[Editor’s note: Throughout Lent, Sandra McCracken will be sharing weekly writings, each of which is tied to a song from her new EP, Songs from the Valley, available at her website. Below you will find the second of these writings, to be read alongside her song, “Reciprocate,” which you can listen to here.] Kenny Rogers’ voice still rings in my ears, circling like the grooves of the old 1970s record player, “You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em. Know when to fold ‘em. Know when to walk away, and know when to run.” Song number two on my new album, “Reciprocate” is maybe a loose interpretation of “The Gambler.” We don’t talk much about discernment these days. It’s sort of an old-fashioned virtue. But being able to discern truth from fiction is an essential survival skill. Learning to differentiate the trusted voices in our lives is important work. When I put on one of Sara’s songs, her voice settles like an heirloom blanket wrapped around me. As I hear her sing, I can believe in spite of whatever circumstances might be swirling around me that everything is gonna be ok. When my fiancé leaves me a message at dawn on Sunday morning before church, his voice supports me long-distance like an oak tree, with warmth and strength that holds a thousand rings inside it. And I can also remember my Dad’s voice in a moment a few years ago when he patted my shoulder and said, “You’d make one heck of a runner.” The sound of a trusted voice has the power to speak something substantial into being. The recognition in a trusted voice is like a song, like a familiar refrain. “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God and the word was God.” (Jn. 1:1) There’s something mystical and holy about God being the word, speaking the word, and embodying the melodic voice that carries the word into our hearts and leads us on. A bit later in John’s letter, Jesus tells his friends about the voice of the Good Shepherd. (John 10:10) The sheep know his voice, they recognize it when he calls and they won’t listen to the voice of another shepherd. They are his. They belong to him. And by the sound of his voice, the sheep learn ‘when to walk away and when to run.’ Abundance is freedom and beauty so vast that it swallows up any small attempts of sabotage or violence or failure. Sandra McCracken When I think about God’s voice, and the power of his invitation to bring his sheep safely in and out of pasture, I think about abundance. When I think about abundance, I think about this place I visited on a retreat out in Malibu, B.C. If you’ve ever seen the Young Life camp up there, there’s this breathtakingly beautiful mountain landscape stretching out in every direction. In the middle of the water, there’s a small island with pine trees, bald eagles nesting in the tops. If you throw a rock out there in the water, as hard or as far as you can, it gets swallowed up in the landscape before you can exhale. It is a picture of abundance. Abundance is freedom and beauty so vast that it swallows up any small attempts of sabotage or violence or failure. And we all know firsthand that the darkness of this world is intense. But in the landscape of God’s abundance, the darkness is no match for his mighty power. That darkness is like a rock hurled into the water, it makes a sound but then is quickly forgotten, swallowed up by a greater beauty. Beauty wins. Love wins. This is the economy of grace. In the quiet questions, I’m praying that God would impress upon us the sound of his own voice, that we would become so familiar with it that we could distinguish the smooth talk of the enemy from the rich, comforting voice of our Shepherd. Suggestion for Prayer: Read this excerpt from John 10 (Message). “The gatekeeper opens the gate and the sheep recognize his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he gets them all out, he leads them and they follow because they are familiar with his voice. They won’t follow a stranger’s voice but will scatter because they aren’t used to the sound of it.” Imagine the voice of the Shepherd. What does he sound like? What words does he say as he invites you out into the pasture in the morning and back in again for safety at the end of the day? How might you consider the ways his abundance can swallow up the darkness in your life? Click here to listen to “Reciprocate” from Sandra’s new album, Songs From The Valley.

I took a break from the studio last fall to travel to Israel for the first time. Knowing this album was about the resurrection meant I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to go if I could, and a number of the songs were directly influenced by that trip. This is one of them. When we went to the Garden of Gethsemane, I knelt near the fence that surrounds the ancient olive trees and read Psalm 22, which opens with, “My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me?” The entire psalm, which foreshadows Jesus’s suffering in a very specific way, would have been on his mind as he was first abandoned by his friends and then subjected to torture. The chorus of the song comes from a Tim Keller sermon I heard once, where he pointed out that, while we often say that we hope to run the race in such a way that God would tell us, “Well done, good and faithful,” that just won’t ever happen. None of us is good and faithful. Only Jesus is, and it is because of his goodness and faithfulness that we are made heirs of the King. You can pick up Resurrection Letters: Prologue in the Rabbit Room Store and listen to “Well Done, Good And Faithful” here:https://rabbitroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/02-Well-Done-Good-and-Faithful.mp3

[Editor’s note: Jonathan Rogers has begun a newsletter in which he shares many years’ worth of practical advice on the craft of writing. He named it The Habit because, as he says, “good writing isn’t so much a matter of brilliance as a matter of habit: habits of seeing, habits of thinking, habits of working.” What follows is a peek into his wisdom. If you’d like to read more, you can sign up for his newsletter here.] Kayla C asked, How do I find my written voice, and how will I know I have found it? Sometimes I have a difficult time figuring out whether I am actually writing in my own voice (and what exactly that voice sounds like) or just emulating the voices of writers I admire. “Finding your voice” feels like a monumental task, but here is a simple place to start: in your writing, weed out every sentence and phrase that you can’t imagine saying out loud with a straight face. Expect to hear echoes of your spoken voice in your written voice. Obviously, written language is typically more formal than spoken language. So I’m not suggesting that your written voice should sound exactly like the way you talk on a daily basis. That’s why I say you should be writing sentences that you could imagine saying out loud, not sentences that you actually do say out loud. Imagine how the most brilliant and articulate version of you would talk, and write like that. I’m joking—but I’m only half-joking. There’s no shame in emulating good writers; give yourself that freedom. But if you’re going to give yourself that freedom, you also have to be committed to cutting out whatever doesn’t work. If you end up writing a sentence that would make your friends laugh at you if you said it out loud, get rid of it—or rephrase in language that sounds more like you. Expect your voice to change over time. Your voice is not a static thing. This is true of both your spoken voice and your written voice. Jonathan Rogers Part of the way I settled into my own voice was reading a whole lot of Flannery O’Connor (her letters even more than her fiction). As her writing influenced my writing, I realized that a lot of what she did felt natural to my own way of using language. On the other hand, as much as I admire Faulkner as a writer, his voice is so alien to mine that he hasn’t had much impact on my writing, one way or another. One more thing…when you do settle into your voice, expect your voice to change over time. Your voice is not a static thing. This is true of both your spoken voice and your written voice. If you ever hear a recording of your voice from an earlier phase of life, you’ll know what I’m talking about. You can sign up for Jonathan’s newsletter here. And if you feel like going the extra mile, there are two ways you can lend a hand to Jonathan’s good work. 1) If you found this letter helpful, please forward it to a friend who might benefit, and/or share on social media. 2) If you have a question that you’d like Jonathan to address in a future installment of The Habit, send him an email here.

It is with great excitement that we announce Hutchmoot 2018, taking place October 4th—7th at Christ Community Church in Franklin, Tennessee. You can find all the information we have for you so far here on the Hutchmoot website, but here are the high points: Registration begins at 10:00 am central time on March 1st at $320/ticket. There are 300 seats available on a first-come/first-served basis. Breakfast and dinner are included in registration and boxed lunches will be available for purchase. Lodging is not included in registration. If Hutchmoot sells out this year, we will begin a wait list. That’s all for now. We can’t wait to share more details with you as we approach October.

[Editor’s note: Throughout Lent, Sandra McCracken will be sharing weekly writings, each of which is tied to a song from her new EP, Songs from the Valley, available at her website. Below you will find the first of these writings, which was originally posted on Ash Wednesday. It is to be read alongside her song, “Fool’s Gold,” which you can listen to here.] To ascend the hill, you have to start at the very bottom. From here, it often feels like what’s ahead is a steep climb. Today is Ash Wednesday, the day when many followers of Jesus remember that we have come from dust, and to dust we will return. We mark our foreheads with ashes and we pray. The people of Israel used to travel annually to the temple to make sacrifices for their sins. They journeyed up a long climb, a slow ascent toward Jerusalem. The Psalms of Ascent (beginning with Psalm 120) are the songs they would sing together as they walked. As I’ve begun to ask questions about some of the ancient traditions of Lent and Easter, I have found unexpected beauty in practices that at first seemed a bit strange to me or even morbid. I’ve come to appreciate that the observance of Ash Wednesday can be a compelling demonstration of humility. Many people give something up during the 6 weeks of lent, like sugar or coffee or wine. These small ways of holding back remind us that we have limitations. We have hunger. The hunger is already there, of course. But when we give something up, we are making the space to feel it. The ashes of repentance on my forehead help me to remember that I have not always been here on this earth. And one day I will return to dust. I am a sinner whose offenses are both known and unknown. Do I really feel my need for God?  Do I cry out to him?  Or do I just manage to keep busy enough to superficially forget how truly dependent I am upon him for every good thing? This brings up a theological question. What’s the difference between penance and practice? Fasting does not earn us points with God, because if we are in a relationship with Jesus, His love for us is sealed in Jesus’ work on our behalf. We cannot add or take away a single thing to the finished work of Christ. But fasting can be a way to reckon with our spiritual hunger. When my young children save their allowance money for a special occasion, it’s hard for them to wait. But restraint and anticipation enlarges their hearts for the celebration. Fasting opens us up to be able to feast more fully. The best part is still ahead, and it’s coming soon. This is not the end. This is not the whole story, but the journey starts with ashes. The way down is the way up. I am living forward into that light. I am trusting the promise (from Psalm 23) that the Lord is with us in the valley of the shadow of death. Though the details of our stories are varied, the same story has been written on each of our hearts. Ashes transformed into beauty is the story of redeeming grace, of light breaking in, of ascending the hill, of singing the songs of ascent so that when we get to the top, we will join in that glorious celebration. There, we will each find our own seat at the table. And along the way, grace happens every time the sun comes up over the horizon;  even when we sleep through it with the shades drawn; even when the sun is hidden by storm clouds; always, it faithfully rises. May these ashes be a sign-post. We are walking each other home. Suggestion for prayer: Meditate on this verse or read it a few times slowly, letting the words lead you into conversation with God. “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.” –Psalm 23 What does the word “death” feel like for you when you read this today? The idea might feel far away or it might make you think of physical death or a death of another kind. What comes to mind for you? Ask God to be with you in the valley of the shadow. Ask him to walk you home or to shelter you in the valley. Close your prayer in gratitude.

