Fairy rings, for all their mystique, are common at Berry College. In comparison to other universities, Berry isn’t abnormally eco-friendly, but its long-leaf pines, sweeping lawns, and petite, half-tamed deer attract an array of nature-loving students, as well as skunks, cats, tree frogs, herons, black grasshoppers, and fungi. In the mornings at Berry, when the sun gushes like a crushed blood-orange over the pines, a circle or two of white caps will often bloom on our lawns, while the fawns bend and graze around them. The mushroom caps are lush, as though sponging in the surrounding dew, but they are bordered by a necrotic zone, a shadow-ring of dead grass. When I was a freshman at Berry, I dated a girl named Emily, who sometimes carried a mushroom field guide with her, so now and then, I’d see her sitting on her heels in the grass, her field guide open in her palms, and squinting to identify a fresh umbrella of pearl, sulfur, or coral. I began to spot mushrooms around campus more often, ranging from scab-like buttons to angelic halos, and I tried to mimic my girlfriend’s reverence by squatting to examine them. Sometimes, I’d cross a dewy lawn to visit a fairy ring. This circle of caps, chipped and nibbled, marks the living ripple of mycelium below. The mycelium is the true body of the fungus—a tangle of fibers hidden underground, yet signaling its presence with rising caps. At the fairy ring’s center, where there are no mushrooms, the fibers beneath have withered, having used up all the surrounding nutrients. The fairy ring itself, however, rises from the living border of the mycelium, spreading away from the dead core. In this way, mushroom rings become a liminal space—a border between life and death, flesh and spirit. Celtic legends describe these spots as a dancing ground for sprites. Some fairies would sit on the mushroom caps, carousing and clapping, while others would stomp and leap and whirl in an ethereal bacchanalia. Spirits of miracle and mischief, the pixies weaved back and forth across the fungal border, in and out of the realm of decay. Mushrooms are a bridge between worlds. You feed a stump, a mangle of bruised leaves, or perhaps a corpse to the mycelium, and out come bubbles of living color, a splatter-paint of cobalt and mauve and ochre. The fungus works like a mad chemist—deconstructing the dead into their basic elements, then rearranging them into newborn flesh. Peoples of ancient Asia seemed to have glimpsed something sacred in this transformative power. The Ganoderma fungi—called lingzhi in Chinese, reishi in Japanese—grow in kidney-capped stalks and fanning shelves, and their Chinese name stems from the words for divine spirit (ling) and woody mushroom (zhi). This “divine fungus” is also known as the “ten-thousand-year mushroom,” or the “mushroom of immortality.” In the Shennong Ben Cao Jing, a Chinese medicinal document compiled somewhere between 25 and 220 AD, the authors identify six basic colors of Ganoderma: white (baizhi), yellow (huangzhi), green (qingzhi), black (heizhi), purple (zizhi), and red (chizhi). Each color, according to this text, has a different medicinal property. So, if you’re ever browsing through the forest, and you pluck a lingzhi from a stump for a snack, it may benefit your lungs, your spleen, your heart, or your kidneys, or it may give you eternal life, all depending on the color. (If you want immortality, the red chizhi is the best choice.) Of course, if you’re the sort of person who samples unidentified mushrooms in the woods, then it’s also quite likely that you didn’t eat a lingzhi at all, and that your intestines will promptly cave in. The risks of foraging notwithstanding, the lore surrounding the lingzhi suggests a portal between death and life. This revered, wrinkled cap eats up dead flesh and transmutes it into a fount of medicine and immortality. If the mushroom's way of sculpting life from rot yields us any comfort in our grief, it might be because it dimly echoes an entirely different world order, one ruled by the law of re-composition. Noah Guthrie Though I’ve never seen a lingzhi, I’ve had glimpses of a similar transformative power through the fungi in my own life. Back when I was twelve, I switched schools, and for over two years, I grieved for the friends that I’d left behind. As though to emphasize my division from those relationships, my family moved houses in 2014, transitioning from a largely flat suburb in the town of Pegram to a hilly, forested neighborhood twenty minutes from downtown Nashville. Our new home had a long driveway with a thirty-five degree slant, and to one side of that driveway, some shrubs, gravel, and a decaying stump clung to the hillside. The stump was the important part to me. Back then, my favorite videogame was The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, which portrays the protagonist’s best friend as a wood elf of sorts, named Saria. With the blessings of eternal youth and good hair (the latter being styled in a moss-green bob), Saria passes the time in a sacred grove, playing her ocarina on a tree stump. By the time my family moved, I’d already begun to associate Saria with the old friends I’d left at Harpeth Middle School, so when I saw that my new home had a tree stump, I viewed it as a symbol of my loss. I’d sit on that wooden seat, maybe whistle a bar of Saria’s song, and wrap myself in a fresh layer of worn, aging melancholy. Then the mushrooms arrived. Thick brown saucers began to foam across the tree stump. Over the following months and years, the fungi tore at the wood, prying away splinters and wedges like rotten teeth. At the stump’s receding base, new soil opened up. Grass sprouted. As the shelf fungi gnawed at the stump, the years wore away at my grief for my old friends. The tendrils of new classes, dance recitals, fantasy novels, and relationships began to creep in. So, by the time my “Saria’s stump” had decayed, giving way to fresh herbage, I’d been transformed as well. My grief had taken me apart, then built me into something new. Such images of decay and new growth have brought me hope in the past, but I admit that in some ways, they are a misrepresentation of what fungi actually do. In my own case, I underwent an inner transformation from melancholy to renewed joy, but at each phase, my essence was preserved. The body and self that I called “Noah” was still intact. Say I died, however. The mushrooms would deconstruct my flesh, then rearrange it into something unrecognizable. My body’s proteins, aminos, and carbohydrates, my marrow and lymph and neurons, my soil-brown eyes, they’d become humus, grass blades, and maybe a spray of blackberries to feed a passing bear. Yes, pieces of “Noah” (my proteins and all that) would technically be preserved in the flesh of berries and bears, but they’d no longer be myself, any more than Notre Dame would remain itself if I tore it down and raked out the rubble to form a parking lot. Notre Dame would be destroyed, just as I would be destroyed if my body went to the mushrooms. Maybe the lingzhi can yield medicine for the living, but the dead remain dead. This is why I’m not always comforted when good things arise from death. I see this when I consider the passing of my paternal grandmother, who died during a family vacation in 2011. The week leading up to her death, she’d been as lively as ever, serving our family lasagna over a game of Texas Canasta, so when she was hospitalized, and her organs failed, it was an evil shock. There was no decline, no preparation. It felt like I’d watched her go straight from the kitchen to the coffin. However, as is often the case with seasons of grief, the following years yielded many up-shoots of new life for my family, color mushrooming from ash. Grief brought me resilience, emotional maturity, and inspiration for my fairy novel, and as my family and friends comforted one another, love blossomed. These are the blessings of the lingzhi: decay and transformation. If those blessings were all I had, however, it would be a hollow consolation. Even if my grandmother’s grave yields grass, dandelions, and mushroom caps, medicine and new life, the magic trick isn’t enough for me. My grandmother is still dead, and no amount of personal growth or familial affection will change that. In the end, mushrooms are just another proof of the law of decomposition. Everything lives by ripping other lives apart, by devouring them, by transforming their flesh into their own. We join the fungi in a parody of Eucharist: we offer them our bodies to tear apart, and we are destroyed, becoming food for the next generation. We accept the law of decay for the time being, though. While we’re still alive, it’s helpful for us. In the case of the lingzhi, we harvest, powder, and brew it, concentrate it into pills, and sell it to ailing souls across the world. In 2004, the global average turnover for lingzhi products was about $2.16 billion. There would be no mushrooms without death, but we accept them, whether eagerly or grudgingly, because they bring us life. Even when we don’t invest in myco-medicine, our lives all depend on decomposers. Every food chain leads back to the soil, no matter how many links of meat-eaters, plant-eaters, and all-eaters you work through to get there, and our decomposers (the dead-eaters) give the soil its structure and fertility. The mushrooms feed the earth, and as a result, they feed everything. We eat the fruits of decay at every meal, whether in a bowl of kale, a hatchet of chicken breast, a curried pot of rice, a froth of blue cheese, or a savory, frilled wheel of portobello. People across the world consume the lingzhi in tea and supplements, but mycologists have observed ever since the third century, all the way back to the Shennong Ben Cao Jing (if not earlier), that the mushroom of immortality is bitter. It’s what you’d expect from death’s medicine. If the mushroom’s way of sculpting life from rot yields us any comfort in our grief, it might be because it dimly echoes an entirely different world order, one ruled by the law of re-composition. The Hebrew prophet Ezekiel offers a bizarre, almost hallucinogenic image of this alternate law. In his book of visions, Ezekiel describes God overlooking a wasteland of desiccated bones. The worms and fungi, no doubt, had cleaned these corpses long ago, leaving the skeletons for the wind and beasts to scatter. By now, even the most dedicated osteologist would struggle to piece the bones together. Nonetheless, God speaks to them: “O dry bones, I will lay sinews upon you, and I will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live.” As Ezekiel looks on, the bones shudder. They jerk and shift, turning the wasteland into a field of rippling limbs, white and ripe. Then, like a time-lapse run backward, the lost bodies are reconstructed bone by bone, muscle by muscle. Everything that had been scattered to the soil—the collagen, the tendons, the veins, the ballooning flesh of the lungs—they weave themselves together, and they are human again. The lingzhi may transform flesh, feeding old life to new generations, but it always leaves the bones to dry. It picks apart, but it can’t rebuild what was lost. In the end, it’s only the promise of re-composition that comforts me about my grandmother, or about anyone else who’s died. One family of mushrooms, however, bears a hint of that hope for restoration. The fairy ring mushroom, so common among the grazing deer on my college campus, is also known as Marasmius oreades. Its name comes from the Greek marasmos, which means “withering.” If, upon catching sight of a fairy ring on my college’s lawn, I waited for the sun to come out, and the dew to dry, I might see those caps, caramelly and lush as pancakes, shrivel into husks. For most types of mushrooms, this is the end. You can’t revive a punctured heart, and you can’t revive a dried mushroom cap. However, if I waited longer still (perhaps with an umbrella), and watched a shower spill over the withered ring, I would witness a phenomenon that has long fascinated mycologists. The mushrooms would blossom anew, frills spreading, their wrinkled heads turning smooth as the cheeks of a newborn child. Here, we see another vision of this unnatural, yet good, law, the law that refreshes dry caps and enfleshes cracked bones. It’s no wonder that we relegate this to the world of sprites, and that anyone who sees a fairy ring is meant to step inside and make a wish. The ring invites us to enter, crossing to stand over the mycelium’s withered core. It invites us to pray for rebirth. —In memory of Eden Muina, who passed away on September 12, 2021, at the age of twenty. A memorial garden has been established on Berry Campus in Eden’s memory. Click here to contribute to ‘Eden’s Garden.‘ To read more of Noah’s writing, visit his online journal, The Green Phoenix.

