A few years ago I attended my first Hutchmoot as a guest illustrator. The strange part for me was actually being treated like one. With me that weekend was a portfolio of largely unpublished work and a handful of Wingfeather sketches brought to convince the hoard that I might be worthy to illustrate the final chapter of the saga. Despite the respect shown to me by all who stopped to talk, inside I was still just the packaging engineer who had struggled for years to get noticed in the field he adored: children’s books. I never referred to myself as anything other than a packaging engineer who had other artistic hopes, even though I had work published and a Wolf King on the way. That Sunday morning in Nashville I stood at the counter at a Starbucks, ordering my coffee, when the barista asked a simple question. A question that changed my perspective. “What do you do?” That’s all he asked. What do I do? I thought. And I said something crazy. “I’m an illustrator.” It felt crazy coming out of my mouth, like a lie. But it wasn’t a lie at all. It sparked no further conversation with the barista, but as I found a seat I felt good inside. It felt real. It felt like the truth. And just a moment later my Facebook messenger popped up with a message from the AD at Abrams Books, who I had visited a year or more before. The message said, “I’ve got the perfect manuscript for you!” That manuscript became Dr. Critchlore’s School for Minions, which releases today. What an amazing morning that was. I hope through this story to encourage you to embrace the real you–the you that you might be struggling to believe in. Maybe no one around you believes in you. Maybe they think your creative hopes and dreams are “cute” or unrealistic or even trivial or irresponsible. They are not. They are yours, and they are a part of you, and maybe all it takes is saying that scary, risky sentence out loud for all to hear. “I am a…”

What’s better for your creativity: handwriting or typing? Here is a short but fascinating video making the case for both as essential tools: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89vzfTFu1Vw] The basic suggestion here is to use handwriting for note-taking, brainstorming, and synthesizing ideas for yourself, but to use a computer to create pieces that give information to others. Or more simply, always carry a pencil and learn to type faster. As a writer who frequently switches back and forth, this rings true for me. All my poems begin as scribbly drafts on paper, but many an article or blog post was written completely digitally, when my fingers need to keep up with my ideas. (This may also explain why, since breaking my arm a few weeks ago, I’ve come up with a ton of ideas but have nothing to show for it. Science! One-hand typing is hard. Yes, I am making excuses.) So let’s discuss. Writers, what’s your preference, and when do you pick a keyboard over a pen? Do you find your medium affects your ideas? Artists of other types (music, visual arts, etc), what role does technology play in your creative process? (H/T Austin Kleon)

NASHVILLE to LONDON. I’ll start with a confession: I’m an ancestry junkie. Once, at about eleven o’clock at night, Jamie asked if I was coming to bed. I told her I was almost ready, I just had to check a few more things on Ancestry.com, and then I was turning in. When I looked up I wondered what that strange light on the horizon might be and I realized it was the sun coming up. I came to bed just as Jamie woke and we both pitied my weakness for treasure hunting. One of my Christmas presents (to myself) this year was one of those DNA tests where you spit in a vial and mail it off to what I presume is a laboratory full of people in white lab coats worn primarily because they deal with peoples’ spit from all over the country. They do some scientific voodoo and email you a few weeks later with a readout that tells you exactly what you’re made of. My main reason for the $80 splurge was that so many people (including Asians) have asked me if I have Asian ancestry I wanted to know if, indeed, one of my great-grandparents from Sweden had married someone from the Far East. My eyes, I admit, are a bit narrower than those with typical European genes, and it would have been super-cool to find a new reason to stay up till dawn on genealogy websites. The results came in last month and I opened the envelope with a level of excitement that mystifies my brother, who couldn’t care less. It turns out I’m 34% Scandinavian (no surprise there, since my great-grandfather Peterson was a Swedish immigrant, which explains my love for meatballs). I was pleasantly surprised to find that 29% of me is from Great Britain and 19% of me is from Ireland. This explains my love for old books and poetry. It didn’t, however, explain the Asian Question, until I zoomed in on the results and there it was: 1% West Asian! I laughed out loud. But wait—what does West Asia mean, exactly? Answer: the Middle East. I leaned back in my chair and raised my eyebrows. Father Abraham had many sons, indeed. I’d love to know the story, but alas, Ancestry.com is silent on the matter. I bring this up to try and illustrate my state of mind every time I head to Europe. Understand, I love America. I love Tennessee. I love where I live and the colorful history of this place. My two hallowed bookshelves, the ones that flank our fireplace, are divided by region. The British Isles authors, which include Lewis, Tolkien, MacDonald, Chesterton, Heaney, and Hopkins occupy the stately shelf on the left, while the right shelf boasts O’Connor, Merton, Wangerin, L’Engle, Buechner, Rawlings, and Berry—authors from the land of my sojourn. My love for Europe is in no way a disdain for the many delights of this continent. But when I get on a plane for either Sweden or the UK, I feel a delightful flutter in my stomach brought on by the mystique of the Old Country where, according to those in the spit-covered lab coats, my father’s father’s fathers farmed and married and built and battled. Rock band pose. I’m not angry, just pretending I’m standing at some railroad tracks with a Stratocaster. Eric is mentally gloating over how many awesome books he will discover before I do. I made my way through security at the Nashville airport and found my old friend Eric Peters waiting at the gate, book in hand. We spent an hour talking about quite a few spiritual struggles before we boarded the plane for London. Seven shows, nine days. One day planned for the Welsh book town of Hay-on-Wye. We both felt a little guilty for leaving our dear wives and children at home in the middle of an ice storm while we were off gallivanting in England—but only a little. Danielle and Jamie are both incredibly supportive, and they knew that seven concerts in a row qualified as legitimate work. And they knew that few material things make Eric and I happier than the discovery of a rare first edition with a tattered dust jacket. Armed with that spousal goodwill, we boarded a massive plane and prepared for jet lag in Albion. My body slept, but 29% of my DNA strands were squirming like kids in line at Disney World.

[Editor’s note: If you’ve been around the Rabbit Room long, the name John Barber will be a familiar one. If you’re new, or just haven’t yet had the pleasure of knowing him, let me introduce you to today’s guest poster. John’s a movie, music, and book nerd—and I meanthat as a high and worthy compliment. He’s been our loyal “Lord of the Merch Table” at every Hutchmoot, and more importantly he’s a good friend. I’m convinced that one of these days he and his family are going to move to Nashville and that’ll be one small step toward all things being made right.] Last Days in the Desert is a curious thing. This isn’t a movie about the movement of Christianity, or about the apostles, or about miracles. There are no cheering crowds with palm branches. There’s only the desert. Last Days tells the story of Jesus’ temptation for 40 days by Satan in the desert (Matt. 4, Luke 4). Written and directed by Rodrigo Garcia (Blue), Last Days stars Ewan McGregor as Jesus, or Yeshua, as he’s called in the movie. The film opens with Yeshua calling out, “Father, where are you?” and we’re introduced to a man who is far from the superhero Jesus of modern media. He’s dirty and battered by the elements. He’s lost. Yeshua begins the film lonely and unsure of his purpose. He’s been left alone by God the Father to figure out who he is, in much the same way that we sometimes push our kids out of the nest. The Father isn’t speaking, no matter how hard Yeshua listens. It turns out Yeshua isn’t alone in the desert. He finds and befriends a small family—a man, his ill wife, and their teenage son. Identifying himself only as a “Holy Man,” Yeshua stays with them, engaging in their lives and learning to love people. He becomes entrenched in the things that are important to them. He learns their troubled spots and flounders a bit in his attempts to help them. This is Jesus fresh from his baptism and before his ministry begins. This ordained “Son of God” thing is new to him, and he struggles with it. The other character in the film is the only other character in the biblical story. Although Satan’s temptations look different in this movie than they do in the gospels, Satan has a big part to play. McGregor acts both parts, Yeshua and the Devil. The two converse and debate the nature of God and people. Their interactions are the core of the film, and it’s McGregor’s performance that sells what could come off as trite in a lesser film. The two stars of the movie are McGregor (of course) and Emmanuel Lubezki, the cinematographer. Lubezki is Terrence Malick’s go-to cinematographer (as well as having worked on some other little films you may have heard of: Gravity, Birdman, Children of Men, etc.) and the landscapes are stark and gorgeous. The sheer loneliness brought on by the desert feels, at once, stifling and transcendent. Lubezki’s final shot of the film is breathtaking. As a movie about Jesus, Last Days treads new ground. Without giving too much away, Yeshua isn’t a miracle-maker. He’s a man struggling with his identity. While so many films about Christ are concerned with his divinity, Last Days wants to mine the depths of his humanity. This is a man being tempted by moral decisions, by his own insecurity, and by delusions of grandeur. He’s lost in his own skin, and he’s got no guidance from above. This is not the Jesus we’re accustomed to seeing on the big screen. When I walked out of Last Days in the Desert, the first thing I did was sit down and talk about it over mediocre Chinese food with eight other people. All of us were affected differently by the film, and all of us loved it in unique ways. I struggled with it. I fought with it. I wanted to analyze the theological problems with it. I wanted to talk about the destructive duality of the Jesus/Satan dynamic. I wanted to criticize it for its lack of balance to the hypostatic union. But over that lackluster Mongolian Beef, I realized that none of that was the point. Last Days in the Desert is a movie about how the presence of Jesus transforms things. Yeshua has no eureka moment in the movie. He has no incredible successes. But he impacts everyone he comes near, and he impacted me while I was sitting in that theater. This film will trouble some. It’s not a Sunday School kind of movie. The Jesus in this film doesn’t act like Mark Burnett’s Jesus. But if you take the time to engage with Last Days, to let it challenge you, to let it sink into your bones, it’s an incredibly rewarding film. Don’t miss it. #LastDaysintheDesert

Blame thirty years of Florida living, the media, Norman Rockwell, or Irving Berlin’s White Christmas, but to me the idea of winter always carried a certain air of romance. Back home I loved the days of weather dipping into the 50s and chillier (Northerners, feel free to laugh at me here). Any excuse to pull out the cozy sweaters and settle in with hot tea and a book was fine by me. I guess I didn’t have much experience with cold. To paraphrase a famous snowman, it was more that I liked to imagine what real winter was like when it comes. When I moved to New England last summer, I quickly realized my homeland was a fancy handwritten invitation to jokes and pity and some variation of “Haha, poor thing, wait until winter gets here.” Which is all in friendly fun, but sometimes it sounded more like, “You, naive one, are gonna die.” I’d laugh it off, because I thought I knew full well what I was getting myself into. Y’all don’t understand . . . I’m from Florida. It’s no magical paradise. We have brutal summers with almost daily thunderstorms. I’ve seen sunny skies go dark and split wide open into torrential downpours. I’ve hunkered down in Walmart’s furniture department while hail and blinding rain pummeled the cars outside and watched mighty oaks cave and crush my neighbor’s fence. Also, we have alligators. I’m not afraid. January came and went with little dustings of snow. Chris would say now and then, “We need at least one good blizzard!” I agreed. It would be a lame first winter otherwise. Well . . . I am wrapped in a blanket and listening to the leftover winds from Blizzard Number Four. This morning it looked like Neptune dumped an ocean of snow in our yard overnight. Our neighbors are outside fighting back with shovels and other contraptions to clear the snow from our streets and sidewalks once again. The remains of four storms keep piling higher in every available corner, like mini-mountains, like monuments. Snow is strange. From the safety of home, it looks like little flecks of white — like innocent soapsuds — peacefully swirling through the air. The sky is hard, gray, heavy and cold. Something about days like these drains the color from the world, so much that one recently dreary Monday all I could think of was how much I missed the color green. But sometimes, the sunny days come. Escape the city, and you’ll find pristine fields of sparkling white, frosted trees stretching up to warm themselves, sharp icicles that glitter and drip, and clear blue skies that fade into dark, starry nights. Winter’s beauty is harsh, striking. And in that slight thaw, the puddles of snow-slush, and the one stripe of sunlight that sneaks across the kitchen rug, there is a hint of future spring. I imagine back home the azaleas are blooming. Soon the scent of orange blossoms will fill the air. It makes me hopeful and a little homesick. Maybe this is how winter does its work — by covering everything, erasing the landscape, freezing out what’s dying on the surface so the deep roots untouched by frost will flourish again. We often associate winter with death. Maybe it’s a cleansing too, preparing our hearts for the final thaw. Last week I heard someone say that when this spring comes, it’ll be a lush one, thick and green, watered by the melted snow. I hope so. I am ready.

