It occurred to me this morning that it might be helpful to think through one really annoying aspect of creative work, which is that every single time you sit down to make something, even if you’ve done this for years and know the routine, it feels like you’re starting from scratch. It feels like you have absolutely nothing to offer, nothing new to say, and whatever you’ve managed to get right in the past was just a fluke, and you’re not writing a song so much as reinventing the wheel. Or building the Space Shuttle out of matchsticks. While this is true in some ways, in others it isn’t true at all. Here’s what I mean. It’s true because the creative act is and will always be a mystery to which we are only allowed the access of clarity for fleeting moments if at all. For ninety nine percent of the time the process is frustrating and difficult and tiresome. This is to be expected. Good things take work, and in the end God isn’t interested in the thing you’re making half as much as the person he’s making out of you. Work, pain, frustration, joy, patience: these are the tools God uses (along with many other things) to shape our souls. In this sense, then, the song is writing you. Every now and then, though, the veil is lifted and the subcreator gets to see the beautiful mechanism (wheels within wheels) at work behind the curtain, and the process of songwriting makes sudden and perfect sense. “So this is how you write a song,” you think. Then, just as suddenly, the veil falls back into place, the glow is gone, and the world seems drab by comparison. Has this ever happened to you? It’s tantalizing—just enough to make you want to pick up your guitar again in defiance of your fears. But there’s another truth at work: you’re not starting from scratch. You’ve done this before. You know how this works. If you wrote a song once, it must be possible to do it again, right? Songs exist. Humans write them. I am a human. Therefore it must be possible for me to write one—even if it ends up being lousy. You have the testimony of history on your side, Ebenezer stones dotting the landscape all the way to the horizon. It’s also the great blessing of the Bible. We have something the fathers of our faith didn’t have, at least not in the way we have it: perspective. We’re able to see in Scripture that when God makes a promise, he keeps it. We’re able to see the story as it has unfolded since the beginning, and so, though the future is dark, the past is pulsing with light. So are we starting from scratch? Yes. And no. Every line in your notebook, every strum of your guitar is an act of faith. But you’ve been here before. Don’t be afraid.

“Ball,” he said, and he gestured to the heavens. I looked where my little boy was pointing and saw a full moon hanging high in the winter sky. “That’s right, you brilliant boy,” I said. “It is a ball. The moon is a great big ball.” He didn’t know more than four or five words at the time: Mama. Daddy. Ball. Dog. Plane. What a remarkable thing—to have words only for one’s favorite things in the world. “The moon is a ball,” I told my boy, “and so is the earth we’re standing on. This whole world is one big ball set spinning in the universe.” He smiled at me. It was not a smile of comprehension, but of contentment. To me it seemed to say, “Of course this whole world is a ball! And why shouldn’t it be? It’s a great ball where dogs trot and planes soar overhead and my mama loves me and my daddy holds me in the cold night and tells me what I suspected all along: that the moon is a ball, and the world is too.”

Not a day goes by that I don’t look down and see it. Every day, at least one person asks about the symbol tattooed on my arm. “What’s your tattoo mean?” I never know how to answer that question. Well, that’s kind of a long story . . . it’s from this book I read . . . Fin Button (the protagonist in Fiddler’s Gun and Fiddler’s Green) is an icon of my own passions and fears, my own wounds, my own desire to voyage out into the world to do something with my burning heart. She embodies some of the most fundamental aspects of our human existence: the need to love and be loved, the yearning for a place to belong, the burning desire to be who we are in the world and to nurture and protect the places and people we hold dear. Every time I return to Fin’s story, I hear the last stanza of Christian Wiman’s poem, “And I Said To My Soul Be Loud”: For I am come a whirlwind of wasted things and I will ride this tantrum back to God until my fixed self, my fluorescent self my grief-nibbling, unbewildered, wall-to-wall self withers in me like a salted slug Fin’s journey through pain and into beauty is, like our own, dizzy with light and darkness, joy and suffering. It follows no pre-determined formula for traveling from Point A to Point B and takes on the non-linear and wildly free traveling pattern of a ship at sea—destination in mind, but swept along by the breeze of life. There are enemies and allies, tragedies and victories; mistakes are made, and lives are taken. The smell of gunpowder is strong, but there is music floating across the deck of the Rattlesnake. In the transformation of pain into beauty, what is calcified in us is softened; what is artificial and grief-stricken finds its way to joyful authenticity; what is confined and lost in wonderlessness recovers the innocent eyes and imagination of childhood.* It’s been a couple years since I read Fiddler’s Gun from cover to cover, but it’s never far from my reach. The cover is completely shot, folded over and stained and torn. It’s beautiful. I open to dog-eared pages bearing a beloved typeset, offering a story to the world—the story of a young girl in pain, learning to turn that pain into beauty. Turn it beautiful. Those pages also bear my own scribblings, black ink from the only kind of pen I ever use: a Pilot Precise V5. My story in the margins of Fin’s story. We understand each other. Turn it beautiful. How these words have haunted me. They’ve taken up residence in my soul. I wasn’t sure about getting a tattoo. I didn’t know if I wanted to be that old lady, the one with the withered ink. But the more I immersed myself in Fin’s story, the more I knew I wanted both the visceral experience of pain being turned into beauty and the visible reminder of this deep truth, this grace: Turn it beautiful. When I found myself sitting down to a meal in Santa Fe, New Mexico, next to poet Luci Shaw, whose right shoulder was boasting the sharp lines of a new tattoo, it was decided. The tattoo was intended to provide a permanent reminder of the meaning I long for my life to inhabit, the meaning I hope inhabits my life. I scribbled the words on a scrap of paper and sat down in a reclining chair tucked into the back corner of a tattoo parlor in a tiny Northwestern Michigan town.Turn it beautiful. As I watched the needle alter the color of my skin, I held the words close to my heart. Black ink from the tattoo gun** mingled with specks of crimson from my own veins. I felt the story take up residence in my blood. In the pain of the experience, I felt the pain of my own story, this whirlwind of wasted things, enveloping me and making itself available to me as raw material. Shortly after this experience, a friend texted me a picture he’d snapped of the final stanza in Luci Shaw’s poem “Stephansdom Cathedral, Vienna”: So much of life happens between the verses of the psalms. When I got the tattoo, the pain subsided as the image grew, the duet of flesh and ink branding me for the ages with a flower-cross. The likeness, on the skin of my right shoulder, will someday toughen into leather. But why, they’ll speculate, did she do it? What in her life was like a flower? A cross? So much of life happens between the lines of a good story. When I got the tattoo, the pain subsided as the image grew, the duet of flesh and ink branding me for the ages with a fiddle-gun. The likeness, on the skin of my left forearm, will someday toughen into leather. But why, they’ll speculate, did she do it? What in her life was like a fiddle? A gun? *For a musical interlude, listen to Ron Block and Rebecca Reynolds’ song “Let There Be Beauty.” **For the Star Wars fans among us: The artist had attached a Darth Vader head to the end of this tool of his trade and dubbed the tattoo gun “Darth Shader.”

I’ve wanted to be a musician since I was a kid. Had posters on my walls of Jars of Clay and Steven Curtis Chapman (before I discovered Pearl Jam). I dreamed of playing arenas, being in a recording studio, making music with my heroes. It has been an incredible gift and honor to, one by one, put little checkmarks on each entry of the dream list. It’s also let me see the reality of touring/musician life, and that being “bigger” or more successful is not something I actually even want. It would mean more travel and more things pulling me from my family, which to me is a much deeper calling. I’ve come to a place where it feels I have to choose between providing for my family on the road or being with them at home. This past year I’ve found myself praying for a way to keep working with people I love on music I love, while coming off the road and being with my family. So next week I will be starting a job at Capitol Records in the Christian Music division. This would be the label that bought the label that both signed and dropped The Normals. Same building. Such glorious irony. Or is it merely happenstance, Alanis? I’ll be doing A&R, which is short for Artist & Repertoire. Essentially, I’ll be coming alongside artists, encouraging and helping them find the right vision for their projects and the right songs to speak into that vision. It is connecting artists with songwriters, producers, engineers, etc to make the right combination for the best record. It’s also scouting and signing new acts. This job is half of what you do while producing indie records, and it’s honestly my favorite part. Songs are what define an artist and a record, and being able to speak into them in their infancy is something I love. Getting to know a new roster of artists and helping them find what God has made great in them when they’ve forgotten. This is something I am incredibly passionate about and can’t wait to be able to do full-time. And this will be a full-time, office, salary and benefits kind of gig. Something I’ve never had before. It will mean, however, coming off the road as a full-time musician. This past year was maybe the most I’ve ever enjoyed playing music on the road and I’m glad to be able to leave it while it’s a thing I love. I’ll also be letting go of the studio, which is sad in one sense, but freeing in that “check I don’t have to write every month” way. I’ll be moving a lot of my gear into Ben Shive’s BeeHive Studio so he has some more toys to play with and I’ll still have a place to go and make some noise. And some more EPs. I’ll continue my artist writing and recording, because I couldn’t stop if I tried, and after all, I still owe you four more EPs! So you’ll be getting more music from me this year than you ever have before. I’ll also keep writing music with my friends and playing on their records if they’ll have me! Road-wise, I’ll be finishing out a few solo and weekend Steven Curtis shows that are left on the schedule for this season. And I’ll keep playing Nashville shows, since honestly, those are usually the most fun anyway. The truth is, my solo music has always been a side job, so except for not seeing me on the Christmas tour, it probably won’t look too different from the outside. For my family, I’m hopeful it’s going to look very different. In a good way. I’m really excited about this new opportunity, a chance to really speak into something I have both loved and loathed over the years. I’m looking forward to getting to work with my producer/writer/artist friends in a new capacity, hopefully bringing them work and bringing true and beautiful music to a wider audience. Mostly, I’m excited about seeing my girls and Alison every day. I’m thrilled to be able to be a more stable presence in our home, with a more stable income (and dental!) and a job that lets me use my love of songs, Jesus, and people in a new way. I’ve had the incredible opportunity to share the stage with my heroes, write songs that have been a part of both weddings and funerals, and have made the most amazing friends. I’ve played somewhere around 2000 shows and done over half a million miles in a 15-passenger van. I got to perform at Carnegie Hall! I have somehow been able to play guitar and sing harmonies with the absolute best songwriters in a town called Music City. Looking at that last paragraph feels like it’s written about somebody else. It can sound lofty in a bio, but it’s just been hard work at a thing I love, nose down, trying to pay the bills. For me, it has taken walking out of the room to realize just how amazing it was to have been there in the first place. Thanks for being my friend and being a part of the past 16 years as a working musician. It has literally been a dream come true. Andrew P.S. To celebrate this new beginning, I’m going to be throwing an online StageItparty next Tuesday night, 7:30 Central. I start the job Wednesday morning, so this will be the Reverse MidLife Crisis Eve Show. I’ll be playing songs from the Heart EP and from the past 15 years. Hope to see you there!!