This week on The Habit Podcast, Jonathan Rogers interviews activist and author Lisa Sharon Harper. Lisa Sharon Harper spent three decades researching ten generations of her family’s story through DNA research, oral histories, interviews, and genealogical records. That research is the basis of her new book, Fortune: How Race Broke My Family and the World—and How to Repair It. In this episode, Lisa Sharon Harper and Jonathan  Rogers discuss truth-seeking, truth-telling, forgiveness, and repair. Click here to listen to Season 4, Episode 6 of The Habit Podcast. Transcripts are now available for The Habit Podcast. Click here to access them. Sponsorship on the Podcast Network Are you interested in teaming up with us to support the work you love? Send an email to our Head of Development, Sarah Katherine, at sarahkatherine@rabbitroom.com if you are interested in becoming a sponsor of our Podcast Network. Rabbit Room Membership Special thanks to our Rabbit Room members for making these podcasts possible! If you’re interested in becoming a member, visit RabbitRoom.com/Donate.

I once went a year without eating bread. It wasn’t a fast or a health kick or anything noble like that. I’m allergic to gluten and moved overseas to work in a country without gluten-free anything. It also happened to be a country without unlimited internet. Each month I would save up my data to Skype family back home or stream a movie. One month I used all my data spending seven hours downloading Rogue One, which never made it to the theater in the town where I lived. I’d been in my new country for four months when my mom sent over some DVDs. Mixed in amongst some new releases I’d been excited to see was a random movie my mom saw and thought I would like called Kubo and the Two Strings. It looked interesting, but I set it to the side because it also looked dangerous. I was three months into the deep grief of the death of a cherished friend, and Kubo and the Two Strings looked like it could be just honest enough to send me back into the darkness I thought I had crawled my way out of. So, I stuck the DVD on my desk and forgot it existed until months later, as monsoon rains pounded outside. Slipping the DVD into my laptop, surrounded by the cool, rainy air, I was only hoping for something entertaining to pass the time. Instead, what I discovered was a work of art my imagination would use to change my life. Kubo: If you must blink, do it now. Pay careful attention to everything you see and hear, no matter how unusual it may seem. And please be warned: If you fidget, if you look away, if you forget any part of what I tell you—even for an instant—then our hero will surely perish. —Kubo and the Two Strings The above lines are spoken by a young boy named Kubo, the protagonist of Kubo and the Two Strings, as the movie opens. From the moment I heard these words, my heart slowed in my chest. Something about them rang true, but what they meant I was yet unsure. As the movie progressed, I learned that Kubo is a storyteller full of joy and imagination, but one who is familiar with suffering and grief in his young life. Throughout the movie, he is hunted by one who seeks to steal his joy, imagination, suffering, and grief—one who seeks to steal his humanity. As Kubo flees his pursuer, he is forced to reckon both with the anguish of loss and what it means to be the one still living. I walked away from this movie with a tiny part of myself healed, but I was back home in America before I was able to give voice as to why. My imagination latched onto an exchange between Kubo and his pursuer that made everything fall into place. Moon King: Everything you loved is GONE! Everything you knew has been TAKEN from you! Kubo: No… it’s in my memories. The most powerful kind of magic there is. It makes us stronger than you’ll ever be. These are the memories of those we have loved and lost. And if we hold their stories deep in our hearts…then you will never take them away from us. —Kubo and the Two Strings I had been angry since my friend died. Not so much that she had died, but that so many people only seemed to want me to feel better about it. They wanted me to be glad she was no longer suffering. They wanted me to only remember the good times with her and forget the bad. Forget the ache of knowing she was dying for over a year. Forget the utter wrongness of her death. For months I had been raging over it and could not figure out why…until my imagination showed me. God does not forget, even for an instant, the stories of every single person who is gone. Hannah Mitchell The memories of my friend are carved deep into my heart, and the stories held there are the only thing not even death can take away from me. But if I blink or look away, if I choose to forget any part of those stories, then my hero will surely perish. To choose to only remember the good like so many wanted would mean forgetting the fullness of my friend’s story. All of her life was precious, not just the parts that hurt less than others. I won’t let my desire for a little less pain loosen my hold on the memories of my friend nestled safely in my heart. Because these memories, they’re a magic stronger than death. And as I live on, they do nothing but make me strong. Even as my anger soothed and my soul’s wounds began to heal, I still had a problem: God. For months after my friend died, people had been telling me all the peace God wanted to offer me or what great things God would do through this part of my story—how great my testimony would be. Somewhere deep inside me, I felt like maybe God wanted me to forget the pain too. And that was something I just couldn’t do. But as my imagination continued to do its work with Kubo’s story, it helped me understand something about God. Unlike people who tried to soothe my pain, part of the comfort God offered me was to never flinch or look away. God saw my pain and knew not to try to make me feel better, but to sit with me in the endless ache. God knows the only thing that can slightly lessen the pain of death is for it to be seen and known. So Jesus wept. And God does not forget, even for an instant, the stories of every single person who is gone. What I experienced in Kubo and the Two Strings may not be life altering to anyone but me. That’s the magic of the imagination: it’s as unique as the person in whom it exists. Every single one of you may watch Kubo’s story and find a different moment that shapes you most, or you may even take a different meaning from the same moments I shared about here, but none of that makes any of us wrong. Your imagination is yours, not mine or anyone else’s. It will find meaning and beauty and the truth of God in art that no one else may ever know. The mystery of it is precisely what makes it so beautiful. So, I invite you now to share in the comments below your own moments of imagination working. Share your favorite lines from a book, movie, song, TV show, or comic, and why they mean so much to you. Share a painting or a photograph that touched you and how it made its impact known. Share the blustery winter day that taught you about God. No, we may not find the moments you share as wondrous as you. But we will know that for you, they are something of unspeakable beauty. And for that reason alone, they should be seen, known, and loved. Click here to read “Imagination as an Agent of Healing (Part 1 of 3)” and here to read “Imagination as a Spiritual Practice” (Part 2 of 3).”

In his autobiography Surprised by Joy, C. S. Lewis writes of the distant Castlereagh Hills outside his nursery windows. “They were not very far off but they were, to children, quite unattainable. They taught me longing-Sehnsucht; made me for good or ill, and before I was six years old, a votary of the Blue Flower.” The Gray Havens have always had a tinge of mystery (and more than a tinge of the Inklings) in their music. They’re a great example of the ways that music, when written well, can mine deep stores of wisdom and theology without becoming stuffy or off-putting. And my goodness, the Gray Havens’ music is written well! Lewis’s quote, which provides the name of the band’s latest album, gives words to the great paradox that there is in us a singular desire that no experience in the world can satisfy. The word “supernatural” is so overused we forget the meaning. Think of the visible spectrum—all the light we can see—with red on one end and violet on the other. Just past the ends, invisible, there is infrared and ultraviolet. Maybe “ultranatural” is a better word than supernatural to describe this liminal space where we step outside what we know and see and realize there is something else, something beautiful and mysterious. Blue Flower, the band’s fifth studio release, dances in that space and (like another of Lewis’s works) ushers the listener from a long, drab winter to a bright and tantalizing summer. Lewis’s autobiography is filled with obscure references, and he often does not explain them. Indeed, his flower means more than we might first think, as it was an important symbol in Romanticism. Early German Romantic poet Novalis introduced the symbol in a fragmentary novel in which the protagonist, upon hearing a stranger’s stories, shares, “The Blue Flower is what I long to behold. It lies incessantly in my heart… In the world I used to live in, who troubled himself about flowers?” In 1839, Thomas Carlyle wrote an essay on Novalis, and gave this interpretation: “The ‘Blue Flower’ there spoken of being Poetry.” H. H. Boyesen expanded the thought and wrote that the flower “is meant to symbolize the deep and sacred longings of a poet’s soul. Romantic poetry invariably deals with longing; not a definite, formulated desire for some obtainable object, but a dim, mysterious aspiration, a trembling unrest, a vague sense of kinship with the infinite.” All of these meanings suggest a transcendent beauty: the feelings a poem or a song can stir that ordinary prose cannot. And long before he had knowledge of Romantic symbols, Lewis felt it. We all do. But what a challenge to capture such a mysterious and wonderful thing! That’s where the Gray Havens have triumphed. Blue Flower gives voice to sehnsucht in ways that discourses on literature just can’t. In these songs, we don’t just understand the longing, we feel it too, and we’re given space to name it, and to lament its distance even while we joy in its very existence. Just over a minute into the opening title track, the somber, atmospheric music changes to a vibrant, lively instrumental line that swells in layer upon layer. It makes me smile every time I hear it. The music steps us out of our everyday existence into some other alluring realm, and like six-year-old Lewis, the listener knows there is something more. Ben Shive’s production employs a broad range of instrumentation to set a cinematic place for each song. The album’s themes are as strong in the music as in the lyrics. Shive is a master at strings, and his touch here is perfect. Havens’ founder Dave Radford was more involved in the production for this album, and the collaboration is wonderful. The toolbox was wide open—percussion, horns, loops—but the tools are used with expert precision, and always in service of the theme. In these songs, we don’t just understand the longing, we feel it too, and we’re given space to name it, and to lament its distance even while we joy in its very existence. Mark Geil I’ve listened to this album for a while now, but only recently have I done so through a critic’s lens, and I’ve realized something: pulling this off was so difficult! Think about the task: write about this soul-deep, inconsolable longing we all feel but can’t always describe. Go ahead and describe it. Then, actually stir that thing in our souls. Consider how adeptly these songs accomplish all of this. “Rhythm of the East” hints at something otherworldly, in staccato lyrics and music, acknowledges how difficult it is to share, and points to the source in the rising sun and its Creator. “I remember now in December how, like a split-second dream, I heard a summer song; if I get it wrong, you can find it in the east.” How clever for a song to describe an attempt to remember a song. “Wide Awake” is somehow musically sparse and full at the same time, capturing two planes of existence and inviting us to tune our senses to the one we can’t always see. The lyric acknowledges how we as adults might try to talk ourselves out of the possibility of this land we imagined as a child where the blue flowers grow. Albums like this could steer off a ledge into ethereal or academic pitfalls, but choruses like this one make Blue Flower into something honest and accessible. The Gray Havens grow with each new album, and it’s a delight to enjoy. Radford’s songwriting has always been impressive, but here he’s accomplished something remarkable: an album about transcendence that is, itself, transcendent. Click here to listen to Blue Flower on Spotify and here to listen on Apple Music.