As a kid (having already fallen under the influence of cartoonist Walt Kelly) I found great humor in the excesses of advertising pitches and promises. I would make up my own outlandish ad claims for fake products, or create fake slogans for real products, because I understood there was something pretty funny about the idea of . . . well, of people hiding or stretching the truth just to make a buck. And by funny I mean tragic. But I also mean funny. Oh, look how nicely that segues us into the second found poem I compiled entirely of phrases culled from the pages of the “Washington DC Official Visitors Guide, Fall/Winter 2014-2015” (which is, by its very nature after all, one long advertisement). [If you’re unsure what a “found poem” is, see the brief explanation in the earlier post The City Our Eyes Cannot See.] Because not everyone has the time to read the DC Visitors Guide from cover to cover, I set out (purely as a public service, I assure you) to distill all of the promised excitement of our nation’s capitol into a one-page poem. I hope you’ll be able to sense the tidal wave of contagious enthusiasm that the Tourism Department is brimming, buzzing, and bubbling over with. In the end, it can hardly be contained. And, by golly, I do love me some exclamation points! 100 Free Things To Do In DC Here are some ideas to get you going: Explore the city! Come out of the woodwork! Merrymaking awaits! Bundle up and venture out for some romance: Meet one of the derby girls. It’s relatively guilt-free because a tour escort will get off the bus with you. Get your ducks in a row! Pay homage to horses! Hear survivors’ stories! Picture yourself here! The nations’ capital has something going on all the time! Visit the US Supreme Court for fun, legendary snowball fights! Democracy continues its reign! Indulge in the world of whiskey. Now stand in a dramatic display! (Enjoy this classic winter activity in the energetic glow of the nation’s capital.) Go on a treasure hunt! Go on a mission! Get deeper into nature! Relive the decade of the turbulent sixties! You’ll be given a parka to keep you warm. Cheer and be inspired! Looking for something peppered with romantic possibilities? What’s more romantic than – you guessed it – espionage? You can woo like crazy with these great date ideas: Dress up! Put on the moves! Fall in love! Zip through the treetops! Take a self-guided walking tour of a shrine dedicated to the 100th anniversary of all things! Highlights include live butterflies and a touchable lunar rock! This is Washington at its funniest! Art is all around you! See the original 200-year-old First Ladies of America, patched and stitched together! Prepare to be awestruck! Take a twirl! View commemorative trees! Skate around and around the Darth Vader gargoyle (just steps from the White House!) Good to know: The options are high-end! For the ultimate souvenir, MacCorkle’s pick is a baby panda. Also cool: nighttime. #DougMcKelvey #foundpoem #foundpoetry #McKelvey

Recently I stumbled across an interesting piece by Diane Saverin in The Atlantic about Annie Dillard and the writing of her Pulitzer Prize winning work Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Dillard’s book, like many works on nature, has been shrouded in a sort of holy aura by readers. There’s this sense that all such writers disappear into the wilderness to sit on a log for several months in order to get in touch with the sublime spirit of the rocks and trees. The Thoreau mythos prevails. And yet, as Saverin’s article reveals, Dillard was an ordinary Virginia housewife living in the suburbs at the time she constructed her book: She wasn’t a man living alone in the wild. In fact, she wasn’t even living alone. She was residing in an ordinary house with her husband—her former college poetry professor, Richard Dillard. Before she published her book, she scribbled in her journal, wondering who would take her book seriously if its author was a “Virginia housewife named Annie.” Saverin’s essay is a fascinating look at the process behind one of the 20th century’s most enduring works of non-fiction, and touches on many other issues along the way. Here are a few excerpts. On Dillard’s self-conscious interaction with other wilderness writing: In many ways, Pilgrim reads like an updated version of Walden, and that’s exactly the kind of book Dillard was trying to write. At one point, while thinking through the order of her chapters, she jotted down in her notes, “Remember HDT’s [Henry David Thoreau’s] alternation of chapters with solitude + society, light and dark, indoors and outdoors, etc. How to do this?” As Dillard considered potential titles for the book, she thought of Tinker Creek (echoing Thoreau’s Walden), Creekside Solitaire (adapting Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire), Infinite Storm (borrowing a line from John Muir), and Tinker Creek Almanac (evoking Aldo Leopold’s Sand County Almanac). On Dillard’s writing process: By the time Dillard decided to write Pilgrim, she had filled dozens of journals with passages from what she had been reading, anecdotes from her walks, facts about natural history, and dreams about luna moths mating. She had started writing in journals to help her quit smoking, but by the time she was writing in her second spiral notebook, she’d realized writing down her thoughts gave her physical access to the contents of her mind, as if everything she had ever read were fresh in her mind. On the challenges of being a female writer: With a name like “Annie Dillard” on the cover, there was no hiding her gender. “All of the books I took as models had been written by men,” she told me. “And my father, most importantly, never read a book by a woman in his whole life.” She continued to think about publishing the book under a pseudonym. “I thought it would have a better chance. You know — if you write something you want someone to see it.” But after she published a chapter in Harper’s and another in The Atlantic under her real name, “the jig was up.” On the sometimes fictional nature of non-fiction: When Pilgrim was published, Dillard didn’t try to hide the fact that the book was, at times, a work of imagination. Even at the height of her fame, in 1978, Dillard told interviewer Mike Major how she’d written Pilgrim from hundreds of notecards, calling it hard and terribly frustrating work and acknowledging that she sometimes distorted the literal truth to achieve an artistic one. But readers, she said, “think it happens in a dream, that you just sit on a tree stump and take dictation from some little chipmunk.” She resisted the idea that the public was making her into a cult figure, retorting, “All that stuff about lifestyle is completely irrelevant!” I commend to you this thoughtful read on one of this community’s favorite books. Click here for the full article “The Thoreau of the Suburbs”

Chances are, you’ve heard Colony House, whether you know it or not. Formerly known as Caleb, Colony House not only knocked us off our feet with their stellar debut LP, When I Was Younger, produced by Ben Shive, but they also served as the backing band for Andrew Peterson’s Light for the Lost Boy album and tour. In addition, if you saw last year’s Behold The Lamb of God tour, then you caught front-man Caleb Chapman on electric guitar. The pop/rock trio released their album in the fall and earned comparisons that ranged from Keane to The Killers to Kings of Leon—any and all of which piqued our interest. They also made their TV debut on Late Night with Seth Meyers. This year, they’re likely going to logging thousands of miles in support of the release as they jump from tour to tour to earn their stripes and build on the foundation they’ve laid. I recently spoke to Caleb around the turn of the year to reflect on and look ahead at the swirl of success for Colony House. He seems quite happy as a road warrior since the live connection fuels the creative fire. “I think there’s something special about driving across the country and playing random cities you’ve never been to that are thousands of miles away from home. And whether it is for 10,000 people or whatever the number, they are singing the songs you wrote in your bedroom. “There’s something about that that’s hard to explain. It reminds you that what you did means something to someone else, and it meant enough to them to spend enough time to know your lyrics. It’s a humbling thing and it’s a special thing to be able to communicate with people in a unique way all across the nation—sometimes even crossing the pond.” You can read the rest of the interview over at Stereo Subversion. “Moving Forward” from When I Was Younger by Colony House #ColonyHouse

Lit candles cheer a jet-lagged heart. They frame and cradle the unshaped, lingering dark of the hours before dawn. A traveler might find herself sore-eyed, unravelled in the long night. But the self-assertion of a small, merry flame, defiant of the great dark round it, coaxes the mind into an assertion of its own. And the power of the mind is in the words it kindles, bright and fierce, to shape the night. O Lord, open thou our lips . . . Words, like light, can frame the time and space in which we move. Like flame in a darkened room, words have the power to define and form our hours, to shape the spaces of time in which we relate, create, believe. The words we use to describe and meet each day, the ones we allow to shape our contours of experience, teach us what to see and how to meet both joy in the day and sorrow in the darkness. Words make worlds, you know, and each one we speak forms the way we see our own. And our mouths shall shew forth thy praise . . . I just watched the hour of six AM slip by the window. I also saw the hours of three, four, and five. I’ve lit a lot of candles in the watches of this night, but I’ve also kindled a great many words. Instead of the shadows telling me what to think, I’ve lit the minutes with flames of prayer and poetry, lined the formless dark with thoughts that make a sacred space of this unformed hour, a filled, holy room of this hush. But as with many who watch in long darkness, the words were not my own. They were a gift, and in some way, an inheritance. O God make speed to save us . . . One of the best beauties of Oxford to me, one I never fully considered before I arrived, has been the chance to take part in the practice of daily, corporate, liturgical prayer. Morning and evening, I gather with others to speak and hear the songs, canticles, Scriptures, Psalms, and collects said by those who have worshipped in the Anglican church for centuries. O Lord make haste to help us . . . In the morning, the air is sharp and cold in the chapel, and we shuffle, subdued into the hush of early day. The words of the prayers fall like drops of water onto the cool surface of our sleepy minds, rippling out to wake and gird us for the day. At night, shadows cluster like dark birds under the pews, and the air is thick with cold and our own breath as the prayers for protection rise from our lips as the light falls. The words are a kind of starlight blossoming in the mind. The Lord Almighty grant us a peaceful night and a perfect end . . . For centuries, the Anglican church has used the Book of Common Prayer for its worship. When I first arrived in Oxford and had many questions about the liturgy and practices of worship I was beginning to experience, a kind tutor gave me an old Book of Common Prayer. He apologized that it was the only one to hand, with its battered maroon cover and tattered seams. I liked its age. It meant other hands than mine had loved it before. “Read this,” he said, “study it, use it now and then in your devotions and you will understand a lot simply by way of worship.” Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit . . . So I did. I kept it on the windowsill next to my bed and began to say the confessions at night, the Psalms and collects early in the morning. I found the words a rich, strengthening frame to my usual rhythms of Scripture and prayer. Combined with the daily chapel services, I began to be aware of the liturgies forming my thought. In the past weeks, those words have anchored the opening and closing of my days. I find myself continuing the prayers as I lie down to sleep. I find stray words of them girding me throughout the tense moments of the day. I find them most often when I am alone, an echo in the mind that fills the moments that might be lonely with the voice of worship. For you have redeemed me, O Lord, O God of truth . . . And I am aware of a wonder as I do: I speak these words each day, remember and breathe them out in the night in the company of an invisible host. For these are the prayers of generation tested through decades of war, through cultural shift, and societal change. They are fitted to high and holy days, and the lowlier rhythms of ordinary time. Daily, they are spoken by a great host of the faithful around the world, a way of centering the heart, not just on a general faith, but on Christ. Each prayer in my tiny, bedraggled book is a way of journeying toward him, but a journey taken in company with all who share those sacred words. Keep us, O Lord, as the apple of your eye . . . I know from the study I’ve done in language and imagination that the words we speak form the worlds we see. The words we speak together, in culture or church, to a mighty extent, narrate our lives. The words we use do not merely describe our stories, they shape them. They tell them. Hide us under the shadow of your wings . . . On the airplane home back at Christmas, from London to Chicago, my sister Joy and I had a very gregarious flight attendant. He tried three times to steal our dark chocolate bar, and remarked on the piles of books stacked on our trays. My stack was topped with my battered Book of Common Prayer. Raising an eyebrow at it, he made no remark but proceeded to chat us up, and try, once more to steal our chocolate. He turned to the topic of movies. “The Princess Bride,” he crowed, “now that is a quotable movie. My daughter’s favorite. We can quote it back and forth for hours. Crazy, isn’t it, how people all over the world can get along just by quoting their favorite movies together?” Guide us waking, O Lord, and guard us sleeping . . . With a wink, he left. But I was struck. I fingered my little prayer book and thought of the words crammed into its wrinkled old pages, words whose splendor and ache formed the faith of ages. And then I thought of the many conversations I’ve had in which, just as the flight attendant said, the shared narrative was the movie just watched. I thought of how pop culture is just that, a whole, shared culture, a shared narrative, a common view of life conditioned by the lyrics of pop songs and TV shows. I thought of how the quips and movie lines and best-loved lyrics could be called a cultural liturgy, the words we use to form our common view of the world. That awake we may watch with Christ, and asleep we may rest in peace . . . What are the shared narratives of our time? What are the verbal liturgies of our culture? What words do we speak together and how does our communal speech form our vision of each other and of the world we inhabit? What do we repeat? What do we sing? Because the words we share as a culture play a large part in creating the culture we inhabit. And if the words of our own culture are largely void of the narrative of God’s presence, if we work, shop, love, and communicate in spaces shaped by a language other than faith, how do we tell Christ back into the liturgies of our days? Give peace, O Lord, in all the world . . . Perhaps by a rhythm of prayer? I am almost startled by the way that the old, worn prayers of past generations have renewed my faith in the past weeks. I’ve thought often about the place of liturgy in faith since I’ve been in England. In our independent age, I’ve often heard liturgy questioned. Is it just rote? The bent of our culture is to opine that authenticity exists only in spontaneous free speech, in self expression rather than corporate. But we are conversational, communal beings. We do not exist, or worship in isolation. We need the language of generations before us to speak what we are too weary to speak, to affirm God’s faithfulness then, and now. We need to remember that we are part of a mighty, ongoing story, that we join a host in prayer, present round the world and through the ages. For only in thee can we live in safety . . . Words make worlds, and in the long darkness, I am thankful for the world that the tried and hallowed prayers of my little book have woven about me. I am thankful for the fellowship that comes to me in those words, from a prayer book turned by many hands through the years. Seven AM is about to breathe over my window panes. The light is now navy rather than black. Dawn is almost here. I open my little book. I turn from the night prayers to those that greet the morning. I speak them into the grey and formless hour of first light and think of Genesis 1, of God speaking light into the void, forever defining light and darkness. “The worlds were framed by the word of God.” O Lord, save thy people and bless thine heritage . . . And in his image, in company with an invisible host speaking the same morning prayer around the world and through the ages, I look into the darkness and speak. Glory be to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost . . .

