My son scampered around the graveyard, having to be reminded not to be too rambunctious. I asked him to stop playing on the gravestone pictured below and got his happy, “Sure, Daddy.” I commented that I loved the shape of the marker, and he agreed. “Look at this spaceship, Daddy. I think it’s pointing to God.” But this wasn’t the grave we came to see. I have seen a few famous grave sites in my 35 years, but none of the graves I’ve seen in Arlington, Lexington, New York, London, or Durban quite measure up in importance to this one in Galax, Virginia. Lillie Cooley is not famous outside our family, but inside our family? She’s a central character in our story, an unrivaled heroine. Lillie Cooley is –to me and many others– more important than many people who are internationally famous. Lillie Cooley was a faithful woman in my wife’s family (and therefore my family) and one whose leadership and example are celebrated years and years after her death. Aunt Lillie was my wife’s Great Aunt, the second oldest of eight siblings. The oldest and only son, Edgar, died in his twenties. When their parents died as well, Lillie (then) Mabe took on the responsibility of caring for all the children. She was helped in this by Aunt Elva. Lillie didn’t want the kids parceled out here and there, because she wasn’t sure they would be taken care of properly. She decided to devote her life to the family. There were seven daughters, so the “Mabe Babes” are all famous, and Aunt Lillie was the star above them. She became a sort of humble matriarch for a vulnerable family. She worked hard gardening, taught school, and supported the family. She delayed her marriage to her beloved Lucian for many years in order to care and provide for her siblings. She kept them all faithful in church attendance, and raised them well. Her life was characterized by self-sacrifice, by devotion to God, and by holding the family together. On a recent Sunday, we visited the church she faithfully attended for her whole life and her grave which is in the churchyard. We heard the grace of God preached faithfully in this country church, as I imagine Aunt Lillie did in her day. And in the cemetery, we thanked God for his grace on us. Everyone in the family talks about Aunt Lillie as if she were a country saint. I think this is because that is exactly what she was. There are many people who have enjoyed Aunt Lillie’s kindness. They speak of her in reverent tones and with joyful tears, shaking their heads at the goodness they received. My father-in-law is one of best men I’ve ever known. How different would he be if Aunt Lillie were not the woman she was (and is)? How different, then, would be his daughter (my wife)? How different would be the destiny of my little ones? What kind of hole would there be in the heart of the family if God had not given us Aunt Lillie? And it’s God who deserves thanks. For Aunt Lillie was a gift, a gift I am reminded of every morning when I wake up next to Gina Smith. Gina and her dad both look like Mabes. Three of our four kids look like Gina and her dad –all little Mabes. So I get a visual reminder of the impact that Lillie (Mabe) Cooley has had in our family every day. I am grateful. Instead of a hole in the heart of our family, there is a wholeness. The family is far from perfect (see my side for proof enough of that). But when I consider the goodness of God in giving us a wonderful, heroic character such as Aunt Lillie, at just the time such a character was needed, I am thankful for this story. I thank God for this incredible woman. I have never met Lillie Cooley. But nearly everywhere I look I see the fruit of the work of her life. What you love and live for matters, for more than just those you see with your eyes right now. Close your eyes and see the multitude you will impact, and love them as you love yourself. Love them as Aunt Lillie has loved me. Then, even in death, you will point to heaven.

Dark is thick, and I am weary as the frayed last light dying out beyond the trees. The mud and cold stick to my boots and my sigh etches a frozen circle on the air. The river path I walk home at night in Oxford is a shortcut to my flat, but also a reprieve from the clatter of the streets. Sound is swallowed here, mostly, by the brooding water and untrimmed woods. Houseboats dock along this path and I cannot help but spy through the round windows as dusk falls and sets the inner rooms in bright relief against the night. They draw and, somehow, dismay me–these long, low dwellings with narrow rooms, docked low in the muddied stream, ever in a lilt and knock against the riverbank. Most are a clutter of cups and books, clothes and logs and old plants piled on the decks, whole lives crammed into a space too narrow to contain them. They remind me of myself. I am a gypsy soul, a restless-hearted wanderer. For far too long now I have sought my place on earth. My life, outer and inner, feels ever crammed in suitcases as I soldier on to one more new frontier. Though the journey is bright and the changing landscapes rich with adventure, come night, I am weary. My hope grows frail as I trudge alone, again, to a temporary home. The loneliness of my one, striving self far from home; the constant fight to work, to perform, to achieve; the sense of being adrift in an unsettled world: these cluster about me at night. The dread of my own unmoored existence is something I can almost taste. If only, I think, if only I could find my place on earth. But even then, would my heart arrive at home? In the blackness, I trudge on, stung by the memory of a talk with a friend. Her life is as settled as mine is transient. The hunger haunts her as well. The rest, or rootedness, the sense of belonging we both crave eludes her grasp as deftly as it does mine. The soul can be in exile even when the body has arrived. And in the dark, I wonder. Are all of us doomed to wander on and never arrive, body or heart, at the shelter we desire? To venture bravely forth but never make it back? Is life in a fallen world a houseboat existence? Are we confined to one narrow craft and shoved ever on down the river of life? I stop. A strong beam of light reaches out, like a gracious face turned to mine. I meet it and my eyes are turned from the darkness. Through one porthole window, round as a well-cut gem, the warmth of a long, low room peers out. Books line the walls of this houseboat. A marionette swings from the window ledge. A low red chair sits in a corner next to a table cluttered with bread and teacups, photos, letters, flowers. People sway back and forth through the slender spaces, and laugh as they catch the low shelves for balance. On the window sill, a single candle burns. The light of it sears the darkness like the sun risen fresh in the morning. And watching it, I know. Home is the shelter that I make on the river. A candle alight in a houseboat at dusk. The flame may gutter with the rush of the water, and darkness may fall thick as rain outside. But home is the room I carve out at the center of my journey, the space of self and time in which I light the candle of God’s joy and watch it fill the coracle of my heart. Yes, the river rushes on. No, I cannot escape the flow of time, the shove of hunger for a world beyond this, the journey and work to which every heart is born. But home I may craft wherever I go. Home may be made, the confines set, the shelter claimed, by my own creation within the narrow confine of my river-sped days. The joy with which I set a feast and light the festal candle, the hope I choose to light, like a dozen candles in the windows of my heart, the shelter of quiet I craft for my a soul, these make a home in which I may root and rest, even as I sail the rapids of this white-water life. I walk ahead again. The river sweeps me on into the night. But the light of that candle is in my eyes.

Oh, to have been present at San Diego’s Glorietta Bay on July 4, 2012. If I add up all the Fourth of Julys, Friday Nights at baseball stadiums, and New Years celebrations, I bet I’ve seen close to fifty different fireworks displays over the course of my life. I’ve seen them from my seat in the third balcony at Busch Stadium, from the bed of a pickup truck in rural Indiana, and from a community college front lawn in Kansas City. There was even the fortuitous occasion where I was sitting in the window seat of a Delta flight over St. Louis thirty minutes after dark on Independence Day. Dozens of bursts of light dotted the landscape below as far as I could see. I was surprised by how small they looked from 30,000 feet. Then there was the time I lay on the pavement of the casino parking lot on an Indian Reservation in central Washington where my suburban county’s zoning and safety laws did not apply. The rockets burst in the sky directly overhead, raining down little bits of acrid paper all around us. But nothing I’ve ever seen could come close to what the people of San Diego witnessed on July 4, 2012. What was supposed to be a twenty-minute display ended up lasting just fifteen seconds as a malfunction in the detonators caused the entire display—hundreds of individual fireworks—to all go off at once. Here’s the thing. And I promise you this is true. I am not a fireworks enthusiast. I don’t buy them from roadside stands. I don’t angle for the best seat at the fairgrounds. I don’t purchase patriotic t-shirts. But when I think about those thousands who gathered at Glorietta Bay, I get a little jealous. Why? Because those fortunate folks in San Diego witnessed what will likely be the greatest fireworks display of my lifetime. And I wasn’t there. They got to see something no video or picture will ever do justice to. You can’t capture moments like that on film or phone. You just have to be there. So many things in life fall into this category—events you simply cannot bottle for later—like the birth of a child, the funeral of a loved one, a sunset, the presentation and enjoyment of a great meal, a surprise party, a concert, climbing out of a cold tent in the mountains and restoking the campfire as you watch the sun come up, sifting through the rubble of a flood or a fire, kissing your daughter’s forehead as the nurses wheel her off to surgery, asking your girlfriend to marry you, or watching a thunderstorm roll in. In our amazing era of digital immediacy, I can tell the world where I am and what I’m doing while I’m doing it. I can present myself as a busy man living a rich and full life. I can take pictures of my meals, log my locations, snap photos of the people I’m with, and weigh in on what’s happening around the globe 140 characters at a time. But none of these things mean I’ve been paying attention. The degree to which we are able to be present in the moment, psychologists say, is one of the chief indicators of mental health and security in our personal identity. I can buy that. And I would submit that this takes courage—courage to believe an experience itself is of greater value than documenting that it happened. Every day of my life is filled with moments that cannot be captured—moments more glorious than what took place on that San Diego night. We have to hold these moments with an open hand and pay attention. But it’s hard to pay attention, isn’t it? When it comes to wonder and glory, if we’re honest wouldn’t we have to confess that there comes a point where we run out of the energy needed to remain engaged, where we bounce back and hurry for the latitudes of home comforted by the fact that we took a lot of great pictures? Take all the pictures you want. They’ll only serve to instruct you in the truth that none of your clips or still images managed to capture what was really happening in the moment. Go ahead. Watch this pretty awesome video of the 2012 San Diego fireworks and you’ll know, as amazing as it is, that you’re not seeing anything close to what those who gathered there in the bay that night actually experienced. Life is filled with wonder and beauty. Tonight’s sunset is a gift we cannot preserve for tomorrow. But tomorrow, we’ll get a new one. And another the night after that. It’s okay to put away our cameras. “Beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.”  —Annie Dillard, Total Eclipse

Brian Wilson’s fingerprints are all over Ben Shive’s The Cymbal Crashing Clouds and perhaps nowhere are they more apparent than in “Sorry But I’m Yours.” Here’s an excerpt from the Cymbal Crashing Clouds companion book (which is amazingly awesome) in which Ben talks a little about the song: My poor, timid voice wants only to live a quiet life, tending little gardens of conversation. But instead he is made something of a sideshow, rudely shoved in front of microphones and made to sing my songs. But imagine my frustration. I work hard writing these things. Often they take years. Then I open my mouth and I’m something like the inverse of the singing frog in the cartoon. You see a man, but all you hear is “croak, craok.” I thought it was time we got some counseling. And I decided he should go first. So I wrote him a song of apology to sing to me from stage, and it has been surprisingly therapeutic for both of us. The phrase “I’m sorry, but I’m yours” could be taken to mean “I know I’m a hopless case, but at least I’m loyal,” or it could mean “I hate to break it to you, but the fact is that you are stuck with me.” Whichever you prefer. “Sorry But I’m Yours” Ben Shive The Cymbal Crashing Clouds

