What are you looking for?

One great delight of having a composer for a brother is the fact that he passes the best of his studies on to me. Joel explores reams of classical music that I could never find on my own, and every time he’s home from school he loads my iPod with a few of his newest-found gems. At Christmas this past year, he gave me hours of music, as glad to pass on his beauties as I was to get them. But the rush of winter and spring swept my listening hours away, and it wasn’t until just a few weeks ago that I finally managed to taste the new songs. I was on a road trip through Texas, adrift amidst endless miles of flatland with my sister driving, so I stuck in my earphones. Night was just coming on as I relaxed to the first song and closed my eyes, expecting to snatch some sleep along with the music. But the first notes struck me wide awake. Like sunlight on closed eyes, the music glimmered into my sleepy mind, blazed into my ears. First the throaty hum of a cello and its rise into a chorus of violins. Like open hands lifted to catch the sunlight, the instruments formed a cup into which a choir poured its song. A simple choral piece was all it was (I later noted that it was Morten Lauridsen’s Lux Aeterna: Introitus), but to me the music was light, it was hope. The song was one of those beauties that arrest you with a clear wordless truth; God is real, grace is a hand that holds you through every change, goodness follows all of your days. I could hear it in the music. A great relief came to my soul, as if I had been holding my breath through the work of months, striving to endure the battle of life. The fear that is always with me, of failure, of pain, fell away before the song just as the night flees, grieved and dark, at the onslaught of dawn. In that odd Texas moment, just for an instant, I was smacked with the full joy of heaven and it was real as the breath in my throat and beat of my heart. But then I opened my eyes. It was an accident, a reflexive blink, but what should I see but a chain of billboards for a famous outlet mall. Gaudy letters blazing an invitation to get vast amounts of new somethings for nothing. I glanced beyond the boards at the glare of a dozen fast food signs. Cars whizzed by, frantic, red-eyed machines in the brooding dusk with frenzied humans at their wheels. And the hope I knew in the music was shattered. The song seemed actually to fade in my ears as the sight of concrete, commerce, and human striving met my eyes. I thought of the million and one tasks I needed to do, the money to be made, the deadlines to be met. Something like grief grew in my throat and the old fear came back. My brain filled with the incontrovertible fact of daily need, of machines and commercialism and a world that never slows down. It was a moment of hopeless juxtaposition–the whisper of a transcendent beauty against the pragmatic chorus of survival.  My whole life seemed torn between those two realities. I felt again the heat of all my deadlines, and with it the fear that I could not do enough, be enough, make enough. The old doubts I bear about my life as a writer joined swiftly in. The old wrangle my heart carries on with my head, “what good is beauty?” began again. In the face of need and sickness and the demands of a fast-paced society, what good is the making of one little story, the writing of a poem? Why hunger after dreams when money must be made, bodies fed, and futures built? Surely God himself scoffs at the little dream worlds in which I live. But then, as if my own soul shouted down my brain, a thought came, crisp and commanding to my mind: “None of that craziness is an ounce as real as your music. Grace is the real thing.” I was astounded at the thought. I sat up straighter, ready to consider this claim of my heart. I closed my eyes and the music roared back to life in my ears, filling my brain so that the strife of the outer world seemed, in its turn, flimsy as a child’s dream. Which world was true? I stared ahead into the Texas sunset, thinking hard until I suddenly remembered something I knew as a child and had almost forgotten. Beauty tells the truth. Since I was a tiny lass, I have called my experiences of beauty “knowings,” because I felt that those encounters communicated something true about the world. I first discovered this in Celtic music; I remember one particular song I heard as a child when I tasted an exultation beyond anything I had ever known. Amidst the rise of a fiddle, the keen of a penny whistle, and a beat like that of many hearts throbbing together, I was filled with an image of all the world in a dance, of many peoples joined in one great movement of joy. And I knew that it was true, that someday just such a dance would happen when all the struggle of earth was ended and the feast of heaven had begun. I am convinced that somehow, in that music, I was able to grasp a picture of the someday world to be. I think most of us have these “knowings.” C.S. Lewis called them “joy,” the great gladness that startled him into his faith. L.M. Montgomery (author of Anne of Green Gables) called them “the flash.” Tolkien called them “eucatastrophe,” the unexpected grace of a happy ending. But all of them mean the same; the taste, in an instant of beauty, of a joy beyond anything we know in this world. A certainty of some good that dwells beyond the limits of what we can see. We know, bone deep, even if only for the instant of song or sight, that there is a joy to outlast all sorrow, a grace that justifies our fight to overcome the darkness in which we all strive. Beauty really is truth and that was what my heart was telling my brain in that odd Texas moment. To dwell in an instant of beauty is to stumble into a pocket of eternity as it bubbles up in time. A song like the one I heard exists half here, half in the realm of the eternal. Time is suspended because that one sustained note, or a leaf in a crimson-edged turn, or the happy ending of a story bears a truth that will live beyond the moment in which you taste it. The knowledge that comes to me in a moment of art or song is a truth from outside the circles of time and decay. This is why I hunger for beauty, why I sense it to be a “realer” thing than much of the hurry of modern, daily life. This is also why I write. To capture even a hint of that sure loveliness, to embody that elusive, certain grace in what I create, this is my work. To present the beauty I have found in a story of my own is to offer my time and people the most precious thing I have ever found. This is no waste, no child’s dream. This is a glimpse of the kingdom of heaven as it invades the world. I suspect most artists sense this as they work; a hint of redemption at their elbow as God speaks into their work from outside the circles of pain, striving, and blindness. My own “knowings,” are just one glimpse of God’s far country. But to tell of that world beyond this earth is the work of God’s own kingdom, because the beauty is his. The joy is his love. The life is his own holy self, throbbing through all of creation, calling us back to the wholeness for which we were made. I finished my song that night. Savored the last of the notes and opened my eyes. This time I didn’t panic. I looked out on the frenzied twilight world of the Dallas suburbs and knew that the beauty I had tasted both transcended it all, and yet was also the promise of its redemption. The song was not a dream of hope that would fade, it was the promise of a hope that never ends because beauty tells the truth. And I believe it.

Normally, I — in this case, portraying a critic – would proceed to try and convince you to read this or that book by using my own words of approval. But I, already too crummy at convincing people to do this or that, choose instead to quote the author’s own characters – two stuffed animals inside a taxidermist’s workshop – to show you my humble appreciation for Yann Martel’s newest novel, Beatrice and Virgil. It’s a harrowing, seeming un-adventure story that builds a slow, awkward tension much like in his previous novel, 2002 Man Booker Prize winner, Life of Pi. Reading B&V, and knowing Martel’s earlier success with Pi, his newest novel, though fiction, seems part autobiography, part fiction, part history, part painting. Though it does not succeed on every level, I find it to be a most-creative attempt to make sense of the dark cruelty that mankind continually inflicts upon itself throughout history from one group to another, from one man to another. That said, I leave you with Martel’s own words via Beatrice, a donkey accompanying his monkey companion, Virgil, during their walking conversation. Virgil: I was thinking about faith. Beatrice: Were you? Virgil: Faith is like being in the sun. When you are in the sun, can you avoid creating a shadow? Can you shake that area of darkness that clings to you, always shaped like, as if constantly to remind you of yourself? You can’t. This shadow is doubt. And it goes wherever you go as long as you stay in the sun. And who wouldn’t want to be in the sun?

I don’t remember ever pretending to be a princess. Not even once. I wasn’t the sort of little girl who asked for plastic dress-up shoes or sparkling makeup sets. I didn’t have a closet full of pink tulle skirts. My daydreams never bothered with being held captive in some high tower, waiting for a tinfoil man-child to bring me life and liberty. Instead, I arm-wrestled boys and won. I played shoot-the-Russians, and read thick books, and made useful things out of wood. I roused nests of naked baby mice tucked into hay; wooed doodlebugs out of dried dung piles; and stole luna moths from the cold, wet, night grass. To this day, I rarely experience the most delicate communions of my soft kind. The pink she-vim, with all of its birdlike chatter and clatter of fragile things remains more foreign to me than China. I would rather be outside digging in dirt making things grow, or taming something wild, or learning something difficult. When I was seven, my bedroom window opened to the branches of a massive crabapple tree. Every spring, it would hymn its gnarly, old arms into an unbridled explosion of light; and for several weeks, I would live in a sky blown full of perfection. Perhaps it was too perfect, because it has made me unsatisfied. Handmade pinks are just too “ish”. Too sticky. Too sweet. Too trying-to-be. I remember what this color should be, and I haven’t seen it since. Nothing second-best will suffice. I paint sometimes, and it seems to me that God has given mankind access to the pigment realm of handmade blues, and greens, and perfect ochres. Yet the Maker must have kept supreme pink to Himself, because the color I was given by that crabapple tree was pure, delicate, alive. It was kissed with undertones of butter-gold, and it flushed like the cheek of an infant; but it was light as down. Every petal danced in the wind, as if it were made for no other purpose than my delight; and I did delight in that singular way that only little girls and very old ones can. Those days were slow and simple, and my imagination had not yet become defiled. I was young enough to let beauty work the fullness of its gospel over me. “Behold, little one. Behold! Hear these thousand tongues sing! Your heart unfolds like flowers before Me! Such a shade of joy will burst your very soul!” Well burst, then. For I was too young to know the fear of it. When night stained the sky, my tree would whisper promises from all the best story books. She assured me of things I couldn’t dream in the light. With those thousand moon-silvered tongues she blessed two rock-skinned knees and bruised legs scabbed with scratched mosquito bites. Like a sylvan godmother, whispering sacred words across my soda bottle glasses and uncool clothes bought at Goodwill, beauty spoke. She told me that I was the daughter of a great, artistic King, trapped (momentarily, mind you) in the lanky flesh of a prepubescent Giacometti. A kissed toad, waiting, tossed into this blushing wonderland. The truth tickled the hairs on my arm with a shiver of night air. Crickets recounted the songs of orphans made princes. If my heart would calm its pounding, I might hear the approach of a milkmaid named something like Pertoppety or Faithful Bess; and she would recognize my noble brow and see the royal blood. She would call me forth from the cinders and the scratches to become what tremored in the voice of the first Muse who spoke, “Once upon a time.” She would pronounce my new name. When I was eleven, we moved away from that house, and my reflection began to change. In the morning light, I would stand with my fingertips pressed into the softs of my cheeks, considering how very much there was that I was not. I lacked, and so I fought, using the strength of my own arms to defy the gaps. I reasoned, sweated, resolved, studied, proved, and strove. I wrestled with angels and with prophets; but my strength was never enough. Each flexing muscle packed guilt and fatigue into the empty spaces of my soul, and each new failure confirmed my deepest fears. I was ugly, unlovable, rejected. Decades were wasted. Perhaps it is a sort of mortal sin to lay aside all of our first stories — to unbelieve the best tales told around the early fires. What if these stories are composed and recomposed because something inside our blood knows them to be nearly true? For it is possible that the earth was Art-made to whisper hymns over us while we sleep. And it is possible that we were made with the capacity to listen. We grow cynical, battered, beaten, fought. We live sore from the pigments of imitation. We expire in the winters of our trying. Yet Spring is rising, and there is a King. Each new day declares the poetry of His paternity. He still sends the gospel herald pulsing pure and free through the arms of the earth. His warmth offers to make us daughter-beautiful, dignified, whole, new. It is ours to be young enough again to lie still. It is ours to bathe in the waters of the cherished. It is ours to drink up the sweet milk sap of our new name, and fall asleep with its abundance bubbling white from the corners of our lips. It is ours to be kissed children walking in wonder, trusting, faithing*, dancing in the dew grace of royalty. Galatians 3:3 Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh? *Particular thanks to Ron Block for sharing his insights on several of these concepts.

