In a recent episode of the Radiolab podcast, producer Latif Nasser shares some of his techniques for finding stories to research and write about. The episode grows from this article, in which Nasser offers even more techniques, which range from setting Google alerts to rummaging around in library collections of personal papers and oral histories to repeatedly clicking the “random article” button on Wikipedia. I won’t list all of Nasser’s techniques, since you can click over to the article or podcast more easily than I can summarize them. His techniques are helpful, and I commend them to you. The most helpful thing about Nasser’s remarks, however, is his approach to story-finding almost as a lifestyle, or perhaps a philosophy. We all need to be in the habit of noticing, of keeping our eyes open to the marvels that surround us every minute of every day. Nasser writes, There are more than seven and a half billion people out in the world. Presume that 1% of them have fascinating, dynamic, newsworthy things happening to them in any given week. You think that the Washington Post or Buzzfeed or the BBC, or really all of the mainstream media outlets combined could possibly cover seventy-five million stories per week? No way. And that’s just alive people’s stories! There are also dead people and animals and businesses and ecosystems and microbes and consumer goods and planets and laws and inanimate objects . . . they all have stories, too. Most of us aren’t journalists hunting up stories to feed the deadline machine. Nevertheless, to be attentive to the stories around us is to acknowledge the plenitude in which we find ourselves and to live more fully in it. We live in a world of wonders. To be in touch with more stories than our own is to live more than one life. My favorite of Nasser’s techniques is perhaps the most obvious. It is certainly the most old-school: Talk to strangers. “Everybody around you has stories,” he says. “The whole world is like that.” I try to make it a habit to talk to strangers, to ask them where they came from, ask them about their work, ask them what sort of changes they’ve noticed in the years they have walked the earth. If they are my parents’ age or older, I ask them if they remember the first time they ate pizza. That question yields surprisingly good stories. Sometimes I ask people if they’ve ever been bitten by a dog. Sometimes I run into people who are so inattentive to their own lives that they don’t think they’ve got any stories to tell. Once I was in line at a convenience store behind a man whose t-shirt read “RJ Corman Derailment Services.” The man’s job was to clean up train wrecks! I tried to start a conversation with him: “In that business I bet you have some stories to tell,” I said. He shrugged. “It’s a job,” he said. “Just like any other job.” Anyway, all this talk about talking to strangers reminded me of an encounter I had in the Green Hills library. Below is what I wrote about it on my blog in 2010. I notice that I mention train derailment in that piece too. That is purely a coincidence. ... A while back I was in the library checking my email on the public computers. The patrons of the library’s public computers constitute what may politely be called a cross-section of humanity. At my library, they don’t just let you sit at whichever computer you like. They assign you one, and it’s right next to the person who sat down just before you did. Which is to say, there isn’t any of that natural spacing of the discreet whereby two people in an elevator stand in the back corners and the third person stands in the middle right by the door. No, at the library computers you’re spang up against the next fellow. The fellow I was spang up against was managing his account at an online dating site. He was a white-haired, paunchy old boy with a long, straight nose that bulged off to the left just at the tip-end, putting me in mind of a train that derailed right before pulling into the station. Every half-minute or so, he chuckled at something some dating prospect or other had written in her profile, wagging his head each time and cutting his eyes over toward me. Clearly he hoped I would ask him what he was laughing about or otherwise engage him in conversation. I was determined not to. I was in a bit of a hurry–just trying to check my email and get out of there–and I wasn’t up to it anyway. Soon my neighbor wandered away from the dating site and to a medical self-diagnosis site. He stopped chuckling and instead made little murmurs of interest–or maybe it was concern. I didn’t take the bait. I was locked on to that email. At last the man nudged me with his elbow. He pointed at his screen. “How would you pronounce that word?” he asked. I looked at his screen. “Splanchnoptosis, I guess.” I went back to my email. “Splanchnoptosis,” he repeated. “Prolapse or backward displacement of an organ in the abdomen.” He rubbed his ample belly. “I’m pretty sure that’s what I’ve got,” he said. I glanced in his direction and gave a quick, sympathetic nod, then looked off, hoping he would get the message. The man turned his chair to face me. “You probably didn’t know that you can cure cancer with baking soda, did you?” It finally occurred to me that whatever my email said, it wasn’t going to be nearly as interesting as the things this old boy had to say. I turned my chair too, and we were face to face. “That’s right,” he said. “Some doctors in Italy taped pouches of baking soda under the armpits of women with breast cancer. Six weeks later, the tumors were gone. No surgery. No chemo. No radiation. I saw it on YouTube.” He crossed his arms triumphantly, as if he had been one of the Italian doctors who made the discovery. “It’s all about the pH levels.” He extended a thick right hand in my direction. “I’m David,” he said. I shook his hand. If I told him my name, I’m quite sure he didn’t hear it. He was off again. “But there’s no money in baking soda, is there? Where would the medical-industrial complex be if everybody was controlling their pH levels with baking soda and wasn’t getting cancer? What would the doctors do? You can’t make the mortgage on one of those doctor houses by selling baking powder, can you?” David looked behind him as if to be sure nobody was eavesdropping, though he was speaking so excitedly now that I suppose everybody in the computer room could hear every word, unless they were wearing foam earplugs. He leaned in close. “You know who built all the hospitals, don’t you?” I shook my head. “The Rockerfellers. That’s who. The same Rockerfellers that are in charge of everything else. You think that’s a coincidence, that the Rockerfellers built all those hospitals and the Rockerfellers are in charge of our health policy? You want to know why you didn’t know baking soda is the cure for cancer?” He snorted disdainfully. “Ask the Rockerfellers. Only they won’t tell you.” David gestured toward the people who were lined up outside the computer room for early voting. “It’s like I told one of the women out there,” he said. “I said, ‘Do you really think you’re smart enough to vote? Do you think you can outwit the military-medical-industrial complex? Because that’s who runs things around here. Do you think you’re smarter than the Rockerfellers?'” To think my natural inclination was to ignore this guy. “But there’s no telling what women want, is there?” David said. I wasn’t sure if that was a rhetorical question. “I know what women want,” he said, “and I know how to give it to them.” He leaned in even closer than before and assumed a confidential tone. “They just want somebody who will listen. ... What interesting stories have you heard from strangers? Leave one in the comments section. Also, I recently had a conversation about The Habit and writing habits for 2019 with Chase Replogle for his podcast, The Pastor Writer. You can listen here. Photograph by Matthew Gibson: “After Titarenko”

I lay on a cold metal table, pondering death and mortality, while Theo Huxtable dragged a scalpel down the middle of my chest. This wasn’t a dream, or a nightmare. This was real life. At least, the fake version of real life. I had gotten a call about working as a body double on a television medical drama called The Resident. One of the characters had died, and they needed someone to essentially stand in for his torso during a particular scene. I replied that I was available, and then got an odd text message: “Production needs a shirtless photo.” What price fame? I closed my office door, propped up my phone, said a quick prayer that no one would knock on my door, and bared my flesh for an abashed selfie. Later that night, I got another call. The directors couldn’t decide who was the best chest-double for the dead guy, so they were bringing two of us in. The next morning, I arrived at Stage Four, only to be shuttled to Stage One for makeup. The radio in the van was playing W’s eulogy for George Bush. It was to be a funereal day. Sarah and “Shorty,” the special effects makeup artists, were waiting for me and my cadaver compatriot at Stage Four. They stared at both of our chests, which engendered the first of many odd feelings I would experience throughout the day. I was tempted to say, “Hey, eyes up here, ma’am.” Rory, the other candidate, was a better match for the dead character’s face. I was a better match for his chest. I got the part, and Rory would be an additional cadaver. The makeup artists got to work. I was brushed, and airbrushed, from head to toe. I watched my legs take on a sickly pallor, and I closed my eyes while spots of ugly purplish petechiae were splattered on my face. Sarah painted empty veins on my chest, and I gained a new appreciation for the actors and artists who do this for hours every day. When I looked in the mirror, I was both impressed and disturbed. I saw motion, and vibrancy, but I quite literally looked like death. Naturally, I took another selfie. I was given a hospital gown and slippers (which made me feel a little more dead) and found my heated tent. Sound stages can be cold, and it was in the 20s outside, so I was grateful for these comforts. I met two more cadavers who would be filling the tables around mine and, collectively, we were a paradox. Four fairly young guys reading, talking, and doing very normal things, all dressed for death. The production assistant called us to set, which was an autopsy room at a hospital morgue. I climbed on my shiny table and winced as bare skin touched freezing stainless steel. A camera operator named Courtney introduced himself, and asked me to lie completely still while he positioned a camera up in the ceiling to point right down on me. And there I was, chin-to-navel, on monitor screens all around the room. This was a teaching scene, and the instructor would be showing med students how to work with cadavers. My pasty, veiny chest became set decoration. I am rarely self-conscious, but I felt the urge to suck in my gut. “Let’s go on rehearsal,” the director shouted, and the room quieted. The actors entered. “Hi, I’m Malcolm,” said one in a deep and hearty voice as he shook my hand. “I’m Mark,” I replied, and I connected the dots in my head. “Malcolm” is Malcolm-Jamal Warner. Theo was all grown up. Production Assistants circled around me. They placed my head on this horrible neck stand, covered my shorts with a hospital-blue drape, and placed a similar drape over my face. If I lowered my eyes I could see the wall, with fake windows and those huge monitors displaying my chest. “Ready on rehearsal”—the director again—“And, action!” The scene involved Malcolm’s character giving a bit of a speech to the students about the importance of their discipline and the sanctity of life, then helping a student whose shaky hands belied a fear that the cadaver was actually alive. (Of course, it was, but never mind that.) The lines were rehearsed, and then the stand-ins went through them over and over while camera angles and lighting were adjusted. I was very familiar with the process, and I knew it would take a while. I was therefore extra-thankful when they brought me a warm blanket and a pillow to replace the neck thing. The director leaned over me and said, “Let us know if you think you’re going to start shivering. It’s hard to look dead when you’re shivering.” Finally, we were ready to shoot. I wept a little inside when the blanket and pillow were taken away, and I did my best not to start shivering. The iterations of filming continued for hours through multiple takes, changing camera angles, and on-the-fly adjustments. Eventually, we reached the part of the scene when my chest was to be cut open. In the smallest of ways, seeing through the eyes of death added a layer of understanding to my living. It taught me that a death without heaven is devastating, and that a life not savored is incomplete. Mark Geil The scalpel looked real but the props master came over to assure me it was quite dull. This was the tightest shot of me, so I worked on regulating my breath. The scene was too long for me to hold my breath, so I took in full breaths when there was a distraction and let them out as slowly as I could. I’m certain you’ll be able to see me moving if you watch the episode carefully. Still, I did my best as the student hovered over me, scalpel held in a hand shaking with nerves, almost touching my skin. “If you see blood, it’s yours,” Malcolm boomed. “I assure you, he’s dead. He will not bleed.” Then he took over. He placed his left hand on my shoulder, touched scalpel to skin, and began the motion of a slow and even incision. “Cut!” Then a pause, and then: “This is good, but I really want to…” which was followed by much technical talk about lens sizes and gates and focus pullers, and how one should hold a scalpel and where the incision should begin. It was then that I began to ponder what it was like to be alive. Or dead. For several minutes during the frenetic technical decision-making, no one spoke to me. They spoke all around me, sometimes inches from me. They spoke about me, but I was, for practical purposes, a cadaver. I looked dead, in minute detail. My face was covered. I was on my back, on an autopsy table, motionless. This thought actually came to me: Man, being dead is terrible! I wanted to raise my hand and volunteer that I had actually taken gross anatomy in grad school and that I know how to dissect a cadaver, but I decided it was not my place, and also I was dead. I wanted to move my head because that neck thing was so uncomfortable, and wanted to raise my shoulders because my back hurt, but I had to stay still because the cameras were so close. And also, I was dead. I don’t know if we’ll sleep in heaven, or rest from our labors. I don’t know how aware we’ll be of the world we now live in, and its machinations. But I believe that we will not be like I was: a powerless ghost, cursed to observe a draped existence we can no longer be a part of. Lying on that table, with all that activity around me, despite me, an urge welled up in me. I wanted to throw the veil off my face, to sit up on the table and declare, “I’m still here!” I felt like I was in a sort of purgatory, and heaven cannot be like that. It must be better. It must be so much better that, if we can somehow look down upon earth, at our survivors, we will smile a contended smile, and somehow know that we still matter in their lives, and whisper to them, “I’m still here.” … In Struck, Russ Ramsey writes of a real reckoning with mortality, and a real operating room with real scalpels. “For my whole life I have seen the world through the eyes of the well,” he writes. “I want to learn to see through the eyes of affliction.” By comparison to Russ’s tale, my day on set was a trifle. But in the smallest of ways, seeing through the eyes of death added a layer of understanding to my living. It taught me that a death without heaven is devastating, and that a life not savored is incomplete. I made it home a little after 9:00 that night. My wife could hardly bear to look at me until I got all that makeup off (which, I learned, is no small task). I felt a little bit like I had cheated. I had the sort of newfound appreciation for the little things of life—the soft bed, the comfortable pillow, the very acknowledgment of the people you love—that people get after traumatic events and near-death experiences. But I hadn’t really earned it. My near-death experience (well, my all-the-way-death experience) was fake. But then I thought, why must we earn the chance to savor life, and to be reassured that the heaven that awaits is so much better? These truths are gifts, there for the taking. I just had to die enough to notice. Artwork Credit: “The Scalpel 2” by Dame Barbara Hepworth, 1949