Stories always seem to go in circles, especially the real life ones. For a year now, I’ve had a fairly settled season of work and study. But I’ve come round back to the open-ended life, and with the close of my time at Oxford, I face an uncertain future. Again. I feel rather testy about it. Old prayers, old needs, old questions rear their heads as I enter the realm of home life. Often, of late, I find my heart tightening with the strain of trusting God. So in my daily devotional wanderings, I tend to head toward familiar places and I’ve camped, of late, in the old realm of Genesis. Today I read the story of the woman whose name I bear: Sarah. This was a woman who knew the weight of hope I carry today, the ache of many unanswered prayers. The story did nothing to reassure me at first. I struggled to suppress a sudden rush of bitter amusement, for the name seemed like a joke to me. What sort of princess is asked to wander the desert for decades, barren not just in heart, but in body, her arms empty of the son God promised her? I nearly stopped. I did not want to be reminded of how long Sarah waited for her own prayers to be fulfilled. But my eyes slipped down the page to the story of Isaac’s long-awaited birth and there, staring up at me, was a single word. Laughter. Isaac. The name of the promised child. What a name for such a baby. In the face of my own weariness, God’s little boy of laughter seemed almost cruel, as if a divine joke had been played. For oh, I knew how hard the waiting must have been. Years of wandering, years of hoping, years of disappointment as Abraham and Sarah stumbled through barren lands and dreams and wondered what God was thinking. After all those silent years without a baby, why would God give their child the name of laughter? But as I read, I was wooed into the story by that one, ironic word. Laughter. Like a hidden code, a secret message, it caught me unawares and forced me on. I found laughter woven through the Genesis story like a counter melody, a quiet theme in the symphony of the tale. Both Sarah and Abraham laughed at different times with startling results and I began to see that there was an intricate truth, a woven song in the use of that strange, mirthful name and the way it defined the identity of the promised child and the tale that Sarah and Abraham both walked to receive him. I read on. Abraham laughed first, right in the face of God’s promise. Out under the stars with the Spirit of God Almighty hovering over him, promising him descendants as myriad as the desert sand, he set his head down on the dry earth and laughed. He was, after all, nearly a hundred. And Sarah, his beautiful, grieving wife was but ten years younger and had always been barren. I wonder if it seemed half cruel to him, a promise from God that defied fulfillment. His laugh might have been of cynicism, or it might have been the catching of a sob, a willful turn from grief to a worldly wise acceptance. After that night of covenant, Abraham set his disbelieving laughter to action and decided, perhaps with resignation, that God’s promise was symbolic and what he really meant was that Hagar, the maid, would bear Abraham’s son. Yet God, with incredible patience, watched the child be born and then said “No.” Very simply. A true son of Abraham and Sarah’s blood would be born, and he, said God, would be the child of promise. Abraham didn’t laugh that time. Sarah laughed second; a harsh hilarity of unbelief that echoed with the ache of her barren years. All those wandering days of emptiness, punctuated by the scorn of Hagar and the whispers that rustled amidst the women of her clan when she walked by. Was she cursed? Had she sinned so that God had dried up the life within her? Perhaps she had counted the coins of her forgotten hopes that day when those strange men strolled up the horizon and into her home. She must have seen the light kindled in their eyes, must have caught the bluster and excitement of her husband. Perhaps she tried to pray as her hands beat out the bread and formed the cakes. She must have hovered close as she served them, her shawl pulled round her head, close to her eyes so that her soul was concealed as she listened. Plying them with cake, meat, wine, her hands quick, her ears alert to the prophecies spoken. Her heart must have given an exquisite leap of joy at the words that she would bear a son. But then must have come the wrench of long-accepted grief, and then, the cold of incredulity. For she too, heady with a hope she could not allow herself to hold, stumbled back to her tent and laughed. Oh how she must have laughed and wept and when her tears were dried, laughed again. Her whole body must have ached with her laughter that day. She denied it when her husband’s guests accused her. She could not risk offending the wild, desert God who spoke his crazy promises into her aching heart. Yet that God came near to her sorrow with never a word of condemnation and sang a promise, a beautiful prophecy over her grey head: Is anything too wonderful for the Lord? When the time revives next year, I will return. And Sarah will have a son. And then, it seems that God must have laughed, and his was the very last. God’s laughter shook the stars with its glad finality as it ran to bring life coursing into the barrenness of Sarah’s old body. For Sarah did, in the new life of the next year, bear a son that God himself named “Laughter” because God’s life confounded her skeptical faith, renewed her fallen trust. The life of her child embodied the goodness of a God entirely unbound by human frailty or despair. When Isaac was born, can anyone quantify the unbounded gladness that filled the hearts of Sarah and Abraham? They must have laughed again then, laughed without pain, laughed with abandon at the miracle of the baby that squirmed in Sarah’s arms. I wish I could ask them if at that moment, they understood the waiting, the yearning, the pain through all those years of hope deferred. Did they forget it all in their joy? Did God ever explain himself? Or was his answer simply the child and that was all that was needed? Was God’s grand answer simply a child whose very life echoed with Almighty laughter? The laughter, I realized, rings on. For Isaac was the child of a far larger promise. Isaac was the answer, not just to Abraham and Sarah’s desire, but to the promise God had made to bless all the families of the earth. Isaac’s birth confirmed God’s covenant to redeem us all, to bring eternal grace through another little baby, a promised, long-awaited child named Jesus.  I find it a thing of wonder that God gave the name of “Laughter” to the child who foretold our salvation. The child who became a comforter to all people. There must be a mad impossibility in the way of God’s redemption, even as it reaches even into my own little life. I feel it today as this story answers my restless, despairing heart. It helps me to remember that God has never left me and goodness beyond what I could have imagined to request has met me at every turn. God’s tenderness bewilders my human wisdom with its illogical and undeserved grace. It is, however, a grace that never follows my schedule. I am tempted to tread my dusty circles with loud lament at the slow way of God’s work, fix my eyes on the desert barrenness of hearts and broken bodies. I hear echoes of grand promises from this merciful God and yet want to hide in the small shadows of my tent and weep, like Sarah, with a barren laughter lamenting the impossibility of all I hope. But into that comes God, laughing at the melodrama of my despair even as his gladness remolds my heart, kindles my hope afresh, and sets unexpected gifts in my hands. Unbound by despair, unbridled by human impossibility, God’s goodness, begun in a child called laughter, courses new through the earth every day. It doesn’t always make sense to me. I don’t understand the waiting, the days and months of unfulfilled yearning when everything seems dark. But I am beginning to see that somehow there is a glory to God in the last-minute answering of prayers. A death-defying grace springs up when we believe God’s impossible promises, whether for miraculous babies or daily bread. A wild, glad laughter must sound in the heavens when we choose to believe in what we cannot see. So today, I choose to set aside my fear and simply laugh. Let gladness fill and overflow me until my faith joins that of Sarah and Abraham, our voices one more affirmation of the God who lives and loves . . . and laughs. Forever.

“Jack” Lewis (1898-1963) wanted most of all to be known as a poet. Today we know C.S. Lewis as a great literary scholar, for works such as The Allegory of Love and EnglishLiterature in the Sixteenth Century Excluding Drama, including his scholarship on such poets as John Milton and Edmund Spenser—as a Christian apologist for dozens of titles including Mere Christianity and Miracles—for his fiction, including the seven books in The Chronicles of Narnia, and his critical success, Till We Have Faces. He was also famous for his Oxford lectures, and for his skilful debates against prominent atheists—but he is not well known for his poetry. Too often Lewis is trying to win an argument—something that just doesn’t work in a poem. He had developed such a love for the form and subject matter of medieval narrative verse, that he could not relate to the poetic techniques of the twentieth century. In one poem he mocks the famous opening of Eliot’s “Prufrock” with the lines: For twenty years I’ve stared my level best To see if evening—any evening—would suggest A patient etherized upon a table; In vain. I simply wasn’t able… Despite this short-coming Lewis understood medieval poetry better than perhaps anyone. He wrote many beautifully poetic passages in his other writings, and did successfully (though little acknowledged) write some fine poems. The following poem captures his desperation, like a trapped animal—as he describes himself in Surprised By Joy as “the most dejected and reluctant convert in all of England”—when he realized the truth of Christ. I find the honesty he permits himself here—perhaps because it was written for a character in his book The Pilgrims’ Regress—most refreshing. Caught You rest upon me all my days The inevitable Eye; Dreadful and undeflected as the blaze Of some Arabian sky; Where, dead still, in their smothering tent Pale travellers crouch, and, bright About them, noon’s long-drawn Astonishment Hammers the rocks with light. Oh, but for one cool breath in seven, One air from northern climes, The changing and the castle-clouded heaven Of my old Pagan times! But you have seized all in your rage Of Oneness. Round about, Beating my wings, all ways, within your cage, I flutter, but not out. (To read my blog about why C.S. Lewis had such a timeless quality in so much of his writing (other than his poetry) visit: Canadian Authors Who Are Christian) Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the award-winning author of the poetry collections Poiema (Wipf & Stock) and So The Moon Would Not Be Swallowed (Rubicon Press). They are both available here.

When I was a boy my dad consistently called on a wrinkled old sage named Mortimer Hawk to offer the closing prayer at church. He was so old that the congregation’s stillness deepened as soon as he opened his mouth. “Most Holy Father,” he quietly boomed. (I know that sounds impossible, but that’s how I remember it; he boomed—quietly. Honest.) “We thank Thee for Thy bounty, and humbly seek Thy guidance as we depart this place to proclaim in word and deed Thy merciful affection.” So he began. That’s not verbatim, but it’s the general vibe of Mortimer’s weekly supplication. The way he pronounced every “Thee” and “Thy” assured me that in his mind they were capitalized. He transported the whole church back about a hundred years, and reminded us how rich and humble a prayer could be. And that was the weird thing—he didn’t speak that way in normal conversation; he reserved his King James prayers for church, but somehow it never struck me as pretentious or put-on. It was merely this humble old saint’s way of honoring the King to whom he spoke. He didn’t pepper his prayer with mindless repetition (“FatherGod, we pray, FatherGod, that you, Jesus, FatherGod, Jesus, would be with us, Jesus, God”, etc.), a habit many of us have acquired which strikes me as dangerously close to “babbling like the pagans do” (Matthew 6:7). My guess is that this odd repetition that’s so pervasive in our prayers is either nervous habit, an oratory device employed to buy us time to think of what to say next, or maybe we’ve grown up thinking it’s just what you’re supposed to do. I’m sure someone out there will demonstrate that I’m wrong to reference that verse here—but hopefully you see what I’m saying: sometimes our public prayers are padded with nice sounding words and phrases that don’t mean a whole lot. (This is what is known on the Internet as “opening a can of worms.”) I admit that it might just be a matter of preference. I’ve voiced my opinion about this stuff to a few people and have noticed when they pray afterward that they feel awkward and self-conscious. That’s not what we’re going for here; I don’t want to be the prayer cop. I may have a hard time with “prayerspeak”, but we can all agree that it’s the heart that matters. I doubt God is up there rolling his eyes just because someone keeps repeating (and repeating) “FatherGod.” He adores us. He can see through our habits and foibles and silliness to what we’re really saying, or trying to say, or ought to be saying—he can hear the Spirit’s groaning on our behalf. Still, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t think about it. As I said in an earlier post (the one about “Creatives”), this is me raising my hand in the back of the class and asking if there’s a better way to think about the issue. Allow me to pick on myself for a moment. Almost every time I pray with my family before we go to bed, I find myself saying, “Be with us, Lord,” or “Please be with Jody”, as if God isn’t already with us. He’s told us in scripture again and again that he’s with us. I can’t tell you how many times my kids have heard me say, mid-prayer, “Why do I keep saying that? I know you’re with us, and you’re with Jody. What I mean, Lord, is, ‘Help us to believe that you’re with us; give us an overwhelming sense of your presence.'” It’s not a huge difference, I know, but little things matter. I find that when I’m no longer pleading for God’s presence but thanking him for it, my heart rests a little more. And yet, tonight when I prayed with the kids, I did it again. Old habits die hard. But old Mortimer Hawk wasn’t using empty words. To the contrary, each word seemed full to the brim, spoken with purpose and beauty. It seemed as though he were alone in the room, speaking with his King and Father, and we were eavesdropping, affirming his quietly booming words. I remember as an eight-year-old boy wanting to write down his prayers, thinking how cool it would be to tell my dad on the day Brother Hawk finally died that I had written down his last prayer. I tried to transcribe a few of them but there was never enough room in the margins of the bulletin. Now that I’m all grown up I don’t often pray in public, and when I pray in private I tend to keep it simple and straightforward. I converse with God with as little pretense as I can manage, though I try to maintain an attitude of reverence. I confess, I don’t know what I’m doing. Many times I find myself fresh out of words, and instead let my mind wander, mustering an awareness of God’s presence and reality. But when it comes down to it, I need words. That’s why the Psalms are such a blessing. They give voice to the feeling in our bones. We need the ancient, vast community of the saints to teach us to pray, to trumpet our unutterable longing. That’s why the Mortimer Hawks of the world are a blessing, and the authors we love, not to mention songwriters and poets. The Lord has put in his church people who are blessedly bereft of self-consciousness, who can stand in the assembly and pour out their hearts with all the eloquence of a statesman and none of the political posturing—the rest of us whose prayers falter are grateful to mutter, “What he said.” Or, “Amen,” if you like. A few years ago some good friends bought me a book called A Diary of Private Prayer (1936), by Scottish theologian John Baillie (1886-1960, pictured above). I’d never heard of it, but it’s since become indispensable to my devotional time, partly because I’m so bad at having devotional time. The book makes it easy. It’s divided into morning and evening prayers for each day of the month, each prayer is a page long, and each is different enough in focus and theme that they don’t get old. And the writing is beautifully old school. It’s like I’m hearing the ghost of Mortimer Hawk in my head. The problem was, I kept getting hungeth uppeth on the (truly beautiful) language, kept forgetting it was supposed to be me praying, not him. So now when I read, I jettison every “Thee”, “Thou”, and “Dost” and replace it with “your”, “you”, and “do.” What’s amazing to me is that the prayers are just as stirring. That tells me he wasn’t using the language to trick me into thinking the prayers were more eloquent than they were. He was saying something, and saying it beautifully, regardless of how many -eths he used. This morning I read these words: Dear Father, take this day’s life into your own keeping. Guide all my thoughts and feelings. Direct all my energies. Instruct my mind. Sustain my will. Take my hands and make them skillful to serve you. Take my feet and make them swift to do your bidding. Take my eyes and keep them fixed upon your everlasting beauty. Take my mouth and make it eloquent in testimony to your love. Make this day a day of obedience, a day of spiritual joy and peace. Make this day’s work a little part of the work of the Kingdom of my Lord Christ, in whose name these my prayers are said. Amen. “That’s what I want, Father. I don’t think I’d have quite known how to ask for it without John Baillie’s help.” A prayer like that is as beautiful in Nashville, 2012 as it was in Scotland, 1936. What a joy it is to be a part of this timeless congregation of saints, whose need, longing, and adulation for the Lord is as deep and desperate today as it was when King David wrote his poems and read them in the temple courts, perhaps in a quietly booming voice.