Author’s Note: The following anecdote first appeared in a comment on my blog. My store of anecdotes is finite, as my long-suffering wife can (and often does) attest. I can’t afford to bury them in, say, the fifth comment on a post about some other subject. That’s just a rookie mistake. In blogging, as in buffet-style dining, one must pace oneself (especially if one has already re-posted most of one’s pieces here at The Rabbit Room). In that spirit, and in honor of the fact that I am writing this on a plane trip to Charlotte, North Carolina, I hereby promote the following anecdote from comment to post. I hope you find it edifying. I went to college at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. Greenville was close enough to Charlotte for me to form opinions about that city. They were largely unfavorable opinions. I don’t remember the details of my case against Charlotte, but they were summed up by the bon mot, “I’ve got no use for a city whose goal in life is to be the next Atlanta!” (I had opinions about Atlanta too.) Not long after we married, my wife and I were driving through the Carolinas, and as we approached Charlotte I once again laid out my strong anti-Charlotte position for her benefit. “It doesn’t seem so bad to me,” she said as we passed beneath the shadows of the great glass buildings where bankers were going about their bankerly business. “Pshaw!” I said. “I’m hungry,” she said. “Do you know any good places to eat in Charlotte?” “How would I know?” I said. “I’ve never been to Charlotte in my life!” I don’t suppose I’ll ever forget the expressions on my wife’s face at that moment. A look of astonishment gave way to an angry scowl that shaded into a squint that said, if I read it right, “What have I done? I have just attached myself intimately and irrevocably to a man who speaks very articulately of things he knows nothing about.” I could see the wheels turning as she wondered how many of my other well-considered opinions had no basis in reality. I am happy to report that I have mellowed on the subject of Charlotte, North Carolina. My prejudices were no match for the reality of the place, which is actually quite pleasant and populated by fine people who have plenty of other hopes and dreams besides trying to be the next Atlanta. Incidentally, I’ve decided Atlanta isn’t so bad either. Bonus Fact: Charlotte is the largest city between Atlanta and Washington, DC. Bonus Story Recommendation: In his short story collection Here We Are in Paradise, Nashville writer and Charlotte native Tony Earley has a brilliant story called “Charlotte” that I commend to you. I also commend to you everything else that Tony Earley has ever published.

Yesterday we celebrated Palm Sunday. Is there a more ambivalent day on the Christian calendar? “Hosanna!” shouted the people lining the streets of Jerusalem. Literally, “Save us!” Save us, they meant, from the Roman oppressor. Jesus did come to save them, of course, but not from the Romans. Over the next few days, the crowd would come to realize that Jesus wasn’t on board with their agenda. By Friday the very people who shouted “Hosanna!” were shouting “Crucify him!” So it has always made me a little uneasy to commemorate the shouting and the palm-waving on Palm Sunday. Does praise count as praise when the people are that confused and, as it turns out, that bloodthirsty? We have baptized all our children on Palm Sunday. The first was more or less accidental; the Sunday that was convenient and available happened to be Palm Sunday. We held our boy in his long white gown and the children came down the aisle with their palm branches and the big organ rumbled and we sang, All glory, laud, and honor To Thee, Redeemer King To whom the lips of children Made sweet hosannas ring. Immediately we understood that Palm Sunday, traditionally associated with the faith and praise of children, was the perfect day to recognize and celebrate a child’s place in the Covenant. So we baptized our other five children on Palm Sundays too. We came to think of Palm Sunday as our family holiday and were a little sad whenever the day came around and we didn’t have anybody to baptize. It may be my imagination or selective memory, but Palm Sunday seems always to be beautiful–sunny and bright after the long, gray nastiness of a Nashville winter. Yet Palm Sunday has still troubled me. What, exactly, are we celebrating? My friend and pastor Russ Ramsey preached yesterday. He helped me see that we celebrate on Palm Sunday the same thing we celebrate any time we baptize a baby. He summed it up in a sentence: “Jesus is always doing more than you think.” We expect Jesus to deliver us from Romans or fears or insecurities or money troubles or addictions or heartache or loneliness. But Jesus came to deliver you from troubles that go much deeper than any of those. “I am doing a new thing here,” he is always saying. “You have no idea.” On that first Palm Sunday there wasn’t a soul in Jerusalem who understood what Jesus was up to. As the scripture points out, even “his disciples did not understand these things at first.” They were as ignorant of his purposes as a little baby at the baptismal font. When it comes to that, if I’m any less ignorant myself, it’s through no merit or wisdom of my own, but only by God’s grace. Yet Jesus did what he came to do. He continues to do what he means to do, requiring neither our permission or our full understanding. I don’t wish to suggest that our will and our understanding don’t figure into the equation. I do wish to suggest, however, that this business of sin and redemption is full of mysteries, and our grasp of things isn’t as important in the end as our willingness to believe God even as we inhabit the mystery. And I’m thankful for a day to commemorate Jesus’ unflagging determination to rescue people who had no idea how badly they needed to be rescued. Hosanna! He is always doing more than we think. Russ Ramsey has put together a series of daily readings he calls “Easter Week in Real Time.” They walk the reader day-by-day through Holy Week, showing from the Gospels what was happening each day between Palm Sunday and Easter. You can find “Easter Week in Real Time” here at The Rabbit Room. I’ll be reading them this week, and I commend them to you.

In my daily Frederick Buechner a few days ago, I read about the time he received his first book deal, only to immediately hear about a classmate’s dissimilar misfortune. And as he walked away, his joy could not fully withstand the grief of his friend. “There can be no real joy for anybody until there is joy finally for us all,” he wrote. And isn’t that the way it is with everything in our broken world? One man’s fortune is another man’s burden. The same hill means one man’s climb and another’s coasting descent. Sometimes in the effort to encourage the pursuit of simplicity, proponents point to the joys of letting go of consumer values, to the shame of living for cheap, monetary thrills, to the true cost of our endless appetites. I believe in that joy, and in that shame, but I forget sometimes, that while there can be great reward for making sacrificial changes, those changes very often feel like loss. Change is never without a feeling of loss, even happy change. A wedding is a great beginning, full of hope and the promise of a timeless friendship, but it is also an end. Isn’t it a common story for a best friend to spend much of the wedding grieving over the forever-changed nature of their friendship? Or a child is born and amidst the parents’ joy, they are quickly adjusting to the sudden demands of their new charge, likely without the indulgence of previous comforts like sleeping in or a simple cup of coffee. When we leave one thing behind in order to gain something better, moving on into joy is part of the story, but the other part is loss. Whether it’s moving across the country, signing a book deal, or giving up Netflix (I know . . . it’s a doozy), we must give ourselves the freedom to grieve the fear or loss we feel. Because regardless of how good the change may be, the pain it brings along the way is real. I love Eric Peters’ song that I posted for the new year. “So much to be thankful, so much to be forgotten. Gonna cry when I need it, smile when I need it, laugh when I need it. Good-bye denial, good-bye. Good-bye.” Pursuing a more simple, focused life is a common response to the rampant consumerism and disposability of our time, and I believe an appropriate one. And when I am visited by the longing for what I have left behind, I must see it, name it, and then remember that I have not so much given up what I had gained as begun to hope for something different. To pursue the life-giving habits that depend less on accumulation, and more on expression, enrichment, service, is for many of us a hoping for the day when there is joy without sadness, for us all.