The final installment of The Orchardist’s new album People, People is set to release on February 23rd. Until then, you can pre-order it exclusively at The Rabbit Room Store and get an immediate download of the track “Dust To Dust.” People, People: Act III completes an album about the classic human story of looking for shortcuts through life, naively hoping to avoid the pain of transformation. Like any fairy tale or classic adventure story, the road between start and finish is fraught with pitfalls, unpleasant surprises, monsters to be faced, and unexpected moments of healing. With these songs, The Orchardist laments and celebrates the truth that we can only receive the fullness of life by holding onto every part of it, bitter and rich and everything in between. Click here to pre-order.

This has been a year of coming alive. Until recently, we both worked jobs that left few hours in the day for creating. Those careers taught us important things over the years, and they were good, but there was a persistent whisper of “something else” that was all too easy to ignore. Sometimes, though, God finally gives you a clear fork in the road. Do you continue in the tired but comfortable path you’ve been forging? Or do you take the path of risk, where the process is unclear, but so much of it involves what makes you truly feel alive? If you dare to take that risk, how do you keep moving forward? The record we made this year with Andrew Osenga is a story of drawing lines in the sand. It’s where the prospect of wasting our one short life challenges our fears of the unknown. It’s about rallying for commitment, tackling apprehension with courage, and making hard choices. In deciding how and where to make the album, we were confronted with the opportunity to actually live out the ideas we had been writing about. In the end, it became a chronicle of our slow awakening and our jump into a new chapter that broke the traditional patterns set out for us. This first song, “Monument,” was the last one written for the album. It is an anthem of remembrance and determination. When we were coming to grips with what it would mean to finally make a break from comfort and move toward what felt like Calling, I voiced my doubt. I confessed that I couldn’t come up with a “why” to justify taking a huge risk. Chris, my husband and bandmate, was amazed. He recounted to me at least three moments in the month of shows we had just played when I had turned to him and said, “This is why we do this.” Conversations that evoked chills, ways lyrics connected with listeners’ stories—they were the first things I forgot when facing down all the reasons not to make the risky choice. The Old Testament tells us that God instructed the Israelites to build memorials when and where He moved. They were a forgetful people—a people who cried for deliverance from Egypt but complained when the desert proved difficult. When they named the places where they witnessed His power, when they placed their Eben-Ezer stones, they could point to a physical thing to remind them that God was, in fact, present; He spoke and acted and cared. As they were recorded in the Word and as the people passed those places, the stones could help future generations know how God had provided. They would be reassured in their journey. We are now making a point to mark all of the moments when we have clearly heard from God in this process—describing them in writing, finding a stone to keep, anything to memorialize them. Otherwise, we doubt that they really happened, or we forget them entirely. When days get long and hard, it’s tempting to believe that maybe we heard wrong, and we should turn back. We need signposts, a record that we did have an encounter with the One who can lead us into an adventure greater than the ones we design for ourselves. The clarity of those coming-alive moments does not last long. So, we’re raising monuments. Learn more about Wild Harbors here and listen to “Monument” on iTunes and Spotify.

Special announcement for all book-loving people. This month only, these three magnificent reads will be purchasable for just $12 in the Rabbit Room Store. Just Mercy holds honorable ideals and the realities of our criminal justice system in glorious tension. Beloved illustrates the complicated homesickness of a free woman born a slave. Cry, The Beloved Country follows a South African pastor’s quest to find his lost son. Do yourself a favor and pick up one of these books in the Rabbit Room Store today—you won’t regret it.

“The Seven Last Words of the Cross,” as they’re traditionally known, are the seven phrases Jesus uttered on the cross as recorded in the Gospels. Countless sermons, musical pieces, and books have been written about them over the centuries. We wanted Resurrection Letters: Prologue to open with a meditative song that not only included each phrase but also mirrored a liturgical Holy Week service called “Tenebrae.” Tenebrae is Latin for “a darkening.” In the service, a series of candles is blown out one at a time after readings that reflect the brokenness of the world and the desolation of Christ’s abandonment on the cross. Needless to say, it’s a heavy service—ending with the final candle being extinguished, plunging the room into darkness. The congregants leave in silence, having been reminded of Jesus’s final breath in a quietly devastating way. It has become, for me, a crucial preparation for the joy of Easter Sunday. The Seven Last Words are sung in a round, and then they fade away, like candles being blown out, until Christ commits his spirit into the Father’s hands. You can pick up Resurrection Letters: Prologue in the Rabbit Room Store and listen to “Last Words (Tenebrae)” here:https://rabbitroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/01-Last-Words-Tenebrae.wav LAST WORDS Words and music by AP and Ben Shive Luke 23:34, Luke 23:43, John 19:26, Mark 15:34, John 19:28, John 19:30, Luke 23:46 Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do Forgive them, they know not what they do Today you will be with me in Paradise You will be with me today Behold your son, behold your mother, behold your son My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why have you forsaken me? I thirst, I thirst It is finished, it is finished Father, into your hands, into your hands I commit my spirit

Every once in awhile, an artist and album comes around that takes you by happy surprise. North Carolina native Taylor Leonhardt’s album River House was that album for me in 2017. Rabbit Room friend Nick Flora posted about the album on social media, and knowing that Nick is a man of fine taste, I decided to randomly check it out. From the first breezy notes of the album’s opener “Everything” I was immediately intrigued by Taylor’s gentle folk sound. But as I listened further I was also deeply impressed with Taylor’s rich writing. In a season where I was struggling with personal anxiety and questions of faith, I resonated with Taylor’s own wrestling with her understanding of God in songs like “Would You Be Well” and “Surprising Me”, and found comfort and rest in other tracks such as “Diamonds” and “Lay My Head Down”. In an even further surprising turn of events, Taylor happens to be good friends with someone I go to church with, and in November I was able to see her play many of the songs from River House in an intimate house show. I am delighted to have discovered Taylor Leonhardt’s soulful music, and look forward to hearing more from her in the future. You can listen to “Would You Be Well” right here:https://rabbitroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/03-Would-You-Be-Well.mp3 If you like what you hear, River House is currently available for free for a limited time on Noisetrade.

In case you haven’t heard, Jeremy Casella is working on a new album, and it will be his simplest and most vulnerable project yet. Getting to hear him talk about it was one of the highlights of my week. He spoke with great care, emphasizing his desire for his forthcoming songs to speak directly to his listeners. I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I did. When you’re finished, consider supporting his new album on Kickstarter here. Jeremy: Spirit will be a vulnerable, bare collection of songs. The reason for that is that I played more shows last year than I ever have before. When I tour, I just play guitar or piano and sing. I’m working with those two elements, the voice and the instrument—so I just started thinking in twos: a melody and a lyric, soul and a song, bringing things down to the bare essentials. Which forces me to really focus on getting the best songs I could, so they stand on their own two feet without layers and layers of production. I’m really proud of my older albums, but there’s so much going on musically that they’re difficult to play live. But this record will be a really straightforward, honest record. If I do my job well as a writer, you will feel very moved by the space left by the sparseness of the arrangements. Hopefully this album will draw you out as a listener in a more direct way because of it. In terms of subject matter, about five years ago I went through an extremely painful divorce. During that time, I reached out to God in a way I had never reached out to him, for strength, guidance, and sustenance, as my world had been blown apart. It was not something I saw coming or desired in any kind of way, and yet I found myself in this situation I could not fix. So as a result, I went through this long period of pain and loss. In a lot of ways I’m on the other side of that now, but in other ways I’m also not. From that experience I have learned a ton about how close the Lord is to his people, how he truly does shepherd us and meet our needs in surprising ways. So thematically, many of the songs are about walking with God through pain and suffering, how the Lord tends to us with his Holy Spirit like a shepherd with his sheep. It’s a tender record because the Lord is tender with us. That’s the goal for this project. But man, although there are some heavy themes in there, it’s going to be fun! Instrumentally, I’m having a blast writing the songs. Knowing that I won’t have much production behind me is a freeing thing. I hope it disarms and moves us all. Drew: It seems to me that the spirit of the record has grown out of your experience performing live. I imagine there’s an analogy there between how you’ve related to your audience and how you want listeners to feel with the record. Could you speak to the relationship between those two dynamics, the similarities and differences that come along with a record rather than a live performance? Jeremy: In a live performance, there’s an interplay and exchange of vulnerability that happens if you’re doing it right, whether it’s a giant U2 concert or a really personal singer-songwriter concert. So a lot of this album will be recorded completely live. I think that lends itself to a more honest dialogue. Listeners can tell if somebody is being straight with them or not. I played so many shows last year that I got to a really healthy place with my audience. I started asking, “What’s the best way I can serve these people?” And the answer was to make another album built on live performance as a gift for these people who come to my shows and listen to my songs. I’ve heard people like Bono and Tom Petty say that simplicity is the most powerful approach to music, so I’d like to find out what that means for me. Drew: That’s fantastic. We often think of tours as supporting records, but it sounds like you’re making a record to support a tour. I love flipping it on its head like that. Jeremy: That’s where things are now. To make a living as an artist, you have to tour. And I’ve made other albums I’m proud of that are impressionistic and ambitious, have a ton going on—but for this record, the punch will come from its soul, from its vulnerability. My prayer is that God would show up in a major way, that you will be able to feel him speaking to you through these songs. Drew: As an audience member, your project makes me think about the difference between coming to a show excited about a record with a lot of instruments on it, anticipating hearing those songs stripped down, versus coming to a show knowing you’ll hear the songs performed just the same way you fell in love with them as recordings: simple, just guitar and vocal. Jeremy: That’s exactly right. And as a performer, you want to satisfy people and leave them really happy they came. Live performances and concerts are everything. Music is the reason we go to a show now, not necessarily a record anymore. Drew: Do you have any stories of particular shows that have really stuck with you after all the touring you did last year? Any specific evenings that have guided the way for this album? Jeremy: That’s a great question. Last fall I was in downtown Pittsburgh and I was halfway through a show—there were probably about a hundred people in this tiny little chapel—and in the middle of the show, a man stood up. He was a Jewish man; he had a yamacha on and a big long beard. He stood up after a song and said, “I don’t mean to interrupt. I have to go, but first I want you to know that your music tonight was like David playing his harp for Saul when Saul was anxious. Tonight, you were my David.” So he said thanks and asked me if he could come up and give me a hug. So he did, and he kissed me on the forehead, too, which was interesting, and then he left, just like that. But everybody in the audience saw this moment unfold. Music has so much power to do beautiful, beautiful things, to encourage us, calm us down, bless us. I’ve kept him in mind ever since. So this is a record for that wonderful man at the Pittsburgh show. Drew: What a champ. That is magnificent. How did the audience react in that situation? Jeremy: They seemed very surprised and also moved. Afterwards, one of the ladies who was there—she’s a therapist, and she said that she works with that man at a therapy center nearby. They had a meeting earlier that day and she prayed for him, that God would give him some relief. So it was very encouraging to hear that God had used some of my music to bring relief to this man, and that he even took the time to let me know it. Drew: It’s huge to let each other know that kind of thing. It goes so far. Jeremy: Isn’t it? And that gets into deeper themes, too: that we’re not alone, that God sees us and hears the cries of our anguish. He is not blind or far; he is extremely near. That’s going to be the main theme of the album, that God is for us and with us. It’s his name: Emmanuel. So when we draw near to him, he’s right there to meet our needs, interact with us, and speak to us. During my divorce, I experienced God’s voice over and over again. It utterly changed me and I feel like a different person as a result. I’m so excited about this album because it’s probably the first one that’s not about me in any kind of way. I’m hoping it will be useful because of that. You can support Jeremy’s new project on Kickstarter here.