Several years ago my husband and I made the leap into learning Spanish and more about the Mexican culture and Hispanic culture in general. All was fun and exciting and we felt very daring, I’m sure, until we actually entered language school and faced the reality of learning a new language. You could almost hear the mental brakes squealing as we sat in our first grammar class—our mad rush into the glamorous world of missions work (!) came to a sudden halt as we spent the better part of each day repeating the proper pronunciation of the five vowels. Our afternoons were spent in the company of Spanish-speaking tutors who knew little or no English; it was Spanish, however broken, or awkward silence. We praised God for these kind tutors—Bible students at the adjacent Hispanic Bible college—who kept their laughing to a minimum and who coached us through conversation practice on such thrilling topics as “In the Library,” “Around the Town,” and the perennial favorite, “At the Toy Shop.” As we got to know some of the Hispanic students, they discovered that my husband and I are musicians. We began to sing with some of them casually and then to help lead worship in the chapel services. For the most part, I was something of a trained monkey on the platform—put the music and words in front of me and give me an intro, and off I’d go. My pronunciation and harmonization were sufficient to make me blend in with the group, but my mind was on grocery lists or my baby’s nap schedule; I really had no idea what I was singing. The demands of language school and caring for our family limited the time I had to parse out the elevated Spanish of the hymns, and I didn’t make the time for it. One hymn we sang with the student worship leaders has remained with me: “Ya Pertenezco a Cristo.” I recognized the tune, but wasn’t familiar with the hymn in English, “Now I Belong to Jesus.” Frankly, I liked the song not because of the familiar tune, but because of the jazzy little arrangement one of the students had done. I always enjoyed singing this song, being sure to remember the E-flat our leader had thrown into the harmonization, and appreciated the nice little saxophone interlude he wrote between the verses. But my heart was not necessarily lifted beyond the confines of the chapel building roof with its lovely Spanish tiles. By God’s grace and the hard work of so many tutors and teachers, we ended our year of language school able to talk about current events, our families, and those things which make our hearts beat: love, music, desires, hopes, and the wonderful calling of God to “Go Ye Therefore Into All the Nations.” We had graduated from The Toy Shop to “The Real World,” but I was soon to find out just how much farther I had to go in truly learning the Spanish language. Our “Go Ye” took us not so far out of our cartographic experience and landed us in small-town Arkansas; my hometown, to be exact. There have been a host of hang-ups on being “sent out” only to arrive in the very place I was born and raised, but that’s another discussion for another day. We found a growing Hispanic community here and a very small, struggling church that needed a pastor. When my husband first visited the church by himself, he stood out as the lone gringo among the few people gathered there. When the congregation discovered that he spoke Spanish and that he was a preacher they made the plea that he come, bring his family, and be their pastor. Seven years later, he is still faithfully pastoring and preaching to our not-so-little-anymore congregation. Learning another language was for me an undoing of my entire person—mind, body, and spirit. Julie Spencer When we first joined this group of believers, they were meeting in the basement of a large American church. We had no name—just “Hispanic Mission.” There were two families besides our own and a few folks who’d visit on occasion. We threw ourselves eagerly into the work. From the perch of seven years later, I can look back on my dear younger self and wince a bit at my sincere efforts to belong to this little group of believers. I can hear my halting Spanish, see the sheen on my brow as I try to remember how to conjugate every verb to perfection. I see my attempts at making Mexican dishes, only to realize that there’s a huge difference between the Tex-Mex we all know (and love) and authentic Mexican food. “Bless her heart,” I can say with true southern compassion. But as I look back, I also see my weary face and the sometimes blank look I must have worn as we sang in Spanish. This was a true and unexpected sacrifice for me, giving up congregational singing in English. Raised in church, raised singing all the beautiful, glorious hymns we have in the English language—all of that was gone for me, at least on Sunday mornings. When I sang to God in our Hispanic congregation it was all about the vowels and consonants, not about the words. I felt content to sing the words correctly, but, for me, keeping up with what I was saying—well, I just couldn’t do it. I was often juggling a hymnal and a baby and trying to quiet a restless seven year-old boy. The words that might have brought comfort to me were often on my lips, but their meaning was never more than the black and white letters on the thin pages of our hymn books. Learning another language was for me an undoing of my entire person—mind, body, and spirit. The technical aspect of learning a foreign language was like having a toddler unpack all the linguistic knowledge I’d ever had, throwing it all over the floor of my mind, and then running outside to play. I am still picking up the pieces and often find it difficult to have one-on-one conversations with anyone, no matter what language I’m speaking. There is a physical element to learning a new language; exhaustion is the most obvious result of intense language study. But there is also anxiety and its physical symptoms: sweating, visible awkwardness, exaggerated hand motions when words fail, and an unwillingness to meet anyone’s eye, lest they should try to engage you in conversation. And over it all, around it all, is the spiritual aspect of learning a new language. When you set out to learn a new language for the glory of God, you must lay aside a part of yourself. You must assume that you know nothing—you must become as a little child as you approach this new world of sounds and syllables. You must learn to love God’s word in that language, to pray to Him in that language, and to sing to Him in that language. Seven years into this Spanish-speaking adventure, and I can confidently say that my communication skills are on par with many of the seven year-old native speakers in our church. Which is to say, I have a long way to go in my journey to fluency in Spanish. But, oh the joy I have known in these seven years of fellowship here! Our church family has grown and we’ve been given a name: no longer “Hispanic Mission,” but Iglesia Betel, the House of God. There is a wonderful mystery in all of this—how we have become a family in this little “house” called the church. My husband and I do not now see ourselves as The Missionaries who have come to bring the Gospel to Hispanics in South Arkansas. We feel much more akin to Luther’s beggar showing other beggars where to find bread. We have wearied ourselves with ministry but have learned to find nuestro descanso en Cristo. My heart lifted when, at a recent Wednesday evening Bible Study, we began to sing “Ya Pertenezco a Cristo.” Ya pertenezco a Cristo El pertenece a mí No solo por el tiempo aquí Mas por la eternidad I realized I’d forgotten the words in English, but that the Spanish lyrics had become meaningful to me in and of themselves. “I belong to Jesus! He is mine! Not just for today—but forever!” Tears formed in my eyes as we sang the first verse: Cristo el Señor me ama por siempre Mi vida guarda Él tiernamente Vence el pecado, Cuida del mal Ya pertenezco a Él I felt I could say, “Sí!” and “Amén!” to all of it. Yes! Christ loves me—me!—forever. He tenderly cares for and guards my life. He defeats sin in me and protects me from evil, because I belong to Him. And I belong to these people: my friends, my brothers and sisters in the Lord. What a treasure to stand with these loved ones and sing, with one voice: Gozo indecible inunda mi alma ya libertado estoy y mi vida Llena está de felicidad ya pertenezco a Él Indescribable joy floods my soul I am now free and my life is full of happiness I now belong to Him

Writing is the act of sitting alone and trying to connect with other people, some of whom may not even be born yet. By necessity, writing is a solitary enterprise. When it comes time to put words on a page you have to go somewhere and be by yourself. Nevertheless, writers need other people. The introspection and self-awareness required for writing can easily become self-absorption or self-flagellation or self-indulgence. Without other voices speaking into your life and work, it’s easy to lose heart or lose the path or lose perspective. It’s one of the great ironies of the writing life: it requires aloneness, and yet aloneness is one of the great dangers of the writing life. If you are a lone genius whose vision is utterly unique, feel free to ignore my remarks on this score. True, Flannery O’Connor came to value her isolation as a necessary condition of her art, though she didn’t choose her isolation. (And furthermore, she wasn’t truly isolated.) In any case, I’m not Flannery O’Connor and you probably aren’t either. I don’t think I could descend into the writer’s cave if there weren’t people just outside the entrance, calling me back into the bright life of the world. Most of us mere mortals need other people, and especially other writers. Yet other writers aren’t always easy to find. It has been my hope that Field Notes for Writers, the online membership that I lead, would be a gathering place where writers could learn together, find community, and give each other just a little more courage. I’ve been adding to the Field Notes library every week since September, and for the foreseeable future I will continue to add to it weekly. But it has occurred to me that the real value of the library is to give writers something to gather around and discuss. If you haven’t joined the Field Notes community, now would be a good time. Below is a trailer that tells the Field Notes story. I’ll be sharing on social media and elsewhere in an effort to grow the community. If you’re inclined to share it with your writer friends, I’d be most grateful. In these last few months, the library has grown to a respectable size—over ten hours of video, plus quizzes, discussion questions, etc. The library is currently divided into four categories: Line Edits These are short (10-15 minute) videos in which I pull up a story or essay from my extensive collection of online writing submissions and talk through the revisions that I recommended to the writer. There are currently five of these videos in the library. Comparing Notes These are podcast-style interviews in which I sit down with a writer friend and talk about writing….and I am happy to report that I have some very interesting writer friends. The five that are currently up are: Rebecca Reynolds, author of Courage, Dear Heart. Sam (S.D.) Smith, author of the Green Ember series. Heidi Johnston, author of Life in the Big Story. Dave Radford, singer-songwriter and the husband half of The Gray Havens. NEW THIS WEEK: Helena Sorensen, author of the Shiloh series (this one is great, by the way). Webinars Once a month I host a webinar on a writing topic. These webinars are free to all comers, Field Notes members and non-members alike. After the live event, I add a recording of the webinar to the Field Notes library, where you have access any time, whether you attended the live event or not. There are currently three webinars in the library: Writing Vivid Description Writing Better Dialogue Writing Better Places (Setting) COMING THIS WEEK: Understanding Narration and Point of View The February webinar, just in time for Valentine’s Day, will be about writing better love letters. Grammar for Writers If you join Field Notes before the end of February, you will have access to Grammar for Writers for as long as you remain a member. This is a great deal, by the way: the standalone price for Grammar for Writers will be higher than a year’s subscription to Field Notes. The first two modules (28 lessons) of Grammar for Writers are currently up. The remaining two modules will be up by the middle of February. Office Hours Every couple of weeks or so, I hold “office hours” via a Zoom video chat in which the Field Notes community can gather to ask questions, discuss a topic, etc. Book Club Our first Field Notes book club started this week. We are reading through Madeleine L’Engle’s Walking on Water together. It’s not too late to jump in. Click here to sample the Field Notes library and here to join the Field Notes community.

Click through for an in-depth video about the art and imagination of Joe Sutphin, how his love of illustration began, and his creative process for bringing novels to life. Learn more about Joe Sutphin’s work at his website here.