For years I’ve been making up stories for my kids at bedtime. It started with the two older kids when they were four and six and sharing a room, and at first all the stories were unrelated. Maybe a butterfly king was searching for his lost butterfly crown, or maybe two clouds were racing to see who could circle the world first, or I remember one where their toothbrushes came to life and danced in the sink while we slept. Eventually, I told a story about a boy and girl who lived in two castles on either side of a river. Being human, they naturally loved anything that seemed to revolve around them, and they started to ask for more of those stories. Standing between their beds, silhouetted by the hallway light, I made up dozens of twisted and half-baked plot lines. Every now and then, a smart story would emerge that needed a proper telling, so I’d leave them hanging with the dreaded “to be continued.” Cue the groans and pleas. It was a season, in the end. Eventually the big kids got separate rooms, then we added another young’un and nighttime creativity was trumped by a need for sleep. Sometimes I still make up stories for Ben (he’s 3 years old), when he has to go to bed earlier than the others, but the big kids have moved on to Harry Potter, The Wingfeather Saga, the Hardy Boys, and Calvin and Hobbes, and they want to read till the last second before they close their eyes. Then a few evenings ago, my eight-year-old son was tearing through The Rise and Fall of Mount Majestic for the second time and the other two kids were playing and winding down in the other bedroom. As I began to shoo them to bed, the three-year-old asked me to tell a story. His older sister joined in, “pleeeeease dad!” It doesn’t take much, really. I began as I always have – with the first thing that emerged from my mind. Two kids walking to school, older sister, younger brother. Little brother spots a beautifully glittering rainbow colored leaf, but all the grass around it is singed. Big sister sees that it is dangerous to touch so scoops it up into a small metal box little brother had with him. (Ben actually has such a box and sometimes brings it to school). At this point in the story, Livi and Ben are all smiles. Its like old times, but with a different little brother. They are completely caught up in the story, and I have no idea what’s coming next. The ideas come in real time. Big sister keeps box with the leaf in her backpack. When they part ways at school, little brother waves goodbye, big sister rudely sticks out her tongue. Big sister goes to class and is obviously not herself. She’s uppity to friends and classmates (I narrated a few snide exchanges), and eventually talks back to the teacher and gets sent to the principals office. On her way she sees little brother in the hall and he asks her for the box with the leaf they found so she digs it out of her backpack and says something like “here’s your dumb box.” Mom comes to pick up big sister who is suddenly back to her normal kindhearted self, they arrive home to a message on the answering machine from the school. Now little brother is misbehaving and is being sent home for the day. Big sister starts to piece together what is going on. At this point I see my daughter hiding behind the covers. I don’t usually keep a lot of eye contact during these stories because my brain is so preoccupied with figuring out the story. I peeked behind the covers to find her face all red and wrinkled and streaked with tears. She was silently bawling. As a parent, I was horrified. I immediately derailed the story, hopped on the bed, held her close, and quickly made up an ending where she saves the world from destruction. That did not help, so we just sat and hugged and I apologized. As you may have surmised, she saw herself in the character, and became emotionally overwhelmed when “she” started treating friends and loved ones with such venom. The evening’s sudden dark turn reacquainted me with the raw power of story, and reminds me now of the sacred burden storytellers bear. Good storytellers engage the imagination and have access to the entire range of human emotion, so we place our trust in them when we enter into their stories. For what on earth is more powerful than imagination? Could we even have love without it? Surely we could not have hate. Most of the memories from my childhood are the ones associated with deep emotion, so if she’s anything like me, my daughter will probably remember something about that night for the rest of her life. Do any of you have memories of visceral reactions to story at a young age? And if so, what were those stories about?

(I’ve included the primary Scripture reference for this meditation at the end of the post.) The first several days of the first Easter week were filled with tension and anger from Jesus’ opponents and unflinching resolve from Jesus. He had been on the move, juggling His time between Bethany, Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives. Words had been His currency, and He had spent piles of them opposing the self-righteous and preparing His disciples for what He had been telling them about for a while now: “that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” (Mt 16:21) How confusing this must have been for them. But by the time Wednesday rolled around, Jesus was still. He went to the home of Simon the Leper, a man known for what was wrong with him. They shared a meal together and afterward settled in for a time of conversation. As they sat, a woman with an alabaster flask approached Jesus. Though Matthew doesn’t tell us her name, we not only know who she was, we know a little something about that flask too. John tells us this was Mary of Bethany, Lazarus’ sister, (Jn 12:3) and suggests she had been saving this perfume, which was worth a full year’s wages, for this very occasion. (Jn 12:7) She began to pour the perfume on Jesus’ head and feet, which Mark tells us she did by breaking open its container. (Mk 14:3) With this fracture, there was no turning back. Breaking open that alabaster flask was like popping the cork on a $20,000 bottle of champagne. She was not acting on a whim. She offered Jesus everything she had. What drove her? She somehow sensed that what He was about to give was for her. The perfume was a response to what He was in the process of giving to her. The disciples reacted like many men often do. They considered the value of her perfume and regarded her actions as though she might as well have been burning a year’s wages in a bread oven. But they dressed their indignation up in the noble auspices of concern for the poor: Think of the poor people who could have benefited from the sale of this perfume. (cf. Mt 26:8-9) But this is not how her actions hit Jesus. He comes to her aid. What she is doing, He tells them, is beautiful. Appreciate the doctrinal principle here. Though the perfume could have been sold for a year’s wages, what is perfume for? Is it merely a commodity Mary should have held on to in the event that she needed to cash it in? Is this how God would expect her to regard this valuable resource? Apparently not. Perfume is meant to be poured out and released into the air until it is gone in order that it might fill a room with its beautiful and startling aroma. So Mary breaks open the jar and the scent electrifies the senses of everyone present, and Jesus says it is beautiful. Everything in creation testifies to a Creator who delights in beauty for beauty’s sake. So many things that are beautiful didn’t need to be. And it was God elected to make them that way. He opted to make autumn a season saturated with bold, changing color. He didn’t have to make the setting sun the spectacle that it is. But He did. Why? One reason must be because beauty pleases Him. And another must be in order to arrest people by their senses when they’re otherwise just plodding along, heads down, learning to live within the economy of pragmatism. What Mary did was beautiful and Jesus wanted His disciples to know it.She was preparing Him for burial. Jesus sees a great kindness and honor in her gesture. So He returns the honor by saying history will never forget her act of beauty. And as it is, this act of gratitude has been recorded in over 150 languages around the world for over 20 centuries. J.C. Ryle wrote, “The speeches of parliamentary orators, the exploits of warriors, the works of poets and painters, will not be mentioned on that day [of God’s coming Kingdom]; but the least work that the weakest Christian has done for Christ, or His members, will be found written in a book of everlasting remembrance.” By the Wednesday of the first Easter week, Jesus is placing everything in the context of His pending death. Here in this intimate setting with dear friends—with all their quirks and flaws and reputations—the scent of redemption fills the room. Matthew 26:6-16 6Now when Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, 7a woman came up to him with an alabaster flask of very expensive ointment, and she poured it on his head as he reclined at table.8And when the disciples saw it, they were indignant, saying, “Why this waste? 9For this could have been sold for a large sum and given to the poor.” 10But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a beautiful thing to me. 11For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me.12In pouring this ointment on my body, she has done it to prepare me for burial. 13Truly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her.” 14Then one of the twelve, whose name was Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests 15and said, “What will you give me if I deliver him over to you?” And they paid him thirty pieces of silver.16And from that moment he sought an opportunity to betray him.

Last week, the Proprietor and the usual suspects put on a special performance of the Behold the Lamb of God show for the Re:Create conference here in Nashville, and I was reminded once again what an amazing bunch of musicians those guys are. One attendee summed the show up nicely on twitter: “I dreamed that I celebrated Christmas in February while eating M&Ms and being serenaded by the world’s greatest songwriters. Wait. That just happened.” This is one of the songs Andy and Jill Gullahorn sang during the in-the-round portion of the show. Fantastic stuff. It’s called “That Guy” and it’s from Andy’s album Reinventing the Wheel (available today at Song of the Day prices: $10 CD / $7.50 Download.)