One day several years ago, I sat bored in Opry Mills as I waited for family to emerge from various stores. I found myself staring at a Coke machine. It was one of those newfangled ones with a screen. Glowing from this screen was the ideal bottle of Coca-Cola, dripping with just the right amount of condensation, spinning in empty space, asking my eye to behold every angle of its sugary splendor. It struck me that I wanted this perfect imaginary Coca-Cola far more than I could ever imagine wanting a real one. And after all, isn’t it rather illogical to desire an imaginary Coca-Cola more than the real thing? I can’t drink the image on the screen. Why should I want it so much? I think it’s because we humans want things less for their own sake than for their promise to awaken and fulfill our desires. Rather presciently and forebodingly, Herbert Hoover remarked in 1928 that commercialism had “taken over the job of creating desire” and “transformed people into constantly moving happiness machines” which have “become the key to economic progress.” Hoover knew that the ideal consumer is not slave to things, but rather to their own desire. In order to capitalize on our desire, commodities expertly promise fulfillment while simultaneously deferring this fulfillment, ensuring that we will come back for more. Every created thing is infused with the grace and presence of God. Drew Miller It follows that the ideal consumer’s home is not one in which physical things are overvalued, but rather one in which they are carelessly thrown in the trash. This led Dorothy Sayers to observe in 1942: “A society in which consumption has to be artificially stimulated in order to keep production going is a society founded on trash and waste, and such a society is a house built upon sand.” The disease of consumerism is not attachment, but a profound detachment from the physical world around us. We have become a population numb to a world entirely at our disposal. What’s more, we’ve found endless ways to position ourselves over against our disposable world. The smartphone, for example, is the epitome of an object we buy not for any tangible function—it is notoriously fragile, purposefully made of glass—but for its ability to conjure up anything we wish at the touch of a finger, from anywhere, at anytime. One of my favorite songwriters, Chris Thile, sings, “How long, oh Lord, can you keep the whole world spinning under our thumbs?” This is the picture of a humanity fundamentally detached from the world of things. Perhaps the most amusing progression of our detachment is the recent popularity of the loosely defined “minimalist” aesthetic. Kyle Chayka writes in the New York Times, “The nearly four million images tagged #minimalism on Instagram include white sneakers, clouds, the works of Mondrian, neon signs, crumbling brick walls and grassy fields. So long as it’s stylishly austere, it seems, it’s minimalist.” Under the guise of purging ourselves from consumerist frenzy, the minimalist lifestyle quietly sells us yet another empty promise: that we can “simplify” our way to a primordially pure existence. This promise plays directly into our desire to transcend a world “spinning under our thumbs” as we attempt to disentangle ourselves from the excess we’ve inherited. The self-sabatoge of the minimalism fad is that in attempting to disentangle ourselves, we merely move on to a new manifestation of our detached and ultimately irreverent relationship to the world of things. The question I find myself routinely asking is, 'How could a Christian perspective redeem our relationship to the material world?' Drew Miller I often feel that I must choose between the numbness of compulsive consumption or the numbness of cynical asceticism. Thus begins the binge-purge cycle: I give in to the temptation to consume, moving from one novelty to the next in an attempt to quell my desires. I quickly become disillusioned with that and let my guilt propel me away from material things in a futile attempt to escape my complicity in excess. When I get tired of that, I return to compulsive consumption again. Rinse and repeat. Neither binging nor purging truly respects material things. Neither impulse is grounded in true reverence towards the physical world or towards myself. The question I find myself routinely asking is, “How could a Christian perspective redeem our relationship to the material world?” Because no matter what external changes I make to my way of life, I still partake in God’s creation burdened by a shameless appetite and a guilty conscience. Plenty of books have been written in an attempt to answer that question. One particularly beautiful one is For the Life of the World by Alexander Schmemann. On the very first page of his book, Schmemann writes, “In the biblical story of creation, man is presented, first of all, as a hungry being…he is indeed that which he eats, and the whole world is presented as one all-embracing banquet table for man. And this image of the banquet remains, throughout the whole Bible, the central image of life. It is the image of life at its creation and also the image of life at its end and fulfillment: ‘…that you eat and drink at my table in my Kingdom.’” The fall of humanity is that we have forgotten this truth, and having forgotten, we have lived a lie. Drew Miller This banquet is not the Coke machine at Opry Mills—the Coke machine is an alienating perversion of true consumption. I desire the Coke because of an image on a screen, an image divorced from the actual Coke it represents. Once I drink it, I find myself drinking something whose origin and story is completely unknown to me. When finished, I throw away the bottle, never to see it again. The banquet of which Schmemann speaks is more like a nice long dinner with loved ones. Over the course of the meal, we hear the story behind each dish. Every bite brings us closer to the one who prepared it. Here, we consume not out of alienation or detachment, but as an act of communion. And that is precisely the point: the world was created to commune with its Creator. Every created thing is infused with the grace and presence of God. The fall of humanity is that we have forgotten this truth, and having forgotten, we have lived a lie. We have constructed a man-made world in accordance with this lie but in discord with the fundamental truth of God’s world: that all is sacramental, a means of grace and communion with the one who made it. The redemption of humanity is nothing less than the Eucharist: God in Jesus eating his last meal with us, extending his body and blood to satisfy our hunger and quench our thirst. It is a new way to consume by which the relationship between creature and Creator is finally restored. “The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod. And for all this, nature is never spent; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; And though the last lights off the black West went Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs — Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.” —”God’s Grandeur” by Gerard Manley Hopkins

“The right to be ridiculous is something I hold dear” -Bono I’m in the middle of a frozen pond. I’m on my knees, butt hiked up in the air as I scrunch down with my phone. What the heck am I doing? I’m capturing this picture: If there had been any passersby in that moment, I probably would’ve gotten some odd looks. But I wouldn’t have noticed, because I was trying to pay attention to something else. Now, lest you get the idea that I don’t give a crap about what other people think, you’d be wrong. I do care about what others think about me—often too much. But one thing I’ve been learning over the past few years is that, if I want to chase after beauty in this world and make art, I have to maintain my right to be ridiculous. I don’t mean truly ridiculous, in the sense of irresponsibly immature, but ridiculous in the sense of defying the box of expectations that often begins to close in around most of us as we get older, things that proper adults should or shouldn’t do, like, you know, crouch butt-up in the middle of a frozen pond to take a picture. Kids, of course, get to be ridiculous in all sorts of ways, and we not only accept it, we cater to it. Kids can have invisible friends, combine Barbie dolls and dinosaurs, and make up nonsense songs, and we think it’s all cute. When you’re a creative adult, however, the only way to really be effectively creative is to incorporate some of this childlike ridiculousness into your adult life. The actor and writer John Cleese (of Monty Python fame) talks about this in a famous lecture he gave in 1991, where he explains the closed mode and open mode states of the brain and how they impact creativity. He discusses research that suggests that the open mode is the one in which we are the most creative, and this mode is defined by characteristics such as playfulness, exploration, and humor. In the lecture he says: “The very essence of playfulness is an openness to anything that may happen. The feeling that whatever happens, it’s ok. So you cannot be playful if you’re frightened that moving in some direction will be ‘wrong’ — something you ‘shouldn’t have done.’ Well, you’re either free to play, or you’re not. As Alan Watts puts it, you can’t be spontaneous within reason. So you’ve got to risk saying things that are silly and illogical and wrong, and the best way to get the confidence to do that is to know that while you’re being creative, nothing is wrong. There’s no such thing as a mistake, and any drivel may lead to the break-through.” One artist that exhibits this habit of playfulness really well in his work is Austin Kleon.  He’s always creating art in some seemingly silly way, finding galaxies in coffee grinds, writing poetry out of paper clippings, and creating collages with wrappers and debris. He has two young boys, and his Instagram feed recently has been filled with examples of how he is inspired by and plays with the art of his kids to make his own. Kleon also conveys in his book Steal Like An Artist that to be creative: Some of the greatest artists in the world made their art at the risk of looking ridiculous, and were laughed at in their day. The question for you is, do you care more about what people think, or do you care about making good art? I say, here’s to looking a little ridiculous as we go about exploring the world and creating.

