of 2020.] It’s an honor to be with you all today, in these uncertain times. In these uncertain times I’m very proud of my daughter and all the work it took to get to this point. I’m also very proud of my wife, who successfully homeschooled all three of our kids and is now, in these uncertain times, home free, in these uncertain times. Okay, I’m going to make a confession: if I have to hear the phrase “in these uncertain times” again, my brain might explode. I get it. Truly, the world feels unfamiliar and unsettled right now. It’s not just that the COVID-19 stuff utterly disrupted life as we knew it, but that many thousands of people have suffered and died. Add to that the murders of George Floyd in Minnesota and Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia, and the waves of grief and rage we’re all experiencing, and add to that all the troubling news from around the world, and I’d agree that yes, these are uncertain times. My heart aches. Six months ago things (for me, at least) were kind of chugging along, and no one had ever heard of COVID-19. But in a flash, everything changed. Now our history has a new dividing line: before Coronavirus and after Coronavirus, kind of like 9/11. I used to have a pretty good idea what was coming, but now I haven’t a clue, from one day to the next. I watch the news with a desperate hope that they’ll tell us this pandemic is going to be over in a week, that systemic racism is finally banished from our hearts and our nation, that the world, at last, is at peace. I long for it. Everything feels so crazy that I just want to make some soup and get a blankie and let John Krasinski to tell me some good news. But to say that these times are uncertain implies that the time before was certain. Graduates, these times aren’t any less certain than a year ago or 100 or 1,000 years ago. The times have always been uncertain. We have no idea what’s coming in five minutes or five years. It is precisely when all hope seems lost that hope is most important. Andrew Peterson We have some friends in Iowa named Bill and Jo Anne Schuster. I met them many years ago on a tour, because the pastor at the church put us up at their house. He told me they had a great story. I got to the house and liked them immediately. Bill was a tall, lanky guy with a white mustache, a bald head, and an easy laugh; his wife Joanne was thin and quick and boisterous for her age. They’re the kind of people who see you, who ask you good questions and genuinely want to know the answers. I liked them immediately. “So what’s your story?” I asked at dinner. They told us that their marriage wasn’t the first for either of them—that they had each lost a spouse. Bill lost his first wife to a car accident and Joanne lost her first husband to cancer. Here’s the crazy thing. Bill and his wife were best friends with Jo Anne and her husband. The couples vacationed together, went to church together, and their kids all grew up together. When the spouses died around the same time, Bill and Jo Anne leaned on each other for support, and after a few years, they fell in love and got married. That meant their two sets of kids suddenly became step-siblings, and they all loved it. Crazy, right? The next day I saw a painting on the wall and at the bottom was the inscription, “To the Schusters.” I asked Jo Anne who gave them the painting, and she grinned and said, “My husband and I gave it to Bill and his wife twenty years ago. I never realized at the time that I’d be a Schuster someday!” I laughed uncomfortably; she laughed from the belly. Both Bill and Jo Anne were quick to talk about how each of their lives had fallen apart, and how they never would have imagined that things would turn out like they did, nor that they’d be so happy again after all the grief. Now we’ve been friends for fifteen years or so, and I’ve never had a conversation with them when they didn’t remind me and Jamie that life is far from certain. They learned the hard way that it can all change in an instant. In ten years you will almost certainly be in a place that you can’t imagine right now. Bill and Jo Anne remind me to hold loosely to my notion of the future, because you just never, ever know what’s around the bend. In these uncertain times it’s a tough time to be a graduate in these uncertain times. I’m truly sorry that college (or whatever you’re doing) in the fall likely isn’t going to be what you thought it would be. So many of us are waiting for someone else to make decisions so we can make our own. That’s the bad news. The good news is, it’ll make a great story someday. You’ll be able to tell your kids about how crazy the world felt in 2020, and how sick you were of hearing the phrase, “In these uncertain times.” So I want to offer up two things to remember in these uncertain times. 1. Time is a painting. Hold on to your seats, because I’m going to get philosophically theological on you. Have you thought much about Time? I mean Time with a capital T. What is Time? Have you thought about how weird it is that things happen? That anything happens at all? Have you ever considered how weird it is that in the vast universe, from the Milky Way, to black holes, to the rings of Saturn, that there is such a thing as IHOP? Isn’t it weird that IHOP is an actual place? Pancakes exist, in time and space. But God, for whom a day is a thousand years and a thousand years a day, exists beyond time and space, eternally present to himself and to everything he made. He wanted children, so he made the world. He wanted us to know his love, so he painted a picture of how great his love is and called it TIME and hung it on a wall called SPACE. We can only know something by experiencing it. I could tell you all day long about pancakes, about what they’re made of and how they taste, but until you sit down and move through time and space by pouring the syrup on the steaming pile of goodness, then gobbling up the glory of it all, then sitting back from the table with a sticky chin, and finally nodding off to sleep in the IHOP booth, you don’t really know pancakes. We’re not computers. We can’t download pancakes; we have to eat them. So when God decided to have children (that means us), and wanted to demonstrate his love, he did so by inventing TIME and SPACE, a vast painting that he, who sees the beginnings and the ends of things, can see all of. To him the past, the present, and the future are of a piece. To him, the painting is already complete. But you and I are in it, a part of it, moving across it without being able to see where we’re going or what the point of it all really is. The Biblical prophets are like docents in an art museum, helping us, by the Holy Spirit, to understand the painting a little better by either telling us what’s coming or enlightening us about what is or has been. The great mystery of the Incarnation is that God stepped into TIME and SPACE and became man. Now that you’re thoroughly confused, I’ll get to the point. We can’t see all of the painting. But scripture tells us that it is glorious. At the resurrection, when we’re able to stand back and see what God was always doing, we’ll fall to our knees in worship. COVID-19, war, racism, tragedy—all of it—is somehow a shadow on the canvas that will make the light more lovely. I don’t mean to be trite. Sometimes I hate that it works that way. But we have all seen, when looking back, the way suffering shapes us and makes room for joy. These times may be uncertain, but TIME itself is not. It is a finished masterpiece, and in Christ we’ll live to see it the way he does. Time is a painting. 2. Speaking of masterpieces, I’m a big Lord of the Rings nerd. I heard a scholar talking about one of the major themes of the story, which is the triumph of hope over despair. Despair, he said, isn’t just a sin, theologically speaking, it’s also a mistake. It’s a mistake because despair assumes that you know the end of your story. As I said, as creatures of Time, we can’t see the future. No matter how bad things seem, we don’t know for certain that the good guys won’t win—and in fact a good author makes it look like they won’t until the very end. That means that there’s always, always, always reason to hope. Eucatastrophe is a marvelous concept. It means “good catastrophe.” If a catastrophe is what happens when everything’s great and then it tears apart (think COVID, or the death of George Floyd), then eucatastrophe is when everything’s terrible and suddenly, out of nowhere, light and beauty heals what was broken. Tolkien called it “the sudden, unexpected, joyous turn:” “In such stories when the sudden ‘turn’ comes we get a piercing glimpse of joy, and heart’s desire, that for a moment passes outside the frame, rends indeed the very web of story, and lets a gleam come through.” We get a glimpse of the painting from God’s perspective. (Think about the end of Avengers: Infinity War, when everybody who you thought was dead shows up to fight Thanos. That’s eucatastrophe.) Tolkien argued that God is telling a eucatastrophe story with all of creation. That’s the finished painting. He said that Jesus’s birth was the eucatastrophe of creation’s story, and the resurrection is the eucatastrophe of Jesus’s story. The author is Good, and has written a glorious ending to our story. That’s why we can’t allow ourselves to despair. It is precisely when all hope seems lost that hope is most important. Denethor threw himself from the tower at Minas Tirith. All he saw was orcs and evil. “Choose how you will die,” he said, more or less. “All hope is lost.” He couldn’t imagine a good ending, and to be honest, when we’re reading the book, neither can we. But it’s coming. The Shire will be scoured clean. The author of the story knows more than we do. There’s always, always, always reason to hope. So, to summarize: These times are no less certain, from our limited perspective, than any other time. Time is a painting. All of creation is a masterpiece that God, who is greater than time and space, has already painted. We are creatures of time and space, so we can’t see the whole thing yet. But in Christ, we will. Read Revelation 21 for a glimpse of the glory. Because we can’t see the end of the story, or the whole painting, we always have reason to hope for a sudden, unexpected, joyous turn—a brushstroke of light, a flourish of redemption. We can trust the author, the artist, the King of Creation. Pull the weeds of injustice and evil. Plant so much beauty that it chokes out the poison. Andrew Peterson So if that’s true, what do we do? There’s a big temptation to just hunker down and wait it out, to let things get back to normal so we can get on with our lives. First of all, I think this pandemic is a wonderful excuse to not just get back to normal, but to make some good changes. There are some things about my life (and the life of the world) before all this happened that I hope never come back around—like constant busyness, or taking for granted the joy of gathering with the saints at church on a Sunday, or America’s long indifference to our oppressed brothers and sisters. My prayer is that things would be better than normal on the other side. The other problem with hunkering down and waiting it out is that we have no idea how long we’re waiting. The Old Testament book of Jeremiah tells of the Israelites’ exile in Babylon. Imagine their lives before: vineyards, schools, synagogues, friends, cities and towns where they lived and loved. Then one day the Babylonians took over and shipped them all off. It sounds horrifying. They believed God would deliver them, but how long would it take for them to return to Jerusalem? Here’s what God told them through Jeremiah: Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. —Jeremiah 29:4-7 Uncertainty is no reason to stop adding to the beauty of the world. We don’t know what’s coming. Write songs anyway. Make pies. Plant gardens. Why? First of all, you might be in Babylon for longer than you think. Second of all, gardens are beautiful. And beauty is one of the best ways to fight the darkness. I love Skye’s song “Sandcastles,” because it’s a reminder to get busy, to “color the world in your own little way,” because the love that lives in beauty lasts forever. It is unshakeable. So step out into the post-Coronavirus world and plant whatever garden God has called you to plant. Pull the weeds of injustice and evil. Plant so much beauty that it chokes out the poison. My friend Doug McKelvey wrote Every Moment Holy, a wonderful book of liturgies. In his liturgy for the planting of flowers he wrote: In a world shadowed by cruelty, violence, and loss, is there good reason for the planting of flowers?Ah, yes! For these bursts of color and beautiful blooms are bright dabs of grace, witnesses to a promise, reminders of a spreading beauty more eternal, and therefore stronger, than any evil, than any grief, than any injustice or violence.What is the source of their beauty? From whence does it spring?The forms of these flowers are the intentional designs of a Creator who has not abandoned his broken and rebellious creation, but has instead wholly given himself to the work of redeeming it. He has scattered the evidences of creation’s former glories across the entire scape of heaven and earth, and these evidences are also foretastes of the coming redemption of all things, that those who live in this hard time between glories might see and remember, might see and take heart, might see and take delight in the extravagant beauty of bud and bloom, knowing that these living witnesses are rumors and reminders of a joy that will soon swallow all sorrow.In the planting of these flowers, do we join the Creator in his work of heralding this impending joy?Yes. In this and in all labors of beauty and harmony, praise and conciliation, we become God’s co-workers and faithful citizens of his kingdom, by acts both small and great, bearing witness to the perfect beauty that was, to the ragged splendor that yet is, and to the hope of the greater glory that is to come, which is the immeasurable glory of God revealed to us, in the redeemed natures of all things.What then is the eternal weight of these flowers?Though our eyes yet strain to see it so, these tiny seeds, bulbs, or velvet buds we have planted are more substantial than all the collected evils of this groaning world. Their color and beauty speak a truer word than all greed and cruelty and suffering and harm.What is the truer word spoken by these flowers?They are like a banner planted on a hilltop, proclaiming God’s right ownership of these lands long unjustly claimed by tyrants and usurpers. They are a warrant and a witness, each blossom shouting from the earth that death is a lie, that beauty and immortality are what we were made for. They are heralds of a restoration that will forever mend all sorrow and comfort all grief. They declare a kingdom of peace, of righteousness, of joy, of love, and of the great joining of justice and mercy into a splendored perfection in the person of a king whose wonders eternally upwell, beautiful beyond the grasp of human imagination. —Doug McKelvey, “A Liturgy for the Planting of Flowers” Graduates, the only certainty in these uncertain times is the resurrected Christ, our great High King, who works all things together for the good of those who love him. May your lives, like these flowers, bear witness to the great work of God to be unveiled, in a sudden joyous turn, when Time itself reveals what it hides from us now. Now may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. Featured image is anonymous street art captured by Toni Reed via photograph.

In this episode, we’re joined by legendary musicians Buddy Greene and Odessa Settles. As they tell their stories, they explore the ways in which we grow in our understanding of the world, of each other, and of God when music allows us to see the world through someone else’s eyes. After all, none of us can see the whole picture alone, and the arts are a vital way in which we discover a fuller view of everything around us. Click here to listen to this episode of the Hutchmoot Podcast.

In this second-to-last episode of Season 2, Andrew Osenga joins the podcast to interview Drew Miller and Evan Redwine about Drew’s song “Death of a Dream.” They speculate on what precisely the dreams are that died and how this song and its accompanying Desolation and Consolation EPs came about. Then they geek out about how Evan played Pro Tools plug-ins like instruments to achieve that spooky, decaying sort of sound that defines “Death of a Dream.” Click here to listen to Season 2, Episode 11 of The Second Muse. Transcripts are now available for The Second Muse! You can find them by clicking here. They are typically one or two episodes behind. Special thanks to our Rabbit Room members for making these podcasts possible! If you’re interested in becoming a member, visit RabbitRoom.com/Donate.