Every year, we compile all our favorite books, albums, TV shows, films, and more from that year and post them here for everyone’s mutual edification. Now that 2018 has come and gone, here are our choices. What were some of your favorites from 2018? Post them in the comments section below! Jen Yokel Books 1. Wearing God, Lauren Winner: With the eye of a scholar and the heart of a poet, Winner draws on personal stories, deep Biblical study, and a love of language to explore lesser known metaphors for God in a book I couldn’t stop thinking about for maybe a month after I read it. 2. Liturgy of the Ordinary, Tish Harrison Warren: Liturgy is not just religious activity, but the practices that shape us in our everyday lives, and in this book, Tish Harrison Warren explores this idea through our most mundane moments. You may not look at brushing your teeth or losing your keys the same way again. 3. The Jubilee, John Blase: It’s rare for me to make it through an entire poetry collection from start to finish but these were just so good, finely tuned with wisdom, gentle grace, and a touch of humor in all the right places. 4. The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All the Way Home, Catherynne M. Valente: I finally finished Valente’s Fairyland series this year, and this final volume was a beautiful conclusion to September’s adventures. If you’re into colorful characters, whimsical narrators, and old-fashioned fantasy with a healthy scoop of nonsense, pick up this series! 5. Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen: I always try to tackle either a thick intimidating novel or an unread classic in the winter, so for 2018 I worked on my Austen deficiency and discovered I relate a little too much to Elinor Dashwood. Music 1. Evergreen, Audrey Assad: Lovingly crafted from start to finish, Evergreen tells a painfully honest story of faith lost and found, spiritual growth, and evergreen hope and marks a courageous new chapter in her career. 2. Golden Hour, Kacey Musgraves: Blending small-town country with glistening pop and songs that waver between wistful and playful, Golden Hour quickly won me over. I guess this means I like country now? 3. The Painted Desert, Andrew Osenga: The Painted Desert comes after time off from the road and studio, and these songs about renewal and hope create one of the most powerful records of the year. 4. Before the Sun Goes Down, The New Respects: Elements of funk, soul, blues, and 70’s rock n roll come together for one of coolest rock records I’ve heard in a long time. 5. Save Me, Liz Vice: If you haven’t discovered Liz Vice yet, her sophomore solo project is a great place to start. She blends classic R&B, soul, and gospel influences with pop beats and for one powerful, hopeful musical experience. Film/TV 1. Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse: With compelling characters, stunning animation, and tons of delightful nods to the comics and movies of the past, Spider-Verse is one of the best moviegoing experiences I’ve had in a long time. Totally worth catching on a big screen while you can. 2. Black Panther: After 10 years following the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I’m pretty much in for whatever they offer, but there are a few that truly rise above the standard superhero blockbuster. Black Panther succeeds with power and style, through nuanced characters, a beautifully rendered world, and a story asking big questions about peace, justice, and courage. 3. Isle of Dogs: Wes Anderson’s second stop-motion animated film about a boy searching for his dog in a dystopian near-future Japan is, well, just as weird and charming as you’d expect, with a meticulous attention to detail and lot of heart. 4. Eighth Grade: Set in Kayla’s final week of eighth grade, this coming of age film skips the sentimentality and explores the tenderness and awkwardness of growing up in the Instagram age. Also, it has one of the best father/daughter conversations I’ve ever seen on film. 5. Won’t You Be My Neighbor: I never thought a documentary about a children’s TV star would make me cry, but well, this was 2018 after all. Such a beautiful portrait of one man’s long obedience toward loving others well. Chris Yokel Books 1. Prayers of a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke: Just read what I had to say about this book here. 2. Falling Upward, Richard Rohr: This book was immensely helpful and full of wisdom in the midst of my spiritual reconstruction. Rohr argues that we must move from rigid rules and systems in earlier life to openness as we mature. 3. The Wildwood Chronicles, Colin Meloy: Read the first book many years ago, but decided to start the series over, and was rewarded with one of the most satisfying ends to a book series that I’ve read in quite awhile. 4. When The English Fall, David Williams:This post apocalyptic tale told from the perspective of an Amish man hauntingly grapples with pacifism in a world gone mad. 5. Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen: Bruce compelling and poetically tells his life story. Read a lot of this when preparing for my session at Hutchmoot this past year. Music 1. Eurus, The Oh Hellos: This second EP in a four part series continues the band’s exploration of the question “Where do our ideas come from?”. Once again The Oh Hellos continue to display floor stomping musical wizardry with potent, thoughtful lyrics. 2. Magic, Ben Rector: Ben Rector continues to excel at thoughtful pop music by channeling 80s sound with meditations on childhood and growing up, both in himself and looking at this newborn daughter. 3. Ancient Transition, Beta Radio: Beta Radio, out of Wilmington, NC, has quietly become one of my favorite bands. In this new album, they continue expanding on their folk sensibilities and sensitive songwriting by examining what home is in a world of transition. 4. Palms, Thrice: In a year in which I was processing spiritual deconstruction and reconstruction, it was so encouraging to find out that two of my favorite artists, Audrey Assad and Dustin Kensrue of Thrice, had gone through the same experience and put it into their art. 5. Voice in the Silence, Mutemath: Feels like the old school Mutemath of their first three albums that I’ve always loved. Film/TV 1.Springsteen on Broadway: Bruce Springsteen is one of our most compelling American storytellers, and this film just proves it. 2. I Am Not Your Negro: This came out in 2017, but I just had a chance to finally watch it several weeks ago. A powerful gut punch of a film focusing on the last unfinished work of James Baldwin. 3. First Man: Ryan Gosling’s portrayal of a grief-stricken Neil Armstrong in this film is a beautifully understated performance. 4. First Reformed: Ethan Hawke as an anguished, despairing priest grappling with his own failings and the struggles of a parishioner left me haunted. Helena Sorensen Books 1. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, Alan Bradley: The first in a series of detective novels featuring Flavia de Luce, an eleven-year-old amateur sleuth whose obsession with poisons prompts her to blurt out such phrases as “Lord, How manifold are Thy works!” What’s not to love? 2. Year of Wonders, Geraldine Brooks: A novel based on the true story of a village that quarantined itself during an epidemic of the plague. Horrifying topic; gorgeous writing. 3. Worlds of Exile and Illusion, Ursula K. LeGuin: A collection of LeGuin’s first three science fiction novels, each more wonderful than the last. Nobody can plunge you into a strange new world like Ursula. 4. Traveling Mercies, Anne Lamott: My first Anne Lamott book. Where has she been all my life?! 5. A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving: This one’s for you, Jonathan Rogers. Albums Songs from the Valley, Sandra McCracken: Nothing made me cry in 2018 like Sandra’s latest album. If you haven’t put “O Gracious Light” on repeat and bawled your head off, you’re missing out. Oh, but wait! There’s “Fool’s Gold and “Lover of My Soul” and “Letting Go.” Dadgummit, Sandra! Movies/TV 1. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri: Because Frances McDormand is fabulous at everything, and because I didn’t see that reconciliation coming. Beautiful. 2. Paddington 2: Movies that parents and children enjoy equally are big winners in my book. And the colors! And Ben Whishaw! So delightful. 3. Outlaw King: Just when I’d settled on the fact that Robert the Bruce was the most loathsome traitor in history, this Netflix Original gave me another perspective. Also, I really love to hate Edward Longshanks. 4. The Last Kingdom, Season 3: The kind of writing that makes every word, every scene, seem inevitable. Plus Alfred the Great and Danes. 5. The Crown, Season 2: The acting! The acting! The last scene of the last episode, in the little cottage by the garden, when I clutched the arm of my couch with terrible force while my jaw sank to the floor! Hetty White Books 1. Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl: Half memoir of his time in a WWII concentration camp and half philosophy, everyone alive should read this book that links hope with the ability to find meaning in/through your suffering. 2. A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving: Hilarious. Poignant. I am a better writer for having read this novel. 3. Bandersnatch: C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and the Creative Collaboration of the Inklings, Diana Pavlac Glyer: Yes, I heard the author’s wonderful talk at Hutchmoot, but reading the book was even better. I felt like I was actually hanging out with he Inklings and it made me realize my own longing for creative community. Music 1. Mighty Refuge, Aaron Strumpel: Beautiful take on old hymns. 2. “Hold Out Your Hand,” Brandi Carlile: She’s one of my songwriting heroes and I love everything she did last year. 3. Sentimental Creatures, Jess Ray: I know it didn’t come out last year, but I’ve had this on repeat. Films/TV 1. Sorry to Bother You: Near-future sci-fi with a super weird twist and intense social commentary (i.e. Get Out) that fit in the narrative. Not for the sensitive souls. 2. Daredevil Season 3: I really enjoyed the latest (and apparently last) season of Daredevil which featured the return of the infamous Wilson Fisk. 3. Black Mirror, “Bandersnatch” (episode): Yes, I actually have two Bandersnatches on my list. Dark sci-fi that’s interactive so that the viewer is literally choosing their own adventure? Yes, please! Joe Sutphin Books 1. The Bull That Was Terrifico, Karel Jaeger, illustrated by Barbara Mary Campbell (also known as “CAM”): I found this book in an old book store in Victoria, BC, with my pal Kevan Chandler. It’s a gorgeously illustrated gem of a book that made me crave more books illustrated by CAM. 2. The Misadventured Summer of Tumbleweed Thompson, Glenn McCarty: The finest story and authorial voice of the year in my opinion. It instantly reads as an old classic, yet is fresh and alive, full of heart and adventure and grounded in truth and goodness. I don’t mean to seem self-serving by mentioning a book I was honored to illustrate, but it’s a fantastic story that deserves to be read by those who appreciate good writing and great characters. 3. I’ve also been collecting older, more obscure titles illustrated by Lillian Hoban. Music 1. Hope Where There Was None, Loud Harp: The album of the year for me. It’s beautiful, powerful and filled with hope amid pain and struggle. 2. Where The Light Shines Through, Switchfoot: I was late to actually purchasing this one, but it’s wonderful, and Switchfoot remains a favorite of mine for their constant message of hope. 3. Loud Harp’s previous album, Asaph, was played in rotation with their new album throughout the year and is equally powerful and moving in its vocal, musical and lyrical content. Film/TV 1. Wonder: After reading it a few years ago, I held off watching the film, but finally decided to a month ago. I actually found it to be far more effective in telling the story than the book, and found it to be far more moving in its telling. 2. Almost Holy: a documentary about Gennadiy Mohknenko, a Ukrainian pastor and vigilante who hunts the dark streets of the Ukraine, pulling drug-addicted children from the slums and sewers and clutches of depraved adults, by force if necessary, adopting them and giving them a better life. I found Gennadiy to be the first real super hero I’ve come across in film in quite some time. Adam Whipple Movie The Incredibles II: I don’t see many new things, because I don’t get out much, but my eldest daughter reminded me that this Pixar gem came out last year. I like Pixar’s work in general, but for me, this film meant a lot. It’s not perfect, but like it’s predecessor, it put both hands directly into a number of family issues that usually get ignored. Bob Parr’s struggles to identify as the man of the house were home territory for me. I’m mostly a stay-at-home husband, bringing in a modicum of income through a grab bag of music, playing shows, writing, live sound engineering, and production. My wife works at a school and generally brings in the larger portion of our pay. She likes football; I couldn’t care less. She loves steak; I could live off fish and vegetables. She is more willing to try new technology; I like axes and dirt. At times, it feels to me like my wife is more aligned with the male stereotypes, while I tend toward a domain more traditionally that of women. I know life is rightly more complex than that, but that doesn’t mean I’m not subject to feeling inadequate about it. To see a character wrestling with those same inner hardships was freeing to me. I was not alone in a world of suited male CEOs and Ward Cleavers carrying briefcases and reading the paper. This, by the way, is a good remembrance that happens to other people when they see actors of color or characters struggling with sexuality, mental issues, or various other human conditions that escape your standard cookie cutter film. Feelings shouldn’t be the highest of driving forces, but knowing you’re not alone is a lot more than a feeling, and it’s worthwhile to show it in film. Album Portage, Vol. 1, Arthur Alligood: There are records I need for running, and they tend to proceed with a certain sense of narrative. If I distract myself from the hideous discomfort of aerobic motion, I can keep going a while longer. Not only does Portage accomplish the difficult feat of seeing me through two miles of jogging, it does so with a hope and a dead-eye stare at reality that most records leave out. Arthur’s project is a departure from his normal folk-n-roll idiom. It’s also right in his wheelhouse. Though largely electronic, the arrangements feel warm and inviting, while the lyricism is a complex and needed blend of acknowledging the horrors and faults of our modern culture and deciding to walk a different direction. Every song feels secure in the work of God’s grace even while admitting to a fallenness that follows but, by the Spirit’s providence, does not overcome. Arthur allows us room to say with him: “I won’t live in fear. I refuse.” Book Virgil Wander, Lief Enger: The sheer richness of this book ought to be enough for anyone to pick it up. Lief Enger’s command of sentences and pacing—and his cast of driven characters—make for a novel that doesn’t so much flog you along the road as cradle you, with all the homespun mystique of a long-rope tire swing. Virgil Wander is a mystery at heart, but the stakes are much larger. All the characters are the suspects; most of them are gumshoes; the crime is the unknown question of why things always go wrong when people work so hard to make it right. The northern-wilds hamlet of Greenstone, Minnesota, seems plagued by the recalcitrant woes of small American towns. There are the tragic, prodigal scion, the fallen ne’er-do-well who can’t hold a job, the widow looking always to the horizon, and the looming hulk of the abandoned ore plant. In the midst of this achingly familiar grayscale, Enger conjures the inviting magic of bright, outlandish kites, a treasure trove of old films, the potential of a Bob Dylan concert, and the reticent specter of Lake Superior. As with Peace Like a River, faith in Virgil Wander serves as an undercurrent. Enger refuses to give in to the temptation to make it a plot device. In this regard, the everyday interactions between the characters tend to be about more than they appear to be about. Through the potency of his concentrated prose and the approachable savor of the characters, Enger reminds us that there is an intricate shining deep down in real life. Kelsey Miller Songs 1. “Nothing Has to Be True,” First Aid Kit: The lyric, “You can tell yourself so many things, and nothing has to be true” is devastatingly human. 2. “I Made This For You,” Chris Thile: A song for those of us who tend to go numb in the face of chaos and disorder. The last verse feels like a manifesto. 3. “Why It Matters,” Sara Groves: I love the reminder that the Kingdom comes in giving cold cups of water. 4. “Velvet Elvis,” Kacey Musgraves: I’m pretty sure there is not a song more fun than this one. Jonny Jimison Movies Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse: The unashamed, unfettered, game-changing movie that Miles Morales deserves. The Breadwinner: A brutally honest, brutally compassionate drama of the human condition. Mary Poppins Returns: If there’s one thing I need stories for, it’s to make my jaded soul homesick for wonder. A Quiet Place: Compelling character drama and tension, no dialogue, couldn’t look away. Loving Vincent: A compelling portrait of a fascinating artist, presented through painted recreations of his vision. Jill Phillips Book Consolations, David Whyte: These short meditations on words like “friendship” and “heartbreak” by poet and author David Whyte is a treasure. I have picked it up many times this year to find words of comfort and solidarity in the deepest places of being human. Movie Beautiful Boy: This movie resonated with me in a deep way, despite the emotional beating it inflicted on my heart. It is a fearless and redemptive portrayal of addiction and recovery, the risks of love, and ultimately, letting go. Album Let Them Fall in Love, CeCe Winans: If you need an infusion of hope, this is the album for you. No one sings like CeCe Winans. Every syllable is rooted in something deeper, a richness of tone that comes from years of living out her faith. I absolutely love the timeless “He’s Never Failed Me Yet.” Heidi Johnston Books 1. Letters to a Diminished Church, Dorothy Sayers: Until this year I hadn’t read any Dorothy Sayers but this book was my top read this year. Challenging, engaging, captivating, and generally Inkling-ish. 2. A Diary of Private Prayer, John Bailie: The whole idea of liturgy is relatively new to me, but I’ve been using this book in my private prayer this year and I love it more each time I go through it. 3. Ember Rising, S. D. Smith: I love Sam Smith’s books but I think this one is my favourite so far. 4. Courage, Dear Heart, Rebecca Reynolds: I’m guessing I won’t be the only person to list this for so many reasons. 5. Illustrated Summaries of Biblical Books, The Bible Project: I’m a big fan of the Bible Project and this (enormous) book was probably my favourite Christmas present. TV Shows / Movies 1. Mary Poppins Returns: I was totally unprepared to love this as much as I did; it’s magical. 2. Mrs. Wilson (BBC Series): This three-part drama is based on the true story of Alexander Wilson, a novelist and former Secret Intelligence Service agent during the Second World War, and tells the story of the complicated life he led, discovered by his family only following his death. 3. Les Miserables (BBC Series): This one is a bit of a cheat on a 2018 list as it is currently only three episodes into a six episode run. We started watching it straight after seeing the West End Touring Production and I hate it, love it, and spend a good part of the week mulling over the episodes—normally a good sign. Chris Thiessen Music 5. By The Way, I Forgive You, Brandi Carlile: An excellent collection of stories sung by the most comforting and heartbreaking voice in modern Americana. 4. Joy As An Act of Resistance, IDLES: On their second album, this British punk group achieved a balance of righteous anger toward injustice and joy-filled encouragement greater than I’ve never experienced before. 3. Historian, Lucy Dacus: Dacus’ personal stories of heartbreak and, well, just life are so earnest on this record. Also, she really knows how to slowly build to a rock & roll crescendo (see “Night Shift”). 2. Care For Me, Saba: The young Chicago rapper offers a bleak look at life in his hometown, mortality, and violence, but in the end is able to see hope and beauty through the pain around him. 1. High As Hope, Florence & The Machine: No album filled me with yearning hopefulness this year as much as this one. Florence Welch is keenly aware that “we all have a hunger” for something greater than ourselves and does her best to search here for hope and grace. Film/TV 5. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse: This animated masterpiece won all the style points available; the rest can go home. Also, it’s the best Spider-Man film. 4. A Quiet Place: A truly suspenseful thriller with wonderful performances from John Krasinski and Emily Blunt who offer everything they can to protect their children and thrive despite the darkness. 3. Black Panther: I love superhero movies, but this was so much more than just an action flick, offering thoughtful looks at foreign policy and race amidst the admittedly awesome action sequences. 2. Eighth Grade: The best coming of age film made for the social media generation. Director Bo Burnham nailed the nuances of being a teen in the 2010s. 1. Won’t You Be My Neighbor: You can’t see this movie without shedding tears and being inspired to share the grace of Christ with your neighbor. Thank you, Mr. Rogers. Drew Miller Books 1. The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, Siddhartha Mukherjee: This book was a riveting undertaking. Mukherjee’s writing is pristinely clear, highly educational, and bursting with insightful storytelling. I not only learned about the history of cancer; I learned about the vicious cycle of spectacular human achievement reinforcing the tragic consequences of hubris. 2. Till We Have Faces, C. S. Lewis: In my opinion, this is his best writing. I only just got around to it recently, and it struck me as a more fully developed telling of The Great Divorce, brought to a fever pitch at the end. It felt like he was laying all his cards on the table, and I’m so grateful that he shared his wisdom in this mythical form. 3. Harry Potter, Books 3-5, J. K. Rowling: These books have been a salve to me and Kelsey. We’ve been reading them out loud—Dumbledore’s Army has become a compelling image of the church for me, Rowling’s commentary on death is spot-on, and the friendship portrayed in these novels is so rich and beautiful. 4. The Tombs of Atuan, Ursula Le Guin: Thank you, Helena and Hetty! A captivating read all the way through that will really get your wheels turning. I came away with lots of delicious questions about the storytelling of religion and its ability to shape the worlds we inhabit. If you want to get really tripped out, read this and Till We Have Faces back to back. Lots of mutually-enriching ideas, and Lewis will feel like coming home after Le Guin’s grand adventure. 5. The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster: I picked this up on a whim one day and could not put it down. Not only is it hilarious, but it has wonderful things to say about the perils of dividing God’s creation into neat, antagonistic categories. Music 1. Symphony No. 2, Leonard Bernstein: The good Steve Guthrie recommended this to me. One December evening when I was home alone, I played it through my stereo and sat on the floor. It is a wild, wild ride, both gorgeously orchestrated and at times frightening. Get ready for goosebumps. 2. See You Around, I’m With Her: Excellently arranged, sparsely written folk songs with a heart of gold. Listen and be moved. 3. Monument Valley 2 Soundtrack, Todd Baker: This guy nailed it. If you need some immersive, wide-angle sounds and melodies to calm you down while you work or drive (or nap), this is a great choice. 4. Violin Concerto, Mason Bates: I bonded with this one again after having not listened to it for a long time. During our sophomore year of college, a friend of mine and I stumbled into Anne Akiko Meyers’ premiere of this piece at the Schermerhorn, and I recall feeling like I was in an actual rainforest. Years later, through my speakers, it has the same effect. Listen and be ready for something altogether new and enchanting, even if a bit taxing. 5. Love, Lose, Remember, Madison Cunningham: Watch out for this artist. She is taking the world by storm. She’s an enthralling performer, effortless vocalist, intuitive songwriter, and perhaps most formidable of all, she seems to have a direct, mystical connection to the spirits of both Joni Mitchell and Jeff Buckley. I saw her open for the Punch Brothers at the Ryman last year; just her and an electric guitar, and she had the whole place wrapped around her finger. I would fully support her doing an actual mic drop at the end of her performances, but she’s too classy for that. Film/TV 1. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel: Amy Sherman-Palladino is a genius and this show has serious guts. The amount of wit is beyond comprehension and the social commentary is spot-on, but neither of these interfere with the heart of the story and its characters. 2. The Good Place: Even if rather inconsistent, every second of this show is worth watching. It takes enormous risks, upending each and every premise of the show almost on an episode-by-episode basis. It somehow manages to cathartically express the absurdity of modern life in a way that leaves you feeling uplifted rather than depressed. 3. The Century of the Self, Adam Curtis: A four-part documentary series investigating the roots of consumer culture in the insights (and fears) of Sigmund Freud, tracking the evolution of advertising as it infects every area of life, all the while making astute observations about human nature? Yes, please! But be careful—you may emerge in a haze of existential malaise afterwards. But it’s worth it. 4. Mary Poppins Returns: Everything Jennifer Trafton has to say about this film is true. Despite my usual misgivings about the Gospel according to Disney, this film’s songs were superbly written. I walked out of the theater with all the usual logical connections in my mind somewhat loosened, in the hope that new connections might arise. Mission accomplished. 5. The Great British Baking Show: Do you need to be reassured about the state of the human condition? Watch these cute British people be nice to each other. It works. Rob Wheeler Books 1. The Death of Ivan Ilych, Leo Tolstoy: This year I thought a lot about death. This Russian classic is short, readable, and thought-provoking. 2. Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment, Francis Fukuyama: This examination of modern identity politics helped me make a bit more sense of our cultural moment. 3. Remembering, Wendell Berry: Andy Catlett leaves Port William to deliver a speech in San Fransisco. In the process he finds his way back home in more ways than one. It’s beautiful and sad. 4. Leaf by Niggle, J. R. R. Tolkien: It’s short and wonderful. You can read it easily in one sitting. I’ll give a warning: I read it aloud to my family. By the end when tears began to fill my eyes, I looked around and everyone else just looked confused. It surely must have been a problem with my reading! 5. Culture Care, Makoto Fujimura: This book connected with a number of interesting themes and ideas for me. One of my favorites is his concept of the artist as a border-walker (mearcstapa) and his ideas of how our communities might become “estuaries” in which artists flourish in an environment of diversity and balance. Music 1. She Waits, The Gray Havens: I love the sound and the lyrics. 2. Thunderbolt and Lighting, Marc Martel: An album of Queen songs which are quite often better than the originals. 3. No Story Is Over, Son of Laughter: The album gets my mind swirling with thoughts and ideas about life. 4. 100 Years of Nine Lessons & Carols, The Choir of Kings College Cambridge: A great recording of a classic piece. 5. Remember Us to Life, Regina Spektor: I discovered this later than most, but have made up for lost time! Film 1. First Man: Try to find a big screen to watch this film about Neil Armstrong. 2. Three Identical Strangers: This is a fascinating and ethically provoking documentary where I found myself utterly astonished at four or five different twists of the story. Podcast 1. A Point of View, BBC Radio 4: These are thoughtful and diverse essays recorded in one take by the author. 2. Speaking with Joy, Joy Clarkson: I stumbled across this one as I noticed we had a number of friends in common. It’s interesting and full of good thoughts and conversations. 3. The Pivot, Andrew Osenga: This podcast features interesting interviews about making transitions in life. The interviewer is winsome and draws out the best and most honest parts of the story. Theatre Frankenstein, Studio Tenn & Pete Peterson: It is a play for our age in what it says about technology, science, and the power of the creative energy we steward. Pete Peterson TV Shows (saving films for a podcast) 1. The Americans: First hear me say that this is not a show for everyone (especially not kids), but I can’t remember being so wrapped up in the lives of a group of characters since the end of Breaking Bad. I loved the endless moral complexity of this show, and they pulled off a fantastic ending. 2. The Good Place: A comedy series about philosophy? I”m in. Haven’t seen season three yet, but I love seasons 1 & 2. 3. Making a Murderer: Season 2: As it turns out, yes, there is a lot more to this story. 4. The Great British Baking Show: As long as Paul Hollywood is on board, so am I. 5. The Handmaid’s Tale: Season 2: I had zero hopes for this continuation of what I thought was a perfect end to the story in season one. But I have to admit, it’s still compelling. Bumpy, for sure, but the arc Serena’s character is on is fascinating. Music 1. Resurrection Letters, Vol 1., Andrew Peterson: All brotherly bias aside, this album (and Resurrections Letters as a whole) is a profound accomplishment of theology. Oh, and it’s also a great bunch of songs. 2. She Waits, The Gray Havens: I will never not love The Gray Havens music, and this album adds Propaganda into the deal. Amazing. 3. By the Way, I Forgive You, Brandi Carlile: I’ve often told my wife that I’m pretty sure if my soul could sing, it would sound like Brandi Carlile. This record is further proof. 4. The Painted Desert, Andrew Osenga: It seems like Osenga keeps trying to quit making music, and yet he keeps coming back and making better and better albums. Stop that. Make the music. I like it. 5. So Many Feelings, Sho Baraka & Vanessa Hill: I’m a huge fan of Sho Baraka, and last year he and Vanessa Hill ambushed me with this album that’s all about marriage and its million complexities. Great stuff. Books 1. The Hiding Place, Corrie ten Boom: I’m adapting this for the stage this year so I’ve spent a lot of time with it. It’s an incredible story that I’m endlessly challenged and fascinated by. 2. Courage, Dear Heart, Rebecca Reynolds: We all knew Rebecca needed to write this book years before she did. I’m glad she finally came around. There’s plenty more where this one came from. Now we just have to make her write it. 3. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley: I’m putting this here because I spent more than half my year with it while adapting it for the stage. I love Shelley’s visionary mind, and I’m delighted to have had the chance to winnow her tale down to stageplay format. Thanks for the material, Mrs. Shelley. You’re a genius. 4. Among Others, Jo Walton: I heard sci-fi writer Jo Walton speak at the Festival of Faith and Writing this year and was captivated by her (I won’t even try to describe why. If you’ve met her, you’ll know). So when I got home, I was anxious to read some of her work. I picked this one up because of its awards recognition and wasn’t disappointed. This is one of the most Rabbit Room books I’ve ever read. It’s slow, complex, beautiful, troubling, baffling, and ultimately beautiful. I loved it and I’m dying to talk to someone about it. 5. Beloved, Toni Morrison: I had very little idea what I was getting into when I read this (though I faintly remembered the movie), but I can’t recall the last time I was so gobsmacked by a book. It’s certainly one of my top-five books of all time. Morrisson’s prose and her facility with structure (at all levels) are marvels. I finished the book and immediately began reading it again. I will love this book forever. Jennifer Trafton Movies My top three are easy and probably don’t need any defense: 1. Mary Poppins Returns 2. Won’t You Be My Neighbor? 3. Eighth Grade After that, it’s harder to choose, but I thought A Quiet Place was masterful and deeply emotional even though I usually hate scary movies, and The Americans, Season 6, was one of the best seasons of TV I’ve seen in a very long time though it took a lot of patience to get there. On an aesthetic level, Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse was visually phenomenal and creative and family-friendly and I’d recommend it to everyone, and yet oddly enough I have no great need to see it a second time. Not sure why. Books There are some excellent books from last year that I’m still in the middle of, but here are a few highlights of those I finished: 1. Night, Elie Wiesel: I had never read this classic, but reading it out loud in the car as we drove from Ravensbruck concentration camp to Dachau last October was one of the most chilling and unforgettable reading experiences I’ve ever had. I can’t call it a “favorite.” I’m not sure I’ll ever get over it. 2. The Faithful Spy, John Hendrix: This would have been on my favorites list even if I hadn’t just been to two concentration camps when I read it. 3. Louisiana’s Way Home, Kate DiCamillo (the sequel to Raymie Nightingale): I am continually amazed at how DiCamillo can make me laugh and cry in a single sentence. I loved it so, so much and just wanted to go find a forgotten, heartbroken child to hug afterwards. 4. Theology of Joy, Jurgen Moltmann: He says all the things I’ve been thinking for years, only much more eloquently than I could. 5. Beloved, Toni Morrison: I read this in 10th grade. 10th grade! I can’t believe anyone would give this to a 10th grader, and it clearly went over my head back then. This time through, I was completely enthralled. It’s a masterpiece. Music This is a hard category because we’re surrounded by so much wonderful music, and the music of my community is always my favorite. So putting aside the awesome albums of those who are related to me by marriage or by geographical proximity: The two biggest surprises for me this past year were Taylor Leonhardt and Jess Ray. Good grief, they’re talented. Jess’s “Too Good” is my favorite song of the year along with Andrew’s “Is He Worthy?” By far the most-listened-to non-Rabbit-Room artist in our house is Brandi Carlile. I’ve loved her since her album Story in 2007, and her new album By the Way, I Forgive You is fantastic. The Mary Poppins Returns soundtrack has been on repeat for weeks, and I can’t get “A Cover is Not the Book” out of my head. I mean, come on, it’s a song about BOOKS. Ben Shive Movies 1. The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs: Like a collection of Flannery O’Connor stories set in the Wild West, all dealing with the perplexity of death. 2. A Quiet Place: A scary, wholesome movie! I thought the colors were beautiful, the score and sound design were just right, and all the story-telling devices were so perfectly employed. 3. Phantom Thread: This is a gorgeous film with a lovely score by Jonny Greenwood from Radiohead. Speaking of Flannery O’Connor, this was a story about a severe act of grace and raised questions about what love is allowed to do for the sake of the beloved. 4. Mary Poppins Returns: I love the original Mary Poppins and the Sherman brothers immensely. I thought this honored the original and was itself a delightful movie. Books Walking With God Through Pain And Suffering, Tim Keller: Collected poems of Richard Wilbur. Thank you, Andrew Peterson, for this. Music New things: 1. Big Red Machine, Big Red Machine: “We met up like a ski team.” “Where your TV’s, Boss?” These, and other lines, make me love Justin Vernon more than ever. 2. Colors, Beck: Because Beck always be’s Beck. 3. Golden Hour, Kacey Musgraves: It took me a while to forgive this record for not having a song like Biscuits on it, but I do like it a lot. 4. Sword Of Damocles, Rufus Wainwright Old things: 1. String Quartet in F Major, Ravel 2. Ella and Louis, Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong 3. The Blue Notebooks, Max Richter 4. The Four Seasons Of Buenos Aires, Astor Piazzola 5. 22, A Million, Bon Iver Chris Slaten Listening 1. Portage, Vol 1: At the Edge of the World, Arthur Alligood: I couldn’t bring myself to take this out of my car CD player for a month. 2. Book of Travelers, Gabriel Kahane: Inspired by a cross country train trip, Kahane spins these tales with just a piano and his voice. This was the first recording to immediately entrance me this year. 3. Remain in The Light, Angelique Kidjo: This is a full album cover of Talking Heads’ Remain in the Light from the 80’s, as re-imagined by a Benenise singer with an Afro-pop band. It is my go-to for cleaning the house. 4. Critical Equation, Dr. Dog: This album had the kind of balance between strong hooks, interesting textures, and surprising development that I was hungry for in a year of releases that were often far too challenging for my patience. 5. The Bible Project Podcast: Tim and Jon are exploring all the questions I have about the Old Testament in ways that make me love it and want to read it so much more. I could listen in on their conversations all day. Viewing 1. The Haunting of Hill House (TV): Most of the most meaningful films and TV shows we watched involved ghosts or the afterlife. I am learning how horror/supernatural fiction is one the richest ways to face the terrors of the ordinary. Also, I love how writer/director Mike Flanagan clearly lets his love of live theater creep into how he creates for the screen. 2. The Good Place (TV): It’s not quite The Screwtape Letters in its weight, but it is probably as close to it as we will get in a sitcom. More supernatural fiction. 3. The Phantom Thread (Film): This is officially my favorite P.T. Anderson. It stuck with me in a way no other film did in 2018. Also spooky. 4. Won’t You Be My Neighbor (Documentary): May Mr. Rogers haunt us all. Reading The Faithful Spy, John Hendrix: It’s a masterpiece and clearly a labor of love. I would put it as essential reading for any believer in this era. I keep picking it back up and staring at the pages for long periods of time. Old News 1. Locke (Film): This would work well as a one man stage show, but I prefer Tom Hardy in a car. So much can happen in two hours. 2. Searching for Sugar Man (Documentary): Don’t read anything about it ahead of time. This is an incredible story. I couldn’t stop smiling afterwards. 3. The Dick Van Dyke Show (TV): My kids laugh so hard every time. 4. The Devil’s Highway: A True Story, Luis Alberto Urrea (Book): Read it even if you aren’t interested in the border wall debate. Urrea is a poet, the story is devastating, and it needs to be experienced. 5. American Gods, Neil Gaiman (Book): This was my first Neil Gaiman novel. What should I read next? 6. Ancient Near Eastern Thought and The Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible, John Walton (Book): Like the Bible Project Podcast, this book has only deepened my appreciation of the uniqueness and elegance of the Old Testament. 7. Symphony No. 2 (“Romantic”), Howard Hanson