At first, this post is going to seem like a rebuttal to the Proprietor’s recent entry, “All is Not Well.” But things are not always as they seem, which is kind of what this post is about. It’s not so much a rebuttal as a companion piece to Andrew’s beautiful post. For the Andrew Peterson Christmas Show at the Ryman each year, we regulars get to pick one song to perform for the sold-out crowd in attendance. What a wonderful problem. For me, the process of choosing the song for the Ryman show starts somewhere in March or April, and continues through the sweltering Nashville summer. In 2005, I still hadn’t decided what to sing when my wife Amy and I walked out onto the Ryman stage. I had recently written a song about The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe with Pierce Pettis, and I really wanted to play it, but I also had this new song called “Bluebird” that I thought would be cool. Halfway from the curtain to the microphone, I whispered to Amy, “Bluebird,” capo’d my Taylor and off we went. Turns out, you really want to give your wife more prep-time than that if you’re going to be singing at the Ryman. Live and learn, I hope. In 2009, I picked my song about two weeks before the event. I had been trying to finish a song I’d worked on all year about Africa, but it wasn’t coming together right and my new song “With Jesus” had recently come together after months of waiting. The chorus of the song sings, “With Jesus, everything is alright.” It’s harrowing to say and even more-so to sing, especially in the light of deep personal tragedy or global catastrophe like what we are witnessing in Haiti. I wouldn’t recommend it as a slogan for the local church plant, or even as advice to be parceled out to loved ones in times of trouble. But it is as true as “all shall be well”, and it deserves as much attention. As I was writing the song, the chorus came first, which created a great challenge. I was singing the lyrics before I was sure if I even believed them. But this is how songs get you in trouble. They lead you down paths you’d never have taken and then leave you to find yourself out. It is true that with Jesus, everything is alright because “we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” Everything is not happy, nor is everything simple or easy or understandable. But if Jesus is making all things new, and we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, we can call our hearts to rest in Him, for as all shall be well one day, so also is everything in his hands now. This is important for me to remember because it reminds me that not only is God on the move, but he is here and he is up to something good. He is present and active in the middle of our desperate pain. I can rest because I cannot slip from his grasp, he cannot be distracted from his purpose and he can be trusted to see me through. If, in times of trial, I only ever resort to hoping in the future that heaven holds, I may miss out on the words and purposes God has for me through the present experience of my relationship with him. I may hope for heaven, but my hope is in Christ–and he’s right here. If my daughter is reading a story and she runs to me, scared by a troubling scene, which statement is more true for me to say: “Keep reading, sweetheart, it’s going to be OK,” or “It’s OK, sweetheart. Just keep reading.” Is it going to be alright? Or is it alright now, in the middle of the sorrow and danger? Or is it both. I know the end of the story, and it is powerful, beautiful, and true. The lynchpin of the gospel is that Christ himself dwells within his people by His Spirit. His Spirit is called Counselor and Comforter, and those are things that happen in real time – not in the future to come, but right now. Part of the reason “Do not fear” resonates is, we have been given power beyond human comprehension to reflect and glorify the God of the universe today. He is with us, and he is making himself known so that Love will prevail both now and forever. I wrote this as a companion piece to AP’s post because the Gospel assumes our participation in both perspectives, and I need more than the hope of what is to come to make sense of “give thanks in all circumstances.” It would be loveless to preach this message via bumper sticker.  But in my life, Jesus has used this truth of God’s present grace as a powerful comfort in troubled times.

As I write this, it’s my birthday and I’m writing this from several miles up in the air as Taya and I fly to Nashville to join the WAYFM tour with Jeremy Camp, The Afters, and Chasen.  It was hard to say goodbye to my boys, but it’s a short run and we’re so grateful to be a part of what will be the highest profile tour I’ve ever been invited on. We’re so grateful.  Being on a tour with rock acts gives me a nice little niche as the introspective singer/songwriter guy who gets to bring a unique contribution to the evening. I can’t wait to see old friends in the audience and make some new ones on this tour.  It’s a pretty decent birthday gift, really – and a great way to start the year. The best birthday gift I got, though, was when Gus climbed into bed with us in the early hours of the morning and snuggled up beside me before I had to get up to go.  I didn’t even think I’d get to be home at all before late February, but things worked out for me to spend a couple days in my own house, eating my own food, sleeping in my own bed, and of course hanging out with my boys.  (We played video games and built snow tunnels) I want to update you on some exciting developments with my new single, “More Like Falling In Love”.  I’m going to break it up into three parts and give you a little peek into the process of releasing a song to radio. I’ll begin the story here…. Last week, Josh Petersen (marketing, Centricity Music) and I were on the road again making our way from Texas to Minnesota – 10 states in 5 days – in support of the new radio single, “More Like Falling In Love”, thanking the radio stations that have added it to their playlists and giving those who haven’t yet a chance to give it a good listen and hear the story behind the song.  We always hoped and believed that this particular song had the potential to connect with a larger audience, and I’m so grateful to see that this is proving to be true. I’ve always felt blessed to have a strong connection with my audience over the years when I play live, and I’m grateful that I’ve always had consistently favorable reviews from critics, but the one thing I haven’t had is a solid presence at radio. Here is the challenge and reward of radio support: 1. Radio airplay is hard to come by – radio music directors receive hundreds of songs for consideration each year but can only add tens of them. 2. Radio support is really important – it’s kind of like the gas in the tank for my ministry, helping us get where we could never get without it. That kind of exposure would grow our ministry and help me to keep making music for a long time to come (the Lord willing).  Think of some of the most lauded and critically acclaimed artists you love or have heard of – even if they’re not currently the kings of radio – and more often than not there was some song of theirs that connected at radio and gave them the audience they have now, artists like Sara Groves, Derek Webb, Andrew Peterson, etc. I’ve never really had that, and with this new record it was our hope to change this.  “More Like Falling In Love” seemed like it might be the song that could do it. And so far, “More Like Falling In Love” has been enthusiastically received at radio since we released it only a few short weeks ago – more so than any of my songs in the past!  And the response from listeners has been great making it one of the highest rated debut songs.  You can’t imagine how grateful I am for its warm reception. It was the highest debuting single the week it was released and recently broke into the top 20 on the AC indicator charts.  We are praying that it keeps gaining momentum while connecting listeners with the idea that a relationship with Christ should look, as G.K. Chesterton has said, “less like a theory and more like a love affair.” If you’ve heard it on your local station, I’d be grateful if you let them know that you appreciate them playing it (assuming you do, of course Here are some of the stations playing the song right now: WWWA/Augusta, ME WAFJ / Augusta, GA WSCF / Vero Beach, FL WAKW / Cincinnati, OH KLRC / Fayetteville, AR KXOJ / Tulsa, OK WGRC / Williamsport, PA WBHY / Mobile, AL WCVK / Bowling Green, KY WJIE / Louisville, KY KCVO / Columbia, MO KNWS / Waterloo, IA KKJM / St. Cloud, MN WCSG / Grand Rapids, MI KADI / Springfield, MO KXGM / Cedar Rapids, IA KNMI / Farmington, NM WCTL / Erie, PA WGNV / Wausau, WI WMUZ / Detroit, MI WQME / Indianapolis, IN WWIB / Eau Claire, WI KJIL / Meade, KS KLTY / Dallas, TX New Life Media / Illinois network WAYR / Brunswick, GA KSLT / Rapid City, SD WJYO / Ft. Meters, FL KCBI / Dallas, TX WCLN / Fayetteville, NC WHPZ / South Bend, IN KBIQ / Colorado Springs, CO WPER / Fredricksburg, VA KSOS / Las Vegas, NV WNWC / Madison, WI KZKZ / Ft. Smith, AR KGCB / Flagstaff-Prescott, AZ Thanks to all these stations for adding my song, and thanks to you for listening! (NEXT UP: Part 2 – What It’s Like To Be With Josh On The Road)

1. It’s Sunday, so we’re taking it a bit easier than the last few days. Doing our best to honor the Sabbath when there’s a hard deadline staring us down. The last few days, however, have gone more or less according to schedule. That means we’re making good progress, but it also means we’re getting tired. We finished up a little (only a little) early last night and slept in a little (only a little) today. 2. I don’t know why I’m numbering these paragraphs, but I kinda like it. 3. Someone asked a few days ago why we’re making the album here instead of Nashville, where of course there’s an abundance of studios. Here’s why. 4. When we made Resurrection Letters II we hopped back and forth between Paul Eckberg’s Studio (which Osenga dubbed The Metropolitan Museum of Modern Paul), Gully’s home studio (The Night Owl’s Nest), and Michael Card’s studio (Mole End Studios). It was a blast hanging out together pretty much every day, and we sampled some of Nashville’s finest eateries for lunch many of those days. But we’re all family men. There are 10 kids between us, and wives who are bravely holding down the fort while we’re off on our hunting/gathering raids in the studio.  That meant being home for dinner most nights. This was a good thing. It meant we got to pretend we had normal lives for several weeks, with 9 to 5 jobs and a semblance of routine. Routine is a rare thing in this self-employed life. 5. But that also meant that the album took months. Literally months. So this time around, I decided to try something different and sort of old school. My label, Centricity Music, which I’m very grateful for, has a studio deep in the mountains of the Northern Cascades in Washington. It’s available to their artists, which is awesome, but there’s one catch: it’s deep in the mountains of the Northern Cascades in Washington. It’s not easy to get here. It’s more than four hours from Seattle, assuming the roads are clear, and flying with all our instruments and gear is tricky, too. 6. So to avoid the fabled Resurrection Letters-three-months-of-recording fiasco, we carved out eight days of intensely focused studio time, hoping to return home with a mostly completed album, like Inuit tribesmen with a slain moose. 7. Never mind the fact that while we’re slaving away, we happen to be in one of the prettiest mountain ranges I know, cozied up in a log cabin. Don’t tell our wives, lest they slay us like moose when we come home. 8. Right now I’m outside the control room listening to Ben and Andy working on a rhythm track for a new one called “The Reckoning”, so I have to go. Thank you for encouragement and prayers. I hope this music is a blessing to you. Have a good Sunday.

The video says it all:

My eldest –though, not-elderly- son recently stomped through the house singing “…with the angelic host proclaim, Christ is born, in battle home.” He likes weapons, so I guess he has militarized the Holidays. He warns us all, with gentle pleas and political rallies, to keep the longbow in Christmas. We’re making bumper stickers and getting mad at people who try to take it out. But for those with normally-functioning stomachs there is the possibility of swelling beyond desired bounds. According to Twitter and Facebook research, 106.3% of my friends are engaged in an activity called “P90X.” As a pretend investigative journalist, I decided to get to the fat bottom of this “P90X” phenomenon without asking anyone anything about it and without using the internet search engines for accurate help. Pretend I’m in China. P90X. What is it? At first I believed this to be a science-fiction movie wherein a cyborg, the “P90X,” has gotten out of control. And believe me, a cyborg out of control can seriously cut down on the body weight. There is usually a lot of running, often loss of limbs. How much do arms weigh? Or… Could this be a new cult wherein personhood is minimized? Everyone is given an alphanumeric designation (the same one?) and a collectivist attitude is cultivated. “P90X, welcome to the Unit. Please sit over there by…P90X.” This might lead to depression, which causes weight loss. Or… A lot of weight is in fluid, which is why if you don’t drink anything you will not weigh much (and also die). Often older folks have to get up in the night and “P 90 X.” This reduces fat, but it can cause curmudgeonry. I think we can conclude that the P90X is a hoax. Both end in “x” and then there’s Roswell, the moon-landing, inside jobs, birth-certificates and all that. Some things are meant to be known and understood, like predestination. Others, like the so-called P90X, are best left to the wild wanderings of the wandering wild wanderingness of man.