If you’re like me right about now, you’re looking for just about anything to give you a glimpse of joy and beauty in a world that feels like it’s burning to the ground. And if you’re a maker of beauty, you might also be struggling with trying to draw anything remotely creative out of yourself during this season. Despite what the productivity gurus might suggest, it’s kind of hard to get things done with the underlying anxiety and fear so many of us are dealing with (much less working and parenting from home 24/7). Maybe the next best thing is watching others delight in the joy of creativity right now. Enter Making It. Making It is the brainchild of longtime pals, co-stars, and everyone’s favorite Ron and Leslie, Nick Offerman and Amy Poehler, who also serve as the co-hosts of the show. Now having just finished its second season, Making It is a competition show that brings together eight different crafters to undergo weekly creativity challenges such as designing your own mailbox, repurposing an office space in your style, or reimagining a favorite childhood toy. While it is a competition show, it doesn’t come across as very competitive—in fact, the crafters are often shown encouraging each other and helping each other out. If anything, each contestant is challenging themselves and each other to do their absolute best. In contrast to many other reality TV and competition shows, there’s not really any drama, real or fabricated, amongst the competitors. If anything, Nick and Amy sometimes humorously elevate non-existent drama to poke fun at the trope. Another great thing about the show is how they highlight projects the creators are doing that could also be done by viewers like you and me. Nick and Amy and the competitors constantly encourage viewers to try their own hand at “making it” as a way to encourage everyone to be creative. In a world of increasing cynicism, Making It is a bright reminder that we can still find and create beauty in small and simple ways. Chris Yokel One last thing I appreciate about the show is that it rewards imagination, not TV looks or appeal. The two winners so far have not necessarily been the most charismatic of the competitors, but they won because of their consistent skill and imagination. During these past few quarantined weeks, I’ve looked forward to sitting down every night with Jen to watch an episode or two, excited to see what the competitors would do with the challenges and where their imagination would take them. We finished Season 2 last night, which makes me a little bit sad, but it has also left me inspired to figure out new ways I can explore my own creativity. In a world of increasing cynicism, Making It is a bright reminder that we can still find and create beauty in small and simple ways. Season 2 of Making It is currently available to stream on Hulu and NBC.com.

“The pneuma blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it.” (John 3:8) “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound. . . ” (Acts 2:1-2) One of the scribes . . . asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?” Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel . . . ’ ” (Mark 12: 28-29) This past semester I’ve been privileged to be “Scholar in Residence” at the Rabbit Room. My ordinary full-time job is Professor of Theology at Belmont University, but this semester I’ve been on sabbatical, engaged in research and writing. Even “mental work” has to happen in a place however, and so I’m very grateful to the Rabbit Room for providing me with someplace to set up my desk and do my research. For the first several weeks (before social distancing) my residency also meant that I got to spend each day around the wonderful group of funny, creative, and good-hearted people who make up the Rabbit Room staff. It’s been terrific, and encouraging to be part of such a remarkable community! When I return to Belmont in the fall, I’ll have to provide the university with some account of how I’ve spent my sabbatical. (This is the faculty version of the “How I spent my summer vacation” essay you had to write in Middle School.) It’s occurred to me that in the same way, it might be good to offer the Rabbit Room some report of how I’ve used the space they have so generously provided. The big project I’ve been working on during my residency is a book on the “pneumatology of sound”—a phrase (I recognize) that is illuminating to pretty much no one. So to clarify, first of all: in Christian theology, “pneumatology” is the study of the Holy Spirit (“pneumatology” coming from “pneuma”—the Greek word for Spirit). And what does the Holy Spirit have to do with sound particularly? Good question. Each of my children went through a phase when they were fascinated by names. At some point each discovered that names—which at first just seem like brute facts of the world—must be given, and so, could have been other. “Noah” could have been called “Joseph” or “Doug.” “Lucy” could have been called “Ella.” That’s mind-bending enough for a four year-old. But it suggests something more besides. If the same person could have had some other name, then the name she has must have been chosen for a reason. And in fact that is the case. We name our children (or our pets, or maybe even a car, a house, or a guitar) in order to affirm something, or remember someone, or to offer a vision for the life ahead of the one being named. Sometimes names have stories attached to them, and these can tell us about the name’s bearer. (“Your middle name is Steven,” I would tell my son Joel, “because that’s my name. My middle name is ‘Richard,’ because that’s my father’s name. And my father’s middle name is ‘Earl,’ because that was his father’s name.”) Sometimes names also have “meanings” rooted in an etymology or a more personal association. (“‘Joel’ means ‘The LORD is God,’ and your mother wanted to name you that, because . . .”). So my kids asked their questions, sensing that knowing more about someone’s name might also help them know more about the one named. That intuition seems entirely right to me, and it brings me back to the “pneuma” in “Pneumatology.” In a very famous biblical passage, Jesus explains the activity of the Holy Spirit by reflecting on the name “Spirit” (pneuma). The Jewish leader Nicodemus has come to visit Jesus by night, and has just asked how someone can be born a second time. Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and spirit (pneuma). What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the spirit (pneuma) is spirit (pneuma). Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind (pneuma) blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit (pneuma). —John 3:5-8, NRSV, altered I’ve highlighted the places where some form of the Greek word pneuma appears, because the exchange depends on the various meanings of that word. As the footnotes in most study Bibles will tell you, Pneuma can be translated not only “Spirit” but as “breath” or “wind.” (Interestingly the same is true of the Hebrew word ruach and indeed, the Latin spiritus.) But Jesus isn’t just engaging in casual wordplay here. “Pneuma/Spirit” and “pneuma/Wind” are not just homonyms—like a “plane” that flies through the sky and a “plane” a carpenter draws over a piece of wood. Rather, Jesus tells Nicodemus that the activity of the pneuma is pneuma–like. There is a wind-like, breath-like character to the Spirit’s activity. As we’ve already said, names are chosen for a reason, and sometimes they tell us something important about the bearer of that name. Spirit—ruach in the Old Testament, pneuma in the New—is the name scripture has given us for the third person of the Trinity. And I think that this name is meant to tell us something about who and how the Spirit is. That’s what’s going on in Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus. So, in just what way is the Holy Spirit “breath-like” or “wind-like”? Consider the words of the Nicene Creed: We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord the Giver of Life Who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who together with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified. He has spoken through the prophets. —The Nicene Creed Two of the activities mentioned here are very clearly connected with the “breath-like” character of the Spirit’s work. First of all, as the Breath of God the Spirit is the “Giver of Life.” We see this in Genesis 2, where the dust of the earth becomes a living being through the breath of God. The same connection between Spirit, breath, and life appears throughout scripture. (One example is Job 34:11: “If it were his intention and he withdrew his spirit and breath, all humanity would perish together and return to the dust.”) In addition to this life-giving work, the creed indicates that the Spirit speaks (“He has spoken through the prophets”). This is another action that clearly points to the Spirit’s breath-like character. Throughout the scriptures we see the Spirit bringing life; and in the same sort of way, throughout the scriptures, when the Spirit shows up, there is speech. Indeed, when we talk about the prophetic messages, or the giving of scripture in general, we describe this in terms of “in-spira-tion.” The prophets are breathed into. (2 Peter 1:21 says, “Prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”) That I live by the Breath of God means that God not only wants me to exist; God wants me to say something. Steve Guthrie If this is true of the prophets, it’s true of Jesus’ words as well. At the beginning of his public ministry, Jesus announces (reading from Isaiah): “The Spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. . . to proclaim freedom for the prisoners. . .to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19). The Breath of the Spirit carries Jesus’ voice out in proclamation. Significantly, it is not until after he is anointed with the Spirit in the Jordan River that Jesus begins his ministry of preaching. Jesus promises his disciples that the same Spirit will likewise enable them to speak. At his ascension, he tells his followers to wait for the gift of the Holy Spirit, because (he explains) it is “when the Holy Spirit comes on you” that “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8) Bearing witness to the gospel in this way will mean that his followers will be dragged before rulers and authorities, but Jesus reassures them: “Do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you at that time; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.” (Matthew 10:19-20, cf. Luke 12:11-12) This is a promise we see fulfilled throughout the book of Acts: “Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them . . . ” (Acts 4:8) In the same way, we’re told that members of the synagogue “could not stand up against the wisdom the Spirit gave [Stephen] as he spoke,” (Acts 6:10). In each instance, the Breath of God enables speech. The place where this connection is probably clearest is at Pentecost (Acts 2). The Spirit is poured out on the apostles and immediately there is speech; and not just speech, but profligate prodigies of speech, welling up and bursting the banks of communication, spilling out in a profusion of tongues. Drawing all of this together, we can say that as the Breath of God, the Spirit is not only the “Life-Giver,” but is also the “Word-Bringer.” The supreme instance of this of course is when the Spirit brings not only words from God, but the One who is the Word of God: Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.” —Matthew 1:18-20 (see also Luke 1:35) All of this goes some way to explaining why we might undertake a “pneumatology of words” or a “pneumatology of speech.” The Spirit is the Word-Bearer; the Breath of Inspiration; the One who speaks through the prophets. But why a “pneumatology of sound”? That’s a good question as well, and one I’ll take up in another post. For now though, it’s worth pointing out how these twin activities of the Spirit—life and speech—point to the generosity of God and the generativity of his goodness. For one of the most basic and obvious facts about respiration (re-spiration) is that breathing in is followed by breathing out. God, in other words, not only desires to send his Breath out into the world, he likewise desires that we should send our breath out into the world as well. (Or perhaps better: God desires that we should breathe His breath back into the world, mingled with our own.) The biomechanics of respiration mean that God wants us to be not only receivers of life, but givers; not only the objects acted upon by God, but agents acting upon the world as well; not only those who are breathed upon, but those who breathe upon others. But we can say more than this. The very means by which God gives us life also gives us a voice. The breath God puts into us flows out from us again, and as it does, it brings sound with it; not just the sound of God’s breath, but the sound of God’s breath in my lungs, passing through my vocal cords, resonating in my physical person. That I live by the Breath of God means that God not only wants me to exist; God wants me to say something. The Word that speaks all things into being in the beginning wills that there should be other, created words resonating in creation along with it. And he gives life to us in just such a way that this comes about as a matter of course. So, a pneumatology of sound begins here. The life of the world flows from the Breath of God, and the sounding of the world does as well. Every breath that passes my lips testifies to my intimate dependence upon God. Every sound that reaches my ears testifies to the generosity and humility of a God who not only speaks, but wants to hear his creatures speaking. [Editor’s note: click here to read Part 2: The Breath Between Us.]

In our age of fresh harrowing, of renewed raid, and lamented loss, Beowulf may yet come to our aid. The power and elegiac majesty of this most renowned of Old English poems has ensured its continued cultural significance, though the mead halls are long derelict, the days of hoard and heraldry long past. As a piece of literature, Beowulf provides a stark reminder of the ominous possibilities of a sin-wracked world, the need that remains for the heroic and altruistic, and the virtue of courage in the face of seemingly unassailable evil. This ancient poem offers many points of contact with the vexations of the second decade of the twenty-first century. In its narrative arc, rough-hewn poetic language, and insistence on supernatural realism, I am convinced we may find a vantage point from which to view our present horrors and find future hope. The Happiness of the Hall & the Harrowing of the Earth In what ways might this poem yet help and bless us? Early among our answers must be that the sheer realism of Beowulf’s joy and terror gives us room to explore the “wound-slurry” that evil visits on society while also rejoicing in the warmth and welcome of the hall in our periods of respite. The skill of the Beowulf poet is most finely displayed in the poem’s juxtaposition of the fields of the hearth and the lair. Seamus Heaney’s translation has liberated the text to sing the solace and kindness of fellowship alongside the irreducible and intractable nature of evil. The peaceful moments of the poem remind us that while our shore might be brine-bashed, while our nemesis might ride on the wings of nightfall, there is shelter and fellowship at the meal board and joy in the company of our comrades. Beowulf neither sugars the goodness of gathering with others nor mitigates the resolve and resource of evil, but portrays these polar experiences in all their resplendence and malevolence. Beowulf may yet come to our aid in these days when our halls are plundered, when lives are lost, when hope splutters close to the wick, and when rest is only a brief respite from battle. Andrew Roycroft This benefits us in our age, as our twin temptations of denial and depression are punctured by the inhabitants of the hall. Beowulf’s characters can rejoice in merriment and mead, yet stand stone-faced against the force of evil, gripping the sinews of Grendel (one of the poem’s chief antagonists, “devourer of humankind”) with the same hands that have embraced one another in rejoicing. This, the poem insists, will always be our paradox. Grendel is followed by his grief-stricken mother, who is followed in turn by a dragon which will fell the hero of the poem. Such times are terrible, but the haven of home and hall provide respite even when evil is seldom far from the door. Our modern Grendel, the creeping thief of health and wealth we have come to know as COVID-19, is perhaps making us more aware than ever of the need to link arms and share swords when the enemy comes, longing for the day when we touch tankards and rejoice in the rubied light of being together once more. Beowulf only ever provides respite from evil, never full resolution, and this is the space in which we congregate our joys and recalibrate our weapons for the next skirmish. This is a much healthier space than waiting for a “happily ever after” stalked by the undeniable shadow of our next nemesis. The Call for Courage Behind the fantastic tales of beasts and conflict, a real political heart beats in Beowulf. Faced with existential threat, the society of the poem is still riven by political vice and exploitation. The horrors of Grendel and the dragon are foes whom the hero faces head on and grapples with at close quarters, but the other ills of the epic remain unresolved. In Beowulf’s actions we see the glory of conscience and nerve pitted against prevailing evil, but we also witness the capitulation of a culture to future political defeat. The cowardice of Beowulf’s comrades guarantees the downfall of the Geats at the hands of old enemies; the dragon may lie lifeless by the hero’s side, but hard times are yet to come. The battle at hand is not always capable of addressing the prowling malevolence of political movers. This is of help to us in our age as well. Today’s existential threats call up our courage, enlist us to bear arms, to grit teeth, and to summon valour in the face of vicious opposition, but we must not allow it to bewitch us into thinking that lasting change will follow by necessity. When the dragon is slain, there will still be manipulation on the part of politicians, petty wars, and narcissism. The fresh battles with prevailing enemies will soon give way to the old perennial battles of personality and self-aggrandizement on the part of those who wield power. Our calling is not to be surprised when this is so, nor to give in when it happens, but to embody the justice that Beowulf does in the face of such things. Part of the hero’s character is that he walks well in peacetime in the same way as he wages war in battle; the fierceness of his grip is matched by the evenness of his hand when the ordinary resumes. Our calling will be the same as that of Beowulf. It takes courage to rip Grendel apart, and it takes bravery and honour to stand straight in a crooked world, to speak truth to power, and to take our place for justice when Machiavellianism is the main modus operandi of those who should serve our society. Beowulf may yet come to our aid in these days when our halls are plundered, when lives are lost, when hope splutters close to the wick, and when rest is only a brief respite from battle. It will also serve us well in the anomalies and angst of a world almost devoid of public heroes, and where poisonous politics can be more monstrous than the most fiery dragon. Featured image is an illustration by John Howe called “Beowulf and the Dragon.”