This psalm is medicinal to me. It was recommended to me during my last semester of college by an old, wise professor of mine. I remember meeting with him in order to air out some angst I had been carrying around. In hindsight, I believe my angst had something to do with me trying to know everything, account for all my feelings, and somehow manufacture peace on my own terms. It may come to you as a surprise that this wasn’t working out so well for me. I came to this particular professor because he has a way about him where it seems that by merely looking at you, he understands you. You get the feeling that he has been where you are. In startlingly few words, he affirms, corrects, and makes fun of you all at once. My meeting with him may have lasted twenty minutes, and I walked out of his office laughing at myself, my smile traced with a healthy dose of shame. After I had unloaded my unsightly qualms with being the person I am, among the first things he said to me was, “Somebody needs to read Psalm 131.” He then took it upon himself to read it aloud to me. And with a glimmer in his eye, he interceded: O LORD, my heart is not lifted up; My eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. And there, it seems, he made direct eye contact with me, without much subtlety at all. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me. O Israel, hope in the LORD from this time forth and forevermore. That night was one of those rare occasions when a song comes right out. I sat on my bed with my door closed and played some music I had written a few days ago, now knowing its use. With just a few changes in lyrical phrasing, the psalm became a prayer I could sing, and one I especially needed to hear. It was and still is a gift. I did not seek it out, but it was handed to me. Which seems quite consistent with the theme of the psalm and with what I so deeply need to remember—that all the best songs are not devised, but received.

I love comic books. I’ve read hundreds of them, and I own an embarrassing quantity. Since I was first introduced to them, I would obsess over the fine details and action packed scenes. And while I love them, I don’t often find that they move me. They are cool and fun and awesome—but not generally moving. Faerie Hill by Benjamin Schipper is different. I was unprepared. I thought I would walk away at the end like, and think to myself, “Man, that was cool. How good it is to be a comic book fan!” But this 22-page comic actually made me tear up. Its a story about a king whose birth is predicted by a mermaid. He’s born under a thorn bush and his rule is as harsh as his birth: conquering and fierce. Before long, he is king of everything. But he’s bored with it. The artwork is phenomenal—which you probably could have guessed if you’re familiar with Henry and the Chalk Dragon by Jennifer Trafton. Everything about it is quirky and cool and is an excellent match for a fairy tale. Stylistically, the art is reminiscent of Mike Mignola’s work—I can’t think of a closer comparison—but is definitely its own thing. It’s bold and confident, yet the characters have heart and nuance to their expressions. Its funny how a few dots for eyes and a tilted smile can communicate so much. I felt like I knew these characters, and I loved them instantly. And his landscapes and backgrounds are mysterious and inviting and will make you want to jump in and explore. Benjamin not only does his own penciling and inking, but does his own coloring as well (that’s a lot of work!). His pallet compliments the artwork perfectly. I don’t think its too late to run out to your local comic shop to find a copy, but its available online as well if you miss it in the stores (comic books don’t stay on the shelves very long). It does my heart good to see Benjamin breaking into the comic book world. I hope the next comic book is just around the corner.

The Age of Dragons Series by James A. Owen (Simon & Schuster, 2015, 2016) Fiction/Fantasy/Young Adult Why We Love It: Who wouldn’t love a series where J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, and Charles Williams become guardians of a map to a parallel fantasy world that contains the seeds of all our myths and stories? Seriously, the premise of this series is that Tolkien, Lewis, and Williams stumble into becoming guardians of The Imaginarium Geographica, a map to the fantastical Archipelago of Dreams. Originally a seven book series titled The Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica, the series has been combined into three volumes and retitled The Age of Dragons. In each book, Tolkien, Lewis, and Williams travel into the fantasy realm to combat the threat of the mysterious Winter King. Owen manages to include just about every major historical literary figure and mythology into this series. Sometimes it feels a bit overwrought, but for the most part it actually works as a grand world-building exercise. Owen combines things in an original enough way that it feels more than just a bad pastiche. Each book in the series continues to build on the others and more and more layers get added in as the stakes get raised. I found and read the first book on a whim, but quickly got sucked in. I should also say that this series includes one of the most compelling villain redemption stories I have ever witnessed in literature. If you are a fan of fantasy, the Inklings, and mythology, you will enjoy this series.

I read in a textbook that Gerard Manley Hopkins entered a Jesuit Novitiate, vowed to never write poetry again, and burnt all the poems he had written in his life. Failing to regard this trivia with imagination, I moved on without letting these blandly stated facts move me. Weeks later, I returned to the biography, pulled out a calculator, and figured out Hopkins was my age—twenty-three—when he sacrificed his poems to the flames. Emotion flooded. I suddenly saw my hopes and fears hovering near the fire with Hopkins. I felt the determined sorrow of watching words he’d crafted curl to ashes. His father was a poet. Hopkins had studied poetry at Oxford (under Matthew Arnold!). Gerard was on track to make words his life’s work, but as he progressed in his studies, it was theology that captured his heart. In 1866, he made his life altering religious decision. His Anglican parents turned their words against their son; Hopkins later remarked that their letters were too painful to read twice. Maybe it was the weight of being a disappointment that urged the burning of his poems. Hopkins felt writing was too self-satisfying and individualistic to have a home in his new religious life. It is hard to be individualistic when questioning your identity. His church superiors urged him to create again. New forms and bold poetic choices emerged. But when he submitted his work to a religious journal, they responded: 'we dare not print that.' Sarah Geil Whatever crisis caused Hopkins to make the vow, he kept it and stopped writing for seven years. But poetry seemed to linger in his life. Ironically, the same faith that moved Hopkins to decry his craft encouraged him to resume it. His church superiors urged him to create again. New forms and bold poetic choices emerged. But when he submitted his work to a religious journal, they responded: “we dare not print that.” Faith is complicated. The act of living it out in a fallen world is fraught with contradiction, and Hopkins imbued his masterpiece with this contradiction. “God’s Grandeur” is a poem at times deceptively simple and at others gently hiding a breathtaking complexity. Hopkins seemed to realize that it is easy to glance over the ways in which the world is charged. I can read the first sentence of this remarkable poem and fail to slow down to consider the meaning of the words. I take it in; internally nod to myself, “I know that,” and move on: what’s next? It’s too easy to write off “the world is charged with the grandeur of God” as straightforward, in the same way that it’s too easy to skip over a sentence about a poet burning his work. But through the next thirteen lines, Hopkins draws me into the vivid certainty expressed in that first line. The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod. And for all this, nature is never spent; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; And though the last lights off the black West went Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs — Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings. Even the form Hopkins employs for this poem breaks past my defense of complacency. Sonnets are traditionally about romantic love. In “God’s Grandeur,” God courts earth. This is a human poem, in a human form, about the most divine love. Like the prophets of old, Hopkins uses the speaker of this poem to expose and mourn the human inadequacies in the relationship. Since it’s about the two sides of a relationship, the poem naturally splits into two parts. The first eight lines (the octave) are decidedly different from the last six (the sestet). The diction in the octave is laden with darkness. With words like “trod,” “oozing” and “crushed,” the negative tone creates a gloomy cacophony. At the same time, there’s an industrial vibe in the first part; “charged,” “reck,” and “oil” contribute to the unexpected description of a world full of God’s grandeur. An electric urgency hums in the first eight lines, but thanks to Hopkins’s brilliant manipulation of sound and rhythm, even the urgency becomes monotonous. We need the diction of darkness to help us mourn mankind’s inability to see. Sarah Geil Then, there’s a word: “and.” The sonnet tradition demands that something in the last few lines must change the meaning and purpose of the other lines. A single word or phrase usually alerts the reader to this rhetorical, emotional volta. Words such as “but” or “however” are often used to indicate the turn. Not so with Hopkins. He uses the word “and.” It’s a word he uses three other times to begin lines of his poem. By using “And,” for the turn, Hopkins plays again with my habit to keep reading, to keep missing the beauty, to keep incessantly ignoring the glorious and at times terrible grandeur. He catches my attention with the dramatic phrase “for all this.” It wakes me up again. The tone of hope in the sestet shines all the brighter having emerged from the diction of darkness. With this third “And,” the focus shifts from the repetition of man’s unwavering disrespect to God’s steadfast splendor. Hopkins knew, when choosing the sonnet style, he would only have a certain number of syllables to work with. There are only fourteen lines available; every word counts. He made his words count. An expert ambiguity to his diction throughout the entire poem helps create cohesion between the two parts. Even in the first line I once wrote off as simple, the interpretations of the word “charged” add to the beauty. I put my groceries on the conveyer belt and a tired, worn employee pushes the buttons so I can be properly charged. I pay, smearing the world with trade so that the food can recharge me. The world is charged, but nature is never spent. But that’s not all this word can mean. The world is buzzing, charged. The tiny image of the battery on my phone empties day after day so I charge it. Electrically speaking, the world grows increasingly dependent on remaining charged. Similarly to “charged,” the word “bent,” in line thirteen is expertly indefinite in definitions. “Bent” hangs at a pivotal point in the poem. Looking at just the penultimate line, “bent” is the object over which the Holy Ghost presides. As a noun, “bent” historically meant grass or reed according to the Oxford English Dictionary. It works; the Holy Ghost presides over the grassy earth and the line is complete. However, this is one of Hopkins’s expert uses of his irregular enjambment. In the context of the final line, “bent” is not a noun but an adjective describing the entire World. The single word, defined many different ways, captures nearly every thought expressed in the first dark eight lines. The world is bent, curved, crooked, constrained into a bow, and set on its own course. Bent brings to mind the image of a weapon, pointed at the humans who are so determined to trod along their path of unseeing destruction. Hopkins wastes no words in showing that God’s interactions with the world are more intricate than their surface simplicity might convey, the surface simplicity that we too often seek. With as much careful complexity as he required of the words, Hopkins was also willing to repeat words such as “have trod, have trod, have trod.” When I write, I often repeat words only because I’m lazy. Hopkins didn’t run out of vocabulary. The sudden shift to regular iambic pentameter (the common rhythm of English poetry, think Shakespeare) makes these repeated words stand out and sound like foot prints. But the actual words matter too; Hopkins recognized our temptation to distance ourselves from the trodders. For most of the poem, the speaker remains distant, as if he is not part of the generation that trods. But the last line’s bizarre exclamation “Ah!” draws the distant speaker into the intensity. The exclamation, however, is not the last word of the poem. “Bright wings” are as ambiguous an image as the diction. Wings can be either gentle, like those of a dove, or magnificent and deadly like those of an eagle. Because the wings in this context are thought to belong to the Holy Ghost, the image is that much more powerful. Rather than leaving the reader with the ability to write God’s grandeur off as simple, the wings image invites a final marvel at the complexity with which the world is charged. Though Hopkins wrote “God’s Grandeur” in 1877, it was not published until after he died in 1918. Victorian on the cusp of modern, Hopkins captured in his poems the dark fear of change that is felt all too similarly today. Here on the edge of a generational swing similar to the shift between what was the Victorian age and the modern era, we continue to need this poem. We need the diction of darkness to help us mourn mankind’s inability to see. We need to recognize our sightless role in humanity and grieve because we too are shod; we trod upon the earth unable to fully appreciate the grandeur with which the world is charged. Until the world is no longer bent, we dwell in the time for which this poem was written and intended. God’s grandeur does not fit into a box. Sarah Geil “And for all this” there is a turn. Just like a bird’s wings, the complex contradictions of “God’s Grandeur” work because we, too, are a complex contradiction. I was first taught to recognize a sonnet by its box-like shape. God’s grandeur does not fit into a box. We are fully alive in both parts of the poem. The brokenness and beauty swirl, but along the way, we see a bird flap its wings by the side of the road. We help a little girl learn how to tie her shoes. We slowly pour olive oil into a hot pan to make dinner. Or we analyze an old poem and we are given glimpses of the persistent grandeur that will one day be made complete.