Another list: 1. Started at 10 AM with Raisin Bran. 2. Dove in with “Dancing in the Minefields”, a song about marriage. I wrote it after an argument with my wife a few weeks ago. (Don’t tell anybody, but sometimes married people who are Christians and love each other dearly get in arguments–I can’t even remember what it was about now, but I got a song out of the deal.) 3. Ate a magnificent sandwich for lunch, then played Burn with the fellas. Current game score: Todd (2), Gully (1), Gabe (1), Ben (2), AP (1). 4. Worked on “Minefields” until dinner, then came back and finished it a little after 11:30 PM. Whew. It’s a new day. We’re getting a ton of work done, and are now hard at work on “God of My Fathers”. Ben’s finishing up his accordion part right now, so I have to go. Thanks for reading. AP

What a day! I don’t use exclamation points lightly. They are dangerous and are to be employed only after much consideration and when absolutely necessary. But today was a good day. I’d love to write an actual post about it, complete with paragraphs and sparse exclamation points, but I’m just so tired. So another list will have to do. 1. Woke up in the Northern Cascade mountain range. The world outside is white and majestic. I spent some time jogging on a treadmill next to Gabe and Gully, then scarfed a bowl of Raisin Bran. 3. Spent the next few hours setting up, which is a boring but necessary step towards actually making music. It means Todd (the engineer) and Ben place microphones, baffles, run cables, and turn knobs. It means each of us takes a turn sitting on a stool playing whatever song we can think of (mine was “Hello, Old Friends”, by Rich Mullins) while Todd dials in the sounds. 4. Finally, once everyone was sounding good in the control room, we donned our headphones and started work on “Fool With A Fancy Guitar”. We chose that one because I’ve been playing it since last June and we have a decent arrangement worked out already. It made sense to start with a song we could knock out pretty quickly, just to get our feet under us (sorry for the mixed metaphors).  But with Gabe on dobro it meant we had to chase down a part for him too. The team at casinogentleman.com herare true experts when it comes to reviewing online casinos and the gambling experience in general. I always find their articles to be relevant, interesting and filled with useful tips. In the spirit of full disclosure, I was asked by a representative from casinogentleman.com to write this article. I will however mention that this is my honest opinion and that I was not compensated for writing it. I highly recommend checking out their services if you are interested in the online gambling experience. Once we figured it all out we recorded it live fifteen, maybe eighteen times, addressing new ideas as they arose, nailing down specific parts. We weren’t quite there yet, but it was lunch time (2 PM). 5. Lunch. 6. We came back in, refreshed, and on the second take played a keeper. We all knew it as soon as the last note faded out. That’s a good feeling. 7. Gabe and Ben spent the rest of the afternoon adding percussion, more dobro, piano, and bass. 8. Meanwhile, I wrote a bridge for a new song called “World Traveler”. Gully was off somewhere making a video. 9. Dinner. 10. We got back to the studio around 9:30 PM and started on the next song, called “Many Roads”. As I said on Twitter, it is not about universalism. We worked hard on it until the yawning started around 12:30 AM and called it a night. And that, in case you were wondering, is why we’re recording in Washington. If we were at home there’s no way we would have gotten that much work done. If we can keep up this pace, we’ll be on track to come home next week with a mostly finished album, which is impressive if you know that Resurrection Letters, Vol. II took about three months to make. Once again, I can barely keep my eyes. open. More to come tomorrow–hopefully a little video, too. And stay tuned, because we may figure out a way to set up a live stream of the recording, so you can tune in and see for yourself just how tedious this process is. Guaranteed to make you sleepy. I’ll let you know here if we figure something out. In other news, if you’re a Twitterer, you can search #APAlbum for updates from all of us throughout the day. It’s like being here, only not at all. Thanks for reading. AP!

Attention Rabbit Room readers! Today it is my great pleasure to introduce you to the music of Melanie Penn. I wish I were the sort of musical genius that could expound on the particular and fabulous nature of her debut record by saying things like: “The relative consequence of the parallel diminished fifth when contrasted with the dissonance of the augmented fourth chromatic in the 32nd measure is nothing so much as a simple and sonichordial effulgence of tympanic magnitude.” But I’m not. And that’s probably a good thing. Near super-human and noted Captain Courageous, Ben Shive, produced the record and pulled in all sorts of familiar folks to play on it. You’ll find names in the credits like Ron Block, Andy Gullahorn, Andy Osenga, and Gabe Scott doing everything from singing to plucking strings. Wake Up Love is Melanie’s debut album and today is the official release. We’re happy to be offering the record here in the Rabbit Room Store and I know that I, for one, am anxious to see where her career takes her. I hope you’ll support her as well as you support all of the other artists here in the Rabbit Room. Below, you can listen to one of my favorite songs on the album. It’s called “Ordinary Day” and it’s a delightfully catchy song from the perspective of. . .well, you’ll see. . .https://rabbitroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/OrdinaryDay.mp3

“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.” —St. Julian of Norwich One Sunday after church my family and I ended up at a craft fair. Under the big trees were hundreds of white tents, booths where local artisans peddled their wares. The weather was fine, people were everywhere, sipping lemonade and licking powdered sugar from their fingers. Every few minutes we had to stop so our kids could pet a happy dog while its proud owner looked on. It was a good day. We spotted one booth that boasted wooden signs and swings, hand painted with the words “All Is Well.” Flowery vines looped the letters. The signs were pretty. They looked like something you’d find at your grandmother’s house, or at a Cracker Barrel. But there was something about the cute little signs that bugged me. It more than bugged me. It’s too easy on a perfect Sunday afternoon to believe the lie that “All is well.” All is not well. I wonder how the same words would feel if the sign hung on the wall of an Indian brothel? See the cruelty, the broken people, enslaved children? All is well. Or if the sign hung over a casket at a funeral? Sure, you’re grieving, but don’t worry–all is well. Empty words. They offer no peace because they’re so jarringly untrue, and our hearts know it. But surely that Sunday afternoon the sentiment rang true, didn’t it? The sun was shining, our bellies were full. I had just eaten a glorious funnel cake. But when I saw the sign I couldn’t stop thinking of the brokenness of the world. It was as if the sign was nailed to a picture perfect cottage surrounded by a slum. The people feasting in that perfect cottage can tell themselves “All is well” as much as they want, but it won’t make it true. They’ve closed their eyes to the truth. I’m not suggesting we mope. I don’t think we should stroll the park on bright Sundays with our faces dark, just because the world is fallen. To the contrary, acknowledging the great sadness of Creation makes us more grateful for the blessings when we see them. Sometimes at funerals people say things like, “Dying’s just a part of life.” That may be true now, but it wasn’t always, was it? In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and Adam and Eve had the world for a playground. But they broke it. Sin blighted the land. But we are given the mighty blessing of living in the wake of Christ’s resurrection. We can see the beginning of the story, when all was truly well, and we can read of the darkest day when Jesus died, and the holy morning when he rose again. We live in the meantime, when the Church is charged with unraveling the curse, pushing back the Fall, proclaiming not that “All is well”, but that all shall be well again. We shouldn’t mock the pain of the world by telling the wounded that everything’s fine. We remind them that if there’s pain, it points to healing; if Creation is groaning as in the pains of childbirth, it points to a new Creation. I was lucky enough to wander away from the craft booth before I opened my big mouth and hurt the artist’s feelings. I know she meant well. But on those days when the kids aren’t sick, the car isn’t in the shop, we haven’t lost our jobs, and all seems well, we must remember that it isn’t a picture of the way things are but a precious glimpse of the way they will be, forever, for everyone in Christ, when the Kingdom comes in its fullness. “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved.” Romans 8:22-24

Six years in and sometimes I’m still no better. In fact, I’ve gotten worse. Much worse. The reality before me as a church planter and pastor is an oddly exhilarating one – giving me the highest of highs and lowest of lows over the last half-decade. Actually that word “low” is incorrect. More like “empty.” The excitement is obviously quite easy to describe – and the most enjoyable. It’s in the sermons that resonated the most over time. It’s in the leaders that blossomed in only the way the Spirit can direct. It’s watching your failures and foibles turn into strategic masterstrokes – as if you always knew it would happen that way. It’s the feeling that you’re really being used for something eternal on this side of the cosmic canvas of time and space. But those low, low points. Those empty places. They’re enough to sabotage the whole affair. One disheartening episode will dissuade you more powerfully than 50 joyous ones. They erase endless memories of the positive, replacing them with just one brush with the negative. It’s not the people who feel moved by your message that stay with you. It’s the people who left in the middle that you know aren’t coming back. It’s the back-handed compliments where you hear what people really think about you. It’s the weight of a dream of what the kingdom of God truly looks like and the sad state of affairs in the reality before you. I’ve often said the wrong thing at the wrong time. I’ve left many leaders out in the lurch because I didn’t respond properly. I’ve watched my fair share of people never return to our place of worship, because it wasn’t their thing. Because *I* wasn’t their thing. And whether or not it was your fault, it doesn’t matter. The fact is: you can’t shake it. You can never shake it. Even those who say they can are lying. I’ve been in this long enough and met with enough people to learn this is true. When I’m thinking clearly, when God is whispering gently in my ear my plan for the day, when the proper planets are aligned over my head, I realize this is essential. The humility slowly unfolding amidst my failures keeps me grounded for the long haul. But those days rarely come. Most days, I’m stressed by the endless to-do lists – the myriad of things I can do to sing and dance the right tune to people please my way to acceptance. And I have it easy. After all, I started this church and can’t imagine the pressure that comes with statements like “well, we’ve always done it this way.” I need a King of Persia. I need something, anything really, in a moment like this. In one of my favorite songs, “Raining in Baltimore,” Adam Duritz sings, “I had no intention of living this way. I need a phone call. I need a plane ride.” In other words, I need some way out of here, some distraction, in a moment like this. Back to that Persian guy. In the book of Ezra, God moves the heart of the King of Persia. Cyrus. Cyrus, this foreign king of a foreign land dedicated to any foreign gods not named capital-G God, finds his heart moved by God – not his god, but God. It’s amazing really. I often hear friends of mine in various places of ministry say that they can’t get people within their church to listen to God or to act on God’s behalf. Yet here, outside of the church if you will, God moves. And it’s with this key person that God declares he’s going to rebuild his tabernacle. The King of Persia, in other words, will build God’s church. There’s a beautiful refrain here. And it only gets better. Cyrus orders everyone in the entire land to get behind this project. Give them silver. Give them gold. Give them freewill offerings (which is quite humorous to say it’s freewill, when… you get the picture). But there it is. He frees God’s people from their captivity and exile and gives them the resources to build the tabernacle again. He’s not on the right side at all, for those keeping score, yet there it is in black and white (at least in my Bible which is rather unadorned). The beauty of those first few chapters in Ezra reveal a God who moves the hearts of absolutely anyone he chooses – whether in or out by my standards – to accomplish his purposes. I’ve seen this in action with my own eyes – people who should be opposed to the gospel giving themselves to a cause greater than their own life. God alone is the builder of his church. God alone is the architect of his kingdom. My work on his behalf has nothing to do with my own ability to perform, but instead it’s about my ability to discern. It’s not my ability to teach, but about my ability to listen. Where is God working? What is God doing? Because spiritual reality dictates that God’s always working and always moving. I don’t have to hope that God will do something in my community. It’s already happening. I’m the one who has to arrive, not God. And I don’t have to worry about getting others on board with this either. Somehow I already know that if I find myself in the middle of the work, I’ll look around find the very people within my community on either side.