On 14-16 July, 2022, the Rabbit Room will convene the second Hutchmoot UK at St. Andrew’s Church in North Oxford. You’re invited to come and enjoy a weekend of live music, delicious food and conversation, and a series of discussions centred on art, faith, and the telling of great stories across a range of mediums. Keynote: Andrew Peterson As a singer-songwriter and recording artist, Andrew Peterson has released eleven records over the past fifteen years including his latest album, Resurrection Letters, Vol. 1. His music has earned him a reputation for writing songs that connect with his listeners in ways equally powerful, poetic, and intimate. A natural-born storyteller, Andrew has also followed his gifts into the realm of publishing. His books include The Wingfeather Saga, Adorning the Dark: Thoughts on Community, Calling, and the Mystery of Making, and The God of the Garden: Thoughts on Creation, Culture, and the Kingdom. Andrew, his wife, Jamie, and their three children live just outside of Nashville, Tennessee, on a wooded hill in a little house they call The Warren. Andrew is the founder of the Rabbit Room community and the bearer of the honorable title of “The Proprietor.” Live in Concert: Joshua Luke Smith Hutchmoot UK is proud to host Joshua Luke Smith live on Friday night, 15 July. Admission to the show is free for all Hutchmoot ticket holders. Joshua Luke Smith is a poet, producer and natural storyteller. Smith has been praised in Complex, featured on BBC Radio 1Xtra and gave a TED X talk titled “The World Within” in 2017. As Smith himself says, his music is made to “speak into the chaos” of the modern world, distilling his own experiences into something anyone can relate to. Among Smith’s best known works is “Becoming Human,” a poem inspired by the story of an attempted suicide. The poem’s success paved the way for Smith’s work with suicide prevention charity Samaritans, the first of many charitable initiatives that Smith has been involved in. Rather than adding to the chaos of modern society, Smith’s music is about bringing solace and tranquility by addressing elements of the human condition that other artists might shy away from. In 2021 he released his debut album The Void and will see his first book published in the summer of 2022. He’s also the host of The Pilgrimage Podcast. Other featured speakers and performers include Sarah Clarkson, Ruth Naomi Floyd, Alastair Gordon, Heidi Johnston, Mary McCampbell, Mark Meynell, Jonathan Rogers, and Michael J. Tinker. Click here to register for Hutchmoot UK 2022. Sponsoring Hutchmoot If you’re interested in becoming a sponsor of Hutchmoot, whether in the UK or the States, we’d love to hear from you! Contact Sarah Katherine Woodhull, the Rabbit Room’s Head of Development, at sarahkatherine@rabbitroom.com and she’ll be glad to answer any questions you have.

This week on The Habit Podcast, Jonathan Rogers talks with author Dorena Williamson. Dorena is a bridge-builder, a speaker, and a co-planter of a multi-racial church that has been doing beautiful work in Nashville for 25 years. Her most recent picture book, Crowned with Glory, is an ode to Black hair and Black girl joy. In this episode, Dorena and Jonathan Rogers talk about representation, writing the books you want to read, and the perils of “color-blindness.” Click here to listen to Season 4, Episode 7 of The Habit Podcast. Transcripts are now available for The Habit Podcast. Click here to access them. Sponsorship on the Podcast Network Are you interested in teaming up with us to support the work you love? Send an email to our Head of Development, Sarah Katherine Woodhull, at sarahkatherine@rabbitroom.com if you are interested in becoming a sponsor of our Podcast Network. Rabbit Room Membership Special thanks to our Rabbit Room members for making these podcasts possible! If you’re interested in becoming a member, visit RabbitRoom.com/Donate.

Here’s the thing: I never planned to write a book. At least, I never thought anyone would publish a book I had written. Despite being a self-professed book nerd, I’ve always considered myself a filmmaker first and foremost. Books were something I read, collected, discussed. I didn’t have the time (or the confidence) to write one myself. But, over the span of six months beginning in the fall of 2020, two unexpected things happened. First, a booklet of Psalm-inspired prayers I had written with my friend Dan Wilt found its way to the fine folks at Brazos Press, which resulted in a two-book offer. I wasn’t prepared for that, nor was I prepared for my film adaptation of Carolyn Weber’s memoir Surprised by Oxford to at last take flight in the spring of 2021, after four years of development and a number of failed attempts to get the production off the ground. What this all amounted to was a very busy, but highly rewarding year. While I’m still in post-production on the film, the first prayer book, titled Sheltering Mercy, was released on February 8th and is now available for purchase at all the usual places. On release day, I posted this on Instagram. I think it’s worth repeating here for context: Ryan Whitaker makes movies. Ryan Whitaker Smith writes books. My bi-furcated self is the product of C. S. Lewis, Alfred Hitchcock, G. K. Chesterton, Steven Spielberg, 1940s Technicolor, Christian theology, Film Noir, liturgy, poetry, Ernst Lubitsch comedies, John Ford westerns, an endless fascination with Orson Welles, a borderline obsession with Scottish novelist John Buschan, and everything in between. While Ryan Whitaker is still hard at work on @surprisedbyoxford (which combines several of the influences above), Ryan Whitaker Smith has a book releasing TODAY from @brazospress, written with co-author @danwiltarist. Sheltering Mercy is a book of prayers inspired by the Psalms and is available wherever books are sold. Get it today! The truth is, Sheltering Mercy and Surprised by Oxford are more connected than they might initially appear to be. Both owe a debt of gratitude to Carolyn Weber (more on that in the introduction below). Both are inspired by art, poetry, literature, scripture, and themes of grace and transcendent truth. Both are the products of the unique blend of influences that have made me who I am. So, without any further rambling on my part, here is the introduction to Sheltering Mercy, along with the first prayer, “River Tree.” For more information about the book, visit praywiththepsalms.com. Introduction In his book Reflections on the Psalms, C. S. Lewis makes a simple but profound observation about praise. He notes that “the humblest, and at the same time most balanced and capacious minds” praise most, “while the cranks, misfits, and malcontents praise least.” In other words, the humble (or, to use the common parlance of the Psalms, righteous) find occasion for praise even in the worst of circumstances, while the cranks (or wicked) are notoriously silent when it comes to thanks—even as their riches increase and their victories abound. To be sure, the Psalms are chiefly concerned with the subject of praise. The ornamentation of many churches today attests to this fact, and rightly so. But praise, according to the psalmists, is a more complicated matter than our modern Christian use of the term might suggest. For every comforting turn of phrase fit for a hand-painted wood plank or colorful banner, there are dozens more one would do best not to mention in the company of children. Artwork by Nathan Swann Yes, the praise we find in the Psalms is often joyful. Exuberant. A tune fit for dancing. But there is praise of another sort—the praise of the forgotten. The destitute. The fearful. The guilty. For these, praise often looks like utter desperation. Immobilizing panic. Fury. Trembling lips and a stuttering heart. The Psalms pull no punches. They remind us that worship is not only celebratory, but often mournful—the cry of those so overcome with grief, so lost in darkness, that the world of light and laughter and sun and sky seems like a half-forgotten memory. The God we serve—the One who is relentlessly present with us, even when He seems as distant as the peace we long for—is with us both in triumphant victory and in crushing defeat. In consolation and in desolation. In darkness and in light. In weeping and in rejoicing. In death and in life. The Psalms cover the wide gamut of human experience and human emotion. They are refreshingly honest. Tactlessly blunt. They move us. Shock us. Invite us to join them in their joy and in their lament. For God is present in it all. The Psalms have been used as prayers by the faithful for a few thousand years. Excellent translations are available, as well as paraphrases, commentaries, and additional resources for those wishing to study the Psalms. So what exactly are we attempting to add here? The first prayers written for this book emerged organically from times of private devotion as an attempt to engage thoughtfully and creatively with the text—prayerful responses, mirroring each psalm in its tone and content. The idea was birthed from friendship—years of walking together as fellow disciples of Jesus through the ebbs and flows of life and bearing one another’s burdens in prayer. We are vocational writers in different fields—Ryan Whitaker Smith in the sphere of filmmaking and storytelling, and Dan Wilt in the world of teaching, worship, and spiritual formation. We share in common not just an abiding belief in the power of prayer, but a love for language and the cadence and musicality of lyrical poetry. In December of 2019, we shared a small booklet with friends and family that contained twenty psalm-inspired prayers. The enthusiastic responses we received confirmed that we might, in fact, be on to something. So we continued writing. The prayers contained in this book (covering the first seventy-five psalms) are the fruit of our labors. They are not translations or paraphrases. Neither of us pretend to be qualified for such a task. Rather, they are responses—prayerful, poetic sketches—written in harmony with Scripture. We’ve taken to calling them free-verse renderings, which is just another way of saying they are impressionistic poetry without the limitations of meter or rhyme. The prayers contained in this book are responses—prayerful, poetic sketches—written in harmony with Scripture. Ryan Whitaker Smith Imagine a painter roaming the countryside who, stumbling upon a hidden valley, scrambles for her canvas and paints in an attempt to capture the vista before her: the rocky hillsides spilling down into a meadow of green and violet, the sun straining through the clouds to scatter its golden light across the scene. The painting that results is not the valley itself, but an impression of it—an attempt (however feebly) to harmonize with its beauty. We have attempted to do something like that here. The psalms are holy ground, and these prayers are lyrical paintings of what we have seen, heard, and felt while sojourning there. Each prayer adheres to the general movement of the psalm it references, while not being constrained by it. As a result, one phrase in the original text might inspire several lines of prayerful response. We allowed ourselves the freedom to follow where the text was leading us on a personal level as we prayed along with it, and to rejoice (and frequently wrestle with) what we found there. We have included Scripture references wherever possible. One of the unexpected joys of this endeavor was finding that the whole body of Scripture was providing content for these prayers. Which brings us to another important point: as followers of Jesus, we felt the freedom to approach these prayers through the lens of the New Testament. Christ is the central figure of the Bible and the One the Hebrew Scriptures anticipate, hint at, and long for. As a result, these prayers are unapologetically Christocentric. At the time of this writing, the Psalms are enjoying a historic revisitation in the broadest streams of the twenty-first-century Church. We hope the prayers offered in this book will contribute in some small way to a rediscovery of not only the Psalms, but the entire canon of Scripture. Ultimately, our hope is that these prayers would lead you into the presence of the God who inspired the psalmists—the God who sanctifies the praise we bring and the ground on which we tread. —Ryan Whitaker Smith and Dan Wilt River Tree Psalm 1 Lord, Your presence is life to me: joy of my heart; strength of my soul. Grant me the grace to walk in Your ways; to cherish Your friendship over the fellowship of the fallen, soul-shaped as I am by the company I keep— pressed and formed, for good or for ill. I refuse to march with those who mock Your mercy; who revel in the unraveling of sacred things. They stumble down trackless wastes, training others in the ways of their wandering. But You will be my delight, Lord; Your Word my mirth and meal— and I like an oak, drawing strength from fertile soil, growing in grace, safe in the circumference of Your mercy. So I will flourish, a river tree drinking from the deep— fruit heavy on my branches; leaves thrumming with life. Though seasons shift around me, I will stand. The godless are lifeless: withered stalks, bent by the wind; such are those who shun Your mercy. They forfeit seats at Your table, refusing Your wedding garments; choosing nakedness over grace. I won’t be counted among them— not while Your River rushes for my good. Lead me, Lord, strength upon strength, that at the end of my days I may look back and wonder at the manifold mercy of God. Click here to learn more about Sheltering Mercy: Prayers Inspired by the Psalms.