If all goes according to plan, in the fall I will be filling in for my colleague on sabbatical and teaching the course “Sustainability in Action” at Point Loma Nazarene University. The purpose of the course is “to equip us as scholars and citizens of the United States, the world, and Christ’s Kingdom to be effective champions of the changes humanity must make in order to live sustainably within the ecological and social limits of earth.” In preparation for the class I have been brushing up on my agrarian readings. Today I have been enjoying Norman Wirzba’s edited volume, The Future of Culture, Community, and the Land: The Essential Agrarian Essays. By itself Barbara Kingsolver’s “Forward” is worth price of the book. Yet, this afternoon I took a break from reading agrarian prescriptions for sustainability to watch the livestream of the SpaceX Falcon launch to the International Space Station. It was killer! And yesterday’s news from NASA that the exoplanet Kepler 186f orbits within the habitable zone of its star was awesomeness on a Perelandraic order. Perhaps this is as good a time as any to confess I am secretly writing a sci-fi story. By now, you are wondering where I am heading with this blog post. Well, it is less a post with a point than an inquiry. You see what is odd about my interest in agrarianism and outer space is that I am completely removed from both. I am a non-astronautical, indoors suburbanite who nevertheless thinks farming and space flight are spellbinding. What I want to know is, why? Obviously it makes sense to ask rabbits about garden tomatoes. This group of rabbits, however, seem to know a thing or two about space. (“Blast through the glass of the atmosphere.” “Rocket, rocket shooting to the moon.” Leonard?) What I cannot imagine is Wendell Berry in a cosmonaut suit. What I can imagine, if ever I journeyed to Mars, is kicking back in a pressurized chamber reading Jayber Crow. What I am having a hard time figuring out is how my imagination works. #SpaceX #WendellBerry

I have to admit… Christmas is everyone’s favorite holiday (mine too), but something about the Lenten and Easter season feels deeper, more profound as I get older. Yet what do you do with Holy Saturday, that single dark day in between despair and hope? Last year, I did my best to capture the tiniest glimpse of what it might have been like for those left behind who didn’t yet know for sure how the story would end… She used to say she loved those TV movies about Jesus, but hated the crucifixion scene even though it was toned down in the grains of 1970s film, palatable to the eyes of those eating dinner in front of a flickering screen. This is us, now, knowing how it all ends, knowing in three days the lungs of God would reinflate. Knowing the ending, could I ever comprehend the blackness, ever imagine the darkest Saturday in history? A King’s body shrouded in spices and linen lay withering behind stone, The budding bloom of salvation, crushed careless trod by His creation. Oh my God today the sun scatters clouds the sun that once turned away at your final earthly breath as the lion lay shorn and still. May I never forget the darkest day of history, spring stopped, waiting, pressing her face at the tomb’s door.

Lent I On Noah In your dreams you saw water and death. In your days you saw darkness and evil. How far we have come from the gates of paradise, spewing a wretched trail in the wake, vomiting the rotten fruit of our first sin. And yet how does this horror of water and blood manage to be our sole salvation? I run to the secret place and hide, resolving to cling to the dark mystery of grace. Lent II On Malaysia flight 370 In a moment of horror I cannot say how, we plummeted through clouds on bright wings broken, cast into the deep into the lowest darkness. The eyes of men searched to and fro, in days and nights of weariness, while I sank down to the heart of the earth to the black, cold soul of Sheol. Out of the depths I cry to you to the eyes that see through dark or light, raise me up from the shadow of death on bright wings born from morning’s fire. Lent III On the Oso mudslide In matter of moments earth took them back, though it takes us all just much more slowly. God formed man out of the dust and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. The living search for bodies in the mud life in the dirt like a desperate spring Son of man, can these bones live? Sovereign Lord, breath giver, you alone know.

[Editor’s note: Rejoice, Kickstarter backers! The presses are rolling on The Warden and the Wolf King. We’ll send out a Kickstarter survey in the next few days to collect shipping addresses, so keep a close watch on your email.] Around two years ago, Andrew Peterson and I were just shooting the breeze now and then about a nice illustrated map for the fourth and final chapter of his acclaimed Wingfeather Saga. I was pumped about it and itching to get started, but I was secretly telling my wife Gina, “I wonder if Andrew would let me do some other art as well. Like, for free.” Well it just so happened, while we were on the phone about this time last year, that he popped the question. And I said, “NO, Andrew! I’m happily married!” Wait . . . that’s not how it went at all. We were discussing the map when he kind of fished around, wondering if I would be up to doing some additional art for the book. It kind of sounded like this: “Well, I would REALLY love to have the book be heavily illustrated, but we don’t have a budget, or any money at all . . . so I probably can’t pay you much—or anything—but I’m sure we’ll find a way to pay you something, somehow.” [Editor’s note: Let the record show that thanks to all the generous Kickstarter backers, we did indeed pay Joe for his hard work.] I didn’t care about the money. I had no major projects in front of me, and I was worn down from my endless search for work amongst the NY publishing elite. I was ready to just do some real art for once, and this series already had a fantastic fan base. So, I agreed to do some art—for free. We weren’t sure how it would all work out, or turn out, but we were excited to collaborate and make something great, no matter what it took. Justin Gerard’s work had embellished the pages of previous Wingfeather books, but there was never the budget to allow him to accomplish a grand vision (ah, the wonders of Kickstarter). I wanted to honor his designs, while still digging in with my own style, and really explore the fine details of Aerwiar. Justin left a lot of room for interpretation with his airy, smokey visuals, but I always went back to them, really wanting this new vision to feel a part of the world he had begun to depict. I asked Andrew to send me a list of all the characters of concern, along with detailed descriptions. After looking them over, I decided to begin with our young hero, Janner Igiby. (I’m playing it safe in case there’s a slimy Fang of Dang lurking about. His real name is Wingfeather—but don’t read that aloud.) I have a tendency to lean toward a slightly playful flair when creating characters, but my first attempt at Janner looked very much like a clumsy Disney squire. Andrew quickly explained that he was really hoping we could design the characters with a sense of realism that lent itself to the darker tones of the story. I decided to ramble out a slew of facial concepts and see where it led us. Again, I ran these by Andrew and he narrowed it down to a few different faces. After I combined the best aspects of these, I stumbled upon a face we both felt was right on target. It needed to convey a sense of responsibility and weight while still being the face of a 12- or 13-year-old boy. Several months later, we began the Kickstarter campaign and fans flocked to my Instagram feed. I was nervous, but as I read through their comments I began to see exclamations such as “That’s exactly how I pictured him!” Likewise with the other characters. I even got to talk with some kids at Hutchmoot who were fans, and as they thumbed through my sketches I would ask them who it was they saw on the page. The kids had no trouble naming the characters I had sketched, even without names on the page! I was on the right track. In the coming months, I look forward to sharing even more stories and characters with you, and I can’t wait to hear your reactions once the book lands in your mailboxes.

This isn’t a movie review, I’ll leave that to Thomas, but I do want to talk about my impressions of the film and hopefully start some (civil) discussion. It’s undoubtedly a film that challenges expectations and a lot of the comments and reactions I’ve seen online tell me that there are some who aren’t sure what to do with those challenges. If you ask me what I do when a movie like Noah unsettles me, here’s my answer: think about it (calmly and rationally), and then talk about it (calmly and rationally). To begin with, let me tell you I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. The script has a few clunky spots and some things work better than others, but overall it’s fascinating and packed with good performances, rich visual storytelling, and complex human characters behaving in often surprising yet understandable ways. Yes, the Nephilim are giant stone “ents.” No, that doesn’t bother me—in fact it really excites me. Yes, the story goes some strange places that aren’t factual. No, that doesn’t bother me either, especially considering that the story remains biblically accurate in its essentials. The film certainly embellishes the tale in imaginative ways, but I consider that a good thing, especially because in doing so it raises some thought-provoking questions. In fact, as I sit here and ponder it, I can think of almost no other “biblical” film that has been this interesting, this thoughtful, or this artful (though that’s more a critique of “biblical” films than it is a praise of Noah). In order to have a meaningful discussion, I’m going to assume you’ve seen the movie. If you haven’t, or if you’re on the fence, it’s definitely a movie to see in the theater (don’t wait for the DVD). I’ll also say that you should leave young kids at home; this isn’t your Sunday School Noah’s Ark story. If you don’t want to know the details, now’s your chance to stop reading. As River Song would say: Spoilers! One of my favorite things about the film was how it dealt with the importance of being created in the image of God. The characters of Noah (of the line of Seth) and Tubal-Cain (of the line of Cain) seem to represent two differing interpretations of what it means to bear the imago Dei. Despite what you may have heard, God, the Creator, is a major part of the film. Characters discuss him (or talk to him) in nearly every scene (both the good guys and the bad), and often the discussion is about what it means to be created in his image. Noah and his family are following the Creator’s command to watch over Creation, to be its care-takers, and to love one another. Tubal-Cain, on the other hand, defines the imago Dei as the right to take life (as he says God does) and to subdue, dominate, and consume Creation. The question of which of these ideologies is more true ought to be an important one to any Christian. It’s interesting to listen in on the discussion of the film and hear how clearly some people seem to echo either Tubal-Cain or Noah. This idea is illustrated in another more visual way in the film. When the serpent first appears in the garden, it’s bright green and beautiful, but then it sheds its skin and something black and monstrous emerges. In a brief flash of the Garden story, Adam picks up the shed skin and keeps it. It becomes an heirloom, and his descendants wrap the skin around their arms as they proclaim themselves image-bearers of the Creator. The serpent shed the image of God and became a monster. But the sons of Adam wear it as a reminder—at least until it’s stolen by the violent line of Cain and held as a war trophy. When the skin comes back to Noah in the end and he reasserts himself and his family as image-bearers, it’s a beautiful moment of resolution. Great visual poetry. So what does it mean to be created in the image of God? Does it mean we are benevolent caretakers of the Creation he’s entrusted us with? Or does it mean we rule over and subjugate Creation like tyrants, taking life as we will, as Tubal-Cain argues that God does. Another major theme is the difficulty of understanding and obeying God’s will. When Noah has a vision, he doesn’t know how to interpret it and he goes to his grandfather, Methuselah, for advice. But later, though Noah is surrounded by signs that God will provide for his family and his future, he misinterprets these signs to mean that God intends to wipe out not just evil men, but all men, and Noah’s sees it as his responsibility to obey and carry out that judgement. He doesn’t seek anyone’s guidance in the matter, in fact he rejects the admonishment of his wife, and he makes the decision on his own. You might say he moves from righteousness to self-righteousness. As a consequence he nearly destroys not only his own family, but the remainder of the human race. If that doesn’t sound applicable to much of human history, you aren’t paying attention. What’s even more fascinating about Noah’s misinterpretation is that his misunderstanding requires him to shed his own imago Dei in order to achieve his new perception of God’s will. He turns from love to violence, the very thing that has made God angry in the first place. And it’s turning away from violence and back to love that saves him (and everyone else) in the end. Some folks have seen this as a story in which Noah’s mercy, not God’s, saves mankind. I don’t think that’s accurate at all. God’s providence is with Noah and his family all along, even when Noah himself becomes blind to it. It’s Noah’s self-righteousness that nearly destroys his family, not God’s judgment. The Creator’s mercy is demonstrated throughout the story, but Noah fails to see it, until it’s almost too late. Does that sound like a familiar story? Maybe a little bit like . . . well . . . the Old Testament? Noah’s dark night of the soul is going to make people uncomfortable, and that’s good. It should. But being uncomfortable isn’t always a bad thing, and if you’ve spent much time reading Scripture you ought to be used to being uncomfortable. It’s worth noting that Noah’s struggle is not contradictory to Scripture. It’s probably not factual, but it also doesn’t contradict anything about the story or the man (about whom the Bible tells us almost nothing). Noah’s questions and struggles are played out in similar ways by other Patriarchs and heroes throughout the Old Testament. If you think Noah gets a little crazy and homicidal in this film, you might want to skip right past Abraham, the conquest of Canaan, David, and a whole slew of other stories. This Noah seems entirely in line with Old Testament drama, and this version of his story works out to a fitting and edifying conclusion. So how do you interpret the will of God? And how might that be dangerous outside the context of a community of elders and other believers? How far would you go to be obedient to what you understand God to be asking of you? What if you’re wrong? What if you’re right? Hard questions. I’d love to hear what others enjoyed about the film. What surprised you? Did seeing it send you back to Scripture with renewed curiosity? It did me, and that’s more than I can say for most “biblical” movies. (Also check out this great conversation about the film between Julie Silander and Jeffrey Overstreet.)