I had the good fortune of talking with Andrew Osenga about his new album, The Painted Desert, in October of 2017 when he was still in the process of making it. We sat in Osenga’s recording space in the basement of his house and discussed his year of desert-wandering, records that allow space to be sad, the difference between sadness and bitterness, and the heavy gratitude of feeling indebted to one’s friends, among many other things. What follows is a lightly edited transcription of that conversation as well as a track from the record. You can hear The Painted Desert in all its finished glory by supporting it on Kickstarter here—any pledge you make earns you an immediate download. Andrew: I thought I had moved into the phase of my life when I was no longer a recording artist, that I was the guy who helped other recording artists—which I am! And I love. But the last year for me was a difficult one: a dry, barren wasteland of a year. Career questions were just the symptom of things that needed to be dealt with. And sometimes the Lord sends you to the desert for a bunch of different things, and you just have to wander. I’m not usually the kind of guy who says, 'I heard the word of the Lord, and he told me to get a burger for lunch instead of Korean food.' Andrew Osenga So that’s what the last year felt like. Which sucks. Even though it can be good for you, it sucks. It had been years since I had written songs to get my feelings out and I felt like I didn’t have anything to say anymore. I’m not usually the kind of guy who says, “I heard the word of the Lord, and he told me to get a burger for lunch instead of Korean food.” It’s very rare that I sense things like that, but this time I strongly sensed that I needed to write more songs, and the Lord was giving me the songs. They just kept showing up. So I went to my friend Paul’s house, sat on his couch with my guitar, and the first day there I wrote three songs in two hours. And I don’t normally do that. Drew: Wow! What’s that even like? Andrew: I advise people to take their time, edit, edit more; a song’s not just done because you’ve written three verses and a chorus. I am an editor, but fully formed songs were popping out. Part of that is just the dam effect: the dam was finally loose, so I got to say, “Oh! Look what was in there!” And I’ve had to go back and re-write some of them, but the first few songs came out pretty much fully formed. There’s a scripture from Joel that meant a lot to me as I made this record: these locusts come, then more locusts, then more, then a final herd comes, then an army comes after that and kills everything else that was left. Fairly dark. I won’t say my year was quite like that, but emotionally sometimes it felt that way. Then, midway through the second chapter there’s a shift. It says the Lord will redeem the years the locusts have eaten. I’ve been trying to live out of that. A lot of the new life growing in my career, my relationships, and my heart feels like the Lord redeeming the year the locusts have eaten. I am now at the beginning of that process. So it’s not a record about keeping your chin up—no, no, no—it just sucks. And it’s not necessarily just a sad record. My goal is to make a record like some of the ones I’ve spent time with in the last few years. You put them on because they create a space for you to feel the way you need to feel. Sometimes you need to be sad and put yourself in a place that lets you be sad, lets you mourn, and so forth. There are a couple records that do that for me, some of my very favorite albums, so I wanted to make one like that. Drew: What are they? Andrew:Voyager by Kathleen Edwards. Holy moly. It’s fantastic. It’s not sonically great. It’s beautiful, but not correct. It’s wonderful. Drew: That’s an interesting thought. Do you feel like there’s a trace of that in your own record? Are there moments where you’re saying, “This isn’t correct, but it needs to be what it is?” Or is your editing hat keeping you from doing that? Andrew: That’s hard. The other record I was going to mention is Carrie & Lowell by Sufjan Stevens, which is the same way, wonderful in its weirdness. Drew: The air conditioning is on and you can hear it in the tracks. Andrew: Yeah, and obviously mine is always on. But also I’ve produced a lot of records. I’m a competent musician, sometimes to my own detriment. I don’t play sloppy. It’s a challenge to get things feeling raw because I’ve just played guitar for a long time. I don’t tend to play raw. So it’s a lot of gritting my teeth and keeping first takes, and a lot of layering, singing or playing the same part a few times so that the takes sit on top of each other and rub each other. It creates a bit of unease, some humanity. Sometimes you have to work really hard to get the feeling of raw emotion, oddly enough. The song I was just tracking vocals for this morning, “Beautiful Places”—I already have a fully finished vocal track that feels a bit too technically correct, so I decided to try a second time. And now I can’t stop crying. I have one that’s too good and one I can’t even get through. So right now I’ve got nothing! (laughter) Andrew shares a song he has been recording called “The Rain.” Andrew: As you can hear, the songs are pretty sparse. What I love about Carrie & Lowell in particular is that there’s actually a lot happening on it, but it never feels like there’s a lot happening. When I think about that album, I think about one guitar and one voice, but there’s always about seven things happening. There’s never a spot where one acoustic guitar thing ends and another starts. There’s always some other element in between that holds it together, often synth. It makes what could be boring never get old. . . . this record has a lot of scripture in it, but I interact with it in a different way than I have before. Not as a band-aid, but as another friend who sits with you. It doesn’t let you wallow, but doesn’t necessarily offer an immediate answer, either. It offers presence. Andrew Osenga So I’m not trying to rip that record off, but I do love the thoughtfulness of how sparse it is. Community is such a huge part of my life and I’m surrounded by friends who help me to keep doing what I do—they’re also all great singers—so I want the voices of my friends to play a role in the songs. Drew: Sounds symbolic of your friends upholding you throughout your year of wandering. Andrew: Yeah, and I want people to hear loneliness, but also how community can step into that loneliness, not necessarily as an answer, but just as solidarity. So Jeremy Casella’s going to sing on this song, because he’s amazing… Andrew plays me “Still Waters.” Drew: I’m really intrigued by the theme you’re describing of the interplay between loneliness and community. To the extent you wish, I’d love for you to talk about the year of wandering and how that theme of loneliness and community played out for you. If any of these songs have particular stories tied to them, I’d love to hear those as well. You said you did a lot of wandering around at Radnor Lake? Andrew: Yes, and “Still Waters” was written on my phone walking around Radnor. At the time, my family was trying to memorize certain scriptures. So we would sit together every night—it sounds like we’re super holy, but we only did it for maybe a week—we were learning Psalm 23: “You lead me beside still waters; your rod and your staff comfort me.” And I thought, “I know that’s a metaphor, but I don’t need a metaphor right now. I really need you, right here and right now. I need something tangible.” So I remembered that there is water near my house. I drove to the water, and it was still, and I walked around it. I thought, “I’m here. Where are you?” And that’s how that song came. As far as community goes—here, I’ll play a section of a song for you. Andrew then plays a verse from “Give Up:” I’ve got good friends I hope I don’t wear out If all I bring is more bad news I know they’ll tell me I am more than that Don’t know how I get so confused Guess I’ve just always liked the blues Hold my heart, I can’t go on Bone dry, closed mind, I give up So yeah, that’s the idea. I know I’ve got these people here and they’re here for me, but I feel like I’m wearing them out. You bring all your self-doubt, all your baggage into it. And they’re not perfect, and they’ll let you down, and you’ll probably wear them out, but that’s okay. They’ve worn you out, too. I’ve lived in this town for twenty years, so a lot of the people that I was walking around Radnor with are people I’ve been friends with for fifteen or twenty years. I’ve annoyed them and they’ve annoyed me and that’s fine. That’s good. Drew: When you talk about being friends with people for fifteen or twenty years, I just think, “I have no frame of reference for that.” (laughter) There is no way I can possibly understand. But I have felt that sense of being a burden to my friends and I have also experienced that in the opposite direction, with friends feeling like they’re a burden to me. And I always think in those moments, “Even if you are a burden to me, I don’t care! You’re my friend and I will carry this burden with you. That’s what I’m here for and the last thing I want you to do is lament how annoying you feel.” But then I’m in the opposite position and when I’m needy, it’s so hard to accept help. Andrew: Well, it’s always fun to be a hero. (laughter) Drew: Of course! Just sail in with perfect advice: “Well friend, if you thought about it this way…” Andrew: “Oh, all my problems are fixed now!” Drew: “Thank you, Drew, that was just what I needed!” (laughter) A lot of what I’m hearing in what you’ve shared so far is just how hard it is to accept the fact that we have needs, especially when we feel like we are out of answers. Am I right to say that’s a theme? Andrew: Yeah, it’s definitely in there. Which is not the same as saying, “I don’t believe it” or “I’m giving up on it.” That song I just played you is called “Give Up,” but it’s about giving up self-sufficiency. Drew: That’s worthy of giving up. Andrew: And it sort of twists into being about giving up my phone. (laughter) I don’t really understand how it did that, but it seemed to work. It’s all really the same, the idea of control. A lot of the record comes out of a place of giving up, a good giving up that hurts. And this record has a lot of scripture in it, but I interact with it in a different way than I have before. Not as a band-aid, but as another friend who sits with you. It doesn’t let you wallow, but doesn’t necessarily offer an immediate answer, either. It offers presence. I hope no one hears bitterness in this. To me, there isn’t any. I think there’s a lot of sadness. Drew: That resonates deeply with me—could you speak to the difference between those two? Andrew: Bitterness thinks it has a right to these things it wanted. A sense of deserving. There’s a selfishness to it. But sadness—it’s okay to grieve the things you lose, the loss of a dream, a calling, of something you want, or someone you love. And it’s okay to grieve the ending of something even when the new thing is better. People can grieve when they get married. There’s a small death in that; you’re not single anymore. Bitterness is when you’re angry that you’re sad. Maybe that’s what it is. It’s okay to be angry and it’s okay to be sad. A lot of this was written out of the journey towards being okay with sadness. Because then you can move past it, deal with it, and walk through it. Listen to Osenga’s song, “The Year of the Locust,” below.https://rabbitroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/02-The-Year-of-the-Locust.mp3 Click here to get the full record and support the Kickstarter campaign.