While attending Hutchmoot: Homebound in 2021, I was struck by a particular interweaving of artists and influences that were cited. The closer I looked at these inklings of connection between them, the more I discovered. The focal point of my observation starts with the author/illustrator Maurice Sendak, well known for his picture books Where the Wild Things Are, In the Night Kitchen, Outside Over There, and dozens of other books, operas, and illustrations. In a previous article for The Rabbit Room, I wrote about my reflections after learning of Sendak’s passing in 2012, his final NPR interview with Terry Gross, and his spiritual yearnings that came from that interview in the final pages of his earthly life. Despite claiming to be an atheist, his conversation with Gross comes to life with a sincere spiritual longing, expressed through mysterious paradoxical sayings like “I don’t believe in an afterlife, but I still fully expect to see my brother again.” Being a scholar of Sendak’s life and collector of his books, my ears perk up whenever I see a piece of his work, or hear his name mentioned. Because of this, his presence came alive for me during Hutchmoot through a series of curious connections uncovered throughout that weekend. First of all, I was delighted to hear Sendak mentioned by name in the video interview with the late Walt Wangerin Jr., and even more delighted to find out they were friends and colleagues. Wangerin’s book The Bedtime Rhyme features an endorsement by Sendak as “the most beautiful thing Walt has done,” and his book of essays Swallowing the Golden Stone is dedicated to Sendak. In Part One of his blog series The Writing of Branta and Other Affections, Wangerin muses on his conversations with Sendak about the publication of Where the Wild Things Are, and the fervor it created from those who deemed it too scary for children. He says, “Far from inaugurating fears in children, such books as his gave a habitation and a name to fears the children already experienced, but amorphously, perplexedly.” Does that phrase “a habitation and a name” sound familiar? If it does, you’ve either read Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, or heard it read and dissected by none other than Malcolm Guite, both in his keynote speech at Hutchmoot: Homebound 2021 and companion book Lifting the Veil: Imagination and the Kingdom of God: The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, doth glance from heaven to Earth, from Earth to heaven; and as imagination bodies forth the forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen turns them to shape, and gives to airy nothing a local habitation and a name. —Malcolm Guite, Lifting the Veil In his book, Guite proceeds to use this quote as a launching point for his insightful observations on poetry, imagination, and the holy scriptures, coalescing in how artists might be inspired to “body forth” their own responses to these mysteries of heaven and earth. One of many artists whose work is cited in Lifting the Veil is Samuel Palmer, whose etching Opening the Fold is included on page 110. In Maurice Sendak’s final NPR interview, right after his comment on seeing his brother again (in an afterlife he doesn’t believe in), he mentions: I am reading a biography of Samuel Palmer, which is written by a woman in England. I can’t remember her name. And it’s sort of how I feel now, when he was just beginning to gain his strength as a creative man and beginning to see nature. But he believed in God, you see, and in heaven, and he believed in hell. Goodness gracious, that must have made life much easier. It’s harder for us non-believers, but you know, there’s something I’m finding out as I’m aging—that I am in love with the world. —Maurice Sendak, final NPR interview Even as he clung to his atheism, Sendak could not shake his unquenchable thirst for beauty in the natural world around him, and in the beauty created by other artists. This beauty drove his own work, his own stories, and his own passions. More significant than the one-page inclusion of a work by Samuel Palmer in Guite’s book is the focus on William Blake. In the section of his book titled “Christ and the Prophetic Imagination,” Guite uses Blake’s poetry and art to defend him as a prophet for our modern times. As part of all this connective tissue, not only does Walt Wangerin, Jr. write about Blake in Part 2 of his blog series, but William Blake was one of Maurice Sendak’s most vital inspirations for his life’s work. Sendak openly admitted on many occasions that he didn’t understand much about Blake, but that he was captivated by him; his life, his poetry, and his illustrations. Whether it was the religious or the aesthetic elements of his work that provided such a light for Sendak is a mystery, but the influence is profound nonetheless. Sendak often stole and paid homage to his muses with mischievous glee, and parallels can be drawn from Blake to Sendak in numerous works of his, including the layout of text and imagery in Night Songs and Lullabies. But his influence is felt most deeply in his final posthumous piece My Brother’s Book. Through poetry and image, Sendak pens a love letter to his late partner Eugene Glynn and his late brother Jack Sendak, expressing his longing for reunion in his own “dream life.” The imagery is a blend of heavenly otherness and earthly habitation, and funnily enough, based in part on Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale. Once again, like the work of Blake, My Brother’s Book encompasses in its aesthetic form that same Shakespeare quote cited by Guite: The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling Doth glance from heaven to Earth, from Earth to heaven, And as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name. —William Shakespeare, Midsummer Night’s Dream In this short video, an aging Sendak talks briefly about his love for William Blake and what his work means to him: As I clicked my way through the secret tunnels and video feeds on Hutchmoot: Homebound weekend, I was elated to discover that the connections from Guite to Wangerin to Blake to Sendak did not stop there. In 1824, William Blake had illustrated Dante’s Divine Comedy, which Diana Glyer so expertly lectured on, and in the late 1960s Maurice Sendak had illustrated stories by George MacDonald, including The Golden Key. MacDonald’s work likely had a strong influence on Sendak as well. Funnily enough, in the Rabbit Room Chinwag shortly after Hutchmoot, an insightful observation made by Devorah Allen drew a parallel between drawings from Where the Wild Things Are and the following quote from Phantases: Hearing next a slight motion above me, I looked up, and saw that the branches and leaves designed upon the curtains of my bed were slightly in motion. Not knowing what change might follow next, I thought it high time to get up; and, springing from the bed, my bare feet alighted upon a cool green sward; and although I dressed in all haste, I found myself completing my toilet under the boughs of a great tree, whose top waved in the golden stream of the sunrise with many interchanging lights, and with shadows of leaf and branch gliding over leaf and branch, as the cool morning wind swung it to and fro, like a sinking sea-wave. —George MacDonald, Phantastes This barrage of connections and influences that I felt throughout the weekend led me to respond with my own habitation and name as I decorated Jonny Jimison’s poster: What other connections do you see? How are we intertwined as fellow artists, and how are we influencing each other? Feel free to share in the comments section below.

We understand something, we humans: woods are never just woods. Sensing the breaths and rustlings inside, we have learned to marvel at and to mind—at times, to fear—the exhale of otherness that meets us when we stand on the sparser side of a wall of trees. In storytelling and specifically old Anglo-Saxon fairytales, woods are a place of transformation, a world apart where loss is faced and pain shifts its shape. Always a thin place, woods guard a realm in which the spiritual mingles confoundingly with the temporal. We feel our humanness differently there; no one who goes in comes out the same. Writers have used different words and images to describe this transformative theater over the years. Katherine May uses “wintering” in her book of the same name, and Kierkegaard used the three stages of existence. Scripture speaks of Jesus being drawn into the desert, Jonah into the guts of a sea creature, and Mary into what we must assume were nine full months of unplanned pregnancy as well as literal, physical transformation. And for Stephen Sondheim, it was still the woods. I often think of Sondheim’s Into the Woods as a sort of musical theatre translation of the Christian bible. It must sound blasphemous at worst and silly at best, but I suppose it has something to do with the fact that not one lyricist or composer in the world of 20th century musical theatre captured over and over again the nuances, hilarity, and downright mess of what it is to be a human being the way that Stephen Sondheim did. And I guess I think pretty much the same thing about the bible and its sprawling cast of I-couldn’t-have-made-these-people-up-if-I-tried characters, as far as books and characters go. In how he manicured a turn of phrase or composed a polyphonic harmony, this man touched on the staggering subfloor of our reality: that some undeniable, ineffable truth connects the experiences of every person, that it indeed informs the experiences of every person, and so perhaps we are not very different after all. JANIE TOWNSEND While I am just as much an enthusiast of Sondheim’s other masterpieces—Company (1970) and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1979) specifically—Into the Woods (1986) may be the epitome of his ability to behold and critique and praise and confess to what living in our humanity really is up close, doing so with cerebral precision and the visceral understanding of heartbreak that people can only feel when they’ve had to grow up. Subjective realities and objective Truth alike are given voices in the stories of these characters, just as they have while they sing around and inside of us every day. Somehow—through spiritual gifting and responsibility, I am convinced—Stephen Sondheim was able to harness the most universal and yet personal experiences we humans can have and write them into a single piece of art. In how he manicured a turn of phrase or composed a polyphonic harmony, this man touched on the staggering subfloor of our reality: that some undeniable, ineffable truth connects the experiences of every person, that it indeed informs the experiences of every person, and so perhaps we are not very different after all. Sondheim died late last year, as you might have heard. He was old and unwell, and left behind people who love him and a treasure trove of sublime dramatic and musical work. Trying to describe the gift of his portfolio and how he was the only person equipped to say things just the way he said them, I could write about Into the Woods in its entirety. I could write about what he contributed to the arts, or I could dissect his truly superior talent as a writer and composer in as formulaic a fashion as possible, all the while knowing I am not nearly qualified to do so. I could skip down endless rabbit trails here, so I’ll narrow down my description of what we have because we had Stephen Sondheim putting pen to page to stage. Go listen to “No One Is Alone.” (Click here to view this song in Apple Music.) Pull up whatever streaming service or internet browser you choose. Search “no one is alone into the woods” and make sure to choose the recording by the original cast—none of that condensed-for-theatrical-release, film score stuff (it’s not that I’m not a fan of the movie or Meryl Streep, whom I basically worship in fact—but I’m a snob, too). Just listen to it. And then keep reading. This song is perhaps the tenderest encouragement, the most loving rebuke, and—if any such thing exists—the wisest of any American proverb I have ever heard. You see, we forget to think this way, you and I. We try so hard to remember that everyone else is a loved person, a significant person. We try so hard to have empathy for all the humans in our space—our kids, wailing over something that seems a trifle to us, or that one guy who decided to turn left at the last second and is now straddling two lanes and blocking traffic with his truck—and sometimes we just can’t. No cure or antidote for our creeping self-centeredness exists, other than humility and the presence of one another. Without these, we do our best and so often don’t have the radical vulnerability to simply say it isn’t enough. We lose our tempers. We miss out on ideas and nuances and growth. We take sides even when there really ought not to be sides for the taking. We judge others. For the more righteous of us, we judge others for judging others and still blindly perpetuate the buzz of masses playing judge, jury, and executioner. We forget to spare such judgment even for ourselves. In summary, we forget that every person who lives and breathes, or almost does or once did, is sacred. Because life is sacred. Because, as best we can guess, God crafted us and breathed life into us out of his want for nearness and creativity and work and dwelling with us. And so we are not only sacred, but loved. And no one truly loved by such a constant companion as their Creator can ever be truly alone, so no one is alone, nor is anyone ever meant to believe such an exceptionally brilliant, crushing lie. And we do forget. And Sondheim probably did, too. But he was one of us who wrote it down. Because it is crucial that we do not forget. That, above all else, is what we have to thank him for. Into the Woods, and more broadly, what Stephen Sondheim saw in the world and how he shared it through his art, has such a unique anchor in my heart. It taught me young—certainly before I would understand it for myself—that we’re only ever journeying, constantly reentering whatever transformation, whichever wilderness God beckons us into where he might meet us afresh. It reminds me on every listen that I am probably overwhelmingly normal, whatever my feelings, thought spirals, or flaws, and that adults have been terrified of being adults and parents and leaders for much, much longer than I have been afraid of such things. Through this story of growing up and wishing and losing, of giving up and chasing after and swallowing what you have to swallow in order to do what’s right, I remember what it felt like to fail and find redemption the first time, and I submit myself to having to do it all again. I remember that no one who ever loved me can possibly be lost to me. I remember my friend Ethan, who was in that musical with me in high school, and who ended his life years later despite having been immersed in all these good and beautiful lessons which could not save him. But maybe they can save something in you. Listen to “No One Is Alone” and hear what’s true about you—because God loves you, because someone else loves and sees you, too, I am confident. Because you exist. And then give the gift of knowing people are not alone to someone else. By how you see them, regard them, judge them. This is the greatest gift and legacy any artist can leave us, I believe: to have taught us to see better and love more freely. This, above all else, is what we have to strive for. Equal parts children's fiction writer, musical theatre expert, and emo pop-punk music aficionado, Janie Townsend can always be found among good stories. Along with her unmistakable voice, she contributes a haunting yet playful narrative tone to The Orchardist's music in the form of meticulous vocal arrangements.