I love aspen trees. When I was a child, my dad often traveled on business and came home with gifts for us. I have abalone jewelry from New Zealand, traditional clothing from India, and coins and pottery from Guatemala. But one of my favorite keepsakes came from a place much less exotic. When I was eight or nine, my dad came home from Colorado with an aspen leaf pendant for me and each of my sisters. Nothing flashy, just little rust-colored leaves preserved inside a clear coating and dangling from golden chains. I had never seen an aspen tree, so the gift didn’t initially hold any particular significance for me. It was pretty, and it was from my father. I liked it. But it came to mean something altogether different to me when I was 11, and my father took us to the aspens. I remember that everything felt dangerous once we crossed west of the Mississippi. All I knew about Kansas was that it was a popular hang-out for tornadoes, and I expected one to drop out of the clouds at any moment. The roads across the Great Plains had never heard of curves, and the corn and wheat crowded in shoulder to shoulder, waving like spectators for a 100-mile parade. So much distance passed between towns that I worried a tank of gas would not get us from one to the next. Then we reached the desert of eastern Colorado. Brown, scrubby, flat – I had never seen a place with so little vegetation. For hundreds of miles, I felt exposed. I was sure that if I lingered there, I would shrivel up and blow away. Ah, but then the mountains: green and wild, crisp and bright, dotted with blossoms I’d never seen before – Columbine and Indian Paintbrush. And the lakes! Perfect, pure, and shockingly cold. This place had its own dangers – there were so many ways to get lost or eaten – but it was bursting with life and beauty. We took a shuttle to the Maroon Lake trailhead. A few steps from the parking lot brought us to the water’s edge. You could see the pebbled lake bottom all the way out to the middle, where the reflection of the Maroon Bells’ rocky face took over. I could have stayed there all day, but I’m glad my parents prodded me up the trail toward the Bells. That is where I met the aspens. Something I’ve learned about aspen trees is that you rarely see a solitary one. They colonize, sending up new saplings from their roots, multiplying into groves. So you don’t appreciate an aspen like you do, say, a sequoia – looking straight up, marveling at its individual majesty and strength. With aspens, you step back and consider them as a whole, as you would a family. A mile or two up the trail, we paused and looked back toward the lake where we had started. It was far below us, reflecting the sun so brilliantly that you couldn’t look directly at it. But between the lake below and the trail where we stood, all down the mountainside, stood an aspen grove. The trunks were slender and pale, and the small heart-shaped leaves were new green. When the breeze blew, the leaves quivered and turned, showing their silvery backs. The effect, as the breeze slid through the grove, was that the whole slope of the mountain appeared to be twinkling. If you could see the sound of tinkling bells, I’m convinced that’s what it would look like. Populus tremuloides: “quaking” or “trembling” aspen tree. This is why I love the aspens. Even the slightest whisper of wind sets them quaking. It’s as if they acknowledge that they are tender among the hardwoods. They feel the rippling frailty of their days and shiver with humility. I understand them.  I have seen the brokenness of the world and felt my own helplessness in it. A faint downdraft of sorrow, and I’m shaken. The world is too much for me – more and more often I feel it. Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming; it is near, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness! I’ve seen some who, when faced with darkness, try to stand like sequoias. They must be strong, I’ve heard them say. They must hold together. They insist they can outlast the curse’s bite even as the wind ravages and strips them bare. But the aspens shudder and bow. And they seldom do it alone. Trembling in solitude, an aspen is lovely. But the sight of them in community – the way they twinkle like bells and scatter the sunlight off their backs! How they bend and quiver until the whole mountainside moves! Gathering together and nodding their assent, they are altogether enchanting. — — — My children have learned to weep for loss. Mighty I am not. An ending comes for us all. Let the kindred tremble together. Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return. And yet that is not the truest thing. Amen. Thanks be to God.

For a generation of British children, growing up in the UK meant there was a good chance that you cut your literary teeth on the writing of Enid Blyton. Amongst her best loved work was an adventure series called “The Secret Seven” and I think it was there that I first learned what it was to lose myself in a story. At the centre of the action was an old garden shed where seven children would perch on upturned flower pots, drink lemonade, solve mysteries, and come up with plans to unmask the latest gang of dastardly villains. The plot lines were not particularly complex but it mattered little, such was the appeal of that band of friends. Long before I found the words to name it, I was pulled in by the sense of belonging and common purpose that bound the children together. So much so that I decided to form my own “Secret Seven.” The perfect headquarters was already in place. A cellar as thick with dust and cobweb as it was with possibility, accessed by a little wooden door at the side of my grandparents’ house and masked by a wall of tall thick trees. Somehow I managed to convince six of my classmates to sign up. At the pre-arranged time they stole into my back garden, sneakers tracing a silent path through the long shadows. One by one they knocked on the little door, muttered the secret password and slipped quietly into the underground room. Thirty years later I still cringe at the memory of that first meeting. As we sat there, precariously balanced on flimsy packing crates and sagging boxes, eager anticipation began to turn to awkward silence. It took about thirty seconds for my excitement to be replaced by the realization that I had no idea what to do next. And I had forgotten the lemonade. It turned out that in my town, the criminal gangs, if they existed at all, didn’t make their plans known to groups of small children intent on bringing them down. The best we came up with was an overly zealous attempt to solve an argument between two older boys fighting in our street. Our help was not well received. By the second meeting seven had become four. When the time for a third meeting came around only one child knocked the door, her whispered password lost in the empty darkness. I had long since abandoned the disappointing reality and retreated back into my books. As this memory resurfaced recently, it occurred to me how often similar scenes have played out in my life. I may not have attempted to resurrect my ill-fated “Secret Seven” but, with surprising regularity, I have pursued my own romantic visions of community, only to return deflated when the reality fails to measure up to my pre-conceived ideals. Community is part of who we are. In its purest form it is a beautiful reflection of the intimate relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in whose image we are made. We have good reason to hope and long for it. The problem is that the practice of community can be a lot less romantic than the theory. The perfect ideal sits in tension with the fact of our brokenness so that life in relationship rarely works out the way we have pictured it. Sometimes it seems that the closer we get to one another, the more our sharp edges scrape and tear, drawing blood from new wounds and opening the scars on old ones. This jarring clash between what is real and what is longed for raises the question; is community still worth pursuing? Our response to this question is critical. We can, as I did, retreat. Drifting from one place to another. Expounding theory from a safe distance as others take arms against the darkness. Searching on for the holy grail of perfect community. Or, we can accept the challenge of engaging with imperfection, throwing our hat in the ring as we try to figure out what grace looks like when it is let loose on the reality of the here and now. The problem with the first response is that, according to Jesus, the litmus test of our relationship with God is not creative genius, artistic beauty, or even theological expertise. It is love. And love, by its very nature, can’t operate at a distance. Jesus laid down the gauntlet in John 13 verse 35 with these words: “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” If we love one another the people around us can conclude that we are disciples of Jesus. If we don’t . . . well, I’ll let you finish that sentence. The inescapable fact is that when I choose to retreat, rejecting the challenge of loving my brothers and sisters the way that Jesus loves me, I make a mockery of my claim to love Him. There is another reason why the pursuit of community matters. In the hours before Jesus faced the cross, knowing all that lay ahead, these were the words that weighed on his anguished heart: “I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you sent me.” (John 17:20-21) According to Jesus, our unity, our “oneness,” is the very thing that will convince the world around us that the story we are telling is true. If we do not love as Jesus loved, then all of our words, all of our God-given creativity, and all of our efforts are lost on a world that sees a charade and simply doesn’t believe us. This truth and the implications of it have me in their grip and won’t let go. Whatever it means practically on any given day, the pursuit of community will cost us. It will mean investing our gifts in the building up of the church. It will mean staying put when it would be so much easier to walk away. It will mean difficult conversations that take place on bent knees over open Bibles. It will mean forgiving and letting it go. Sometimes it will mean an incarnation of grace that acknowledges the wounds and then steps up to bandage the very hands that inflicted them. The truth is this: the reality of unity is hard. But it still matters. It matters because the story we are telling is wonderfully true and, if we want to tell it, there is no plan B. The great thing is that when we invest in community, pursuing love on Jesus’ terms, it not only authenticates our story, it also opens the door to relationships that have passed through the storm and come out stronger and deeper for it. In her recent post “Beautiful Community of Artists,” Ellie Holcomb wrote about an experience of community that was as beautiful as anything I have read in stories. She said; “These people love well. They seek each other out. They listen. They pray. They laugh—a lot. They play spike ball and catch phrase. They say, ‘I’m sorry. Will you forgive me?’ They gather each night to eat a meal together. They bear with each other. They craft songs that carry the ache and joy and hope and wandering our souls experience, and they welcomed me as one of their own.” I am learning that the way to find a community worth belonging to is not to spend your life searching for it, but rather to invest in what is there in front of you. It’s true that the reality of relationship often falls short of the ideal. But sometimes it is better. Sometimes the friendships formed in the crucible of forgiveness and grace, of shared experience and the telling of our common story, turn out to be richer and more meaningful than the thing we imagined in the first place.