[Today’s guest post is courtesy of Jennifer Hildebrand. Want to submit your own work? Click here for submission guidelines.] In our house, we follow one simple rule for updating essential items: Ignore until it’s really, really broken, then figure out a way to fix it. I love the beautifying work of decorating, repurposing, and gussying up things in our home, just not the necessities. So, when my son’s dresser drawer handles broke for the fiftieth time, I figured we needed the mandatory cheap update. Off to Lowe’s we went to convince a six-year-old how cool it would be to pick the $1.27 handles to adorn his only big piece of furniture. He was picky and had his heart set on some sort of Wild Kratts-inspired jungle-motif wild animal handles. Alas, we did what we could and bought what actually existed. His old oak dresser has seen many homes. It’s a hand-me-down piece that originated in my maternal grandparents’ house in Mt. Holly, Arkansas, many decades ago when they were first married. It was later gifted to my parents and lived in their master bedroom before making its home in my own room during my teen years. Lots of hands had depended on the strength of those now-dilapidated handles. I couldn’t help but reminisce a little as I removed each broken, crusty piece. I remember stashing boxes of top-secret notes and letters from school in those top drawers, alongside VHS tapes of my favorite MTV shows. I remember the ribbons of my black and gold homecoming corsages cascading through the brass enclosures and dripping to the floor. Little flecks of memories came chipping off with the removal of each rusted screw. And what of the years before mine? Candles and family photos, hand-crocheted bedspreads weeping with legacy, love notes and maternity clothes and papers from my grandfather’s stint as a bombardier in World War II, graduation caps and awards papers and my own baby clothes, perhaps. History, accessed by sturdy brass. Reverent removal was certainly required. Behind each weathered brass plate lay the imprint of its life on the wood’s face. A good eighty years of dust hid beneath those ornaments. Eighty years of life hidden for decades behind an old brass decoration. Tiny personal building blocks of our history and existence had been traveling this life with us, and we didn’t even know they were there. It hurt a little to brush it away. I placed a new, sturdier handle in each vacant space, and just like that, the old footprint was gone. Four generations had touched this treasured piece of wood, tugged at those handles, hidden their treasures, and lived good lives. Today the dresser stands tall, with new ornamentation, holding precious plastic trinkets and superhero underwear. Life, as they say, goes on. I suppose God speaks to our hearts in these small things. With each storm of dust that fell from behind those old brass plates, a verse pounded in my head:  “You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes” (James 4:14). The lives before me, my life: a mist, a vapor, literally dust in the wind (or on the wood, in this case). But far from a depressing thought, the Word served to emphasize our beautiful and God-ordained tiny part in the big, big story that he is still writing. And this tiny part, this life, this collection of dust is leaving an imprint behind. Those cheap drawer handles suddenly became monumental. They stand ready to capture the dusty life of generations to come and provide passage for treasures of anticipation and promise: the promise for the beautiful reanimating and rejuvenating of us all—we glorious piles of dust.

I recently ran across this little story by Leo Tolstoy, and I thought it might be of some interest to the Rabbit Room. THE THREE HERMITS An Old Legend Current in the Volga District “And in praying use not vain repetitions, as the Gentiles do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask Him.” — Matt. vi. 7, 8. A Bishop was sailing from Archangel to the Solovétsk Monastery; and on the same vessel were a number of pilgrims on their way to visit the shrines at that place. The voyage was a smooth one. The wind favourable, and the weather fair. The pilgrims lay on deck, eating, or sat in groups talking to one another. The Bishop, too, came on deck, and as he was pacing up and down, he noticed a group of men standing near the prow and listening to a fisherman who was pointing to the sea and telling them something. The Bishop stopped, and looked in the direction in which the man was pointing. He could see nothing however, but the sea glistening in the sunshine. He drew nearer to listen, but when the man saw him, he took off his cap and was silent. The rest of the people also took off their caps, and bowed. “Do not let me disturb you, friends,” said the Bishop. “I came to hear what this good man was saying.” “The fisherman was telling us about the hermits,” replied one, a tradesman, rather bolder than the rest. “What hermits?” asked the Bishop, going to the side of the vessel and seating himself on a box. “Tell me about them. I should like to hear. What were you pointing at?” “Why, that little island you can just see over there,” answered the man, pointing to a spot ahead and a little to the right. “That is the island where the hermits live for the salvation of their souls.” “Where is the island?” asked the Bishop. “I see nothing.” “There, in the distance, if you will please look along my hand. Do you see that little cloud? Below it and a bit to the left, there is just a faint streak. That is the island.” The Bishop looked carefully, but his unaccustomed eyes could make out nothing but the water shimmering in the sun. “I cannot see it,” he said. “But who are the hermits that live there?” “They are holy men,” answered the fisherman. “I had long heard tell of them, but never chanced to see them myself till the year before last.” And the fisherman related how once, when he was out fishing, he had been stranded at night upon that island, not knowing where he was. In the morning, as he wandered about the island, he came across an earth hut, and met an old man standing near it. Presently two others came out, and after having fed him, and dried his things, they helped him mend his boat. “And what are they like?” asked the Bishop. “One is a small man and his back is bent. He wears a priest’s cassock and is very old; he must be more than a hundred, I should say. He is so old that the white of his beard is taking a greenish tinge, but he is always smiling, and his face is as bright as an angel’s from heaven. The second is taller, but he also is very old. He wears a tattered, peasant coat. His beard is broad, and of a yellowish grey colour. He is a strong man. Before I had time to help him, he turned my boat over as if it were only a pail. He too, is kindly and cheerful. The third is tall, and has a beard as white as snow and reaching to his knees. He is stern, with over-hanging eyebrows; and he wears nothing but a mat tied round his waist.” “And did they speak to you?” asked the Bishop. “For the most part they did everything in silence and spoke but little even to one another. One of them would just give a glance, and the others would understand him. I asked the tallest whether they had lived there long. He frowned, and muttered something as if he were angry; but the oldest one took his hand and smiled, and then the tall one was quiet. The oldest one only said: ‘Have mercy upon us,’ and smiled.” While the fisherman was talking, the ship had drawn nearer to the island. “There, now you can see it plainly, if your Grace will please to look,” said the tradesman, pointing with his hand. The Bishop looked, and now he really saw a dark streak — which was the island. Having looked at it a while, he left the prow of the vessel, and going to the stern, asked the helmsman: “What island is that?” “That one,” replied the man, “has no name. There are many such in this sea.” “Is it true that there are hermits who live there for the salvation of their souls?” “So it is said, your Grace, but I don’t know if it’s true. Fishermen say they have seen them; but of course they may only be spinning yarns.” “I should like to land on the island and see these men,” said the Bishop. “How could I manage it?” “The ship cannot get close to the island,” replied the helmsman, “but you might be rowed there in a boat. You had better speak to the captain.” The captain was sent for and came. “I should like to see these hermits,” said the Bishop. “Could I not be rowed ashore?” The captain tried to dissuade him. “Of course it could be done,” said he, “but we should lose much time. And if I might venture to say so to your Grace, the old men are not worth your pains. I have heard say that they are foolish old fellows, who understand nothing, and never speak a word, any more than the fish in the sea.” “I wish to see them,” said the Bishop, “and I will pay you for your trouble and loss of time. Please let me have a boat.” There was no help for it; so the order was given. The sailors trimmed the sails, the steersman put up the helm, and the ship’s course was set for the island. A chair was placed at the prow for the Bishop, and he sat there, looking ahead. The passengers all collected at the prow, and gazed at the island. Those who had the sharpest eyes could presently make out the rocks on it, and then a mud hut was seen. At last one man saw the hermits themselves. The captain brought a telescope and, after looking through it, handed it to the Bishop. “It’s right enough. There are three men standing on the shore. There, a little to the right of that big rock.” The Bishop took the telescope, got it into position, and he saw the three men: a tall one, a shorter one, and one very small and bent, standing on the shore and holding each other by the hand. The captain turned to the Bishop. “The vessel can get no nearer in than this, your Grace. If you wish to go ashore, we must ask you to go in the boat, while we anchor here.” The cable was quickly let out, the anchor cast, and the sails furled. There was a jerk, and the vessel shook. Then a boat having been lowered, the oarsmen jumped in, and the Bishop descended the ladder and took his seat. The men pulled at their oars, and the boat moved rapidly towards the island. When they came within a stone’s throw they saw three old men: a tall one with only a mat tied round his waist: a shorter one in a tattered peasant coat, and a very old one bent with age and wearing an old cassock — all three standing hand in hand. The oarsmen pulled in to the shore, and held on with the boathook while the Bishop got out. The old men bowed to him, and he gave them his benediction, at which they bowed still lower. Then the Bishop began to speak to them. “I have heard,” he said, “that you, godly men, live here saving your own souls, and praying to our Lord Christ for your fellow men. I, an unworthy servant of Christ, am called, by God’s mercy, to keep and teach His flock. I wished to see you, servants of God, and to do what I can to teach you, also.” The old men looked at each other smiling, but remained silent. “Tell me,” said the Bishop, “what you are doing to save your souls, and how you serve God on this island.” The second hermit sighed, and looked at the oldest, the very ancient one. The latter smiled, and said: “We do not know how to serve God. We only serve and support ourselves, servant of God.” “But how do you pray to God?” asked the Bishop. “We pray in this way,” replied the hermit. “Three are ye, three are we, have mercy upon us.” And when the old man said this, all three raised their eyes to heaven, and repeated: “Three are ye, three are we, have mercy upon us!” The Bishop smiled. “You have evidently heard something about the Holy Trinity,” said he. “But you do not pray aright. You have won my affection, godly men. I see you wish to please the Lord, but you do not know how to serve Him. That is not the way to pray; but listen to me, and I will teach you. I will teach you, not a way of my own, but the way in which God in the Holy Scriptures has commanded all men to pray to Him.” And the Bishop began explaining to the hermits how God had revealed Himself to men; telling them of God the Father, and God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. “God the Son came down on earth,” said he, “to save men, and this is how He taught us all to pray. Listen and repeat after me: ‘Our Father.’ ” And the first old man repeated after him, “Our Father,” and the second said, “Our Father,” and the third said, “Our Father.” “Which art in heaven,” continued the Bishop. The first hermit repeated, “Which art in heaven,” but the second blundered over the words, and the tall hermit could not say them properly. His hair had grown over his mouth so that he could not speak plainly. The very old hermit, having no teeth, also mumbled indistinctly. The Bishop repeated the words again, and the old men repeated them after him. The Bishop sat down on a stone, and the old men stood before him, watching his mouth, and repeating the words as he uttered them. And all day long the Bishop laboured, saying a word twenty, thirty, a hundred times over, and the old men repeated it after him. They blundered, and he corrected them, and made them begin again. The Bishop did not leave off till he had taught them the whole of the Lord’s prayer so that they could not only repeat it after him, but could say it by themselves. The middle one was the first to know it, and to repeat the whole of it alone. The Bishop made him say it again and again, and at last the others could say it too. It was getting dark, and the moon was appearing over the water, before the Bishop rose to return to the vessel. When he took leave of the old men, they all bowed down to the ground before him. He raised them, and kissed each of them, telling them to pray as he had taught them. Then he got into the boat and returned to the ship. And as he sat in the boat and was rowed to the ship he could hear the three voices of the hermits loudly repeating the Lord’s prayer. As the boat drew near the vessel their voices could no longer be heard, but they could still be seen in the moonlight, standing as he had left them on the shore, the shortest in the middle, the tallest on the right, the middle one on the left. As soon as the Bishop had reached the vessel and got on board, the anchor was weighed and the sails unfurled. The wind filled them, and the ship sailed away, and the Bishop took a seat in the stern and watched the island they had left. For a time he could still see the hermits, but presently they disappeared from sight, though the island was still visible. At last it too vanished, and only the sea was to be seen, rippling in the moonlight. The pilgrims lay down to sleep, and all was quiet on deck. The Bishop did not wish to sleep, but sat alone at the stern, gazing at the sea where the island was no longer visible, and thinking of the good old men. He thought how pleased they had been to learn the Lord’s prayer; and he thanked God for having sent him to teach and help such godly men. So the Bishop sat, thinking, and gazing at the sea where the island had disappeared. And the moonlight flickered before his eyes, sparkling, now here, now there, upon the waves. Suddenly he saw something white and shining, on the bright path which the moon cast across the sea. Was it a seagull, or the little gleaming sail of some small boat? The Bishop fixed his eyes on it, wondering. “It must be a boat sailing after us,” thought he “but it is overtaking us very rapidly. It was far, far away a minute ago, but now it is much nearer. It cannot be a boat, for I can see no sail; but whatever it may be, it is following us, and catching us up.” And he could not make out what it was. Not a boat, nor a bird, nor a fish! It was too large for a man, and besides a man could not be out there in the midst of the sea. The Bishop rose, and said to the helmsman: “Look there, what is that, my friend? What is it?” the Bishop repeated, though he could now see plainly what it was — the three hermits running upon the water, all gleaming white, their grey beards shining, and approaching the ship as quickly as though it were not morning. The steersman looked and let go the helm in terror. “Oh Lord! The hermits are running after us on the water as though it were dry land!” The passengers hearing him, jumped up, and crowded to the stern. They saw the hermits coming along hand in hand, and the two outer ones beckoning the ship to stop. All three were gliding along upon the water without moving their feet. Before the ship could be stopped, the hermits had reached it, and raising their heads, all three as with one voice, began to say: “We have forgotten your teaching, servant of God. As long as we kept repeating it we remembered, but when we stopped saying it for a time, a word dropped out, and now it has all gone to pieces. We can remember nothing of it. Teach us again.” The Bishop crossed himself, and leaning over the ship’s side, said: “Your own prayer will reach the Lord, men of God. It is not for me to teach you. Pray for us sinners.” And the Bishop bowed low before the old men; and they turned and went back across the sea. And a light shone until daybreak on the spot where they were lost to sight.