I believe the highest praise one could receive of their art is, “it made me want to make my own.” You hear a song and it inspires you to pick up your guitar again. You see a painting and you dig out all your brushes and wipe off a dusty canvas. For me, as I finished chapter three of Andrew Peterson’s The God of the Garden, I closed the book with a lump in my throat and began to write the story of my own favorite tree. The Zacchaeus Tree was aptly named, because it was the tree where every summer at VBS, we would find Zacchaeus all robed up and ready to tell his story once again. This tree was full of low branches running horizontal to the ground, made even lower because the church parking lot had been graded right up to this cluster of trees. It meant the trees all sat in a ditch, so you could have a friend standing on the parking lot, eye level, while your feet dangled from one of the lower branches. Its branches were big and broad, and it was easy, even for little kids, to walk around from limb to limb, the brave ones going higher, the timid ones still feeling brave on the branches below. So much of our time on Wednesday nights was spent congregating at the Zacchaeus Tree. We’d wait for our parents to pick us up, or we’d bring our dinner to the tree between confirmation and youth choir. As an adult, now I can see how it served the same community-affirming function as the coffee pot for the grown ups. My dad was the pastor of this very fast-growing suburban Lutheran church in Minnesota. And it was one night at dinner, when I was in 7th grade, that Dad described the plans for the third sanctuary that was to be built. He was describing the new layout for the church offices, a much bigger narthex (our fancy word for lobby) and a sanctuary to seat a thousand. It was a very exciting time. Every service was overflowing, and Dad was leading five services every Sunday morning, one every Saturday night. But at some point it became clear to me that the Zacchaeus Tree was right where everyone was pointing when talking about the new sanctuary. I brought it up in a panic with my dad: “Dad, it can’t go there!” And I cried. What is sweet about my memory of this horrible reality is that my Dad was fully understanding and very sorry himself. His hands were tied, though. There was a building committee and a hired architect. The train was in motion. I must have been persistent enough because at some point my dad said to me, “Well, you are welcome to come to our next building committee meeting and let your concern be known there. That’s probably the best thing you could do.” The next scene I remember is my brother, home from college, driving me to church at 7:00 for the building committee meeting. Dad had put my name on the agenda. My brother, a debate champion in high school, was coaching me all the while, “This is good, Becca. More people should be doing this sort of thing.” I remember feeling shaky. My heart was pounding and I felt sick. But I walked through the narthex, the smaller one, and with bravery that inspires me to this day, opened the door where the meeting was held and stood just inside. Before me was the building committee of twelve members all sitting in a U-shape, familiar faces from church, parents of my good friends. I felt faint. But I remember Mary Casey smiling at me, and Cris Ireland, my favorite church secretary, was nodding at me as if to say, “I know why you’re here and you’ll do fine.” I think I looked at those two because they were the moms in the group. Then my dad announced, “Becca is on the agenda tonight because she has a concern about our current building plans.” And I began my case. I imagine my voice must have trembled all the while. (I feel shaky even now.) I told of how this tree meant a lot for the community of kids at our church. How even in that room everyone knew it by name. And that I thought they should consider moving the plans so the tree could stay. My dad smiled affirmingly at me. I remember that. I didn’t feel patronized. He was glad I was there and I now suspect, as we share the same sentimental and tender heart, he was relieved that someone was standing up for that tree. I stood there and everyone agreed that the Zacchaeus Tree was definitely a great part of our church’s history, that it had always been a special tree. And then the chairs of the committee rolled out the blueprints and invited me over as they figured out exactly where the tree stood with the new plans. A little X was drawn right where the new curb was to go, leading to the new entrance. I felt sudden relief and exclaimed, “You could just build around it! It could just be a part of the entry!” I imagined a little green island with the tree at the center. It felt perfect. But they explained that already, the tree stood down three or four feet from the current parking lot and that with the grading to be done, it would likely be in a five-foot hole with low branches shooting out in all directions, blocking the entry and the loading zone. They noted that its exact location was where the handicap ramp would be, blocking the sidewalk, the drop-off zone, and the front doors themselves. Then it was just sort of over. The adults in the room knew there really was nothing to be done. There was more on the agenda that night. I was commended for coming in and thanked for voicing my concern, and as I closed the door behind me, my dad resumed the meeting. I got in the car with my brother and told him the play-by-play, crying all the way home. He assured me that it was still the right thing to do. Even if it didn’t change anything, it was still the right thing to do. It was months later that my dad told me, “They took down the Zacchaeus Tree today.” There was nothing else to say. As I think about the location of this tree now, I can understand how impractical it would have been to build a curb all around a lone tree down in a five foot pit. If the tree could even survive all the earth movers, it certainly would be a hazardous entry. We would have had to put up a sign that said “Watch your step so you don’t fall down that hole.” And in truth, the tree was not stunning. In fact, I have no idea what kind of tree the Zacchaeus Tree even was, but if we’re totally honest, it was scrappy. So a very reasonable part of me can rationalize the sad outcome. But the storyteller in me still feels the swell of love for its branches and grieves the most amazing missed opportunity. Because can you imagine this entryway?! With a huge hole that you’d have to walk around, a scrappy tree in the center? There would be kids in every branch and you’d have to explain to each new visitor, “Well you see, this tree is the Zacchaeus Tree, a beloved tree, so we decided to save it.  And you know what Jesus said to Zacchaeus? ‘I have come to seek and save the lost.’ Have you felt lost? Because you’re not anymore. The Way, the Truth and the Life is calling us to gather once again just inside these doors.”

This week on The Habit Podcast, Jonathan Rogers talks with Christie Purifoy, author of Garden Maker: Growing a Life of Beauty and Wonder with Flowers. Christie is a writer and gardener committed to growing flowers and growing community and cultivating beauty. She’s also the host of the Black Barn Garden Club, an online community for aspiring gardeners. Click here to listen to Season 4, Episode 8 of The Habit Podcast. Transcripts are now available for The Habit Podcast. Click here to access them. Sponsorship on the Podcast Network Are you interested in teaming up with us to support the work you love? Send an email to our Head of Development, Sarah Katherine Woodhull, at sarahkatherine@rabbitroom.com if you are interested in becoming a sponsor of our Podcast Network. Rabbit Room Membership Special thanks to our Rabbit Room members for making these podcasts possible! If you’re interested in becoming a member, visit RabbitRoom.com/Donate.

I was on tour with some folks for most of December. One of the last shows was in Greenville, NC, and I remember seeing the pouring rain from the green room window. The mountains pressed against the stormy skyline, the cedars were swaying precariously against the hills, the clouds were a charcoal gray—it was beautiful (Cedar of Lebanon). But while I was playing ping-pong in a youth group gym, I found myself thinking about this place I had called “home” for the last nineteen years. I knew that in a few days I would walk through those doors after a long run of shows and there my mother would be, excited and joyful, just as curious and kind as when I’d left. The room would be bright and beautiful and full of life, just like the woman who made it so. The tour ended three days before Christmas and I had no gift for her—just a melody that I sort-of liked and a few scribbled lyrics I jotted down in a Taco Bell drive-thru. So I shut myself in my room and I told myself I wouldn’t leave until I had written something I liked. I had no idea this appreciation for my mother’s hospitality would be the theme of the whole record I was about to make. The verse was simple (with a few nerdy internal rhymes): Greenville brought the grey skies and it rained like it was springtime. The world, it bore a beauty on its back. I love the Carolinas, the Blue Ridge, and the pines but Tennessee is all I’ll ever have. And then the chorus: Somewhere in the suburbs there’s a little gravel drive,  And a home with the heart of a mother just waiting there inside. She waits, she waits for us. Home is a funny thing; sometimes I think we have to leave it for a while before we can really appreciate how wonderful it is. I was the stereotypical teen that was itching to graduate so I could go and live “real life”—whatever that even means (Real Love). As if this real life the Lord has so graciously given is not enough to make me want to stay. To sit. To love where I am and the people around me. The older I get, the more I think that maybe it’s a braver thing to know the name of your neighbor than to climb El Capitan (Map). The second verse talks about homesickness. Or, as Doug McKelvey puts it, “a deeper longing for what will one day be.” I think we can admit that we are creatures of hope; people who yearn for something more, something real, something lasting. We’re all the same in the end if the Old Testament has taught us anything (Just Like Them). Each day we worked till midnight; I can picture the home on the hillside I can see her open door and open arms. Yearning is a holy thing, it’s the imprint of eternity, The sense that there is somewhere we belong. And then the second chorus: Somewhere in the suburbs, she’s beckoning us home. I can’t help but love her, I’m a child she calls her own. She waits, she waits for us. There are about fifteen psalms that Hebrew pilgrims traditionally sang on their way to Jerusalem. They’re from the period of the Babylonian Captivity (586), written by captives longing for their home, for future peace and prosperity after severe oppression. They’re called Songs of Ascent because the road to get there was an uphill climb. I’ve never been to Jerusalem, but I imagine that the trek to get there is tiring. That's what this record is about—how to be pilgrims heading toward a better place, but also seeing that the kingdom is here, too, if we look close enough. Skye Peterson We’re not the only ones who are in the “in between,” as Eugene Peterson describes it. We’re between the time we leave home and arrive at our destination; between the time we leave adolescence and arrive at adulthood; between the time we leave doubt and arrive at faith. But as I look ahead to that future reality, I forget that there’s beauty here beside me now. I can look to my left and know that the resurrection is real by seeing daffodils rise again after the winter (Resurrection in You). I can get lost in the wonder of this place called “now” and breathe deep the air that tells me that despite the sin and brokenness here, God loves the world that he made (Wonder of it All). We get little pictures of the Kingdom right here in the suburbs. That’s what this record is about—how to be lost in the wonder of this place called “here.” It’s about learning to love where we are, to see the truth of God in the kindness of friends, the beauty of spring, the turning of a page. It’s about how to be pilgrims heading toward a better place, but also seeing that the kingdom is here, too, if we look close enough. This record is about how to love home. I heard about the pilgrims when they journeyed to Jerusalem, They sang about that city far away. Deep inside this soul of mine, I ache to see those city lights And feel that holy rest beyond the gates.Somewhere there’s a Kingdom with a door that’s open wide And a Father who’s been waiting for his child to come inside. And the kingdom’s come in the suburbs, In the home with the heart of a mother She lives out the love of the Father who waits for us. He waits, he waits for us. Click here to visit Skye’s Kickstarter page and be part of making this album.

We’re so excited to introduce you to the newest show on the Rabbit Room Podcast Network. The Artists & Podcast, hosted by Kyra Hinton and Jamin Still, is a series of conversations about the visual arts in the context of everyday, ordinary life. In this introductory episode, Kyra and Jamin introduce us to the podcast, share about their own journeys as visual artists, and clue us into the kinds of conversations they’ll be hosting in the coming months. Click here to listen to The Artists & Podcast on Omny, here to listen on Apple Podcasts, and here to listen on Spotify. Transcripts are now available for The Artists & Podcast. Click here to access them. Sponsorship on the Podcast Network Are you interested in teaming up with us to support the work you love? Send an email to our Head of Development, Sarah Katherine Woodhull, at sarahkatherine@rabbitroom.com if you are interested in becoming a sponsor of our Podcast Network. Rabbit Room Membership Special thanks to our Rabbit Room members for making these podcasts possible! If you’re interested in becoming a member, visit RabbitRoom.com/Donate.