(Last year I wrote this series of posts in response to questions about the meaning of my song, “More Like Falling In Love”. With the re-release of the song on my current remix project, Song Cycles, I thought it was reason enough to revisit, revise, and repost them.) It ought to be More like falling in love Than something to believe in More like losing my heart Than giving my allegiance Caught up, called out, come take a look at me now It’s like I’m falling in love… When I first got the idea for this song, it seemed like an obvious enough truth that God prefers passionate devotion to cool intellectual assent; that he desires the kind of worshipful obedience that overflows from a relationship with him instead of the obligatory obedience based on fear and our misguided attempts at self-sufficiency. It seemed like Christianity 101 to me, maybe almost too obvious if anything. And yet I’ve been surprised to receive more push back on this song than any other I’ve written. Since its release there’s been a steady stream of criticism that the song is, as one person said, “based too much on love” (which is a remarkable statement in my opinion, but that’s probably a topic for another post). Don’t get me wrong, I’m not necessarily bothered or threatened by any of this – by and large the majority of listeners have embraced the song and I’m grateful – but I’ve been perplexed by the number of people who have expressed concern over it since it seemed like one of the “safest” songs I’ve ever written. I never saw it coming. I know that I’m not infallible and that of course there may have been another way I could have written the song that might have been more clear, so I don’t mean this as a defensive missive to silence critics. But everything being equal, it’s given me an opportunity to be curious about the different reasons it may have sparked the response that it has. For starters, I suppose a lot depends on the predisposition a person brings to the song based on what the words “falling in love” mean to them. I can understand their concern if they assume that the kind of love I’m talking about is based on emotionalism – warm, fuzzy feelings about God, reducing Him to a cosmic boyfriend/girlfriend. Maybe they think what I’m talking about here is the same kind of thing our culture tries to pass off as “love”: self-centered, hormone induced, emotionally driven romantic Hollywood “love” that is soft on commitment, sacrifice, or backbone. Somebody recently asked my wife in casual conversation if she still felt I was her “soul mate” or if she wanted to “switch it up” and see if there was someone else out there for her. I don’t think this person was maliciously trying to undermine our marriage, but the question revealed how much our culture has distorted the meaning of “love”, reducing it to a matter of selfish fulfillment instead of a life-long bond meant to daily ask of two people to die to themselves and serve the one they have chosen to be bound to. Our very own Andrew Peterson once said that marriage is God’s way of helping husbands die a little each day to our wives because He knows we aren’t man enough to do it all at once. The same could be said for wives, perhaps (I wouldn’t want to disregard their sacrifices). When we allow ourselves to fall in love with someone, we are in a sense choosing the person that we will die for. Of course that means more than simply taking a bullet for them. As heroic as that may be, it is in some ways easier than the more difficult business of a lifetime of hourly dying to our own selfishness and pride, our need to be right, to have the upper hand, and even the instinct to withdraw and protect ourselves from hurt instead of living open-heartedly toward another. All this to say that if the word “love” conjures up images of sappy Hollywood rom-coms instead of the idea of a call to radically give ourselves away, I can see why some might be troubled by a song that champions salvation and discipleship as something more akin to “falling in love” than anything else. But I can’t help but think that if these same people were to give me the benefit of the doubt and consider that I’m reading the same bible they are, they might just as easily assume that I’m talking about love as scripture defines it, where, among other things, we are told that there is no greater love than the kind that would move someone to lay down their life for another. Assuming this context, we might understand “falling in love” as the ignition of a fire that will consume our whole life while it lights up the dark, a wonder as terrifying as it is beautiful. But there were some who, even if they didn’t have an issue with the word “love”, still took me to task for the decidedly romantic language of phrases like “falling in love” and the image of being “swept off my feet”. I get it, I really do, but c’mon – it’s a pop song. We’re already stretching the medium by asking it to convey theological assertions. Besides, the language still works for me – it serves the breezy light-hearted nature of a pop song about love, but it’s also theologically meaningful for me. “Falling in love” and being “swept off our feet”, in my mind at least, imply a loss of control, a sense of being overcome by love. And I wonder if this is closer to the heart of the issue for some who have taken offense with the song. Many of us (myself included), though we long for it, are threatened by love and have found a thousand little ways to flee from it. For love – rightly understood – is dangerous. Like no other force, love will cut us to our core and peel back even the thorniest of our self-protective layers – exposing the depths of our hearts, revealing what it wants to heal, all the while asking us to trust, and drawing us out of our hiding places. We are defenseless against a Love that won’t stop until it sets us free. And freedom, of course, is nearly as terrifying as love. Most of us have been prisoners so long (since the day we were born perhaps?) that we become like inmates who grow to love the predictability of the walls of their prison cell. Freedom is disruptive and represents a new way of living that is beyond our control. The more I think about it, the more I wonder if control is what’s really at stake here. In order to love and allow ourselves to be loved we must give up control, we must become vulnerable. My wife shared a poem with me recently called “The Man Watching” by Rainer Maria Rilke about a coming storm. Here’s part of it: What we choose to fight is so tiny! What fights us is so great! If only we would let ourselves be dominated as things do by some immense storm, we would become strong too, and not need names. When we win it’s with small things, and the triumph itself makes us small. What is extraordinary and eternal does not want to be bent by us. I mean the Angel who appeared to the wrestlers of the Old Testament: when the wrestler’s sinews grew long like metal strings, he felt them under his fingers like chords of deep music. Whoever was beaten by this Angel (who often simply declined the fight) went away proud and strengthened and great from that harsh hand, that kneaded him as if to change his shape. Winning does not tempt that man. This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively, by constantly greater beings. Love is the greater thing that wants to defeat us, the “magnificent defeat of the human soul at the hands of God” as Frederick Buechner says. Could it be that by insisting on the legalistic and intellectual terms of our religious inclinations we are trying to maintain control of the relationship – making our salvation, sanctification, and redemption about what we do? Are we refusing to be defeated by Love? Are we refusing to be set free? It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. Galatians 5:1-6

(On the eve of the release of the first new song from my upcoming record, I thought I’d get this last blog reposted from a series I wrote about last year’s single, “More Like Falling In Love”. Here are the links to parts 1, 2, and 3.) …it’s like I’m falling in love, love, love – deeper and deeper it was love that made me a believer in more than a name, a faith, a creed falling in love with Jesus brought the change in me “Therefore… continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.” Philippians 2:12 I’ve mentioned elsewhere in this blog series that I’ve gotten emails and notes – many of them respectful and thoughtful (some less so than others ;- ) – from those who have had concerns about the meaning of some of the lyrics in my song “More Like Falling In Love”. And though I run the risk of seeming defensive, I thought it might be good to let some recent correspondence guide our conversation for this last blog about the subject. The two latest comments I received were kindly expressed by people whose concerns, interestingly, were polar opposites – which I suppose can be expected if we understand truth is more often than not paradoxical – it’s DNA made up of seemingly contradictory ideas (the greatest is the least, you lay down your life to find it, work out your salvation… it’s God who works in you…, etc.).  The truth is black and white, and sometimes even seems frustratingly gray, or sometimes even orange, for that matter.  (I’m not talking about relativism here, so don’t get nervous.) On the one hand there is the email from a man who was concerned that I’m downplaying the believer’s role in the saving/sanctifying work of God in our lives.  The line that says, “it’s more like losing my heart than giving my allegiance” is the real stickler for him.  (Okay, maybe I’ll get just a little defensive for a moment and point out that I’m not saying that we don’t give our allegiance, but rather that it’s more like losing our heart to a Person than it is giving allegiance to an ideology of propositional truths.  If the relationship is in place, a passionate allegiance will surely follow.  Blood is thicker than water, right?)  I imagine his concern is that I’m shortchanging the cost of discipleship by encouraging believers to do too little in the “working out of their salvation with fear and trembling…” I mean, c’mon—you can’t just sit there and do nothing, right? On the other hand was the two page hand written note from the woman who is concerned that I give us too much to do and am shortchanging God’s role by making too big a deal of our role in the work where I write “falling in love with Jesus brought the change in me”. Her read on this lyric is that I’ve put the ball of salvation/sanctification in our court, implying that it was my willful act of falling in love that brought about the change in me, that it’s up to me to somehow manufacture transformation by mustering up enough love and devotion for God when the scripture clearly tells us “… it is God who works in [us] to will and to act according to his good purpose.” I guess it just goes to show you can’t please everybody. But they both make a good point, and I’m grateful that they’re listening—what an honor to have someone engage a song lyric on that level—and a pop song no less!  I suppose the truth is that there is a real tension between these two ideas, and my lyric—like myself—is probably caught somewhere in the middle.  Maybe that I’ve gotten both kinds of emails is a sign that I was on the right track (or perhaps it reveals a failure on my part as the writer to write with clarity…  nah, I prefer the former.) 🙂 (And that will be my last smiley face.) I will confess that I have passionately believed in the role that I’m responsible to play in God’s work in my life.  But as I’ve gotten older, I also confess that I’ve become just as passionate about the conviction that it’s all grace, all a gift, that even the ability to receive it is a gift, and that my insufficiency can only be met and answered by God’s all sufficiency.  And yet, and yet… We feel the tension—the great mystery of God’s sovereignty and the holy freedom of free will he bestows upon us: the freedom to honor the gift giver or do terrible, terrible atrocities with the freedom that he sovereignly gives us. It’s enough to make the head spin or the scalp go cold.  I’m with Job: “Surely I spoke of things too wonderful for me to know.” (Job 42:3) But even if I’m afraid of diving into the deep end of this great mystery, I think I can at least dip my toe in the shallow end by reflecting on the idea of how “falling in love with Jesus brought the change in me.” There is a sense in which the action of falling in love is my own, I suppose.  I remember when I first saw Taya, my wife, and the way she caught my eye and so absolutely captured my attention.  We were both on a mission trip with our youth groups in our senior year of high school.  She was from Bellingham, WA and I was from Mankato, MN.  Our youth groups converged in Chicago as we partnered with Habitat for Humanity to build housing for the poor there.  It was a grand adventure and each night we would gather to share our experiences of the day.  And here was this lovely young woman who spoke with such depth, passion, and authority!  She was lit on fire with her love for the Lord and when she would share, her words were like little sparks that would set flame to anyone who let themselves be touched by them. I sought this girl out.  It was an act of my will to get to know this girl. I found excuses to engage her in conversation and eventually even got her address and phone number (this was before the days of email, youngsters). I remember a pastor friend of mine talking about how he met his wife, what it was like when he first saw her across the room, and how he then moved towards her to try to make contact.  He was always convinced that it was he who initiated the conversation that led to their relationship, but it wasn’t until years later that he realized that he saw her across the room because she wanted to be seen by him. What humble grace to allow him to think all those years that he was the sole initiator of the relationship!  What generosity to invite him to play such a dignified part in their meeting when she knew what she was doing all along. I remember talking with another pastor friend of mine once as we wondered about when the moment of salvation actually happens—does it happen after you go to the altar and pray the magic prayer?  Or did it happen before the prayer when you were in your seat and the Holy Spirit first quickened the words of the gospel in your heart and you decided to respond?  Or did it happen earlier that day when something in you prompted you go to church and you obeyed that instinct?  Or did it happen somewhere before the beginning of time at the foundations of the earth?  Such a delightful mystery—it should leave us humbled and grateful to be recipients of such grace.  It should ignite a passion in us to work toward being better disciples of the Author and Finisher of our faith. It should make us want to both give more of our lives and receive more Life, to work out our salvation, trusting that it’s God who is at work. No matter how it all went down, the creeds—the intellectualization of it—came after the fact. But at the moment of truth when my heart first surrendered to what the Lord had been doing in me all along, it was love—love that I felt and knew for the first time, love that changed me from the inside out, love that changes me still and is leading me home.