First let me give you my warmest computer blog “Hello!” and thank you for welcoming me into the Rabbit Room as though this were my inaugural post—because it may very well be.I don’t know. Things are magical around here and the order in which posts roll out is a mystery on par with a certain Wardrobe. [Editor’s note: I heard that.] I post today in order to open up, to share, to be vulnerable. The amazing thing about being surrounded by other creators of art (and I am obviously including every art form here: writing, illustrating, singer/songwriting . . . think Yul Brynnar’s “Etcetera! Etectera!'”) as well as lovers of, and subscribers to, the arts, is that I can feel free to share bits and pieces of my own process. There’s a terrible freedom in that. And I use the word “terrible” because I mean to indicate the very real sense of Terror that comes upon me when I so much as contemplate acting on this freedom (the way I am acting on it this very instant!). As I write today, I am one of many millions of Christians who are continuing to walk through Lent of 2014. Easter swiftly approaches (thankfully) but as we are still in Lent, and as a Christian who also happens to be a producer of visual, written, and audible art, it makes sense for me (indeed, for us all) to lean in to Process. I do mean all of it, too—the messiness of it, the uncertainty of it, the scattered incoherence of it. Process. The very word makes my skin crawl, even as I contemplate just how necessary and, frankly, inevitable it is. I am humbled to say that I was asked, along with other visual artists within my church family, to contribute a complete piece on the theme of Resurrection that will be unveiled on Easter morning and remain open for anyone to view until Pentacost, fifty days later. In the spirit of full disclosure, I will also add that I was asked back in—February. Any guesses as to just how long I’ve actually been working on the piece (you can see an incomplete portion of it above)? Since April 6th. Yeah, that’s this past weekend. We’ve had a few solid months—and I started work yesterday. We have until the 12th to turn something in, so now I have the looming specter of a deadline hanging over me, haunting me into action. Point is, I’ve spent the last six weeks or more unable to submit to the Process. Unwilling. In denial. Crippled. Willingly and unwillingly paralyzed by dread of my own work and the struggle it is destined to bring. It is a sheer impartation of divine grace that, finally, in the 11th hour, brings with it a vision/purpose/direction for this project, and has also granted me the creative capacity to chase that vision and convert it into something tangible in fairly short order. Let me encourage my fellow creators on this point—the grace is there if you do procrastinate in your work, AND you shouldn’t be afraid to lean into the process right away rather than waiting until you literally can’t wait anymore to start. This is not the first (nor will it be the last, I’m sure) project that I have completed in this hastened manner. However, I recognize now that it’s a personal brokenness of mine that prevents me from, perhaps, experiencing even richer depths of grace throughout the duration of a project’s lifespan, from first inspiration, to sketch phase, to comps, to finished piece. May the Lord grant, to all of us who create, the grace to dive in and keep at it, to engage in the Process, from start to finish, with Him. He doesn’t have a habit of rushing anything that I can think of. Not in my experiences with Him thus far, nor in the experiences and stories of those I know and love who walk with Him. Yet, when we have forestalled a creative venture so long that in order to see it through we must rush, even, and perhaps especially, then His grace is sufficient. Here is a portion of the iconographer’s prayer, which is something I have turned to in recent weeks as I felt the pressure of Process closing in around me: Teach me, Lord, to use wisely the time which You have given me and to work well without wasting a second. Teach me to profit from my past mistakes without falling into a gnawing doubt. Teach me to anticipate the project without worry, to imagine the work without despair if it should turn out differently. Teach me to unite haste and slowness, serenity and ardor, zeal and peace. In the spirit of this Lenten meditation on Process, I feel I should speak to the (partial) work presented above, if I may. I have called the piece “The New Body Mythic.” Rather than re-writing an artist statement for the Rabbit Room, I think I’ll simply copy/paste my working statement below, and commend it to your reading for further meditation/contemplation on what the hope of resurrection means for we Christians and our physical bodies: “The New Body Mythic” was conceived while prayerfully contemplating the utterly Christian doctrine of a bodily resurrection. More specifically, this work—its four individual pieces (eye, heart, inner ear, & lungs) as well as its audible component—attempt to capture, however abstractly, the moment of first sight, first breath, first circulation, first audible sensation with and in the resurrected body. It is such an idea as can only be thought of in the here and now as mythic, but that is not to suggest that the idea of the bodily resurrection is a myth in the sense of something ‘fictional.’ On the contrary, in faith we must believe, as the Holy Spirit imparts said faith, that the future fact of our resurrected bodies as first demonstrated by the risen Christ Himself, is such a wondrously glorious future state as to be called mythic in the Tolkienian sense of the True Myth; something seemingly remote, distant, the stuff of fairy tale, but something that is in fact far more real, more literal than what our current bodily senses are capable of perceiving (or our intellects capable of fully processing). Lewis’s archetypal hero Ransom grasps for words to describe this future state as “trans-sensuous” and again as “too definite for language.” To even attempt to contemplate such a hope, and then believe it is a literal and bodily hope, the human artist in his/her broken, decaying body can, at best, produce a representation. How else does one process this amazing promise, this historical, supernatural, ultra-physical act of Christ that has such incredible implications for those in His care? How does the former creation look ahead to the future Creation with any kind of tangible idea if he/she does not process that hope in some literal way, albeit graspingly, stumblingly, inadequately, dimly. So it is, with my current and crumbling hands & eyes that I strike out to represent the mythic, future eyes, ears, heart, & lungs that will not fail those who awaken in Christ on that day, that will not be subject to the slow, painful moth-gnawing of death and decay once His Creative Spirit has completely invigorated them as part of His restorative work throughout the whole of His own good creation. We will, from that first moment, take in the New Creation with newly created instruments of the senses, newly created organs of being. It is not a story ‘too good to be true,’ as the Sadduceean among us might suggest. Rather, He is so good and so true (The Truth being one of His Names) that it is a story and a promise that cannot be anything but true.

[Editor’s note: If you’re in Franklin, Tennessee, be sure to stop by the 5 Points Starbucks where there’s currently a Subjects With Objects art print show hanging on the walls.]An Explanation for the Uninitiated: Subjects With Objects is an ongoing, collaborative art project forever ordered according to the following rules: A shadowy public spaces painter sets up in pubs and executes spontaneous portraits at the rate of one painting per pint. He then hands off those enigmatic little ocular disturbances to a semi-anonymous poet & novelist who lives with them long enough to solicit their otherworldly mumblings and ephemeral whispers, distilling each of their essences into a line or two of poetic prose. The painter is Jonathan Richter. The poet is UNKNOWN & UNKNOWABLE, so it is best NOT TO EVEN ASK! However, for the sake of convenience we may refer to him as DKM. _________________________ Untitled 46 (2008) Things Vs. Us Theoretically, we’re told, a man could gain the whole world and still show a loss on his balance sheet. But at least that guy got the world. What are we getting? Soviet dissident, novelist, and GULAG-survivor Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, rankled feathers during his 1978 Harvard Commencement Address. The rankling was not on account of his passing references to the dismal and sometimes brutal outworkings of the Communist ideology he and millions of his countrymen had suffered under for decades. Such references were expected and mostly welcomed. No, what disturbed many of Solzhenitsyn’s American listeners was that he also had the gall to turn his eyes towards the West, and to lift his voice as one crying in the wilderness. Aleksandr, who had endured harsh years in a Stalinist labor camp in Siberia, now sought to warn his American listeners of the possibility that our pursuit of comfort and material successes had come at the cost of a greater spiritual impoverishment. I know, right? After all we did for him, Aleksandr stood up there calling us out in front of God and the Russians and everybody. Was it supposed to help the medicine go down that he prefaced the talk with “There is some bitterness in my today’s speech . . . but I want to stress that it comes not from an adversary, but from a friend.” When Subjects With Objects painter Jonathan Richter handed Untitled 46 off to me, I didn’t have to examine it long to note that there was, captured in the relationship of subject to object, a spiritual sickness of the first order. In fact, this piece was one that solidified the overarching theme of the ongoing collaboration, and in so doing, ultimately led me to the project title Subjects With Objects. The woman in this painting is, after all, fading, while the material objects around her remain solid. She seems to be shrinking in size, while the object she poses with (and yes, she does look as if she’s posing for a portrait) appears to have grown larger than it might once have been. Or perhaps she’s an adult who somehow hasn’t grown rightly herself. At any rate what we’re seeing is her insubstantial spiritual nature. Whether she once had a more robust nature that was choked out and faded over time, or whether she never grew beyond a childish (not childlike) spirituality, is immaterial. The point is, she, in her essence, is immaterial, and that owing to an exaggerated materialism. Here, in this painting, is materialism running its course. Here is the sickness Solzhenitsyn warned us about. Here is what it means to have a life full of many comforts and things, and to prize the pursuit of things, and to prize the pursuit of happiness (through things) above all else. Here is what it means to structure one’s life around the avoidance of suffering at all costs. Here is what it means to define self and self-worth by the attainment of numbers of things. And it isn’t pretty. One fades in the pursuit. One is stunted. One forgets who one was, or once longed to be. At the end, one finds oneself haunting the world of material things, no longer fully human. No longer able to even use and appreciate the material blessings of life, for one has become as a ghost among them, unable to define oneself except in relation to things. So the things have become some-things, while the soul has shriveled to a no-thing. One becomes a hollow suck, needing more and more things to try to give definition to the shape of one’s being, a black hole collapse of personhood from which, eventually, no light can escape. But let us speak no more of the physics of hell. Instead, let us flip the pages of a now-discarded yellow legal pad, and there follow the author’s scribbled trail of thoughts that led to the final choice of text for Untitled 46. In time, the things seemed to become more real, even as I began to fade. [Note that with this piece the central idea was there from the beginning, but the expression was too “on the nose.” No room was left for the viewer to interact and find their own connections.] In time, my things became more solid, even as I seemed to be fading. Perhaps we were always less substantial than we believed. I might have been less substantial than I believed. I might have been less substantial than I believed, but I do not see any benefit in addressing that now. Apart from my objects, I had little conception of myself. Apart from my objects, I’m not sure who I was. I know I was someone who had things, but I don’t know much else about myself. All I can tell you is that I was someone who had things. All I can tell you is that I was someone who had a number of things. All I can tell you about myself is that I was someone who had a number of things. The things informed me of who I was. The things told me who I was. Sometimes, the things emptied me. I remember when I first discovered that I was someone who had things. I remember realizing I was someone who had things. In time I realized that I would never be able to compete with my things. It was my things they were friends with. It was never me, but only my things they were friends with. I knew from the beginning that my personality was thin, and so I would have to have things. And so, what I lacked in personality, I made up for in things. They played with me, not because they liked me, but because I had things. They came over, not for me, but because I had things. They were never really friends with me, only with my things. They were never really my friends, they were friends of my things. And now it has become painfully clear that they were never really my friends, they were only friends of my things. I found it easiest to relate to people through the medium of things. All I can tell you about myself is that I was someone who wound up with quite a number of things. Postscript: This piece was originally part of the gallery show First Day in Purgatory. The premise for that show I described in the “Subjects With Objects Unplugged Pt. 3” column, but it’s more or less self-explanatory from the title. I can’t look at this piece in that light without some sadness and horror. To come to the end of it all and sum your life up with that epitaph is a truly chilling prospect. MORAL: If you’re bartering your soul, please at least ask for something more than a giant glass egg thingy. _________________________ Subjects with Objects Unplugged, Part 1 Subjects with Objects Unplugged, Part 2 Subjects with Objects Unplugged, Part 3 Subjects with Objects, Vol. 1 is available in the Rabbit Room store. To read the full text of Solzhenitsyn’s 1978 Harvard address (with a few typos thrown in for good measure) go to: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/alexandersolzhenitsynharvard.htm

“There’s nothing worthless about being wordless, it will only save your mouth from talking gibberish.” —Michael Bassey Johnson “Good morning, maestra. How are you?” “I’m well, how are you?” “I am good . . . thank you.” Her English is halting and deeply sincere. We look into each other’s eyes for a brief moment, both of us willing to say more—if only we spoke the same language. We are building a bridge as the weeks pass, but our work doesn’t seem like progress. She learns my language more quickly than I learn hers—that is, after all, why we meet. She wants to learn English; I can speak it. She is one of a handful of adult students from Mexico, China, and Vietnam. We sit together for an hour every morning, enter into the same rhythm: I read, they repeat, I annunciate, they repeat. They strain to wrap their lips around the contours of this strange language, but their tongues refuse reform. Their accents add intricate flourishes to words that would otherwise escape my notice. We started with the basics. I scrawled upper- and lower-case letters across the whiteboard, pointed to each letter and pronounced its particular identity. They mimicked these vocalizations in drawn-out syllables: Ayyy. Beee. Seee. Deee. Eeee. Efff… We’ve moved forward since then, always at—what might seem to anyone walking past the classroom—a glacial pace. Simple conversation is an exhilarating victory: Hi, my name is Barbara. Nice to meet you. Hi, Barbara. My name is ______. Nice to meet you, too! The tendency of the English language to shove words together has presented learning opportunities I never anticipated. “She is” becomes “she’s” and I find myself in the midst of an in-depth annunciation. Their tongues soften the hard ch sound to a soft sh, and I write on the board: she’s = she is cheese = queso Together we practice the art of slow attention; we notice small sounds and learn their differences in meaning. We are building a bridge, but our work does not seem like progress. I’m a sucker for personal stories and I’m passionate about the importance of telling and receiving each other’s stories. Not long after I’ve had my first cup of coffee, I sit with these students and together we cross a language barrier. It is painstaking. It forces my passion for story to encounter other ways of seeing. Once in a while, a student finds the words and I find the ears to share a particular facet of her story. The rare moment comes along in which a student makes his way across the bridge enough to tell me what he did before he moved to this country. But more often than not, our stories are shared in quick glances of reassurance, hard stares of concentration, and the mirroring of the movement of our lips. We are building a bridge, but our work does not seem like progress. It is the slow emergence of story; the work itself becomes the story we share. Buen trabajo, I have learned to say when they complete a particularly challenging exercise. Good job, they have begun to tell me at the end of each class. And before we leave the room, there is an unspoken agreement to stop, smile, and wave goodbye. Wordlessly.