I n the season of Lent, we devote special attention to the ache of incompletion, suffering, and trial. Lent begins with the dust of mortality on Ash Wednesday and ends with the broken bread of the Last Supper on Maundy Thursday before leading into the great hope of Easter. This Ash Wednesday, we invite you to join us in praying this liturgy as we begin our Lenten journey. An Exhortation Making Space to Speak of Dying Children of the Living God, Let us now speak of dying, and let us speak without fear, for we have already died with Christ, and our lives are not our own. Our dying is part of the story that God is telling to us, and part of the story that God is telling through us. It is not a dark and hopeless word we must take pains to skirt or mention only in hushed whispers lest our conversations grow awkward and uncomfortable. Rather, death is a present and unavoidable reality, and one through which we—the people of God—must learn to openly walk with one another. Yes, it is cause for lament. Death is a horrible and inevitable sorrow. It is grief. It is numb shock and raw pain and long seasons of weeping and ache. And we will experience it as such. But it is more than all of that. For it is also a baptism, a prelude to a celebration. Our true belief that Christ died and was raised again promises this great hope: That there will be a newness of life, a magnificent resurrection that follows death and swallows it entirely. Death will not have the final word, so we need not fear to speak of it. Death is not a period that ends a sentence. It is but a comma, a brief pause before the fuller thought unfolds into eternal life. Beloved of Christ, do not hide from this truth: Each of us in time must wrestle death. In our youth we might have run in fear from such lament, but only those who soberly consider their mortal end can then work backward from their certain death, and so begin to build a life invested in eternal things. We should remember death throughout our lives, that we might drive at last well-prepared to follow our Lord into that valley, and through it, further still, to our resurrection. Death is not the end of life. It is an intersection—a milestone we pass in our eternal pursuit of Christ. Yes, death is an inhuman, hungering thing. But it is also the pompous antagonist in a divine comedy. Even as it seeks to destroy all that is good, death is proved a near-sighted buffoon whose overreaching plans will fail, whose ephemeral kingdom will crumble. For all along, death has been blindly serving the deeper purposes of God within us— giving us the knowledge that all we gather in this short life will soon be scattered, that all we covet will soon be lost to us, that all we accomplish by our ambition will soon be rendered as meaningless as vapor. Death reveals the utter vanity of all our misplaced worship and all our feebly-invested hopes. And once we’ve seen, in light of death, how meaningless all our human strivings have been, then we can finally apprehend what the radical hope of a bodily resurrection means for mortals like us—and how the labors of Christ now reshape and reinterpret every facet of our lives, rebuilding the structures of our hopes till we know that nothing of eternal worth will ever be lost. Yes, we are crucified with our Lord, but all who are baptized into his death are also resurrected into his life, so that we live now in the overlap of the kingdoms of temporal death and eternal life— and when it is our time to die, we die in that overlap as well, and there we will find that our dying has already been subverted, rewritten, folded in, and made a part of our resurrection. Have we not all along been rehearsing Christ’s death and his life in the sacrament of his communion? We have been both remembering and rehearsing our union and reunion with him. O children of God, do you now see? Your pursuit of Christ has always demanded a daily dying to your own self, and to your own dreams. That final, brief sleep of death is but the last laying down of all those lesser things, that you might awake remade, set free, rejoicing in the glorious freedom that will be yours. Yes, hate death! It is an enemy— but an enemy whose end approaches, and whose assault can inflict no lasting wound. Yes, weep and grieve! But more than that, believe! The veil is thinner than we know. And death is thinner still. It cannot hold any whose names are dearly known to God. Rejoice in this! Death is neither a grey void, nor a dungeon cell—but a door. And when Christ bids us pass through at last, we pass from life to Life. Amen. Click here to download this liturgy at EveryMomentHoly.com/liturgies. And click here to view Every Moment Holy, Vol. 2: Death, Grief, and Hope in the Rabbit Room Store.

This week on The Habit Podcast, Jonathan Rogers talks with psychiatrist and author Curt Thompson. Curt Thompson is the founder of Being Known, an organization that develops resources for hope and healing at the intersection of neuroscience and Christian spiritual formation. His books include The Soul of Shame and The Soul of Desire. In this episode, Jonathan and Curt discuss the left brain and the right brain, the power of beauty to awaken us to goodness and truth, and Andy Gullahorn. Click here to listen to Season 4, Episode 9 of The Habit Podcast. Transcripts are now available for The Habit Podcast. Click here to access them. Sponsorship on the Podcast Network Are you interested in teaming up with us to support the work you love? Send an email to our Head of Development, Sarah Katherine Woodhull, at sarahkatherine@rabbitroom.com if you are interested in becoming a sponsor of our Podcast Network. Rabbit Room Membership Special thanks to our Rabbit Room members for making these podcasts possible! If you’re interested in becoming a member, visit RabbitRoom.com/Donate.

The Thomas McKenzie Film Series is the Rabbit Room’s ongoing film screening and discussion series at North Wind Manor, named in honor of our friend and fellow film enthusiast, Father Thomas McKenzie. To kick off the Film Series, the Rabbit Room is hosting at North Wind Manor a screening of Taste and See, a documentary project currently in production that explores the spirituality of food with farmers, chefs, bakers and winemakers engaging with food as a profound gift from God. Their lives in the fields, in the kitchen and around the table serve as a meditation on the beauty, mystery and wonder to be found in every meal. Join this special Sneak Peek of the series that follows a woman grappling with the sudden death of her mother by holding tightly to the ritual of weekly family dinners. Raised as a Christian, but hungry to reconnect with her mother’s Jewish heritage, she joins a Jewish farming community. There she discovers Judaism as an embodied faith rooted in the land and centered around the same life-giving table. A Q&A with Director Andrew Brumme will follow. Snacks shall abound! When: March 18, 2021, 7:00pm CST Where: North Wind Manor, 3321 Stephens Hill Lane, Antioch, TN, 37013 Click here to reserve your free tickets. And click here to visit the Taste and See website.

Hutchmoot is returning to its traditional form this year, and we’re thrilled to be able to offer again a tangible gathering point around art and faith. It’s the sort of unique experience that can only be cultivated in person, where space and food are shared, faces are remembered, and friendships are deepened. Those who held onto their tickets for Hutchmoot 2020 (and endured the disappointment of cancellation these past two years) will be able to use their tickets for Hutchmoot this year! Your tickets will be re-issued for 2022, so keep an eye on your email for that and other information. It was an absolute blessing (and something of a miracle) that we were able to pull Hutchmoot: Homebound together these last two years, and we’re grateful to have had the chance to throw wide the doors. The many conversations we’ve had with folks who would never have been able to attend Hutchmoot in person—whether for reasons of time, health, finances, distance, limited tickets, or other constraints—made us thankful for that unique chance to expand the table. We watched God turn an emergency into a gift, and all we learned from building and running Homebound has inspired us with new ways to continue offering that inclusion going forward. Homebound won’t be happening this year, or for the foreseeable future. We didn’t come to this decision lightly but seriously considered all of our possible options going forward—from doing both conferences, to alternating years, to different combinations of both—because we love and want to serve the large community we’ve encountered who can’t attend Hutchmoot in person. If you’re grieving the end of Homebound because it was your first chance to get a taste of Hutchmoot, you are seen. But don’t despair. Homebound taught us a lot, and we’re taking what we learned and putting it into the development of new ways to present content and interaction. We believe the lessons we’ve taken away from Homebound are going to serve the entire breadth of the Rabbit Room audience for years to come. We can’t share the specifics yet, but we’ve been hard at work designing and developing something beautiful, interactive, fun, and intentional—and we’re excited to share it with you when it’s ready. In the meantime, we trust that Homebound has inspired you to nourish your unique community, enabling you to bolster one another and reflect the Kingdom through friendship, art, and beauty. Remember that there are other gatherings with kindred organizations across the US, like the Anselm Society and Square Halo Books who are about the same work—as well as regional “moots” by folks embodying the spirit of Hutchmoot in their own areas. Our greatest joy with Homebound was watching so many of you gather around good content with your own communities. As we emerge from a period in which many of us were isolated from local community, we can begin finding creative ways to cultivate that same spirit where we are. That will still be possible with all that’s to come—so look toward the future with hope. Interested in attending Hutchmoot UK this year? Click here for more information. (Hutchmoot US tickets will go on sale this spring, date TBD.) There are also many ways to interact with Hutchmoot content throughout the year. For instance… Click here to view complete audio archives from the past ten years of Hutchmoot in the Rabbit Room Store. And click here to view The Hutchmoot Podcast, where we post some of our favorite Hutchmoot sessions (including Hutchmoot: Homebound) on a monthly basis.

This week on The Habit Podcast, we invite you to listen in on a conversation between the poet Dana Gioia and Cherie Harder, President of The Trinity Forum. They discuss the ways that poetry works as a kind of enchantment, creating a state of heightened consciousness and heightened receptivity, and Dana Gioia makes the case that beauty is a way of knowing the world as it really is. He also reads a couple of poems. This interview was recorded in 2020, relatively early in the pandemic, as part of the Trinity Forum’s Online Conversations series. If you don’t already know about the Trinity Forum, we hope you’ll seek them out. They’ve been good friends to the Rabbit Room, and we love the work they do to contribute to the renewal of society by cultivating and promoting the best of Christian thought, and helping leaders to think, work, and lead wisely and well. Find them at TTF.org & tune into their Lenten podcast series by searching “Trinity Forum Conversations” wherever you get your podcasts. Click here to listen to Season 4, Episode 10 of The Habit Podcast. Transcripts are now available for The Habit Podcast. Click here to access them. Sponsorship on the Podcast Network Are you interested in teaming up with us to support the work you love? Send an email to our Head of Communications & Development, Shigé Clark, at shige@rabbitroom.com if you are interested in becoming a sponsor of our Podcast Network. Rabbit Room Membership Special thanks to our Rabbit Room members for making these podcasts possible! If you’re interested in becoming a member, visit RabbitRoom.com/Donate.

Who gets to call themselves an artist? Are there qualifications? Does someone else bestow that title, or can we give it to ourselves? Kyra and Jamin talk to painter Jess Velarde about the internal and external factors that shape how we think about our identity as artists. Jess Velarde is a fine artist and art instructor who creates expressive figurative and botanical oil paintings. She earned her MFA in painting from Academy of Art University in 2020 and currently works and teaches from her studio in Los Angeles. You can learn more about Jess and experience her work at jessvelarde.com/paintings Click here to listen to The Artists & Podcast on Omny, here to listen on Apple Podcasts, and here to listen on Spotify. Transcripts are now available for The Artists & Podcast. Click here to access them. Sponsorship on the Podcast Network Are you interested in teaming up with us to support the work you love? Send an email to our Head of Communications & Development, Shigé Clark, at shige@rabbitroom.com if you are interested in becoming a sponsor of our Podcast Network. Rabbit Room Membership Special thanks to our Rabbit Room members for making these podcasts possible! If you’re interested in becoming a member, visit RabbitRoom.com/Donate.