Last year I had coffee with a good friend by the name of Jeff Taylor. Jeff is one of the busiest and best players in Nashville, and one of the coolest things he’s a part of is a band called the Time Jumpers. Every Monday night at a club called 3rd and Lindsley he joins about ten other of the most brain melting musicians in town (including Ranger Doug from Riders in the Sky and some guy named Vince Gill) and plays some of the most brain melting songs Texas ever exported. It’s no exaggeration to say that the Time Jumpers are a Nashville treasure, and if you don’t try and see a show at least once, you’ll spend your elder days berating yourself for choosing Netflix over that increasingly rare and wonderful thing called Live Music played by those rare and wonderful things called Real Musicians. Jeff wanted to meet me for coffee because he had an idea. He’s been a part of the Behold the Lamb of God show at the Ryman for years now, and he said that, among the many gigs he has in town, that one stands out. He asked himself why, and realized that it was because it was a group of writers in-the-round who were not just dedicated songwriters, but were also Christians. Many of the songs weren’t explicitly Christian in content, but the whole vibe of the community was seasoned by Jesus in one way or another, and Jeff knew that was what made it special. What if there was some way of wrangling a similar group of songwriters to play once a week or so–a regular thing, a la the Time Jumpers? The more we talked about it, the more we realized that, while Nashville has plenty of dives for songwriters (the wonderful Bluebird Café being the most famous), they tend to be for country writers. As far as we knew, there wasn’t anything happening in town quite like what Jeff was suggesting. Thus began the Local Show. Last year we tried it in the fall: one show a week, every Tuesday night at a cool place called the Well in Brentwood. Britt Norvell signed on to handle the details, Brannon McAllister designed a super-cool logo, we called on pretty much every writer we knew (and then some!), and we managed to finish out our first season with a bang thanks to steady attendance from many of you. One of the artists told me that it was the first time he’d felt completely at ease at a gig in Nashville. We made some new friends, drank some great coffee, and a part of the proceeds each night went to a different ministry. By all accounts, the thing was a success. This year we’ve decided to change things up a bit. Instead of every Tuesday we’re testing out an every-other-week schedule. And instead of Britt and I going bonkers every week trying to fill out a balanced roster, we’re going to let each week’s host choose their own guests. As you can see, we’re making this up as we go–but last year’s run made it clear that the Local Show needed to be renewed for Season Two. I hope you’ll join us. Tickets are now on sale for the first show of 2015, hosted by me, and featuring, um, someone awesome! I haven’t confirmed all the guests yet, but in this town I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to find a songwriter or three. Advance tickets are only $10 in the Rabbit Room, but they go up to $15 at the door, so be sure and get them early. And remember, Rabbit Room Members get in for $5. You can follow the Local Show on Twitter and Facebook, too, which is the best way to stay up-to-date on who’s playing and when.

[Editor’s note: Please welcome the Rabbit Room’s newest contributor: Jonny Jimison. Jonny has contributed fine works to all three volumes of the Molehill and has just published his first graphic novel, Martin & Marco—you should click here and buy it. I firstmet him (online) after he read my books and sent me some comic book-style illustrations of a scene from The Fiddler’s Gun. Says me to myself: “This is a man of fine tastes and impeccable literary discernment.” We’ve kept in touch ever since, and for the life of me I can’t figure why it’s taken so long to offer him a seat at the table. Welcome, Jonny.]

A few weeks ago the Rabbit Room editor sent out a message to his writers soliciting posts on various subjects. Two of the subjects—Lent and politics—caught my attention, because there’s a connection between them that doesn’t receive enough attention. Of course, as a subject, politics receives hardly any attention at the Rabbit Room. After the editor suggested it as a post topic, I searched all the posts ever published here—now over two thousand—for the word “politics.” The search returned only twenty-six posts. Most of those used the word “politics” only in passing, and the word appeared in only two post titles: one promotional post for an event called “The Politics of Jesus”; one lament, by Matt Connor, about “The Lie of Politics.” Near the end of Matt’s essay, which appeared about a month before the 2008 general election, he wrote this: The truth is that there is no hope in principles or issues. There is no hope in politics, world leaders, policies or government. There is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ candidate. There is only the hope of Jesus Christ. The only thing that remains is the grassroots gospel of a new humanity of people loving and serving and giving their lives so that God might increase and be known to others as they do so. Reading that paragraph now, several years after its publication, my first instinct is argue with Matt’s grave diagnosis. I want to quibble over definitions. I want to ask, “but there is no shortage of politicians that want either to co-opt Jesus—to make him the untimely-born champion of some twenty-first century political cause—or to kill him. Shouldn’t his disciples do something about that?” I want to argue that political acts have a place among the acts of love and life-giving service “the grassroots gospel” may produce. And yet, for all that, which of us cannot relate to what Matt said? How often do we hear election results, or read a story about some legislation Congress passes, or read an opinion of the Supreme Court, and think: “I am in a padded cell; I’d sooner believe I have gone mad than that my country has gone so mad as that.” Or how often do we latch onto some political movement or candidate, only to catch buyer’s remorse when the movement gains power or the candidate wins office? And who among us has not alienated a friend, or at least dented a friendship, in a political argument? At such moments we are right to think: the pit in my stomach is not lying to me. I like to think the Rabbit Room avoids political debates, not because its members and visitors are ill-informed, craven, or even quietist, but because we understand that when we swap stories and interests and struggles with friends over lunch, we get a broader, deeper, more nuanced—in a word, truer—sense of their characters than we would if we met them at a political rally. For the slogans we chant at a political demonstration are often platitudes, and sometimes falsehoods, skimmed from the surfaces of our minds; the stuff that we see in fairy tales and everyday tabletalk is more likely to arise from and engage our whole being.[1] But we should notice the political stance implicit in this privileging of personal friends and stories over political leaders and programmes. We cannot deny that this is a political stance by following Tolkien, who once distinguished the “humane” motivations behind Frodo’s mission to destroy the Ring from Denethor’s “merely political” commitment to protect his own realm and office.[2] Tolkien’s labels “humane” and “merely political” carry a political value judgment. Or, maybe, a meta-political value judgment—but not a sub- or apolitical judgment. Likewise, if I say, “the image of God I see in one friend across the table is weightier than the sum of all the images of the College of Caesars inscribed on all the coins in circulation,” or “I will not sacrifice even one jot of this story on the Procrustean bed of any political programme,” I am not practicing political neutrality. I am looking at Caesar and throwing down the gauntlet. Which brings me, finally, to Lent. Jesus Christ kept the first “Lent” in the wilderness near the Jordan River: forty days of faithful fasting to fulfill what was lacking in Israel’s forty years of wandering between the Red Sea and the Promised Land. At the conclusion of that inaugural Lent, the Devil promised to deliver to Jesus all the glory of the world’s kingdoms “if you will fall down and worship me.” In dangling the temptation before the Jesus, the Devil rather startlingly assumed that the authority and glory of the world’s kingdoms were his to give. That Jesus did not dispute the Devil’s assumption made his rejection of the temptation all the more resounding. Moses’s last sermons on the plains of Moab had been dramatic. But never had Moses’s words “You shall worship the LORD your God, and him shall you serve”[3] thundered as they did when Jesus recited them to defy the tempter. We talk often of political revolutions: upheavals where one set of rulers, one body of governing principles, replaces another. But when we look at the means the revolutionaries employ—accusations, violence, trickery, demands that friends, family or neighbors be sacrificed to some Big Idea—we see that they’re merchants in the Devil’s political economy, passing around the authority and glory of the world’s kingdoms. The world is sick from a million Faustian bargains; the revolutions that arise to overthrow them are but a different set of Faustian bargains. Except one: the one Christ inaugurated by his fasting and temptation in the wilderness, commonly known as Lent. Lent is not merely therapeutic or pietistic. It is, at least, political—maybe meta-political, but not sub- or apolitical. In Christ, God established a Kingdom in the world by means not of the world: fasting, resisting temptation, agony and passion, wilderness and Cross. Lent is a training season, a season of focus on what it means to share in the Father’s Kingdom by sharing in the means he used to establish it. [1] This is a paraphrase and extension of a point in C. S. Lewis’s essay On Three Ways of Writing for Children, where he advises authors against inserting a “moral” into a story: “Let the pictures tell you their own moral. For the moral inherent in them will rise from whatever spiritual roots you have succeeded in striking during the whole course of your life. But if they don’t show you any moral, don’t put one in. For the moral you put in is likely to be a platitude, or even a falsehood, skimmed from the surface of your consciousness.” —C. S. Lewis, On Three Ways of Writing for Children, in On Stories and Other Essays on Literature 41 (Harcourt 1982) (1966). [2] J. R. R. Tolkien, The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien 240-41 (Humphrey Carpenter et al. eds., Houghton Mifflin 2000)(1981). [3] S Matthew 4:10; Deuteronomy 6:13.