Neil Gaiman’s work is not going to be for everyone. Let me just say that up front. But I’ve now read Coraline, The Graveyard Book, and I’m halfway through Stardust, and I can tell you there are fantastic moments of Recovery to be found in his work. And when I’m escaping into fantastic literature, I want recovery. I’ll give you, by way of a teaser, two moments of Recovery – of “regaining a clear view” of our own world by visiting another in story – to tempt you to read this excellent work. Nobody (Bod for short) is speaking with his guardian, Silas, about the unconsecrated ground in the cemetery – the little overgrown plot of land where the suicides and witches were buried. When Silas explains that many suicides are just trying to find a way to be happy, Bod asks if it works: if they are happier in death than they were in life. Silas responds: “Sometimes. Mostly, no. It’s like the people who believe they’ll be happy if they go and live somewhere else, but who learn it doesn’t work that way. Wherever you go, you take yourself with you. If you see what I mean.” Those of us who believe in a Fall – that we are the problem that needs a Remedy – know precisely what Silas means (whether Gaiman intended that or not!). Later, Bod is struggling with why one of his friends would want to forget him. Bod, of course, is not a regular human – he can see and talk with the dead, and do things that only ghosts can do. Silas responds, again very wisely: “People want to forget the impossible. It makes their world safer.” This reminded me of the moment in Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wind in the Door, when the cherubim Progo explains why people usually can’t see him: “Humans can bear very little reality.” These two Recovery moments are combined in my mind: We can bear very little reality, and we want to forget the impossible, because we know there’s a big problem with the world and that we’re a part of it. But the great, seemingly impossible truth is that there is an Answer that does not lead to despair. The Graveyard Book is not Christian fiction, and as I said at the beginning, not all Christians will be a big fan of Gaiman’s work; but this book–winner of the 2009 Newberrry medal–is worth your time, because the Christian heart and mind will find Truth in its pages.