When I started seeing my feed fill up with posts about loving The Greatest Showman, I started counting down the days until I could finally go see it. It had the makings of a movie I would adore. Musical theatre is my thing. Hugh Jackman is a favorite. Zac Efron is grown up after his High School Musical days. Zendaya won my heart with her quirky performance in Spiderman: Homecoming. I saw Keala Settle command the Broadway stage in Waitress. I loved La La Land and Dear Evan Hansen, the lyricists’ previous works. A musical film with all this talent about creativity and performance? Bring it on. My husband Chris voiced his puzzlement that it had gotten such lukewarm critical reviews, and yet so many people we knew sung its praises. A friend of ours who openly scoffs at musicals saw it with his family three times. If that guy liked it, there had to be something there. There was something there . . . multiple somethings. But, those somethings didn’t quite add up to leaving me wowed like most people I know. If you loved it, I am thrilled that you did. Hear me out—I didn’t dislike it. I had a ton of fun watching it. I felt happy. The movie itself ends with the P. T. Barnum quote, “The noblest art is that of making others happy.” If that is indeed the noblest art, then no wonder so many love it. But if the noblest art goes anywhere past making others happy, then perhaps that’s why I’m left chewing on what I really think about it. It’s a gorgeous film to watch. It has the richness of color and pageantry from Moulin Rouge without the edgy qualities that made some uncomfortable. I found the choreography delightfully fascinating, especially in the bar scene for “The Other Side” and the dizzying trapeze love song “Rewrite the Stars.” The costumes are lush and satisfying. The sets support the velvety make-believe take on Barnum’s life. The singing is done well across the board—for me, Settle stole the show. (Let’s talk about the juxtaposition of a composed Jenny Lind standing still, singing, “All the shine of a thousand spotlights… will never be enough,” followed by bearded lady AND woman of color Lettie Lutz feverishly tearing through the crowd with “I’m not scared to be seen/ I make no apologies/ This is me.” Well done.) The songs have a decidedly modern pop spin on the theatre genre, which makes for some epic orchestrations and arrangements. In that department, it is very accessible to the masses, which I am sure adds to its appeal. When I look at the characters and pacing of The Greatest Showman, I start to see my lack of zeal. It hit every beat necessary for the story it wanted to tell. The boy with big dreams labors through some penniless times as an adult with a family to support. Barnum opens his museum and has no draw. He quickly innovates it and starts to move things forward. He has some pitfalls along the way and starts to lose himself, but comes to his senses in the end. It has great messages about what’s truly important in life. There is love and risk and drama. I appreciate when a movie isn’t longer than it needs to be—and given the family-friendly nature of this film, I bet most of its audiences did, too. In this case, though, my lack of convincing came from how fast we were taken through the plot points. Every time we see a conflict, the characters quickly find solutions and sing about their newfound determination within a few minutes. The “oddity” circus performers get barred from the high-society party? Not for long—they’re proud of who they are and will sing about it fiercely on and off the stage. Barnum was the one who tried to shut them out? Oh well, the show must go on. The songbird diva finally calls out the flirtation they’ve been fanning? He says no without much hesitation, and she’s instantly gone. Barnum faces a scandal after his big tour idea and his wife leaves? No problem; he’s realized the error of his ways, and he returns with profound apologies. Once he does, his wife is ready and willing to take him back and resume their life together without missing a beat. Each character’s struggle is resolved so quickly that I never had a chance to really sit in their grief or uncertainty. So, the songs are triumphant, but when we are taken on a ride of almost unending triumph, it loses some of the punch it could have. The most gripping arc for me was the romance of Phillip Carlyle and Anne Wheeler—and, go figure, it’s the one that didn’t have an immediate payoff. Their incredible love song ends with her deciding that their obstacles are too great, and she walks off screen. Their love doesn’t conquer all until later, and it’s more satisfying for it. The songs have some similarly inspiring, hope-driven lyrics and soaring melodies to what Paul and Pasek penned in Dear Evan Hansen. In that story, though, there is enough darkness and tension to position those songs to give needed relief. In this story, the stress levels don’t hang around long enough to need a light of encouragement. It’s in this that the critical, public, and personal reactions start to make sense to me. The critics are analyzing plot and dynamics. They want to see well-executed action and good cinema—which, to them, goes past just making people happy. The public, though, is coming off of a hard year or two. They see characters face adversity and quickly overcome it in gratifying musical numbers that only take a few minutes to materialize. They get a spectacle AND a win, multiple times over. The anthemic songs are easy to adopt and belt out as personal mantras. The victories don’t come easily, but they do come quickly, and it can feel comforting. We all view art through our own lenses, and my lens isn’t quite ready for that swift relief. I’ve been slogging through the muck of life transition for the past six months, and it hasn’t been quick to alleviate. It’s taken a ton of energy and stamina that I don’t quite have. I feel tired and weary. Maybe this should make me want a quick win from a movie, a vicarious battle that only takes so much fight before it succeeds. However, while The Greatest Showman was highly entertaining, it just didn’t feel real to me. (Okay, of course it’s not real—people are singing about their feelings, for heaven’s sake. That’s normally my thing, though.) I can enjoy the story of characters who quickly regain their footing and crow about their life “from now on.” But I truly identify with and love the stories of characters who have done their time in the trenches, who live in the tension longer than they want to before the payoff comes. This is what feels authentic. The groaning of creation. The people in the desert. The silence of God for hundreds of years. The barrenness for almost a century. A hope deferred. That’s where musicals like Dear Evan Hansen and La La Land (which was less universally appealing) hit me. I’m given time to feel the despair and anxiety and doubt of their characters, left to sit in it before resolution delivers them. It feels like they’ve earned it, they deserve it. I have time to reflect on my own journey’s similarities. I feel a little less alone. It is by no means lesser to indulge in a speedier denouement. We all need breaks from our waiting seasons. We are drawn to fiction for varying reasons, and happiness is a good one. I am not in the camp of the stuffy critic (who is an actual character in the movie). I have already listened to the soundtrack a few times since seeing the movie and probably will again. The Greatest Showman provides an uplifting experience to its viewers, and there is a place for that. But it will probably go on my “sick day easy viewing” list, not my “I need some serious hope and beauty” list. It’s a bit like the distinction between happiness and joy for believers—a temporary emotion versus a lasting, transformative sensation. I am all for art causing happiness; when happiness follows sufficient and significant conflict, though, it can cross the line from easy pleasure into true satisfaction.

The Exact Place by Margie L. Haack (Kalos Press, 2012) Memoir / Home and Place / Rural Life Why We Love It: “Poverty and a stepfather who liked me about as well as a broken trailer hitch were more difficult to receive, and yet I sense the danger that awaits one who refuses such gifts. So it was here, in the midst of a glory and brokenness, where I found a miracle — or at least, pretty near to one: it was the thread of redemption that ran through my childhood, even through the dark hours after midnight.” Margie Haack grew up with her five siblings in a three room shotgun house nestled in the swampland near the Minnesota / Canada border. For years, her family farmed the land and weathered poverty, and while this might sound like the start of a “can you believe I survived this” kind of story, The Exact Place is a actually memoir suffused with gratitude, joy, and beauty. Reading this book feels like sitting down for tea with a well-loved neighbor or family member. There is no doubt whatsoever that purchasing ammo online is fast, convenient, and cost-effective. And we hope our review of the best places to buy ammo online has given an insight as to where your purchases can be made with confidence. In terms of our choice when it comes to the best online ammo outlet, we have to go with LuckyGunner, OpticsPlanet, Cabelas, Brownells. #ammo #ammofire #ammunition #best places to buy ammo online #USA #ammo for cheap #best ammo shops #best-rated ammo online stores #review – visit AmmoFire.com for more info!. One minute you’re just talking about normal life, then an intriguing passing comment surfaces about the time she accidentally killed her dog or got chased by a rabid skunk. Next thing you know you’re hearing the kind of colorful childhood story that gets passed around for years until it’s practically legend. Now imagine a whole book of stories like that, artfully woven together around a theme of grace and family, home and longing. ...artfully woven together around a theme of grace and family, home and longing. Jen Rose Yokel But Margie isn’t asking us to marvel at her poor circumstances. It’s her personal history, and she tells it in plain language, with honesty, humor, strength, and warmth. And while it might seem like a hard times memoir on the surface, she shows a lovely ability to grieve what wasn’t while celebrating what was — good food, hospitality with her rural neighbors, the joy of books and horses. Each chapter is begins with a quick vignette about northern Minnesota’s natural surroundings and ends with a family recipe, and these brief interludes enhance the sense of place in the stories. The Exact Place is real hidden treasure from small publisher Kalos Press. If you enjoy writers like Wendell Berry, Scott Russell Sanders, or Annie Dillard, consider adding this memoir to your winter reading list.