[Today’s outstanding guest post is by Siobhan Maloney. Siobhan works for the Center for Cultural and Pastoral Research at the John Paul II Institute in Washington D.C. She also assists with their online review journal, Humanum. She studied Humanities and Catholic Culture at Franciscan University, and Theology at the John Paul II Institute. Interested in submitting your own work? Click here for submission guidelines.] Every time I come home for the Christmas holiday, I am greeted by the familiar sight of my father lounging comfortably in his big, black leather chair, the soft yellow glow of the lamp beside him illuminating his little corner, his old green flannel shirt, the glasses he’s finally resigned himself to needing, and perhaps the most essential piece to complete the scene: the worn and battered copy of The Lord of the Rings lying open on his lap. This picture evokes winter to me: winter at home, in the warmth and safety of our log house tucked into the woods of north-eastern Ohio. Perhaps for most people “winter” immediately evokes fires, hot chocolate, warm blankets, soups and stews, mittens and hats and scarves, and snow. But that image of my father with Tolkien’s trilogy is just as quintessential to me as these. He re-reads it every winter season. It is a ritual for him. As soon as the leaves start to fall, and the chill returns to the air, you’ll hear him say, “It’s about that time again. I’ll have to dig the old book out.” I have always wondered a little at what keeps him going back to this book, year after year. Of course, I have loved The Lord of the Rings since first reading it at fourteen, and I have grown to appreciate it more and more, recognizing the epic capacity the story has to grow with us, to stretch with us through every new phase of life. But even my continual appreciation of this work has never touched the devotion and reverence my father has for it. All of his children have suggested countless other incredible works of fiction and fantasy, classics, and epics. And he has read them dutifully, enjoyed most of them, and always returned to The Lord of the Rings. This year, however, I was struck by the familiar scene in a new way, perhaps because I have been reading a lot about story, fairytales, and Tolkien—things that caused me to ask the question: what is it about The Lord of the Rings that keeps my father returning to it again and again? Is it something unique to this story? Or is this story a privileged expression of a certain kind of story?  Is there something precious about myths, legends, and fairy stories, to which The Lord of the Rings belongs? And as I thought of my father, and the things I’ve been reading, I began to see something for the first time. J. R. R. Tolkien was intimately familiar with the history and origin of the genre of fairytales, or fantasy stories. He maintains that the fairytales we are familiar with are remnants of different cultures’ attempts to give a language to the deepest truths they find in themselves and the world, to enshrine in narrative an answer to the questions, “Who are we? Where have we come from? Where are we going?” In his famous “Lang Lecture on Fairy Tales,” Tolkien describes the three functions of fantasy as: Recovery, Escape, and Consolation. Recovery: Fantasy, by leading the reader away from things he knows so well, and re-presenting them in novel ways, can make him re-think their true purpose and meaning. It offers a chance to glimpse the real beneath the appearance, “to see through the look of things,” Tolkien tells us, to be able to recognize the meaning of the simple and homely—perhaps for the first time. After encountering Treebeard in The Lord of the Rings, it is impossible to look at a tree the same way again without recognizing the immense layers of complexity and life that make up this thing we pass by on a daily basis. In a good fairy tale, this is true not only of physical things, but of spiritual—that is, non-material realities: fear, love, joy, courage. The very manner in which things are portrayed in the world of fantasy serves the purpose of drawing out into the visible realm their interior nature and potentiality. Man needs to be in contact with the real, the really real—creation in all its original newness, from the hand of the Creator. But we, in our modern world, have grown frightfully skilled at fortressing ourselves from any contact with the real, at surrounding ourselves with so many layers of a man-made reality, that we can comfortably go through life avoiding the terror of facing something that does not originate from us, that is beyond our control. This is true everywhere, from genetically modifying our food to cocooning ourselves behind technology and media, away from the need for physical, individual human contact. And yet secretly, our souls are parched for something more. Fairytales, in their ability to recover the real for us, are particularly relevant to a modern world that has mastered the art of isolation from the real. Escape: In the sense that Tolkien means it, escape does not refer to a blindness, a stance of closure or denial. Rather, as Stratford Caldecott aptly describes, fairytales are: “…an escape into reality. It is the world of the everyday—boring, banal, dull, meaningless—that is the prison from which this kind of fantasy seeks to liberate us, not by distracting us from the real but by showing us the deeper patterns and meanings that lie concealed within it.” (Caldecott, A Hidden Presence, pg. 2). Fantasy, as a creative act of man’s imagination, allows us to escape the boundaries of time and space, and to remind us that we are made for the eternal. The fairytale, Tolkien says, is man’s attempt to satisfy his desire for a world that is at once deeper, richer, more beautiful than his present. It is the recapitulation of his longing for a “paradise lost”; a place that reflects adequately his heart’s memory of the more that he knows to be true somewhere, because he can imagine it.  The fairytale, therefore, becomes his medium through which to hearken to, to re-access this memory. We live within a rationalistic, scientific worldview that has rejected both creation (that we have come from Another) and heaven (that we are going to Another). It has at the same time reduced the human person to a merely biological or psychological being, determined by the body, by environment, or by desire; we do not have a meaning, a purpose, a destiny beyond the boundaries of this world. In the face of this, the fairytale, in its essentially spiritual, sacramental worldview, which takes seriously the longing in man’s heart for the transcendent purpose he was made for, is more essential to us now than ever. Consolation: Tolkien says the third purpose of the fairytale is ultimately to restore man’s hope; to restore his faith in Beauty, Truth, and Goodness; to fortify his soul through reopening his vision to the larger landscape of the eternal drama. The consolation of the fairytale is to remind us that we are not alone in the world, in the face of darkness and evils that are too much for us—because they are too much for us. This is perhaps more true of the modern man than ever before. Having experienced two of the most atrocious wars in world history and the increasing violence, nihilism, and hatred of the last few centuries, we are more aware than ever before of our incapacity, of our littleness, of our helplessness against the forces of evil in the world, against ourselves. In the face of this increasing hopelessness, we are desperate to be able to believe, as Tolkien would say, in a “light and high beauty forever beyond the reach” of the shadow. The fairytale recalls man to his place within a larger story and reminds him that the end he is going toward is something glorious, that the darkness and struggles of this life are not the end of the story. This is why, for Tolkien, the Incarnation is THE fairytale. The Christian story is the fulfillment of all fairytales, because with the coming of Christ our hope has been realized, eternity has entered time, and we have been given the capacity to transcend again the boundaries of this world. In short, because of Christ, the ultimate meaning and hope at the heart of every fairytale has now come true for us. Why, then, do fairytales continue to intrigue us? Why does my father return to Middle-earth, every year? Stratford Caldecott, in his book about Tolkien, says beautifully: “Many of us return to the Lord of the Rings again and again for refreshment of soul—perhaps even for the kind of healing that the author must have experienced in the writing of it.” (Stratford Caldecott, The Power of the Ring, Crossroads Publishing: 2005, pg. 6). I realized the truth of this statement precisely because I had seen it in my father. I thought of him immediately, and I recognized that refreshment and healing was exactly what he received from this work, what kept him returning to it year after year. These stories can bring healing because they speak to us from a world that still believed in things unseen, still believed in spiritual forces of good and evil, in a world “charged with the grandeur of God,” in a world frightfully more complex, and therefore more exciting, than the mechanical one we’ve created, a world in which even man himself has a depth, a mystery, a reality beyond being merely a scientifically-determined specimen of a material universe. Fantasies and myths are the remnant of this larger, deeper view of the world for which our human imaginations are now starving. Tolkien understood this. He understood that we need to be steeped, immersed, in the old stories, in the plain and simple struggle between good and evil, in a narrative that confirms for us that Goodness, and Love, and Truth are as real as Evil, and Darkness, and Despair, and that Grace is always more than all our weaknesses and failings. We need, more than ever before, stories that truly confirm for us that we can rely on something beyond ourselves, on the definitive, final victory of Good over Evil. Because only the truth of such a victory lends any purpose, meaning, or hope to the defeats that we experience inevitably in our daily lives. Tolkien’s understanding of fairytale has taken on flesh for me in the experience of my father. He found The Lord of the Rings in high school, when his whole life was falling down around his head. It gave him something concrete to hold onto through the turbulence. Was this because it was a fantastical escape, allowing him to be in denial of the real difficulties he faced? No. I see now that it gave him, rather, an anchor, re-asserting him into what is true, good, and beautiful, restoring his hope to believe that the darkness enveloping his everyday life was not, in the end, the end of the story. It was a haven of rest, where he could find again the reality that had gotten lost in the chaos of his life. And so he returns, year after year. Because, like all of us, there have been a host of darknesses very real in my father’s life: from the loss of a job, to animosity within his family, to his helplessness in the face of  his children’s illnesses and ongoing sufferings. And every time the darkness begins to feel too big again for an ordinary man, he takes Tolkien by the hand, and lets himself be led back to the fullness, the heart of his story: because the heart of my father’s story, even when it cannot be seen, is something just as glorious as Frodo’s, as Aragorn’s. Tolkien taught my father, and now my father teaches me: to look out, like Sam, above the darkness, and recognize that in the end, all shadows are only a passing thing, and there is light and high beauty forever beyond their reach. References: J.R.R. Tolkien, Verlyn Flieger, ed. On Fairy Stories (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2008). Stratford Caldecott, The Power of the Ring: The Spiritual Vision of the Lord of the Rings, (Oxford: Crossroads Publishing, 2005). Ian Boyd, Stratford Caldecott, eds. A Hidden Presence: The Catholic Imagination of J.R.R. Tolkien, (Oxford: Chesterton Press, 2003).