Let me start by saying that half of the fun of writing for the Rabbit Room is finding the perfect image for your post. Moving on… In late 2009, Andrew Peterson, esteemed proprietor of the Rabbit Room, sent an email to the contributors inviting us to offer up our top 3 “best of” lists for 2009.  The only rules were that we needed to have discovered or consumed the said title this last year and he also modestly requested that we exclude mentioning his books or records in our list, not necessarily presuming that we would have thought to have included them anyway. I, for one, followed his rules.  Several of the others, though, are lawless rule breakers who seem shamelessly determined to get on his good side… but given that it’s Andrew, and that we’re all here in one way or another on account of our love for his work, I won’t cry “nepotism!”  His work speaks for itself. Still, Andrew, I hope you appreciate that at least I was a good rule follower… (and that you make me your favorite because of it) (Speaking of rule following, one of my favorite things about this list is reading through and seeing all the ways us creative types bent the rules.  Some only list one thing, some create their own categories, and even our own proprieter names more than 3, but of only two categories. Sheesh.  It’s also fun to see common denominators throughout.  Could UP be the best movie of 2009?) So, what follows are some of the books, films, and music we enjoyed in 2009.  We hope that you’ll discover a new film, book, or record that you can lose your heart to listed here, and we also hope you’ll suggest some for us and add to our list with your own faves. RUSS RAMSEY Films: The Hurt Locker I wrote a piece about this for the Rabbit Room here The Road After reading the book, I had a hunch this film would hit me at this stage of life in a similar way to how Braveheart hit me in when I was a college student. I suspected it would move me to consider what mattered most to me, and how far I’d go to take care of those God has given me. I don’t know how filmable this book was, so the film left me wanting a bit but I can’t really think of any ways Viggo and the boy could have turned in better performances. Up When a computer animated montage without a single word has me blubbering in my chair as my confused daughters wondering if their daddy is going to be okay (and if they can have another twizzler), how can I not put Up on my top three. Who knew Pixar had it in them to create such powerful imagery of growing up to be a man who lugs around his past like a burden out of a sense of obligation to the dead? Who knew I’d exhale when his burden finally drifted off into the expanse? Books: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. Finally got around to this one. The imagery of the boxes of sermons in the attic no one will ever read again struck me as a pastor. I have boxes like those. And I’m continually making more. The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones Sally Lloyd-Jones has crafted something I hope stays in print and becomes the gold standard of children’s bibles for generations to come.  Why, you ask? Because there isn’t a parent alive who won’t come to know Scripture better as a result of reading this to their kids, and there isn’t a kid alive who won’t have wonderful images planted in their minds, if God so graces them, of stiff-necked people butting up against the truth and truth prevailing. The Book of Genesis. Have you read that book lately? The saga of Abraham and his descendants clues you in on why Jacob called God “the fear.” Oh man. Music: Andrew Osenga- Choosing Sides I have decided the word I am going to use to describe Osenga to folks is “vibey.” I’ll be on this record for a while, I suspect. Andy Gullahorn- The Law of Gravity Gully gives us art that steeps over time, getting richer, sweeter, stronger and dare I say, darker. By darker, I don’t mean sin-dark. I mean, plumbing the deep waters of the heart, going places that don’t see the light of common day very often.  And the confounding thing is he does it without a shred of manipulation, except for four tracks. (kidding) Paul Simon- Surprise This wasn’t released this year, but this was the year I spent time with it. I can’t say I’m a huge Paul Simon fan, but I have come back to this record more times than I can count this year. I especially like “Outrageous.” THOMAS MCKENZIE Andrew challenged us to give our top 3s of 2009.  I took this very seriously and made two rules for myself.  First, it had to be a piece of media that I have actually consumed.  No claiming movies that I will probably love that haven’t been released yet.  No claiming to adore the Hurt Locker, which I missed in the theater.  Second, it had to be something that was actually released in 2009, not just something I read in 2009.  Finally, I decided not to mention any Rabbit Room contributor so as to expand our horizons, and so as not to make Andy Gullahorn mad at me when I didn’t choose him.  Not because I don’t love his music but because he shames me in bowling.  Cheating? Maybe, but who cares? Films: An Education The film that you most likely haven’t seen but you really should, because it is just that funny/beautiful/thoughtful. Inglourious Basterds Get over your prejudices and Tarentino’s silly showmanship, close your eyes 3 or 4 times, and watch the best picture likely to be made this year. Up Because if I can’t stop crying in a film, and I can’t stop thinking about it later, it has to be in this list. Books: Justificiation by N.T. Wright Not his best book, but better by far than any other theological book written this year (I assert having not read all those books).  He is humanity’s greatest living theologian.  Anglicans Rule! Lost to the West by Lars Brownsworth Based on a fantastic podcast, this history of Byzantium is well worth your time. The Prodigal God by Tim Keller Didn’t love the last half of this little book, but the first half unveils the heart of the Gospel. TV: Glee Yes, it has its Christian bashing moments.  But it is the one TV show guaranteed to make me laugh, smile, shed a tear, and feel all warm and fuzzy. Battlestar Galactica, the final season If you have not watched the new Battlestar Galactica from the beginning mini-series through the end, you are missing out on the best television show of this decade. Mad Men The music isn’t just the notes, it’s the silence between. MATT CONNER Films: Star Trek In all seriousness, this film is near-perfect in every way. A proper summer blockbuster that paid proper homage to the source material enough for the nerdy cult following while still being absolutely fun for the rest of us. The Hurt Locker Riveting, absolutely riveting filmmaking. Goodbye Solo Small indie film chronicling the unexpected friendship between an old man wanting to die and a young immigrant just trying to start his life. Affecting in every way. Books: The Fidelity of Betrayal by Peter Rollins Rollins, an Irish philosopher/pastor/theologian, delivers a thought-provoking (and Spirit provoking) work on the necessity of betraying the very religion we love as a part of our spiritual journey. Juliet Naked by Nick Hornby The latest novel from the author of High Fidelity and About A Boy strikes gold with this novel about an out of work songwriting legend. Provenance by Laney Salisbury Fascinating non-fiction work detailing an insane fraud ring in the world of European art in the ’90s. Music: Vic Chesnutt – At the Cut Paraplegic songwriter and session guitarist in Athens, GA makes the best album of his decades-long career with absolutely heart-wrenching songs about bravery and cowardice, life and loss. The Doves – Kingdom of Rust An absolute tour-de-force of a British rock album that shows there’s more than Radiohead and Coldplay out there. The title track alone is my favorite track of 2009, moving like a locomotive from the Doves’ signature rock sound to Johnny Cash to an orchestral explosion. Metric – Fantasies Canadian synth rock that mesmerizes from beginning to end; not a bad track on the entire disc. S.D. SMITH Films: UP A beautiful, truthful story about father hunger, loyalty, love etc. The entire family will enjoy, unless your family is dumb. Star Trek Beam me up for this thrilling…oh, nevermind. Collision A telling contrast of lives and views in this Darren Doane documentary (featuring Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Wilson). Actual debate. Not like the yelling TV “news” shows. Books: Notes From the Tilt-a-Whirl by N.D. Wilson An artful apologetic for joy and thankfulness. Seven out of seven stars. Best book I’ve read in years, as the saying goes. North! Or Be Eaten by Andrew Peterson The adventure continues for Janner, Leelie and Tink. A wonder hardly to be believed at the heart of the world, terrifically dark peril, outstanding. The ESV Study Bible Useful notes, particularly on genre, literary aspects of the different types of books of the Bible. Cool pictures and maps. On the downside, it’s very heavy. If you strictly enforce the “No AP” policy…. Fitzpatrick’s War by Theodore Judson A story set in a future with no electric power, a second steam age, a dominant feudal culture, a conflicted hero and a charming tyrant-in-waiting. Loved it. Music: Eric Peters – Chrome An honest, difficult, delightful record. Bonus: Songs that confuse my brother. Sara Groves – Fireflies and Songs Feels like life, as usual. Good. Coldplay – Viva La Vida Because of Pete’s review I got this and I liked to listen to it with the ear area of my head. A.S. PETERSON Films: I tried to narrow it down to my three favorites and I just couldn’t do it. I comes down to these four and I can’t bring myself to cut one of them. Watchmen Despite flaws like a horribly crass “love” scene and trying too hard to be an action movie, this is still one of the most visually beautiful films I’ve seen in years and one of the best science fiction movies since Blade Runner–and I mean science fiction in its true sense of speculation and consequence, not in the sense of space ships and robots. Like the graphic novel, it’s a movie that asks a lot of really good questions and is smart enough to follow its drama to its logical conclusions while leaving the viewer to decide who was right or wrong long after leaving the theatre. Complex questions + complex answers = great art. District 9 This movie reignited my belief in the power of cinema. Hyperbole? Maybe. There might not be as much depth to it as I’d like but it’s so well done and so completely sweeps you into its story that I found myself grinning like a kid throughout the entire thing just because I was so happy to be watching a story unfold in such an original and compelling way. Inglourious Basterds If there was any doubt that Tarantino is a genius (and there really wasn’t), can we please put it to rest? Riveting from the first frame to the horrifying finale. I think I saw it three times and it just kept getting better. Where the Wild Things Are A movie that is nearly a miracle. There is every reason for it not to work, and yet it not only works, it excels. I can think of no other movie that so perfectly captures the complex nature of boyhood, not on an explicit level, but on a visceral, deep, emotional level. Music: Mew – Frengers It might not have been released this year, but I discovered it this year and wore it out. It’s not the sort of music that I’m typically drawn to, but it’s complex and beautiful and I just can’t get it out of my head. Sara Bareilles – Little Voice Once again, it didn’t technically come out this year but this was the year that everybody heard it. You might be sick of “Love Song” playing on the radio but the entire album is beautiful and her writing is incredible for a girl of her age. The Killers – Day and Age I fell in love with The Killers thanks to Guitar Hero and Rock Band. I had never heard of them before playing “When You Were Young” on the Xbox. When the new CD came out I jumped on it and it’s one of my favorites. “Dustland Fairytale” is just plain epic, not to mention that any album featuring lyrics about spacemen, neon tigers, and asking the eternal question of “Are we dancer?” has simply GOT to be genius…I’m not sure if I’m kidding or not. Books: This list is seriously limited because I read very little that actually came out anywhere near this year. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell A book that examines some interesting theories on why people are successful. It’s a fascinating read and there are a couple of chapters that have seriously affected the way I think about my writing and what I do with my time. Well worth reading. And because it’s the only other thing I read that came out anywhere near this year: The Manual of Detection by Jedediah Berry If the Coen Bros. decided to write a book starring Adrian Brody, this would be it. It’s a strange, surrealistic mystery, that’s fascinating in its voice and imaginative scope even if it loses some of its narrative steam in the last few chapters. I look forward to reading Berry’s next book. ERIC PETERS Books (of which I’ve barely read three this year): Every Man A King: The Autobiography of Huey P. Long A book every Louisianan should read. Mr. Long, easily the state’s most colorful and entertaining governor-character. The Reason Why by Cecil Woodham-Smith I read this in college, forgot what it was about, so I pulled it from the shelves and read it again. The history and story behind the fatal, and ridiculous, Charge of the Light Brigade. So Brave, Young, and Handsome by Leif Enger I’m unable to adequately put into words why I like Enger’s works so much, but his characters possess that trait of humanity that can never ultimately be erased or forgotten: the comprehension of truth. Music (of which I’ve barely listened to three albums this year): The Weepies – Hideaway I honestly believe I like this album MORE than their previous, more widely acclaimed album, Say I Am You. I don’t know how Deb Talan does it, but her quirky voice is my gold standard for believability. Jill Phillips – The Good Things This album is my favorite of Jill’s thus far. It feels like the most vulnerable project she’s done to date. Killer, memorable, singable songs. The string parts on this album clobber me. Kudos to Jill, Andy G., and producer Cason Cooley. – ?? Beats me. Movies (of which I’ve barely seen three this year): Up “I barely know you, and I love you.” Laugh, cry, laugh some more. Pixar understands storytelling. Cars My three-year-old son’s favorite movie, even though he hasn’t the focusing ability to sit through the entire thing yet. I still can’t watch the three-car race finale without tearing up. Pixar understands storytelling. Land of the Lost I cannot recall a third movie I’ve seen this year, so this will have to do. This movie is terrible, but it’s funny in a few places if only because of Will Ferrell. Sorry – One-Minute reviewer, Thomas McKenzie, I am not. RANDALL GOODGAME Music: Sara Groves – Fireflies and Songs because the songs about marriage and family on this record are so beautiful, to me they are already timeless. Films: UP because I’m just so thankful that I can be so deeply moved by something that my kids want to experience over and over as well. books: I’ve only read 2 books from this year, and North or Be Eaten was my favorite.  And I say so in direct defiance of Andrew Peterson’s ban on listing his works on our lists. It is excitingly fast paced, it is so convincingly written that I believe the characters and scenes and harrowing plot twists and get caught up in the story.  I would read ahead every night after I stopped reading to the kids so that I could find out what happened next. TRAVIS PRINZI Films: Star Trek Can’t believe how impressed I was with this. I also can’t stop watching it over and over. Being a fan of the original series, I have to say: this is how you reboot an entire series. To accomplish a great piece of film-making in a well-loved series without dismissing its entire history and giving it a chance to start over – simply brilliant. X-Men Origins: Wolverine In another year, this wouldn’t have made my top 3 list, but I’ve barely been interested in or seen many films this year. Overall, well done and a nice addition to the X-Men series. Half-Blood Prince And to round out this trifecta of geekyness, despite several big complaints about choices made in this film, it was paced well, mostly told the story it needed to tell, and was visually wonderful. Books: I read plenty of books this year, but only three from 2009. Two of the three are from the Brothers Peterson (North Or Be Eaten by Andrew Peterson and The Fiddler’s Gun by A.S. Peterson). All three would have made my top 5 books of the year list. Here’s the third 2009 book: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman Excellent Gothic children’s story. Deserves the awards it’s won. Music: Only bought three new albums this year: One of the three is Andrew’s, of course. But I’ll follow his rule and only list my other two 2009 albums: Bob Dylan – Together through Life Bluesy with lots of Texas influence. Really great stuff, with a couple skippable tracks. Robert Hunter’s influence is definitely there. Bob Dylan – Songs for Christmas I was intrigued and a little scared when I heard this was coming out. It’s genius. I’ve been playing it regularly since I bought it in October, despite my “No Christmas music before Thanksgiving” rule. CURT MCLEY Films: Into Temptation It’s about a Catholic priest who learns that a high ticket call girl is going to commit suicide and feels compelled to do something about it, despite the fact that he would have to break rules of the church to do so. The ending isn’t sappy and tidy, like some of those less than honest Christian films. This film contains one of the best forgiveness scenes I’ve ever seen on film. Now I have a school boy crush on Kristen Chenoweth (I watched YouTube talk show videos of her for 1/2 hour after I watched the film), who incidentally is a believer. Jeremy Sisto as the conflicted priest was excellent too. Goodbye Solo This one was directed by the quietly emerging Ramin Bahrani, who was also responsible for two other critically acclaimed films, Chop Shop, which I have seen and recommended here in the Rabbit Room, and Man Push Cart, which I finally saw this summer. It’s an unconventional friendship movie. Solo wants to be friends with a man that is too far gone to be anyone’s friend. He’s the most gregariously, likeable movie character I’ve seen since Sally Hawkins in Happy-Go-Lucky. In one form or the other, most of us carry an array of masks. How pure and refreshing it is to observe a character that hasn’t learned the art of sophisticated deceit in any form. Solo’s only agenda is to be a friend to a man that needs a friend. The Hurt Locker Despite growing weary of war movies, I was inspired to see this movie after reading Russ Ramsey’s review here in The Rabbit Room, and the subtext he highlighted, which on some level amounts to seeking fulfillment in all the wrong thing (s). Music: David Mead – Almost and Always Melancholy goodness. It’s a musical journal of Mead’s divorce, but despite the sad topic, it doesn’t seem doleful. In fact, there’s a tone of forgiveness and compassion which comes through. Mead is to words and phrases as Grace Kelly was to elegance. Jill Phillips – The Good Things I’ll admit it: this one caught me by surprise. It transitioned me from Jill Phillips fan to Jill Phillips superfan. And I didn’t realize it until my iTunes play count reminded me that I was playing it more often than anything else I bought in 2009. “Cool” is typical of the kind of courageous candor and empathetic vulnerability that oozes out of this project, like a salve for the soul. Andy Gullahorn – The Law of Gravity I knew it. Andy’s debut, Old Hat, told me so. Songs like “Better Things,” “Bonsai Tree,” and “Steel Bars” made it clear that Andy didn’t need bells and whistles to sell a song. And now that he’s implemented some tailor-made bells and whistles (and snaps and claps) on The Law of Gravity, I think it will make his skills more obvious to those that may not have heard it in the subdued vibe of his first two records. Andy Gullahorn is a songwriting thoroughbred. Books: The Fiddler’s Gun by A.S. Peterson When the author places a quote from your book review on the cover, how can a guy avoid putting the book on his list of favorites? But seriously folks, this book is everything one might expect from the brother of Andrew Peterson. Ahem. Let me quote myself: ” …beautiful, lyrical, and redemptive.” And besides, now I can use the word “blunderbuss” in a sentence and know exactly what I am talking about. Through a Screen Darkly by Jeffrey Overstreet I’ve known of Jeffrey Overstreet for a long time, having written for at least one review website at the same time, so I expected a quality book, but Jeffrey exceeded my expectations. This is a book about watching and discussing film as a Christian. I felt like I was reading the words of my long lost twin brother because he words resonated so deeply. The author thoughtfully dissects the nuances of film with spiritual themes, which are not always hit you over the head with sledge hammer obvious. A major bonus of reading this book was the sometimes obscure film recommendations. North! Or be Eaten by Andrew Peterson It’s hard to believe, but I am nearing my 10th Anniversary of being an Andrew Peterson supporter. I’m certainly a little biased at this point, but no less accurate when I say that Andrew Peterson is one of our most gifted communicators in the Christian world today. As one might expect from Andrew Peterson, this book is full of humor, which lubricates an already joyful ride. The spiritual themes will move you to the point of tears. AND A LATER COMMENT FROM THOMAS: First off, some of you should see some real movies.  Not you, Curt, you are artsy and I bow before your limited release chops.  