How can you give away what you’ve lost? That was the dilemma facing singer-songwriter John Mark McMillan for most of the last decade. As an artist known for his lyrical substance and spiritual perspectives, McMillan’s listeners are often clamoring for more than his infectious melodies on albums like his latest, Peopled in Dreams. They’re hungry for meaning. Unfortunately, McMillan himself has been wrestling with his own beliefs, a 10-year descent into confusion and doubt. All the while, he was tasked with crafting albums for fans wanting answers when all he knew were questions. These days, McMillan has found a newly centered self, one enamored with the idea of re-enchantment. He’s faced plenty of Resistance on the journey to this point, and it’s all part of our latest conversation. We hope you enjoy our latest episode with John Mark McMillan. Click here to listen to this newest episode of The Resistance. And here to learn more about The Resistance Podcast.

The Habit Podcast is a series of conversations with writers about writing, hosted by Jonathan Rogers. This week, Jonathan Rogers talks with Amy Alznauer, author of The Boy Who Dreamed of Infinity and The Strange Birds of Flannery O’Connor, professor of calculus and number theory at Northwestern University, and writer in residence at St. Gregory the Great, a Catholic church in Chicago. The Strange Birds of Flannery O’Connor just released yesterday, June 16th. In this episode, Jonathan and Amy discuss Flannery O’Connor’s early-onset fascination and self-identification with birds and the way they taught her how people react to strangeness, how Amy’s father taught her to love mathematics, and the ways in which both math and writing invite the discovery of a happiness that was there before you found it. Click here to listen to Season 2, Episode 25 of The Habit Podcast. Transcripts are now available for The Habit Podcast. Click here to access them. Special thanks to our Rabbit Room members for making these podcasts possible! If you’re interested in becoming a member, visit RabbitRoom.com/Donate.

[Editor’s note: click here to read Part 1: The Sound Breath Makes.] I have spent the past few months thinking about what it means to say the Holy Spirit is the Breath of God. (For more about this, you may want to have a look at the first post in this series.) I’ve been writing about this theme in connection with the arts, not current events. But the Spirit (as Jesus says) blows where it pleases, and it’s seemed almost impossible to think about breath without also thinking about the conversations going on all around me. On May 25th 2020, as I was just beginning to work on this particular essay, an African American man named George Floyd was killed by a white police officer, who knelt on Floyd’s neck for eight minutes and forty-six seconds. The nation has been transfixed and horrified by the video of Floyd’s death—haunted both by his increasingly desperate pleas and the obvious indifference of the police officer to those pleas. In the weeks that have followed, Floyd’s final words—“I can’t breathe”—were taken up by millions of protesters around the world. This response to George Floyd’s murder is poignant testimony to the relationship between breath, life, and voice. Take away someone’s breath, and you take not only his life, but his voice. And indeed, in the protests that spread across cities everywhere, activists demanded much more than that African Americans should be allowed to live. Signs and posters announced: “WE WILL NOT BE SILENCED;” “OUR VOICES WILL BE HEARD.” The loss of one’s voice (these protesters seem to say) leads to the loss of life, just as surely as the loss of life means the loss of one’s voice. Life and voice are bound up with one another. When violence accompanied some of the recent demonstrations, many were reminded of Martin Luther King Jr.s’ words: “A riot is the language of the unheard.”1 The title of the address from which this phrase is taken is “The Other America.” There are “literally two Americas,” King says, one of which “has failed to hear” the other. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity. —Martin Luther King, Jr., “The Other America” But of course (we might say), clearly, in this context “voice” and “hearing” are being used metaphorically. And that’s true. “Voice” and “hearing” mean more than generating and receiving sound; but neither do they mean any less than that. Life, and living together, means being present to one another’s sounding. The boundaries of a community are fixed, at least in part, by the reach of our voices, and when we are separated from one another’s sounding—indeed, when (as in the instance of George Floyd) we prevent the breath-life of another from reaching us—there is no possibility of shared life. Breath, life, and sound are bound up with one another. The protesters responding to George Floyd’s death want more than merely to be allowed to breathe; they want to be heard. And the rioters King mentions want more than to be heard; they want to be able to enter into “the fullness of life.” The murder of George Floyd has occurred in the midst of another worldwide crisis: the COVID-19 pandemic. There is a lot the medical community still doesn’t know about COVID-19. One thing that we do know however is that both the spread and the effects of the disease are deeply connected with breath and breathing. COVID-19 is a respiratory illness. People get infected . . . by breathing in tiny liquid droplets containing virus particles. Those particles gain entry to the lungs, where they start reproducing themselves. If the immune system does not stop it . . . the virus causes so much damage that the lungs can no longer do their job. —“Briefing: Paths of Destruction. How SARS-CoV-2 causes disease and death in covid-19” in The Economist, June 6 edition The suffering caused by the disease, however, extends far beyond those infected by the virus. The current pandemic has meant that in order to protect our own ability to breathe, we must shield and isolate ourselves from the breath of others. In-person meetings have been replaced with video-conferencing, Skype, and Zoom sessions. We are still able to see and hear one another, but we are no longer touched by one another’s breath. And we come away from these meetings slightly disoriented by the strange experience of having been present to one another without being in one another’s presence. Return for a moment to the objection about “sound,” “voice,” and “breath” being metaphors only. We might consider the Zoom call as a kind of thought experiment, in which the metaphor is separated from the object behind and beneath it. The disorientation and dissatisfaction we feel may be some measure of the distance between hearing a voice and hearing a “voice.” Or perhaps it allows us to measure the volume of the empty space that remains when we have separated breath from sound; when mere “content” is distilled from “presence.” Breath, life, and sound are bound up with one another. The meaningful experience of sound is connected with presence and breath. The living of life includes the making of sound. The breath by which we draw life into ourselves is likewise the breath by which we move outside of ourselves, in the form of sound. Breath, life, and sound are bound up with one another. All of which brings us back to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the Breath of God (ruach in Hebrew, pneuma in Greek). And this Breath is (in the words of the Nicene Creed) both “the Giver of Life,” and the One “who has spoken through the prophets.” We might say then (with respect to this second work) that the Holy Spirit is “the Word-Bearer”—and that would be true. But the Holy Spirit is not only the author of words, but the generator of sound. I may or may not agree with someone else’s analysis of a situation or the particular remedy they propose. What I cannot disagree with are their groans. These are too deep for words. Steve Guthrie Why emphasize that point particularly? The title “Sound Bringer” is awkward. (“Sound Maker” is even worse.) It’s not nearly so elegant as “Word Bearer.” But one reason it’s worth thinking about the Spirit as “Sound Bringer” is how readily many of us in the 21st century associate “speech” and “word” with text—with something static and silent. “Typographic folk,” says Walter Ong, “forget to think of words as primarily oral, as events.”2 But for most of the church’s history, the speech inspired by the Spirit (even inspired writing) was encountered first of all as a sounding word—an embodied word; a word that would speak of presence. Scripture gives us the image of “Breath/Wind” for God’s Spirit. And if we reflect carefully on that image given to us by scripture, it becomes clear that “Word Bringer” doesn’t mean “Text Sender;” still less “Idea/Concept Bringer.” If the Holy Spirit is the Breath of God then the word the Spirit brings is a sounding word. This emphasis on sound opens up a few insights. First, the Holy Spirit gives life, not only to humanity but to all that lives. There are not multiple sources of life, nor is it that human beings receive their life from God’s Spirit while the non-human creation receives life elsewhere. All creatures look to you to give them their food at the proper time. When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are satisfied with good things. When you hide your face, they are terrified; when you take away their breath (Hebrew: ruach), they die and return to the dust. When you send your Spirit (Hebrew: ruach), they are created, and you renew the face of the ground. —Psalm 104:27-30 So all things receive their life from the Spirit. But because the Spirit is the Breath of God, in giving life, the Spirit also gives voice. The Spirit causes the created world to sound. As the Breath-Wind of the sounding Spirit moves in creation, it speaks through the prophets, but it also elicits sounding testimony from the trees, rocks, and waters. The Bible describes a creation that sings, mourns, shouts, groans, and declares. The Reformer John Calvin says that the “Book of Nature” is a text of exceptional clarity and eloquence: “on each of [God’s] works his glory is engraven with characters so bright, so distinct, and so illustrious, that none however dull and illiterate, can plead ignorance as their excuse.”3 Indeed (he continues) nature is not only a text; it has a voice. So “the Psalmist attributes language to celestial objects, a language which all nations understand.” What this means is that human beings—we speakers of words, makers of sounds, possessors of voice—we are situated in a world that has its own voice, that makes its own sounds, that speaks its own word. God, by his Holy Spirit, has given us both life and a voice, but not us only. We are not the creators of reality. The world is not whatever we make of it. When we speak, whether as artists or in the business of everyday life, we do so in dialogue with a reality that is already sounding; a reality to which we should attend carefully. So, Job says: Ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish in the sea inform you. Which of all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath [ruach] of all mankind. —Job 12:7-10 Augustine will echo this passage in a moving Easter sermon he preached sometime around 411: Question the beauty of the earth, question the beauty of the sea, question the beauty of the air, amply spread around everywhere, question the beauty of the sky, question the serried ranks of the stars, question the sun making the day glorious with its bright beams, question the moon tempering the darkness of the following night with its shining rays, question the animals that move in the waters, that amble about on dry land, that fly in the air . . . question all these things. They all answer you, “Here we are, look; we’re beautiful.” Their beauty is their confession. Who made these beautiful changeable things, if not one who is beautiful and unchangeable? —St. Augustine, Sermons, 241, Easter: c.411 A.D. The sounding Spirit has given a voice to both the human and the non-human creation. That’s one thing we learn. The sounding Spirit also enables us to sound in ways other than words. That’s the second thing we can learn. Romans 8:22-26 is an eloquent testimony to the limits of eloquence; or perhaps better: it puts into words the limits of what can be put into words. The creation, Paul says, groans (v. 22) as it strains longingly toward its liberation. We who have the firstfruits of the Spirit likewise groan (v. 23), eagerly anticipating the completion of our redemption. And the Spirit as well “in the same way” (v. 26) prays for us “through wordless groans.” This passage tells us that ordinary words do not encompass the full range of meaningful sound, nor do they encompass the full range of the Spirit’s sounding activity. The Spirit prays with a sounding (“groaning”) that is meaningful. By this sounding the Spirit prays for and helps us. And yet this sounding falls outside or extends beyond the boundaries of ordinary words. These groanings are “unutterable” (alaletois)—“wordless” (NIV)—but that “wordless-ness” isn’t a deficiency or short-coming. Rather these are “sighs too deep for words” (NRSV). This passage tells us what we already know: that we learn, that we come to know others and make ourselves known to others through sounds that are not words; through sighs, groans, laughter, and song. It tells us what we already know: that part of the meaning of a word is the sound of it. (And so we say: “It’s not what he said; it’s how he said it.”) This feature of our engagement with one another and with the world arises from our breath. And we have breath by the Holy Spirit, who is the Breath of God. All of this has huge implications for the artist particularly, but rather than focusing on that, I’d like to return again to where we started: to a man who couldn’t breathe, and a community that feels unheard. To a world of people sharing words without sharing breath. First, all of this reminds us that the Holy Spirit does not only speak, but groans. The Spirit groans on behalf of the groaning creation, and the groaning people of God. If we are people filled with the Spirit of God, then we will likewise be attentive not only to others’ words, but to their groaning. I may or may not agree with someone else’s analysis of a situation or the particular remedy they propose. What I cannot disagree with are their groans. These are too deep for words. If I am filled with the Spirit, then like the Spirit, beyond the words, beyond the debates, I groan with those who groan. One of the great dangers of our particular historical moment. . . is that we are now able to share our words, without sharing our breath; we can present things to one another, without being present to one another. Steve Guthrie Second, because the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Life, we who are filled with the Spirit of God are also called to be People of Life—committed to life and its flourishing everywhere. If the Holy Spirit likewise gives humanity a voice, then we who are filled with the Spirit should be equally committed to allowing every voice to be heard. This is the will of God who gives breath to all creation. It doesn’t mean that everyone will use their voice well, any more than it means everyone will use their life well. But when voices are silenced, something given by the Spirit is taken away, just as surely as when a life is extinguished. In scripture, the Holy Spirit does not speak directly very often. Rather, the Spirit “speaks through” the prophets (2 Peter 1:21)—in the same way that the wind doesn’t sound on its own, but causes the sounding of the trees through which it blows. God does not often speak audibly from the heavens, but rather, “the heavens declare the glory of God.” It has pleased God to so make the world, that we should hear the word of God through one another’s voices. When we silence one another, we risk closing our ears to the voice of God. Finally, it reminds us that (biblically), the word is only shared by the breath. The prophetic word of God, the written word of God—these both come by the agency of the Holy Spirit. In the same way Jesus Christ, the eternal Word of God, “came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit.” Apart from the breath, the Word remains dis-incarnate. Does that matter? Couldn’t God have just sent us the text of the Sermon on the Mount, and saved himself all the trouble of incarnation? No—because it is only by the breath of God in our midst that the Word becomes God with us. One of the great dangers of our particular historical moment, and one reason—I’m convinced—for the isolation and polarization that so marks our culture, is that we are now able to share our words, without sharing our breath; we can present things to one another, without being present to one another. Of course, there is a place for texts, blogs, articles (like this one!), and so on. Paul wrote letters to the New Testament church. But God has made humanity so that by our speaking we likewise share one another’s breath, and so one another’s life. “Breath” and “life” in this context (it seems to me) are more than metaphor; more than some extraneous form which can be disposed of, provided that the content gets across. This in fact is how God has related to us—sharing with us not just some information, but God’s own Word, carried by God’s own Breath, which is therefore, God’s own presence. At this particular moment in the life of our world, it seems vital that we be people of the Spirit in just this way. Featured image: “Breath of God” by Deb Brown Maher [Editor’s note: click here to read Part 3: God in Motion.]