Folks around the Rabbit Room find a lot of joy in discovering foreign words that express ideas our English dictionaries have no entry for. We nod in appreciation when someone quotes C. S. Lewis describing the German word sehnsucht as “the inconsolable longing in the human heart for ‘we know not what.’” We rejoice when Jennifer Trafton throws the Welch concept hiraeth into the mix, explaining it as “homesickness for a home you cannot return to, or even a home that never existed at all.” We only have incomplete, working definitions for these words, because they don’t quite translate into English. Yet these words describe our own hearts in a way we English-speakers don’t quite know how. In his new book so aptly titled Inexpressible, Michael Card gives us a new (in an ancient sort of way) foreign word. Except this time, it’s not a word we have found that describes the character of our hearts. Instead, it’s a word God uses in Scripture to describe the character of his: the Hebrew word hesed. With nearly 250 occurrences in the Old Testament and a myriad of interpretations across translations, hesed is two inexhaustible syllables that press at the boundaries of what any language can communicate. It’s holy speech that doesn’t quite translate into human understanding. And yet, Michael Card has taken on the monumental task of beginning to help us wrap our minds and hearts around what it means. Our incomplete, working definition? “When the person from whom I have a right to expect nothing gives me everything.” It’s a word that describes God’s heart in a way we are still trying to grasp. We encounter hesed first on Sinai with Moses, enveloped in the cloud of the presence of Yahweh, who reveals himself to Moses as “slow to anger and rich in hesed and truth, maintaining hesed to a thousand generations” (Exodus 24:6). From this encounter of the God of hesed, the story of hesed unfolds, and Michael Card leads his reader through those thousand generations of the word. With very possibly the largest range of word meaning in the Hebrew language, each translation—love, lovingkindness, mercy, grace, pity, devotion, beauty, and others—attempts to express the inexpressible character of Yahweh. Reading Card’s book is something of a scavenger hunt and something of a story, each chapter unfolding a new use, encounter, associated word, object, or expression of hesed. We follow the Israelites through their years of wandering and we hear hesed sung again and again as a refrain: “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his hesed endures forever” (1 Chronicles 16:34). We walk with David through the valley of the shadow and come out on the other side because we can each say with him, “Surely goodness and hesed will follow me all the days of my life” (Psalm 23:6). And when all Israel is failing to follow the law of the One who leads them, we hear the assurance of the Lord that what he truly desires from his people is “hesed and not sacrifice” (Hosea 6:6), that they would return to him what he has so freely offered them. So then, the call to live out hesed pierces our hearts as well, and we hear the prophets call us to “do justice, love hesed, and walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8). Instances of hesed in the life of God’s people continue on and on until the Old Testament ends and the New begins. There, Michael Card shows us hesed again, not as a word, but as a man: Christ himself, “the incarnation of hesed, full of grace and truth.” “In the end,” Michael Card explains, “hesed is as much a world as a word”—the world of God’s character, his heart for his people, and the story of his relationship with them. It’s an inexpressible world, yes—and it’s the world Michael Card invites us to enter through his book. Somewhere among her nearly 2,000 poems, Emily Dickinson wrote one of the best recommendations I have found for approaching truths that are too much to be understood, let alone expressed: Tell all the truth but tell it slant— Success in Circuit lies Too bright for our infirm Delight The Truth’s superb surprise As Lightning to the Children eased With explanation kind The Truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind— The truth of the word hesed and the world that it unfolds is too bright for our “infirm delight,” our stammering tongues, our earthly dictionaries. Perhaps someday, when our eyes and our minds and our hearts are new, it won’t blind us so much, and we’ll grasp a one-word definition for the heart of God. But I have my doubts. For now, Michael Card has offered us in Inexpressible the truth of hesed told “slant” enough—through a scavenger-hunt-story of translations and example passages—that we can begin to grasp its reality in our lives. And as hesed dazzles us gradually, we may find ourselves not blind, but instead, catching sight of the heart of God in the corners of our eyes. Click here to purchase Inexpressible in the Rabbit Room Store.