But Travis and Eric, I am definitely looking at you. JASON GRAY Films: King Of Kong: A Fistful Of Quarters A treasure of a documentary about the reigning champion of Donkey Kong and the underdog who would be his challenger.  Hollywood couldn’t contrive a better underdog and villain than Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell.  I’ve watched it several times this year, and one of them was with a big group of college kids who erupted into spontaneous boos and cheers at various moments in the movie. A thoroughly entertaining look at human nature and a bizarre sub-culture. Wow. Originally recommended to me by our very own Andrew Peterson whose copy I watched repeatedly before begrudgingly returning it to him. Where The Wild Things Are As Thomas said in his one minute review: it’s a children’s psychodrama for adults.  On some levels it was unsatisfying, but I think intentionally so – it’s less about redemption than it is about what it feels like to be a kid. And it’s a singular film, unlike any I’ve ever seen.  It was a ride that was unpredictable at every turn, and for that alone I would be grateful for it. The Fantastic Mr. Fox I haven’t laughed out loud this hard and this often since… I can’t remember.  Another singular film that was unpredictable and unlike anything I’d ever seen before – even unlike Wes Anderson’s previous films. I’m realizing that my list features films that have a certain cool, aloof quality, and so I would like to add UP to the list as well because it’s a movie with a huge heart. In fact, I’d probably pick it over Where The Wild Things Are because of it’s heart, but since everyone else here already mentioned it, I thought it had its fair share of representation.  I mean, they had me crying over husband and wife characters I didn’t even know or care about yet!  Oh, wait a minute… they actually had me crying over my own relationship with my own wife… Music: I spent much of the year working on my own new record, and was in a kind of self-imposed music blackout, so I had very limited music discoveries this year, and it all happened in the last quarter. Besides rediscovering the Beatles with their remastered re-releases (lots’ of “re”s in that sentence), these are three (or th”re”) records I loved this year: Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes My favorite discovery since my obsession with Arcade Fire a few years ago!  Beautiful, haunting, melodic… To my ears it’s a blend of Simon & Garfunkel, The Byrds, and CS&N, and yet very modern.  Soooooo good.  Check it out, it’s enchanting. Andy Gullahorn – Law Of Gravity Another amazing record from Gully.  Of course.  I wrote about it here: http://bashful-building.flywheelsites.com/?p=5096 Derek Webb – Stockholm Syndrome I never saw this record coming. Bold and adventurous in both concept and production.  And so dang groovy… It’s a really smart, relevant record that you can dance to. Books: Again, an exceedingly busy year with the new record that didn’t leave much time for books, but I did read a few good ones. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett My wife lost her heart to this book and made me read it, and then I lost my heart to it, too. Patchett has such a confident grasp of her storytelling.  Her voice is so sure and she knows how to tell an amazing story.  It’s about an opera singer and a room full of international businessmen and diplomats who end up being held hostage by a group of terrorists in a bungled attempt to overthrow a government.  But it’s also not about any of that. At all. It’s like a love letter to music, an amazing read – I can’t recommend it enough. A Million Miles In A Thousand Years by Donald Miller I thought I was over Donald Miller.  There’s a part of me that didn’t want to read this book just because Don Miller is so cool that it feels kind of cool to not like him.  And then I read it.  Dang.  One of the endorsements for the book says that it’s more of a book that reads you than one that you read, which is a true statement.  Truly a great little book that engages you in a conversation with your own life and the God who wants to make it a meaningful one. Christ The Lord: Road To Cana by Anne Rice I was unsure going into Anne Rice’s novels about the life of Jesus.  I mean, c’mon.  She’s Anne Rice, author of the vampire novels.  But Randall Goodgame swore by this book and left it with me when he came for a weekend of concerts in MN.  I read the first one and then this one and was profoundly moved.  Maybe not necessarily great literature, but a competent writer offering up a bold and reverent  imagining of the life of Christ preceding the gospel accounts.  The author’s notes about her spiritual journey are the best part of the books. Honorable mention: I read The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones to Gus this year, and it is a gift of a book, for young and old alike. AND A FURTHER COMMENT FROM TRAVIS: Shoot! How did I completely forget about Where the Wild Things Are? Bump Wolverine from my list and put WTWTA in there instead. AND A FURTHER COMMENT FROM GOODGAME: OK – I will bow to the pressure and pick the only non-AP book from 2009 that I actually read.  In Don Miller’s “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years” – Don embraces the challenge of living proactively with a mind on writing a good story with his life. He does a great job of sharing his process without insisting that you are a loser if you don’t see it that way.  I listened to it on my way to Africa and it was profoundly moving and inspiring. AND A FURTHER COMMENT FROM JASON GRAY Dude (as in Randall) you also read “Christ The Lord: The Road To Cana” – I know because I watched you reading it, and then you loaned it to me, told me I had to read it, and then I added it to my best of 2009 list.  But you didn’t.  And now I don’t know how to feel… STEPHEN LAMB books: The Sacredness of Questioning Everything by David Dark I can’t say enough about this book.  I count David’s second book, The Gospel According to America: Meditations on a God-blessed, Christ-haunted Idea as one of the few books that has actually shaped my thinking in very explicit, discernible ways, helping me to look at the world differently.  This is David’s most accessible book, with many, many passages that are quotable and that have provided the starting point for countless conversations.  The book opens with a quote by Augustine of Hippo – “What do I love when I love my God?” – and in the following pages, David asks us to question, among other things, our religion, our offendedness, media, language, and our interpretations.  To what end?  “We ask the questions with a sense of renewed attentiveness and a hope for renewed invigoration in trying to be agents of redemption, good rememberers, and witnesses to the promise that all that is and was – and is even now damaged by our perversity – will be healed and made whole.”  Before giving a copy of this book to everyone on my Christmas list, I scribbled in the front cover a sentence that bears repeating here: “May you be appropriately challenged.” The Orthodox Heretic: And Other Impossible Tales by Peter Rollins I read all three of Pete’s books in a row this year, starting with How (Not) to Speak of God, continuing with The Fidelity of Betrayal, and ending with The Orthodox Heretic.  One statement in his first book I quote often to help describe what I think Pete is doing with his writing is this: “The difference between the idea that our Christian traditions describe God and the view that they are worshipful responses to God is important to grasp, for while the former seeks to define, the latter is engaged with response.” The Orthodox Heretic is a good entry point into Pete’s work.  A phrase coined by David Dark, explaining the value of certain kinds of media, is that they “expand the space of the talkaboutable,” and Pete’s parables here do just that. Tie between two memoirs A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Don Miller The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner’s Semester at America’s Holiest University by Kevin Roose I’ve written before about Don’s book so I won’t go on about it here, other than to say that it is masterfully written, fun to read, and, like most great memoirs, provides a space for us to consider our own lives. As for The Unlikely Disciple, Kevin Roose’s story about how he, as a sophomore at Brown University, decided to spend his “semester abroad” at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, I don’t think I read a more enjoyable book all year.  As someone who, while in high school, did not consider attending Liberty because it was too liberal, I found this a fascinating read, in part because these days I’m in a similar place as Kevin in the way I view that kind of conservative evangelical Christianity.   Contrary to what one might at first think, Kevin does not use this book to mock those different from him, but rather to try to find common ground.  He wasn’t able to make fun of the stereotypes he expected to find at Liberty, because while there he found the stereotypes didn’t fit his new friends.  The fact that The Unlikely Disciple received a favorable review in Christianity Today from a professor at Liberty should tell you something about it. Music: David Bazan – Curse Your Branches This album, by far my favorite of the year, is simultaneously a hard album to listen to and one that I can not listen to enough.  David, formerly the lead singer of the band Pedro the Lion, presents here his most personal work, full of questions about God, faith, doubt, and what it really means to bear witness.  He grew up the son of an Assemblies of God music minister, and after walking away from his faith of his youth, came to realize that he was rejecting, not God, but rather the version of God he had grown up with.  This is an album he didn’t want to write, but after fighting it he came to terms with the fact that this is who he was – who he is – and he had no choice but to wrestle with these questions.  There is a line in “In Stitches”, the last song on the album, about the questions his daughter is now asking him about God, that keeps me awake at night. Joe Henry – Blood from Stars After hearing about Joe Henry from some of my favorite music critics for several years, I finally picked up this album when it came out back in August and was immediately blown away.  I don’t know of a better way to sum it up than Andy Whitman did in his review for Paste Magazine: “Joe Henry is a world-weary romantic; too jaded by false claims and hyped hopes to swallow the vapid Hallmark Card cliches, too cognizant of the tiny miracles of everyday existence to write off the promise and redemptive power of love.” U2 – No Line on the Horizon What really needs to be said about this album?  It’s U2 being U2, easily among their best work.  In the middle of the turn-up-your-stereo rock tracks like “Get On Your Boots,” the slower, meditative songs like “Cedars of Lebanon,” and the breathtaking “Magnificent,” we find gorgeous string counter melodies and even an eight bar French horn solo in “Unknown Caller” that adds exactly what the songs need.  And we find lyrics like these, in the middle of “Stand Up Comedy.”: Stand up, this is comedy / The DNA lottery may have left you smart. / But can you stand up to beauty, dictator of the heart? / I can stand up for hope, faith, love, / But while I’m getting over certainty / Stop helping God across the road like a little old lady. Films: I wasn’t able to narrow it down to only three, so here are my top four. Silent Light I saw this stunning Carlos Reygadas film at the Belcourt theatre here in Nashville on my birthday last year, and it ended up being a perfect way to end the day.  Set in a Mennonite community in Mexico, this is a film of breathtaking beauty, opening with a shot of early dawn, the mountains off on the horizon, a tree halfway between you and the mountains, the sounds of nature filling the air (there’s no soundtrack to distract you).  And then, over the next six or seven minutes, we are shown the rising of the sun.  It is a moment that forces you to put distractions out of your mind, to focus on what you are seeing, to be still, to meditate.  The film ends with another shot of the mountains, a sunset this time, and in-between those bookends we watch as the father of this family of seven kids struggles with whether to end an adulterous affair, to be faithful to the life he has or to pursue what he thinks he wants.  It is a film about grace and compassion and hate, about the soul-destroying cost of unfaithfulness and about love – what it demands and what it offers – and in the end, it becomes a parable about redemption. Summer Hours In this French film by Olivier Assayas, with a great ensemble cast including Juliette Binoche, we are prompted to ask questions about what makes art truly valuable, about how a global economy impacts our lives, about what it does to a society, to a family, when we have no place to go home, no place where we know we belong.  It’s a meditation on death and what we leave behind and the value of relationships.  One of the things I loved about this film was how the siblings all interacted with each other differently, depending on which siblings were in the room.  Not in a back-stabbing kind of way, but simply showing how different people, siblings maybe more than anyone, bring out different sides of us. Up Because several others have already talked about this, I’ll mention only how much I loved the music – it’s my favorite soundtrack of the year – and how amazed I am that in the second five minutes of the film – an animated film, no less – with no dialogue, only music, we are witness to the best love story that has been on the big screen in a long time. (500) Days of Summer The tag-line for this movie, starring Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, let you know what you were in for: “This is not a love story.  This is a story about love.”  We are shown, in random order, scenes from their relationship, from when it seemed everything was perfect (with some hilarious scenes at the greeting card company they work for) to scenes from after things don’t work out.  My favorite moment involved a short black-and-white sequence where Joseph Gordon-Levitt is playing chess on the beach with Cupid, an obvious homage to the scene in Ingmar Bergman’s 1957 Swedish film The Seventh Seal where the knight is playing chess with Death on the beach.  This was the most fun I had at a theater last year. ANDREW PETERSON: Films: Where the Wild Things Are This was a close tie with Up, but it won out. Why? Because I think it took more heart, more ambition, and was a much bigger risk than the Pixar film. Oh, how this movie could have gone wrong. There could’ve been a plush toy campaign, and an annoying Eddie Murphy character or copious CGI. Instead, we got a film with lines like, “Can you take the loneliness away?” We got a film that defied convention, was beautiful, frightening, and so very true to the messy, selfish, heartbreaking, and beautiful heart of childhood. I’m thankful that in a world where films like Transformers 2 and Saw XXI are being made, Dave Eggers, Spike Jonze, and Maurice Sendak took a deep breath, a step back, and a big risk to tell this story. Which leads me to… Up Pixar is batting a thousand. True, some of their films may have missed the mark by a little (Cars comes to mind), but even their less-amazing films are heads above the competition, and they all manage to get to the heart of something. Sure, it was beautiful to look at. Sure it was suspenseful and funny when it needed to be. But in the end, this company in Hollywood released a film that was an ode to marriage. And not just marriage, but a long, faithful one. Millions of children and parents alike were given a glimpse of the fact that sometimes the husband and wife actually grow old together, selflessly love one another, and treasure the heart of another. I loved my wife more after watching this movie. Crazy, I know. Star Trek Now for the less heady fare. I’ve never been a Trekkie, but I watched plenty of the original Star Trek series when I was a kid. I also, like Andrew Osenga, have a weakness for spaceships and laser guns. So I was pumped about this film, especially knowing J.J. Abrams was at the helm of the ship. The best thing I can say about it is that when I watched it I felt the same as I did when I was a kid watching Raiders of the Lost Ark. I only wish it had been less sexy so I could bring my kids along. Food, Inc. I like meat. And I like casseroles. I don’t like Michael Moore-type films that skew the facts to push an agenda. I could be wrong, but this documentary didn’t do that. I’m sure there are more sides to the story than a 90 minute film can show, but if even a fraction of the facts this film exposes are true, then I want to know more. I’m a Wendell Berry fan, and I think he’d applaud the point this film is making. District 9 Once again, laser guns and spaceships abound. If Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer (whose films I loathe) believed their audiences were intelligent, and if they were interested more in storytelling than explosives and hand-cams and frenzied editing and Aerosmith soundtracks, they still wouldn’t have been able to make a sci-fi movie this good. I saw this one with Russ Ramsey, and we both left the theater heartily surprised. I loved the unfolding realization that Wykas was in fact the hero–and his transformation (literal and figurative) was satisfying to watch. Also, spaceships. And laser guns. Inglorious Basterds Poor Thomas. This was his first RR One Minute Review, and he was lambasted with a zillion comments, some of them pretty heated. (Glad you weathered the storm, TM.) It was a good conversation, in the end, and while we may have lost a few readers, I think some folks may have reconsidered their stance on how to think about a story like this one. Of course, this film isn’t for everyone. I’m no fan of violence for its own sake. But I think Tarantino marketed this film to appear more violent than it actually was in order to draw a certain demographic into the theater–only to hold up a mirror and show us how despicable is the enjoyment of violence for its own sake. Apart from the violence (and, don’t get me wrong, after three viewings I still won’t watch some of it) I’m convinced that it might just be an ingenious film. I have a hunch it’ll be studied for years. Books: (I only recommend a few of these with a caveat. I have thus applied the MPAA rating where appropriate. Also, these aren’t all 2009 releases. Big deal.): Teaching a Stone to Talk by Annie Dillard Oh my goodness. Annie Dillard. Her writing is electric in the way that Mark Helprin’s is, but I resonate stronger with her because of her faith. If you’ve never read her work, and if Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is too intimidating, this is the book for you. It’s a collection of her non-fiction essays, none of which are too long for those of you with a short attention span. I can’t recommend this book highly enough. When I re-read it this year I stumbled on lines and ideas that I basically stole for my own songs (like “Lay Me Down”, “The Far Country”, and even “Mohawks on the Scaffold”). 100 Cupboards by N.D. Wilson Nate Wilson is one of my new favorites. I read this one aloud to my kids, and bought the sequel, Dandelion Fire, as soon as it released. The third one, The Chestnut King, releases early this year, and I’ve already pre-ordered it. Why do I like it so much? Because it’s clear that Wilson cares about sentences and words and Story–and he’s a Christian. There are moments where he speaks with a sort of literary accent that reminded me, after I thought about it, of Lewis and Tolkien. We’ll have these in the Rabbit Room store soon and very soon. Winter’s Tale by Mark Helprin I got into Mark Helprin because of Jason and Taya Gray. Jason recommended A Soldier of the Great War and I went for it–all two zillion pages of it. I’ve been a fan ever since. This is a story about New York City–sort of. Jason Germain from the band Downhere described the book to me this way: “It’s like New York City is telling you a bedtime story.” As weird as that sounds, he’s exactly right. Here are broadswords and flying horses and mysterious cloud walls and thugs and newspaper tycoons. Best of all, here’s a love story that defies the chains of Death and Time. Helprin’s sentences were dizzying. He does things with words that I would not have believed possible if I hadn’t seen the pages all but glitter before my very eyes. Helprin isn’t a Christian, but there are moments in this story when the story itself was electric with Eternity. I know that sounds weird, and there’s a better than good chance that you may read it and wonder what on earth I’m talking about. (Rated PG-13) Notes from a Tilt-a-Whirl by N.D. Wilson Here’s another from Wilson, but this one isn’t fantasy. It’s more of a wild, poetic statement of faith, and a call to reverence. Way to go, N.D.–do you mind if call you N.D.? The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet by Reif Larsen I can’t tell if this book made the list because I just finished it, or because it was that good. It’s about a twelve-year-old genius cartographer from Montana who runs away from home to visit the Smithsonian Institute. The book itself is a beauty, with the margins of nearly every page full of the boy’s maps and drawings. It’s funny, scary, thoughtful, and mysterious. The ending didn’t knock it out of the park, but I closed the book satisfied none the less. This was Larsen’s first book, which makes me a little angry. (Rated PG-13) A FURTHER COMMENT FROM JASON GRAY Andrew, first of all, I LOVE Germain’s description of Winter’s Tale!  That’s perfect… and second, I love that you rated your books.  I guess you learned your lesson after The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier And Clay incident.  (Somebody should ask Andrew to relate that story here…) And there you have it!  What do you think?  What are some of your picks for the best of 2009?