[Editor’s note: Andy Osenga’s new EP, Heart, is now available. Here’s Andy with a song-by-song breakdown of the record. Enjoy.] “No Heart Beats Alone” My friend Russ Ramsey had open heart surgery this past year (you may have read about it here). He was telling me about all he was learning about the heart and how it works and said he asked the doctor if it was hard to get the heart beating again once you stopped it. The doctor replied, “No, it’s hard to get it to stop. It starts right up. The heart is made to beat. It wants to beat.” How powerful. Two heart cells floating in a petri dish will, Russ told me, find each other and begin beating in time. No heart can beat alone. The guitar at the end is my Les Paul, through my new Tyler JT45, on some stage in some church somewhere between soundcheck and the show. “Belle Isle” I was in Richmond, Virginia, with the Behold the Lamb tour and went out for a run. It was a damp, foggy day and I ended up running along the James river. The interstate goes over the river on two huge bridges and underneath was this strange, snaking walking bridge hanging just above the fog. One is helpless but to cross this sort of thing. I thought it would bring me to the other side of the river, but it didn’t. It dropped me off on an island. It was beautiful. There were kayakers racing through the rapids along the shore six feet from where I was running. Trails up and down the rocky, wooded hills were everywhere. I had found some sort of mystic Southern Narnia. Scattered around the island were those little historical markers, talking about what used to be on that spot. Turns out this island, Belle Isle, was a Confederate prison for soldiers captured at Gettysburg. The South had nowhere near enough resources to take care of its own people, let alone its prisoners of war. They essentially left an estimated 14,000 men to freeze and/or starve to death here on this gorgeous spot. This song is what I imagine a letter sent back home from one of these prisoners might look like. “Until You Provide” I’m self employed. So are most of my friends. This song is a fictional summary of a thousand conversations I’ve had within my community. We work as hard as we can and try our best to be good husbands and dads and sometimes it feels like the pressure is just never going to let up. If it works like it’s supposed to, this is one of those songs that you either get or you don’t. If you don’t, just listen again in a few years. Pretty much every note of this song was recorded in the 2-year-old room of some church, at a table built for 2-year-olds. My back still hurts from hunching over. “Out of Town” Our house has flooded twice in the last 3 1/2 years. It’s hard to state just how devastating that has been for our family, in so many ways, not to mention the time lost on my career. Like so many difficult things, it’s hard to understand how God can be there for us when we’re in it. So many people said things they thought were helpful, but just weren’t. What I had to hold on to was the same thing David did in the Psalms. “I don’t see you now, but I’ve seen you in the past and so have the people I trust, so I’m going to believe you’re still here.” “She is a Foreign Country” I’m married to a smart, funny, and beautiful woman. My Legos would never have believed you if you’d told them this when I was twelve years old. It has slowly dawned on me over the past eleven years that I won’t begin to learn everything there is to know about this woman sleeping a foot away from me every night. She is at least twenty lifetimes of beauty to be discovered and celebrated. When I’m in beautiful places all over America I love to imagine what it would have been like to be the first person to walk over this hill and see this valley or waterfall or canyon or mountain. That thrill of discovering a new land will surely be something we’ll experience in heaven. This is how I feel with my bride. I keep walking along and randomly looking up and being knocked out by some stunning uncharted aspect of God’s glorious creation in her. The writing of this song is a map on a napkin of what I’ve seen so far. “The House Where No One Spoke” Like most of my favorite songs of my own, and this is one of my all-time favorites, I still don’t really know where this all came from. I just know I love it and believe in every word of it. We want so desperately to feel some control that we kill the things we say we love. But we have no control over anything but our own response to the madness of the world. It is kindness, after all, that accomplishes what anger and armies and manipulation and money never can. Kindness changes us. The fruit of the Spirit growing within us is love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against these things there is no law, there is only mercy, forgiveness, trust, and redemption. Lord, let me be someone whose heart reaches out with kindness rather than grasps tightly to not lose control. I don’t have it anyway. This was recorded in the middle of the night at my daughter’s art table in our basement, which used to actually be a studio, but, courtesy of one of those floods, is now a play room.

Between any person and any other person is the middle. What happens in the middle makes a significant difference. For not one of us ever experiences another person without first passing—physically, emotionally, spiritually—through the middle. Picture the middle by looking over this simple illustration: You THE MIDDLE Any other person Think for a moment about all that happens in the middle. Take a simple relationship, a husband and wife. Consider everything between them. They see each other, hear each other, touch each other—bodies are in the middle. Usually they are wearing clothes—fashion is in the middle. Usually they are somewhere—a house and parks and all manner of created spaces are in the middle. He was the first child of three and she was an only child—all the experiences of their families of origin are in the middle. She speaks English and so does he—language is in the middle. But she is from New England and he is from the Pacific Northwest—cosmopolitanism and hipster culture are in the middle. She grew up Catholic and he grew up Baptist though now they attend a Presbyterian church—religious expression is in the middle. The list could be endless. There is so much middle to get through before getting to another person, it is a wonder any of us knows any one else at all. But somehow we do. Even, sometimes our relationships thrive. When they do, I like to think of it this way: There’s some good middle happening. The truth is I am blunderer. But so is everyone else (except God, of course) who I try to get along with. Odds are if two blunderers try to make friends, it is going to be hard. But many of us have best friends. Where there are best friends, there’s some good middle happening. And so it is with all kinds of relationships. Where there is a happy marriage, there’s some good middle happening. Where there are loving parents and loving children, there’s some good middle happening. Where there are friendly neighbors, there’s some good middle happening. Where there are flourishing students, there’s some good middle happening. Where there is a healthy church communion, there’s some good middle happening. And so on, and so on. Now, it is wisely said that the only person I can change is myself. If one of my relationships sours, I cannot fix it by fixing the other person. This is true. Yet, though I cannot change another person, it does not follow that I cannot change anything but myself. I can do some work in the middle. In fact, the middle is where the greatest work we people do gets done. Artwork and stories and songs and histories—all that we do—occurs in the middle between persons. The middle is the locale of creation, and also reconciliation. We build muddy bogs or cobblestone paths in the middle; means to hinder or help us draw close to each other.

Come with me, if you will, to Belmont University in the year 2005. Belmont hosted a C. S. Lewis conference called Past Watchful Dragons, which I attended for a number of reasons, none of which yielded anything nearly as impacting as my chance introduction to the Good Doctor Rogers. I had just released my fifth album, The Far Country, and because of the Lewis/Tolkien influence on those songs, I thought the conference might be a good opportunity to sneak my CDs into the gift bags of the attendees. (That album was released independently, so any crazy marketing ideas were carried out by yours truly.) Towards the end of the conference Douglas Gresham (Lewis’s stepson) was signing autographs and I decided to wait in line and give him a copy of the record. After that extremely awkward interaction I saw another dude standing around. He leaned against the wall in a way that made me think he was much more smarter than I be. As I recall, he had under one arm a box of leftover Wilderking books which his publisher had also included in the gift bags; I was carrying a box of leftover CDs, expecting at any moment to be ejected from the premises. I remembered seeing The Bark of the Bog Owl on a display at the local Walmart, so when I saw his name tag I introduced myself and told him so. He was doubtful that the books had ever had such prestigious placement. What I didn’t tell Jonathan was that when I first saw his books I was a little jealous that he had beaten me to the punch. At the time I had been working on The Wingfeather Saga for a few years and had yet to find a publisher. Here was another Christian writing fantasy aimed at children. I decided to finagle my way into his inner circle in order to thwart him. (It hasn’t worked. He just keeps writing awesome books.) We exchanged phone numbers and agreed to meet for lunch sometime. I went home with my copy of his book and started reading it to Aedan and Asher, with the added bonus that J. R.’s main character’s name was Aidan. I didn’t know at first that Bog Owl was loosely based on the biblical story of King David. Once I realized it I enjoyed not pointing out the similarities to my boys. I wanted them to experience the story without any preconceptions. They laughed at Dobro the Feechie. They listened closely whenever the prophet Bayard spoke. They wrung their hands when Aidan faced Greidawl, the boss bad guy. It was a load of fun to read the story to them at that age and let them discover the connection with King David. But it was the next books, when Jonathan broke away from the Davidic parallels (especially in The Way of the Wilderking), that the tale really found its legs. None of us had any idea where it was going, or how it would end, and the land of Corenwald and the Feechiefen Swamp began to take on a new life. It felt like this: he had painted a fantastic-but-familiar picture of the Bible story, then we tumbled into it like Eustace and Lucy in Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and finally he led us into a brand new country. Jonathan has described these books as “a fantasy told with an American accent.” That’s about as apt a description as I’ve ever heard. Yes, there are swords. Yes, there are battles and prophecies and betrayals and everything else you could want in a good fantasy, but the “American-ness” of them adds a nuance that’s both rare and welcome. When J.R. followed up this trilogy with The Charlatan’s Boy (set in the same world, and one of the sweetest, funniest books I’ve ever read), he aimed that accent directly at the South and the world got that much richer and that much more bizarre in the best way possible. Folks, there are hundreds of thousands of books in the world—hundreds of thousands of fantasy novels, for that matter—and I’m not sure any of them can boast this particular combination of Biblical literacy, Southern humor, intelligence, and adventure. Jonathan has taught me to be thankful for my roots, and that’s one of the greatest gifts he’s given me. Early on, he helped me to see my youth in the Deep South as a great blessing, not just by texting me news stories about all the strangeness in Florida and Georgia (which he still does), but by his obvious pride in his Georgian upbringing, his saucy disdain for anglophilia (if that anglophilia produces a disdain for one’s own heritage, at least), not to mention his love for authors who share a similar affection for the South (like Flannery O’Connor and Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings). The Bark of the Bog Owl helped me see the story of David with new eyes, but Jonathan has also helped me see the beauty in my own story a little better. A good writer is an eye doctor, too. Jonathan Rogers is precocious, opinionated, and smart as a whip, and yet he’s also humble, teachable, and wise. He may hold a Ph.D. in 17th Century Literature from Vanderbilt. He may be a professor who can actually get away with wearing a seersucker suit. He may be a gifted writer. But Jonathan remains, at heart, a Georgia boy who delights in the beautiful and complex absurdities of the South, who sees glory in swamps, hears dignity in drawls, and unapologetically loves what he loves. If that’s not godly, I don’t know what is. —————————— If you’ve never read The Wilderking Trilogy, get your tail over to the Rabbit Room Store and grab them while you can. Did I mention that he and his wife have six kids? Maybe go ahead and buy several. Books, I mean.