We moved house in 2019, just at the springing of spring. There was untold renovation work to be done, but we managed to get a small garden into the ground. There were enough tomatoes and cucumbers to put back, although to my shame, I over-salted my bread-and-butter pickles to the point of inedibility. This year, though, was to be the year. My in-laws gifted us their old tiller, and my wife and I laid out ideas for the plot: six hundred square feet, well situated in the best sun, while leaving the kids plenty of yard to play in. We would array appropriate companion plants and multifarious heirloom varietals. We would work in herbs and well-timed cold-hardy vegetables in a potager able to withstand the soggy, chill winter. Yet, it was not to be so. Firstly, I started too early. Hoping to get the jump on things, I seeded kales, snow peas, and shelling peas in a window in little cast-off cans and halves of food cartons. They looked so hopeful, drinking up the light. Then came dogwood winter. We’re in Hardiness Zone 7, but temperatures in April and even in May dipped into the thirties. I had already planted tomatoes outside, and I purchased cheap bedsheets to shield them from frost. The seedlings in the window waited and waited. Having sucked up all the nutrients in their store-bought potting soil, they began to pale and yellow, beginning at the stems and moving outward in a slow tide of papery bleaching. Finally, the weather turned, and I made a novitiate’s foray with the tiller—by the way, never till wet—and put the plants out, mulching or feeding by turns. It all seemed too little too late. Besides, I was avoiding my least favorite activity, the nemesis of all my procrastination: weeding. Smart gardeners will tell you that weeds illustrate what kind of soil you have. Dock likes over-wet ground. Wood sorrel and crabgrass show a lack of calcium and generally poor dirt. Henbit is a litmus test for appropriate nitrogen levels. These little harbingers are all helpful, but still the task remains of pulling them. I have to kneel in the heat, Tennessee sun beating down, and wrench up every little tussock individually. Weeding after rain is easier. The soil is looser; you grab the offending sprout just near the ground—by the scruff, as it were—and work it round in little jiggling motions until it comes free with the roots intact. But they come back. Again, and again. This is me, I thought. A friend of mine put on a recent online conference, a series of conversations about being black in America. It consisted of black voices, assessing issues. For me and my white experience, it was incredibly eyeopening. I began to see my weeds. Weeds invade good ground on a regular basis, and we all have work to do. Adam Whipple I daresay that many of us, prior to the conversations sparked by George Floyd’s death, imagined ourselves as essentially unbiased, as people not given to racism. I know I did, mostly due to fear of the stigmatizing nature of being labeled as racist. However, in the same way that there is no hard and fast divide between good ground and weedy ground, the world isn’t divided into racists and lovers of all mankind. Weeds invade good ground on a regular basis, and we all have work to do. My work begins with me, and lies continuously with me. On occasion, it also lies elsewhere, but weeding one’s own garden is an ongoing process. Racism is a sin, a thought-sin (see The Great Divorce, chapter 5, for Oxford-Inkling theory regarding thought-sins), and like all other sins, it makes continual encroachment upon the redeemed, earth-bound soul. Weeding it out on a regular basis cultivates good ground for the fruitful spirit to flourish. The labor of imagination is necessary here. With gardens, I must look at the plant and imagine how much dirt it needs to eat from. I must consider what I cannot see—minerals and elements hoarded in microscopic troves within each ruddy clod. This is the food of plants, the making of fruit in a twenty-by-thirty foot kingdom of Knoxville soil. Give plants appropriate ground, un-pilfered by pirating weeds, and they will produce fruit to nourish you. By the grace and labor of God and the patience of my community, as I weed out racism from my soul, I am more fit to serve and nourish my neighbors and my city. Truth be told, it’s awful. It isn’t just a patch of dirt you’re clearing, it’s yourself. There is due sorrow, shame, and much fear. Yet, the consequences of disregarding this particular brand of what we call sanctification are dire and fearful in their own right—for our neighbors, for our towns. No one is an island, and failing to pluck the offending invaders from our own heart-soil chokes out the life that we may offer others. I still hate weeding, but I love fresh, homegrown garden pickings. Whatever the case with dogwood winter, soil pH levels, and the like, my desire for fruitful harvests necessitates doing the hard work, enduring the punishment of June and July afternoons in order to bring about something worthwhile. To bring about that which is life-giving, we must undergo personal hardship—a self-sacrifice, as it were. In the Latin, the word is passion. Hopefully, these efforts will pay off, and if you stop by the house this year, we’ll bake some kale into a gratin or whip up some pesto or fry a tomato green, because that’s what neighbors do, and hopefully, with time, we will begin to help each other heal as well.

Jonathan Rogers loved Matt Conner’s interview with Jericho Brown so much that he wants you to hear it, too. Jericho Brown won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his collection The Tradition and is one of America’s great literary geniuses. Originally aired on The Resistance Podcast, Matt and Jericho discuss the necessarily conflictive posture of the poet as one who speaks truth to a culture he must also inhabit. Jericho’s work has called him to become both insider and outsider, and it’s taken a special kind of resilience to follow that call. Click here to listen to Season 2, Episode 26 of The Habit Podcast. And you can follow The Resistance wherever you listen to podcasts. Transcripts are now available for The Habit Podcast. Click here to access them. Special thanks to our Rabbit Room members for making these podcasts possible! If you’re interested in becoming a member, visit RabbitRoom.com/Donate.

The constant din of voices swirling and opinions flying in today’s physically-distanced, yet socially-shrinking world is overwhelming. Searching for trusted information from diverse points of view is daunting. Like many of you, we at the Rabbit Room are processing current events, both as an organization and personally, and are seeking to listen and act with empathy, peace, and grace in Christ. More than ever, we believe in the power of stories that draw us closer to the hope of Christ and empower us to love our communities more powerfully and passionately. This summer, we’ve curated a list of books—fiction and non-fiction, written for children and adults—that achieve that goal, offering glimpses of reconciliation and challenging us to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God. Arranged from young readers to adult fiction and non-fiction, here is the Rabbit Room Summer Reading List! And don’t forget to enroll in our Rabbit Room reading group led by Dr. Steve Guthrie on John Perkins’ book Let Justice Roll Down! ColorFull: Celebrating the Colors God Gave Us Dorena Williamson (@dorenawill) Imani and Kayla are the best of friends who are learning to celebrate their different skin colors. As they look around them at the amazing colors in nature, they can see that their skin is another example of God’s creativity! This joyful story takes a new approach to discussing race: instead of being colorblind, we can choose to celebrate each color God gave us and be colorFULL instead. I Have A Dream Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; illustrated by Kadir Nelson (@KadirNelson) On August 28, 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington, Martin Luther King gave one of the most powerful and memorable speeches in our nation’s history. His words, paired with Caldecott Honor winner Kadir Nelson’s magnificent paintings, make for a picture book certain to be treasured by children and adults alike. The themes of equality and freedom for all are not only relevant today, 50 years later, but also provide young readers with an important introduction to our nation’s past. Included with the book is an audio CD of the speech. Just Like Me Vanessa Brantley-Newton From Vanessa Brantley-Newton, the author of Grandma’s Purse, comes a collection of poetry filled with engaging mini-stories about girls of all kinds: girls who feel happy, sad, scared, powerful; girls who love their bodies and girls who don’t; country girls, city girls; girls who love their mother and girls who wish they had a father. With bright portraits in Vanessa’s signature style of vibrant colors and unique patterns and fabrics, this book invites readers to find themselves and each other within its pages. So Tall Within: Sojourner Truth’s Long Walk Toward Freedom Gary D. Schmidt; illustrated by Daniel Minter (@d1minter) Sojourner Truth was born into slavery but possessed a mind and a vision that knew no bounds. So Tall Within traces her life from her painful childhood through her remarkable emancipation to her incredible leadership in the movement for rights for both women and African Americans. Her story is told with lyricism and pathos by Gary D. Schmidt, one of the most celebrated writers for children in the twenty-first century, and brought to life by award winning and fine artist Daniel Minter. This combination of talent is just right for introducing this legendary figure to a new generation of children. The Bark of the Bog Owl Jonathan Rogers (@JonathanHRogers) Aidan’s life changes forever on the day Bayard the Truthspeaker arrives at Longleaf with an astonishing pronouncement: it is Aidan’s destiny to be the Wilderking, who will ascend to the throne from Corenwald’s wildest places. Only the Wilderking can balance his people’s civilizing impulses with the wildness that gives Corenwald its vitality. But not just yet. Many trials and adventures will shape the shaggy-headed shepherd boy into the man who can bring the kingdom back to its former glory. $12.00 now in the Rabbit Room Store The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963 Christopher Paul Curtis Enter the hilarious world of ten-year-old Kenny and his family, the Weird Watsons of Flint, Michigan. There’s Momma, Dad, little sister Joetta, and brother Byron, who’s thirteen and an “official juvenile delinquent.” When Byron gets to be too much trouble, they head South to Birmingham to visit Grandma, the one person who can shape him up. And they’ll be in Birmingham during one of the darkest moments in America’s history. The Wednesday Wars Gary D. Schmidt Meet Holling Hoodhood, a seventh-grader at Camillo Junior High, who must spend Wednesday afternoons with his teacher, Mrs. Baker, while the rest of the class has religious instruction. Mrs. Baker doesn’t like Holling—he’s sure of it. Why else would she make him read the plays of William Shakespeare outside class? But everyone has bigger things to worry about, like Vietnam. His father wants Holling and his sister to be on their best behavior: the success of his business depends on it. But how can Holling stay out of trouble when he has so much to contend with? A bully demanding cream puffs; angry rats; and a baseball hero signing autographs the very same night Holling has to appear in a play in yellow tights! As fate sneaks up on him again and again, Holling finds Motivation—the Big M—in the most unexpected places and musters up the courage to embrace his destiny, in spite of himself. Words With Wings Nikki Grimes (@nikkigrimes9) Gabby’s world is filled with daydreams. However, what began as an escape from her parents’ arguments has now taken over her life. But with the help of a new teacher, Gabby the dreamer might just become Gabby the writer, and words that carried her away might allow her to soar. Written in vivid, accessible poems, this remarkable verse novel is a celebration of imagination, of friendship, of one girl’s indomitable spirit, and of a teacher’s ability to reach out and change a life. Ender’s Game Orson Scott Card (@orsonscottcard) The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Enter Andrew “Ender” Wiggin, the result of decades of genetic experimentation. Is Ender the general Earth so desperately needs? The only way to find out is to throw him into ever-harsher training at Battle School, to chip away and find the diamond inside, or destroy him utterly. Ender Wiggin is six years old when his training begins. He will grow up fast. But Ender is not the only result of the experiment. His two older siblings, Peter and Valentine, are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Among the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If, that is, the world survives. The Faithful Spy John Hendrix (@hendrixart) Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party is gaining strength and becoming more menacing every day. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a pastor upset by the complacency of the German church toward the suffering around it, forms a breakaway church to speak out against the established political and religious authorities. When the Nazis outlaw the church, he escapes as a fugitive. Struggling to reconcile his faith and the teachings of the Bible with the Nazi Party’s evil agenda, Bonhoeffer decides that Hitler must be stopped by any means possible! The Battle of Franklin A. S. Peterson (@Pete_Peterson) Through the power of music and drama, this original work takes us back in time to witness the tragic struggle between father and son, between master and slave, between North and South. It’s a tale of a broken family and a broken nation. But in the end, the story of the Battle of Franklin is about more than mere history–it’s about the conflict in all of us, and our hope of restoration. Cry, the Beloved Country Alan Paton Cry, the Beloved Country is the deeply moving story of the Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalo and his son, Absalom, set against the background of a land and a people riven by racial injustice. Remarkable for its lyricism, unforgettable for character and incident, Cry, the Beloved Country is a classic work of love and hope, courage and endurance, born of the dignity of man. The Killer Angels: The Classic Novel of the Civil War Michael Shaara In the four most bloody and courageous days of our nation’s history, two armies fought for two conflicting dreams. One dreamed of freedom, the other of a way of life. Far more than rifles and bullets were carried into battle. There were memories. There were promises. There was love. And far more than men fell on those Pennsylvania fields. Bright futures, untested innocence, and pristine beauty were also the casualties of war. Michael Shaara’s Pulitzer Prize–winning masterpiece is unique, sweeping, unforgettable—the dramatic story of the battleground for America’s destiny. Miz Lil & the Chronicles of Grace Walter Wangerin, Jr. Miz Lil & the Chronicles of Grace leads readers on two parallel journeys: one a series of tales from Wangerin’s youth as he reveals his descent into human sinfulness, the other a chronicle of his awakening to the great grace of God through relationship with his congregation while pastor of an inner city church. So Brave, Young, and Handsome Leif Enger (@reuben100) In 1915 Minnesota, Monte Becket—“a man fading, a disappointer of persons”—has lost his sense of purpose. His only success long behind him, Monte lives a simple life with his loving wife and whipsmart son. But when he befriends outlaw Glendon Hale, a new world of opportunity and experience presents itself. So Brave, Young, and Handsome is the next book from the mind of Leif Enger, the author of Peace Like a River. Though a different book entirely, So Brave is equally unique in its vision and voice. It’s a western on the edge of a fading west and journey in search of grace. Not to be missed. A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens The storming of the Bastille…the death carts with their doomed human cargo…the swift drop of the guillotine blade—this is the French Revolution that Charles Dickens vividly captures in his famous work A Tale of Two Cities. With dramatic eloquence, he brings to life a time of terror and treason, a starving people rising in frenzy and hate to overthrow a corrupt and decadent regime. With insight and compassion, Dickens casts his novel of unforgettable scenes with some memorable characters: the sinister Madame Defarge, knitting her patterns of death; the gentle Lucie Manette, unswerving in her devotion to her broken father; Charles Darnay, the lover with a secret past; and dissolute Sydney Carton, whose unlikely heroism gives his life meaning. The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism Jemar Tisby (@JemarTisby) The Color of Compromise takes readers on a historical journey: from America’s early colonial days through slavery and the Civil War, covering the tragedy of Jim Crow laws and the victories of the Civil Rights era, to today’s Black Lives Matter movement. Author Jemar Tisby reveals the obvious—and the far more subtle—ways the American church has compromised what the Bible teaches about human dignity and equality. Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace Miroslav Volf (@MiroslavVolf) We are at our human best when we give and forgive.But we live in a world in which it makes little sense to do either one. In our increasingly graceless culture, where can we find the motivation to give? And how do we learn to forgive when forgiving seems counterintuitive or even futile? A deeply personal yet profoundly thoughtful book, Free of Charge explores these questions–and the further questions to which they give rise–in light of God’s generosity and Christ’s sacrifice for us. Miroslav Volf draws from popular culture as well as from a wealth of literary and theological sources, weaving his rich reflections around the sturdy frame of Paul’s vision of God’s grace and Martin Luther’s interpretation of that vision. Blending the best of theology and spirituality, he encourages us to echo in our own lives God’s generous giving and forgiving. Just Mercy Bryan Stevenson (@eji_org) Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending those most desperate and in need: the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children trapped in the farthest reaches of our criminal justice system. One of his first cases was that of Walter McMillian, a young man who was sentenced to die for a notorious murder he insisted he didn’t commit. The case drew Bryan into a tangle of conspiracy, political machination, and legal brinksmanship—and transformed his understanding of mercy and justice forever. Let Justice Roll Down John M. Perkins (@JohnMPerkins) His brother died in his arms, shot by a deputy marshall. He was beaten and tortured by the sheriff and state police. But through it all he returned good for evil, love for hate, progress for prejudice, and brought hope to black and white alike. The story of John Perkins is no ordinary story. Rather, it is a gripping portrayal of what happens when faith thrusts a person into the midst of a struggle against racism, oppression, and injustice. It is about the costs of discipleship–the jailings, the floggings, the despair, the sacrifice. And it is about the transforming work of faith that allowed John to respond to such overwhelming indignities with miraculous compassion, vision, and hope. Real Love For Real Life Andi Ashworth As society grows increasingly technological, isolated, and lonely, those who take their caregiving gifts seriously can fill a tremendous void. In Real Love for Real Life, caregivers of all kinds can find the help and hope they need to fulfill their calling. Through personal illustrations, timely research, and thoughtful quotations, Ashworth addresses the practicalities, philosophies, challenges, and joys of providing care in the relationships of home and community–leading readers to a greater understanding of the value and the validity of their call to be caregivers. Strength To Love Martin Luther King, Jr. In these short meditative and sermonic pieces, some of them composed in jails and all of them crafted during the tumultuous years of the Civil Rights struggle, Dr. King articulated and espoused in a deeply personal compelling way his commitment to justice and to the intellectual, moral, and spiritual conversion that makes his work as much a blueprint today for Christian discipleship as it was then. Individual readers, as well as church groups and students will find in this work a challenging yet energizing vision of God and redemptive love. Click here to view the entire reading list in the Rabbit Room Store.