I love “found poetry” for the unexpected connections it forces the poet to make. When I occasionally attempt to craft such offerings myself, I lean heavily on the variation of the genre pioneered by Annie Dillard in her beautiful, droll, and surprising collection of found poems Mornings Like This. The basic idea is that one selects a source text (the more obscure or unexpected the better) from which to selectively cull and rearrange phrases to create an altogether new piece that—assembled like Frankenstein’s monster from cast-off parts—takes on an unexpected life and meaning of its own. On a technical note, punctuation is entirely malleable. The City Our Eyes Cannot See (From the Washington DC Official Visitors Guide, Fall/Winter 2014-2015) Under the white dome, senators (one born in each year) meet to shape the black granite walls and the beautiful cherry trees. Across the street, where President Lincoln breathed his last breath, you’ll find yourself dreamily following him, mesmerized by his tales of snow-lovers who have died in battle: We are in the heart of one wounded soldier, surrounded by quiet woods and gardens. And if the bells chime, you can see the stars even during the day. When the sun goes down, the singing and the silence will lead you to uncover hidden secrets that only locals know: outposts to the north, a moonlight glide across the ice, gilded mirrors, Italian marble fireplaces and crystal chandeliers, private nooks and cozy corner tables, a waterfall, and plenty of open space. There are more than thirty two secret doors that whisper home. But don’t be fooled. The ghosts of Christmas past would agree: Doors close quickly and can separate you from your party and the dream of realities.

I would like to introduce all of my Rabbit Room friends to illustrator, Glenn Hernandez. I discovered Glenn’s art on Instagram a few years ago, while he was working through some Wind in the Willows art, and was instantly captivated by his sensibilities. His unconventional style pays respect to his subject matter while ignoring cultural norms and expectancies concerning the given subject. JS: Glenn, first I want to say thank you for your time, and if you don’t already know, I’m a massive fan. Could you begin by giving us a glimpse of your artistic background, then tell us about Funomena and your roll there? GH: And thank you, Joe, for inviting me! I too am a huge admirer of your illustrations. I started drawing and painting when I was five years old. My parents are Guatemalan immigrants who, despite the troubles they experienced making ends meet, always encouraged my desire to draw and paint. My Dad would often sit for me to draw his portrait and would supply me with whatever he could to practice my drawing. I was largely self taught until my junior year of high school when I took my first formal art classes. After high school I decided to pursue music at St. Olaf College since I was also heavily involved in choir during high school. I entered as a vocal performance major and sang in The St. Olaf Choir for three years, though by the end of my time there I had switched my major to Studio Art because Music Theory got the best of me. After college I moved back to California and began to entertain dreams of working in animation. After a few years taking classes here and there, and constantly applying to Pixar (about eight times), I eventually landed a couple of interviews for a Character Design position there and though the interviews went very well, the timing just wasn’t right. Fortunately, a few months after those interviews I heard about a small game company that was starting up in San Francisco called Funomena and decided to cold-email the co-founder/CEO of the company, Robin Hunicke. After a few conversations over the phone and in person, we began to work together and I officially became a part of the team in November of that year. I am now Art Director on one of our game titles, Luna. I work with a small team of artists to develop the look and feel of the game. I feel very fortunate for this opportunity, especially since I am afforded a lot of autonomy in my work on a daily basis. The leadership part of the job is new to me, but it has been a tremendous growth opportunity. JS: First, Pixar missed out on you. Second, working on games sounds awesome. I’m sure any game with you on board will have aesthetics others do not. As an illustrator and designer, where do you pull your influences from? GH: Anything is fair game, I draw influence from everything from nature to architecture to furniture, logo and toy design. I am especially fond of obscure Modern Japanese block print artists like Umetaro Azechi. My work is also very influenced by music, most notably by composers like Rachmaninov, Berlioz, Frederick Delius, Peter Warlock, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Phillip Glass, John Adams, Bo Hanson, Brian Eno, and Charles Mingus to name a few. JS: Oh man, I’m a huge fan of Ralph Vaughan Williams! Sinfonia Antartica is my annual go-to for those frigid winter months. And I see a lot of those influences you mentioned coming through in the sketches you’ve been sharing. You’ve been sketching a lot lately, and posting a slew of genuinely amazing Tolkien-related art. Quite possibly the freshest vision of Tolkien since the Rankin-Bass Hobbit, in my opinion. What drew you to this subject matter, and what keeps you returning to it over and over? GH: Thank you so much for that compliment, I love the Rankin-Bass version of The Hobbit! I remember hearing about The Hobbit when I was in elementary school, but I didn’t read the book until I was in high school, so my first introduction to Bilbo and Gandalf was through the Rankin-Bass animated film. My first read through of The Hobbit made me want to read The Lord of The Rings but I found it a bit dense for my liking at the time. It wasn’t until my college years that I read through the entirety of LOTR during a week-long spring break. That first experience really captured my imagination. I was absolutely transported to Tolkien’s world and I couldn’t get enough, so I read The Silmarillion, and The Book of Lost Tales, etc. I think what keeps me coming back is the sense of mystery and wonder I get when I read the stories. Its much like the feeling I’d get as child pouring over old books illustrated by Arthur Rackham; I’d pull back the glassine to reveal these wonderful and rich Illustrations that evoked a feeling in me like the images were revealing some sort of ancient truth. LOTR evokes that for me and not just because of the philosophical subtext of the books but because Tolkien was a master storyteller and he put so much love into his mythology, making it feel authentic. Ironically, I never thought to do my own illustrations for Tolkien’s stories until recently, though it is a particular challenge now because his work has seen a major uptick in the popular consciousness. However, this might be perfect timing for me because for a good couple of years, the over-saturation of film imagery led me to put all my books in storage. In other words I was getting pretty sick of seeing ads for Denny’s Hobbit Breakfast—no thanks! I wanted some time away from Tolkien so I could one day come back to it with a fresh imagination. JS: I’m right there with you. How in the world could Denny’s even afford to promote a Hobbit breakfast? Customers would be sitting there eating through second breakfast and elevensies and so on. They would lose a ton of money. HA! So, as you flesh out your own vision of Middle-earth, what is your artistic mindset? You seem to have completely ignored our current, popular Tolkien culture. GH: It is to completely ignore popular Tolkien culture. In fact, ignore it so much as to make it pretty much non-existent in my own reality. An unfortunate side effect of the films gaining so much fandom is that it has saturated many readers’ and artists’ imaginations with images from the films and for many, those images have become a sort of visual cannon. In reality, the films are only ONE person’s interpretation. Moving forward with that mindset, the process of fleshing out my version of Middle-earth has become therapeutic. For the first time since the films made Tolkien’s stories popular, I’ve begun to reclaim my own imaginative vision, and my vision relies not on complex creature, armor, and costume designs, but on simplicity. I focus on clean and graphic shapes that evoke the spirit of the book through symbols rather than spoon feeding every little detail to my audience. Ultimately, my goal is to make my illustrations a supplement; a vision that doesn’t supplant the imaginations of those who love Tolkien’s work but encourages them to fill in the blanks and maybe even inspires them to create their own visions. JS: You’ve been very successful at doing just that. Every time you share something new, I want to go draw right away, feeling totally inspired. Do you plan to sell prints of any of the art? GH: Eventually I would like to. Right now I am content with it being a little passion project. I’ve been fortunate enough to have garnered a great response through Instagram, and if the enthusiasm persists then I would be open to making prints available in limited runs. I still have yet to work out the particulars, but if you follow my Instagram feed @glenndergarten then you will be the first to know! JS: Can you tell us a bit about your current favorite mediums to sketch in? Also, do you find something unique about sketching versus final art, and do you ever prefer your sketches over something more deliberate? GH: I am very fond of working in pen and ink, in particular a set of four Pentel brush pens that I fill with Noodlers brand ink. My favorite sketch tool right now is my Japanese retractable fountain pen. I bring it with me wherever I go. I also carry my Schminke Watercolor Pan set along with a portable water brush for quick color work. I buy a lot of my sketchbooks at a little Japanese stationary store in San Francisco called Maido. I really love the paper in these little pocket books, and I carry a few of them in my bag or in my pocket whenever I go out. I used to sketch people from life, but lately I’ve been focusing more on landscape and nature. I don’t know why that is. Maybe because creatively I like to live in my imagination, and anything that can supplement that (like a gorgeous landscape) will always trump the mundane day to day bus ride to work. I absolutely love the freedom I have when I sketch. I feel that the work I produce when I don’t over-think things is generally better than when I plan too much. Immediacy is very important to me, but while I have evolved and become more fluent with my lines and shapes, I wasn’t always happy with the work I was producing. I learned gradually that along with getting those first 1000 bad drawings out of the way, I also had to learn to live with my bad drawings and accept them as part of my growth. As a rule, I try and remember that every piece I do is really a step towards becoming a better illustrator, so I try not to put so much weight on getting things perfect in my deliberate work. I try and keep it as loose as if I were just sitting outside sketching. I am also a firm believer in happy mistakes. Often those little imperfections are what make the difference. JS: Mistakes can be scary, especially when you’re on the clock. But when you can make them work as an honest part of the process, it’s a special mindset and reduces stress. So, what’s in your near, creative future that you can share with us? And tell us how we can follow what you’re up to. GH: Well, professionally I am working on Luna, and though I can’t really talk too much about the game, I can at least link you to the trailer: Luna is a puzzle game set within a folk tale about why the moon waxes and wanes. These days, most of my creative effort is focused on making Luna, but I try to make time to work on my passion projects. In terms of illustration, I don’t have anything immediate coming up, but my eventual goal, perhaps after I finish the game (or concurrently while working on a new game project), is to do some freelance work on the side. My big dream has always been to be a children’s book illustrator. A few years back I attempted to set out on my own and find representation, but the market was pretty tough, and, in all honesty, my work wasn’t quite there yet. It would be a dream to illustrate book covers or do a Tolkien calendar, but all that will happen in good time. I’ve found that if I stress out too much about not being where I want to be creatively, I miss the whole point. For now I’ll just keep doing what I am doing. Folks who are interested in seeing more of my work can keep up to date by following my Instagram and Tumblr @glenndergarten. My website is out of date but I will eventually get back to it. Also in the immediate future I will be creating an art page on Facebook which I will announce via Instagram. JS: I for one, follow you daily. Once again, thank you so much, Glenn. I appreciate what you’re up to and I look forward to seeing where it takes you. GH: And thank you for your continued support, Joe. Likewise, keep up your excellent work!

Once upon a time, slugs and bugs weren’t capitalized and Randall Goodgame was a solo artist with sweet, irresistible releases like his Bluebird EP. He’s found a home writing hilarious and compelling songs for children and families these days, but we still enjoy going back a few years to listen to Randall-the-serious-songwriter now and then. If you’ve never heard Randall’s work, then this title track from Bluebird will serve as a perfect entry point. “Bluebird” by Randall Goodgame from the album Bluebird