“Something You Choose” (unfinished) by Kelly Burton and Ben Shive The Lord must want me to start co-writing. It keeps coming up. Before January of this year, I had avoided co-writing like the plague. Why? I guess I’ve always been a bit cynical about the outcome and even more cynical about the process. In my view, the difference between the process of writing by myself and that of co-writing has always looked something like this: when I write for myself I attempt to come up with the words that will most delight me; in a co-write I try to come up with the words that I hope will least offend what I perceive to be my partner’s sensibility. Sound like fun? But I don’t feel that way anymore. I don’t know what happened. My distaste for it simply vanished. It might be that I wrote two records by myself. And yes, I was trying to prove something. But what I ended up proving (NOT my intent) was that it’s lonely when you don’t have anyone with whom to share your victory, or worse, your defeat. Or—Lord I pray it’s true—it might be that I’m in the foothills right on the border of that lovely country called Over Myself. If I am approaching that fair land, let’s be very clear that God brought me to the verge of this country and on the way I got dysentery and my wagon caught fire—both clearly my fault. I can think of two modes by which God would have brought me safe thus far. One would be the aforementioned two albums’ worth of trying to be Brian Wilson’s heir-apparent only to find out that was a dumb dream. Don’t argue. The other would be ten years’ worth of producing, every day of which I’ve had to make the decision of whether to appease my unholy ego or to render the best service I can to my artists. I met with Charlie Peacock a few years ago and in his words I saw my next twenty years of spiritual and professional growth. He told me he believed in his own ideas more than ever but that never has he been less interested in pursuing them. Why? Because he has become so captivated with other people’s ideas and because he has learned to choose loving his listener over flattering his gigantic brain. Yowza! Them’s words to get excited about. Am I going to write my string arrangement all by myself today to prove that I can or am I going to ask the artist if she wants to sing some ideas together? Am I going to bristle when the producer says he doesn’t like the first piano hook that popped into my head or am I going to get excited because that sounds like an invitation to go find something even better together? Maybe that’s why I feel like co-writing all of a sudden. Regardless of how I feel about it, it’s the order of the day. Like I said, God keeps putting it on my plate right next to the humble pie. Take, for example, the curious case of Kelly Rae Burton. Kelly Rae Buuuuurrrrrrtooooonnnnnnnn. I elongate her last name so profusely because she’s just that good. She’s got a beautiful country voice somewhere in the neighborhood where she can borrow a stick of butter from Alison Krauss and a cup of sugar from Mindy Smith. And let me tell you, she has got the songs to throw at it! Her songs are so good I pretended they weren’t just so she’d let me write more with her. She came to Nashville and brought with her three or four songlets as she called them. A verse and a chorus and a shrug of the shoulders as to where they should go from there. She played me all of them and we picked one at random because they were all lovely. We didn’t pick out china patterns Baby you and I were paper plates We didn’t rent a car I don’t recall a sunset We took your old Ford And made our escape And I won’t say the rain came down on our parade But I won’t say the dream came true We set up camp somewhere in the middle And we’re still Learning that love Is something you choose After I inhaled deeply and exhaled a few superlatives, we went to work. The first thing we did, because I am assertive to a fault, was change the chorus. I didn’t like “set up camp.” It’s a nice phrase but “up” and “camp” don’t want to be sung together. We brainstormed a minute to “settled down.” Not only did it sing better, but a “down” metaphor is better than an “up” metaphor at conveying the emotion of the chorus. I also didn’t love “and we’re still” because the emphasis fell on still and it just didn’t sing great or sit right. We changed it to “and we’re here.” The way “here” fit the melody created a nice sense of “well, I guess we’re here and we’re going to be here a while.” From this, I already knew a thing or two about Kelly. First, she could receive criticism. Who cannot accept criticism? The insecure, unseasoned, and immature. I can say this with authority because I often have a difficult time with it and I am all of those things. Second, she had a great sensibility because she felt just as I did the better-ness of lines that roll off the tongue and of metaphors that suit the sense of the lyric. This was going to be a good day. Where to go from here? Verse 2 is like starting over, but this time with constricting rules. I found pants I like, but they’re a weird green and now I have to find a shirt that matches. But this was a country story song, so we knew we weren’t going to go wrong with a chronological progression. I asked if we were going to write about kids or marital difficulties (they’re one and the same, baby . . . one and the same). She said marital difficulties cause that’s what our chorus was about. Duh. I will now put a little extra space between this paragraph and the next to represent the interval of time we spent staring at the wall and mumbling to ourselves. . . . . . . . . . In this case the construct came before the lines got filled in. We decided the first half of this verse would be about those funny little flaws you discover in one another during the first years of your marriage, and the second half would either be about some of the deeper flaws—the ones that hurt a little more—or would be about some of the things we come to value about one another. We figured this much out: I’ll never learn to cook Like your mother And you can’t fix a car Like my dad Those lines were both Kelly’s I think. And here I return to the subject of co-writing. Had I written those lines myself (though of course I wouldn’t have written THOSE lines exactly) I would have thought to myself, “Those are delightful.” But because I was writing with someone else, we looked at one another and said, “I love it! I love the way that ‘like your mother’ actually sounds like an eye-roller the way it’s phrased over the melody!” I was inspired and offered: But I can make you laugh Like no other And you bring a joy to me I never thought I’d have We found a little melodic change to lift those lines up and into the second chorus. Another reason for me to enjoy writing with someone else: when I sing my melodies they sound like me singing my melodies. What a joy to hear someone with a really lovely, winsome voice singing a melody I’m proud of! So then it was on to the bridge. What is a bridge exactly? Well, it’s not a verse and it’s not a chorus. Andy Gullahorn would argue that in this sort of song the bridge is where time passes, but that requires a third and fatal verse which we weren’t willing to write. So instead we opted for a simple sentiment: Oh, it’s worth it all We have to believe it’s worth it all If we stand or if we fall Tell me that love is worth it all It’s not earth shattering but with the melody it’s heartfelt. Basically, “This thing isn’t easy and some days I need reassurance that these tears aren’t for nothing.” So we high-fived. We made a bad iPhone recording of our little baby song. We spent a few minutes sort of walking around the room of the lyric, testing the floor boards to make sure they held weight. Good. Done. We then proceeded to finish three or four more songs in about a day and a half. Crazy! And so fun. I’m all out of insight but might I let you hear the song we wrote? And might I suggest that you support Kelly’s Kickstarter campaign? She has just a few days left and a long way to go so be awesome and support awesomeness.

West Virginia is a little state with a big chip on its shoulder. I know, I’m a proud Mountaineer. We are likely to strike out in anger for many possibly slights, one being those delightful occasions when people express ignorance of our very existence. No, we are not part of Virginia. There was this little war between the states. You might have heard of it. Does the Civil War ring a bell? No, I don’t live near Richmond. That’s another state. In fact, we just celebrated 150 years of being our very own state. We get mad and hurt and complain, “Why can’t they get it right? How can people be so stupid as to not know about us?” But there’s another possible take on these infuriating occurrences. “Why don’t we make ourselves known better, so people don’t mistake and overlook us?” It’s easy to grumble about not being known. It’s harder to make an effort, to do some action that lets people know you are there and have something to contribute. But complaining about not being known, growing bitter and resentful, sensitive and withdrawn, is much easier. This is something introverts frequently do. We complain, often without making any effort to be known. “They don’t get me,” “Nobody understands me.” I know, because I’m not just the writer of this post criticizing/challenging introverts, I am one. Well, maybe nobody knows us because we are not knowable. We are not friendly. We are not open. I spent most of my early life terrified and quiet, reluctant to speak up, afraid to be friendly. I called this “being shy.” It took everything in me to say hello to a room full of strangers. I felt like I was being sent to the guillotine. I could bore you with tales of terror and despair, but I want to get straight to what helped me. Playing defense all the time, trying to avoid people, is a losing strategy. It’s what the sports world calls “playing NOT to lose.” (This, as opposed to “playing TO win.”) Not until I switched to offense did I see any real improvement. I had to intentionally be friendly. I had to do something very courageous, for me. It was embarrassing, because I could tell it wasn’t courageous for lots of people. It was easy to them. That made me envy them. But I’m finding that friendliness is a great pathway to understanding that those extroverts, those mighty people of the earth, also have weaknesses and fears, and that’s something you can’t find out by spending all day with your cats watching Star Trek and updating Facebook in clever ways that make you look like an interesting person, but really you’re just on the internet all day and also watching Star Trek. I get the introvert’s challenges. I get that there are incredible strengths in there. But, speaking as one, introverts can be some of the most self-righteous people you will ever meet. We frequently have the additional disadvantage of being “artists,” and “brilliant,” and “smart” and “quirky,” and often expect everyone to bow in deference to our self-consumed, navel-gazing craziness. Introverts often love to point out faults of extroverts, those people doing their friendly and open and positive things with other people and often in, gasp!, public (how crass and unsophisticated). Introverts love to snarkily sit on the sidelines and laugh at all the people in the game. We love to self-importantly preserve our undefeated record by never entering the ring. There’s an awful lot about introverts to love, but there’s also a lot that’s less lovely. I’m all for loving introverts as they are. I am one. I’m happy to see the recent flux of positive messages, books, and blog posts about understanding and appreciating introverts. I’ve written some of them and I’m for it. However, if all this positive affirmation for “being who I am”—that delightful and dangerous path—helps us feel superior as we disengage from community, friendship, spouse, family, and church, then we are believing a lie. Introverts need community—real community with real, flesh and blood people. We need to be loved, accepted, challenged, and to find our place in the world. Star Trek and Facebook and cats may make us feel like we have something real, but they cannot replace flesh and blood people. Star Trek won’t let you down. It’s safe. Safe and not real. Facebook can provide us a thousand opportunities to feel better than other people and to shine up our pristine image—even an image of being broken, humble, complicated, interesting people. But spouses can’t be blocked, sisters are hard to unfriend. We can’t decline a funeral event with a click. Cats . . . well, let’s be honest and just admit that cats are evil. Here’s the point, introverts. Maybe you’re angry because I said Star Trek wasn’t real or that Facebook is a minefield of pride and envy, or you’re steaming from having to face the awful truth that cats are of the devil. But hold on. Remember, I’m one of you . . . er, us. The world needs us. We don’t just need flesh and blood community, but flesh and blood community needs us. Seemingly-confident extroverts need us. Type A’s that type a’s on their keyboards with so much power and confidence need us. Muscular, tanned, salt-and-pepper haired businessmen in suits need the dog-hair-sweater-wearing bespectacled old maid who wears a Star Trek communicator because her cats have told her it looks rad. We all need each other. It takes all kinds, as the person quoting cliches once said. I know it will take courage that you believe you are incapable of to take those baby steps toward being present. Remember that God is strong when you are weak. Remember that you are loved, accepted, welcomed by God in Christ. Remember that your brothers and sisters need you, so be brave. Be present somewhere, introverts. You are needy, and needed. Just like everyone else.

Recently I sat down for a Skype conversation with Barry at The Twelve-Minute Muse. We talked about several things including, but not limited to, my latest EP, Counting My Rings: B-sides, The Book Mole (my new bibliomaniac book-finder and reseller service), the importance of metaphor in songwriting, painting, and the mal-importance of inspiration. We probably talked about LSU football, too, but nobody here cares about sports, so it was stricken from the record. Taking a cue from the One-Minute Movie reviewer, please enjoy this 12- (or-so) minute interview. [Click here for more from the Twelve-minute Muse.]