Jennifer Trafton just launched a free online course for readers of Henry and the Chalk Dragon who want to use Henry’s story as a springboard for their own creativity. Click through for more details. Each lesson includes a writing and/or drawing prompt, ideas for creative activities, and at least one optional group activity for a family to do together. Videos offer creative inspiration and encouragement, writing advice, and a behind-the-scenes look at the writing process and some of the ways in which Jennifer’s own journey as an artist intersects with Henry’s. Also included are downloadable coloring pages, bookmarks, and a “Knight of La Muncha” certificate for those who finish. Click here to learn more and enroll in the course.

The past year has gone by so quickly that we’ve hardly had a chance to stop and catch our breath, and the Rabbit Room has grown in a lot of ways over the last twelve months. Some of the biggest changes have been in the Rabbit Room team itself and it’s worth taking a moment to introduce everyone to some new people working behind the scenes. First up is our Content Developer, Drew Miller. Many of you will recognize Drew as one of the driving members of The Orchardist (who amiably parted ways a few months ago). For the past year, he’s been doing an amazing job coordinating the content of the website by communicating with writers and keeping a lookout for new talent. He’s also the lead producer of the Rabbit Room Podcast Network, which recently finished up season one of The Second Muse and is preparing to launch The Artist’s Creed. Drew makes it all look easy and we’re grateful to have him on the team. Drew Miller: Content Developer Next up is our Head of Sales and Administration, Chris Thiessen. If you’re one of the thousands who placed an order with the Rabbit Room Store last year, Chris was probably the person who packed that order and shipped it. But Chris is not only a rockstar in the shipping office; he also handles our customer service, donor administration, and most recently he’s taken on the curation of Rabbit Room playlists on Spotify and Apple Music as well as providing blog content from time to time, AND managing the Local Show. Be kind to this good man. He works his butt off. Chris Thiessen: Head of Sales and Administration If you’ve spent much time in Nashville, you probably already know Rob Wheeler (seriously, Rob knows everyone, right?). We officially welcomed him to the crew early in 2018 to work in Community Care & Development. He heads up the local Rabbit Room prayer team, develops community relationships and helps out in a variety of other areas. Many of you may know Rob from his work with Friends of L’Abri: Nashville, which he founded and has grown from a small group to a vibrant community. We’re lucky to have him on board. Rob Wheeler: Community Care & Development And most recently (just last week in fact) we added our newest team member: Shigé Clark, Head of Communications and Donor Development. She’ll be helping out in many different areas as we work to refine the way the Rabbit Room communicates and executes its mission through programs, events, and public awareness. We’re excited about the skill-set Shigé brings to the team and we can’t wait for all of you to meet her. Shigé Clark: Head of Communications and Donor Development And finally, the Rabbit Room added a board member this year. To our founding seven members, we’ve welcomed Steve Guthrie. Steve is a professor of theology at Belmont University, a two-time Hutchmoot speaker, and member of a Beatles tribute band (which we don’t hold against him). We’re grateful for the wisdom and university experience he brings to the leadership of the organization and we look forward to his participation for years to come. Steve Guthrie: New Board Member See what I mean? That’s FIVE new folks added to the team just in the last twelve months (it wasn’t so long ago that it was just me and Kaitlyn!) We’re incredibly grateful for every one of these good people and love the passion and skills each of them bring to the Rabbit Room. Andrew and I couldn’t get much done without them, and we’re anxious to see all the ways in which the many Rabbit Room communities out there will be blessed by their work. So next time you run into one of these folks at the Local Show, or Hutchmoot, or a convention, or anywhere else, consider taking a moment to say hello and thank them for all they do behind the scenes.

Some Rabbit Room friends (Katy Bowser Hutson, Rob and Lisa Wheeler) are heading up to the beautiful tundra of Minnesota for the Rochester L’Abri Conference taking place on February 8th and 9th. Interested in joining? Click through for more details. What is a L’Abri Conference? L’Abri is the French word for shelter. The L’Abri ministry was founded by Francis and Edith Schaeffer in 1955 to provide an environment where Christians and non-Christians could seek answers to questions about God and truth. Following in that tradition, a L’Abri Conference is an opportunity through lectures, discussions, and personal interaction, to feed and hone the mind in an effort to deepen one’s understanding of what it means to be a Christian in our society. The on-campus housing and mealtimes are designed to facilitate an exchange of ideas among conferees and speakers. —from the L’Abri Conference 2019 webpage This conference will feature speakers Steve Garber (author of Visions of Vocation: Common Grace for the Common Good), John Hodges (Hutchmoot 2018 session leader), Dick Keyes, Frank Stootman, Luke Bobo, and Denis Haack. You can learn more about the conference and purchase tickets here.

Last fall, our family took a morning to hike up the craggy paths of the North Georgia mountains. We knew our end: a precipice overlooking the tops of the newly bronzed and coppered trees. But there was a long path between us and that view, and it was not a level one. We couldn’t walk in our normal, easy stride with our heads up. Our bodies would take quick, forward lurches as toes came into contact with inlaid stones. Our ankles would tangle with roots. The ground begged that we take notice of it. The rocks stubbed our toes and asked us to consider them. Poetry is like that. In our instant-everything world, our hearts and minds and eyes are trained to get to the end quickly. “Get to the point,” we say. “Give me 140 characters and a picture, in case I don’t have time for even your brevity.” But poems will have none of that. Poetry won’t let us breeze ahead with our heads up. Every word, laboriously gathered and sorted by the poet, is a stone to bump up against. A call to pause and consider. Lines break right in the middle of a sentence—“The nerve!” we think. “Can’t we just move along?” we huff. Our ankles get tangled up in the syntax and we have to sit and spend time unknotting. “The world is rushing by!” we cry, “I don’t have time to wonder at the mystery of it all!” And yet, I’m thinking that maybe what our world needs most right now is a little more poetry. My husband, Andrew, has declared this to be year of poetry in the Harwell home, and among many of the musty anthologies he first carried home from the library was a selection of poems by Mary Oliver. I hadn’t even considered if she was alive or dead as I devoured her poems on my couch at night after my kids were tucked away. How bizarre, magical even, that I was reading her poem, “When Death Comes,” when she was walking through her own words and “step[ping] through the door full of curiosity, wondering; what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?” Poetry won't let us breeze ahead with our heads up. Every word, laboriously gathered and sorted by the poet, is a stone to bump up against. Elizabeth Harwell Her poems, and others, have been nourishment for me this past month: words bumping up against the forward! onward! hum of my mind and asking me to sit when the rest of the world is imploring me to keep up the frantic pace. Oliver’s poems ask us to gawk at poppies, to think about the fields in which the rice on our plate grew, to wonder at what the bear dreams. She bids that we do the hard work of standing still in the present moment to give God the great honor of seeing what He’s done. How can we be thankful without considering? How can we worship without seeing? When our family reached the precipice, we celebrated and smiled and yelled out the colors of the tree tops. And as we took the obligatory pictures (to be included with our captions of brevity), I thought about those roots and stones under the rolling blanket of color. I knew those paths under the tree tops; I had been knocked about by them. The branches had scratched against my jacket. The oak leaves had surprised me, slamming into my face and leaving dew drops that tickled down my nose. There was a depth of beauty in that crescendo of the view, because it was a world considered. I had not voluntarily considered those stones and branches; they grabbed at me to do so. And I wonder if we need to let ourselves be arrested in this way by poetry. Can’t it only do us good to stumble over the words and thoughts of another? If only to give us practice in considering, if only to train our eyes (and minds and hearts) to fix themselves on something, one thing—and be amazed. When it’s over, I want to say: all my lifeI was a bride married to amazement.I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.When it’s over, I don’t want to wonderif I have made of my life something particular, and real.I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,or full of argument.I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.—excerpt from “When Death Comes” by Mary Oliver Click here to read more of Elizabeth Harwell’s writing at her blog.

Three new episodes of The Membership podcast are now available. In these episodes, our hosts Jason Hardy, John Pattison, and Tim Wasem discuss Wendell Berry’s 1964 poetry collection, The Broken Ground, interview Mary Berry (Director of The Berry Center) and Dr. Leah Bayens (Director of the Berry Farming Program), and discuss two short stories: “Fly Away, Breath” and “The Hurt Man.” The goal of The Membership is to curate great conversations that contribute to the health of the land and the health of our communities. Throughout this new podcast, hosts Jason Hardy, John Pattison, and Tim Wasem plan to discuss Berry’s life and writings. They will also interview other folks—farmers and makers, writers and artists, and community practitioners of all kinds—who are responding to Wendell Berry’s writings in their own places. Check out Episode 3 here, Episode 4 here, and Episode 5 here. And you can learn more about The Membership at its official website here. Click here for more information about The Rabbit Room Podcast Network and to check out other great podcasts.

Beginning Thursday the 7th, The Gray Havens are going on a 40-date Winter & Spring tour! Depending on the city, they will be accompanied by either Chris Renzema or Jess Ray. Needless to say, these will be some fantastic live shows. Click through to see if they’ll be making a stop near you. Click here to view the dates on The Gray Havens’ website and purchase tickets. 2/7 – KENNESAW, GA 2/8 – LADSON, SC 2/9 – GAINESVILLE, FL 2/10 – ORLANDO, FL 2/13 – FAIRHOPE, AL 2/14 – GONZALES, LA 2/15 – HOUSTON, TX 2/16 – AUSTIN, TX 2/17 – SAN ANTONIO, TX 2/19 – DALLAS, TX 2/21 – BRYAN, TX 2/22 – MCKINNEY, TX 2/23 – WACO, TX 2/27 – KNOXVILLE, TN 2/28 – HUNTERSVILLE, NC 3/1 – LYNCHBURG, VA 3/2 – RALEIGH, NC 3/3 – HIGH POINT, NC 3/21 – CINCINNATTI, OH 3/23 – WADSWORTH, OH 3/24 – ANN ARBOR, MI 3/27 – FLINT, MI 3/28 – SPRING ARBOR, MI 3/29 – GRAND RAPIDS, MI 3/30 – ELGIN, IL 3/31 – CHICAGO, IL 4/3 – ST. PAUL, MN 4/4 – DES MOINES, IA 4/6 – KANSAS CITY, MO 4/9 – CHAMPAIGN, IL 4/10 – INDIANAPOLIS, IN 4/11 – LOUISVILLE, KY 4/12 – NASHVILLE, TN

It brings me great pleasure to tell you that, on the weekend of July 18-20, Hutchmoot UK is happening! And it brings me even greater pleasure to tell you that Hutchmoot UK is happening in Oxford—a short twenty-minute walk from the original Rabbit Room in the Eagle and Child pub. (It’s true. Google it.) This thing has been in the works for months—years if you count all the time we’ve spent dreaming of it—and while there’s still a lot to sort out, we finally have the website up and running and registration is good-to-go. Some of you who were at Hutchmoot 2018 may have met Mark Meynell (author of When Darkness Seems My Closest Friend and A Wilderness of Mirrors, among several others). He’s become a good friend, and he agreed to be our UK ally for this whole thing. He’s spent weeks working out details—like the venue, for starters. There’s no shortage of beautiful buildings in Oxford, but there’s also no shortage of events wanting to use those buildings, especially in the summer. Still, he managed to find the perfect spot: St. Andrews Church in North Oxford. I mean, look at this place. Not only is it beautiful; it’s literally on the same block as Tolkien’s old house. Mark also helped us sort out equally important details like FOOD. In England last fall I spent some time with a guy named JJ. When I first met JJ I asked him his last name and he smiled and said, “Just JJ, mate.” Then he vanished, more or less. That was the moment I knew we would be friends. It was also the moment I wondered if he was an MI6 agent doubling as a Christian music fan. Anyway, Mark found out that JJ is quite the cook, and convinced him to be our King of Food for the weekend. (Just don’t ask him his last name, or you might wake up one day on a deserted island.) We have a marvelous plenary speaker lined up for Saturday (we’ll announce it in a few weeks), some excellent artists planned for the in-the-round show on Thursday, and I’m thrilled to be doing the Friday night concert. And that’s all in addition to the sessions and the coffee and the conversations and the strolls around the “city of dreaming spires.” Can you tell I’m excited? Since this is our first non-Nashville Hutchmoot, though, we’re moving into this carefully, making sure we’re respectful of the cultural differences on the other side of the Atlantic. What works in America might not work in England, after all. [Insert Revolutionary War joke here.] We don’t want to make this an American invasion, you know? The reason for a Hutchmoot UK is to set the table for these conversations and relationships to blossom there, and to see what the Lord might do. We want US folks to come, of course, but we also want to make sure this is edifying for people in and around the UK. That’s why we’ve decided to limit the number of US slots sold to 20 of the 100. If the UK tickets are slow-going, we might release more in a few months, but based on my conversations with folks over there during the last few years, there seems to be a real hunger for Hutchmoot-ish things and it won’t be a problem. My hope is that this will be the first of many, so if you’re not one of the first 20, don’t worry. When people ask me what Hutchmoot is, I usually say that it’s a feast. A three-day feast where we celebrate the way God uses story, art, and music to draw attention to himself. Food is a big part of it. So is hospitality and community. The sessions are about all manner of topics, but in the end they’re less important than the fact that we’ve gathered together in the name of Jesus to celebrate him. Whether or not that’s exactly what was on the minds of those gathered in the original Rabbit Room back in the day, that’s what we’ll be doing—and they gave us the idea. I can’t wait to see what happens. Click here to visit the Hutchmoot UK website.