In the forums of The Habit Membership, Carey Christian recently posted an essay she had written about her experience as a survivor of the Columbine High School shooting in Littleton, Colorado. She survived by hiding with classmates in a locked and darkened office for three hours. (You can read the whole essay here.) The heart of the essay, however, is not those three hours of immediate peril, but the fifteen years after. Carey tells how she dealt with her trauma by isolating, going silent, and withdrawing. While others in her community were sharing their grief and bearing one another’s burdens, she chose to be alone, not even attending the memorial services where classmates, teachers, and other members gathered to grieve and start to heal. She writes, “At a time full of confusion, sadness, questions, weeping, brokenness, I was at home lost in my own confusion, convincing myself I had not experienced the tragedy, not really, that I was somehow less.” These choices became a pattern that lasted fifteen years: Staying silent, staying home, denying others my presence, denying myself the company of others, taught me something about myself that wasn’t true. I was not in a position to care for others then, and I convinced myself that this would always be true of me. Over the years, through college, career, starting a family, I stayed home in my heart and mind, feeling locked up in my silence, seeing only uselessness. —Carey Christian, “Truth Lives: My Columbine Story” But Carey ultimately came to make a different choice. That change is wrought, at least in part, by the act of writing this essay. She writes, I’ve been locked in a room with a key for a long time. This is the key. I no longer feel shame. Sadness, yes, but not shame. I turn from this moment and make a new choice. The door is open and on the other side is freedom, light, air. Truth. Alive and well. Hello, world. It’s been a long time. —Carey Christian, “Truth Lives: My Columbine Story” Isn’t that a great ending for an essay? Carey wrote this essay seven or eight years ago. When she posted it in The Habit forums, she added this coda: Since writing the above, a tremendous period of healing was unlocked in my life after the 20th anniversary of the tragedy. In 2019 I walked the halls of the school once more. And once more had the opportunity (and temptation) to stay home from a memorial. But instead I went. Though I had been to the memorial on the 10th anniversary, somehow this one was different. I made the choice to go despite feelings that I didn’t need to. It was after I had written this essay and had begun to understand that one’s presence, even in silence, is a gift. And so, as predicted, I went and stood with my father in silence, I spoke to no one, but I was there. I heard others like me and saw others like me and recognized myself as a member of this incredible community. —Carey Christian I’m always talking about the importance of writing for the sake of your reader, giving the reader something she can’t get for herself. Carey certainly does that in this essay, but can we also take a moment to reflect on what the act of writing does for the writer? I’ve been chewing on the idea that Carey’s essay as she wrote it in 2014 is a function of her processing things she couldn’t process 15 years earlier, and that her presence at the twentieth anniversary memorial in 2019 was a function of her processing the essay she wrote five years earlier, and that last paragraph is a function of her processing all of it. And if Carey chooses to add another paragraph five years hence, it will be different and insightful in even new ways. That’s how the process works. It takes time to know what things mean. Writing and reflecting greatly improves your chances of learning what there is to learn from your life. It takes time to know what things mean. Writing and reflecting greatly improves your chances of learning what there is to learn from your life. Jonathan Rogers When I’ve had college students write personal essays and memoirs, their writing has often seemed thin compared to what adults write, even when the students themselves are brilliant. Is it because of a lack of life experience? Well, no…and yes. I notice that many of the best personal essays and memoirs by adults are about experiences that happened before they were college-age. As Flannery O’Connor said, “Anybody who has survived childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days.” But just because you’ve had an experience, that doesn’t mean you’re fully ready to write about it. The life experience that prepares you to write likely happens in the years after the dramatic experience. I’m glad Carey didn’t waste her experience. I hope you won’t waste yours either. This piece was originally shared in Jonathan’s weekly Habit Newsletter. If you’d like your own inbox to be graced with such insight—and with staggering frequency, at that—you can sign up for it by clicking here.

This week on The Habit Podcast, Jonathan Rogers talks with Texas singer-songwriter Caroline Cobb. In 2011, Caroline decided to write a song for every book of the Bible in one year. That ambitious goal set her on a path that she’s still on, more than ten years later. She has said, “That year, I discovered that I love writing songs from the Bible: delving into a passage, putting myself in each character’s shoes, trying to understand how this one small story connects with the whole, then coming up with a way to communicate that story through song.” That project has led to four studio albums so far: The Blood and the Breath; A Home and a Hunger; A Seed, a Sunrise; and, most recently, A King and His Kindness. In this episode, Caroline speaks with Jonathan about producing without striving, the upside-down-ness of the Gospel, and the reasons she decided to take a sabbatical. Click here to listen to Season 4, Episode 11 of The Habit Podcast. Transcripts are now available for The Habit Podcast. Click here to access them. Sponsorship on the Podcast Network Are you interested in teaming up with us to support the work you love? Send an email to our Head of Development, Sarah Katherine Woodhull, at sarahkatherine@rabbitroom.com if you are interested in becoming a sponsor of our Podcast Network. Rabbit Room Membership Special thanks to our Rabbit Room members for making these podcasts possible! If you’re interested in becoming a member, visit RabbitRoom.com/Donate.

Now, after Sir Galahad had smitten down Sir Launcelot, as aforetold of, he rode for a long while in a wild forest and had many adventures of divers sorts, of which no account hath been given, though mention is made of them in the ancient histories of those things which I have read. —Howard Pyle, The Story of the Grail and the Passing of Arthur So begins the seventh chapter of The Story of the Grail and the Passing of Arthur, as recorded by Howard Pyle. Hitherto, Galahad’s “adventures of divers sorts” have been a perplexing puzzle to historians of Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. Which wild forest, of all the wilds that once existed in the realms of Britain—or indeed of Faerie? How long did he roam there? What did he do—and eat—for all that time? Whom or what did he meet, slay, rescue? How did he manage to emerge unscathed from such unknown trials to achieve the Holy Grail at last? Alas, these questions seemed as unanswerable as the other great Unfathomable Mysteries of Human History—such as “How did they carry those huge rocks to Stonehenge?” and “Who carved P+J 4evah on the tallest one?” Until now, that is. Deep in the labyrinthine archives of the Bodleian Libraries in Oxford, a research team from the Society for Galahadic Study and Emulation recently made a momentous discovery: a discarded ceramic bust of St. Plagiarus of Tintagel, which, when broken open, yielded a hidden trove of medieval manuscripts in various states of age- and vermin-induced disintegration. (As to the actual circumstances of the finding—and breaking—of the saintly bust, we have, at the request of the Society, buried the details in a footnote on p. 27 to spare certain parties any additional embarrassment.) The surviving pages and fragments turned out to be a collection of tales purportedly chronicling the adventures of Sir Galahad in that very Wild Forest of which we have yearned to know more! Needless to say, such an historical gold mine has caused a tremendous stir amongst both professional Society members and lay Society groupies, collectively known as “The Galahood.” Indeed, Professor N. I. T. Witte’s team has, since their triumphant emergence from the dark recesses of the library, been so hounded by adoring fans wearing “GALAHAD LIVES” hoodies, brandishing homemade swords, and toasting them with tankards of ale, that they’ve barely had a moment’s peace to prepare these remarkable documents for publication. Illustration by Ned Bustard If you’ve picked up this book (the fruit of their painstaking perseverance and research) you are, it must be assumed, a Galahoodlum yourself, possibly even a proud wearer of the aformentioned Galahoodie. I hardly need to remind you, therefore, of the circumstances whereupon Sir Galahad embarked on his journey through the Wild Forest in the first place. But let us imagine him together, for a moment: 18 years old, brave, bold, innocent, with the weight of enormous expectations and glowing prophecies upon his young shoulders. Raised by nuns after the death of his mother Elaine, he has only recently met—and been knighted by—and, in a case of mistaken identity at a much-too-narrow bridge, soundly unhorsed and embarrassed his father, Sir Lancelot of the Lake (yes, that Lancelot). Far behind him now is Camelot and Arthur’s Round Table, where the Siege Perilous awaits his return. This coveted seat (devised by Merlin) had indeed proven perilous to all who attempted to sit there except for the knight destined to find the long-lost Holy Grail, the legendary cup of Christ. Now it bears the name “Galahad” in gold letters across the back. To some scribes he did indeed embody the Galahad of legend—the most pure and most perfect knight of all, a paragon of piety and virtue, nearly as faultless as the Lord himself. But others paint a more blemished image of a knight beset by pride, fear, indecision, doubt, rashness, grumpiness, naïveté, and abysmal taste in helmets. Gwenifere of Traff Town The boyish knight wields a shining sword (traditionally called “Linda,” according to Herbert of Tintooth) which he pulled from a block of red marble (probably Merlin’s doing again). Greatest Knight in the World, the inscription reads, and who is Galahad to argue with swords—or stones—or seats, for that matter? A damsel clad in white gave him a coal-black charger. The White Friars gave him a silver shield with a blood-red cross painted on it—the famed Shield of Balyn, or Balin, or Balan, or Boolean, or Billion, or Balloon (depending on whether you believe Pyle’s or Pleeve’s versions, or make up your own). The Hermit in the Forest gave him breakfast. In short, this youthful paragon of chivalry has been thoroughly foretold, forsoothed, seated, fed, clothed, armed, blessed, horsed, and sent on his merry way by a legion of wizards, fairies, friars, knights, kings, maidens, and well-wishers. A lonely, dangerous path now lies before him—a path that will, we know (though he does not), lead him at last to the Grail. Those of you whose inordinate consumption of pumpkin spice lattes has dulled your memories may refresh your grasp of all the dizzying details of Galahad’s story by re-reading Howard Pyle’s account, Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, our own N. I. T. Witte’s acclaimed Perils, Puns, and Pastries of Camelot, or various and sundry Wikipedia articles. But even the more well-read among you may still be wondering how the missing pieces of Galahad’s illustrious journey came to be recorded and hidden within the ceramic likeness of St. Plagiarus—that repentant pirate whose insatiable thirst for good stories and beautiful handwriting famously led him, in his wilder days, to kidnap scribes from monasteries across Britain and hold them hostage in his fortress-library near Tintagel. Aha! I shall tell you. Illustration by Ned Bustard As far as our researchers have been able to deduce, Plagiarus’ scriptorium continued even after its founder mysteriously vanished while trying to compose an epic poem as penance for his sins. Loath to leave such a glorious library with superb coastal views, and having forgiven Plagiarus for his piratical ways, the community of scribes dedicated themselves almost entirely to collecting and copying local stories about King Arthur (who’d been born just down the road) and his knights. For reasons unknown—perhaps an invasion of Vikings, perhaps an epidemic of tendonitis—the scribes eventually ceased their scribing, rolled their parchments up, stuffed them into a hollow, pitch-lined ceramic bust made to commemorate the one who had abducted them for literary purposes, and hid the bust deep inside Merlin’s Cave under the cliffs of Tintagel Castle. And there it remained, untouched for centuries, nestled just out of reach of the tide, until a tourist lost her balance, hurled her selfie stick into the magical abyss, and heard it clink upon something that was most definitely not a stone. Thus was the bust discovered, and despite years spent circulating in the Black Market for Statues of Little-Known Saints of England, it finally made its way into the hands of a devout Bodleian librarian who was avowedly St. Plagiarus’ #1 Fan and who gave it to his assistant to store carefully for future veneration. The assistant placed the bust on top of a tall bookcase where it gathered dust until—well, you know the rest (or you will, after reading the footnote on p. 27). Once Professor Witte’s team had delicately extricated the scrolls from the broken fragments of Plagiarus’ face, they found that most of the manuscripts were, tragically, so rotted, stained, cracked, and nibbled, so marred by splotches and sploodges and scorch marks, that apart from a few tantalizing references to armor polish and Cornish hedgehogs they were completely unreadable. However, the few scrolls that were salvageable—which included the tales of Sir Galahad’s adventures in the Wild Forest and one receipt for six oak barrels of mead (to be published separately)—have been painstakingly dusted, cleaned, ironed flat, reassembled, edited, and translated from unpronounceable medieval English (and, in one case, from Faerie) by the scholars represented in this volume. Surprisingly, the tales recorded at the scriptorium of St. Plagiarus do not always agree on the facts, or the spelling of those facts, or the precise timing of those facts. Sometimes, indeed, they seem to kick our established Arthurian and Galahoodlian knowledge to the curb. Such rebels, those Tintangelites were! But more shockingly, the tales do not even present a unified picture of Sir Galahad himself. To some scribes he did indeed embody the Galahad of legend—the most pure and most perfect knight of all, a paragon of piety and virtue, nearly as faultless as the Lord himself. But others paint a more blemished image of a knight beset by pride, fear, indecision, doubt, rashness, grumpiness, naïveté, and abysmal taste in helmets. Could it be that the Search for the Historical Galahad has finally run aground on the rocks of textual contradictions and authorial prejudices? Or was Galahad a more complicated hero than Galahoodie slogans can e’er express? Was he, in short, human—brave, honest, and dedicated to be sure, yet subject to hunger, fits of temper, and sore hindquarters like the rest of us, just with better armor and a shinier sword? And most importantly, is such a knight still worthy of our study and emulation? The Society for Galahadic Study and Emulation has answered with an uproarious and unanimous “Aye!” Thus this book was born. And thus it is dedicated to the Galahoodlums who, fearing neither beast nor bunion, have set their hearts upon a noble quest—and indeed to all who wander and wonder and weave tales in the wild forests of this world. —Gwenifere of Traff Town Editorial Overseer The Society for Galahadic Study and Emulation The scholars of The Society for Galahadic Study and Emulation have generously published their findings in a new volume entitled The Lost Tales of Sir Galahad, which is now available order through the Rabbit Room Store. If you count yourself among the Galahad faithful (the “Galahoodlums,” as it were), then we have an even specialer something for you—it’s called the Galahoodie Bundle. Click here to check it out.