It’s funny how forgotten, yet familiar books suddenly suggest themselves in lockdown! I have been re-reading a lovely old copy of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, in Edward Fitzgerald’s famous verse translation, and taking comfort, pleasure and fresh insight from it in this isolation. I’ve also been re-entranced by its elegant form. Fitzgerald cast his translation into a series of little quatrains: four line stanzas, each chiming sonorously on a single rhyming sound. They start with a couplet, and then he allows himself a free unrhymed line to gather energy and momentum before ringing the quatrain to a close as the final line returns to the first rhyme sound with renewed emphasis, and satisfying finality. So here, for example is the famous first verse: Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight: And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught The Sultan’s Turret in a Noose of Light —The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, trans. by Edward Fitzgerald Spurred on by this example, I have been composing some “Quarantine Quatrains” of my own, in a kind of leisured conversation with the original Rubaiyat, but also as something of a lockdown journal. Looking back on these, I see a progression or pattern through which many of us have been moving: I started with a sense of the unexpected opening out of time and apparent leisure: Awake to what was once a busy day When you would rush and hurry on your way Snatch at your breakfast, start the grim commute But time and tide have turned another way… This morning’s light is brighter than it seems Your room is raftered with its golden beams The bowl of night was richly filled with sleep And dawn’s left hand is holding all your dreams But soon, of course I found that Zoom came zooming in, and I had to negotiate the strange ambivalence of that medium: the way the closeness of familiar faces on the screen teases you with connection and at the same moment only emphasizes distance: Alas that all the friends we ever knew Whose lives were fragrant and whose touch was true Can only meet us on some little screen Then zoom away with scarcely an adieu. We share with them the little that we know These galleries of ghosts set in a row They flicker on the screen of life awhile But some have left the meeting long ago. We used to stroll together on the green Who now divide the squares upon the screen, The faces of our friends, so far apart Tease us with tenderness that might have been But when I retreated, zoomed out again, to my garden hut, I found myself bathed and soothed by birdsong: Here in my garden hut, just on the brink Of making some new song of all I think, A sudden thrill and ripple of true song Makes mockery of my poor pen and ink. Beyond my hut a vivid glimpse of red: A bright-eyed robin by the garden bed Sings his mellifluous and liquid notes, That utter more than all I’ve ever said. Like many of us I was becoming aware of how widely nature is returning, of the natural “rewilding” that is taking place all around us. And here the original poem once more proved suggestive, if not prophetic, so I began one of my own quatrains with a couplet of Khayyam’s: They say the Lion and the Lizard keep The Courts where Jamshýd gloried and drank deep: But now in every corner of the world The wild things flourish whilst the cities sleep. Such reflection led me, as it has so many others, to wonder whether this crisis might lead us to a chastened, and gentler way of being in the world: Perhaps in all this crisis, all this pain, This reassessment of our loss and gain Nature rebukes our brief authority Yet offers us the chance to start again And this time with a new humility, With chastened awe, and mutual courtesy; To re-accept the unearned gift of life With gratitude, with joy and charity. Perhaps we’ll learn to live without so much To nurture and to cherish, not to clutch, And, if I’m spared, I’ll hold the years I’m given With gentler tenure and a lighter touch. You can find Malcolm Guite’s books of poetry in the Rabbit Room Store.

Whether you know his name yet or not, chances are that Stephen Crotts is responsible for at least one piece of art—whether it’s an album cover, book cover, poster, or stand-alone work—that has stopped you in your tracks and filled you with wonder. The latest piece of magic Stephen has contributed to Rabbit Room Press is the cover and inside illustrations of The Door on Half-Bald Hill. The reader’s imagination is an unruly, vivid, and intimate element in the experience of any novel. Consequently, the act of illustrating a novel—providing one’s own visual interpretation as a filter for that of the reader’s—is a fearful task. And yet, when it’s done well, it adds an indispensable aura to a beloved story. In the case of The Door on Half-Bald Hill, it’s safe to say that Stephen Crotts has done exceedingly well, providing illustrations that both clarify the content of the story and unobtrusively encourage the reader in their own work of visualization. As someone who bonded deeply with The Door on Half-Bald Hill, I was grateful and enthralled to hear from Stephen about an artistic process I have zero knowledge of myself. Drew Miller: Can you share about the process of reading The Door on Half-Bald Hill, imagining the story unfold in your mind, and then translating your mental images into illustrations? How does an image from the story progress from your imagination to a fleshed-out work? Stephen Crotts: Before I’d even met Helena, Pete told me about a project that had a tone of Cormac McCarthy-meets-Tolkien. He said, “There isn’t enough illustration in books for grownups, and I’m going to do something about it.” So I was all in. As I read through the manuscript, I made notes of visuals that stood out. With a few, though, I underlined and boxed in sections that I thought were key visual moments. One was the comparison of carrying a question like a snail carries its shell. On the same day, I came across a snail on my daily walk in the woods. A snapshot of that became the basis for the engraving that appears in the book. Drew Miller: What sorts of aesthetic decisions did you make throughout this process, to make the story “feel” a certain way to the reader, as they flip the page and find an illustration? Stephen Crotts: I did some study and watched several documentaries about the ancient world of Celtic peoples to get a sense of some of what Helena drew inspiration from in traveling overseas. I made a huge folder of images to get in the right headspace. The emotion of Helena’s story lives well in the misty landscapes of the British Isles, Iceland, and the North Sea. The Isle of Skye became my primary reference for imagining Idris traveling in the mountains. For the feel of village life, I looked to Butser Ancient Farm in the South Downs. It is an experimental archaeological museum that interprets Iron Age communities. Drew Miller: Am I right that there’s only one color really featured, other than black and white—red, for the Bloodmoon? Stephen Crotts: We wanted the sense of stillness and longing that the people of Blackthorn are experiencing to sit within the drawings. In my mind, much of the story is in a monochromatic world. A land that ought to be deep green is decaying. Red is associated with moments of reckoning in the story, so it felt right to include it in the cover. And from a design perspective, the red spine and flaps just felt really pleasing. Drew Miller: Could you choose an illustration from the book—it could be the cover, too, if you like—and use it as an example, walking us through how you crafted it? We wanted the sense of stillness and longing that the people of Blackthorn are experiencing to sit within the drawings. In my mind, much of the story is in a monochromatic world. A land that ought to be deep green is decaying. Stephen Crotts Stephen Crotts: I used a variety of media to make these drawings, including wood engraving, scratchboard, and digital. For the cover, I made sketches, and then several comps. At one point, I composited several landscape photos to put together an idea of what I wanted to see. Pete and I went back and forth on overall design, color, and feel as we narrowed in. I drew that one digitally, on an iPad. I love the ability to draw subtractively with a digital format, much like I do when carving substrate out of a wood or linoleum block. Taking the white out of the black lends a more carved feel to the final piece. But the flexibility is a blessing and a curse, as I would find myself zooming way in and fussing over tiny details for a long time. Helena pulls no punches in this story. While set in an imagined land, it has a rawness and honesty that is recognizable. The acknowledgement of brokenness and the frustration of not being able to fix it is something we all feel in our collective moment. I first read this book during the season of Advent, which seemed right after finishing it. Idris and his people, like us, mourn in lonely exile. Learning to carry the right questions in humility is crucial on our journey toward intervening light. Click here to view The Door on Half-Bald Hill in the Rabbit Room Store, and here to visit Stephen Crotts’ website.

We’re grateful to share this new song from Andrew Peterson today, and grateful he wrote it. Link to the video and full lyrics are included in this post. I was walking down on Broadway In a multitude of marchers on parade There was anger, there was passion, There was mercy, there was peace yet to be made And the masks that we were wearing Kept the virus in control, or so they say And there was sickness in the air, and to be fair, It was the grief and all the grievances that plague The many years, and cause the tears on every face There are things I’ve done that need to be forgiven But I’m still learning how to ask Because the virus in my veins has been contained By this inherited mask And I’d rather be exposed to what is killing Than to hide from what’s to blame So let me lift my voice on Broadway, Let me lift my brother’s cross, Let me mourn for what it cost, And feel the magnitude of loss In every name George, Breonna, Ahmaud All beloved of God And there’s more, so many more, But there’s just no way to say every single name And there’s anguish, so much anguish to be sure Inside the killers of the slain ‘Cause if you’ve done somebody wrong It’s like a song you can’t just banish from your head It’ll eat you when you’re sleeping, like a wolf that you’ve been keeping by your bed And those names are gonna haunt you Till you lie down in the grave and say goodbye And on the resurrection morn you’ll see the form Of Jesus blazing in the sky And then you’ll know how much he loved The ones who suffered Whose blood was crying from the ground And you’ll reckon with the truth That even they and even you Were so much dearer than you knew, So tell me what then will you do When the ones you never knew come back around: George, Breonna, Ahmaud All beloved of God And I shouldn’t be surprised that when the lies Come out of hiding there’s a fire ‘Cause when every hope was dashed Into the ashes of that funeral pyre There was a spark of truth unsmothered Till the mighty wind uncovered and relit So let us lay down on the altar every sin That we pretend we don’t commit Till this world has been refined, Oh, let us share the bread and wine And pass the peace Till every soul has been remembered Every stony heart is tendered Every all has been surrendered Every noble cause is rendered obsolete And I believe that there’s a reckoning in store And all the poor and the oppressed Will be the first who were the last And all the lost and all the cursed will be the blessed So let this kingdom of the least Spread the table for the feast and light the flame Let us send the invitation, Every tribe and every nation, There’s no corner of creation That is safe from this salvation It is rolling down the mountain Like the water from a fountain It is breaking on the beaches From the deep and distant reaches Of the seas, and all the gleaners Are the proclamation bringers And the dancers are the answers To the questions of the singers And we’ll shout that we were wrong We had it coming all along And then the mercies of the Lord Will be the chords to every song And all the glories of the king Will be the melodies we sing And all these marchers on parade Are making ready for that day And it begins as I repent And bow my head as I lament this broken world ‘Cause every victim, every villain Was a precious little boy or little girl This is me and this is you This is the truth, if you believe it or not You have always been beloved They have always been beloved George, Breonna, Ahmaud All beloved of God Words and music by Andrew Peterson. Audio by Asher Peterson. Video by Dawson Freeman.