Jonathan Rogers was one of my favorite writers long before I received his writing help through an early online class. When looking for a coach for Courage Dear Heart, I knew he would be clear and solid. I’m so thankful to have had a literary hero serve as a writing guide. For almost a decade, I’ve watched writers with a fraction of Jonathan’s skill pump mediocre work into the stratosphere unabashedly while he quietly sat on some of the best modern writing I’ve read. I used to wonder what on earth it would take to get him to talk about his work. Now I see— it’s tending others through teaching, coaching, etc. This is such an upside-down, inside-out way of considering an artistic gift. Pretty Christlike for somebody who has a sick fascination with alligators. I subscribe to The Habit, his weekly letter about writing (you should subscribe too). I’ve also been hearing about this other thing he’s been doing, Field Notes for Writers, but I still don’t quite get what it is—probably because Jonathan’s gifts don’t seem to include marketing. Finally, I decided to just ask him about it. In the interview below, you can eavesdrop on that conversation. We conducted the interview via online chat, after I got some wifi issues sorted out. REBECCA: Sorry about the delay. This building must be made of krypton. JONATHAN: I’ve had plenty to keep me busy. Also, I think Krypton is a planet. The substance is Kryptonite. REBECCA: Oh that’s right. JONATHAN: Anything else I can correct you about? REBECCA: I need to brush up on my Superman. JONATHAN: I once published a Rabbit Room piece in which I referred to Spiderman’s alter ego as Peter Bannister. There were some Rabbit Room readers who knew the difference. REBECCA: Anyway…I’m here to interview you about the most terrible things you’ve ever done. I hope you’re finally ready to confess. JONATHAN: Yes. I once referred to Peter Parker as Peter Bannister. REBECCA: I think you’ll feel better having this off your conscience. JONATHAN: You know, you’re right. When you try to pass yourself off as somebody you’re not, it always comes back to bite you—in this case, when I tried to pass myself off as nerdy, I only ended up showing the world just how un-nerdy I am. REBECCA: Right… Can I ask you a question? JONATHAN: Yes. REBECCA: You are one of the most well-read, insightful and artistic writers I know—yet you have invested a vast amount of energy trying to help other people write. Why are you doing this in an era when so many other writers seem focused on building their own platforms? (Can we edit this later? That was missing a comma.) JONATHAN: It will just be more of my energy given to helping other people write, but yes, I will fix your commas for you. REBECCA: Jerk. JONATHAN: One reason I don’t focus on platform-building is that I don’t know much about how to do it…or, rather, I don’t know any platform-building strategies that I could do and still feel good about what I’m doing. But somewhere along the line it occurred to me that I just like being involved in the production of good writing, whether I’m writing or helping somebody else write. About this time last year I started The Habit—my weekly letter about writing. It’s been a faith-building exercise: that thing is a lot of work, and I’m putting it out there for free. I’ve always said I believed that generosity is never wasted…The Habit has been a way of testing out whether I actually believe it or not. REBECCA: As I’ve watched you develop The Habit and your various online classes, and now Field Notes for Writers, I’ve been happily shocked by your fervor and persistence. Why is it worth your investment to help people like this? What do you believe about human beings that would make this worth your while? I'm amazed at how quickly a person can make big improvements as a writer. And rarely is it a case of their needing to try harder. More often it's a case of their needing to try not so hard. Jonathan Rogers JONATHAN: One thing I’ve noticed about grown-ups who take creative writing classes is that they’ve all got a reason for doing it, and I don’t mean the desire to get published. (I make it a policy not to talk about publishing). Grownups who want to write have something to say. Or they’ve got something they’re trying to work through. I love reading what the people in my online classes write, even when the writing isn’t that great. You asked what I believe about people…I believe that when it comes to writing, most grown-ups don’t need new skills nearly so much as they need to clear away bad habits and bad ways of thinking about writing and about themselves. I’m amazed at how quickly a person can make big improvements as a writer. And rarely is it a case of their needing to try harder. More often it’s a case of their needing to try not so hard, to focus their energy over here rather than wasting so much of it over there, to open their eyes and look outward rather than squinting at their own belly buttons. REBECCA: Your approach to coaching is different from anything I’ve seen online. It reminds me of a trait I’ve seen in some of the “best” writers—people like O’Connor, and Dostoevsky, and Hugo. Those aren’t just good craftsmen wielding a honed skill set. The best writers seem to have moved through life with a posture of continuing to allow the world to affect them. Even if they were quirky, or abrupt—even if they were withdrawn socially, they weren’t withdrawn emotionally. I feel a similar vulnerability in your coaching, and this stands out from so many writing programs. You aren’t just trying to help people climb a publishing ladder; you are working to help them unlock why they are drawn to use words in the first place. In an unsafe world, though, how do you convince people that their stories matter? JONATHAN: I’ve never thought about convincing people that their stories matter. I guess I just work from the assumption that they matter. I’ve never sat anybody down, for instance, and put a hand on either side of their face and looked deep in their eyes and said, “Your story matters.” REBECCA: You should try that sometime with Pete Peterson. He would love it. Grammar is intimidating to many people. It also makes some folks angry—they assume it’s a proud and legalistic discipline. Why do you care about teaching grammar? JONATHAN: I love the fact that grammar is this shared system that makes it possible for everybody who speaks a language to connect with everybody else who speaks that language. People get their grammar right 97% of the time. (I totally made up that statistic, but I suspect it’s about right.) Those people who focus on the 3% of the time that other people get it wrong are jackasses. Grammar bullies are the reason people hate grammar and are intimidated by it. REBECCA: What do you mean when you say people get grammar right 97% of the time? Are we reading the same Twitter? JONATHAN: Ok. There are some grammar mistakes on Twitter and elsewhere. But think about what people NEVER get wrong. Everybody knows that an adjective goes before the noun it modifies. They never accidentally say “the truck blue.” They also know that an adjective clause goes after the noun it modifies. The biggest grammar ignoramus you’ve ever met knows to say “the blue truck that my father gave me.” He never says “the that my father gave me truck blue.” REBECCA: I love that. The grammar bullies can also taint the efforts of good-hearted teachers who are simply trying to help others communicate with more clarity. Grammar is not an end in itself. It’s not a mark of personal worth. It’s a tool to speak what you need to say with more efficiency, power, and beauty. JONATHAN: That is true. You should start up an online grammar course. REBECCA: No thanks. But, I know a guy… So, Field Notes for Writers. What inspired you here? What goal were you trying to reach? JONATHAN: I’ve been teaching online creative writing for four or five years now. But the way I’ve been doing it has limited me to teaching about twelve people at a time. The goal with Field Notes is to be able to reach more people. I’m still running Writing Close to the Earth and Writing with Flannery O’Connor [6-week online classes] for the foreseeable future (I call them my legacy classes now), but there wasn’t any way to scale those up…it just requires too much. REBECCA: Ok. I’m going to make a confession. JONATHAN: What, you thought Spiderman’s name was Peter Bannister too? REBECCA: Worse than that: I’ve heard you talking about Field Notes for Writers for months now, and I still don’t know what you’re talking about. JONATHAN: What do you mean? REBECCA: I mean I know you do The Habit and webinars and Grammar for Writers and Writing Close to the Earth and Writing with Flannery O’Connor and Field Notes for Writers, but I still don’t understand how it all fits together. JONATHAN: Why didn’t you ask me months ago? REBECCA: You know how it is. You reach a certain point, and it feels like it’s too late to ask. JONATHAN: I get that. I can’t bring myself to ask that grumpy guy with the beard what his name is. REBECCA: Pete Peterson? JONATHAN: That’s the one. REBECCA: So, what is Field Notes for Writers? I saw your promo video, but can you put it in your own words? JONATHAN: Whose words did you think those were on the promo video? REBECCA: You know what I mean. I was just trying to draw a diagram of everything you offer and how it fits together, but I got confused. JONATHAN: I tell you what: I’ll make that diagram, and you can insert it into your Rabbit Room post. JONATHAN: All right. Field Notes for Writers is a subscription site—though I prefer to call it a membership, because that sounds more Wendell Berry-ish. Field Notes members have access to a library of content that I add to every week. And the content is divided into four main categories: Comparing Notes is essentially a podcast. Every month I post the audio of a 15- or 20-minute conversation with a writer friend. Thus far I have episodes with Sam (SD) Smith, Heidi Johnston, Dave Radford, Helena Sorensen, and the heartbreakingly brilliant Rebecca Reynolds. These are pretty free-flowing conversations, so we cover everything from being reader-focused instead of self-focused to finding time to write to handling criticism to embracing a “growth mindset.” Line Edits is a series of short videos in which I pull up an essay or story submitted by one of my students and walk through my suggested edits. This series is more nuts-and-bolts, sentence-level stuff than the Comparing Notes conversations. Keeping subjects close to verbs, choosing between direct and indirect quotation, managing pronouns and antecedents, that kind of thing. REBECCA: That sounds like the same kind of issues you address in Grammar for Writers. JONATHAN: You’re getting ahead of me, Rebecca. REBECCA: Sorry. JONATHAN: Grammar for Writers is a 42-lesson deep dive into English grammar, with an eye specifically toward writing issues. These are lecture-based: I stand in front of a bookcase and talk about grammar and writing. Also, I tell dad jokes. Then there are quizzes and lecture notes. So, yes, I cover some of the same topics in Line Edits. But Grammar for Writers is a little more formal and it’s also more comprehensive. Line Edits teaches through active critique. They reinforce one another. Actually, I should have mentioned: Grammar for Writers is under the Field Notes umbrella for now, but in March I’m going to spin it off as a standalone product. So people who join Field Notes for Writers between now and the end of February will get Grammar for Writers included in their membership. It’s a reward for early subscribers. Then there are the webinars. Every month I host a live webinar about a writing-related topic—writing vivid description, writing dialogue, understanding point-of-view…in February the topic will be writing better love letters, just in time for Valentine’s Day. A recording of that webinar goes into the Field Notes library for members to watch any time they want to. REBECCA: I thought the webinars were free and open to all. JONATHAN: They are. You don’t have to be a Field Notes member to attend the webinar live. It’s the recorded versions that become part of the Field Notes library. I add content to each of those four categories on a four-week rotation—a new author interview one week, a new Line Edits video the next week, etc.—so the library is constantly growing. Oh, and then there’s the Field Notes Book Club (we’re going through Madeleine L’Engle’s Walking on Water now), and I’ve started doing office hours via videoconference for anybody who has questions. REBECCA: You’re basically creating Khan Academy for the discipline of writing. JONATHAN: It will be the Kubla Khan Academy, actually. It will be a stately pleasure-dome. REBECCA: Be sure to have a sacred river running through measureless caverns, please. JONATHAN: I have decreed it. One thing I want—maybe the biggest thing—is for Field Notes for Writers to become a place where writers can be there for one another, to compare notes, to encourage one another. I’ve been feeding the content beast for a while, building that library, but I really hope Field Notes will develop into a community of writers. I’m trying to think of the content library as a gathering place, something that gives writers common ground, something to connect over and discuss. To this point, Field Notes has mostly been me talking to writers. I want to be facilitating conversations rather than monologuing. But I’m not there yet. REBECCA: You should probably mention that Field Notes is a paid subscription, not a charitable endeavor. JONATHAN: Yes. $11.95 a month, or $119 a year. Some of what I do is free. The Habit and the live monthly webinar are free. I wish I could do all of it for free, but I do charge for Field Notes. Baby’s got to have shoes. REBECCA: You are teaching your participants that writing has a value. I think that’s important, too. Modeling respect for the offering is good leadership. Sorry, I know you’ve worked on this so much and that you understand it. But I haven’t understood how it all fits together until just now. JONATHAN: I totally understand that. I spend so much time thinking about Field Notes that I forget that nobody else knows what I’m talking about. I really appreciate your asking. You can visit Jonathan’s website here and join Field Notes for Writers here.

“You must remember, garden catalogues are as big liars as house agents.” —Rumer Godden, China Court My love affair with gardening was tumultuous from day one, fraught with all the heights and depths of a grande amour. Mainly self-taught, my earliest attempts were characterized by rapturous perusals of garden catalogues, advertising such wonders as heat-tolerant lilacs and humidity-resistant tea roses. As a teenager, I pored over Jackson & Perkins, Park Seed, and White Flower Farm with the avidity other girls my age brought to YM and Seventeen. The pictures and descriptions made my heart pound, and much of my hard-earned babysitting money went to seed packets, bulbs, and bareroot crowns. I remember the agony of trying to decide between bleeding heart and lily of the valley, and the exquisite promise of the gardenia-like “Rose of May” daffodil. If it was old-fashioned, sweetly scented, and so much as mentioned in an L.M. Montgomery novel, I wanted to grow it. I sketched out a plan for a patch of uncultivated earth on the south side of a massive magnolia tree in my parents’ front yard, drawing and re-drawing the placement of my anticipated darlings. Some nights I was so excited about my garden I literally could not sleep. In all my zeal it never occurred to me that silly things like hardiness zones and growing requirements really mattered all that much. Those were for other peoples’ gardens, not mine—my garden would be loved into existence, regional limitations be hanged! Sadly, as may be imagined, a lot of that money would have been better spent as straight fodder for the compost bin (which I’d likewise saved up to buy). For the fact is, no matter how much I wished it otherwise—wished it to the point of believing—English primroses just don’t like Georgia’s sudden and generally brief springs, and sweet peas absolutely will not grow here unless you plant them in October, period. And nothing—nothing I was interested in growing, at least—was going to flourish in packed red clay. The weeds, on the other hand, seemed to get along just fine. By mid-June, what was left of my garden was completely drowned in chickweed and Johnsongrass. If my garden knows the curse of the Fall, by way of thorns and herbivorous larvae and fusarium wilt, then surely, surely it knows a Reclamation is burgeoning—is, indeed, already underway. Lanier Ivester Amazingly, I was undaunted by this early heartbreak. Quite the contrary, in fact. Which goes to show that even disasters have their metaphorically compostable value. The money I spent that first year made me all the more selective the next—and it also made me take another look at those dratted hardiness zones. I invited a dear friend of my mother’s, who happened to be an accomplished gardener, to advise me on soil amendments and plant recommendations, taking every drop of advice most soberly to heart. I mixed topsoil, mushroom compost, and sand to help drain that red clay, and I bought plants from a local nursery—special plants, like “Strawberry” foxgloves and veronica and blue salvia, which also happen to thrive in our area. My friend gave me a slip of a “Fairy” rose from her own garden to get things started, and it was the anchor of my planting design. When I married and moved to an old farmhouse several years later, that rose came with me, to anchor a new perennial garden at my new home. ~ The years since have seen considerable extremes of triumph and tragedy in my garden career. My husband built me the kitchen plot of my dreams soon after we were married, and I will never forget how the outer beds were ringed that second year with the salmon-colored bells of foxgloves I had grown from seed, nursing them through a full three seasons in the basement and on the patio before they were ready for the garden. I had all-but named them, they were so dear to me. Then, of course, there was the summer I had surgery and let the chives go to seed—over ten years ago, and I am still cursing that bit of oversight as I wrench volunteer chive plants out of the stacked-rock beds. But, oh, those stacked-rock beds! And that picket fence curtained with morning glories! Over time, we added a birdbath in the center and a colony of Italian honeybees in one of the herb beds, and, after a brief interlude of pine bark mulch, I laid out the paths in pea gravel. I confess, for all our ups and downs, we’ve had an understanding, my garden and me. And there have been times—amid the spring planting, for instance, or on a June morning when the beds around me fairly jubilate with squash and tomatoes and summer flowers—when I have felt the love flowing out of my hands and into the soil. I’ve always thought it loves me, too—in spite of my many mistakes and failures—in the way that our Creator meant for His creation to live in mutual respect and benevolence. And if my garden knows the curse of the Fall, by way of thorns and herbivorous larvae and fusarium wilt, then surely, surely it knows a Reclamation is burgeoning—is, indeed, already underway. I sometimes suspect it knows it better than I do. ~ Life has seen some significant challenges in recent years, and, by default, my beloved kitchen garden got demoted to low-priority status. The picket gate started to sag; the stacked rock beds caved in places. The honeybees quitted their pretty little English hive for more advantageous lodgings—a hollow tree, no doubt, or an unoccupied porch column. My neighbor saw them swarm and thought, most reasonably, “Hm. There go Lanier’s bees.” I could hardly blame them. But their going fell on my heart like a dirge, or the last light out in a deserted house. Plantings were out of the question. The weed situation, on the other hand, became a running joke between my teenaged farm assistant and me: at least once or twice a summer I’d hire him to help me bring order out of chaos, and together we’d whack and haul for hours at a time. “You know,” I told him on the hottest day of July, leaning on a fence post and drawing a grimy hand against my forehead, “I’m thinking about putting in a swimming pool. Right. Here.” ~ Two years ago, I looked out my kitchen window one January morning and was obliged to admit that my little garden was a nearly irreparable ruin. Dry weeds rose against a dour sky, rattling their seed pods menacingly in each gust of wind. (No wonder the French call them mauvaises herbes—“wicked plants”!) The center beds looked more like graves of dead lavender and rosemary, and the once-neat paths were obliterated under two winters’ worth of leaves and out-of-control clematis vines. After a long stretch of sorrow and bereavement in my life, the effort of reclamation seemed greater than all the years of cultivating put together. Maybe I’ll be a gardener in my 60s, I thought rather dismally, turning from the window with a sigh. The trouble with gardening, however, is that once you’re in love—and I mean really in love—it’s for keeps. No amount of discouragement or unpropitious circumstance is going to uproot that mysterious tangle of delight and desire from your heart. Like all the great loves in history, love of gardening persists, often in the face of impossible odds. At unlooked-for times, and in unlooked-for ways, the passion ignites, and you remember what you knew as a girl: even if the end result doesn’t live up to the promise—even if the promise is unattainable this side of heaven—the desire itself is sweet enough to make up for it. What’s more, the thing the promise points to is real, and your effort to incarnate it in an orderly vegetable patch or a flowerbed of flaming color is to claim a bit of Eden on a weed-choked, hard-crusted old earth still dreaming of a beautiful past and a redeemed future. You rejoice to find that neither drought, nor busyness, nor squash vine borers have power to snuff out that original spark, and that a seed catalogue, or a fleck of green on an otherwise dead-looking hydrangea cutting can still summon a quick rush of tears. Of all things. That very January I found my passion for gardening kindled once more amid the pages of Christie Purifoy’s quietly radiant book Roots and Sky. Christie’s journey to make a home out of an old house, and her efforts to embody truth with tangible beauty, were so close to my own heart and story it was like having an extended talk with a kindred spirit. I read more than half of it out-loud to Philip, and I’ve lost count how many friends have whipped out their iPhones and bought it on the spot at my enthusiastic recommendation. I loved—savored—every word. Midway through, however, I closed the covers and placed it on the bedside table with a sigh of resignation. “What is it?” Philip wanted to know. “I’m cleaning out my potting shed tomorrow,” I said. “Christie’s started talking about Brandywine tomatoes, and I just can’t bear it.” The truth is, Christie’s gentle and joyous reflections on gardening, from seed catalogue to wealth of summer harvest, felt so familiar as to be painful. It was years since I’d had my own little army of green under a lamp in the basement; years since I’d tasted an heirloom tomato I’d grown from seed. Years since I’d had enough produce to share with friends, and still enough to put up in the freezer. I knew I couldn’t continue reading her book until I had responded to the very personal and particular unction I had found in its pages. Accordingly, I fell on the little above-ground basement beneath our sunroom which has served as my potting shed since I moved here, sweeping, tossing, unearthing, and rearranging. I sterilized flats and trays, dropped seeds into ranks, wrote labels for herbs and flowers. And tomatoes, of course. Next to the name “Brandywine” I drew a little heart. Always my favorite, it meant even more to me now. The memory of it, the promise of it, had tumbled me headlong back into gardening. Multiple times a day I ventured down to the basement to talk to my seedlings, check water levels, re-route tendrils of moonvine. It was the re-beginnings of my garden, the promise of both nourishment and beauty, framed in a west-facing window. There was so much work ahead to prepare the beds and reclaim my kitchen plot from ruin. But as dear old L.M. Montgomery said, “It is always safe to dream of spring. For it is sure to come; and if it be not just as we have pictured it, it will be infinitely sweeter.” You can read more of Lanier’s writing on The Rabbit Room here.