[Loosely adapted from my portion of the Hutchmoot 2014 session “The Romance of the Gospel”*] Five years or so ago, I took swing dancing lessons in the name of trying scary things. Ballroom dances evoke images of poise and elegance and precision, but swing appealed to me as a reckless street dance that anybody can join, regardless of skill or athletic ability. (So no, I never did experience being tossed in the air and flung over someone’s head, thank goodness.) But of course, if you’re going to dance, there are always a few rules to get out of the way. The teachers stressed two major elements at the start of every class: frame and connection. Frame involves how you hold your body and keep a good posture as you move with the music. Connection is where the two frames meet, and the silent, subtle communication between leader and follower. If your frame is too loose, the follower flails around, unsure where to go. But hold your frame too rigid, and her moves become snappy and robotic, losing the flow and rhythm. The trick is keeping these things in balance, just taut enough to signal each move. Two great dancers can make it look like mind reading, even if they’ve just met. Without tension, there is no dance. It reminds me of the balance between head and heart as we contemplate the mystery of the Gospel. G. K. Chesterton suggested our religion “be less of a theory and more of a love affair,” that maybe the Gospel is big enough to contain both the highest reaches of our intellect and our most rapturous flights of romance. Sure, the idea of being “so in love” with Jesus can and does offend many a thinking Christian. For some, “It’s not a religion, it’s a relationship!” is a rallying cry against stuffy religious stereotypes, but once taken too far it slides into the mushy sentimentalism of a bad chick flick. The hard truth is that nobody stays in love forever. Eventually, the idol of romance has to die, one way or another, with some measure of heartbreak. Recognizing romance’s inevitable failure, the Gospel of the Intellect overcorrects, and we shield our hearts. We rationalize, theologize, and roll our eyes at emotional worship services. We seek evidence and proofs, and may even forget the early days of belief when we felt a stirring deep down that “just knew” the stories were true. But we were made to love, feel, and desire. As Sheldon Vanauken writes in A Severe Mercy, “being a great brain in a tower, nothing but a brain, wouldn’t be much fun. No excitement, no dog to love, no joy in the blue sky—no feelings at all.” These ideas are expanded well in C. S. Lewis’s The Four Loves: The event of falling in love is of such a nature that we are right to reject as intolerable the idea that it should be transitory. In one high bound it has overleaped the massive wall of our selfhood; it has made appetite itself altruistic, tossed personal happiness aside as a triviality and planted the interests of another in the centre of our being. And in that, maybe the Gospel really is like a love story. There’s another section I love in A Severe Mercy where the author, afraid his theoretical exploration of Christianity is leading him to actually believe, exchanges letters with C. S. Lewis. He weighs out his questions and confides his simultaneous hope and fear that the Gospel is true. Lewis’s replies dismantle Van’s facade and concerns about making that leap into belief. Then, with a flourish of wit we all love him for, Lewis’s second letter ends, “But I think you are already in the meshes of the net! The Holy Spirit is after you. I doubt if you’ll get away!” This is the romance of the Gospel. Some say love is a commitment, not a feeling, but that doesn’t make the feeling less real. The fall, the feeling that you “just know” it to be true, even when pieces don’t make sense, and especially when you doubt it, still hoping it’s true. It takes a measure of intellect to sustain love. Hard work keeps any fire burning: nurturing the relationship, self-denial, always striving to love better through action. So there is a framework and connection. But there is also rhythm and music. There is laughter and mis-step, falling down and getting up and reconciliation. Take any element away, and there is no dance. Or in better words: “If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal . . .” * Note: I didn’t think of the dance metaphor until hours after we finished our session.

I didn’t even wear a coat for the walk to my coffee shop today. The air is honey-toned and soft. The sky is so vividly blue it flashes in, arresting as flame through the windows of the lecture hall in the morning, drawing eye and heart into its promising warmth. Springtime is a dream blooming up at the edge of winter today. Daffodils huddle under the woven black of the bare, tangled tree limbs. The earth broods, damp, close to waking. The first snowdrops star the dark carpets under the trees. And birdsong wakes me early in the morning. The life of this freshened day, the light, the searing blue, draws my sight up and outward constantly. From work, from screen, from dreams, my consciousness is drawn away from the clamor of my student life to a great, silent glory. I am challenged to attention by this beauty. The color of it is a kind of demand upon my eyes, a request I fully answer with my wholly given attention. Who could refuse an invitation to such magnificence? Funny then, that Shrove Tuesday, the day in the church year when believers around the world prepare to abstain in some way from earthy luxury, should fall amidst such splendor. No rain, or dampened skies, no dim, dark hours are present this afternoon to match the self-denial so associated with the opening of Lent. Tomorrow, I’ll walk up to the altar in my church, confess my mortality, and receive the mark of ashes on my forehead. I’ll remember my sin. I’ll try to fast in some way for forty whole days. Incongruous, it might seem at first, to begin this Lenten season of self-denial just as springtime wakens in all its opulence. But as I contemplate the coming season this afternoon, perched in my coffee shop window seat, I find in the gem-like world out the panes a perfect frame as I prepare my heart to repent. I think the sunlight, the searing blue, the quickened life, the fragile flowers are a fit and lovely setting to this opening of Lent. Because, though the practice of Lent is repentance and self-denial, repentance is simply the way by which I rid myself of the lesser things that distract me from their source. A great glory, greater even than the golden day out this window, dwells in the inmost room of my heart. The morning star of the universe has taken up residence in my soul, and Lent is the season in which I remember the single, blazing fact of him there, and journey back from all that draws my sight from his glory. Lent is, I think, the answer of the human soul to the challenge and invitation of God’s love. Lent is the call to turn my face from the clamor of a thousand distractions, to the Beauty in which I have my being. Yes, it is a season of denial. But the denial is of the non-essential things that make it a genuine difficulty for me to live in the presence of God’s essential Love. To confess is to name what hinders God’s life in me. Habits of sin or distraction, of hatred nurtured, of insecurity kept. To fast is to free myself from the niggling loves that lessen my response to the great one. To wait, to watch, to keep a season of reflection, is to grow quiet enough to meet the Easter event with clarified, adequate, renewed sight that greets the gift of the risen Christ in fully ripened joy. Lent is a return, to the heart of all that matters most, the single Matter of Christ apart from whom nothing matters at all. My Lenten practices this year? To give up some food or drink (yet to be decided). To try, as much as possible, to keep company with the wider Church by keeping a partial fast on Fridays and setting aside an extra space for prayer. Simple, small things really, little tests to jolt me awake to God. The harder thing? A space of determined, daily, kept quiet in which technology is banned and prayer or silence is practiced from early evening until morning prayers the following day. It’s easy, in the busy days I lead, to collapse into my chair at the end of the day and open the computer. To scan, to click, to fritter an hour or two away on a miniseries or a few random articles. None of it evil, of course. But it means that I go to sleep with a busy brain and waken with an unquiet mind. I reach for my iPhone as I rise, wondering what deadline I’ve missed, or news I need to know. Before I’ve even been awake ten minutes, my mind is in a whirl from which it is difficult to emerge for even a brief time of Scripture and prayer. Lectures await. Essays scream to be written. And I, already amidst a whirlwind, feel that God looms somewhere beyond the whiz of it all, but I can’t really catch his eye. Well, I plan to let him catch my eye in this season of quiet and catch it good. I begin with an awareness of God’s full givenness to me, a grace that allows me to repent in loving response rather than guilt. Guilt is easy for me. I’m a perfectionist. It’s funny; the more I am drawn into the rhythms of worship here in Oxford, forms and prayers that answer some of the deepest hungers of my heart for shape, rhythm, physical expression of worship, the deeper my sense of inadequacy grows. I often find myself kneeling in an aching, angsty desire to somehow give or be more than I am in response to the God I encounter in worship. I strain, I grieve with the desire to offer more of myself in response to the Love given so freely to me. Much of my prayer boils down to a simple repetition, “I wish I could offer more.” A holy desire, perhaps, but one that, in a perfectionist heart like mine, can turn my eyes to my own faults rather than the Love that heals them. But a few nights ago, I went to Compline at Magdalen College. In deep shadow, amidst plain-chanted hymns to end the day, I looked to the altar where candles burned round a simple cross. Behind the altar loomed a larger than life picture of a sorrowing Christ, cross on his shoulder, garbed in brown, down on one knee as he bore the weight of the world’s sin and grief. Kneeling there in the lyrical, candlelit darkness, with the hymns almost whispered in a tender, gentle awe, I was aware of Christ’s givenness. Of the love poured without stint or measure. Of the grace that is with me now, regardless of what I offer. I did not need to give, because all Love was already given to me. All that was needed was my joy in the fact. Lent is, I think, the nourishment of joy. It’s the honing of sight, the hushing of mind, so that Love can make his presence potently known. If you’ve never practiced Lent before, well, join the club. Neither have I, at least to this extent. But I’m excited. Eager, like a child standing at the cusp of a journey. I’ve eaten my required stack of Shrove Tuesday pancakes (which, in England, are really crepes dressed with lemon and sugar). I’ve feasted at formal hall to end the evening. I’ve watched the day close with the knowledge that tomorrow a great quieting and centering of soul and self begins. Tomorrow I will hear these words: Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ. Christ, in whom dust is formed back into living love. Join me.

This is a poem I wrote for my sweet wife a few years ago. It was published in the third volume of The Molehill and I post it here because it’s February, when people talk about love and stuff. You are beautiful in ways You cannot see. Beautiful In light and motion and grace, In patience, in the little Smile that is your first instinct When you’re anxious or happy, Or shy—even sad. In fact, Your loveliest smile may be The one you show me then: When all that is left is you, When at last your strength is spent, When the plant has lost its bloom, When you can no longer pretend That your fear has no power; Then, my love, you reach the end And I can see your finest flower.