The title Rembrandt is in the Wind is a play on words. It refers to Rembrandt’s painting Storm on the Sea of Galilee, in which he paints himself as one of the disciples in the boat—the one in the center of the vessel looking out at the viewer. So in the painting of the storm, Rembrandt is, quite literally, in the wind. But this painting was also stolen in 1990 and has not been seen since, so in the criminal sense of the term, the canvas itself is “in the wind.” I wanted to write a book about art that overcame a perceived inaccessibility to the subject. Rembrandt is in the Wind is part art history, part Biblical study, part philosophy, and part analysis of the human experience; but it’s all story. It’s an invitation to discover some of the world’s most celebrated artists and works, while presenting the beauty of the Gospel in a way that speaks to the struggles and longings common to people everywhere. For anyone who has stood in front of a work of art and liked it, but felt a barrier to truly understanding it, this book will set them free to simply love and appreciate art, while modeling the slow approach to learning to love art more deeply over time. The opening chapter frames everything to follow, highlighting the Biblical significance of goodness, truth, beauty, work, and community, focusing especially on why beauty matters and what it does. The rest of the manuscript features studies of nine different artists and the stories behind their work, incorporating analysis of related Scripture, all told in a storyteller’s voice. Excerpt from Chapter 1: Beautifying Eden If you know anything about Vincent van Gogh outside of his art, perhaps you know he was a tortured soul. Vincent suffered from depression, paranoia, and public outbursts so disconcerting that in March 1889 thirty of his neighbors in his little village of Arles, France, petitioned the police to deal with the “fou roux” (the redheaded madman), which the officers did by removing him from his rented flat—The Yellow House made famous in his painting The Bedroom. Shortly after his eviction notice, Vincent admitted himself into an asylum for the mentally ill—the Saint-Paul asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. Back in those days, most psychological maladies were simply called “madness.” Debilitating depression, bi-polar disorder, paranoia, even acute epilepsy all fell under the umbrella of the diagnosis called madness. Treatment for madness often involved stays in an asylum. Labeled as such by his own community, the “redheaded madman” checked himself in and remained in Saint-Rémy for a year, from May 1889-May 1890. What did Vincent do with his humiliation as a patient at Saint-Rémy? . . . What did Vincent do while he was recovering during that hospital stay? He painted, and at least two of those 140 works were self-portraits with his bandaged ear showing. He captured the moment of his greatest shame. It is hard to render an honest self-portrait if we want to conceal what is unattractive and hide what’s broken. We want to appear beautiful. But when we do this we hide what needs redemption—what we trust Christ to redeem. And what’s redeemed is beautiful. Rembrandt is in the Wind is part art history, part Biblical study, part philosophy, and part analysis of the human experience; but it’s all story. Russ Ramsey Van Gogh’s Self-portrait with Bandaged Ear indicts us. How willing are we to lead with the fact that we’ve got a lot of things in us that aren’t right? Self-portrait with Bandaged Ear hangs in my office to remind me that if I’m drawing the self-portrait dishonestly—pretending I’m okay and not in need of any help—I’m concealing from others the fact that I am broken. The truth is my wounds need binding. I need asylum. And if I can’t show that honestly, how will anyone ever see Christ in me? Or worse, what sort of Christ will they see? In Vincent’s case, there is a sweet bit of irony. Self Portrait with Bandaged Ear, in which van Gogh willingly captures the moment of his own spiritual and relational poverty, is now worth millions. That canvas faithfully captures a defining moment of shame and need for rescue by showing the bandaged side, and it has become a priceless treasure. This is how God sees his people. We are fully exposed in our short-comings, and at the same time we are of unimaginable value to him. Because this is so, this is how we should see others, and it is how we should be willing to be seen by others—broken and of incalculable worth. In this book, we’ll explore the lives of nine artists in particular, and many others by way of their connection to the nine. Each of them gave the world beautiful works of priceless art, but some of their stories are filled with a surprising measure of brokenness and in some cases, even violence and corruption. Madeleine L’Engle reminds us that God often works through the most seemingly unqualified people to reveal his glory. So does Scripture. There is beauty in the brokenness. That’s what this book seeks to uncover. And beauty matters. Click here to view Rembrandt is in the Wind on Zondervan’s website. Selected Works for Further Reading on Artists featured in Rembrandt is in the Wind Bailey, Anthony. Vermeer: A View of Delft. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2001. Etinde-Crompton, Charlotte and Samuel Willard Crompton. Henry Ossawa Tanner: Landscape Painter and Expatriate. New York, Enslow Publishing, 2020. Gayford, Martin. The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Provence. New York: First Mariner Books, 2006. Graham-Dixon, Andrew. Caravaggio: A Life of Sacred and Profane. New York: Norton and Co., 2010. Levin, Gail. Edward Hopper: An Intimate Biography. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995. Marley, Anna O., Ed. Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2012. Paolucci, Antonio. David: Five Hundred Years. New York, NY: Sterling Publishing, 2005. Rockness, Miriam Huffman. A Passion for the Impossible: The Life of Lilias Trotter. Grand Rapids: Discovery House, 2003. Schneider, Norbert. Vermeer: The Complete Works. Cologne: Taschen, 2006. Snyder, Laura J. Eye of the Beholder: Johannes Vermeer, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, and the Reinvention of Seeing. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2015. Strand, Mark. Hopper. Hopewell, NJ: Ecco Press, 1994. Trotter, I. Lilias. Parables of the Christ-Life. New York: Start Publishing LLC, 2013. Updike, John. Still Looking: Essays on American Art. New York: Knopf, 2005.

This week on The Habit Podcast, Jonathan Rogers talks with author and pastor Russ Ramsey. Russ is a pastor in the Nashville area, a masterful storyteller, and Jonathan’s go-to resource for all art-related questions. His love of art and story come together in his new book, Rembrandt Is In the Wind: Learning to Love Art Through the Eyes of Faith. It’s an art history book, but more importantly, it’s a book about the beauty that comes out of stories of human brokenness. Beauty matters; nobody makes that case better than Russ Ramsey. Click here to listen to Season 4, Episode 12 of The Habit Podcast. Transcripts are now available for The Habit Podcast. Click here to access them. Sponsorship on the Podcast Network Are you interested in teaming up with us to support the work you love? Send an email to our Head of Development, Sarah Katherine Woodhull, at sarahkatherine@rabbitroom.com if you are interested in becoming a sponsor of our Podcast Network. Rabbit Room Membership Special thanks to our Rabbit Room members for making these podcasts possible! If you’re interested in becoming a member, visit RabbitRoom.com/Donate.

In anticipation of the full arrival of spring, here’s a liturgy from Every Moment Holy, Vol. 1 for those of us who are contemplating what we should grow in our gardens this year. Download the liturgy at EveryMomentHoly.com/liturgies or in the Every Moment Holy app. A Liturgy for Gardening Leader: O Creator who calls forth life, May this ground, and our labors here invested, yield good provision for the nourishing of both body and soul. People: Lord, let our labors in this garden be fruitful. Lord, let our labors in this garden be blessed. As we work the soil of this garden plot, furrowing, planting, watering, and harvesting may such acts become to us a living parable, a prayer acted out rather than spoken. Lord, let our labors in this garden be fruitful. Lord, let our labors in this garden be blessed. As we co-labor with you and with your creation to produce a beneficial harvest, may we find in such toil a kind of rest. May this plot of ground become a hallowed space and these hours a sacred time for reflection, for conversation with friends and family, and for fellowship with you, our Creator. Lord, let our labors in this garden be fruitful. Lord, let our labors in this garden be blessed. Through our tending of these your delightful creations— vegetables and fruits, beans and berries, vines and stalks and roots and flowers— renew our own tired hopes, redeem our own wearied imaginations. As we cultivate gentle order, training, pruning, weeding, and protecting, so cultivate and train our wayward hearts, O Lord, that rooted in you the forms of our lives might spread in winsome witness, maturing to bear the good fruit of grace, expressed in acts of compassionate love. Lord, let our labors in this garden be fruitful. Lord, let our labors in this garden be blessed. Walk with us now, O Lord, in the stillness of this tilled and quiet space, that when we venture again into the still greater garden of your world, we might be prepared by the long practice of your presence, to offer our lives as a true and nourishing provision to all who hunger for mercy and hope and meaning, a true and nourishing provision to all who hunger for you. Lord, let our labors in this garden be fruitful. Lord, let our labors in this garden be blessed. Amen. Click here to download this liturgy at EveryMomentHoly.com/liturgies. And click here to view Every Moment Holy in the Rabbit Room Store.