Ten years ago, I had a crazy idea. I was in the studio working on an album that was, more or less, about the resurrection of Jesus. This was due in part to a fresh reading of C. S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce and a first reading of N. T. Wright’s Surprised by Hope. Album titles are tricky, and I happen to think that finding the right one is crucial—something that ties together all the lyrics and evokes the proper vibe for the sound of the record—so when I noticed the songs were unified thematically by the resurrection, I mentioned it online somewhere. A listener in Oklahoma named Tim posted a comment that said, “Really looking forward to these resurrection letters, Andrew.” Thus, an album title was born. High five, Tim. Once we started really digging into the songs, though, I had the feeling that they were more about the way Jesus’s resurrection plays itself out in our lives rather than the resurrection itself. What if, I thought, this was part two of a larger work, and part one was specifically about Jesus rising again? Since we were already entrenched in that album and I couldn’t exactly stop everything and write a bunch of songs about the greatest moment in the history of the universe, I hatched the dubious plan to stay the course but title it Resurrection Letters, Vol. 2. “It’s weird, so it’s great for marketing,” I told the label, and bless their hearts they went with it. So I found myself for the next few years explaining again and again why there was no volume one. By then I realized my folly. Not only was it a weird idea, partly inspired by George Lucas’s Star Wars prequel stunt, but it set up high expectations for volume one. And then, of course, I remembered that things didn’t exactly go so well for the Star Wars franchise and the awful prequels we all love to hate. I was genuinely worried that my own prequel would be the Phantom Menace of my career. Not only that, there was the daunting prospect of writing a body of songs about the Christ’s resurrection—daunting mainly because I didn’t have a clear sense of how to go about it. Should it be narrative, like Behold the Lamb of God? Should it be avant garde, like an artsy Bon Iver record? Or should it be a bunch of corporate worship songs about Easter? All that to say, I found a lot of good reasons to put it off, and released a few books and four albums between the release of volume two and now. Not only was it a weird idea, partly inspired by George Lucas’s Star Wars prequel stunt, but it set up high expectations for volume one. And then, of course, I remembered that things didn’t exactly go so well for the Star Wars franchise Andrew Peterson Listeners asked me again and again about volume one, and I would wince every time. Honestly, as the centrality of the resurrection became clearer and clearer to me, from a theological standpoint, the less I felt up to the task. If God gave me any talent as a writer, it was ultimately for the purpose of bringing him glory, of drawing attention to his goodness and his gospel, for the building of his kingdom. That can flesh itself out in many ways, vocationally speaking, but for me it means writing the kind of songs I’ve always written—wannabe mashups of Rich Mullins and James Taylor, with a bit of Paul Simon, Toad the Wet Sprocket, and Marc Cohn thrown in. The birth of Jesus as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” is of utmost importance, and I did my best to write about that with the Behold the Lamb of God album—but it’s only part of the story. The gospel, after all, isn’t just about the birth and death of Jesus—it’s also about his victory over death and his promise to return. For the early Christians, the resurrection was central to the story. And it’s no overstatement that if Jesus didn’t rise from the grave then there would be no Christianity. But again and again the apostles staked their lives on this crazy fact: their friend had been tortured, murdered, and buried, and then one day he showed up again in the flesh, complete with the scars to prove it. How can you explain the birth and propagation of the church apart from this fact? Why would these people have been willing to die unless they had seen, in the flesh, the defeat of death in the resurrection of Jesus? I can think of no other satisfying answer than this: it happened. And if it happened, I must do my best to write about it. Sooner or later, I had to step up to the plate and take a swing. Earlier this year, with fear and trembling, I told the label it was time. We put it on the calendar, thereby imposing that great and terrible motivator called “a deadline.” We secured my old pal Ben Shive as the producer, which was fitting since he was also at the helm of volume two. And then time marched me inexorably closer to the first day in the studio, in October of 2017. My last two albums, Light for the Lost Boy and The Burning Edge of Dawn, were autobiographical, dealing in large part with a long, dark journey into—and just barely out of—what was a three-year depression. They’re not sad albums, necessarily, but they’re heavy. Having survived that valley, I was ready to stand in the sunlight on the opposing hill and sing out with joy to the God who had carried me through. It’s not as if everything is groovy all the time now, but as far as I can tell, that particular gauntlet has been run. That winter is over. My depression (or whatever it was) didn’t really end in an obvious, definable way, but one day I realized I was talking about it in the past tense. I’ve been aching for songs that reflected my own resurrection from that season of death, good and beautiful and necessary though it was. In that sense, I’m glad it took ten years to write this album, because I understand the resurrection better now, and long for it more than ever. My dream for Resurrection Letters, Vol. 1 is that it would be the kind of record people turned up to eleven on Easter Sunday, when the world gets its first blush of spring after the long winter, when the cherry trees are in blossom and daffodils are bursting from the ground and Christians all over the world celebrate something that happened—it really happened—two millennia ago. But again and again the apostles staked their lives on this crazy fact: their friend had been tortured, murdered, and buried, and then one day he showed up again in the flesh, complete with the scars to prove it. Andrew Peterson But it felt odd writing about Christ’s victory over death without spending at least some time on his death itself. That led to the idea of Resurrection Letters: Prologue, which is—let’s face it—a prequel to the prequel. (I can already hear the jokes about me waiting another ten years to release a prequel to the prequel to the prequel, called Resurrection Letters: Title Page and Contents.) In the spirit of Lent, the season of fasting that precedes Easter, we put together Prologue, a collection of five songs that take us from the last words of Jesus on the cross to his interment in the tomb. And then comes the long wait for spring. This is our hope, and I’m still surprised by it. The stories are true. February 9 – Resurrection Letters: Prologue March 30 – Resurrection Letters, Vol. 1

I told my friend Nita I was doing an album of hymns and spirituals and she told me I absolutely had to cover “Eyes on the Prize.” She knew I was in a season of transition and recovery and felt it could be powerful. I didn’t feel qualified, especially after listening to Mavis Staples’ interpretation and watching the video of footage from the civil rights movement. It was so raw, so powerful, so emotional, and I wasn’t sure I could take it on or, honestly, that I should. But I eventually decided I could find my own interpretation of the song in channeling my own experiences with suffering and perseverance and I performed this song one thousand percent from my heart. I had also recently taken my children to the Civil Rights Museum in Memphis and found myself profoundly impacted by the stories of courage and nonviolence in the face of incredible violence. I saw people living out Jesus’ teachings in radical ways that defy logic. The song became even more moving and I wanted to honor that legacy as well as find my own place in the narrative of perseverance.

Biblical illiteracy is a problem, not just for the theological integrity of the church, but for the ethics of our everyday lives. You can’t have morality or justice without stories. In a previous post, I discussed biblical illiteracy by interacting with a new book, A Concise Guide to Reading the New Testament (Baker). The introduction to this volume makes a persuasive case that many contemporary Christians no longer know how to engage with the story arc of the Bible. He goes on, though, to argue that we often forget what the Bible actually is. If not a dictionary or an encyclopedia, what is it? The Bible is, among other things, he writes, “a faith-forming narrative.” The book further makes the case that to understand the Bible we must understand “the irreducibility of narrative.” Most of us who are conservative evangelicals rightly reject the idea that the history of the Bible is merely illustrative–stories not grounded in fact but that point to the “real issue” of some experience with God or some demonstration of the way to live. The problem is though that sometimes we use the Bible the same way, only with the understanding that these stories really happened in space and in time. That’s true, they did in fact happen, but we sometimes assume that the narrative is simply the way God is feeding us the abstractions of moral principles or doctrinal axioms. We sometimes assume that the narrative is simply the way God is feeding us the abstractions of moral principles or doctrinal axioms. Russell Moore Moral principles are important, as are doctrinal axioms, but they are rooted and grounded in the storyline of the Scripture. If we were to boil the Bible down to a perfectly accurate summary of doctrines or directives, we would not be improving upon the Bible. We would not be drilling past extraneous stuff. We would be losing something essential: the story. This is what Nienhuis means by the “irreducibility of narrative.” As he puts it, “no moral or summary of a story can take the place of the story itself.” That’s because stories in the human experience, as created by God, are more than just hangers on which to place abstractions. Stories speak not just to the cognitive capacity but to the imaginative as well. As he explains, “Stories immerse us temporally in a world other than our own, and in doing so, they provide us with a deeper understanding of our own identities, values, choices, and purpose.” This is precisely right. Russell Kirk spoke of this as the shaping of the “moral imagination.” Stories, rightly told, shape us, almost always unconsciously at first. We vicariously are delighted or surprised or disgusted or outraged. It’s not just that we cognitively connect the dots but that, at some level, we actually experience these things. That power can be used in terrifying ways—see the use of Germanic volk myths in the rise of Hitler—or in life-giving, redemptive ways. The prophet Nathan confronted King David with his sexual predation by telling the story of a wealthy man robbing the poor of his one ewe lamb (2 Sam. 12:1-15). This was not just to “illustrate” for David the meaning of the commandment against immorality. The story Nathan told bypassed the hardened conscience and the rationalizing intellect of David to allow him to experience horror and disgust at what turned out to be his own sin. Jesus did the same, repeatedly. The story of the “good Samaritan,” for instance, is again, not just an illustration but a vehicle for a resistant conscience to experience what it doesn’t want to acknowledge: compassion for the ‘outsider’ whom culture compelled to be ignored. That’s how ethics works. It’s not simply that we are given a list of “dos” and “don’ts,” and we comply, or that we are convinced of all of the positive and negative consequences of our actions, and we are persuaded. The Ten Commandments don’t work that way. This code of objective morality begins with “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the land of slavery” (Exod. 20:2). The Sermon on the Mount, likewise, comes in the context of Jesus’ announcement of himself as the fulfillment of Israel’s story, the year of Jubilee in the flesh. Likewise, the moral admonitions of the New Testament epistles are situated within the story of the gospel, a story personalized in the constantly repeated testimony of the Apostle Paul. Stories are often the vehicle for a resistant conscience to experience what it doesn’t want to acknowledge. Russell Moore As Nienhuis puts it, “The faith-forming narrative of Scripture provides us with a plotline within which we may orient our own lives today.” We need abstract commands. “Love the stranger.” But those abstract commands come to us in the context of a story about ourselves and about the universe. “Love the stranger, for you also were strangers in the land of Egypt.” We tell ourselves stories to justify our actions, and often we convince ourselves of false stories. We can even lull our consciences by repeating these false stories. We become like Christ by following his commands by the power of the Spirit, yes, but, beyond that, by joining ourselves to his life, to his story, as branches to a vine. Some seem to believe that the times are so perilous that we should boil down the biblical witness to what’s absolutely necessary: the fundamental doctrines and the lists of biblical principles on how to obey God and how to make it in life. Why would we, with the stakes so high and the time so limited, teach people the difference between Melchizedek and Jehoiakim? If we bypass the story, though, we bypass the core of the person. More importantly, we bypass the way God speaks to us. And that, the Word of God, is what can sanctify, can make us holy. We can’t have ethics or morality or justice without stories, without the Story. This post originally appeared at RussellMoore.com. Visit his website for more of Russell’s writing.