When bands have the opportunity to create their first concert film, they usually have one of two options—create some sort of slick and energetic extended music video that gives the viewer a sense of being at the show, or find a way to reveal something more about their identity through the means of film and performance. I think the latter tend to be more interesting, as they try to unveil some of the mystery behind the always elusive creative process and understand the alchemy of sound that emerges from a group of musicians. Back in January 2012, on the heels of their most creative work yet, Ghost Upon The Earth, the worship collective Gungor started a Kickstarter campaign for a live album/DVD project. Being a huge fan of their work, I readily donated to the project and eagerly awaited the results. Later in the year, their fantastic live album A Creation Liturgy arrived. But no film. So I waited, and waited. The project went through numerous delays, much to the frustration of Gungor and their fans I’m sure. Finally, just a few months ago, the digital copy of Let There Be arrived in my inbox, and it was entirely worth the wait. I knew it was going to be much more than a typical live performance film when it opened up with Lisa Gungor singing “This Is My Father’s World” in a seaside cave in Northern Ireland, with the ocean swelling in and out to her lilting vocals. This is followed by a series of Terrence Malick-like nature shots over which Michael Gungor poetically meditates upon creation and creativity: “I used to think that creation was something that had happened. Now I see it as something that is happening. Creation is an ongoing process. . . . We’ve been handed brushes of our own. . . . What shall we make?” What’s beautiful about this opening is, despite being a film about a “worship” band, Michael taps into the inherent creative ability of every human being made in the image of God, and we are treated to a montage of dancers, carpenters, musicians, and parents exercising their gifts in small, everyday ways. It’s as if Gungor is trying to make clear at the beginning, “We are all worshipers, and all our attempts to add beauty to the world are an expression of worship to the Creator.” From here the film naturally and deftly slips into the first of its four movements. Given that so much of Gungor’s music is steeped in biblical narrative and liturgy, it makes total sense that the film progresses narratively through the themes of Creation, Fall, The Bride, and (Re)Creation. What’s wonderful about this film is that Gungor inhabits the role of artist seriously. It’s not just a collection of live songs. One of the early performances, “Crags and Clay,” deftly moves from the band performing in concert halls, to Colorado mountaintops and European coastlines. A few times I was distracted from the music by the thought, “Oh my gosh, how did they get there?” There are many other wonderful touches to the film throughout. Poet Amena Brown provides several stirring interludes of spoken word verse between songs. The performances during the Fall movement are shot in a noirish black and white that lends a somberness to the material. During The Bride, husband and wife Michael and Lisa stroll lovingly through the streets of Paris, and sing the love song “Vouse Etes Mon Coeur (You Are My Heart)” along the banks of the Seine with the Eiffel Tower twinkling in the evening background. Perhaps the coolest technical highlight of the film is an acoustic version of “Wake Up Sleeper” that the band performs at a New York City subway stop. We get multiple camera shots from various angles and levels that allow us to hear the band but not see them, even a shot from the street where the music eerily echoes up from the concrete depths. The performances themselves are fantastic. You can feel the wild, creative energy of the collective emanating from the screen. You also realize two things: these people love what they do, and they are crazy talented (just witness Michael Gungor’s blazing guitar solos). Ultimately though, this is more than just a visually stunning film of a super talented band. Through Let There Be, Gungor reminded me about why it all matters—why it’s important to be alive, to be human, to create, and to worship. I felt inspired, refreshed, and encouraged, having been once again given a glimpse of the big picture. As Michael puts it at the end: “There seems to be something living within these stories and creeds that has gripped my soul. It’s as though there are hands wrapped around my very heart, and as much as doubt or scientific analysis tries to wrench the hands free, there is no use. I have been marred by this story of a marred Messiah. So I keep coming back and listening to the story.” Let There Be is available at www.gungormusic.com

“My own eyes are not enough for me; I will see through those of others.”—C.S. Lewis “Lend me your eyes, I can change what you see . . .”—Mumford & Sons On one of those rare sunny days in the middle of a Michigan winter, light and warmth hinted at spring but failed to break through the deep chill that would persist for another few months. The road was covered in muddy slush, undoing my earlier efforts at the car wash. I came around a bend in the road and swerved to keep from hitting a slumped figure on the side of the road—a woman, bundled in layers of sweaters and t-shirts, hands clasped around a grocery bag. She held out her thumb, a silent plea for a ride. Our eyes met as my car swished past her and, without my conscious intent, my foot eased down on the breaks. I pulled onto the narrow shoulder of the road and waited for the woman to shuffle closer. My thoughts raced. What am I doing? A hitchhiker? Really? Not your greatest idea, Lane. The woman approached the passenger-side window and I motioned for her to open the door. I’ve always wondered how I’d die. Is this how it happens? She pulled the handle and ducked into the car, closed the door and fumbled for the seatbelt as she spoke through cold, chapped lips. “Think I could maybe get a ride to the dollar store?” “Sure thing.” I smiled and waited for the snap of the seat belt. I offered my name and she gave me hers in return: Deborah. “Jus’ call me Debbie, I guess.” The car filled with a stench I hadn’t experienced since I was about eight years old, the day a man stumbled into my family’s living room, drunk and mumbling incoherent demands: stale cigarette smoke, booze, and something else disturbingly human that only emerges after weeks without a bath or clean laundry. Not being well-practiced in the art of picking up hitchhikers, I wondered what amount of conversation would be considered appropriate. Since there wasn’t time to check wikiHow, I ventured a question. “How long have you been walking this morning?” “Only ‘bout fifteen minutes. My car broke down last month and I been walking pretty much everywhere.” So it began. The car pulled onto the highway and Debbie proceeded to share pieces of her story. She hardly took a breath in the fifteen minutes we were together. She lived in a lake house, she told me, that she had inherited from her deceased father. Her children had disowned her. She hadn’t seen her grandchildren in months. None of her family would speak to her. The reasons for her isolation were many and she offered a rambling explanation as we made our way north on MI-37, toward the Newaygo dollar store. The white lines in the parking lot were barely visible under the salt-punctured ice. When I put the car in park, Debbie cut her story short and restlessly shifted the plastic bag in her lap. “Well, I sure do thank you for the ride. It’s a heck’a lot better’n walkin’, I know that.” She turned and our eyes caught as they had when I’d nearly passed her on the road. Hers were green. “You can give me a ride anytime, Miz Barbara.” I assured her I’d be happy to give her a ride if I happened to see her again. She climbed out of the car and closed the door, offered a weary wave of her arm as she stood in the cold and met my eyes once again before she disappeared into the fluorescent-lit dollar store. Her smell lingered in the car as I pulled back onto the highway. I haven’t seen Debbie since that day, but I still see the color of her eyes in the wintered pine trees of New Mexico and in the painted stainless steel casing of the Hydroflask (gifted to me by my Rabbit Room Secret Santa) that holds my morning coffee. “The story of any one of us,” Buechner tells us, “is in some measure the story of us all.” Those brief moments when my gaze captured Debbie’s, or hers enveloped mine, there was the closing of a circle, a meeting of our two very different stories to discover the grace of sameness. The eyes are windows into the soul. We know this. Yet how often do we take the time to gaze into, or even notice, the eyes of another? There was something in Debbie’s eyes, or something behind them—a story, further reaching than I, or she, could ever articulate. Her eyes held a story that was, in all its mundane detail, eternally significant; a story that holds the power to transform my own vision.

My friend Hilton grew up poor in South Alabama. He and his older brother didn’t have a lot of toys, but they did have one tricycle to share between them. Only Hilton’s brother wasn’t much of a sharer. He rarely gave five-year-old Hilton a turn, and when Hilton did get on the tricycle, his brother was likely as not to knock him off and ride it himself. Which made it hard to relax and enjoy any tricycle time he got. One day the two boys were playing at a creek not too far from the house when the older brother stepped on a leg trap—picture a snap-jawed bear trap from the cartoons, but smaller and without the teeth. Still plenty painful, though, on a little boy’s bare foot. The older brother howled in agony while Hilton sweated and grunted, trying to open the jaws of the trap enough to free the foot. But he was only five. He couldn’t do it. The two boys together, in fact, couldn’t open the trap. “Go get mama!” the brother bawled. “Get her quick!” So Hilton lit out for the house, as fast as his little legs could carry him. He pushed through the palmetto of the creek bottom and onto the sandy road, his brother’s howls ringing in his ears. “Got to get Mama,” he said to himself as he ran. “Mama can fix it.” He turned up the long drive that led to the house and kept running. He could feel a little stitch in his side and he couldn’t hear his brother’s howls so clearly now but he kept running. “Got to get Mama,” he said. “She can fix it.” The house had just come into view when Hilton pulled up short. There, under the shade tree, sat the tricycle, unattended. There was no older brother. Nor was there any danger of anybody sneaking up from behind and knocking him off. For the first time in his life, the opportunity for a leisurely ride on the tricycle presented itself. So he hopped on. “I rode it three times around the house before I went in and got Mama,” he said. “Each time I came around the front, I could just hear my brother yelling down at the creek.”

The past year has been incredibly busy. There have been Hutchmoots (yes, plural), Kickstarter campaigns, Molehills, memberships, Anglican Ways, Wolf Kings, Slugs and Bugs, and a slew of other things to work on (many of which are still piled on my desk). Amid all that I’ve had people asking, “When is your next book coming out?”—in answer to which I have generally shrugged my shoulders and wondered the same thing. Since Fiddler’s Green was published at the end of 2010, I’ve been telling myself that as soon as I have time, I’ll get to work on the next project. But the last few years have taught me that such thinking is a sure road to nowhere. If I’m going to write, I’m going to have to make the time. You’d think I’d have learned that lesson by now, but I suppose I’m stubborn (my wife is nodding her head emphatically as you read this). So I began this project, which I call Tales of an Unremembered Country, last month and I’m releasing the first fruit of it today. This tale, “Timely Arrival of Barnabas Bead,” is about a hapless colonel and his long-suffering lieutenant, who are reassigned to a Confederate outpost in the Appalachian Mountains. The road they take to get to their new garrison, however, might just lead them somewhere else entirely. If you’ve read the Fiddler’s books, you may recognize some parts of the world in which this is set. I’ll leave it at that. The story is available as a PDF in the Rabbit Room store (you can read a sample here), and in the Amazon store via Kindle (Amazon reviews are much appreciated!). This month’s tale includes an illustration by Jonny Jimison, and I hope to involve a variety of illustrators in these stories throughout the year. I hope you enjoy it. I’ll have another for you next month.