Last winter when we first played with the crazy notion of holding a Rabbit Room conference, we had no idea where it would lead. We didn’t even know if anyone would sign up. We prayed we could talk fifty people into registering. Would people really travel from all over the country merely because they shared our unique interest in music and storytelling, art and faith? Surely not–but maybe, just maybe. So, fearfully, we plowed ahead. And to our surprise, you came. You came from as far as California and as near as the house down the street. Painters, writers, moms, dads, bankers, teachers, thinkers, and wanderers, you came. And, miraculously, through a weekend of discussion and fellowship and good, good food, people were nourished, rekindled, and moved. The Spirit, in his wistful and mysterious way, slipped among us, and we heard his whisper as he passed. So let’s do it again. If you’re willing, we’re ready. So what’s in store? First of all, we’ve added a day. We wanted to give people more time to relax and get to know each other without having to rush from one event to the next. And adding that extra day has allowed us to add meaningful content as well–things like small group discussions with a variety of artists across a number of disciplines, common interest groups which will allow you to meet and talk to other people who love the same books, music, or arts that you do. We’ve doubled the number of sessions and will have speakers to talk about a far wider range of issues. We want to maintain an intimate atmosphere, so, yes, we’re keeping it small. Registration is limited to 100 people, just like last year. And then there are the concerts and special guests. We’re not quite ready to make those announcements yet, but I think you’ll be as excited as we are. To get the full scoop, visit the Hutchmoot 2011 website and check out the schedule. I think you’ll like what you see. If I had a gavel, a black robe, and a pair of rabbit ears, I’d don the frock, walk briskly to the lectern, perk my ears up straight, pound the gavel, lean forward, and proclaim in a deep, portentous voice: “Convene the Hutchmoot!” Sadly, I haven’t the proper costume, nor lectern, nor gavel, so you’ll just have to imagine it. Nevertheless, a convening there shall be. We’ve listened to your suggestions and made adjustments. We’ve added some things, taken others away, invited new people, involved new artists, and finally we’re ready to make the announcement. On September 22-25 the Rabbit Room will convene the 2011 Hutchmoot at Church of the Redeemer in Nashville, Tennessee. Coffee be brewed and food be eaten. Songs be sung and stories told. A fine weekend be had by one and by all. So be it.

I don’t like ball games (baseball, football, or any other ball) but I’m forced to admit that they’re good fodder for movies (Field of Dreams), the occasional TV show (Friday Night Lights), and, in this case, an Andy Osenga song. “The Ball Game” by Andrew Osenga P.S. (Andy Osenga is getting ready to build a spaceship next door. That’s a sentence I never thought I’d write. Awesome.)

Follow me a bit further, if you will, down the road I started in my previous post about the woman who anointed Jesus on that Wednesday evening of that first Easter week. Mark writes, “While Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he was reclining at table, a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the flask and poured it over his head.” (Mk 14:3) John tells us she used about one pound of this “nard.” First, some context: What is nard? Nard is an oil-based perfume that is extracted from spikenard, a flower that grows in the Himalayas of China, and also in the northern regions of India and Nepal. In Jesus’ day, it carried both medicinal and hygienic value. As a perfume, it was intensely aromatic and of a thick consistency, sort of like honey, only oily instead of sticky. In our convenient world of electrical sockets and running water, we take for granted our ability to take a shower when we stink. This wasn’t available in Jesus’ day, so people often masked their offensive body odors with oils. This is where you get references in scripture that talk about men putting oil on their heads. (Mt 6:17, Lk 7:46) It was a customary sign of hospitality to offer perfumed oils to guests in your home, like we might offer someone a cup of coffee or a glass of wine. With this context before us, let me invite you to imagine the results of this woman’s actions after the dinner was over. What happens when a woman pours a pound of thick, richly aromatic oil-based perfume on the head of a man who doesn’t shower every morning? He takes that scent with him when he leaves. It coats his hair. It eventually trickles down his neck and onto his back and chest. It gets in his pores. At rest, he is a walking diffuser. When he scratches his neck, the scent is agitated and released into the air like a scratch-&-sniff sticker. So what if… What if the scent that filled the room at Simon the Leper’s house also filled the Upper Room the next night? Can you think of a reason it wouldn’t have? I can’t. What if, as Jesus wound through the narrow city streets of Jerusalem, the scent of that perfume lingered mysteriously in the air like a spirit after He had disappeared from sight? And what if, after His arrest, as He was stripped down for the cat of nine tails, the scent of this Himalayan flower was released into the air with every blow, filling the courtyard with an aroma that made everyone ask themselves, “What is that fragrance? Is that nard?” And what if the scent followed the cross to Golgotha along the Via Dolorosa? What if as Jesus hung on the cross dying, every time He pushed Himself up for a breath, the nard came to life again? That would have to be one very expensive application of one very intensely aromatic perfume. Even a year’s wage worth. Imagine that as the Man of Sorrows died on that hill outside Jerusalem, surrounded by Roman soldiers, confused disciples, grieving friends and self-righteous men whose entire lives were one big exercise in missing the point, imagine that the scent of extravagant opulence hung in the air. It would be just like God to do this. Why? Because the cross is the most extravagant example of opulence ever offered, and because the scent of the opulence of His gift of life still hangs in the air today. Where? In His people. Paul puts it this way. “Thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life.” (2 Corinthians 2:14-16) Easter is more than a story. It is a present reality. My Redeemer lives. And He calls me to a new life, not only in the world to come, but even now. May we never forget what the opulence of God makes of us.

Lake City, MI is as fine a place as any to witness the kingdom come. Throughout the course of my thirty- days at a Young Life summer camp, the faint revelation occurs every Wednesday evening just as the night’s burger-themed dinner is winding down. Tangibly speaking, it has all the trappings of a drive-thru restaurant, minus the automobile exhaust and roller skates. Yet the unmistakable aroma of gifted myrrh and heaven’s grace permeates the room the way a perfume awakens a forgotten memory of a forgotten soul. This unpretentious setting is as placid and unassuming as it is dangerously rife with Habsburg wedding than it does an American 1950’s-era grease joint At first glance the scenery, characters, and homemade props are innocuous. But like the curtain going up on the final act of a play, I see something more everlasting, the true scope of the moment. As the evening progresses and the scales fall from my cynical eyes, this benign vignette trumpet-screams with sacred peals that make me wilt. The event’s zenith takes place after the dining hall work crew, comprised entirely of high school volunteers, serves the final embellishments of dinner. They clear plates, cups, and silverware and then discreetly retreat into the kitchen. Amid the general playfulness of the room, no one seems to notice the servers’ subtle disappearance. The vast dining hall is decked out in all the vestments of a pre-60’s America, from the red-and-white checkered tablecloths to the shimmering streamers and paraphernalia draped festival-like overhead. Everyone, campers included, is bedecked in period garb: rolled up white-sleeve t-shirts, pomade pompadours, resplendent bouffant dos, and painted lips and eyes. The girls and boys serving on work crew are a forty-person team: beautiful, handsome, and hailing from all points of America. Suddenly, era music (á la Chuck Berry) blares over the loudspeakers, and the previously sequestered dining hall servers simultaneously burst back into the room parading with one another and dancing a choreographed bit. As if on cue, they fan out into the seated, gawking crowd of teen-aged guests and proceed to select dance partners from among them. In many instances I witness attractive work crew girls taking the hands of some not so worldly-handsome, or “lovely,” high school boys to dance with them. By the looks on some of their scarlet faces, I imagine it is probably the first dance for many of these gents. As I witness the boys’ delighted, silent pride at being handpicked for the occasion, I empathize with their sweaty palms and gut full of nervous butterflies. (My own memory of being shy and scared-to-death-of-pretty-girls is still fixed vividly and awkwardly in my mind. Some inadequacies are slow to erode.) But they dance, and it is at this moment when the noise of earth – our longing for acceptance and approval – is drowned out by the melee of a welcoming heaven in its unconditional melody. I see illustrated before my eyes, like the intentions of a renowned playwright, the glory of the lovely seeking out the unlovely, rapturing them, revealing to them in so few words that the heart is, after all, the thing that matters most. Traversing all points past and future, the canvas vigorously paints itself before me, reminding me of my own final and glorious Reconciliation: the first dance shared by the long-separated bride and bridegroom. In short, it is a brief snapshot of an eternal kingdom, of a good and merciful heaven, that final resting place of flesh, bone, hate, hypocrisy and perception masquerading as truth. Can you see it? It is the lone lamb missing from the fold, resting now in the lion’s arms, unscathed, un-fearing, cherished beyond rational comprehension. The question is not whether we get lost. The question is whether or not we allow ourselves to be found in our unloveliness. Most days I spend veiled in some desperate form of vanity, basking in rabid self-centeredness, unable to see heaven revealing its secrets to me like a prolific victory garden. I am thankful that once a week, at least during my double fortnight here, I am allowed to witness this playful, harmless, innocent scene. I must excuse myself from the table and from the dining hall because the holiness whirling about me is more than my presence can bear. I quell tears at the sight of homely children waltzing about the room in the hands of lovely and handsome members of the opposite sex, many of whom may not fully comprehend, this side of heaven, the full implications of their small act of restoring value and worth to a fellow human being. On this night of metaphor, the pairing of human dignity and God’s habitual love is clothed in purple royalty. At epiphany’s dawning I realize it will one day be me doing the dancing: the unlovely, ragged creature of earth taking the hand of incarnate beauty, dancing about the halls of heaven as if that luminous venue had been reserved for me from the beginning. It is a dance I long for.