One of the difficulties I have with the Scriptures is my inability to see where the jokes are hidden. Jokes are cultural, and I’m neither Jewish nor several thousand years old, so even if the context is explained to me, I’m still sort of in the dark. After all, nothing makes a good joke die of ennui like having some fusty-lipped academic tell you why you ought to chuckle. Outside of jokes, though, I’ve often laughed out of sheer gladness. When an evening sky shimmers with afterglow, and the final tatters of an outbound weather system blaze blood-red in the setting sun’s last rays, a joyous chuckle is an appropriate response. It seems to me that the overflow of joy is crucial to our very lives. Imagine the drear of a Creation without it. Everybody has mental markers for when the world will end. Secularists tempted toward Hollywood’s mythology prefer a good nuclear winter, a plague, or a giant rock from space. Church folk often spin elaborate eschatologies out of political turmoil or, in less admirable cases, Dan Brown novels. For myself, I wonder what’s going to happen when there is no more laughter. In a line from a rather well-known Wendell Berry poem, amid a mounting crescendo of homespun iconoclasms, the Kentucky sage throws down a gauntlet: “Laugh,” he commands. “Laughter is immeasurable.” Yes. With all my fear-addled heart, yes. I think what Berry is talking about here is real joy, unmarred by irony. It is a mirth that stares Death in the eye and grins, knowing that, after Death has had his day, his day will be done. We see a glimmer of this holy elation in children. My five-year-old is good at it. The other day, I was going through some pictures and found one of her sitting at the table over play-dough, sporting what we might call her “crazy Woody Harrelson” face. She looks capable of any stripe of mischief. It’s hard not to giggle over the photo. I feel I have the comic’s addiction to laughter anyway. Even when reprimanding my kids, I often shoot for the most idiosyncratic phrasing. “If you touch your sister again, I’m taping both your hands to a passing donkey.” As you might imagine, this does not always make for effective discipline. “If you get out of bed, I’m glueing you to the refrigerator.” I can hear the tired steam-release of my wife’s exasperation, but sometimes I can’t help it. It’s too fun to be utterly silly. My favorite dad-comedic-ninja move is the stock-still face with shifty Gene Wilder eyes. The kids know it means tickles are coming, and they flee the premises with piggy-squeals of delight. All this might be too easy, though. Children’s laughter is wonderful, but perhaps we enjoy it because it seems guileless. Children have not, as Wendell Berry says in his poem, “considered all the facts.” Looking for joy on the other end of life, though, one person comes to mind: Mr. Brunson. He’s the owner of a Knoxville office park where a ballet studio sits. My wife and kids dance there. The end of every school semester provides me with an opportunity to witness more than fifty children, mostly little girls, do artistic, sometimes acrobatic things that I could never do. The iconography of their work always surprises me. I’m used to sounds and colors rendering beauty unto the world, but this troupe of amateurs and semi-professionals puts the bodily workmanship of the Creator on direct exhibit. It always feels unexpected. In a Daliesque splay of ulnae and tibiae, the girls venture toward the limits of the human frame, lending credence to its masterful Designer. Most unexpected, though, is Mr. Brunson himself. He’s an aging man, probably in his late sixties. Growing deltas of crows’ feet spread from the corners of his eyes. In conversation, his mouth curls like an elf shoe, trying and failing to hold in a subtle merriment. Unlike the young ladies doing barre exercises on his property, he boasts no Gumby-like flexibility. His body is closer to the Babe Ruth model. While he doesn’t yet seem to have trouble getting around, it won’t be long until entropy takes its toll. Every year, though, he takes to the stage in a top hat or shirt sleeves. Under the gaze of a full house of parents, community members, and lithe-limbed novices, he dances. It’s a light affair, all told. This past rendition played out to Sammy Davis’s classic version of “Mr. Bojangles,” drawing subtle toe-point circles that hearkened back to Fred Astaire. The old man tipped his hat, slapped his knee, and gently shook an open-fingered hand in the air, coupling the theatrical bits with easy turns and whimsical kick-the-can steps. It's the one joke that's on all of us—that the whole world is backwards and that even though everything looks like death, life waits inside and will explode at its appointed time. Adam Whipple Out of necessity, he’s more a grandiose stage presence than an acrobat. His smiling mien falls upon the audience at the measured pace of a sunset. The temptation, for all of us watching, is perhaps to find it cute that he’s even on stage. At a dance performance, we want the spectacle of a grand jeté or some up-and-coming girl doing endless fouettés. Mr. Brunson, of course, gives us nothing like this. For the passing viewer—or perhaps, the passive viewer—it’s too easy to be glad of an old man dancing in a show featuring mostly athletic youth. We are in danger of seeing mere irony. Upon the exercise of one’s attention, however—or one’s imagination—what Mr. Brunson offers the audience is nothing so superficial. It is no greeting-card painting or pasteboard ontology. It is joy. The line between irony and joy is a teleological one. That is, it’s a question of goals. If you imagine the universe ending in a supermassive black hole—followed by another eventual big bang, in which noble apes and other summations of carbon once again wait for Godot—your laughter and your smile will tend toward darkness. Like the Cheshire cat, the substance of things will gradually fade from view, leaving only an ever-more-alarming rictus grin. You will eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you will die. If, on the other hand, you see the machinations of a cosmic battle—in which unrepentant evil will be judged by the Lord of Hosts, whose robe is dipped in blood, whose name is written on his thigh, and whose tongue is a double-edged sword—just maybe, if you laugh at all, it will the the laugh of one who knows the endgame. While I enjoy seeing my children dance, and I love the artistry and pageantry of the production pieces, a grown man dancing in my culture is a treasure not to be missed. The fact that this man couldn’t do an arabesque to save his life makes it that much more worthwhile. He’s onstage grinning because, if you can dance, there is much reason to dance. I don’t see him as cute. Like a supernova, his small, genuine efforts constitute a moment so bright I have to look away at times. It’s so wonderful, it’s almost embarrassing. In these cases, irony is a defense, something to keep me from feeling too deeply. If I have eyes to receive the gift Mr. Brunson is giving, though, I can see the grand joke. It’s the one joke that’s on all of us—that the whole world is backwards and that even though everything looks like death, life waits inside and will explode at its appointed time. The corn of wheat will fall into the earth and die, and from the ground of its demise, there will spring forth much fruit. The setting sun will blaze, the old man will shuffle a little jig, and by the grace of God, you will laugh. You can find more of Adam Whipple’s work at the arts journal, Foundling House.

We are pleased to share with you, courtesy of our contributors, the Rabbit Room’s very own metaphorical mixtape of love songs—forty-eight of them, in fact! So it’s probably more like an epic series of mixtapes, because there’s just that much love in our hearts. Let the warm fuzzies commence. Click here to listen to our Valentine’s Day playlist on Spotify. Since there are so many songs on this playlist, we can’t include what each person said about their song of choice. But seeing as that’s half the fun, we’ve included here a smattering of stories and explanations. “Hallelujah I Love Her So” by Ray Charles We love our Genius here in Georgia, and this has got to be one of his best songs. There’s a fantastic pianist at the Jekyll Island Club who always plays—and sings—this classic for us, complete with knocking on the piano at the appropriate moment. Lots of happy memories. —Lanier Ivester “If We Were Vampires” by Jason Isbell Because love is a long haul, but it’s not infinitely long: “Maybe time running out is a gift / I’ll work hard ’til the end of my shift.” —Jonathan Rogers “The Book of Love,” covered by Peter Gabriel, originally by Magnetic Fields Every line is so direct and unabashed. “The book of love is long and boring…but you can read me anything.” —Chris Slaten “Somebody” by Depeche Mode A song of longing for a true love-as-friendship relationship. That goes along with a moment of awkward self-awareness that there’s something a little too precious about such sentiment, even when it’s deeply felt. —Thomas McKenzie “Hotel Fire” by HEM This song has a wideness to its lyrics that allows for a fair amount of approachability, but as I approach it, it rings of the wildness of love. The lyrics speak of love as a thing that does what it will, that is willing to obliterate the walls of a comfort zone, and that, in the end, still has the gumption to demand devotion. I hear this, and I think of Rich Mullins saying, “God is a wild man.” —Adam Whipple “Choosing Teams” by David Mead This is one of my all-time favorite David Mead songs and that is saying something. I am a huge fan of his writing and could have chosen a number of songs including “Little Boats” and “Sleeping in Saturday.” I love the way he expresses the isolation of being a school-aged child and never feeling chosen, then contrasts it with finally knowing what he wants and feeling safe and wanted with his love. —Jill Phillips “Take It With Me” by Tom Waits, sung by Jubilant Skyes The last verse, where the camera pulls in, is the most beautiful image in any song I’ve ever heard. —Andrew Osenga A beautiful cover of a wonderful Tom Waits song. Sykes lingers over and meditates on every word like a man who’s coming to his last earthly moments with his beloved. The spare arrangement is perfect. —David Mitchel “Born” by Over the Rhine Because nobody sings the ache like them. This album (and especially this song) got me through one of the roughest patches of my life. —Jennifer Trafton “You’re The Reason Our Kids Are Ugly” by Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty Because it always makes me laugh. Also because it takes some of the idealism out of marriage. —Rebecca Reynolds “All I Ask Of You” from Phantom of the Opera I think one of the most romantic notions of all time is summed up in the line: “everywhere you go, let me go too.” —Hetty White “I Know Different” by Neil Finn This song could only come out of a long-term, beautiful relationship. But really, I should just paste the lyrics to the last part of the song: One day, when it’s over All the borders will be open In your honor, for your virtue I never, meant to hurt you I surrender, to the future But I won’t be, taken prisoner And I’ll stay with you, if you’ll let me And the whole world, can forget me I know that, we came closer To believing, that we’re through I know different —Andy Gullahorn Click here to listen to our Valentine’s Day playlist on Spotify. What about you? What are some of your favorite love songs? Please share in the comments section!

This Saturday the 16th at 6:00 pm, Friends of L’Abri Nashville will hold a dinner in Cane Ridge, Tennessee, followed by a lecture by Mary McCampbell on the desire to worship in modern and postmodern fiction. Click through for more information about Mary and this event. In his oft-quoted graduation address, “This is Water,” David Foster Wallace argues that “There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.” Following on from Wallace’s crucial comments, Mary McCampbell will look at the ways in which the fiction of a group of modern and postmodern authors explores a desire to worship an often unnamed, supposedly unknown, sacred source of joy and life. Even though the authors and their fictional characters are writing within and for a supposedly post-God cultural space, they are, as Paul Maltby claims, “haunted by the idea of the salvational moment,” the moment when an unnamed longing becomes a present joy through the act of worship. Mary McCampbell serves as Associate Professor of Humanities at Lee University. Her doctoral work at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne focused on the relationship between postmodern fiction, late capitalist culture, and the religious impulse. She writes regularly on faith and the arts in general audience publications such as Image Journal, Christ and Pop Culture, The Curator, and Christianity Today. Mary was the Summer 2014 Writer in Residence at the English Branch of L’Abri Fellowship and a Spring 2018 Scholar-in-Residence at Regent College in Vancouver. Mary has a forthcoming book entitled Postmodern Prophetic: the Religious Impulse in Contemporary Fiction.