[Editor’s note: click here to read Part 2: The Breath Between Us.] We believe in the Holy Spirit, The Lord, the Giver of Life, Who proceeds from the Father (and the Son) —Nicene Creed Toward the beginning of the current pandemic, an article appeared in Wired magazine, its title articulating a subtle but meaningful distinction. It read: “They Say Coronavirus Isn’t Airborne—but It’s Definitely Borne By Air.”1 What on earth does that mean? Let me try to translate that title into a slightly less gnomic form: To the best of our knowledge, it seems coronavirus cannot live on for an extended period of time, freely floating about in the air around us. However, the virus can be and is transmitted when microscopic droplets from the lungs are carried on the air, through, for instance, a cough or a sneeze. I’ll spare you an extended quotation from the same article, describing the actual journey of these contagions from the lungs of one person to those of another. The upshot however could be summarized in a slightly altered form of the article’s title: “The Coronavirus isn’t Airborne, but it is borne by Breath.” The work of breath, that is to say, is to take what is living in one, and to cause it to reside and grow in another. Let me repeat that: the work of breath is to take what is living in one, and to cause it to reside and grow in another. Some of you—perhaps particularly those who have suffered under many years of children’s sermons—may already have detected a metaphor gestating in these words. And you would be correct. But while this is metaphor, it isn’t “mere metaphor.” Instead, we’re riffing on the very image that scripture gives us. Spirit means breath, or wind. (For more on this, see the first or second articles in this series.) The Nicene Creed says that the Spirit “proceeds from the Father and the Son.” And as the article from Wired reminds us, this “procession” is one more way that the Holy Spirit is breath-like. When you and I are sitting together talking, my breath moves from my inner being, out toward you. More broadly, breath takes what originates inside one person (sounds, ideas, words . . . or viruses), and carries it to the inside of another person. This is precisely the work of the Holy Spirit as well. The Spirit takes the good things that live in God and causes them to live in me—whether that is life, or holiness, or knowledge, or power. So, Jesus tells his disciples: “All that belongs to the Father is mine,” and what is more, “the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.” (John 16:14-15) So the Spirit receives what the Son has received from the Father, and makes it available to us. We see this happen just a little later in John’s gospel, after the resurrection. Jesus, like God in the Garden of Eden, breathes on his disciples, and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22). The very life of God in the person of Jesus Christ is now carried, by the Breath of God, to live in Jesus’ disciples. The Spirit proceeds. He is (in the words of British theologian John Taylor) “the Go-Between” God;” The Holy Spirit is God in motion. The work of breath is to take what is living in one, and to cause it to reside and grow in another. Steve Guthrie We could even say that the Holy Spirit is the divine person whose very being is to “proceed”—this is the very nature of breath. And if the Holy Spirit is fully God (as Christians confess), then this giving, flowing outward, and moving beyond God’s own self that we’re describing is not something extra or “external” to God. It is not just something that God “does.” Rather this outward movement is who God is. And remarkably, this is also one way that God has created us in his image. We also are beings who exhale—whose very being includes “procession.” It didn’t have to be that way. We could hypothetically imagine a different kind of world, in which only God breathes out, and human beings only breathe in. But God has made us like himself with respect to procession. We can only continue living if we both inhale, and also, exhale. If we were to refuse to “proceed” in this way—if we were to try to live wholly enclosed within ourselves, resisting any outward movement—we would die. Interestingly enough, these same ideas about breath, procession—and infection!—are echoed in one of the most famous modern theories of art. The great Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy defined art in this way: Art is a human activity consisting in this, that one man consciously, by means of certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that other people are infected by these feelings and also experience them. —Tolstoy, What is Art? (1897) Like the Spirit who gives us life, we have our being by exhaling, and allowing what is deep within us to move out beyond ourselves. Steve Guthrie The image Tolstoy uses is so striking that his theory of art is sometimes called “Art as Infection!” Tolstoy uses the metaphor of infection over and over again throughout his treatise. Art comes about (he argues) when that which is “deepest inside” the artist is transferred to some external media (a canvas, a melody, an arrangement of syllables). Another person then comes into direct contact with that media, like a person placing her hand on a germ-laden doorknob. (Apologies for the “ick” factor in all of this.) And finally, as a result of her contact with that “contagion,” the same feeling that once resided deep inside the artist comes to live deep inside the viewer, listener, or reader. There are all sorts of problems with Tolstoy’s theory of art. (When I listen to Vladimir Ashkenazy perform a Mozart piano concerto, am I really feeling the same thing Mozart felt when he composed it? Or am I feeling the same thing that Ashkenazy is feeling when he performs it? Or am I feeling the same thing that the conductor of the orchestra is feeling? And, more to the point, how would I ever be able to determine whether any one of those and I were feeling the exact same thing anyway?) But there is something in Tolstoy’s theory of art. In the human impulse to create, we see some echo of God’s own being. God has created us to proceed. Like the Spirit who gives us life, we have our being by exhaling, and allowing what is deep within us to move out beyond ourselves. There is something more that the word “procession” highlights for us: the Holy Spirit is the Giver of Life, but not in the way that a doctor is the giver of medicine. (Can you tell that I’m kind of stuck on the whole infection thing?) The doctor provides access to some healing power that is other than herself; but the Holy Spirit is himself the life he gives. We do not live from some power that God gives and that we then have apart from God. Indeed—“If it were his intention and he withdrew his spirit and breath, all humanity would perish together and mankind would return to the dust.” (Job 34:14) We live from God himself. God is the life that is in us, because there is no source of life but God. God doesn’t send us life the way a shipping clerk sends us a package. No; God himself, in the person of his Holy Spirit, proceeds. The fourth-century theologian Didymus the Blind writes: the Holy Spirit is the fullness of the gifts of God, and . . . the goods bestowed by God are nothing other than the subsistent Holy Spirit. For it is this fountain that pours forth all benefits received by the grace of God’s gifts. —Didymus the Blind, “On the Holy Spirit,” II God’s Breath is in fact God’s presence with us. And again, it is the sounding world—the world of movement initiated by breath or borne by wind—that helps us to understand the very distinctive way that breath manifests another’s presence. First of all, sound comes to meet us. I can, to a certain extent, control what is visually present to me. I can actively direct my gaze, looking here and not there. But I am addressed by sound, whether I choose to be or not. I can turn my head away from an unwelcome sight, but I cannot turn my ears away from an unwelcome sound. We have eyelids, but (as someone has observed), no earlids. Likewise, I can see something whether it is alive or dead, whether it is moving or not. But sound necessarily speaks of life, activity, and motion. Think of being in the woods on a dark evening. You hear a sound and you’re suddenly on high alert, because something (or someone!) is moving out there. Because sound is evanescent (it doesn’t just hang around “on its own”) anytime we hear a sound we also infer the presence of someone or something making the sound. Walter Ong writes that “[s]ound signals the present use of power, since sound must be in active production in order to exist at all. . . . [Sound] tells us that something is going on.”2 This in itself, it seems to me, is one point at which reflecting on the breath-like character of the Spirit is helpful. When we are met by breath we are addressed, approached, by the activity of another, that proceeds toward us. Spirit-uality then is not simply adopting a different perspective on things, nor is it simply getting in touch with my own inwardness. Rather, breath meets me from outside, in its liveliness and livingness. It is not under my control. “You do not know where [the Spirit] comes from or where it is going,” Jesus tells Nicodemus. (John 3:8) We do not become spiritual by (as it were) proceeding to a place of Spirit. Rather, it is God’s Spirit who proceeds to us. Sound necessarily speaks of life, activity, and motion. Steve Guthrie Jesus’ words to Nicodemus in this same verse remind us of one other thing that is distinctive to the kind of presence manifested by sound. “You hear [the wind’s] sound,” Jesus says, “but you cannot tell where it comes from.” Sound, in other words, makes that which is unseen available to our senses. “An inquiry into the auditory is also an inquiry into the invisible,” writes the philosopher Don Ihde.3 In John 3, Jesus appeals to the sounding of the wind, in part to remind Nicodemus that there are powerful forces at work in the world; some of which are seen, but some of which are not. The sounding world has the power to remind us of that still. And of course, this is equally true in our relationships with one another. There are deep things “inside” of me that are unseen and unknown to you, just as there are deep things inside of you that remain invisible to me. (“For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit [Gk. pneuma] within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit [Gk. pneuma] of God.” [1 Cor. 2:11]) My thoughts, like my breath, are within me and not available to anyone else, unless by that same breath they proceed toward another, making known what would have otherwise remained hidden. This, it seems to me, helps account for why “sounding arts”—spoken word and poetry, theater, and especially music—move us as deeply as they do, and why they feature so prominently in Christian worship. They speak of presence. Moreover, they make available to our senses something that is unseen. For it is not only God who is mysterious and invisible. There are ways in which we remain unseen and unknown to one another as well—this is Paul’s point in the passage just quoted—unless we make ourselves known to one another. And indeed, God has so made us that we may do just that, proceeding, from one toward another by the breath given us by God’s own proceeding Breath. As I look back over this article, it feels as if my own (figurative) breath has traveled some considerable distance, and along a somewhat winding path! And I would like it very much if “the thoughts that are in me” might be known—not just to my own spirit, as Paul says, but to all of you as well! So I’ll conclude, not with a rhetorical flourish, but with a few bullet points summarizing the main points I hoped to make. The Holy Spirit, the Breath of God, is breath-like, not only in giving life and sound, but also in that the Spirit proceeds. This is the work of the Spirit: to take what is in God and carry it out into creation; to bring what is “inside” of God to the “inside” of me. This is also one of the ways in which we are made in God’s image. We too can only live (or live fully) by “proceeding” out beyond ourselves. One particularly powerful and effective way that this sort of “proceeding” happens—one way that the things in me can come to live in another—is through the arts. This was Tolstoy’s conviction, and it is almost certainly correct. When we say that the Spirit proceeds, we are saying that God himself comes to us. God does not send us supply shipments, but his own self. This is again, another way that the Spirit is breath-like. Breath communicates presence. Music, theater, and spoken word, the arts of sound, are especially good at helping us to understand what is distinctive about the kind of presence that is manifested by breath. First of all, sound comes to us; addresses us. It is not under our control in the way that the visible world is. Secondly, sound makes sensible what is unseen. These two features of sounding presence can help us understand why music is such a powerful means of engaging with God and with one another. God and human beings are both personal realities, and persons—whether human or divine—cannot be known through examination. A person must come to us. A person must give him or herself in order to be known. Through breath, we give ourselves to one another. [Editor’s note: click here to read Part 4: Sounding, Re-sounding, and the Antiphonal Shape of the World.]

The Habit Podcast is a series of conversations with writers about writing, hosted by Jonathan Rogers. This week, Jonathan Rogers talks with Emily P. Freeman, author of The Next Right Thing, creator of the Next Right Thing Podcast, and co-founder of the online writing community Hope Writers. In this episode, Jonathan and Emily discuss writer’s block as a form of decision fatigue, the demand on our attention created by unmade decisions, the problematic desire “to be great,” how her training as a sign language interpreter has made her a better listener, and what a difference can be made by merely investing in our aspirations to write. Click here to listen to Season 2, Episode 27 of The Habit Podcast. Transcripts are now available for The Habit Podcast. Click here to access them. Special thanks to our Rabbit Room members for making these podcasts possible! If you’re interested in becoming a member, visit RabbitRoom.com/Donate.

Rosi Golan isn’t afraid to admit her fears. Despite Rosi’s 12 years in the music industry, beginning with 2008’s The Drifter and the Gypsy, the Israeli-born singer-songwriter says some fears loom larger than ever before. From the vulnerability of releasing personal material, to the fear of getting lost in the shuffle, to the worries of living up to expectations, Rosi swims in the Resistance in several forms. Even with her experience, her internal script still reads, “People are going to figure out I don’t know what I’m doing.” Fortunately, Rosi is mentally wired to push back against such doubts, a songstress always keen to try new things. It’s why she waited four hours to play an open mic night after learning to play just three chords on her first acoustic guitar. The fears are present, yes, but her curiosity and sense of adventure embolden her all the same. Click here to listen to this newest episode of The Resistance. And here to learn more about The Resistance Podcast.