Gus, a delicate yellow gosling, celebrated only a few waddling days on the Mississippi red-dirt farm where my mother grew up. Of the few sights the creature saw during its abbreviated life, the final was the inside of a German shepherd’s toothy mouth. As with King Charles I, heads rolled. Gus’s premature death caused great anguish among the Fortenberry children whose loyal affection was reciprocal to his own. Wilton and Lucille, father and mother to two girls and a boy, quietly and loyally resided over their 80-acre domain with much resolve and relentless labor. Wilton, a denim overall-wearing, quiet, and gentle man, was the rare soul willing to shake anyone’s hand. Lucille, an equally reserved woman, spent many waking hours in the kitchen making chicken-and-dumplings from scratch, and simmering garden-grown vegetables in leftover bacon grease the way only a southerner knows how. Homemade pound cake, temptingly stored beneath a clear glass dome, was nearly always available in her modest, yet insufferably hot kitchen. The day Wilton departed the earth, nine years after Lucille, his head of Absalom-like hair was just as dark and full as the day he was born, and the story of Gus, by then legendary, continued to weave its way throughout the broadening family tree as it was passed down from one generation to the next. The Fortenberry residence, a drab brown, unassuming dwelling rested atop concrete cinder blocks and clung to Rural Route 2, east of Tylertown, the county seat to Walthall County. With a rural Baptist church at one end of the road’s length, five homes — all belonging to Wilton and his four brothers — along its unpainted two lanes, a fire watchtower keeping sentinel above the canopy, a parcel of small ponds, and enough hollows and mixed pine and hardwood stands to adequately separate neighbors, the Fortenberrys eked out a nearly impoverished life amid agricultural fields, longleaf pines, dairy cows, white-tailed deer, thieving raccoons, burrowing possums, the usual assortment of farm cats, a lineage of mutts, each named Rusty, and Gus himself, the singular pet gander. A lifelong farmer, Wilton regularly harbored geese on the property to aid in weed abatement. Released into blossoming cotton fields, these geese, Gus’s cackling poultry relatives, furiously consumed juvenile weeds and grass between the furrowed rows, avoiding the money crop altogether. Once the cotton was harvested, the geese, by then fully grown and fattened, found themselves on the losing end of an altogether different consumption. Such is a bird’s life: for the sake of others, disappear. Gus, born to one of these weed-eating dinner-birds, found a different purpose in and among the farm’s workings — that of pet and companion. His presence, though physically tiny, was no small part of my mother’s story. She joyfully recalls Gus’s daily accompaniment to and from the school bus stop, down the pine-strewn lane to visit neighbors, Gus’s loyal presence at her moments of parental discipline, and the everlasting psychological and visual glee of witnessing an innocent cloud of golden down lumbering through tall, green grass, waddling within the protective reach of her heel. Each morning, with unswerving steadfastness, Gus attended the children’s footsteps along the three-pronged gravel driveway from the house to the bus stop at the property’s outer edge where familiar red-dirt met foreign pavement. Each afternoon, expectantly awaiting the Doppler-effect sound of the approaching school bus, Gus withdrew from the shaded protection of his dusty roost in the crawlspace beneath the Fortenberry home, and clumsily and bravely stumbled his way across obstacles of raised tree roots, various ascents and depressions, and lumps of aggregate debris en route, all for the sake of greeting the ones he recognized and cherished most. Every day, morning and afternoon, Gus repeated this miraculous custom. Wholeheartedly adopted early in life by the Fortenberry brood, Gus had only a short time to make a lasting impression on my mother, who to this day can recount his gruesome death and subsequent burial site. On the day of his funeral, Gus’s mangled head and body were reunited, laid side-by-side, inside a makeshift Diamond matchbox coffin. Little Paul, Sally and Janie were so stricken with Gus’s violent end that they would, with alarming regularity thereafter, exhume his remains, cry again over the murdered creature, and rebury the decaying carcass, which was slowly attempting its natural return to dust only to be periodically coerced out of life’s circle in this innocent, yet morose endeavor. Little wonder that children should recognize and give praise and homage to a small, forgotten miracle; the animal did, after all, meet them at the bus stop each day. Such loyalty is hard to come by; it ought to receive praise. Convenience rarely holds loyalty’s hand; one bears suffering amid struggle, the other flees at first sight of adversity. Intimately wiser, may we, like Gus, leave the world a fuller place than when we entered it. May loyalty and perseverance adorn our necks as peculiar plumage, ruffling at apathy, cackling at the monstrosity of fear’s sharp teeth. May faithful authenticity sustain us the way old-growth pines stand together, entwining roots to collectively bear the brunt of wind, drought, fire, storm and one another’s burdens. May we acclaim and recognize those whom God places in our lives just as innocently, filially, and eagerly as the approaching sound of that strangely familiar and welcome vehicle of grace to our path. May we expectantly await the good and faithful Return, attending grace’s heel to and from daily and momentary deliverance along the triple-pronged path pointing the way within us: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Rabbit Roomers, I give you two reasons to be excited about the song you’re about to hear. 1) It’s about a superhero. 2) It’s by Ben Shive (also a superhero–of music). For the last several months I’ve been listening as Ben put this record together in the next room and I can’t wait for you guys to hear it. It’s going to explode your brain and leave you drooling on the floor (but in a good way). If you’re one of Ben’s Kickstarter supporters, you should be getting an email in the next week or so with download instructions. Everyone else should keep a eye right here on the Rabbit Room where you’ll be able to pre-order soon. Here’s your first peek at the goodness to come: Ben Shive’s “She’s Invincible” from The Cymbal Crashing Clouds.

It’s been a month since my body arrived back in Colorado from my time in England. My mind and soul have taken a little longer to settle back in the circles of ordinary life. But this doesn’t phase me, because I’m not restless, or angsty, or resistant to normal life. It’s more as if the taste of my time away tinges my time here at home. The peace of it lingers. I’m loathe to let it go. Who knows, maybe it will stay. Maybe the time I spent wandering amidst long, sheep-starred, dapple down hills and the mornings spent staring into an upside down bowl of limpid, blue light, and the early hours spent in reading, in pondering, and in a hushedness of thought I have not touched in months, changed me. Gentled my hungry soul. Calmed the striving of my heart. The blaze of my questions…as to future…to life…to purpose…died down. But a new warmth came. Like the crackle of a well-made fire in a cottage on an autumn day. When you come into a room and know yourself home. Home, as much as any body can be in this world. And for me, this time, it wasn’t yet a physical place. It was a state of soul. A healedness of sight. A gentlednesss. I found a bunch of truths that I had dropped amidst my struggle to figure out my future. That God is lovely. That the poor in spirit are blessed, that I am blessed when I need God’s help most. That the humble inherit God’s earth. And that God’s good earth sings, and thrums, and speaks his heart afresh each day into the people whose existence he wills, and holds, and never forsakes. That love—of God, and his people, and the beauty he has made—is the great, burning work to which we humans are called. That all else really is naught compared to him. (But I needed to quiet to say it and know that I meant it in truth.) And the joy of it all is with me still.

PREFACE: Chrome has been in the public eye for over a year, and though I am grateful for the positive feedback, I get the distinct impression that more than a few songs on the album are difficult to decipher. Though the following may, too, be abstract, it is my hope to offer clarity and insight into one (or more?) of the songs. What follows are my reflections in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Gustav, Labor Day, 2008. The resultant song is “Louisiana in the Dark.” (9/1/08, Baton Rouge, LA) Driving south from Tennessee to Louisiana in the pitch of night, several thoughts appeared on my mind’s horizon as the darkness opened its tree-lined jowls and welcomed me into the gut of impending reality. These are no ordinary days, no ordinary circumstances, and it was far from being a casual or relaxing drive into the oncoming path of a history-making hurricane brooding immediately off Louisiana’s shores. As would prove to be the case, I was also driving to a funeral. Pulling into my parents’ Baton Rouge driveway two hours before sunrise, Hurricane Gustav broached the shores of the state by 10am, and for the next 36 hours the wind blew trees older than World War II at 45-degree angles, toppling some, maiming many others, and deconstructing a capital city. My parents went without electricity for six days. Idling generators could be heard up and down streets. We cooked baked beans out on the propane grill as the oppressive September heat offered little comfort during the daylight, and much, much less at night. The rain fell in opaque sheets filling gullies, rivers and swallowing entire street blocks. The tempest quickly turned earth to mud, and so much of which eventually dried out remains forever buried, turning gain to loss. My father-in-law, for many years hampered by a litany of health issues, succumbed to the most treacherous of them all early that Labor Day morning at 3:35am, mere minutes before we managed to arrive and stand at his hospital bedside one final time to kiss his shriveled, bony face, and wish him a final peace and Good Hope away, away from the shrunken fuselage of body and captor Earth. The spirit is always willing. Vehement winds, days of constant rain, the capitulation of otherwise sound, elderly trees, and the deconstruction of life; few tragic-comedies could have been scripted with more accuracy. Tragic in that the gulf-laden skies stumbled across the region with a steamroller effect, comic in terms of the utter preposterousness of kicking someone already down. In the year 2008, my wife’s family suffered the loss of three family members in the span of five dubious months. We exhale something between utter consternation and a wry chuckle when reality persistently kicks at the battered realm. There is no ordinary day, no ordinary darkness, and we are no ordinary creatures who inhabit their space. From dust we came, to dust we return, and though we open our hope-lined hearts to its jowls, reality does its best to deconstruct every ounce of hope in our possession. But we yearn for the light that shines with far more eminence than the thickest darkness could ever swallow, and we hope that the pain of loss and grief will eventually be bearable, habitable, even an altar unto life itself. Like the wandering Israelites finally crossing the River Jordan into the long-awaited Promised Land, we stack stones upon your altar; we proclaim both the blessing and the ache. Remember life as the fragile construction it is, cherishing the ones still present in your life. These are no ordinary days.https://rabbitroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/LouisianaintheDark.mp3 [Editor’s note: Eric’s album, Chrome, is available today at Song of the Day prices. $10 CD / $7 Download] Louisiana In The Dark Sleep in peace tonight After a long, slow fight We lost more than sleep More ache than a soul can weep When the daylight shows That all you love is gone And the only thing that’s left Is the tempest’s aftermath In my father’s house The last and lonely sound Is a breaking heart Louisiana in the dark We laid your soul to rest With the earth still wet Some days don’t feel like grace When there’s a hole in a once-filled space In my father’s house The last and lonely sound Is a breaking heart In my father’s eyes Must we say goodbye To a breaking heart Louisiana in the dark No more breaking hearts Louisiana in the dark