“My Father’s House” is the ninth track on Springsteen’s classic lo-fi album Nebraska, and the last song he wrote for the album. In his autobiography Born To Run, Bruce has this to say about the creation of the album: Nebraska began as an unknown meditation on my childhood and its mysteries. I had no conscious political agenda or social theme. I was after a feeling, a tone that felt like the world I’d known and still carried inside me. The remnants of that world were still only ten minutes and ten miles from where I was living. The ghosts of Nebraska were drawn from my many sojourns into the small-town streets I’d grown up on. My family, [Bob] Dylan, Woody [Guthrie], Hank [Williams], the American gothic short stories of Flannery O’Connor, the noir novels of James M. Cain, the quiet violence of the films of Terrence Malick, and the decayed fable of director Charles Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter all guided my imagination. I am a fan of Springsteen’s classic hits: “Born To Run,” “Thunder Road,” “Hungry Heart,” etc. But Nebraska has always haunted me in a way other Springsteen albums do not, and of all the songs on Nebraska, “My Father’s House” has always haunted me the most. And, having growing up in Christianity, you can understand why it would—it’s a prodigal son story. But it’s not the prodigal son story, because this song does not have a redemptive ending. The last verse of the song says: My father’s house shines hard and bright It stands like a beacon calling me in the night Calling and calling so cold and alone Shining ‘cross this dark highway where our sins lie unatoned I think the reason the song has no happy ending is that it reflects the real relationship of Bruce and his father at the time, a man who struggled with undiagnosed mental illness and alcoholism. Bruce writes about his early relationship with his dad: I was not my father’s favorite citizen. As a boy I figured it was just the way men were, distant, uncommunicative, busy within the currents of the grown-up world. As a child you don’t question your parents’ choices. You accept them. They are justified by the godlike status of parenthood. If you aren’t spoken to, you’re not worth the time. If you’re not greeted with love and affection, you haven’t earned it. If you’re ignored, you don’t exist. Control over your own behavior is the only card you have to play in the hope of modifying theirs. Maybe you have to be tougher, stronger, more athletic, smarter, in some way better…who knows? One evening, my father was giving me a few boxing lessons in the living room. I was flattered, excited by his attention and eager to learn. Things were going well. And then he threw a few open-palmed punches to my face that landed just a little too hard. It stung; I wasn’t hurt, but a line had been crossed. I knew something was being communicated. We had slipped into the dark nether land beyond father and son. I sensed what was being said: I was an intruder, a stranger, a competitor in our home and a fearful disappointment. My heart broke and I crumpled. He walked away in disgust… Unfortunately, my dad’s desire to engage with me almost always came after the nightly religious ritual of the ‘sacred six-pack.’ One beer after another in the pitch dark of our kitchen. It was always then that he wanted to see me and it was always the same. A few moments of feigned parental concern for my well-being followed by the real deal: the hostility and raw anger toward his son, the only other man in the house. It was a shame. He loved me but he couldn’t stand me. He felt we competed for my mother’s affections. We did. He also saw in me too much of his real self. My pop was built like a bull, always in work clothes; he was strong and physically formidable. Toward the end of his life, he fought back from death many times. Inside, however, beyond his rage, he harbored a gentleness, timidity, shyness, and a dreamy insecurity. These were the things I wore on the outside and the reflection of these qualities in his boy repelled him. It made him angry. It was “soft.” And he hated “soft.” Of course, he’d been brought up “soft.” A mama’s boy, just like me. When Bruce was about seventeen, his father decided to pack it up and start again, so his father, his mom, and his younger sister Pam moved to California. Bruce decided to stay in New Jersey, so he was left to fend for himself. After that he didn’t really see his father much except for occasional trips to California. Bruce would later express some of his rage and sorrow over this relationship in his searing song from Darkness on the Edge of Town, “Adam Raised a Cain.” He has said that songs like this are the way he talked to his father at the time, because they didn’t talk much. Perhaps the most resonant lyrics of the song are: We were prisoners of love, a love in chains He was standin’ in the door, I was standin’ in the rain With the same hot blood burning in our veins Adam raised a Cain Darkness on the Edge of Town came out in 1978, followed by The River in 1980, then Nebraska in 1982. By that point Bruce seems to have grown more reflective about his relationship with his father and the silence between them, so he penned the poignant and haunting “My Father’s House.” In a performance of the song posted on YouTube, he tells this story before playing the song: I had this habit for a long time: I used to get in my car and I would drive back through my old neighborhood, a little town I grew up in. I would always drive past the little houses I used to live in. I got so I would do it really regularly, for years. And I eventually got to wondering, What the hell am I doing? So I went to see a psychiatrist—this is true!—I sat down and I said, “You know, doc, for years I’ve been getting in my car, and I drive back to my town and I pass my houses late at night—do you know what I’m doing?” And he said, “I want you to tell me what you think you’re doing.” So I go, “That’s what I’m paying you for.” So he says, “Well, something bad happened. You’re going back, thinking that you can make it right again. Something went wrong and you keep going back to see if you can fix it and somehow make it right.” And I sat there and I said, “That is what I’m doing.” And he said, “Well, you can’t.” The thing Bruce couldn’t fix was the darkness of his childhood; the fatherly silence, the sudden rage, the alienation. We hear this irresolution in the ending of “My Father’s House,” where the the dark highway full of unatoned sins lies between the son and his father. Bruce writes in Born To Run: “’My Father’s House’ is probably the best song I’ve written about my dad, but its conclusion wasn’t going to be enough for me.” Thankfully for him, it wasn’t the end of the story. Bruce tells a story about how, right before he became a father for the first time, his dad drove five hundred miles to his house in L.A. just to “say hi.” Bruce writes: I invited him in, and at eleven o’clock in a small sun-drenched dining area, we sat at the table nursing beers. My father, in his normal state, had little talent for small talk, so I did the best I could. Suddenly, he said, “Bruce, you’ve been very good to us.” I acknowledged that I had. Pause. His eyes drifted out over the Los Angeles haze. He continued, “…And I wasn’t very good to you.” A small silence caught us. “You did the best you could,” I said. That was it. It was all I needed, all that was necessary. I was blessed on that day and given something by my father I thought I’d never live to see…a brief recognition of the truth. It was why he’d come five hundred miles that morning. He’d come to tell me, on the eve of my fatherhood, that he loved me, and to warn me to be careful, to do better, to not make the same painful mistakes he’d made. I try to honor it. Bruce goes on later in the book to talk about how, in the last ten years of his life, his father was finally diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and was able to get some help. In those ten years they were able to reconnect and repair some of the damage that had been done. “My Father’s House” starts with a dream: Last night I dreamed that I was a child Out where the pines grow wild and tall I was trying to make it home through the forest Before the darkness falls After his father died, Bruce describes having a dream. He says: I’m onstage in full flight, the night is burning, and my dad, long dead, sits quietly in an aisle seat in the audience. Then…I’m kneeling next to him in the aisle, and for a moment, we both watch the man on fire onstage. I touch his forearm, and say to my dad, who for so many years sat paralyzed by depression, “Look, Dad, look…that guy onstage…that’s you…that’s how I see you.” This essay is adapted from a session at Hutchmoot 2018.

Let the Local Shows commence! A new season begins on Tuesday the 19th with Andrew Peterson, Cindy Morgan, Ron Block, and Jeff Taylor. Starting on the 19th, Local Shows will be convening every other Tuesday at The Well Coffeehouse on Granny White Pike. Click here to purchase tickets. We are also very pleased to share that the live stream is back up and running for this new season. So if you are unable to attend, but would still like to tune in, you can do so by visiting our Facebook page on Tuesday evening at 7:30 CST. We’ll see you there!

I used to be a shepherd, keeping natural-colored sheep for their fleeces. Most sheep grow white or off-white wool, but ours, bred from the occasional black sheep any commercial shepherd would reject, grew amazing-colored wool: ebony, silvers, grizzled grays, and countless shades of chocolate. Fiber artists used these rare colors to create beauty without dyes. Some of my sheep grew shiny, strong fiber that was perfect for tapestry work or socks with durable heels while others produced wool soft enough for camisoles and baby gowns. Each sheep on our farm had the genetic potential to grow good wool, but not all of them did. It wasn’t because they were lazy—sheep don’t work. They’re relationship creatures. Sheep live with someone who takes care of them. People and sheep benefit each other; we need the warmth and nutrition they provide and they need the provision and protection we offer. Whether they know it or not (usually not), sheep need to be kept. Cared for. My sheep met certain aspects of their care with enthusiasm. They loved the extra grain they got before breeding season and lambing but, left to themselves, they crowded the feeders, knocking the small and weak aside. If I didn’t take care to make sure each one got enough and not more, some sheep would be fat and others hungry and stressed. Most of my flock liked the taste of their mineral supplements, but others—not so much. Those who refused the minerals ate the red paint off the barn instead. It did them no good. Some of my flock preferred to go their own way. I kept them safe with fences, guard animals, a security camera, and most importantly, my presence. As a result, the sheep could rest and fully chew their food. If they didn’t feel safe enough to lie down, they wouldn’t ruminate, and they lost vital nutrition. The ewes that trusted us rested easy. Others were timid or afraid. Startling at nothing, they depended on themselves and their ability to flee. They spent countless calories running away from imagined threats instead of investing them in growth and strong wool. The quality of a flock's wool depends on whose they are. It's the shepherd's care that determines the value of the fleece. Suzanne Tietjen Lambing season left me as sleep-deprived as a new mom. Our family took turns answering the alarm clock every two hours when the ewes were heavy with lambs. We put in closed circuit TV to cut down on the number of cold, dark slogs through the snow to the barn, but we still had to wake up and watch for a half hour when the alarm jangled us awake. The girls rarely wanted my help when they had lambing problems. They’d fight me. Sheep are strong. And willful. The best of them accepted my attentions and forgot their discomfort when they greeted their healthy lambs. My sheep couldn’t know I was keeping them healthy, so they resisted taking medicine. They hated worming solution and fought vaccinations. If they disliked their healthcare regimen, they really hated the coats they had to wear to protect their wool from dirt, vegetation, and sunburn. Our dark sheep were actually cooler in white coats than if they were coatless, but they didn’t understand that either. We fought a constant low-intensity battle over keeping those coats on. What we had was a failure to communicate. My care must have seemed like a mysterious hardship to them—“What does it take to satisfy this shepherd?” No matter—I needed them to let me do what was best. I wanted their cooperation, or at the very least, their acquiescence. True, some of my sheep recognized me as a resource, running to me for a treat. A few of them enjoyed my company and sought it out when I sat down in the pasture. But the sheep in general? They wanted their own way. And, yes, there was a day of reckoning. Shearing day—our harvest. While the shearer eased his back between sheep, I bear-hugged each still-warm fleece over to the skirting table and threw it open like a rug. I skirted the fleece, tearing off the dirty edges, then pulled a lock of wool thick as a matchstick out of the fleece. I gave the lock a twist, held it to my ear and pulled on the ends, hoping I wouldn’t hear the hiss of fibers breaking—the sure sign of a tender fleece. Tender wool isn’t worth a spinner’s effort; a whole year’s growth wasted, good for nothing more than garden mulch. If the lock of wool didn’t break everywhere along its length, I’d inspect it against the light and snap it to detect any other break in the wool. A fever or a predator scare could ruin the fleece by causing a weak spot at the same point in every strand of wool. Because blood shunts away from the follicles during extreme stress, every fiber is deprived simultaneously of oxygen and nutrition, leaving a fragile “tear-here” line throughout the entire fleece. Broken fleeces are either a total loss or problematic, depending on the break’s location. At best, they’re a salvage attempt. Sometimes, the color was flawed by mineral deficiency or sun-bleaching. When a sheep won a battle in the coat war, stickers and vegetation got in the wool. A spinner had to really love that fleece to invest the amount of time and effort hand-picking out the junk. The fault in the fleece often lies with the sheep, but the quality of a flock’s wool depends on whose they are. It’s the shepherd’s care that determines the value of the fleece. I, their shepherd, couldn’t grow wool myself, but I harvested good wool because I loved the sheep and took care of them. I watched over them, discerned their needs, and provided for them. Their part—their gift—was to abide. To stay close, follow me, and let me take care of them. Jesus named himself Shepherd, One who knows and loves us. Not our stuff or accomplishments. It’s us—each one of us—he loves. He’s our Shepherd, even if we don’t want to think we need one. He wants, more than we’ll ever know, for us to keep company with him. To abide. When we do, it’ll be evident. An outgrowth of his life in us.

A new episode of The Membership podcast is now available. In this episode, Jason Hardy and John Pattison interview Charlie Peacock, the 4x Grammy Award-winning, multi-format jazz and pop recording artist, composer, and record producer. The goal of The Membership is to curate great conversations that contribute to the health of the land and the health of our communities. Throughout this new podcast, hosts Jason Hardy, John Pattison, and Tim Wasem discuss Berry’s life and writings. They will also interview other folks—farmers and makers, writers and artists, and community practitioners of all kinds—who are responding to Wendell Berry’s writings in their own places. You can listen to the new episode here. And you can learn more about The Membership at its official website here. Click here for more information about The Rabbit Room Podcast Network and to check out other great podcasts.

For years now, people have been asking us to take Hutchmoot on the road. That’s a complicated request, but this year we’ve come up with a way to do just that…well, sort of. We’re teaming up with the Great Homeschool Conventions and the Wilberforce Weekend to provide eight—count ’em: EIGHT—Rabbit Room on the Road events this year. And don’t worry, there’s no need to be a homeschooler or even have any interest in homeschooling—you can still come and enjoy the Rabbit Room on the Road part of the program. We’ll be visiting folks from California to New York, and below you’ll see what we’ve got in store. The great thing about most of these events is that you can purchase access for your entire family for a very low price. When you register for the Great Homeschool Convention, you’ll have access to the entire program listed below as well as the rest of the convention content if you’re interested. This is a GREAT chance to get a taste of Hutchmoot content for a fraction of the price (less than $70 for an entire family!). Note: The Washington DC event is part of the Wilberforce Weekend and NOT a Great Homeschool Convention. See below for details. So come out and join us. We’d love to see you at the sessions. Stop by the Rabbit Room booth afterward to say hello. Below, you’ll find the program and the dates for each convention. To register, visit the Great Homeschool Convention site here. To register for the Wilberforce Weekend event in Washington DC, click here. Rabbit Room on the Road at the Great Homeschool Convention includes: Andrew Peterson live in concert Slugs & Bugs live in concert Community, Calling, & the Mystery of Making – Andrew Peterson and Jonathan Rogers discuss the nature of creative work—its challenges, its joys, its importance in the Kingdom of God—and the ways in which we enrich one another’s lives when we participate in creative work together. The Work of the People: Redemptive Rhythms in Our Shared Lives – Pete Peterson and Doug McKelvey examine the ways in which we strengthen families and build relationships, friendships, and community through the liturgical rhythms of our lives. Finding Your Voice: Overcoming Barriers to Creativity – Jennifer Trafton and Helena Sorensen examine the forces that restrict creativity in our lives and explore ways in which we can break down those barriers and find room to let our imaginations thrive. In Search of a Truer Story: Nurturing A Redeemed Imagination (Andrew Peterson, Douglas McKelvey, Helena Sorensen, A. S. Peterson, Jennifer Trafton, Jonathan Rogers) – What’s the point of a good story? Why do we need them? What do they have to teach us? This panel of Rabbit Room writers and musicians invites you into a discussion about the importance of Story to our imaginations, our lives, and our faith. Where and When? Ft. Worth, TX – March 7-9 Greenville, SC – March 21-23 St. Louis, MO – March 28-30 Cincinnati, OH – April 25-27Ontario, CA – June 13-15 Rochester, NY – August 1-3 Jacksonville, FL – August 8-10 To register, visit the Great Homeschool Convention site here. Rabbit Room on the Road at the Wilberforce Weekend includes: Jonathan Rogers – Speaking on the subject of why stories are a powerful force in the Church and in the world. Doug McKelvey & Andrew Peterson – Speaking on the subject of how our imagination shapes our capacity for hope. Panel Discussion with Jonathan Rogers, Andrew Peterson, Doug McKelvey – A moderated discussion about how art nourishes community and community nourishes art. Songs with Andrew Peterson Where and When? Washington, DC – May 16 (Pre-conference only) Click here to register for the Wilberforce Weekend Pre-conference (Rabbit Room on the Road).

Doug McKelvey was recently interviewed by Convivium Magazine about the process of writing Every Moment Holy—a wonderful conversation we’re excited to share with you here. Convivium: Every Moment Holy, published in 2017, is a “book of liturgies for the everyday.” When did you first begin to write liturgies for the ordinary, maybe even mundane, bits of life? Douglas McKelvey: I was working on a young adult sci-fi novel and had hit a point in the process where I was struggling to get in the right place and be productive. I needed a prayer to focus and remind me of who I was in relation to my Creator, the gifts I was stewarding, and the people I was seeking to serve by what I was creating. So, I wrote a liturgy for fiction writers. At that time, I was preparing for a session on storytelling and story creation together with Andrew Peterson and Heidi Johnston, a wonderful author and Bible teacher from Northern Ireland, and I sent Andrew that liturgy for fiction writers. His immediate response was, “This is great, but I wish I also had a liturgy for beekeeping, and a liturgy for …” The light came on, and I realized, “There’s a whole book idea here that could potentially serve the body of Christ.” In many ways, it became a community supported effort to bring the book into print. I consciously drew from the early Celtic Christians who had created prayers for everything. They had a prayer for milking the cow, even for covering over the ashes of the hearth fire at night. They had this awareness of moving through their days with God being present. There’s something beautiful about how they were so intentional about cultivating this every moment sort of awareness of God’s presence with them, and his involvement in their life, even in the mundane tasks. With this project we weren’t setting out to create something new. We were looking back at something that had been beautiful and significant to the church at multiple points in our shared history, and sought to reintroduce people today to those beautiful and helpful prayers. Click here to read the full interview at Convivium Magazine.