For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. —Habakkuk 2:14 A while back I finished reading The Worst Journey in the World, the account of the British expedition to Antarctica made by Robert Falcon Scott and his men more than a century ago. We had a mild winter where I live, so I felt I could handle a stretch of living vicariously in bleakness and frigidity. (You must realize this was shortly before COVID-19 upended our lives, so l never suspected that soon we’d need not look to Antarctica to find isolation, privation, endurance, and danger.) During the polar exploration craze of the early twentieth century, to challenge adversity was one way to “win renown.” Men who braved the ice were cultural heroes, maybe the equivalent to the early astronauts of the ‘50s and ‘60s. The Worst Journey in the World was written by one of the youngest members of Scott’s expedition, Apsley Cherry-Garrard (known simply as Cherry to his companions). Published about ten years after the events described, his book relies heavily on his own journals and those of Scott and other key expedition members, and often gives long passages from them. Though primarily a scientific research operation, Robert Scott’s expedition is best remembered for his attempt to reach the South Pole, which no one had managed so far. He did succeed in reaching the Pole in January of 1912, though he was beaten to it by a Norwegian explorer who made it thirty-four days earlier. Worse, Scott and his four companions didn’t survive the return trip, succumbing to starvation and cold. We know the details because their friends later found their final camp and recovered their journals before giving the fallen a snowy burial. Though only five men trekked all the way to the Pole, there were twenty-five in all that lived at the main camp near the icy shore of the Ross Sea, and dozens more who stayed on the ship exploring the coast and collecting samples of marine life. From the main camp, various parties went out in different directions across the continent over the two-year lifespan of the expedition. In fact the title The Worst Journey in the World refers not to Scott’s later and much longer trip to the Pole, but to the so-called “Winter Journey” that Cherry and two companions made in hopes of collecting the first emperor penguin eggs ever seen by humanity. Among other things, this book showed me conclusively that I am not the sort of person needed for polar exploration. Emperor penguins lay their eggs in the winter, and previous explorers had always reached them too late in the year to see any. Winter travelling in the Antarctic had never been attempted, and Cherry’s account shows why. I don’t have time to tell you nearly all the details of even that one journey of the two-year expedition, undertaken in the months-long night of a sunless polar winter, when temps plunged as low as the negative 70s and frostbite reached even limbs well hidden in layers. Cherry says his teeth “split to pieces” either from their violent chattering or the sheer frigidity. But somehow the men, against all odds, managed to find their penguins and procure three eggs (plus two more that got smashed when Cherry fell into a crevasse). At one point their tent is blown away from over their heads during a three-day blizzard, leaving them cocooned in their reindeer-fur sleeping bags under the open sky and the drifting, burying snow. They outlast the blizzard and, impossibly, find the tent intact a half-mile away amid a chaos of canyons and tumbled ice. With the tent recovered there is once again a minuscule possibility of making it home, and they start the return slog. Navigating treacherous, broken terrain in the still-unbroken darkness, the only suffering they are spared is the snow-blindness that afflicts and even debilitates members of the summer journeys that would come later. After five weeks of enduring the most unimaginable conditions, the three men stumble back into base camp with their three priceless eggs, and are welcomed by Scott and the others as heroes. Creation can't be dis-enchanted; it's only we that can be. Matthew Cyr I said earlier that Scott’s expedition was primarily scientific. In his book Cherry claims that the attempt to reach the South Pole was a fundraising ploy more than anything, because Scott could appeal to the national pride of those whose money he needed but who didn’t care much about scientific research. Scott was a former Navy officer and not a scientist himself, but he always gave priority to the research—even when this hurt his chances at getting to the pole first. To him, coming in second to the Norwegians was almost irrelevant; the object of coming to Antarctica was in the samples collected, the measurements taken, the observations recorded, and in pinning down the geography of this mystery continent. The men, both scientists and otherwise, kept daily meteorological records even under the worst conditions, and these turned out to be the longest unbroken weather record that had yet been captured. In addition to the weather and magnetic observations, they brought back to England a couple thousand plants, animals, and fossils, many of which were previously unknown. Up to his death Scott maintained that they had succeeded at something worth dying for: adding to the world’s store of knowledge. Knowledge for its own sake. In contrast to the book’s veneration of scientific knowledge and discovery, I don’t recall anything being said about spiritual discovery. Of the many things that Cherry-Garrard’s book gave me to be astonished at, one of the more surprising was how his detailed account includes almost everything but God. We might think that conditions of abject misery and the risk of death would be enough to turn most anyone’s thoughts toward their Maker. But if he was much on their minds, Cherry does not discuss it, and his excerpts of the other men’s journals omit it also, except as linguistic artifacts such as the occasional “God help us!” whenever things are looking really bad. Another such artifact of bygone spirituality is the big cross the men erected in memory of the five who died on the way back from the Pole. There was some debate about the inscription to put on it, and someone suggested it ought to be a quote from the Bible because “the women think a lot of these things,”the women presumably being the wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters of the deceased. But Cherry approvingly records that instead of scripture, the men settle on the last line of Tennyson’s poem “Ulysses” to honor their dead: To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. Since reading those words, I’ve tried to imagine the news being carried to the wives that they were now widows and their children now fatherless, or to mothers that not even their sons’ remains were coming home, because they were locked in ice at the far end of the world. I’ve wondered if they felt the hard-won scientific knowledge was a satisfactory return for the loved ones they spent, or if they took any consolation that their men had given the world excellent weather data, or really remarkable Glossopteris tree fossils. I’ve tried to put myself both in their place and in the explorers’ place, while wrestling with the question of just what sort of knowledge is worth dying for. At the opening of the 20th century, it seems to have been widely accepted throughout the Western world that scientific progress was making the world safer, and easier, and would soon usher in a new era of happiness for humanity. Man was finally coming into his strength, the ability to conquer the world he lived in, the inevitable result being peace and enlightenment for all. From what I can tell, a vision of a sort of global Manifest Destiny was permeating Western culture, and such people would have been attracted to a poem like Tennyson’s “Ulysses,” a humanistic celebration of unbowed souls, “heroic hearts,” and bold adventure. The frontiers of knowledge were being rolled back just like the geographic frontiers, and spirits ran high. A mere 57 years after mankind set foot on the South Pole for the first time, the first human planted his boot on the dust of the moon. I doubt Captain Scott would have wagered that we’d get so far in so little time. But so much had changed between those two sets of footprints—not just our bank of knowledge, but the way we thought of it. By 1969 our stories had largely changed to dystopias. The unfettered optimism of Jules Verne’s “futurism” had given way to Brave New World and 1984. We knew more things than ever, but the more insightful of us saw that knowing more facts and having more technology doesn’t translate to peace and prosperity, or even a sense of purpose. As a people, we’d seen too much to keep that faith afloat. Today we’re even farther along; we live in an “Information Age,” which means we stumble daily through a blizzard of information that threatens to drift over and bury us. Even before COVID-19 blew in, we were bombarded by more facts, statistics, headlines, and sound bites than we could ever hope to make sense of. It can begin to feel meaningless, to degrade into mere noise. When I try to map out the path we took from the Heroic Age of Exploration to where we are now, it reminds me of the song “Small World” by The Orchardist. The opening lyrics run: I used to live in a world of mystery A world that I could see But could not explain I used to live in a world of unanswered questions But unquestioned answers  Are all that remain —”Small World,” The Orchardist Later the chorus laments: It’s a small world after all When you know it all It’s a small world whose mysteries Finally are solved —”Small World,” The Orchardist I think we Westerners are a people who have been running out of frontiers. The places beyond our maps get fewer and farther between, and it seems to mean less and less to fill them in. We harnessed the atom, sequenced our DNA, and we’re rolling right along on building artificial intelligence. And the utopia we anticipated a hundred years ago looks farther off than ever.  Our discoveries have tended to make things more convenient and more comfortable, to give us longer lives. . . and leave us emptier. We come out the other side and the universe has shrunk somehow. We’ve more or less completed the taming and subduing of the world, and what it looks like is all our needs being met with the push of a button, while we look at screens to keep from looking at each other, or at ourselves. The beating heart of the universe is an endless and beautiful mystery, and it’s a mystery that isn’t solved so much as opened, more and more fully with every wonder. Matthew Cyr As for geographic frontiers, with Google Earth I can sit eating Cheez-Its and visit any place in the world; I can zoom right down to Captain Scott’s 1912 expedition hut still standing at Cape Evans and even “walk” inside, scoping out their old-timey lanterns and supply crates and a preserved emperor penguin skin on a table. I’m doing it right now. If I want to, I can mouse-wheel back out past the stratosphere, then plunge down in another hemisphere and onto my street, till I can read the numbers off my mailbox. I can see branches in my yard that need to be picked up, and a box waiting on the porch to be brought in. I can see what looks like an oil stain where my wife parks on the street. I can see cracks in the pavement, individual leaves and pebbles. I can do the same thing with an alley in Bangkok and what appears to be a strip mall in Reykjavik (Taco Bell, KFC, and Domino’s Pizza). If I want, it’ll tell me the distance between the two down to the hundredth of a mile (6,271.97). Everything has been pinned down and quantified. There seems nothing left out there to be discovered. Hilariously, when I opened the website, it warned me: You are running an experimental version of Earth. It feels that way, doesn’t it? In the absence of geographic frontiers and the (seeming) scarcity of scientific ones, I think the idea of a spiritual frontier could be an antidote to the dis-enchantment of the universe. But I also think that we can have a hard time thinking of God as a still-mostly-undiscovered country, beckoning us to virgin landscapes and never-before-seen phenomena. Sometimes it can feel like the Christian faith too has been pinned down and quantified over the centuries. Charted and catalogued to the least minutiae by theologians, dried and put under glass by church bylaws. Yet as Michael Card told us last Hutchmoot, only .09% of Jesus’s earthly life is described in the gospels. We’re shown only a well-selected sliver of even that 33-year span. And if our Creator is indeed infinite, then the whole of what he’s revealed of himself so far can only be the tip of the iceberg. What remains hidden and waiting to be revealed is vast beyond comprehension. There is Love and Beauty, Wisdom and Mirth in such abundance that we can spend the rest of forever pressing into him and come no closer to exhausting his marvels. God grant that I might be an explorer who will shrug off my fear to encounter wonders. Reading Cherry-Garrard’s experiences in the Antarctic, I was fascinated by the idea of snow blindness. The sun’s glare off the snow and ice can debilitate men, especially during a polar summer’s months of daylight uninterrupted by night. One man came back to England with blue-gray eyes in a weathered face, and even his mother didn’t readily recognize her son, who’d been brown-eyed when he left her. I’ve since read other accounts of the color being burned out of people’s irises during polar travel. Our eyes are made to receive light, to see, but there is more light in the world than we can take in; too much and we are overwhelmed. I begin to wonder how often I’ve trudged over a field of innumerable cold hard facts, each one like a tiny crystal reflecting the light of a single Source to which I was insensible. How often have I been snow-blind? As the outer borders of our world keep getting annexed into “the known,” I’m deeply thankful for pockets of artist-priests like the Rabbit Room. The body of Christ needs members who will keep reminding us that the seemingly barren expanse of data we’re subjected to is actually outlining the contours of Glory, scattering more light around than we know how to see. The beating heart of the universe is an endless and beautiful mystery, and it’s a mystery that isn’t solved so much as opened, more and more fully with every wonder. Every snowflake and aurora and penguin egg becomes an arrow pointing to that One that gives them meaning. Creation can’t be dis-enchanted; it’s only we that can be. May we instead pursue Jesus into the horizon with the tenacity of Jacob wrestling his God—To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