[This week’s guest post (in two parts) is by Matthew Aughtry, whom you may recall created this short film, and this “What is Hutchmoot” short. Check out Matthew’s Vimeo channel to see his beard and his other work.] Read Part 1 here. In studying Lewis’s life one finds that it is no secret that he was not very popular within the corner of academia that he occupied and The Chronicles of Narnia certainly did not help his case. Even J. R. R. Tolkien, his Oxford colleague who had written a children’s book himself, was not fond of the series. Yet a large portion of the world was very fond of them, especially children. Lewis did not worry over this fact because he knew that a good book for children is simply a good book, period. He once wrote in an essay, When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.[7] Perhaps some think Lewis’s chronicles are in the category of books you should eventually feel ashamed of, but it seems that many more do not. Indeed their endurance in popular culture is at least some testament to this. Many adults must consider these books still worth reading since they continue to pass them on to students and even to their own children. Perhaps one of the things that children find most appealing about these stories is that the protagonists are always similar in age. Moreover, the Narnian tales may be particularly engaging for children because they not only tell stories centered around young boys and girls but the narratives themselves place great importance on what they do, how they act or react to certain situations, and the choices they make. In Narnia, any boy can become a brave warrior and any girl is capable of becoming a wise leader. In their ordinary lives children may see themselves as ancillary to the primary story of the world, to its hard choices and the difficult decisions of adults, but in the world of Narnia they have the weight of responsibility thrust upon them. Lewis’s fiction helps boys and girls of all ages to recognize that their choices matter. There is no excuse for making a bad decision, not even youthful ignorance. Indeed Lewis shows us that Lucy, though she is the youngest of the four Pevensie children, makes many of the best choices. Not only is she afforded the special honor of entering Narnia before the other children and of seeing Aslan first, she also naturally exudes a special kindness and grace. Edmund, on the other hand, is older than Lucy yet makes several bad (and costly) decisions. He even tries to disparage Lucy’s age when lying about his own trip to Narnia so as not to appear childish in front of his older siblings. When Lucy storms out of the room because she is upset with his refusal to tell the truth, Edmund plays it off by saying, “That’s the worst of young kids.”[8] Children commenting on how grown up they are, or how childish another person is, seems to be a recurring theme throughout the Narnia books. In The Magician’s Nephew, Digory and Polly get into an argument, and one of the jabs he throws at her is, “I should never dream of calling a kid like you a woman.”[9] The idea that adulthood is a goal to reach and then to revel in seems to be the downfall of Susan Pevensie. Phillip Pullman, a famous author and a Lewis detractor, has asserted that Lewis condemned Susan to Hell for becoming interested in boys.[10] However, that is a gross misreading of a passage in The Last Battle. It is true that Susan does not join her brothers and sisters on the journey to Aslan’s Country. However, the reason she is not in Narnia is not that she has been condemned to Hell. Her interest in boys, which is never explicitly mentioned but only suggested, is only a small part of her problem. Susan is reported to mock Narnia and her adventures there as only a bit of fun that she and her siblings made up as children. Her real interest is in being grown-up, which is not portrayed as an interest in being responsible or self-reliant but primarily as a putting on of airs and feigning superiority. Polly complains, She wasted all her school time wanting to be the age she is now, and she’ll waste all the rest of her life trying to stay that age. Her whole idea is to race on to the silliest time of one’s life as quick as she can and then stop there as long as she can.[11] Lewis’ indictment of Susan feels apt for our own culture, which seems to idolize the idea of being young and independent forever without the responsibility that comes with independence or the sense of wonder that comes with being young. Indeed, one could argue that the characteristics in both childhood and adulthood that Lewis values are in direct conflict with current cultural values. Susan is not the only one of the Pevensies to make this critical error; Edmund also put more stock in being grown-up than in acting like an adult. Though he touts his maturity, he also commits one of the most childish acts in all of the books: betraying his siblings for sweets. Edmund’s first encounter with the White Witch and subsequent selling-out of his kin may in some small part be attributed to her magical powers, but it is made abundantly clear that Edmund still makes his own decision, and moreover that he makes the wrong one. Edmund betrays his family to the White Witch because he is enticed by her offer of rooms full of endless Turkish Delight. Granted, there is an element of trickery to his tempter’s scheme, but Lewis makes it clear that Edmund is still to blame for his actions. After all, he hides his meeting with the evil queen from the others and even ignores Lucy’s warnings about her. Yet it is not only the Witch’s promise of treats that entices Edmund but also the idea of his importance. He seems to desire respect without earning it, and wants to sit enthroned above his brother and sisters. The Witch says that he can be the King when she dies and until then he will be a prince who “would wear a gold crown and eat Turkish Delight all day long.”[12] Since the White Witch is immortal (or at least lives much longer than human beings), one can deduce that Edmund would actually be a perpetual prince, stuffing his face with dessert and never donning the true crown. Edmund’s temptation and Susan’s failure are similar: to be considered adults without accepting responsibility and to reign forever as a prince or princess without ever feeling the crown’s weight. Thankfully, Edmund’s choice does not seal his fate (and that gives us reason to hope that Susan’s will not either). The Pevensie children do eventually become the Kings and Queens of Narnia. The description of their reign makes it clear that they are not simply throwing balls and lavish dances. Lewis writes, “These two kings and two queens governed Narnia well, and long and happy was their reign . . . And they made good laws . . . And they entered into friendship and alliance with countries beyond the sea and paid them visits of state.”[13] Lawmaking and trade deals with other countries don’t come up in most children’s books, and their inclusion makes it clear that the children actually took on the task of governing the land. The crowns may be beautiful, but they also carry their full gravity of power and responsibility. Of course, it is not as if these children immediately become the most courageous queens or wisest kings but rather they grow into these roles. In Mere Christianity Lewis wrote: The only way to get a quality in reality is to start behaving as if you had it already. That is why children’s games are so important. They are always pretending to be grown-up . . . But all the time, they are hardening their muscles and sharpening their wits, so that the pretense of being grown-up helps them grow up in earnest.[14] Following this argument it becomes clear that even if the world of Narnia was only imaginary, its effects on the children were no less real. Perhaps the stories we tell our children and the ones they consume on their own have similar ramifications. I think becoming a parent has actually given me a keener eye for story than I had before. Not in terms of structure, character arcs, or plot twists, but regarding what stories are saying, or trying to say. I think about stories I want to shield my son from as long as possible—and I don’t just mean ones with profanity or pornographic violence, I also mean the news shows that insist that yelling the loudest proves you’re right and that the best way to defeat your opponents is to dehumanize them. But avoiding isn’t enough, I also want to introduce stories that will feed his imagination and teach him to desire that which is good and true and beautiful. I hope they help him long for the crown but to also accept the responsibility that comes with. Thankfully I don’t think the works of Lewis are going out of print anytime soon. Finally, I hope that the stories he reads and watches and listens to inspire him to tell his own stories. Of course, I don’t care if he grows up to be a writer or filmmaker—but everyone tells at least one story, one that builds with every moment and every day before turning into months and years and, in the end, a life. I hope his life tells the story of holding to the truth, seeking wisdom, protecting honor, loving enemies, forgiving trespasses, and accepting grace for all the times he fails to do these things. I can’t wait to tell my son the great stories, but in the end I know that the most important story I will tell him is also the one I live out in front of him every day. I must show him what it means to be grown-up, but I think I’ve found through Lewis’ writings that sometimes the best guide to adulthood is actually found in the simplest children’s tales. Someone once said that a little differently, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3). Only the children get into the kingdom but once there they don’t stay children, they grow up into something quite wonderful. And that is the best story of all. _________________ [7] C. S. Lewis, “On Three Ways of Writing for Children.” In Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories, edited by Walter Hooper (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1967), 25. [8] C. S. Lewis and Pauline Baynes. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (New York: Harper Trophy, 2000), 45. [9] C. S. Lewis and Pauline Baynes. The Magician’s Nephew (New York: HarperTrophy, 2000), 55. [10] John Ezard. “Narnia Books Attacked as Racist and Sexist.” The Guardian. June 3, 2002. Accessed August 26, 2014. http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/jun/03/gender.hayfestival2002. [11] C. S. Lewis and Pauline Baynes. The Last Battle (New York: HarperTrophy, 2000), 154-5. [12] C. S. Lewis and Pauline Baynes. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (New York: Harper Trophy, 2000), 39. [13] Lewis and Baynes, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, 183. [14] C. S. Lewis, “Mere Christianity.” In The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classics (New York, NY: HarperOne, 2007), 161.

Here’s a painting I finished last month, called The Voyage of the Peacock. It’s 20″x 20″. I shared an in-progress shot with you in January and so I thought some of you might be interested to see how it turned out. This isn’t really about how the idea of The Voyage came to be, but the formation of the painting itself. Basically I’m going to take you through the different stages of the painting and what went on in my mind as I was painting it. So let’s start, shall we? (Click on any image below for a larger and more complete view). figure 2 It started with looking at the 6″x 6″ version of the painting and thinking, “I want a bigger one. With more details. A painting that feels even more real!” So I went to work and sketched the painting on my black canvas. I blocked in the sky and some of the water (figure 2). figure 3 I worked on the sky for a little bit and then decided to block in the body of the ship. It’s just good to get as much color in as soon as possible (figure 3). For what it’s worth, I also wanted to paint those peacock wings because I thought they could look pretty cool. When I did they looked like grass growing out of the side of the boat, which was rather unexpected. I thought about leaving it like that, but decided against it because I wanted to paint the feathers. figure 4 So I drew in  what the feathers would look like on one wing (figure 4). I also decided on red for the sail and worked a bit more on the waves. figure 5 After painting in the wing feathers, I started working on the tail feathers. The deck began to take shape as well (figure 5). figure 6 I then turned my attention to the sail. It was the wrong shape so I changed it and I modified the emblem on it as well. It also became more orange and less red at this point. Then I painted the peacock neck and head. And I was trying to figure out how to brace the mast (because it’s my understanding that masts need bracing) so I decided to put a collar on the peacock with a rope (figure 6). It didn’t look right when I’d finished, though… too cruel or enslaving or something. So I asked people on Instagram and Facebook what they thought and most said the same thing. So I painted it out again. Sorry, mast, you’re on your own. figure 7 I finished by painting in a tiny ship’s wheel with a little boy steering. I also put a little girl up near the bow, scouting the waters ahead (figure 7). After that I varnished it and got it framed (figure 8). The last step will be photographing it for my records and so I can make prints of it. figure 8

Andy Gullahorn is hilarious. “Skinny Jeans,” quick wit, self-deprecation, all of that. But if you only know Andy as a funny songwriter, you’ve completely missed the boat on an exceptional artist. Beyond The Frame was released last year and featured one stirring track after another, each marked by Andy’s incredible ability to turn the song’s meaning or perspective on a dime. The end result is always striking, and this song, which Andy sang at the last Local Show, is a great example. “Line in the Sand” by Andy Gullahorn from the album Beyond the Frame When I was a kid The second of four I remember my dad would sometimes call me by my brother’s name It bothered me then I thought if he loved me more There’s no way that he’d repeat the same mistake I swore to him that when I’d finally grown I would never do that sort of thing But now that I’ve got three kids of my own I love them and confuse them just the same What I thought was true What I thought was right Sure looks a little different after all this time No the truth won’t change But perspective can So much for the line in the sand So much for the line in the sand There was a time I was on fire I had a love for a Word I thought I knew but didn’t understand ‘Cause I used it as a weapon To judge from on high With no love or grace for any who were struggling But struggles of my own I could not hide And I found myself among the least of men So you might imagine my surprise As I came to recognize myself in them CHORUS Nobody knows what he wrote on the ground Between the men with the stones and the one left to die But there in the sand in front of that crowd Was the sweep of a hand erasing a line So give a name to your fear Put a face to the name Take a look at the tears in the eye of that face and feel the pain Take a walk in his shoes and feel something change And know it’s not the truth No it’s not the truth It’s you

Once in a while, I get to ride the Charniaz Express. Nestled in the Alps between the villages of Les Gets and Morzine, close to the border of France and Switzerland, it is a chairlift with a magic all its own. At the top, beyond the tangle of battered down pistes and unspoilt powder, there is a little mountain hut and a chiminea with a roaring fire. The hot chocolate is rich and sweet with swirls of fresh cream that turn liquid on your tongue and the air is so cold and pure it almost hurts to breathe. It’s my favourite place in the whole world. If you get there at just the right time you can sit in a battered yellow deckchair in the snowy silence and watch as dozens of hot air balloons rise from the valley floor below and float like bubbles between the glistening mountain peaks on either side, vivid colours dancing on a backdrop of white snow and blue sky. On other days the view is cloaked by the wildness of an alpine storm. As silence gives way to howling wind, nature flexes her muscles in an explosive display of raw and untameable passion. Braced against the needles of ice and snow that sting even the smallest area of exposed skin it is impossible not to surrender to the awe that presses insistently on your soul. Then there are the days when the clouds are low. From your vantage point on the mountain you find yourself looking down at a dense canopy which slices the landscape in two, separating the majesty of what is above from the misty grey valley that has been swallowed up in cloud. If I could, I would pitch a tent beside the fire and spend my days up there, hands wrapped around a warm mug and heart awake to the majesty of it all. The reality is that much of life is lived down below, in the shadow of the overhanging cloud, where the memory of the mountain is constantly mocked by the creaking and groaning of an ageing world. It is in the chill of the shadows that the questions come. How can I write about breathtaking beauty when the valley is so full of darkness? Why keep longing for the mountain top when brokenness pours from the newspapers, TVs and radios in a tangled mess of hatred, anger, sickness, and famine until my heart feels like lead and my legs have no strength left for the climb? Is there a place for majesty when cancer stretches out its long and sinewy fingers once more, clawing and grabbing at someone else I love? Last year, inspired by a Rabbit Room piece on the subject, I somewhat sceptically asked God to show me a picture of what he wanted me to do with my life. Almost immediately I was drawn to that spot on the mountain, where my hope has been rekindled in a surge of holy awe. Standing there, I have often felt an almost uncontrollable urge to fill my lungs and shout with all my might just so that I can hear the sound ricochet from hill to hill, shaking snow from trees and startling unsuspecting birds into flight. And God said, “Do it!” “Come with me to the mountain. Drink in the glimpses of all that is still to come. Open my word and search for me until you are consumed by visions of my glory, then take what that you have witnessed there and shout about it. Shout and shout until you have no breath left and then shout some more. Fill the frozen valley with sounds of hope so that the people who are trapped beneath the cloud will know that I am here. Tell them that the true landscape is infinitely more vast and beautiful than what their eyes can see. Join your voice with the others as the songs and stories of hope tumble down the mountain, piercing through the canopy of cloud and filling the valley below with shafts of holy light. Tell them to hold on because one day soon a single breath will scatter the clouds like ashes on the wind and light will banish the shadows forever.” The truth is, beauty and longing and majesty matter most when the clouds are thickest. They matter because they are a reminder to our souls that all is not lost. On the days when it seems like the raging torrent of all that is not will surely sweep away forever the good and real and true, we need to be reminded that above the swirling cloud is a God who sees what we can not. And so, every chance I get, I’m going to ride the Charniaz Express. On the way up the words of Isaiah 40 v 9 will be ringing in my ears: “You who bring good tidings to Zion, go up on a high mountain. You who bring good tidings to Jerusalem, lift up your voice with a shout, lift it up, do not be afraid; say to the towns of Judah, “Here is your God!”