As a reader of books who also writes, I often feel a distinct, conflicting emotion when I read great books written by great writers. There is the delight, of course. Here is a person made by God doing something beautiful. Then there is the (often very slight) tinge of despair as I recognize I could never do this. This is less pointed when the genre and style are out of my own vein of writing (such as Patrick O’Brian’s books, which are, for me, an unmixed joy I hardly experience in any other fiction). I have written before on, and firmly believe in, the well-worn wisdom that it’s no use in copying others, or feeling bad about how you compare. It’s best to find your own voice and write what only you can. But still that feeling comes. “Am I kidding myself? I can’t write like this. This is art. This is compelling.” I guess part of it is simple envy, ordinary coveting. This of course, like all sin, must be rejected. I want, rather, to be the kind of man who says in his heart, like Robin Hood to Little John in the Errol Flynn film, “I love a man who can better me.” This runs quite counter to the self-important manure which passes for a philosophy of life in our envy-based culture. May it not be so in us. God be merciful to us.

“That’s the beauty of music and art is that there’s no right or wrong. Whichever way you paint the picture, you’re still painting the picture…” – Jonathan Chandler, vocalist – Amos the Transparent I was speaking with some of the members of Amos the Transparent, an up-and-coming indie rock act (aren’t they all) out of Ontario, but since they’re not really the point here, I’ll stop the bio. Our conversation turned to the subject of creativity and the beauty of art in general when one of the guys said the line above. It’s something that I agree completely with, yet I often find myself responding in the opposite way to it. “That’s not good enough!” That’s the common mantra in my head at most things I write. I can nod my head in an “Amen, sister!” sort of way when someone speaks a beautiful statement of “there is no right or wrong.” Then in a solitary confinement of my own making–surrounded by the smell of fresh coffee, the glow of my MacBook and the sounds of William Fitzsimmons–I become judge and jury to my own creative works, generally delivering a death sentence to each and every one of them. We’re all our own worst critics. I hear that from countless artists I interview and I know the dozens of unfinished projects, essays, books and articles of my own speak to the same fact. Precious few walk this earth who can care less about the interior voices, who feel free to display their paintings or writings or speeches to the greater public without fear. The last time I unveiled something with a wide smile and brimming confidence probably coincided with my fifth birthday. Since then, it’s been a downhill slope of fear and frustration. I go back to that quote however and love the way that Jonathan said it. Part of the beauty of art lies inside that freedom from the confines of what’s right or wrong, in or out. If I fail to find the freedom of that, then I lose the beauty of it–at least if the above statement is true. In other words, when I am lost in a pursuit of perfection and driving myself mad with an inability to “get it right,” I’m losing the beauty of what it is in the first place. In the endless struggle to create beauty, I’m missing the beauty in front of me. I’d love to be free again, or at the very least, to learn to be a bit more free. Of course, I want to work hard, develop my craft, hone my sentences and relentlessly edit. But often I simply shut the treasure chest and shove it back under the bed deeming all things unworthy of release–losing the beauty in the process.

In a few more days we’ll begin a new year and once again disappoint Arthur C. Clarke by failing to discover a mysterious black monolith in orbit around one of Jupiter’s moons (or Saturn’s depending on how you look at it). What can I say? Sorry, Mr. Clarke. I’ve been busy. So while I fear that I won’t be birthed out of the dawn to become the new Star Child and will therefore have to bow out of leading humanity on to its next revolution of progress and identity, I do have a few things that I want to get done and I’m excited about all of them. What follows is a list. The various items upon this list are things that, if I were the Star Child, I should like to make my top priorities. Sadly, though, Star Children are more prone to wandering in and out of the space-time continuum, being desperately cryptic, and dancing to the tune of Thus Spake Zarathustra than doing anything strictly practical. Hence my decision to decline the sojourn to Jupiter/Saturn and the subsequent star-navel-gazing that would surely follow. Note: if you aren’t a Science-Fiction nerd like me, the previous paragraphs likely make zero sense to you and you should probably just ignore them and read the following list after which you are welcome to mock my nerdery in the comments. I’ve decided to limit my list to twelve items. This gives me exactly one month to accomplish each item. Completely doable. Next year maybe I can fit in the trip to Jupiter. In a mildly particular order: Finish writing Fiddler’s Green and have it in readers’ hands by next Christmas Avoid going broke (yet again). Release three books from the Rabbit Room Press and ensure that they are not only filled with great writing but are beautiful to look at and hold in your hand. Own a bed (haven’t had one in 3 or 4 years.) Read more books than Andrew does (fair warning: this is a pipe dream). Get Sarah Clarkson’s book, Read for the Heart, into the hands of a whole bunch of people so they can learn what a great writer she is. Hear Fin Button’s name on NPR (Aim high, right?) Read more from the Bible than I do from the internet. Find a way to make 20,000 people buy the most under-listened-to album of last year, Eric Peters’s Chrome. Pay the bills by writing instead of by destroying my back and knees. Read an S.D. Smith novel. Open a physical Rabbit Room location to teach storytelling, sell books, and drink coffee.

Jesus said “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” –John 14:27 There are two seasons taking place right now. Both are filled, in part, by hope and expectation. Both have music and holly and sparkling lights. One is the Holy Season of Advent, the other is the Christmas Shopping Season. Both seasons are building up to December 25th. We live in both seasons at once, but they are not the same. Advent, on the other hand, is a peaceful place. It is peaceful because none of it depends on you. Christ came, and you can’t change that. Christ is coming, no matter what you do. You can participate by choosing to pray for his grace, by choosing to keep your eyes open. But, whether you do or not, he is likely to come and be right where you are. He comes and makes you sane. You and I experience two seasons at once. We live in Advent and the Christmas Shopping Season. By God’s grace, we can focus on one more than another. We can set aside a little anxiety today and ask for a little more peace. Perhaps, a little at a time, we may find ourselves living for a minute, or an hour, or even a full day completely in the Holy Season. Henri Nouwen, one of my personal heroes, wrote a prayer that speaks to where we are. I would like to share it with you. I commend it to your use in midst of these seasons. An Advent Prayer by Henri Nouwen Lord Jesus, Master of both the light and the darkness, send your Holy Spirit upon our preparations for Christmas. We who have so much to do, seek quiet spaces to hear your voice each day. We who are anxious over many things look forward to your coming among us. We who are blessed in so many ways long for the complete joy of your kingdom. We whose hearts are heavy, seek the joy of your presence. We are your people, walking in darkness, yet seeking light. To you we say, Come Lord Jesus…. Amen.

I love Luke’s “orderly account” of what has been accomplished by Yahweh in the first advent of Christ. We remember the true tale of how the angel Gabriel came to two people (in Luke’s account), one was a priest and the other a virgin. The priest’s wife, Elizabeth, and Mary both get a lot of time in the early part of Luke. Both are women whose station in life is in relationship to their husbands (or, in Mary’s case, her betrothed). One woman’s husband has a “secular” career, the other a religious one.  Both have a humble calling, a vocation for the lowly of spirit. Elizabeth might have had some status as the wife of a priest, but she describes herself as having a reproach upon her from her people (because she was barren). Mary would have likely had almost no status at all on her own. So who are these women in the economy of the world (especially today)? Nobodies. Both women are blessed by God in a miraculous way by miraculous pregnancies and births. Both women became catalysts for the greatest event in the history of mankind. It was not to, or through, Herod the Great that such things were accomplished. It was in spite of him. He was a mighty, important, powerful man who ruled the land. He was a man of intelligence, strength, and creativity. He was, perhaps, a genius. Let’s contrast this great man of his time with two Jewish women. Elizabeth and Mary were humble-hearted believers. What does Elizabeth say of Mary in vs. 45? How does Mary respond to truth that is good beyond measure? “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” What profound humility. What submission. What simple, astonishing beauty. Do not believe the horrendous, and popular, lie that “History Doesn’t Remember Obedient Women.” “From now on all generations will call me blessed,” sings humble Mary (in a Gospel-drenched, deeply theological, and lovely song). She believes. Mary hears…and believes. What is our calling? It is the same as Mary’s in that way. We must hear, and having heard: believe. Hear and believe. This requires a humble heart, because it is the abandonment of whatever status we have held on to as a coin to buy God’s favor. It is a filing for bankruptcy. It is a kneeling surrender of our sword and our rank. It is, as a wise man said, a “glorious defeat.” In Christ’s advent we celebrate the happy end of our pretended reign. There is no room for Herod the Great -clinging to his murderous self-interest. Let us look instead to believing Mary, and Elizabeth –two beautiful, humble children of God– and let us imitate their faith. Hear –and believe.

Amazing. Staggering. Jaw-dropping. Groundbreaking. Revolutionary. These are all words that have been used to describe James Cameron’s new movie, Avatar. I’m a child of the Star Wars generation so I was as eager as anyone to see something so superlative that it could “change cinema forever”. The reality is that it’s one of the most frustrating movies I’ve seen in a long time. In many ways all those adjectives people keep throwing at it are deserved, but for every moment of cinematic wonder or breathtaking beauty there’s another moment that’s hollow, wooden, corny, or ill-conceived. There’s no doubt of the movie’s visual beauty or scope but instead of a film that soars like the characters of its story, it falls to the ground in a sloppy mess that somehow manages to get back up and sputter along in spite of itself. The problem, Mr. Cameron, is writing. This is a script that a film school drop-out could scratch up in a couple of weekends. For crying out loud, the film’s McGuffin is called “Un-obtaintium”. You heard me right. Un-obtainium! Sadly, the true unobtainable element here isn’t some rare metal, it’s depth and grace. I simply cannot understand how or why someone would spend a decade of their lives and hundreds of millions of dollars pouring their heart and soul into a creation that is not only fundamentally flawed, but could have been easily fixed and elevated to the level of a masterwork by someone with an eye for cinematic poetry, an ear for dialogue, and a knack for sub-text. There’s nothing wrong with the story itself here. Sure, it boils down to Dances with Blue Aliens, but that’s a solid storyline with the potential to resonate deeply with a lot of people. But even a great story needs to be written in a way that’s compelling. And a great storyteller, especially a filmmaker, has to trust his audience enough not to tell them everything. It occurred to me while watching it that while James Cameron is brilliant at orchestrating action, he hasn’t yet in his career learned to communicate more than one thing at a time with his camera. You won’t find any mise-en-scene in a Cameron picture. You won’t hear any depth to what characters say; they say exactly what they think and if someone hasn’t said it explicitly, then instead of letting the camera do the talking (or the audience do the thinking), Cameron inserts a clunky voice-over just to make sure we understand. He assumes we are unable to interpret the images on the screen ourselves because he is himself unsure of what he is using them to tell us–unless he’s telling us about the action. In a way, Avatar is like the malformed mirror image of a good book. With a book, the characters and the world are never seen. It’s the job of the reader’s imagination to flesh them out and make them real and the cinema of the mind will always rise to the task given it by the written word. On the other hand, in Avatar the imagination is all up on the screen just as brightly and majestically as we’d have created it in our dreams but regrettably, there’s little in the prose calling it to task. To be fair, in the end I liked the movie, I really enjoyed it and I’d encourage people to see it (do NOT wait for the DVD.) It’s truly amazing to watch and when it’s good, when there’s action on the screen, when it’s doing something other than exposition or clunking its way through the story, it’s breathtaking. But I’m so very disappointed that I can’t say i loved it. I can’t say it moved me. It should have, I wanted it to, I tried to let it, but James Cameron is going to have to learn something of the written word and the language of cinema before he’s able to draw me along with anything other than his spectacle and action.