Sacred Pathways by Gary Thomas (Zondervan, 1996) Christian Living / Spiritual Growth Why We Love It: If you’ve grown up in the evangelical church, you’ve probably heard plenty about the importance of “quiet time.” I know I have. And yet, prayer (at least the “close your eyes and talk to Jesus like he’s your buddy” approach) has often been hard, and while I’m good at being quiet, I’ve struggled with making the time. What do you do with a one-size-fits-all approach to spiritual growth? Enter a thrift store find I didn’t know I needed: Sacred Pathways by Gary Thomas. In this book, Thomas introduces a theory of spiritual temperaments, the idea of different natural bents toward understanding and growing in faith. From there he explores nine spiritual types in depth, and suggests practices that work well for each temperament. So for example, the ascetic needs a quiet, distraction free space to pray, and while the intellectual meets God in rigorous theological study, a contemplative may find encouragement in ancient monastic practices like centering prayer. This is a book from the ’90s, so the writing and references feel dated sometimes.* (The New Age movement is the acid-washed jeans of fad spirituality, amirite?) But don’t let that deter you from the helpful ideas. Each chapter has short quiz to get you in the ballpark of your favored types, and I found this discovery encouraging and illuminating. I wish I’d read this book in my formative years while trying to understand why I wasn’t thriving in the enthusiastic evangelicalism where I so desperately wanted to belong. Mostly, I’m grateful that this book helped me feel a little more compassion for folks who worship and grow differently from me. It’s interesting to note that Thomas highlights the ways Jesus displays all the different types throughout his life — cleansing the temple in activism, studying in the synagogue with intellectuals, honoring feasts with traditionalists, or going off to the desert like an ascetic. With him as our model, we can find our path to closeness with God, while honoring his precedents and stretching ourselves in ways that are foreign to us. * I read the original version, but I just found out there’s a revised and updated edition out there. Perhaps the new one is not so totally ’90s. Go Deeper: If you’re already fascinated by personality theories (looking at you, dear Enneagram friends) then you might want to add this to your reading list. And if you’re intrigued but unsure, here’s a short overview of the nine types with a link to Thomas’s original assessment questions from the book. Granted, the questions are sort of vague and straightforward and you’d want to read the book for a deeper look, but this can at least help you figure out if it might be a helpful tool for you. Plus, personality quizzes are fun! If you take the quiz, I’d love to hear what your top three types are! What do you think of this concept? (For the record: my top three are ascetic, traditionalist, and sensate, and I’m not surprised at all that enthusiast and activist came dead last. #introvert)

Some songs, however new they may be, feel as if they have existed for centuries. One such song is “The Meal We Could Not Make” from Son of Laughter’s new album, No Story Is Over. When Chris Slaten and I discussed his new record, we spent plenty of time going in depth on this particular song. What follows is our conversation both in audio form, augmented at various points by clips of the song itself, and in the written word.https://rabbitroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Meal-We-Could-Not-Make-Behind-the-Song.mp3 Chris: “The Meal We Could Not Make” was inspired by Dan Allender’s book Sabbath. What I remember from it is this idea of Sabbath feasting and how the Sabbath can be a time of imaginative play. So one of the things we’re doing on the Sabbath is both feasting as a way of remembering and feasting as a way of rehearsing and practicing, just like children are always doing as they’re preparing for their adulthood. It is good work that they are practicing to be doctors and astronauts and whatever it is they’re doing in the backyard, in the treehouse. And so that same kind of thing goes for what the Sabbath is meant to be. (Song excerpt) Sit beside me now There’s so much that we’ve shared Like the comfort of our doubts And the safety of despair So many promises have just been tricks So many remedies have made us sick Do you even have it in you To savor something new? Oh, take and eat All the work is done Stretch out your feet In the Sabbath sun With this bread, old ambitions break And as we pour the wine We feel our hungry hearts awake To the Meal we could not make Chris: I feel like there are a lot of ways in which that song speaks for itself on those grounds. I’m curious, are there any specific questions you have about it? Drew: You know, I’d love to zoom in on the last verse, “Do you recognize me now?” And it’s worth emphasizing because you take that opportunity to sneak in your artist name as well, which was done quite seamlessly! (laughter) Chris: It’s a little shout-out! Drew: I think that verse has that magic of taking the stage that you’ve set with the focus on relationships and looking around the table, all these very tangible things—you’re taking that and drawing it out, giving it a bigger picture—that’s really the moment for me where the hope is stirred. Which is fitting, since that’s the whole point: the hope that’s finally coming true. So I’d love to hear more about that verse in particular. Chris: Sure. Yeah, I think that’s what keeps that song from being an anthem or a hymn or anything like that: it has a really weird speaker. (laughter) Drew: When you say that I just think of the first line of that verse, “Do you recognize me now?” and I hear this mysterious narrator that I don’t know, and I want to say, “I don’t know you, and in fact I don’t recognize you! This whole time I’ve been very confused about who you are.” (laughter) So: who is it? Chris: I’ll talk about the Son of Laughter name and that might help a little bit. The name “Son of Laughter”—I like it as a phrase because there are so many angles for it. There’s a place on my website where, when I first decided on the name, I wrote ten reasons why. I could name even more. For one, it’s a throwback to Abraham and Sarah laughing in the face of God when they’re told in their old age that they’ll have a son. They’ve already exhausted all their resources and tried to manipulate their lives to make it happen, and it hasn’t. So it’s this exhausted, cynical laugh, almost mockery in the face of God. But then it also talks about Sarah’s laughter after Isaac is born. And it’s the kind of laughter after the most beautiful magic trick. You’re astounded and there’s joy in it. It’s like, “that’s amazing!” Pure, beautiful, rich, amazed, deeply satisfied laughter. And then you see the pattern again with Jesus being mocked, then taking that mockery and turning it into this amazed joy at the resurrection and the work that’s happening there, to us and to his mockers. Looking into the future now, the setting of the song is the meal at the end of all things: imaginatively looking forward to that, whereas we have in many ways cynically mocked God—even if not outwardly, our lives have—this kind of faith that one day that mockery will be turned into the fullest realization of this deep, amazed, joyful kind of laughter. That’s why my artist name is slipped in there. So the character that’s talking—I like for the character to be completely ambiguous, and I would say whenever I sing the song in public, I think of different people. And sometimes I even try to imagine other people who I miss that have passed on before me. So it’s like you’re stepping into the new heavens and the new earth and you’re seeing this person. And it’s not Jesus. That’s where a song like this could go, where it’s been God speaking to you this whole time; I think that’s what’s kind of weird about it. But instead it’s just the lost loved one you ache for, sitting down with you and walking you through the weirdness and beauty of this whole meal. So I like to leave it ambiguous as to who it is because I want people to fill it in for themselves, whoever that is. And there are definitely times—I performed this at Hutchmoot just a few months after my father-in-law passed away, and I almost didn’t make it through the song because he was the one I was imagining saying all these things. And I know that every time I sing it, it’s going to develop for me as I perform it over the years. (Song excerpt) Do you recognize me now? It’s been so many years Since you laid me in the ground And planted me with tears We used to joke about the great hereafter Now he’s made each of us a Son of Laughter That little hope in you Is finally coming true So take and eat… Chris: I’m curious, is that how you have interpreted the speaker on hearing it more times now, or do you interpret it a different way? Drew: It’s definitely been ambiguous for me as well—I didn’t necessarily think specifically, literally, Jesus is speaking this, but it did evoke the idea that there have been “so many years” since the Crucifixion and Resurrection. And it’s resurrection imagery for me. Chris: Yeah, absolutely. Drew: It takes me to that place of the stone being rolled away, and that was powerful for me. I didn’t think of anyone I knew, though. Upon looking at it again, when I have the lyrics in front of me, I thought it sounded like the voice of the narrator’s hope that they’ve “buried in the ground” with regret and reluctance, but also the sense that they can’t hope anymore. The joking about the great hereafter then can start to become more cynical as well. Like, “we used to joke about this, but look—it’s actually here, and not a joke.” (Song excerpt) Take and eat All the work is done Stretch out your feet In the Sabbath sun With this bread old ambitions break And as we pour the wine We feel our hungry hearts awake To the meal we could not make No Story Is Over is available in the Rabbit Room Store. You can listen to “The Meal We Could Not Make” in its entirety here:https://rabbitroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/07-The-Meal-We-Could-Not-Make.mp3