[Editor’s note: click here to read Part 3: God in Motion.] I believe in the Holy Spirit . . . Together with the Father and the Son He is worshipped and glorified. —The Nicene Creed On a recent Saturday morning, a text message popped up on the Rabbit Room Staff thread. Leslie Thompson, one of our staff members, was in Kentucky with her husband, hiking. She texted to tell us that as they drove to the trailhead that morning, they had passed a handmade sign fixed to a tree. It read: “Is He Worthy?” A hundred yards or so further along there was another tree, and another sign: “He is.” I’m pretty confident that most Rabbit Room readers will recognize this reference to our own Andrew Peterson’s song, “Is He Worthy?” Part of the power of that song—and part of the fun of the signs that Leslie saw (like a series of liturgical Burma-Shave placards)—is the way the call propels us toward a response. Like an unresolved chord; like the story setting up a familiar joke until we are left dangling on the edge of the well-loved punchline; the initial statement generates its own gravitational field, drawing us on to the answering countersign. “Is He Worthy” is an example of a very ancient musical form called antiphonal song, in which a leader and congregation (or a congregation divided into two groups, or perhaps two different choirs) engage in call and response. You can find examples in the Old Testament. Psalm 136, with its answering refrain of “His love endures forever” almost certainly would have been performed antiphonally. In Nehemiah 12, Nehemiah describes an antiphonal arrangement for the choral celebrations that marked the dedication of Jerusalem’s rebuilt wall. “I . . . assigned two large choirs to give thanks,” Nehemiah writes. (Neh. 12:31) One lucky group was assigned “to proceed on top of the wall to the right, toward the Dung Gate. Hoshaiah and half the leaders of Judah followed them.” (Neh. 12:31-32) “The second choir” Nehemiah records, “proceeded in the opposite direction. I followed them on top of the wall, together with half the people.” (12:38) (It’s notable, though unsurprising, that Nehemiah decided he would be singing in the “not-by-the-Dung-Gate” group.) The point is that this musical celebration was going to be not just a sounding of praises, but a re-sounding. The celebrants would be both performers and listeners. Each would call, and this call would elicit a response, which would draw forth its own response in return. This to-and-fro wasn’t just arranged for the sake of interesting acoustics. Rather, it reflects something of the architecture of worship itself. In the last article in this series, we considered the part of the Nicene Creed which says that the Holy Spirit proceeds. The Spirit, as the Breath of God, is God in motion; carrying the life of God from God into creation. The next phrase in the creed however, tells us something of what that Breath is meant to do once it reaches creation: together with the Father and the Son [the Holy Spirit] is worshipped and glorified. The Breath of God proceeds into creation, and then, in a great antiphonal response, the worship of creation proceeds back toward God, carried on the same breath God has leant His creatures. But even though the call generates the response, this is not a mechanical reflex; this isn’t God tossing a tennis ball against the wall in order to play catch with Himself. Rather, it is precisely in this re-sounding that we find our own voice. We can explore this idea a little more fully through one of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ best known poems—“As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame.” (If you’ve never read it, you have my permission to go do so now. Really. Go ahead. I’ll wait here.) Hopkins writes: As tumbled over rim in roundy wells Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name; Each mortal thing does one thing and the same: Deals out that being indoors each one dwells; —Gerard Manley Hopkins, “As Kingfishers Catch Fire” In Hopkins’ poem the sound each thing makes in the course of its ordinary being in the world is in fact an announcement of its name. It is the means by which each stone, well, or bell bow gives voice to its deepest and truest self. In this way it “deals out that being indoors each one dwells.” Think for a moment about what Hopkins is describing. A stone rolls over the lip of a well and tumbles toward the bottom, clattering and bouncing off the sides along the way until with a final echoing sound it announces its arrival at the bottom. What do we hear? In all the percussions of the stone’s descent it “flings out broad its name.” So, we learn something of what the stone is made of: a heavy rock thuds its way down the shaft differently than a light one. We learn something of its shape: the roundness of the stone (or its flatness, or its edged serrations) makes itself heard along each point of its descent. We discover what the rock is made of—the clear ping of polished granite, or the whispering rattle of shale. We learn all of this even if we don’t know enough about geology or physics to articulate it in the proper terminology, which in a way just underlines the point. We don’t learn the stone’s scientific classification; we learn its voice. This is the sound of this rock along this trajectory through this space. Sound only exists by re-sounding . . . Sound is not only a movement, but a movement that sets other things in motion. Steve Guthrie But more than one name sounds out as the stone is “tumbled over rim.” Sure, we learn the shape and character of the tumbling stone, but no one ever just hears “a stone,” all on its own. As it falls we also learn the name of the “roundy well” into which it has tumbled; namely, at the very least, that it is a well, and that it’s a “roundy” one! (Because a round well of course sounds different than a square one; and the same stone falling into a puddle, or a creek, or a sewer drain, sounds different still.) So the stone’s declaration of its own name carries with it the name of all the stones that line the walls of the well (or the mud, or the concrete, or . . . ). It announces not only its own voice but that of the water that stands (or doesn’t stand) at its base. It articulates the particular shape and dimensions and density and humidity of the resonant air contained within the well. The sound of the stone is necessarily the sound of the stone in its environment. We hear not just the “voice of the stone” but the antiphony of the stone and all that surrounds it. If the stone in our poem were a particularly proud and individualistic rock—if it were to insist that we hear its voice only; if it were to refuse absolutely that the walls, the floor, and the surrounding atmosphere of the well should add their own voices to its descent—then we would hear nothing at all. And conversely, if the walls of the well, and the water at its base turned out to be insufferable divas, forbidding any tumbling rock to sound in their space, then we would not hear their voices either. Lest we think this is a particular quirk of stones and wells, it’s worth saying explicitly: this is always and everywhere the case. Sound only exists by re-sounding. There is no sound in a vacuum, because sound is not only a movement, but a movement that sets other things in motion. As the promotional posters for the movie Alien famously announced: “In space, no one can hear you scream.” Sounds are events in an environment, and nothing sounds apart from an environment. This also means that each voice, by its sounding, awakens (at least to some extent) all the voices within the horizon of its sounding. That’s a startling thought. Consider: in one sense, nothing is more intimately or closely related to you than your own voice. And yet, you have never heard your voice “only.” Your voice always carries with it the voice of the space around you. And this is true, not only physiologically, but culturally. “Your” voice is manifested through the accents and inflections of the time and place in which you were raised. (Even before they can say words, babies of Russian speakers (for instance) make different kinds of sounds than the babies of Spanish speakers!) Likewise, if you are speaking words, those words announce the distinctive elements of the language which you received from those who raised you. I belabor the point just because of how often (as a college professor) I hear young people being encouraged to “find their own voice.” And of course, that’s an important thing to do—as long as we remember that, even at the most literal level, “our own voice” is never just “our own voice”! The sharing of others’ voices is not a limitation of my ability to express myself; it is its condition. Steve Guthrie Individualist that I am, I might be tempted to think—like our imaginary egotistical stone—that my voice only truly sounds when all the other “re-sounding” voices around me have been silenced. But the acoustical reality of such an eventuality would not be a stunning solo, but silence. My voice can only sound through the resounding of the spaces and voices around me. And conversely (we could say), like the walls of Hopkins’ well that we “hear” as the stone tumbles along them, my voice is likewise when others re-sound through me. As I type these words, I pause, and clear my throat (mm-mm-mm-MMM). I do it at least a dozen times a day, but as I listen to it now, I realize, it is my mother’s throat-clearing-sound that I hear. I would know it anywhere. And this happens a lot. My son says something funny; I laugh, and shockingly—really, shockingly!—I hear my father’s laugh emerging from my throat. Where did that come from? I think. That was a “Dad Noise!” I speak, it turns out, in my parents’ voices; and my parents’ voices speak in me. This sharing of others’ voices is not a limitation of my ability to express myself; it is its condition. In the same way, when I express myself, I do not silence my parents, but voice them. Even now, some years after both of my parents have passed away, our antiphonal song continues, calling and responding to one another. My conviction is that all of these instances of antiphony (ringing stones, re-sounding voices) are not just “illustrations” of a general truth. They are ways in which our world bears the stamp of the God who has made it. And in particular, they testify to the delightfully antiphonal character of the spiritual life. The Spirit does not only to cause God’s life to live in me, but also enables my answering response to God. The first gift brings about a second. Physiologically, the intake of breath—by necessity—gives also the answering exhalation. So God gives not only breath, we might say, but breathing. What is more, this answering response is not any less “my own,” not any less original, by virtue of being an answer. In fact, when I return the breath I have been given in praise and worship, then who I am in my distinctive individuality sounds out most clearly. If our responding breath is like God’s (or we could say, if we really have learned the lesson of the tumbling stone in Hopkins’ poem), then our voices will not only sound, but will set off other resonances all around us. It’s a question worth asking ourselves: What sorts of re-sounding does my sounding make possible? Or: Can I exercise my voice in ways that very intentionally give rise to antiphonal responses from those around me? This is a different sort of vision of creativity, but one, I think, modeled on the activity of the “Creator Spirit.” The Holy Spirit not only creates, but creates the conditions for further creativity. The Breath of God both sounds and gives rise to countless answering echoes. The Holy Spirit, writes Etienne Vetö, “acts through others and makes them act.” The Father breathes the Breath into the Son to make it his and allow him to breathe back; in the same way, it is breathed into us to become ours, so that we may “breathe back out” to others. Our way of “breathing out” is to love God and to love others, especially the poor and the needy. We “breathe out” by employing the gifts [of the Spirit] for others. —Etienne Vetö, The Breath of God: An Essay on the Holy Spirit in the Trinity God gives life and breath in order to make us givers. “Those who want to save their life will lose it,” Jesus says, “and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” (Mtt. 16:25) In the same way, the life-giving breath we have received remains a life-giving breath when we offer it to God and others. In the same way, my voice is most truly mine when it both answers and calls to other voices—the voice of God first of all, and then that of my neighbor. Our sounding forth, whether metaphorical or literal—whether in our activity generally, or in our art- and music-making particularly—is most deeply “Spirit-ual” when the sounding of our breath doesn’t drown out these other voices, but causes them to sound. [Editor’s note: click here to read Part 5: The Preposition of Love.]

The Habit Podcast is a series of conversations with writers about writing, hosted by Jonathan Rogers. This week, Jonathan Rogers talks with singer-songwriter Claire Holley. In this episode, Jonathan and Claire discuss the role of fear in writing, object writing prompts, how to discern what music is “saying,” and what Claire has learned over time about her songwriting process. Click here to listen to Season 2, Episode 28 of The Habit Podcast. Transcripts are now available for The Habit Podcast. Click here to access them. Special thanks to our Rabbit Room members for making these podcasts possible! If you’re interested in becoming a member, visit RabbitRoom.com/Donate.

My friend Kirby and I were going to play a show in an upscale planned community, and I felt the need to prepare him. “Just be forewarned,” I said. “I’ve been here before. It’s a little weird.” We pulled into the drive, puttering past a capacious barn that looked a more like a Colonial Inn than any working barn I knew. A dainty roadside sign proudly offered to direct us to “Goat Yoga.” “I see what you mean,” said Kirby. Now, don’t get me wrong. If you want to do yoga around goats, I guess that’s fine. It’ll probably teach you that goats don’t care about yoga—a universal truth I lament isn’t more widely known. Goats do not look good in stretchy pants; they are eating, bleating poop-machines. Many people who don’t farm have a mental image of farming that’s best described as cute. Cute little critters running around making cute noises, cutely not excreting on every available surface. Cute little seedlings growing up into a newsworthy bumper crop. Never mind that the very term bumper crop implies a kind of surprise, as if we hold it to be self-evident that our curse from the Fall includes stumbling blocks in plant husbandry. Yet there is still magic in the smallest aspects of gardening. I recently discovered the magic of the hoe. It’s awesome. I wanted to try sorghum this year. It’s a crop grown round the world, both highly drought tolerant and highly useful. You can roast and eat the grains or simply toss the prolific grain heads to your chickens—assuming that, like me, you’re fool enough to raise chickens. Depending on the variety, you can cut the cane and juice sorghum, firing the liquid until it boils down into a delightful syrup with a nice cereal overtone. After that, the cane mash makes great silage. Geeks are people entranced by material that leaves others bored. . . Each of us is geeky about one or several things, and I’m convinced that—if we may say so—God is the biggest geek of us all. Adam Whipple This is where the hoe comes in. Unlike those beautiful squashes leaching your nitrogen supply, sorghum is happy to be left alone. You plant in good rows at appropriate distances and commence regular hoeing. In your hand is an ergonomic ninja staff, armed with a flat, perpendicular metal plate at the end. With all the enthusiasm you can muster…you scrape it across the ground. Then, you do it again. There is no Sigur Rós backing track. No one is Instagramming you. You are scraping dirt with a bladed stick, trying to maintain your rows and keep the weeds at bay. This is called trusting the process, and no one watching you would be able to tell at a glance that you might be doing work dedicated to Christ, serving people by your labor—because good work is boring. Process, most of the time, lacks marketable charisma. When my kids summon the audacity to tell me they’re bored, I tell them I’m glad. Boredom is the blank space where attention is cultivated, the marathon track upon which our minds learn to breathe properly and endure strain. If we don’t appreciate the quietude and lack of stimulus, we’ll never acquire the ability to work through it. Furthermore, if we assume that good work, whatever the unique discipline may be, is only the surprise egg-laying of a finished product, we’ll tire and quit when our own labor hits a wall of drudgery. You see this in everything from music to teaching to demolition—perhaps especially demolition. Years ago, a bridge over I-40 had to be brought down. Weeks, probably months, were spent in planning. Then came a few seconds of crack and boom in the early morning dark. Then there was cleanup. Nobody stays to watch cleanup. This is hoeing: it’s cleanup and maintenance. It’s management of a million tiny scoops of surface-dry soil. You must have the imagination to see plants slowly gobbling up minerals, for they do it quietly. I am learning the grace to be more interested in the minutiae of my own endeavors. Adam Whipple We have a term for people who possess the imagination to find interest in boring things. We call them geeks, or nerds. These days, geek is thankfully more chic than it used to be. Those of us who suffered the daily derision of our schoolmates—except when that pop quiz came around—are glad for a reprieve, glad to reclaim a pejorative epithet as a term of endearment, almost praise. So, what does it mean nowadays? Well, it means the same thing it used to mean: someone who can outtalk your attention span on a given subject. We have baseball geeks, Tolkien geeks, culinary or psychology geeks. Of a time, geek referred to young people interested in chemistry, music, grammar, and the like. I’m still there. My friends know I’m willing to die on a hill of well-placed commas. I feel physical anger at John Dryden over his seemingly arbitrary decision that we ought not end sentences with prepositions. Sometimes, that’s what prepositions are for. Jerk. Geeks are people entranced by material that leaves others bored. That is to say, geeks possess the imagination and wonderment to engage subjects more deeply than other people, to dig into good work. Each of us is geeky about one or several things, and I’m convinced that—if we may say so—God is the biggest geek of us all. Think about it: the idea of atoms has been around since before Epicurus, and since then we have learned about quarks and bosons and leptons. While the universe seems to be of incomprehensible size, it also encompasses humanly inestimable complexity, a fact God knew before Epicurus or anyone else. Our Lord could discourse with perfect joy on electron orbitals for ten hours straight and more. He loves them and knows everything about them. Me? I’m Biff Tannen, my hippocampus balking at wave-particle duality. I am learning the grace to be more interested in the minutiae of my own endeavors. Besides gardening, there are all the uninteresting parts of recording music. Standing as formidable obstacles to my laziness are the unrolling of cables, the plugging in of cables, the setting of levels, and the waiting for a time of day when no cars are passing. It’s good medicine to be able to connect such things to the moments when songs, by the mysteries of the Holy Ghost, come to bear on the souls of actual people. If plugging in cables brings people encouragement in this warmongering world, it’s totally worth it. Besides, it keeps my work from becoming goat yoga. The sorghum is knee-high now. I wish I were an expert at this—I can certainly outtalk my own knowledge on the matter—but I am learning. Most days, I spend a little time with my hands in the dirt, or I let the chickens out while I wander the Tennessee-red rows, plucking spears of fescue or pulling out fibrous tentacles of crabgrass. I wield a hoe, and I am a bit bored, and it is good. Click here to read the first post in this series: “Gardening 101: Fighting Racism in Practice.”