On November 22 of last year, I lost my voice. I’m not talking laryngitis; I mean my words. They scattered from me like a covey of quail, and I knew, standing there amid the ragged stubble of a waning year, that there was nothing I could do to call them back, nothing but lean into the cold wind of sorrow and wait. Words, like all winged things, have a life of their own; believing in their return often feels like believing in the hope of spring when the whole world is laid barren and birdless by the ravages of winter. But on November 22, I was too tired and sad to care if they ever came back. That was the day that my dog Caspian died, and some fundamental innocence in me died with him. The past two years have just about broken my heart, not by the ruin of a single blow, but by the slow-growing burden of accumulated sorrow, of grief upon grief that has seemed relentless at times. But when Caspian was diagnosed with cancer last spring, the very day we were supposed to leave on a long-awaited jaunt to the sea in our ’62 Airstream, it was too much to bear. I couldn’t bear it, in fact: when I heard the diagnosis coming out of the specialist’s mouth and saw the tears gathering in my husband’s eyes, a great, black cavern seemed to open inside of me and I felt myself falling into a bottomless place haunted by all my worst fears. The vet droned on unintelligibly about how there was nothing that could be done and what to expect in the coming days, but my soul was crying out in silence: Jesus, catch me! (He did, by the way. Strong arms shot out of that darkness and held me so tightly I could almost feel them about my physical body. I am here, that grip told me, in words beyond words.) “How long?” Philip said in a voice that sounded nothing like Philip’s. The vet was cautious. “Weeks to months,” he said. “But it’s an advanced case, and moving fast.” We walked out into the sunshine of an April afternoon with Caspian tugging blissfully on the leash, ecstatic to be released after a night’s stay at the best veterinary hospital in the state. As soon as we were in the car, Philip and I stared at one another, frightened by the anguish in each other’s eyes. “Let’s take him,” I choked. “Let’s go home and pack that Airstream if it takes all night and let’s get on the road by dawn. Let’s run away from all this sadness and give Caspian the trip to the beach of his life.” And that is precisely what we did. If there’s ever been a heart on this earth that loved that Airstream or our island destination more than Philip and me, it was Caspian. In the ten years of tramping about in our Silver Girl, Caspian had only been left behind once—and he was so devastated we vowed never to do it again. Caspian wasn’t taking any chances, though. He always knew when we were even talking about packing up for another adventure, and would park himself by the door of the trailer, refusing to budge until the moment of departure, wherein, assured of a seat in the car with his nose on the console, he could finally relax. Sick as he was, this time was no exception. I actually had to feed him his breakfast in the Explorer the morning we left as he’d loaded himself up before I had hardly opened the kitchen door. Philip kept calling it our “Shadowlands” trip, and, indeed, there was a keenness to those sunlit days that only sorrow can lend, a sharp brilliance against which both pain and pleasure stood out in dazzling clarity. For Caspian, still feeling well enough to enjoy everything, it was a dream come true: he got to eat whatever he wanted and do whatever he pleased. He got to spend whole days at Philip’s side as he worked (the Airstream doubles as “remote office” by day) and long, late afternoons on the beach with us or strolling the fishing pier in the cool of the evening. He had half of whatever I was eating at any given time, and he even got a sip of ale at the oyster bar on the wharf. Indeed, if we were living in the shadowlands, Caspian was frisking the foothills of heaven. On the beach he was always off lead—for the first time in his life. Suddenly all the leashes and life-jackets and relentless safety of the past twelve years seemed silly. Worse than silly: in this light they looked like life-killers; joy-stealers. I had feared losing Caspian since the night we brought him home; I remember sitting on the kitchen floor clutching that squirming bundle of six week-old fluff to my heart and bursting into tears. It terrified me how much I loved him. And it terrified me that there was a world out there so suddenly swarming with Dangerous Things that could hurt him or take him from me. There were cars, and stagnant pools tainted with evil viruses, and ticks and vaccine reactions. And there was cancer, the thing I feared most of all. Now that it had come, I could not fail to see that my gentle Lord had softened this sentence of death with a radiant milieu of mercies. The very fact that we were all here together for a few fleeting weeks in a place that held some of the dearest memories of our lives was an unmistakable kindness. And Caspian’s illness did not mar the trip as much as it illumined it, revealing each moment for the fire-hearted gem that it was. I watched him trot free along the shore with the inquisitive abandon of a puppy and I wanted to run with him, throwing off the fears that fettered my joys to earth, free as the wind and the swooping gulls and the curls of foam tossed up on the murmuring tide—free as my dying dog, whose happiness anchored me in the moment even as my soul took wing with this glimpse of undying things. It reminded me of that scene at the end of The Last Battle when everyone was running together with such gathering gladness into Aslan’s Country, the real Narnia. We caught Caspian’s joy, Philip and I, racing with him along a deserted beach in the saffron radiance of a dying day, and the incandescence of it will be with us for life. I wrote in my journal: So here is what I want to remember and never forget: Anxiety is the devil. Fear is a taste of hell because it cuts us off from the ever-offered rest of God’s love. And fear cannot do one damn thing to avert the thing feared. Sorrow, on the other hand, is a kind friend, and when it comes, grace comes, too, and all the tender mercies of God. All fear is the fear of loss and death; all love comes with a price tag of pain; all true sorrow has its counterpoint of joy. And it’s real. We’re living it in the most vivid way. And if we’re running along the beach laughing at one moment and weeping over the grief that is coming the next, well then, this is life abundant, the full package. And the joy is more real than the grief because the joy is forever and the pain is for but the passing shadow of this life. Beyond all expectation, Caspian lived to travel with us once more to our island refuge in mid-September, though by that time he was completely blind. The dignity with which he accepted this sad new development was one of the most touching things I have ever seen. The vet explained to me that dogs don’t regard “suffering” as a concept the way we humans do; they are generally very philosophical about hardship, accepting what comes their way with deeply instinctual adaptability. I witnessed that first-hand when Caspian lost his sight: after a day or so of deep confusion, he shook off the gloom and started feeling his way around the house with his nose, reacquainting himself with thresholds and walls and furniture. He nosed his way up our steep staircase, gingerly at first, and then with astonishing confidence. He even wanted to go to the barn with us in the evenings as he’d always done, though it must have been frightening to have the goats and sheep and chickens all swarming about and not be able to see them. The island was no different: Caspian didn’t have to see to know exactly where he was and to be excited about it (or to run up to strangers, barking an ecstatic greeting, only to run right past them). And though the disease had certainly progressed, neither Philip nor I had the least doubt that our brave little dog was happy—glad just to be with us, salt-kissed and sun-warmed in a kindly breeze under a generous sky. Whenever we were on the beach, I would bury my face in that gorgeous spotted ruff of his (I always said it looked like the ermine collar on a princely robe) just because I could. Our days with him were dwindling, and we all knew it. On the last afternoon, I stayed behind on the beach while Philip took Caspian back to the Airstream, and as I watched their retreating figures, my eyes burned with tears. It was the end of an era. The loss of a particular innocence loomed: Philip and I both had lost dogs in our lives—but we had never lost our dog. Caspian was so much a part of us, we hardly knew “us” without him. We weren’t just “dog people,” ardently as we love the canine species as a whole. We were Caspian people. So, the day came in late November when Philip and I had to prove our love to this faithful companion of ours by making the decision that every lover of dogs prays they will never have to face. Yet even that black day was made tender by mercies: the sudden, unmistakable downturn that left us no doubts; the fact that we were both with him; the gentle expiration with his head on Philip’s lap. Our kind-hearted vet hugged me hard when it was all over. “I’ve rarely seen a dog loved as much as Caspian,” he told me gently. But that’s no credit to us. Caspian was the kind of dog that little children wrote letters to and perfect strangers were smitten by. He had a weakness for whole sticks of butter stolen from the countertop and a human-like cock of his head when he was trying to make out one of the several hundred words in his mental inventory. My best friends wept when they heard Caspian was sick, and when he died, one dear soul spent a couple of weeks trying to bring herself to break the news to her nine year-old daughter. When we came home that afternoon to a thunderously quiet house, we sat in the silence and counted off the things that Caspian had taught us in his living and dying: enthusiastic inhabitance of the present moment; unfettered enjoyment of life; courage in suffering. Philip said gently that maybe someday I would be able to write about it. But in the weeks after Caspian died, I could hardly speak in coherent sentences, much less write them. My journal from that time looks like psychological chicken scratch. The one clear, strong comfort was our shared conviction that Caspian is. If there’s a bone of theological contention that leaves me cold, it’s the argument of whether animals will be in heaven. No mere sentimental crutch, my doctrinal position on the matter is simple if not a little incredulous: Why the heck not? It’s one of those questions upon which Scripture is notoriously silent, but I see absolutely no reason to interpret silence in this case as “no.” All I know of the character of God speaks to the contrary: if there’s one thing in the infinite universe this quaking heart of mine doesn’t fear, it’s the possibility of imagining God better than He is. “I wonder if the spirits of all the pussy folk and doggy folk I’ve loved will meet me with purrs and yaps of pleasure at the pearly gates,” L. M. Montgomery’s whimsical heroine Pat Gardiner ponders. But dear “Grandpa George” MacDonald takes a firmer stance: “I know of no reason why I should not look for the animals to rise again…If the Father will raise his children, why should he not also raise those whom he has taught his little ones to love? Love is the one bond of the universe, the heart of God, the life of his children: if animals can be loved, they are loveable; if they can love, they are yet more plainly loveable: love is eternal; how then should its object perish?” We knew we’d been marked as dog lovers for life; Caspian had settled that question irrevocably. But in the first deadness of grief we declared we never wanted another dog. Then we said maybe, in a hundred years or so. Then we said it would have to be an Australian shepherd, just like Caspian. And then, before either of us dreamed we were ready, a five-pound ball of downy blue merle pranced into our sadness and lit it all the colors of the rainbow. Suddenly, our mourning for one dog was not mutually exclusive with the sweet anticipation of another. The woman we got her from (a saint among dog breeders!) was so gentle with my fears of circumventing the grief process: she told me that when one of her dogs goes to a home where a beloved companion has recently been lost she believes they have a special calling to care for wounded hearts. I can vouch for that: when Philip and I met our wee lass for the first time, we handed our hearts over without question. This pup had a vocation on her pretty little head—it was as obvious as that seagull-shaped “V” on the bridge of her perfect little nose. We named her Bonnie Blue (her mother’s name is Katie Scarlett, of course), and in the weeks since she’s come to live with us, a strong new joy has been swelling in my heart like the unblighted bulbs of early spring. Colors appear where once there was only the hard earth of sadness; hope flocks home, birdlike, one dove at a time. My words are coming back, as well, in this sudden thaw, and old ambition gleams out between patches of melting snow. All this from the advent of a puppy who’s not quite housebroken and nips holes in my favorite skirts and eats out of the litter box? Absolutely. That’s what love does—it kindles and warms and wakens. Love is a creative force: it always begets in some way or another. And this particular love is resurrecting gladness in my heart, reminding me that winter must give way at last to warmth and sunshine, in nature and in life. Who says dogs can’t be grace-bearers? We sat in the pasture the other day, Bonnie and I, and watched the sandhill cranes swirling overhead on a persistently northward course. “That means spring is coming, Bonnie-girl,” I told her, as she cocked her head at their far-off cries. “And you won’t believe how beautiful it’s going to be.” I’ll spare the details of how absurd Philip and I have made ourselves with puppy-love the past six weeks. But I will say that we’ve remembered Caspian more tenderly than ever since Bonnie has come into our lives. Though each dog’s personality is unquestionably unique, it’s been sweet to see the similarities in the breed that have made us such devoted “Aussie people.” With the remembering, however, comes the ghost of old fears, the temptation to snatch and grab and worry. Menaces rise on every side so that I want to clutch Bonnie in my arms and sit down on the kitchen floor and cry. How easily I fret my joy away over improbable things! And yet, it’s love itself that arrests my panicked heart, soothing me back down into the quiet of Caspian’s best and most unforgettable gift to us: Fearlessness. Love wildly! Love exuberantly! his doggie soul proclaimed in a thousand ways. But—for Heaven’s sake—love without fear.