It’s Ash Wednesday. Yesterday my friend Father Thomas, an Anglican priest, burned the palm fronds from last year’s Palm Sunday to make the ashes to rub on people’s foreheads today. “Remember that you are dust,” he will say to them, “and to dust you shall return.” I didn’t grow up observing Ash Wednesday or Lent, but I have to say, at this age it helps to be reminded that I am dust and returning to dust. It’s not just a help, but a comfort. This world is forever demanding that we take it as seriously as it takes itself, and it tempts us to take ourselves too seriously too. Ash Wednesday says, “No, no, no, dear sinner. You’re just dust, living in a world that’s just dust, and you and the world both are returning to dust. And you are dear to God nevertheless.” I love the prayer in the Anglican Ash Wednesday liturgy: Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wickedness, may obtain of you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. I used to associate Ash Wednesday–when I considered it at all–with self-flagellation. But, as the apostle Paul said, it is the kindness of God that leads us to repentance–the confidence that God hates nothing he has made and forgives the sins of all who are penitent. For all my ambivalence about T.S. Eliot, there are passages in his poem “Ash Wednesday” that I just love. The lines I love the most in that poem, the lines that most perfectly capture the spirit of the day, are these: Lord, I am not worthy Lord, I am not worthy but speak the word only. “I’m not worthy.” True enough. But not the truest thing. The Lord speaks truer things into being every day. So happy Ash Wednesday, you old sinner. You are dust, and to dust you shall return. And God loves you anyway.

Doubt usually springs on me right after I’ve finished writing. When I sit down to revise, I find myself thinking: You are only thirty-four years old. Who gives a hoot ‘n holler what you think or know about life? Why would anyone want to read your stories of a stay-at-home Mom who’s never published a book, whose life is radically unexceptional? Aren’t you supposed to DO something with your life, or at least live more than half of it, before you can write a memoir? And besides all that, how many days a week do you actually wake up believing everything you just said two paragraphs ago? Thankfully, and perhaps providentially, I’ve been reading Frederick Buechner’s Telling Secrets. Buechner has a few things to say that have helped me quiet those doubting voices. “But I talk about my life anyway because if, on the one hand, hardly anything could be less important, hardly anything could be more important. My story is important not because it is mine, God knows, but because if I tell it anything like right, the chances are you will recognize that in many ways it is also yours. Maybe nothing is more important than that we keep track, you and I, of these stories of who we are…because it is precisely through these stories…that God makes himself known to each of us most powerfully and personally.” When I let the questions get the best of me, productivity in writing comes to a crashing halt. Yet Buechner speaks again: “It is important to tell our secrets too because it makes it easier that way to see where we have been in our lives and where we are going. It also makes it easier for other people to tell us a secret or two of their own, and exchanges like that have a lot to do with what being a family is all about and what being human is all about. Finally, I suspect that it is by entering that deep place inside us where our secrets are kept that we come perhaps closer than we do anywhere else to the One who, whether we realize it or not, is of all our secrets the most telling and the most precious we have to tell.” Passages like these remind me of times when other’s words have helped me, and they give me hope that my words may one day do the same for someone else. It’s no wonder we lovers of words, we users of words, and those blessed by words are all plagued by doubt. Words are life, and life is opposed. A few years ago, I was struggling in a way that felt more supernatural than my usual lack of self-confidence. I had begun to see writing as a gift and though I hated to call myself “gifted,” I believed my ability was given to me by God. Yet, it seemed like the moment I tried to live and write from that reality I was attacked. After some time, I decided to pray about it and one day God spoke to me through a passage in Eugene Peterson’s translation The Message, where it was sectioned off differently than in my usual NIV. The passage was titled: Why Tell Stories? He (Jesus) replied, “You’ve been given insight into God’s kingdom. You know how it works. Not everybody has this gift, this insight; it hasn’t been given to them. Whenever someone has a ready heart for this, the insights and understandings flow freely. But if there is no readiness, any trace of receptivity soon disappears. That’s why I tell stories: to create readiness, to nudge the people toward receptive insight. In their present state they can stare till doomsday and not see it, listen till they’re blue in the face and not get it.” (Matthew, chapter 13, verses 11-13) God answered me, right where I was. In letters, words, and paragraph form, God told me part of what I was here for. A passage from his own book, recorded over a thousand years ago and composed before my first sunrise, explains the need for stories: to create readiness, to nudge the people toward receptive insight. In my writing I share bits of real life which (hopefully) plant seeds of hope and light; many of you write fictional stories which share real truth. Others of you sing your stories, and maybe a few of you use color, lines, or even organic life to add beauty in your own corner of God’s world. Whatever form our stories take, there will always be opposition to truth and life, and I have found some of the most devastating opposition sprouting in the exact places my stories come from. But this little post is one way I have taken heart, gone to battle, and determined not give doubt its sway. I hope it encourages you to do the same. I’d love to hear about the different ways you have battled the big “D” word yourself. What are your solutions for conquering doubt once and for all? Can it be done? Author’s note: The sketch for this post was created by John Haney, a fellow Hutchmoot 2010 attendee whom I met on Facebook. John conquers doubt with humor and has a cute little comic strip you should check out at www.beyondthedromedary.blogspot.com

Soon after the release of my latest album, Chrome (2009), I had what business executives–and most normal people–would classify as a bizarre and terrible idea for an interview. Producer Ben Shive humored me, and together we (mostly Ben) pieced together this idea, a self-indulgent mollusk of aural awkwardness. If you didn’t already think I was weird, this should clinch the deal. Please, enjoy this, the premiere (and probably final) episode of Silver Tongue : Golden Voice. Features a guest appearance by legendary tire salesman, Wayne Toosun.https://rabbitroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/silvertongue.mp3

Last week in the comments, someone mentioned the Old Testament story of Gomer, the prostitute that Hosea married, and all I could think about was how hilarious that name is to me and how deeply ungraceful and unpoetic it sounds. Fitting, I suppose. So thanks not only to Jim Nabors but to my long nurtured appreciation for ridiculous sounding words like Sponch, Fleep, Yomple, and, yes, Gomer, I just don’t think I could ever listen to someone sing that name in a song without snickering a little. What can I say? The ten-year-old in me is alive and well. I haven’t asked, but my theory is that Gomer tickles my brother Andrew’s funny bone in the same way it does mine. So when he wrote a song about Gomer’s story, he managed to do it without ever mentioning her name. Of all his songs, it’s one of my favorites, and I don’t snicker a bit when I hear it. Hosea by Andrew Peterson Every time I lay in the bed beside you Hosea, Hosea I hear the sound of the streets of the city My belly growls like a hungry wolf And I let it prowl till my belly’s full Hosea, my heart is a stone. Please believe me when I say I’m sorry Hosea, Hosea You loveable, gullible man I tell you that my love is true till it fades away like a morning dew Hosea, leave me alone Here I am in the Valley of Trouble Just look at the bed that I’ve made Badlands as far as I can see There’s no one here but me, Hosea I stumbled and fell in the road on the way home Hosea, Hosea I lay in the brick street like a stray dog You came to me like a silver moon With the saddest smile I ever knew Hosea carried me home again Home again You called me out to the Valley of Trouble Just to look at the mess that I’ve made A barren place where nothing can grow One look and my stone heart crumbled It was a valley as green as jade I swear it was the color of hope You turned a stone into a rose, Hosea. I sang and I danced like I did as a young girl Hosea, Hosea I am a slave and a harlot no more You washed me clean like a summer rain And you set me free with that ball and chain Hosea, I threw away the key I’ll never leave [“Hosea” is from Resurrection Letters, Vol. II which is available today in the Rabbit Room store at Song of the Day prices ($10 CD/$7 Download)]

When the recording of my next full length album got pushed back in mid-2010, we started to wonder about releasing an interim project for the fans who were early adopters and have been waiting for something new for a while now. The original plan was to try and do a covers project with Derek Webb (something I still hope to do in the next 12 – 18 months :- ) in the Fall or early Winter, but it quickly became clear that our schedules wouldn’t allow for it. Kind of… A remix project is less certain to sell than a cover’s project, so my label had to scale back the budget, hoping to earn back their investment. The new budget would allow us to do only four songs with Derek, but limitations can often be creativity’s best friend. As we wondered about how to make the most of what we could of these remixes, the head of A&R at Centricity, John Mays, proposed we turn this project into an inside look at the journey of a song, incorporating the work tapes that I record into my laptop when I’m working out ideas, to the little homemade demo I turn in to the label as we wonder about which songs are worthy of inclusion on a record, to the album version, and then finally to Derek’s remix. This concept got me really excited. As far as I know, this kind of project has never been done before. I fell in love with the uniqueness of the idea as well as the opportunity it gave me to let people have an up close and personal experience with my recording process. For instance, in the work tape of “More Like Falling In Love,” if you listen close you can hear my 4 year old boy, Gus, singing along with me (before he drops what must have been a Lego creation on the floor and yells, “dang!”), and in “Jesus Use Me I’m Yours” you can hear a bit of a completely different version that I had been working on before abandoning it to try a fresh approach with my friend Matt Hammitt (of Sanctus Real). You can also hear Matt and I fishing for melodic ideas for the bridge and the (sometimes awkward) progression as the song finally starts to take its final shape. I love hearing Matt’s voice on this, too. You can also hear Joel Hanson and I as we discover the outro for “I Am New”. Considering the vision of this project, Derek Webb was, of course, the perfect fit. Centricity (my label) wanted us to focus on the two singles that had performed well at radio this year, but I got to pick “Blessed Be” and “Jesus Use Me I’m Yours” – both important songs from my live show that I thought would lend themselves well to being re-imagined by Derek (I think “Jesus Use Me, I’m Yours” is my favorite of the remixes). I imagine it may not be a project for everybody, but it was made specifically for the fans who have graced my work with their attention and enthusiasm and I hope they enjoy the peek behind the curtain of my creative process. It has been a joyful little project for me to work on (mostly because Derek did most of the work ;- ). We made a limited run of only 2500 copies and after that it will only be available digitally. The new full length record is coming in September! But until then, I give you Song Cycles.http://bashful-building.flywheelsites.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/MoreLikeRemix.mp3

You can call me Jacob today, for I intend to wrestle with God. Sometimes, there is no other way to know him. Sometimes I must grip him with the hands of grief or I will not be able to grasp him at all. This fight has brooded long in my soul, this struggle has grown like a storm on my horizon, for I have had a year of confusion. This has been one of those seasons in which every thing I thought God gave me to do fell through. The doors I thought he opened slammed shut. The grace I thought he gave turned to grief. Today, after a week in which three specific, long-held prayers were flatly denied, I have come to my quiet time with fight in every atom of my soul. God seems to have fooled me and left me in a bitter cold and I want to know why. How, I sputter as I settle into my quiet time chair, can God claim to love me and then abandon me to this desert? I open my Bible and turn to the story I have claimed as my own these days; the tale of Jacob’s fight with God. There is something about Jacob’s life, his grapple for favor and love, his frailty, his bargaining with the Almighty that reminds me of myself. I don’t find this flattering, but it is an odd comfort. Despite all Jacob’s foibles, despite his fight and fear, God stuck with this stubborn man. That gives me hope and sets my face, because today, like Jacob, I am at an impasse. I’m stuck in a desert of circumstance with fear and confusion crouching in wait for me just as Esau camped on the desert horizon the night of Jacob’s great fight. Jacob went out into the desert that night to plead with God, to beg his help and rail at his absence and he ended up in the arms of God himself, pounding out his anger, his fear, his need for God to hold him. Well, here I am to do the same. I close my eyes and open my heart. Let the battle begin. I fight my own self first, there in God’s arms. Dry as the bottom of the ocean drained of all its water, the desert of my life stretches around me. Is it of my own making? It could be. I have a trickster’s soul, like Jacob, a heart that thinks it can outrun pain and outwit the upshot of all my fearful and faithless hours. Maybe it is my pride that moors me in this dry, dark place. The brave choices I would not make, the love I would not give. I know my decisions are often faulty, my schemes for friendship or finances full of holes. Frailty runs in my blood, the awful inheritance that none can stem, and I feel it as I writhe in God’s hands. Is all this my fault? Then I wrestle pain. For I know this night is not of my making alone. I am imperfect, but I am persistent, and I have loved God and made his ways my own with every ounce of resolve I could muster. My wisdom may be scant, but my choices have been made in prayer. Knowing this, my fight is anguished and my hands come down harder on God’s silent arms. I am suddenly Eve as well as Jacob; Eve when the world was stripped of beauty, when the first stab of grief rent the air. What is this pain? Where is my God? My heart has never acclimated to sorrow, I still feel shocked when I am broken. Surely it wasn’t supposed to be like this, surely loving God should protect me. I wasn’t made for this disappointment,  this loneliness, for prayers that seem to die like mist in the great, broad air of God’s silence. Finally, I wrestle with God. My existence is his fault. He said he loved me and I believed him. Now I strike him with my pain as hard as I dare, trying to reconcile his love with the fact of a world still broken. I stretch and strain in the darkness, trying to grasp some sense of his care, something to help me believe he is the father I so need him to be. His hushed holding of me as I struggle is a strangeness I almost cannot bear. I long to escape him, to finish this fight, yet I know that he is the cause, the opponent, the peace I need all in one. Every question, every strike is to and for him, no part of this darkness can be explained apart from his troublesome existence. The only thing I hope to win is the working of his hand. He is my opponent, and he is my prize. My enemy, and the lover I yearn for with all of my soul. Whatever shall I do? If I follow Jacob’s story, then I will cling to God until I am blessed. I will clutch at his arms until he claims me as his own and gives me a name as his child. But I am afraid to end like Jacob, for the tale of his fight is a strange one, and the ending of it, more than I understand. Of course, God won. Jacob could not out-wrestle the one who made his own muscles, nor out-argue the one who gave him speech. God lamed Jacob in the end and perhaps the laming was mercy. For I think that Jacob might have struggled to death in his anger and fear. But Jacob clung even beyond that breaking, clung until God himself yielded a curious prize. The prize was a name. God’s trophy to his child, his challenger, was a new identity. The trickster Jacob, even with all his lies, his stealing of birthrights and striving for everything beyond his reach, would become the first of a mighty and holy people. God confirmed his choice of Jacob as the father of Israel by giving him the name that would define the nation. But what a name. If I were God, naming the people who would reveal me to all the earth (and I had just finished wrestling a particularly stubborn one), I think I’d give them an identity laced with command. I’d call them simply “faithful people,” or “humble ones,” or “those who do everything God asks,” or maybe even “the perfectly obedient followers of Yahweh.” But out there in that wild desert night with the stars in a whirl and the air thrumming with Jacob’s savage fury, God named his people something entirely different. God blessed Jacob, and all the holy people after him, by giving him a name that meant “those who struggle with God.” The name “Israel” basically means “those who fight.” Those who struggle and strive. Why would God call such trouble on his poor, holy head by giving his people the identity of scrappers? Why, I ask myself today, as I grapple with the hard way God leads, would God want little old me to be a struggler too? The name does ring true. My life since the day I “asked Jesus into my heart,” has been one long battle. Oh there is brightness to hearten me, and beauty to keep me in hope, but it’s been one long fight. Against sin and self, against the niggling of daily life on a broken earth, against the times, like this, when God is maddeningly silent. Yet every bit of it has been my offering of love to this God who saved me. And suddenly, as I look at the story of Jacob, look at the fight in my own life, I see something I never did before. God blessed Jacob for his struggle. He was proud of Jacob’s penchant to fight. God’s naming of Jacob smacks almost of a fatherly pride; “look at him go, he’s definitely mine.” Never did God condemn or disqualify Jacob for his fight; instead, God passed on that scrapper’s spirit to an entire nation of holy people. Finally, I begin to see. God loves those who struggle with him. God loves the fighters, the ones who grapple with faith and refuse to give up. When I struggle, my heart is alive. If I truly accepted God’s absence, acquiesced to pain, decided that darkness was all I could ever expect, then I would have no reason to wrestle with grief. God loves those who will not settle until they touch his goodness. He delights in those who hold fast through every doubt, cling harder with every seeming evidence of abandonment. Why? Because every lover of God must fight. I just never understood that before. I was blind when I began; I thought that loving God meant an end to all my troubles. What I have had to learn is that this is the broken place, a world scarred by sin and grief and from it, there is no instant escape. The problems I have right now? They are part of my story in the fallen world, a place in which loneliness and sorrow still reign. God’s love is absolutely true, his grace ever-present. But I will experience it in what C.S. Lewis called “the shadowlands.” I will be disappointed. Life will let me down, pain will pock my way until I am finally safe in the new heavens and earth. God acknowledged this reality when he gave Jacob, and through him all God-followers, the name of “strugglers.” To accept that identity is to understand that no one is exempt from fallenness or pain, from the ravages of sin in this world. But it is also to hold, with tears, yes, with a wrestling of heart, the belief that somehow God triumphs in the midst of it. Have you ever noticed how many times the word “overcome” is mentioned in the New Testament? Jesus, on the night before his death, told his disciples outright that they would have lots of trouble. “But take courage,” said Jesus, “I have overcome the world.” John heartens his readers over and over again with the promise that our faith overcomes the darkness. And in Revelation there is that haunting promise “to him who overcomes, I will give the kingdom.” God would not have called us to a fight he did not intend to win. The greatest wrestler in the world was Jesus. He came down into the gritty pain of our fight, he fought beside us, and he was the one who finally overcame the darkness by laying down his life. This is the hope to which we cling and this is what redemption really is. Redemption is not the zapping away of all that’s wrong, it’s grace turning all pain backwards into joy. By holding fast to God, even if it means we must fight, we enter God’s grand, slow battle to make all things new. It’s a slow triumph. But the promise of God is that nothing is outside the realm of redemption. Many things may hurt us here in the broken place, but evil may never overcome us, and in the end, even evil will be turned backward into grace. Our Jacob-like fight is is just one part of this glorious battle. As God lovers, we struggle toward light. We fight to keep faith alive. We don’t curse a faceless universe and stay alive out of spite, we have a goal, a marvelous light, an unceasing love that exists beyond the touch of any darkness. Toward that, we fight. For that good, we will grapple. For the proclamation of that reality, we will fling the whole of ourselves into the furious struggle to believe in the goodness of God. We will believe in a kind, laughing face whose gaze is fixed upon us, whose kindness holds us through the darkness and leads us, finally, beyond it. So call me Jacob. Call me “the one who struggles with God.” It’s not the name I would have chosen, but it’s the identity I’ll accept and the fight I’ll join. And with the help of that great wrestler Jesus, I believe I will finally overcome.